Page 5 of Shadow and Bone (The Grisha 1)
Mal shook his head and sighed. “He always tries to keep up with Mikhael. He’ll probably end up puking on my boots. ”
“Serves you right,” I said. “So what are you doing here?” When we’d first started our military service a year ago, Mal had visited me almost every night. But he hadn’t come by in months.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. You looked so miserable at dinner. ”
I was surprised he’d noticed. “Just thinking about the crossing,” I said carefully. It wasn’t exactly a lie. I was terrified of entering the Fold, and Mal definitely didn’t need to know that Alexei and I had been talking about him. “But I’m touched by your concern. ”
“Hey,” he said with a grin, “I worry. ”
“If you’re lucky, a volcra will have me for breakfast tomorrow and then you won’t have to fret anymore. ”
“You know I’d be lost without you. ”
“You’ve never been lost in your life,” I scoffed. I was the mapmaker, but Mal could find true north blindfolded and standing on his head.
He bumped his shoulder against mine. “You know what I mean. ”
“Sure,” I said. But I didn’t. Not really.
We sat in silence, watching our breath make plumes in the cold air.
Mal studied the toes of his boots and said, “I guess I’m nervous, too. ”
I nudged him with my elbow and said with confidence I didn’t feel, “If we can take on Ana Kuya, we can handle a few volcra. ”
“If I remember right, the last time we crossed Ana Kuya, you got your ears boxed and we both ended up mucking out the stables. ”
I winced. “I’m trying to be reassuring. You could at least pretend I’m succeeding. ”
“You know the funny thing?” he asked. “I actually miss her sometimes. ”
I did my best to hide my astonishment. We’d spent more than ten years of our lives in Keramzin, but usually I got the impression that Mal wanted to forget everything about the place, maybe even me. There he’d been another lost refugee, another orphan made to feel grateful for every mouthful of food, every used pair of boots. In the army, he’d carved out a real place for himself where no one needed to know that he’d once been an unwanted little boy.
“Me too,” I admitted. “We could write to her. ”
“Maybe,” Mal said.
Suddenly, he reached out and took hold of my hand. I tried to ignore the little jolt that went
through me. “This time tomorrow, we’ll be sitting in the harbor at Os Kervo, looking out at the ocean and drinking kvas. ”
I glanced at Dubrov weaving back and forth and smiled. “Is Dubrov buying?”
“Just you and me,” Mal said.
“Really?”
“It’s always just you and me, Alina. ”
For a moment, it seemed like it was true. The world was this step, this circle of lamplight, the two of us suspended in the dark.
“Come on!” bellowed Mikhael from the path.
Mal started like a man waking from a dream. He gave my hand a last squeeze before he dropped it. “Gotta go,” he said, his brash grin sliding back into place. “Try to get some sleep. ”
He hopped lightly from the stairs and jogged off to join his friends. “Wish me luck!” he called over his shoulder.
“Good luck,” I said automatically and then wanted to kick myself. Good luck? Have a lovely time, Mal. Hope you find a pretty Grisha, fall deeply in love, and make lots of gorgeous, disgustingly talented babies together.
I sat frozen on the steps, watching them disappear down the path, still feeling the warm pressure of Mal’s hand in mine. Oh well, I thought as I got to my feet. Maybe he’ ll fall into a ditch on his way there.
I edged back into the barracks, closed the door tightly behind me, and gratefully snuggled into my bedroll.
Would that black-haired Grisha girl sneak out of the pavilion to meet Mal? I pushed the thought away. It was none of my business, and really, I didn’t want to know. Mal had never looked at me the way he’d looked at that girl or even the way he looked at Ruby, and he never would. But the fact that we were still friends was more important than any of that.
For how long? said a nagging voice in my head. Alexei was right: things change. Mal had changed for the better. He’d gotten handsomer, braver, cockier. And I’d gotten … taller. I sighed and rolled onto my side. I wanted to believe that Mal and I would always be friends, but I had to face the fact that we were on different paths. Lying in the dark, waiting for sleep, I wondered if those paths would just keep taking us further and further apart, and if a day might come when we would be strangers to each other once again.
CHAPTER 2
THE MORNING PASSED in a blur: breakfast, a brief trip to the Documents Tent to pack additional inks and paper, then the chaos of the drydock. I stood with the rest of the surveyors, waiting our turn to board one of a small fleet of sandskiffs. Behind us, Kribirsk was waking up and going about its business. Ahead lay the strange, shifting darkness of the Fold.
Animals were too noisy and scared too easily for travel on the Unsea, so crossings were made on sandskiffs, shallow sleds rigged with enormous sails that let them skate almost soundlessly over the dead gray sands. The skiffs were loaded with grain, timber, and raw cotton, but on the trip back they would be stocked with sugar, rifles, and all manner of finished goods that passed through the seaports of West Ravka. Looking out at the skiff’s deck, equipped with little more than a sail and a rickety railing, all I could think was that it offered no place to hide.
