So he cut the engine. He let his flyer’s wings catch the air and he listened. There. To his left, thirty degrees. He waited for the clouds to part and sure enough, he saw a shape moving, lighter than the night around it. He sent the engine rumbling to life and pushed the plane into a dive, firing.

The Fjerdan bomber burst into flame.

The rattle of gunfire filled his ears and he banked hard right, chased by another bomber. He needed better visibility. The clouds gave cover, but they were his enemy too. Bullets pinged off the side of the Peregrine. He couldn’t tell how much damage he’d sustained. He remembered the feeling of plummeting toward the earth when David’s rocket had hit. There would be no Squallers on hand to save him now. He should land and take stock.

No. He wasn’t setting down, not when the people below, his people, were still vulnerable.

The clouds were heavy, he couldn’t see. But the demon inside him could. It was made of night. It wanted to fly.

Nikolai hesitated. He’d never attempted something like this. He didn’t know what might happen. What would it mean to give up control? Would he ever regain it? And while you debate, your people suffer.

Go, he told the demon inside him. It’s time to hunt.

The sensation of releasing the monster was always a strange one—a breath snatched from his lungs, the feeling of rising up to pierce the surface of a lake. Then he was in two places at once. He was himself, a king taking a risk he shouldn’t, a privateer making a gamble he must, a pilot with his hands gripping the Peregrine’s controls—and he was the demon, racing through the air, a part of the dark, his wings spreading.

His monster senses caught the roar of the engine, the smell of fuel. He spotted prey and dove.

He seized the … his demon mind did not have words. It only knew the satisfaction of steel giving way beneath its talons, the screech of metal, the terror of the man it tore from the cockpit and slashed into with its claws. Blood poured over the demon’s mouth—his mouth—hot and salty with iron.

Then he was airborne again, leaping from the plummeting bomber, seeking another quarry. The demon was in control. It sensed the presence of the next bomber before Nikolai saw it. Was this the last?

Hungry for destruction, the demon hurtled toward it through the night and slammed into the Fjerdan bomber, its talons tearing into steel.

No. Nikolai willed it to pull back. I want them to know. I want them to live in fear. The demon climbed onto the front of the plane and slammed its clawed hand through the cockpit glass. The Fjerdan pilot screamed, and Nikolai was looking directly into his eyes. Let them understand what they’re fighting now. Let them know what’s waiting next time they invade Ravka’s skies.

He saw the demon reflected in his enemy’s eyes.

I am the monster and the monster is me.

The demon opened its fanged mouth, but it was Nikolai’s rage that rang out in its roar—for what had been done to his people, his home. The Fjerdan pilot babbled and wept and the demon scented urine in the air.

Go home and tell them what you’ve seen, Nikolai thought as the demon soared through the night. Make them believe you. Tell them the demon king rules Ravka now and vengeance is coming.

Nikolai drew the demon back, and to his surprise, the thing didn’t fight. The shadow disappeared inside him, but it felt different now. He could sense its satisfaction; its thirst for blood and violence had been met. Its heart beat in time with his. It was frightening and yet, the satisfaction was his as well. He was meant to be the wise king, the good king, but right now, he didn’t know how to be wise or good, only angry, the wound inside him burning like the city below. The demon’s presence made it easier to bear.

As the Peregrine descended, he tried to count the plumes of smoke rising from Os Alta. Only daylight would reveal the true extent of the destruction and the lives lost.

He set the plane down on the lake and let it coast to shore. Without the thunder of the engine in his ears, there were only the sounds of fear in the night—the ringing of alarm bells, the shouts of men as they attempted to put out fires and pull friends from the rubble. They would need his help.

Nikolai stripped off his jacket and broke into a run. He would gather Squallers, Sun Soldiers. They could aid with the search for survivors. He knew his flyers would already have departed from the Gilded Bog and Poliznaya to patrol the skies for more signs of the enemy. He would have to issue blackout warnings. They were in place at the shipyards and bases that could be considered military targets. But now every Ravkan town and village would have to snuff out their lanterns and find their way in the dark.

As Nikolai approached the Little Palace, he saw the Fabrikator workshops and Corporalki laboratories had been completely obliterated, but whatever research they’d lost could be excavated or replicated. He spotted Tolya’s massive frame in the crowd. He was about to call out to him when he registered the tears in Tolya’s eyes, his hand pressed to his mouth.

There were Squallers trying to clear the rubble. And Genya was with them. She was on her knees in her golden wedding gown.

He muttered something about nose cones and then vanished.

Dread crept into Nikolai’s heart.

“Genya?” He went to his knees beside her.

She clutched his sleeve. For a moment, she didn’t seem to recognize him. Her red hair was thick with dust, her face streaked with tears.

“I can’t find him,” she said, her voice lost, bewildered. “I can’t find David.”

THE MAKING AT THE HEART OF THE WORLD

19

MAYU

MAYU WAITED. She was good at it. She’d had to be. A soldier’s job was to fight; a guard’s job was to remain watchful.

“There’s an art to it,” her old commander had said. “Your human mind may wander, but the falcon’s eye remains keen.”

She peered out the window of the airship. She couldn’t see much in the dark, and she didn’t know where Tamar and the princess had gone. They hadn’t seen fit to tell her the whole of their plan—another reminder that, though she’d played the part of royalty, she was no more than a bodyguard, valued as much for her loyalty and her willingness to obey as her talent with a sword or a pistol.

Why the detour? she wondered. What if Queen Makhi made it back to the capital before them? But she’d always followed instructions, abided by the rules, so she sat, and she waited.