The Demon in the Wood

  Eryk stayed quiet. This was the time to say something about his father, fallen in battle. But living or dead, he had no memories of the man to share.

  “The witchhunters had these horses,” Annika said, her face tilted up to the night sky. “I know I was scared, but I swear they were big as houses.”

  “They do have special breeds of horses for the drüskelle.”

  “They do?”

  He had to be cautious about revealing where he’d been or what he’d learned, but this felt safe enough. “They’re bred for size and demeanor. They don’t spook at fire or storms. Perfect for battle against Grisha.”

  “It wasn’t a battle. It wasn’t even a fight. My father couldn’t protect us.”

  “He got you and Sylvi away safely.”

  “I guess.” She kicked off toward shore. “I’m going to dive!”

  “Are you sure it’s deep enough?”

  “I do it all the time.” She clambered out of the pond, wringing water from her shift, and scaled one of the boulders bordering the shore.

  “Careful!” he called. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe his mother’s overprotectiveness was rubbing off on him.

  She raised her hands, preparing to launch herself into the water, then paused.

  Eryk shivered; maybe the water wasn’t as warm as he thought. “What are you waiting for?”

  “Nothing,” she said, hands still held out.

  A chill passed through him. It was then that he realized he could barely move his arms. He tried to lift his hands, but it was too late. The water felt thick around him. It was hardening to ice.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, hoping this was some kind of game, a joke. Eryk started to tremble, his heart pounding a panicked beat as his body went cold. He could still move his legs, just barely scrape the muddy bottom of the pond with his frantically kicking toes, but his chest and his arms were held motionless, the ice pressing in around him. “Annika?”

  She had climbed down from the boulder and was picking her way carefully over the frozen pond. She was shaking, her feet still bare, her shift drenched and clinging to her skin. She had a rock in her hands.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. Her teeth were chattering, but her face was determined. “I need an amplifier.”

  “Annika—”

  “The elders would never let me hunt one. They’d give it to a powerful Grisha like Lev or his father.”

  “Annika, listen to me—”

  “My father can’t protect us.”

  “I can protect you. We’re friends.”

  She shook her head. “We’re lucky they even let us stay here.”

  “What are you doing, Annika?” he pleaded, though he knew well enough.

  “Yes, what are you doing, Annika?”

  He turned his head as best he could. Lev was standing on the far shore.

  “Go away!” she shouted.

  “That little freak and I have unfinished business. So do you and I, for that matter.”

  “Go back to camp, Lev.”

  “Are you giving me orders?”

  She ignored him, moving across the ice. It creaked underneath her feet. Annika was right: she wasn’t strong. She’d been unable to freeze the ice through.

  “Do it, Annika,” Eryk said, loudly. “If I’m going to die, I don’t want Lev using my power.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Lev, putting a tentative foot on the icy surface of the pond.

  “Be quiet,” Annika whispered furiously.

  “I’m an amplifier. And once Annika wears my bones, you won’t be able to push her or her sister around anymore.”

  “Shut up,” she screamed.

  Eryk saw understanding dawn on Lev’s face, and in the next minute, he was sprinting across the ice. It cracked beneath Lev’s bulk. Closer, Eryk urged silently, but Annika was already upon him.

  “I’m sorry,” she moaned. “I’m so sorry.” She was crying as she brought the rock down on his head.

  Pain exploded over his right temple, and his vision blurred. Don’t faint. He gave his head a shake despite the tide of pain that came with it. He saw Annika lifting the rock again. It was wet with his blood.

  A gust of air struck her, sending her sliding back over the ice.

  “No!” she cried. “He’s mine!”

  Lev was pounding over the ice toward Eryk. He already had a knife in his hand. Eryk knew his power would belong to whomever made the kill. That was the way amplifiers worked. Never let them touch you. Because one touch was enough to reveal it, this gift lurking inside him. It was enough to make him less a boy than a prize.

