Rule of Wolves (King of Scars #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,56

nose into it and take revenge upon your captors.”

Ehri pressed it to her eyes. “Why? Why would the Tavgharad do such a thing? Shenye guarded my cradle while I slept as an infant. Tahyen taught me to climb trees. I don’t understand it.”

“What happened before we arrived that afternoon?”

“Nothing! Your guards brought me a letter from my sister. A reply to the wedding invitation you insisted on sending. She asked that I inform the Tavgharad of the wedding, and I brought it to them. They … they told me the message was a code. That it was time to escape.”

“But there was another command in your sister’s letter.”

“I read it myself!” Ehri cried. “There was no such thing!”

“What else could make the Tavgharad take such an action?”

Ehri turned her head away again.

Nikolai hadn’t really expected her to believe him. The princess had never been willing to accept that she was not meant to survive her trip to Os Alta, that her older sister had been planning her death all along. Even after what she had suffered, maybe because of what she had suffered, she couldn’t stand the thought. The physical pain was bad enough, but another betrayal from her sister was too much to accept.

The proper thing was to give her space, a chance to heal. But he’d squandered the time required to be a sensitive suitor. And now he needed someone else to make his argument for him.

“A moment please,” he said, and headed into the hall.

He returned pushing a wheeled chair.

“Mayu!” Ehri exclaimed.

Nikolai had deliberately kept them separated in the weeks since Mayu Kir-Kaat’s attempt to assassinate him. Until last night, there had been no little chats with Mayu or attempts to win her to his side. It had been impossible for him to feel sympathy for the girl who had killed Isaak. His own guilt was too overwhelming. Commanding armies had meant sending countless men to their deaths. Being a king meant knowing there would be more. But Isaak had died pretending to be Nikolai, wearing Nikolai’s face, protecting Nikolai’s crown.

“They said you were near death!” said the princess.

“No,” Mayu whispered. She had been kept under restraint, and the Grisha Healers had not allowed her to return to full health. She was simply too much of a threat. Mayu Kir-Kaat had tried to kill the king, and the women of the Tavgharad were some of the best-trained soldiers in the world.

“Last night, I showed Mayu the letter your sister sent,” said Nikolai.

“It’s just a letter! An answer to an invitation!”

Nikolai settled back into his chair and gestured for Mayu to speak.

“I recognized the poem she quoted.”

“‘Let them be as deer freed from the hunt,’” said Ehri. “I remember one of my tutors taught it.”

“It’s from ‘The Song of the Stag’ by Ni Yul-Mahn,” said Mayu. “Do you remember how it ends?”

“I don’t recall. I’ve never had a taste for the new poets.”

A sad smile touched Mayu’s lips, and Nikolai wondered if she was thinking of Isaak, who had consumed poetry the way other men drank wine.

“It tells the story of a royal hunt,” she said. “A herd of deer are pursued through the woods and countryside by a relentless pack of hounds. Rather than let themselves be slaughtered by the pack, the deer hurl themselves off a cliffside.”

Ehri’s brow furrowed. “The Tavgharad killed themselves … because of a poem?”

“Because of a queen’s command.”

“And they tried to kill you too,” said Nikolai.

“Why?” Ehri said. She opened her mouth, closed it, trying to find some argument to make, some logic. In the end the same word escaped her. “Why?”

Nikolai sighed. He could say that Queen Makhi was ruthless, but she wasn’t any more ruthless than she’d had to be. “Because when I sent that invitation, I forced her hand. Queen Makhi doesn’t want us to marry. She doesn’t want a Ravkan-Shu alliance. Ask yourself this: If Mayu was sent to impersonate you, to murder me and herself, then why put you in harm’s way at all? Why not let you rest comfortably at home while Mayu Kir-Kaat did the dirty work?”

“I was meant to be here to help Mayu, to answer questions, coach her through matters only royalty could understand. Then when it was … over, I would return home.”

“Did your sister’s ministers know about the plot to assassinate me?” How coolly he spoke of his own death. He really was getting good at this. Is it the demon? he wondered. The constant proximity to the darkness of the