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

been passed between us. “Mikhael didn’t know any of that. But he was my
friend, so like an idiot, he volunteered too. And then, of course, Dubrov had to
sign on. I told them not to, but Mikhael just laughed and said he wasn’t going to
let me get all the glory.”
“What happened?”
“Nine of us crossed the border, six soldiers and three trackers. Two of us came
back.”
His words hung in the air, cold and final. Seven men dead in pursuit of the
stag. And how many others that I didn’t know about? But even as I thought it, a
disturbing idea entered my mind: How many lives could the stag’s power save?
Mal and I were refugees, born to the wars that had raged at Ravka’s borders for
so long. What if the Darkling and the terrible power of the Shadow Fold could
stop all that? Could silence Ravka’s enemies and make us safe forever?
Not just Ravka’s enemies, I reminded myself. Anyone who stands against the
Darkling, anyone who dares oppose him. The Darkling would make the world a
wasteland before he ceded one bit of power.
Mal rubbed a hand over his tired face. “It was all for nothing anyway. The
herd crossed back into Ravka when the weather turned. We could have just
waited for the stag to come to us.”
I looked at Mal, at his distant eyes and the hard set of his scarred jaw. He
looked nothing like the boy I’d known. He’d been trying to help me when he
went after the stag. That meant that I was partially responsible for the change in
him, and it broke my heart to think of it.
“I’m sorry, Mal. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Alina. I made my own choices. But those choices got my
friends killed.”
I wanted to throw my arms around him and hug him close. But I couldn’t, not
with this new Mal. Maybe not with the old one either, I admitted to myself. We
weren’t children any more. The ease of our closeness was a thing of the past. I
reached out and laid a hand on his arm.
“If it’s not my fault, then it’s not yours either, Mal. Mikhael and Dubrov made
their own choices too. Mikhael wanted to be a good friend to you. And for all
you know, he had his own reasons for wanting to track the stag. He wasn’t a
child, and he wouldn’t want to be remembered as one.”
Mal didn’t look at me, but after a moment he laid his hand over mine. We
were still sitting that way when the first flakes of snow began to fall.