Rule of Wolves (King of Scars #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,58
would she keep her word? I failed. The king lives.”
“Thank you for that.” Nikolai watched her carefully. “You’re thinking of taking your own life.”
Her expression showed the truth of it. “I am a prisoner in a foreign country. Your Grisha keep my body weak. My brother is having his soul tortured out of him and I can do nothing to stop it.” She cast her eyes up to the ceiling. “And I murdered an innocent man, a good man, for nothing. I am not Tavgharad. I am not a princess. I am not anyone.”
“You are Reyem Yul-Kaat’s sister, and he still lives.”
“But as what? The khergud … The things they endure, they lose their humanity.”
Nikolai thought of the demon lurking inside him, the power of it. “Maybe the gift of being human is that we do not give up—even when all hope is lost.”
“Then maybe I’m the one who isn’t human anymore.” A grim thought, but her look was speculative when she asked, “Will you force Princess Ehri to wed you?”
“I don’t think I’ll have to.”
Mayu shook her head in disbelief. And perhaps in grief for the humble boy she’d met in a king’s clothes. “You’re that charming?”
“I have a gift for persuasion. I once talked a tree out of its leaves.”
“Nonsense.”
“Well, it was autumn. I can’t take full credit.”
“More foolishness. You think to persuade Ehri and me to turn against Queen Makhi.”
“I think the queen has made the argument for me. She nearly cost both of you your lives.”
“Tell me you would have spared my life or even Isaak’s, if your nation’s future hung in the balance.”
There was no room for lies now. “I can’t.”
“Tell me you wouldn’t sacrifice my life and Princess Ehri’s to save your crown.”
Nikolai rose. “I can’t do that either. But before I put anyone to death and we all go merrily to the next world, I’d ask you to stay alive and try to entertain a bit of hope.”
“Hope for what?”
“That there is never only one answer to a question. You’re alive today, Mayu Kir-Kaat, and I’d prefer you kept it that way. And Isaak, that brave, besotted martyr, would want the same.”
She closed her eyes. “Though I put a knife in his heart?”
“I think so. Love is not known for making men reasonable. I think that’s one of the few things Isaak and I had in common—an inability to stop loving whom we should not. Give me a chance to show you what might be.”
He’d spoken almost those same words to Zoya. Give me a chance. Give me time. Every day he prayed he might find a way to keep his country from destruction, to make peace a possibility. But he couldn’t do it alone.
He strode to the door. “I will tell my Healers to restore your strength.”
“You … you will?” She didn’t believe him.
“Friend or foe, Ravka will have you at your best, Mayu Kir-Kaat. I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge.”
* * *
Nikolai had planned to ride to Lazlayon to meet with David and the other Fabrikators, but he needed to clear his head, and the sky was the best place to do it. Instead of returning to the Grand Palace, he walked down to the lake. He released the tethers that bound his favorite flyer to the dock and slipped into the cockpit of the Sparrowhawk, engaging the propellers. He pulled on his goggles, and in moments, the flyer was bouncing over the water of the lake like a skipping stone, then rising into the air.
The demon liked to fly. Nikolai could feel it turn its face to the wind, longing to be free to ride the clouds. He soared past the walls of Os Alta, and northeast, sailing over miles of farmland. Up here, the world felt wide and he felt less like a king than the privateer he’d once been. We need a king, not an adventurer. A shame.
He’d had to be a king when he spoke to Ehri and Mayu. He had needed to seem confident and assured, just human enough. But being around them, talking about Isaak, had left him shaken. Nikolai had been the one to bring Isaak to the palace and make him one of his guards. They were the same age and yet, how little of the world had Isaak had a chance to see? He would never be at home with his sisters again, his mother. He would never translate another poem or greet another day. Nikolai knew guilt