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

“I can’t go with you. Not that I’d want to.”
I looked back up the path and a little shiver ran up my spine.
Genya gave me a pitying look. “Baghra’s not so bad once you get used to her.
But you don’t want to be late.”
“Right,” I said hastily, and scurried up the path.
“Good luck!” Genya called after me.
The stone hut was round and, I noted apprehensively, didn’t seem to have any
windows. I climbed the few steps to the door and knocked. When no one
answered, I knocked again and waited. I wasn’t sure what to do. I looked back
up the path, but Genya was long gone. I knocked once more, then screwed up
my courage and opened the door.
The heat hit me in a blast, and I instantly began to sweat in my new clothes.
As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I could just make out a narrow bed, a basin
and a stove with a kettle on it. In the middle of the room were two chairs and a
fire roaring in a large tile oven.
“You’re late,” said a harsh voice.
I looked around but didn’t see anyone in the tiny room. Then one of the
shadows moved. I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Shut the door, girl. You’re letting the heat out.”
I closed the door.
“Good, let’s have a look at you.”
I wanted to turn and run in the other direction, but I told myself to stop being
stupid. I forced myself to walk over to the fire. The shadow emerged from
behind the oven to peer at me in the firelight.
My first impression was of an impossibly ancient woman, but when I looked
closer, I wasn’t sure why I’d thought that at all. Baghra’s skin was smooth and
taut over the sharp angles of her face. Her back was straight, her body wiry like a
Suli acrobat, her coal-black hair untouched by grey. And yet the firelight made
her features eerily skull-like, all jutting bones and deep hollows. She wore an old
kefta of indeterminate colour, and with one skeletal hand she gripped a flatheaded
cane that looked as if it had been hewn from silvery, petrified wood.
“So,” she said in a low, guttural voice, “you’re the Sun Summoner. Come to
save us all. Where’s the rest of you?”
I shifted uneasily.
“Well, girl, are you mute?”
“No,” I managed.
“That’s something, I suppose. Why weren’t you tested as a child?”
“I was.”
“Hmph,” she said. Then her expression changed. She looked on me with eyes