King of Scars

The coach fills with the smell of blood as General Zoya Nazyalensky and King Nikolai Lantsov ride back to Duke Radimov’s estate in Ivets where they are staying for the trade summit. The monster turns back into the king and asks for a clean shirt. Zoya removes the shackles and gives him clean clothes. Nikolai can’t remember what he does while in the monster form. These sporadic transformations have occurred for the last six months. Zoya chains the king to his bed each night to prevent the monster from getting loose and wreaking havoc on nearby towns. Only the king’s most trusted Grisha Triumvirate know about his condition. They determine the monster is a lasting effect of the Darkling’s power “seething within Nikolai” after the civil war (19).

Traveling away from the palace is getting too dangerous. This trade summit is necessary for negotiations with their neighboring nations, Kerch and Novyi Zem. It also lets them visit the site of the latest miracle: During the Festival of Sankt Grigori, the wooden bridge that crossed the gorge gave way, and a new one, of bone and tendon, appeared in its place. Zoya doesn’t believe in miracles and feels there is a rational explanation behind it. Nikolai suggests that it may be the work of Grisha using the experimental Shu drug jurda parem, which transforms Grisha power into something new and dangerous, ultimately leading to addiction and death. Zoya wonders if the Apparat, the crown’s spiritual counselor, is staging these miracles or if they are somehow connected to Nikolai’s monster.

Nikolai wants to cut their visit short and return to the capital. Zoya reveals the other reason for their visit: senior Kerch merchant “Hiram Schenck and his two marriageable daughters” (23). Zoya argues that Ravka is vulnerable without a queen and heir, while Nikolai is more concerned with Schenck’s knowledge of his secret submersible ships, izmars’ya, currently in production. A sharp whistle interrupts their conversation. They’re approaching the gatehouse. Zoya ruffles her hair and slips into Nikolai’s arms; they pretend to be lovers returning from a night abroad. The guards let them pass. Zoya resumes their conversation, “We’ve had no luck in finding a cure or even a hint of one. Marry. Forge an alliance. Make an heir. Secure the throne and Ravka’s future” (27). Nikolai promises to do so eventually and ends the ride pretending Zoya is his wife.

Grisha Nina Zenik, alias Mila Jandersdat, works at a cannery gutting fish while spying on the guards patrolling the harbor. Sent on a mission by King Nikolai, Nina and her partners, Adrik and Leoni, smuggle Grisha fugitives from Fjerda to Ravka. Nina listens to the gossip of her fellow cannery workers for information. Today, they discuss the town of Gäfvalle and the toxic river by the fort. Foreman Hilbrand shows up, silencing their conversation. He deems Nina too slow for gutting and moves her to packing. Hilbrand, her informant, walks Nina to the packing department. He warns her of Captain Birgir’s surprise inspection for that night. Weeks before, Birgir pulled a mother and daughter from a ship, beat them, covered them in fish guts, and left them tied up outside in the hot sun for the birds to peck. Birgir reminds Nina of Commander Jarl Brum, who is similarly ruthless. Nina scarred him with her corrupt Grisha powers months before when she fled the Ice Court after being given jurda parem. Hilbrand opens a secret back door, and Nina slips into the crowd.

Nina finds another cannery marked by a mural of Sankta Alina, the Sun Summoner, signaling a place of refuge. Adrik lets her in. Four fugitives huddle together—a grandfather, a father, and two little boys. The three women expected to join them are missing. Leoni, a Fabrikator, works on the forged travel papers. Leoni tells Nina she must act as the man’s wife. The old man mentions that girls go missing from Kejerut, a town near Gäfvalle. As Nina thinks about this, her mind strays to her dead husband, Matthias, whose body still needs burial. Nina promised to bring him home to Fjerda. She hears his voice and often maintains an internal dialogue with him.

The group heads to the dock. Two guards check their papers before letting them board the ship. After bribing the guard with an envelope of cash, they are let up the gangplank. Before they can safely board the ship, Birgir stops them. He demands to see their papers again and tells his men to search the whole ship, but Nina uses her Grisha powers to shoot bone shards into the guard, stopping his alarm whistle. She also multiplies “the bad cells eating the others slowly” in Birgir’s lungs (46). He topples over. She takes out the final guard with a bone shard to the heart.

After getting everyone on board and setting sail, Adrik, Leoni, and Nina head back to shore in a rowboat. They plan their next move. Nina suggests they investigate Kerjerut and Gäfvalle, where the river is sour and girls go missing. In addition to hearing Matthias’s voice, Nina has started hearing others. They draw her to those river cities. Leoni suggests Nina bury Matthias out there somewhere. Adrik agrees to the move as long as they stick to the plan of gathering intelligence and freeing Grisha.

Refusing Zoya’s request to stay in Ivets, Nikolai takes off to Count Kirigin’s pleasure palace that houses his secret laboratory for weapons development. Nikolai and his guard, Tolya, approach the Gilded Bog on the estate. They enter the nearby caves, find the secret elevator, and descend. They stop at the laboratory where Nikolai receives a current sample of the jurda parem antidote. Then, they discover David Kostyk working on blueprints of their izmars’ya fleet. Nadia Zhabin, Adrik’s older sister, helps him. They learn that David and Nadia spent all night in the lab. Nikolai tells them to go home to their wives for he needs them all together to hear his plan.

Nina, Adrik, and Leoni reach Gäfvalle. They seek accommodations at the convent while the town’s public house guest rooms are occupied. The Sisters do laundry for the soldiers at the factory up the mountain and wouldn’t mind extra helping hands. The three partners arrive at the convent and meet with the Wellmother. Nina lies, claiming she is a translator for this merchant couple (Adrik and Leoni) and asks if they can stay while selling their wares. The Wellmother agrees, explains mealtimes and curfews, and shows them their rooms.

Once settled, they check out the old fort-turned-factory. The factory is guarded. They watch a wagon roll through the gates. Deciding to take water samples from the river to isolate the pollutants and determine what is going on inside the factory, the group head out, but they hear a noise from the nearby meadow: It’s soldiers, trying to calm a spooked horse who bucked its rider and is dragging him through the river. As the three partners approach the soldiers intending to help, they notice the “soldiers” are actually young women dressed as soldiers. They free the girl dangling from her stirrups and calm the horse. One tall girl, introduced later as Hanne, turns on the strangers, becoming hostile. She then begs them not to tell the Wellmother. Nina looks to Adrik, “deferring to the man in the party as a proper Fjerdan girl would” (77). Adrik agrees to remain silent. The girls leave, taking their injured friend home to heal.

The group fills their canteens with water for sampling. Adrik and Leoni head back to the convent while Nina takes another look around the factory. Nina lets the whispering voices lead her. Using her powers to focus on the voices, she feels death. She can “hear them crying. She knew who they were. Women and girls in the hundreds. All of them dead” (80). The mountainside is filled with their graves.