Zoya stood. She raised the scepter in her hand. She listened to the people cheer, watched her dragon banner, wrought in Ravka’s pale blue and gold, unfurl. The task before her felt overwhelming.

None of this had been fated; none of it foretold. There had been no prophecies of a demon king or a dragon queen, a one-eyed Tailor, Heartrender twins. They were just the people who had shown up and managed to survive.

But maybe that was the trick of it: to survive, to dare to stay alive, to forge your own hope when all hope had run out.

For the survivors then, Zoya whispered to herself as the people before her knelt and chanted her name. And for the lost.

* * *

The rest of the morning was a whirlwind of greetings and congratulations, wishes for the future, and even a few veiled threats from the Kerch. The throne room was packed with guests and miserably hot, a fact not helped by the weight of her velvet gown, but Zoya endured it all with Nikolai and Genya to help her.

Still, there was something on her mind. “Genya, will you find Alina before she vanishes with her tracker? I need to talk to you both. Meet me in the king’s chambers.”

Genya planted a kiss on her cheek. “Your chambers.”

Nikolai appeared at Zoya’s side as Genya disappeared into the crowd. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

He was accompanied by a Suli girl, tiny in stature, her hair worn in a thick braid.

She curtsied with a dancer’s grace. “Queen Zoya, it’s an honor.”

Zoya studied her a moment, noted the glint of knives discreetly hidden in her pockets and beneath her embroidered vest. “Captain Ghafa,” she said quietly, making sure her voice didn’t carry in the busy room.

Inej grinned. “You know my name.”

Zoya glanced at where the Kerch dignitaries had gathered in a corner. “A great many people are looking for you.”

The gleam in the tiny girl’s eye was wicked. “They’d best pray they don’t find me.”

“If there’s anything you need—”

“She will have it,” said Nikolai, with a smart bow.

“It’s been my dream to visit this place,” Inej said, “to walk the same paths as the Sun Saint.”

“Then we’ll have to show you the Little Palace, where she trained to use her power.”

Inej’s grin widened. “Bhashe.”

“Merema,” Zoya replied in Suli. “You’re welcome.”

A crease appeared between Inej’s brows. Her dark eyes focused on someone moving through the crowd. “That woman,” she said, “in the shawl. Her hair—”

“Friends from the country,” said Nikolai briskly. “Now let me introduce you to my sister Linnea. She’ll want to hear of these new cannons you’re using.”

Zoya would have liked to follow along and listen to them talk ships and sailing and whatever else privateers and pirates liked to discuss, but Tolya was already whisking her off to meet with a group of Kaelish aristocrats. The Zemeni followed, then powerful merchants from West Ravka, Fjerdan nobility, and Count Kirigin, who had dressed in vibrant tangerine, his tiepin a gold dragon with a lump of turquoise in its claws.

Zoya wasn’t sure how much time had passed or how many people she’d met when at last she glimpsed Genya across the room.

She excused herself and hurried through one of the palace’s many passages to Nikolai’s chambers—her chambers, damn it. Genya and Alina were waiting in the sitting room, both of them seated by an open window, the cool air a blessing after the heat of the ballroom.

“Well,” said Alina, setting down her glass of kvas as Zoya closed the door. “It does look good on you.”

“Was there ever any doubt?”

Genya laughed. “I told you she’s the same Zoya.”

“You looked so serene up there,” Alina protested.

“All an act,” said Zoya. “Mostly I was hoping I wouldn’t faint. This dress weighs more than I do.”

“Beauty isn’t supposed to be easy,” Genya said with little sympathy.

Alina nodded. “The real question is how you’re going to outdo this gown for the royal wedding.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Zoya said. “Nikolai hasn’t asked.”

“Can you blame him?” Genya said. “He hasn’t had much luck with proposals.”

Alina snorted. “Maybe he should have offered me a dynasty and not a piddly little emerald.”

“Poor boy,” said Zoya. “But I do intend to dangle the possibility of my hand in marriage in front of every eligible politician, merchant, and minor aristocrat while we forge our new trade agreements and treaties.”

Genya rolled her eye. “Very romantic.”

“I can’t just stop being a general,” said Zoya. “It’s good strategy.” Her romance with Nikolai would never be bouquets of flowers and pretty declarations of love. It lived in the quiet they’d found in each other, in the hours of peace they were stringing together one by one.

“But you will get married,” Genya insisted.

“I can’t help but notice,” Alina said. “The too-clever fox gave up his throne, but still managed to stay a king.”

“A prince,” Genya corrected. “Prince consort. Or is he your general?”

Zoya didn’t really care what title he took. He was hers, and that was all that mattered. Her eye caught on the blueprints she’d found waiting for her on her desk that morning, designs for an extraordinary structure Nikolai had designed to protect her garden. The plans had been bound with her blue velvet ribbon and accompanied by a note that read, I will always seek to make it summer for you. Zoya had been courted by men of wealth and power, offered jewels, palaces, the deed to a diamond mine. This was a different kind of treasure, one she could not believe she’d been lucky enough to find.

She turned back to Genya and Alina, and leaned against her desk. She wanted to sit and rest her feet, but she was too nervous about what she had to say. “You know what we did in the mountains.”

“Yes,” said Alina. “You saved the world and doomed Ravka’s most deadly enemy to an eternity of torture.”

“Very efficient questing,” said Genya.

Zoya tapped her fingers against the desk. “I’ve … I’ve been having nightmares, about the monastery, the thorn wood.” When she had touched the ancient tree, she had felt the Darkling’s pain. The dragon hadn’t let her forget it.