  Annika was lifting the rock again. This would be the strike that broke his skull open. He knew it. Eryk concentrated on Lev’s boots, the cracks spreading out from them. He stretched his legs, then brought his knees up to slam against the ice. Nothing. Despite the nausea gripping him, he did it again. His knees hit the ice from below with a painful crunch. The ice around him ruptured. Then Annika was toppling, collapsing into the water, the stone slipping from her hands.

  Eryk wrenched his arms free and plunged beneath the surface. Under the water, he could see nothing but darkness. He kicked hard. He had no idea which direction he was going, but he had to make it to shore before Annika could freeze the pond again. His feet touched bottom, and he half swam, half dragged himself toward the shallows. A hand closed around his ankle.

  Annika was on top of him, using her weight to hold him down. He screamed, thrashing in her arms. Then Lev was there, shoving her aside, grabbing a handful of Eryk’s shirt, lifting the knife. Everyone was shouting. Eryk wasn’t sure who had hold of him. A knee pressed into his chest. Someone shoved his head beneath the surface again. Water flooded up his nose and into his lungs. I’m going to die here. They’ll wear my bones.

  In the eerie, muffled silence of the water, he heard his mother’s voice, vicious like a whip crack. She was always asking more of him, demanding it, and now she told him to fight. She spoke his true name, the one she only used when they trained, the name tattooed on his heart. A heart that had not stopped beating. A heart that still had life.

  With the last bit of his strength, he tore his arm free and lashed out blindly, furiously, with all his terror and rage, with all the hope that had been born and died this day. Let me make a mark on this world before I leave it.

  The weight slid off his chest. He struggled to sit up, choking and gasping, water spilling from his mouth. He coughed and heaved, then managed to draw a thready, painful breath. He looked around.

  Lev floated facedown beside him, dark blood pluming from a deep diagonal slash that ran from his hip almost straight through his chest. His shirt was torn, and it flapped backward in the water, revealing pale skin that glowed fish-belly white in the moonlight.

  Annika was on his other side, sprawled in the shallows, her eyes wide and panicked. A deep gash ran from her shoulder up through the side of her throat. She had a hand pressed to her neck to try to stop the flow of blood. Her fingers and sleeve were dripping with it.

  He’d finally managed to use the Cut. It had torn through them both.

  “Help me,” she croaked. “Please, Eryk.”

  “That’s not my name.”

  He didn’t move. He sat and watched as her eyes went glassy, as her hand dropped away, as at last she slumped backward, her empty gaze fastened on the moon. He watched the remaining chunks of ice bobbing on the surface slowly melt away. His head throbbed, and he was dizzy with the pain. But his mother had taught him to think clearly, even when he was hurting, even when he wasn’t so sure he wanted to go on.

  They would blame him for this. No matter what Annika and Lev had intended, they would blame him. They’d put him and his mother to death and give their bones to the Ulle or some other Grisha of rank. Unless he could give them someone else to hate. That meant he needed a better wound. A killing wound.

  He’d lost a lot of blood. He might not survive it, but he knew what he had to do. He knew what he could do
now. The evidence was all around him.

  He waited until the sky had begun to lighten. Only then did he summon the shadows and from them draw a dark blade.

  * * *

  When the Ulle’s men woke him on the shore, he gave them the answers they needed, the truth they were only too eager to see in the corpses of their children, in deep, slicing wounds they were sure had been made by otkazat’sya swords.

  He lost consciousness as they carried him to camp, and it was many long hours later that he came back to himself, this time in the snug little hut. His mother was once again beside him, but now her face was smudged with blood and ash. She smelled of bonfires. The Ulle sat in the corner, his head in his hands.

  “He’s awake,” said his mother.

  The Ulle looked up sharply and rose to his feet.

  Eryk’s mother pressed a cup of water to his lips. “Drink.”

  The Ulle towered over Eryk’s bed. His features were haggard and coated in soot. “You are all right?” he asked.

  “He will be,” his mother said with conviction. “If his wounds are kept clean.”

  The Ulle rubbed his weary eyes. “I’m glad, Eryk. I could not have borne another … another death this day.”

  He reached out, but Eryk’s mother grabbed his sleeve to stop him. “Let him be,” she said.

