Rule of Wolves

The second and final installment of the King of Scars duology, set in the Grishaverse fantasy world, follows multiple characters as Ravka faces invasion by Fjerda, a militaristic northern kingdom that persecutes the Grisha, people born with the ability to manipulate matter, the body, or the elements through a discipline called the Small Science.

Queen Makhi of Shu Han, the empire south of Ravka, receives a wedding invitation from King Nikolai Lantsov announcing his marriage to her younger sister, Princess Ehri Kir-Taban. Makhi is furious: Her plot to assassinate both Nikolai and Ehri has failed. Makhi seized the throne by breaking a deathbed vow to their mother, who named Ehri heir. As Makhi watches her niece play in the gardens, a silent wave of shadow dissolves everything it touches into smoke, leaving only dead gray earth and killing the girl instantly. This blight, called Kilyklava, is spreading across the world.

In Fjerda, Grisha spy Nina Zenik lives undercover as "Mila Jandersdat" in the household of Jarl Brum, commander of the drüskelle, Fjerda's elite Grisha-hunting soldiers. Nina and Jarl's daughter Hanne Brum, a secret Grisha Healer, stage small "miracles" to encourage Fjerdans to view Grisha as blessed by the god Djel. When Nina learns Fjerda plans a surprise invasion, she sends the intelligence to Nikolai. His forces plant mines at the border, and airships from Novyi Zem, a Zemeni nation, arrive carrying an antidote to jurda parem, a drug that enslaves Grisha. Nikolai had brokered this alliance by giving the Kerch, a wealthy island nation, submersible plans that proved useless against the Zemeni, who had already shifted their trade to the skies aboard Ravkan airships. The Fjerdans are repelled at Nezkii.

At the Ice Court, Fjerda's fortress capital, Nina and Hanne enter Heartwood, the traditional debutante season, to access the royal court. They befriend the chronically ill Crown Prince Rasmus, whom Hanne secretly treats with her Healer abilities. Nina manipulates Queen Agathe by channeling secrets from a deceased lady-in-waiting, convincing the queen that warmongering angers Djel. Through Rasmus, Nina learns that letters proving Nikolai's illegitimacy are stored in Brum's office. During a distraction staged by the Hringsa, her undercover spy network, she destroys the letters. Nearby, she discovers Magnus Opjer, Nikolai's biological father, imprisoned to authenticate them. Opjer later escapes on his own.

Nikolai and his general, Zoya Nazyalensky, visit the Darkling, their most dangerous enemy, resurrected into the body of a young monk named Yuri Vedenen. The Darkling claims that seeds from an ancient thorn wood could heal the expanding Fold, the strip of darkness he created centuries ago. A previous attempt at the ritual left Nikolai harboring a shadow demon. The Darkling demands to see Alina Starkov, the Sun Summoner—a Grisha who wields light—who once defeated him. When Zoya arranges the meeting, the Darkling uses a hidden thorn-wood shard to complete a blood ritual restoring his shadow powers. He summons nichevo'ya, monstrous shadow soldiers, and escapes.

Princess Ehri's Tavgharad, the elite Shu royal guard, attempt self-immolation at Makhi's coded command, catching Ehri in the blaze. Zoya extinguishes the fire, but Ehri is severely burned. Nikolai retaliates by luring Makhi to a false wedding ceremony, revealing that Ehri has already departed for Shu Han with evidence of Makhi's crimes, accompanied by Nikolai's ally Tamar Kir-Bataar and Mayu Kir-Kaat, a Tavgharad guard who was coerced into Makhi's assassination plot and has since defected to Nikolai's side. Makhi signs a peace treaty under duress.

Fjerdan bombers then strike Os Alta in a devastating night raid. David Kostyk, a brilliant Grisha inventor, is killed in his workshop, and the attack destroys much of Ravka's fleet and titanium stockpile. Nikolai deliberately releases his demon for the first time, letting it tear through Fjerdan cockpits. In Shu Han, Mayu and Tamar track Makhi to a secret laboratory where prisoners undergo brutal conversion into khergud, soldiers fitted with metal wings and reinforced bones. Mayu finds her twin brother Reyem among them. Makhi's grandmother, the retired Queen Leyti Kir-Taban, strips Makhi of her crown, and the khergud volunteer to fight for Ravka.

