Zoya looked at the thorn wood. “Is this my martyrdom then?”

“Absolutely not,” said Genya.

The Darkling just laughed. “Look at the way you march to the gallows. One with heroic zeal, one with grim determination. No, Sankta Zoya, you’re not powerful enough to play martyr either. It has to be me, of course.”

Zoya’s eyes narrowed. “Of course. A man known for selfless acts. You do nothing without first calculating your own gain. Why would you start now?”

“Because I’m the only one who can.”

“Is it my imagination,” asked Nikolai, “or do you sound smug about that?”

“I am immortal,” said the Darkling with a shrug. “You possess a bare scrap of my power. Zoya is only just learning how to master hers. I am the linchpin. I am the lodestone. I move the tide.”

“You did cause all of this,” Nikolai said. “Remember?”

“Is this meant to be your redemption then?” Genya asked. “Your great sacrifice?”

Nikolai had been surprised that she wanted to accompany them, but she’d held firm. I’m not letting him out of my sight again, she’d said. No more escapes. She and the Darkling hadn’t exchanged a single word or glance until now.

“No forgiveness for me, little Genya?”

Zoya whirled on him. “Show her respect or I will gut you where you stand.”

“No, Zoya,” Genya said. “He and I are due for a chat. I forgive you for these scars.” He couldn’t hide his surprise, and she laughed. “You didn’t expect that, did you? I don’t regret them. I found my way to who I was meant to be through the pain I endured. I’m stronger for it.”

“Consider it my gift to you.”

Nikolai saw Zoya’s fists clench. It was taking everything in her not to skewer the Darkling on a bolt of lightning.

“But the rest I can’t forgive,” Genya said. “You gave me to the queen’s household because you needed a spy. You knew the old king’s gaze would turn to me. You knew what I would endure.” She shut her eye, remembering. “You told me I was your soldier, that all of my suffering would be worth some future glory. It wasn’t.”

“The cost—”

“Do not speak of costs.” Her voice rang through the clearing, her red hair burning like autumn fire. The patch she wore was emblazoned with Alina’s symbol. It shone like a star. “If the cost was so necessary, then you should have been the one to pay it. I was a child and you offered me up as a sacrifice for your centuries-old war.” She laughed, a sad, small sound. “And the worst part is that no one remembers. When people speak of your crimes, they talk of the slaughter of Novokribirsk, your murder of the Grisha who were once under your care. What I lived through stayed hidden. I thought it was my shame to bear. Now I know it’s yours. You were father and friend and mentor. You were supposed to protect me.”

“I had a nation to protect, Genya.”

“A nation is its people,” Zoya said. “Genya, me, my aunt.”

The Darkling raised a brow. “When you are queen, you may find such calculations more difficult to make.”

“There will be no redemption for you,” Genya said. “The woman I am can forgive you for the punishment you dealt me. But for the sake of the child I was, there is no penance you can perform, no apology you can speak that will make me open my heart to you.”

“I don’t remember asking you to.”

Zoya’s eyes had gone silver, the pupils slitted. “Can I kill him before we shove him in the tree?”

Nikolai didn’t doubt that the Darkling deserved that and much worse, but he hesitated. “Something’s off here. What’s the catch?”

The Darkling lifted one shoulder. “An eternity of suffering as penance for my crimes. I ask but one thing.”

“Here it comes.”

“Build me an altar, so that I may be remembered.”

Zoya scowled. “As a tyrant? A killer?”

“As the Starless One. Give me a place in your books. When night comes, let there be one more candle lit for one more Saint. Can you agree to that, merciful queen?” he drawled.

The Darkling seemed almost disinterested, but the demon in Nikolai sensed it was a pose.

“He means it,” Nikolai said in disbelief. “He’s willing to die.”

“It is not death,” said the monk. “Death would be a kindness.”

Genya tilted her head to the side. She was watching the Darkling closely. “But it’s not death you fear, is it? He’s afraid he’ll disappear.”

Nikolai remembered what Genya had said. All the Darkling ever wanted was to be loved by this country. He knew that feeling well. He’d had to face it when he’d stared down his demon. There were few men Ravka loved. Saints were another matter.

“Zoya?” Nikolai asked. The Darkling wanted them to raise an altar in his name, to write his story and his legacy anew, but it was not Nikolai’s choice to make. “Genya?”

Zoya and Genya stood hand in hand, and as they looked at each other, he knew they were remembering every loss they’d endured at this man’s whims. He had seen Zoya’s torment when she’d witnessed the Starless at their worship, when they’d stood on the Fold that had devoured her aunt and cost countless others their lives, praising his name. The woman she’d been in that moment could not have bent to this request.

“Do we let him play the hero?” Zoya asked.

Genya nodded once. “Let him do it. Let our suffering have meant something.”

Zoya stood framed by red blossoms and thorns, a queen who needed no crown. “It will be done.”

The Darkling turned to the monk. “Where do we begin?”

The monk studied them for a while. Then she gestured to the thorn wood, as the monks descended the walls, surrounding the trunk in a sea of red silk, men and women, old and young, Ravkan, Zemeni, Suli, Shu. Even a few flaxen Fjerdan heads.

The Darkling held up his hands. “Unbind me.”

Nikolai and Zoya exchanged a glance. If this was all a ploy, he would make his move now.

“Fan out,” Nikolai said to the Sun Soldiers. “Be ready.”

“As long as I live, the demon will remain inside you,” said the Darkling as Nikolai used a knife to saw through the ropes at his wrists.