“That word is offensive,” she said to his back, soothed by the thought of shoving him down the long flight of stairs.
“I can call you whatever you like. In my time, witch was the word men used for women they should steer clear of. I think that describes you very well.”
“Then perhaps you should take your own advice and avoid me.”
“I think not,” said Juris. “One of the only joys left to me is courting danger, and the Fold offers few opportunities for it.”
Would he even tumble if she pushed him, or just sprout wings and float gently to the bottom of the stairway? “How old are you anyway?”
“I’ve long since forgotten.”
Juris looked to be a man of about forty. He was as big as Tolya, maybe larger, and Zoya could imagine he must have cut a daunting figure with a broadsword in his hand. She could see a tracery of scales over his shaven scalp, as if his dragon features had crept into his human body.
Her curiosity got the better of her. “Do you prefer your human form?”
“I have no preference. I am both human and dragon always. When I wish to read, to argue, to drink wine, I take the form of a man. When I wish to fly and be free of human bother, I am a dragon.”
“And when you fight?”
He glanced over his shoulder and his eyes flashed silver, the pupils slitting as he smiled, his teeth slightly too long and predatory for his human mouth. “I could best you in either form.”
“I doubt that,” she said with more confidence than she felt. If she’d still had her amplifier, there would have been no hesitation.
“Do not forget I was a warrior in my first life.”
Zoya raised an unimpressed brow. “Sankt Juris who slew the dragon was really a Grisha who made it his amplifier?” She knew the story well; every Ravkan child did—the warrior who had gone to best a beast and fought it three times before finally vanquishing it. But now she had to wonder how much was legend and how much was fact.
Juris scowled and continued down the stairs. “Amplifier. Like that pathetic bauble you clung to so desperately? When I slew the dragon, I took his form and he took mine. We became one. In the old times, that was how it was. What you practice now is a corruption, the weakest form of the making at the heart of the world.”
In the old times. Was there truth, then, in the stories of the Burning Thorn? Had those monks not been ordinary men but Grisha who had taken the shapes of beasts to better wage war against Ravka’s enemies? Had both the Grisha theorists and the religious scholars gotten it so wrong? Zoya didn’t know. Her tired, battered mind couldn’t make sense of it.
They entered an enormous chamber that looked at once like a cavern and the great hall of an ancient castle keep wrought in black stone. A crest hung on one high wall above a fireplace tall enough for Zoya to stand in. The crest showed three six-pointed stars and was of the type Kaelish families used, though Zoya did not know their iconography well enough to identify which name Juris might have once claimed. One wall had been left entirely open to the elements, the wide horizon of dead sand visible beyond. The jagged overhang made Zoya feel a bit like she was looking out at the world through the opening of a cave. Or the mouth of a beast whose belly she had made the mistake of wandering into.
“What is it you want from me?” she asked.
“When I pass into the mortal world, my magic will go with me, but my knowledge need not. You will carry it.”
“What an honor,” she said without enthusiasm.
“All of the rules the Grisha have created, that you live by, the colors you wear. You think you’ve been training to make yourself stronger, when really you’ve been training to limit your power.”
Zoya shook her head. First this oversized lizard had robbed her of the amplifier she’d earned with her own blood, and now he was insulting the training she’d dedicated her life to. She’d taken her education at the Little Palace seriously, the theory she’d read in the library, the poses and techniques she’d learned in Baghra’s hut by the lake. She’d practiced and honed her abilities, forged her raw talent into something more. There had been other Etherealki who had started with more natural ability, but none had worked as hard. “You can say that, but I know that training made me a better Squaller.”
“Yes, but did it make you a better Grisha?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“Not quite. But I began in ignorance as deep as yours and—just like you—with nothing but the wild wind at my fingertips.”
“You were a Squaller?” Zoya asked, surprised.
“There was no name for what I was.”
“But you could summon?” she pushed.
“I could. I did. It was one more weapon in my arsenal.”
“In what war?”
“In countless wars. I was hero to some. Others would have called me an invader, a barbarian, a sacker of temples. I tried to be a good man. At least, that’s what I remember.”
How men liked to recount their deeds.
“Not all of us take to nobility as well as your king.”
Zoya strolled the perimeter of the room. There was little to look at. Other than the weapons collected on the wall, everything was black stone—the mantel of the great fireplace where blue flame leapt and danced, the decorations atop it, the crest upon the wall. “If you expect me to damn Nikolai for his goodness, you’ll have to wait awhile.”
“And if I tell you Ravka needs a more ruthless ruler?”
“I’d say that sounds like the excuse of a ruthless man.”
“Who said anything about men?”
Was that this creature’s game? “You wish me to steal my king’s throne? You mistake my ambitions.”
Juris rumbled a laugh. “I mistake nothing. Do you really believe you were meant to spend your life in service? You cannot tell me you have not contemplated what it would mean to be a queen.”
Zoya picked up a tiny agate horse on the mantel, one of a herd of what might be hundreds that flowed over the stone. Was this how Juris spent his eternity? Using fire to fashion tiny reminders of another life? “As if a queen does not live her life in service too. I serve the Grisha. I serve Ravka.”
“Ravka.” He rolled the R in a growl. “You serve a nation of ghosts. All those you failed. All those you will continue to fail until you become what you were meant to be.”
All those you failed. What did he know about anything? Zoya set down the horse and rubbed her arms. She didn’t like the way the dragon talked. His words rattled around inside her, made her think of that falling stone, that empty well, that endless hollow. Do not look back, Liliyana had warned her once. Do not look back at me. Zoya hadn’t listened then, but she’d learned to heed those words.
“Finish your story, old man, or set me free to go find a glass of wine and a nap.”
“You’ll find no wine here, little witch. No sleep either. No respite from oblivion.”
Zoya gave a dismissive wave. “Then set me free to find more interesting company.”
Juris shrugged. “There is little more to tell. A ravening beast came to our land, burning everything in its path, devouring all those who dared oppose it.”
Idly, Zoya touched her finger to the ball of a mace on the wall. Juris must have had the weapons with him when they were trapped on the Fold. “I always thought the dragon was a metaphor.”