  The Ulle nodded. “We’ll need to leave here,” he said. “Word will travel after what we’ve done this night. There will be consequences.”

  Eryk’s mother pressed a damp towel to his forehead. “As soon as he’s strong enough to travel, we’ll go.”

  “You have a place with us, Lena. It’s safer to travel together—”

  “You promised us safety once before, Ulle.”

  “I thought—I believed it was mine to offer. But maybe there is no safe place for our kind. I must go see to my wife—” His voice broke. “And Lev. Forgive me,” he said, and lurched through the doorway.

  There was silence in the hut. Eryk’s mother wetted the cloth again, wrung it out. “That was very smart,” she said at last. “To use the Cut on yourself.”

  “She froze the lake,” he rasped.

  “Clever girl. Can you take another sip of water?”

  He managed it, his head spinning.

  When he could find the strength, he asked, “The village?”

  “They would not give up the riders who attacked you, so we killed them all.”

  “All?”

  “Every man, woman, and child. Then we burned their houses to the ground.”

  He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  She gave him the barest shake, forcing him to look at her. “I’m not. Do you understand me? I would burn a thousand villages, sacrifice a thousand lives to keep you safe. It would be us on that pyre if you hadn’t thought quickly.” Then her shoulders slumped. “But I cannot hate that boy and girl for what they tried to do. The way we live, the way we’re forced to live—it makes us desperate.”

  The lamp burned low and finally sputtered out. His mother dozed.

  Outside, he heard sad voices lifted in songs of mourning as the funeral pyre burned and the Grisha offered prayers for Annika, for Lev, for the otkazat’sya in the smoking ruins of the valley below.

  His mother must have heard them too. “The Ulle is right,” she said. “There is no safe place. There is no haven. Not for us.”

  He understood then. The Grisha lived as shadows did, passing over the surface of the world, touching nothing, forced to change their shapes and hide in corners, driven by fear as shadows were driven by the sun. No safe place. No haven.

  There will be, he promised in the darkness, new words written upon his heart. I will make one.

  SIX DANGEROUS OUTCASTS.

  ONE IMPOSSIBLE HEIST.

  Read on for an excerpt from Leigh Bardugo’s

  SIX OF CROWS

  Available September 29, 2015

  Copyright © 2015 by Leigh Bardugo

  PART 1

  SHADOW BUSINESS

  1

  Joost

  Joost had two problems: the moon and his mustache.

  He was supposed to be making his rounds at the Hoede house, but for the last fifteen minutes, he’d been hovering around the southeast wall of the gardens, trying to think of something clever and romantic to say to Anya.

  If only Anya’s eyes were blue like the sea or green like an emerald. Instead, her eyes were brown—lovely, dreamy … melted chocolate brown? Rabbit fur brown?

  “Just tell her she’s got skin like moonlight,” his friend Pieter had said. “Girls love that.”

  A perfect solution, but the Ketterdam weather was not cooperating. There’d been no breeze off the harbor that day, and a gray milk fog had wreathed the city’s canals and crooked alleys in damp. Even here among the mansions of the Geldstraat, the air hung thick with the smell of fish and bilge water, and smoke from the refineries on the city’s outer islands had smeared the night sky in a briny haze. The full moon looked less like a jewel than a yellowy blister in need of lancing.

  Maybe he could compliment Anya’s laugh? Except he’d never heard her laugh. He wasn’t very good with jokes.

  Joost glanced at his reflection in one of the glass panels set into the double doors that led from the house to the side garden. His mother was right. Even in his new uniform, he still looked like a baby. Gently, he brushed his finger along his upper lip. If only his mustache would come in. It definitely felt thicker than yesterday.

  He’d been a guard in the stadwatch less than six weeks, and it wasn’t nearly as exciting as he’d hoped. He thought he’d be running down thieves in the Barrel or patrolling the harbors, getting first look at cargo coming in on the docks. But ever since the assassination of that ambassador at the town hall, the Merchant Council had been grumbling about security, so where was he? Stuck walking in circles at some lucky mercher’s house. Not just any mercher, though. Councilman Hoede was about as high placed in Ketterdam government as a man could be. The kind of man who could make a career.

