Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (z-lib.org).mobi

“You’re not even trying any more!” she shouted. “You’re waiting for some
magical deer to come and save you? For your pretty necklace? You might as
well wait for a unicorn to put its head in your lap, you stupid thing.”
When she started railing at me, I just shrugged. She was right. I was tired of
trying and failing. I wasn’t like the other Grisha, and it was time I accepted that.
Besides, some rebellious part of me enjoyed driving her mad.
I didn’t know what punishment Zoya had received, but she continued to
ignore me. She’d been barred from the training rooms, and I’d heard she would
be returning to Kribirsk after the winter fete. Occasionally, I caught her glaring
at me or giggling behind her hand with her little group of Summoner friends, but
I tried not to let it get to me.
Yet I couldn’t shake the sense of my own failure. When the first snow came, I
woke to find a new kefta waiting for me on my door. It was made of heavy
midnight blue wool and had a hood lined in thick golden fur. I put it on, but it
was hard not to feel like a fraud.
After picking at my breakfast, I made the familiar walk to Baghra’s cottage.
The gravel paths, cleared of snow by Inferni, sparkled beneath the weak winter
sun. I was almost all the way to the lake when a servant caught up with me.
She handed me a folded piece of paper and bobbed a curtsey before scurrying
back up the path. I recognised Genya’s handwriting.
Malyen Oretsev’s unit has been stationed at the Chernast outpost in northern Tsibeya for six weeks.
He is listed as healthy. You can write to him care of his regiment.
The Kerch ambassadors are showering the Queen with gifts. Oysters and sandpipers packed in
dry ice (vile) and almond candies! I’ll bring some by tonight.
Mal was in Tsibeya. He was safe, alive, far from the fighting, probably hunting
winter game.
I should be grateful. I should be glad.
You can write to him care of his regiment. I’d been writing to him care of his
regiment for months.
I thought of the last letter I’d sent.
Dear Mal, I’d written. I haven’t heard from you, so I assume you’ve met and
married a volcra and that you’re living comfortably on the Shadow Fold, where
you have neither light nor paper with which to write. Or, possibly, your new
bride has eaten both your hands.
I’d filled the letter with descriptions of Botkin, the Queen’s snuffling dog, and
the Grisha’s curious fascination with peasant customs. I’d told him about
beautiful Genya and the pavilions by the lake and the marvellous glass dome in
the library. I’d told him about mysterious Baghra and the orchids in the hothouse