Juris looked almost affronted. “For what?”
“Heathen religion, foreign invaders, the perils of the modern world.”
“Sometimes a dragon is just a dragon, Zoya Nazyalensky, and I can assure you no metaphor has ever murdered so many.”
“You’ve never heard Tolya recite poetry. So the great warrior went to meet the dragon in his lair?”
“Just so. Can you imagine my terror?”
“I have an inkling.” She would never forget her first sight of Juris with his vast wings spread—and she wanted to know how he’d bested the beast. “What did you do?”
“What all frightened men do. The night before I was to meet the dragon, I went down on my knees and prayed.”
“Who does a Saint pray to?”
“I never claimed to be a Saint, Zoya. That is just the name a desperate world gave me. That night I was nothing more than a scared man, a boy really, barely eighteen. I prayed to the god of the sky who had watched over my family, the god of storms who watered the fields and fed on careless sailors. Maybe it is that god who watches over me still. All I know is something answered. When I faced the dragon and he breathed fire, the winds rose to my command. I was able to snatch his breath away, just as you tried to do with me. Twice we clashed and twice we retreated to see to our wounds. But on the third meeting, I dealt him a fatal blow.”
“Juris in triumph.” She would not do him the courtesy of sounding impressed.
But he surprised her by saying, “Perhaps I should have felt triumphant. It’s what I expected. But when the dragon fell, I knew nothing but regret.”
“Why?” she asked, though she had always felt sorry for the dragon in Juris’ story, a beast who could not help his nature.
Juris leaned his big body against the basalt wall. “The dragon was the first true challenge I’d ever known as a warrior, the only creature able to meet me as an equal in the field. I could not help but respect him. As he sank his jaws into me, I knew he felt just as I did. The dragon and I were the same, connected to the heart of creation, born of the elements, and unlike any other.”
“Like calls to like,” she said softly. She knew that feeling of kinship, of ferocity. If she closed her eyes, she would feel the ice on her cheeks, see the blood in the snow. “But in the end, you killed him.”
“We both died that day, Zoya. I have his memories and he has mine. We have lived a thousand lives together. It was the same with Grigori and the great bear, with Elizaveta and her bees. Have you never stopped to wonder how it’s possible that some Grisha are themselves amplifiers?”
Zoya hadn’t really. Grisha who were born amplifiers were rare and often served as Examiners, using their abilities to test for the presence of Grisha power in children. The Darkling had himself been an amplifier, as had his mother. It was one of the theories for why he had been so powerful. “No,” she admitted.
“They are connected to the making at the heart of the world. In the time before the word Grisha had ever been spoken, the lines that divided us from other creatures were less firm. We did not just take an animal’s life, we gave up a part of ourselves in return. But somewhere along the way, Grisha began killing, claiming a piece of the power of creation without giving anything of ourselves. This is the pathetic tradition of your amplifiers.”
“Should I feel shame for claiming an amplifier?” Zoya said. He had no right to these judgments. How often had Zoya cried? How many futile prayers had she spoken, unable to rid herself of that stubborn, stupid belief that someone would answer? “It must be easy to ponder the universe, safe in your palace, away from the petty, brutal dealings of man. Maybe you don’t remember what it is to be powerless. I do.”
“Maybe so,” said Juris. “But you still wept for the tiger.”
Zoya froze. He couldn’t know. No one knew what she had done that night, what she had seen. “What do you mean?”
“When you are tied to all things, there is no limit to what you may know. The moment that bracelet dropped from your wrist, I saw it all. Young Zoya bleeding in the snow, heart full of valor. Zoya of the lost city. Zoya of the garden. You could not protect them then, and you cannot protect them now, not you and not your monster king.”
Do not look back at me. The well within her had no bottom. She tossed a stone into the darkness and she fell with it, on and on. She needed to get out of this room, to get away from Juris. “Are we done here?”
“We haven’t yet begun. Tell me, storm witch, when you slew the tiger, did you not feel its spirit moving through you, feel it take the shape of your anger?”
Zoya did not want to speak of that night. The dragon knew things he could not know. She forced herself to laugh. “You’re saying I might have become a tiger?”
“Maybe. But you are weak, so who can be certain?”
Zoya curled her lip. She kept herself still though the rage inside her leapt. “Do you mean to goad me? It will take more than the slights of an old man.”
“You showed courage when we fought—ingenuity, nerve. And still you lost. You will continue to lose until you open the door.”
He turned suddenly and lunged toward her, his body growing larger, blotting out the light as his wings spread. His vast jaws parted and flame bloomed from somewhere inside him.
Zoya threw her arms over her head, cowering.
Abruptly the flames banked and Juris stood looking at her in his human form. “Have I chosen a weakling?” he said in disgust.
But now it was Zoya’s turn to smile. “Or maybe just a girl who knows how to look like one.”
Zoya stood and thrust her hands forward. The storm thundered toward him, a straight shot of wind and ire that knocked Juris from his feet and sent him tumbling, skating along the smooth stone floor and right out of the cave mouth. Weak. A fraction of the strength she had commanded with her amplifier. But he rolled over the edge and vanished, the surprise on his face like a balm to Zoya’s heart.
A moment later the dragon rose on giant wings. “Did I break your will when I broke your silly bauble?”
Had he? Without her amplifier, summoning her power was like reaching for something and misjudging the distance, feeling your fingers close over nothing but air. She had always been powerful, but it was the tiger’s life that had given her true strength. And now it was gone. What was she—who was she without it? If they ever got free of this place, how was she supposed to return to her command?
“Choose a weapon,” said Juris.
“I’m too tired for this.”
“Give me a worthy fight and you can go hide wherever you like. Choose a weapon.”
“I am the weapon.” Or she had been. “I don’t need a cudgel or a blade.”
“Very well,” said Juris, shifting smoothly into his human form. “I’ll choose one for you.” He grabbed a sword from the wall and tossed it to her.
She caught it awkwardly with both hands. It was far too heavy. But she had no time to think. He was already springing toward her, a massive broadsword in his hands.
“What is the point of this?” she asked as he struck her blade with a blow that reverberated up her arms. “I’ve never been any good at swordplay.”
“You’ve spent your life only choosing the paths at which you knew you could excel. It’s made you lazy.”