  Joost adjusted the set of his coat and rifle, then patted the weighted baton at his hip. Maybe Hoede would take a liking to him. Sharp-eyed and quick with the cudgel, Hoede would say. That fellow deserves a promotion.

  “Sergeant Joost van Poel,” he whispered, savoring the sound of the words. “Captain Joost van Poel.”

  “Stop gawking at yourself.”

  Joost whirled, cheeks going hot as Henk and Rutger strode into the side garden. They were both older, bigger, and broader of shoulder than Joost, and they were house guards, private servants of Councilman Hoede. That meant they wore his pale green livery, carried fancy rifles from Novyi Zem, and never let Joost forget he was a lowly grunt from the city watch.

  “Petting that bit of fuzz isn’t going to make it grow any faster,” Rutger said with a loud laugh.

  Joost tried to summon some dignity. “I need to finish my rounds.”

  Rutger elbowed Henk. “That means he’s going to go stick his head in the Grisha workshop to get a look at his girl.”

  “Oh, Anya, won’t you use your Grisha magic to make my mustache grow?” Henk mocked.

  Joost turned on his heel, cheeks burning, and strode down the eastern side of the house. They’d been teasing him ever since he’d arrived. If it hadn’t been for Anya, he probably would have pleaded with his captain for a reassignment. He and Anya only ever exchanged a few words on his rounds, but she was always the best part of his night.

  And he had to admit, he liked Hoede’s house, too, the few peeks he’d managed through the windows. Hoede had one of the grandest mansions on the Geldstraat—floors set with gleaming squares of black and white stone, shining dark wood walls lit by blown glass chandeliers that floated like jellyfish near the coffered ceilings. Sometimes Joost liked to pretend that it was his house, that he was a rich mercher just out for a stroll through his fine garden.

  Before he rounded the corner, Joost took a deep breath. Anya, your eyes are brown like … tree bark? H
e’d think of something. He was better off being spontaneous anyway.

  He was surprised to see the glass-paneled doors to the Grisha workshop open. More than the hand-painted blue tiles in the kitchen or the mantels laden with potted tulips, this workshop was a testimony to Hoede’s wealth. Grisha indentures didn’t come cheap, and Hoede had three of them.

  But Yuri wasn’t seated at the long worktable, and Anya was nowhere to be seen. Only Retvenko was there, sprawled out on a chair in dark blue robes, eyes shut, a book open on his chest.

  Joost hovered in the doorway, then cleared his throat. “These doors should be shut and locked at night.”

  “House is like furnace,” Retvenko drawled without opening his eyes, his Ravkan accent thick and rolling. “Tell Hoede I stop sweating, I close doors.”

  Retvenko was a Squaller, older than the other Grisha indentures, his hair shot through with silver. There were rumors he’d fought for the losing side in Ravka’s civil war and had fled to Kerch after the fighting.

  “I’d be happy to present your complaints to Councilman Hoede,” Joost lied. The house was always overheated, as if Hoede were under obligation to burn coal, but Joost wasn’t going to be the one to mention it. “Until then—”

  “You bring news of Yuri?” Retvenko interrupted, finally opening his heavily hooded eyes.

  Joost glanced uneasily at the bowls of red grapes and heaps of burgundy velvet on the worktable. Yuri had been working on bleeding color from the fruit into curtains for Mistress Hoede, but he’d fallen badly ill a few days ago, and Joost hadn’t seen him since. Dust had begun to gather on the velvet, and the grapes were going bad.

  “I haven’t heard anything.”

  “Of course you hear nothing. Too busy strutting around in stupid purple uniform.”

  What was wrong with his uniform? And why did Retvenko even have to be here? He was Hoede’s personal Squaller and often traveled with the merchant’s most precious cargos, guaranteeing favorable winds to bring the ships safely and quickly to harbor. Why couldn’t he be away at sea now?