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Her words sent a spike of fear through me

"I didn’t mean it," I said weakly

"You cannot violate the rules of this world without a price Those amplifiers were never meant to be No Grisha should have such power Already you are changing Seek the third, use it, and you will lose yourself completely, piece by piece You want et the firebird Forget Morozova and his madness"

I shook my head "I can’t do that I won’t"

She turned back to the fire "Then do what you like, girl I’m done with this life, and I’reet hter? Welcome me as a friend? She’d lost her son’s love and sacrificed her sight, and in the end, I’d failed her I wanted to dig in my heels and demand her help I wanted to threaten her, cajole her, fall toshe’d lost and every mistake I’dI turned and ran

I nearly loston the stairs as I stu at the bottom of the steps He reached out to steady ulps of fresh air, feeling the sweat cool on my skin

"Is it true?" he asked "Are you really the Sun Summoner?"

I glanced at his hopeful face and felt the ache of tears in my throat I nodded and tried to smile

"My mother says you’re a Saint"

What other fairy tales does she believe? I thought bitterly

Before I could e down in tears on his scrawny shoulder, I pushed past him and hurried down the narrow path

When I reached the lakeshore, I made my way to one of the white stone Sus, just doifts without fear of blowing the roof off the school or setting fire to the Little Palace I sat down in the shade of the pavilion’s steps and buriedto catchabout the firebird and so positive that she’d be willing to help I hadn’t realized just how one

I s folds of ht Baghra would laugh at me, mock the little Saint all dressed up in her finery Why had I ever believed the Darkling ht show his mother mercy?

And why had I acted that way? How could I have threatened to take away her few coliness of it made me feel ill I could blae the reality that soood on those threats, haul her out into the sunlight and wrest answers fro with me?

I took my copy of the Istorii Sankt’ya out of my pocket and ran my hands over the worn red leather cover I’d looked at it so ht open to the illustration of Sankt Ilya, though now the pages aterlogged froreedy fool who couldn’t resist the teet Morozova and his ht be ht be so to do with aht and it was sonpost, it could be anywhere Nikolai had traveled most of Ravka, and he’d never seen it For all we knew, it had fallen into rubble hundreds of years ago

A bell rang at the school across the lake, and a gaggle of Grisha children rushed froer to be out in the summer sunshine The school had continued to run, despite the disasters of the last , I’d have to evacuate it I didn’t want children in the path of the nichevo’ya

The ox feels the yoke, but does the bird feel the weight of its wings?

Had Baghra ever really spoken those words to me? Or had I only heard them in a dream?

I stood up and brushed the dust frohra’s refusal to help or how broken she seemed She wasn’t just an old woman She was a woman without hope, and I’d helped to take it from her

Chapter 15

DESPITE ITS NAME, I loved the war rooht in anihthouse at Os Kervo, the es of the seas

I looked around the table at the faces of the Grisha, some familiar, so, the King, the Apparat Any one of theet me out of the way and assume power