My thoughts strayed to the firebird. Some part of me still couldn’t quite believe it was real. Would it look the way it had in the pages of the red book, its feathers wrought in white and gold? Or would its wings be tipped with fire? And what kind of monster would nock an arrow and bring it down?
I had refused to take the stag’s life, and countless people had died because of it—the citizens of Novokribirsk, the Grisha and soldiers I’d abandoned on the Darkling’s skiff. I thought of those high church walls covered in the names of the dead.
Morozova’s stag. Rusalye. The firebird. Legends come to life before my eyes, just to die in front of me. I remembered the sea whip’s heaving sides, the thready whistle of its last breaths. It had been on the brink of death, and still I’d hesitated.
I don’t want to be a killer. But mercy might not be a gift the Sun Summoner could afford. I gave myself a shake. First we had to find the firebird. Until then, all our hopes rested on the shoulders of one untrustworthy prince.
* * *
THE NEXT DAY, the first pilgrims appeared. They looked like any other townspeople, waiting by the road to see the royal procession roll past, but they wore armbands and carried banners emblazoned with a rising sun. Dirty from long days of travel, they hefted satchels and sacks stuffed with their few belongings, and when they caught sight of me in my blue kefta, the stag’s collar around my neck, they swarmed toward my horse, murmuring Sankta, Sankta, and trying to grab my sleeve or my hem. Sometimes they fell to their knees, and I had to be careful or risk my horse trampling one of them.
I thought I’d grown used to all the attention, even being pawed at by strangers, but this felt different. I didn’t like being called “Saint,” and there was something hungry in their faces that set my nerves on edge.
As we pushed deeper into Ravka’s interior, the crowds grew. They came from every direction, from cities, towns, and ports. They clustered in village squares and by the side of the Vy, men and women, old and young, some on foot, some astride donkeys or crowded into haycarts. Wherever we went, they cried out to me.
Sometimes I was Sankta Alina, sometimes Alina the Just or the Bright or the Merciful. Daughter of Keramzin, they shouted, Daughter of Ravka. Daughter of the Fold. Rebe Dva Stolba, they called me, Daughter of Two Mills, after the valley that was home to the nameless settlement of my birth. I had the vaguest memory of the ruins the valley was named after, two rocky spindles by the side of a dusty road. The Apparat had been busy breaking open my past, sifting through the rubble to build the story of a Saint.
The pilgrims’ expectations terrified me. As far as they were concerned, I’d come to liberate Ravka from its enemies, from the Shadow Fold, from the Darkling, from poverty, from hunger, from sore feet and mosquitos and anything else that might trouble them. They begged for me to bless them, to cure them, but I could only summon light, wave, let them touch my hand. It was all
part of Nikolai’s show.
The pilgrims had come not just to see me but to follow me. They attached themselves to the royal processional, and their ragged band swelled with every passing day. They trailed us from town to town, camping in fallow fields, holding dawn vigils to pray for my safety and the salvation of Ravka. They were close to outnumbering Nikolai’s soldiers.
“This is the Apparat’s doing,” I complained to Tamar one night at dinner.
We were lodged at a roadhouse for the evening. Through the windows I could see the lights of the pilgrims’ cookfires, hear them singing peasant songs.
“These people should be home, working their fields and caring for their children, not following some false Saint. ”
Tamar pushed a piece of overcooked potato around on her plate and said, “My mother told me that Grisha power is a divine gift. ”
“And you believed her?”
“I don’t have a better explanation. ”
I set my fork down. “Tamar, we don’t have a divine gift. Grisha power is just something you’re born with, like having big feet or a good singing voice. ”
“That’s what the Shu believe. That it’s something physical, buried in your heart or your spleen, something that can be isolated and dissected. ” She glanced out the window to the pilgrims’ camp. “I don’t think those people would agree. ”
“Please don’t tell me you think I’m a Saint. ”
“It doesn’t matter what you are. It matters what you can do. ”
“Tamar—”
“Those people think you can save Ravka,” she said. “Obviously you do, too, or you wouldn’t be going to Os Alta. ”
“I’m going to Os Alta to rebuild the Second Army. ”
“And find the third amplifier?”
I nearly dropped my fork. “Keep your voice down,” I sputtered.
“We saw the Istorii Sankt’ya. ”
So Sturmhond hadn’t kept the book a secret. “Who else knows?” I asked, trying to regain my composure.
“We’re not going to tell anyone, Alina. We know what’s at risk. ” Tamar’s glass had left a damp circle on the table. She traced it with her finger and said, “You know, some people believe that all the first Saints were Grisha. ”
I frowned. “Which people?”
Tamar shrugged. “Enough that their leaders were excommunicated. Some were even burned at the stake. ”
“I’ve never heard that. ”
“It was a long time ago. I don’t understand why that idea makes people so angry. Even if the Saints were Grisha, that doesn’t make what they did any less miraculous. ”
I squirmed in my chair. “I don’t want to be a Saint, Tamar. I’m not trying to save the world. I just want to find a way to defeat the Darkling. ”
“Rebuild the Second Army. Defeat the Darkling. Destroy the Fold. Free Ravka. Call it what you like, but that all sounds suspiciously like saving the world. ”
Well, when she put it that way, it did seem a little ambitious. I took a sip of wine. It was sour stuff compared with the vintages aboard the Volkvolny.