Nikolai and Zoya travel to Ketterdam to steal titanium from a Kerch military base, enlisting the criminal mastermind Kaz Brekker. The heist succeeds, though Nikolai must reveal his demon to the crew. He confesses his feelings to Zoya, but she refuses, saying she was made to be a weapon, not a bride. Opjer, having escaped Fjerda, confirms Nikolai's bastardy and shares intelligence about Brum's plans, inspiring the king's final strategy: He lets his fleet's blockade give way to lure Fjerda's navy south while meeting their ground assault at Arkesk in the north.

Zoya and her Squallers, Grisha who control wind and lightning, electrocute the southern fleet by channeling lightning into the seawater. In the north, Nikolai's titanium rockets devastate Fjerdan tanks, but the supply runs out after two volleys. Fjerda deploys Songbird, massive metal bells whose amplified vibrations paralyze everyone on the field. Nikolai releases his demon to smash the bells, and the Darkling, watching from afar, covertly reinforces the creature with shadow power.

On the Fjerdan naval base Leviathan's Mouth, the Apparat, Ravka's treacherous former priest, captures Nina and demands that Zoya publicly support the pretender Vadik Demidov's claim to Ravka's throne. Zoya storms the base, embraces the dragon power bequeathed by the ancient dragon Juris, and transforms into a massive dragon. She carries Nina to the battlefield, destroys a bomber squadron, and traps the Fjerdan forces behind walls of flame. When Nina begs her to spare the helpless soldiers, invoking her dead beloved Matthias Helvar's plea for mercy, Zoya hurls her lightning into the sky. The Darkling kneels first, crying 'Sankta!'—Saint!—and soldiers on both sides follow.

Nina returns to find Hanne's body on the deck of Leviathan's Mouth. Her grief shifts when the prince summons her with eerily familiar mannerisms. In private, Hanne confirms her identity: When Rasmus struck her, she accidentally killed him with her Healer power, then tailored his corpse to resemble herself and assumed his appearance. Hanne reveals that inhabiting a male body feels right, and they plan a future together guiding Fjerda toward peace.

At a peace summit, Nikolai preempts Fjerda's plan to expose his illegitimacy by publicly confessing his bastardy and abdicating in favor of Zoya, who reveals her Suli heritage—her father was a member of the nomadic Suli people—as she is acclaimed the Dragon Queen. Prince Rasmus (Hanne) shocks Brum by calling for peace. When Brum draws a gun, his young bodyguard Joran, a drüskelle who has grown disillusioned with the order's cruelty and drawn to faith in the Saints, shoots him.

Nikolai, Zoya, David's widow Genya Safin, and the Darkling journey to the Monastery of Sankt Feliks, where Fabrikator monks, Grisha who manipulate materials, guard a colossal thorn-wood tree. The Fold is a tear in creation, and someone must stand at the threshold between worlds forever to hold it closed. The Darkling, whose immortality makes him the only one capable of enduring this eternal torment, volunteers in exchange for remembrance as a Saint called the Starless One. Genya confronts him, forgiving her scars but refusing to forgive him for knowingly placing her as a child in the path of the old king's sexual abuse. He declares his true name, Aleksander Morozova, and spreads his arms as a bough drives a spike through his chest. The tree seals around him, and the Fold begins to bloom.

Zoya is crowned queen of Ravka. Nikolai, now courting her openly, leaves a wire ship on her desk with a note promising to make it summer for her always. Zoya tells him she loves him, but confides to Genya and Alina that she dreams the Darkling's pain and fears becoming him. She proposes seeking the heart of Sankt Feliks to grant him true death, and sends a message to Ketterdam: "The queen of Ravka has a job for him."