This morning, as feeling had come slowly back to his body and he had tipped from the pedestal, Nikolai had put the entirety of that experience behind a sheet of glass. There is distance between himself and that loss of control, those long hours frozen alone in the darkened hall. Slumped over in the banya, he had examined each moment as if from a great distance, detached from the way his body had reacted in the moment.

Maybe it will come back to him in sleep. It can join the nightmares he’s had since he acquired the wound on his chest.

“I’d rather have your company,” he tells her, frank, even as his smile widens. “Let me halve the work.”

The King of Ravka and the Sun Summoner, tending to leftover bread and porridge. Not quite the illustrious tales one might imagine.