"There'd be no advantage in it, for him. The Duchess would blame him for ruining the evening, and she'd resurrect you by the time the month is out." As painful as the resurrection process seemed, it would appear that merely inflicting pain was not part of Aleksander's interests.
Alina thinks on what he'd said to her that day in the library. Of his aims, the little admissions that slipped through. He thinks he's doing the hard thing, the necessary thing, to save Ravka from an inept ruler, and to save grisha from enslavement under him.
But Ravka as Nikolai and Genya have described it is already saved. No Fold, a Grisha queen, and the Lantsov crown on Nikolai's head. Aleksander might have rejoiced these things with the rest of them, had he not made a monster of himself to put them into motion, had he been able to accept that the one who should rule might not be him.
"Why kill you when he can get the same reaction just showing us that he can if he wants to?" She meets Nikolai's gaze finally. There's a raggedness about her. Something tired behind her eyes already. "And without sabotaging his chance to ally with her, besides."
For a long moment, Nikolai is quiet. His fingers trace a nonsense pattern at Alina's nape, his palm resting at the small of her back.
She's right. There is so little room in which to gain advantage in this place. All Kirigan has is the ability to flex his power, to hold it over their heads as a threat. It would only be as effective as they allowed it to be. Without the permanence of death, how much of a motivation could avoiding his power really be?
It occurs to him that it would be a very similar punishment as the Duchess meted out; if the Darkling killed him, it would be very likely an opportunity to teach Alina a lesson as much as to cow Nikolai.
"I owe her a favor," Nikolai admits. "He can't touch me without alienating her, I think."
At least, until the Duchess calls in her favor.
"And he doesn't know what I know. That's another card for us to play on."
"We don't even know the rules or what game we're playing." The reply is desolate. Aleksander would be able to inflict pain after pain upon them to twist them into doing as he wanted precisely as he had back in Ravka and for exactly the same reason: none of them knew what his end goal was.
Beyond the obvious, of course. "If his goal is to get back to Ravka, he'd have better luck working with us than against us. The fact that he's willing to give that up means it's a matter of the circumstances under which he wants us to return in, and making sure that those are settled first."
She draws away from him now, pacing as she thinks. It makes her queasy, realizing how well she can settle into thinking as he does. He has made her paranoid and power hungry and all the things that drive him, as well. It takes no effort at all to imagine the situation from his perspective: it's how she has been thinking all along.
"If it was me, I'd be trying to find a way to regain the kind of powerful allies I'll need back home. And I'd be trying to find a way to ensure we don't bring our problems back with us." She looks at Nikolai very pointedly. "It must have occurred to you, as it has to me, that we might return to Ravka without Kirigan. That means we have to assume it's also occurred to him to return without you."
There's a snarl of possibility here. Alina puts a finger on it, implication weighing heavily on Nikolai as potential outcomes spin out from the question she poses.
What does it mean, to be contained here? What would it mean if he recalls the Darkling scattered into dust and his own coronation? Can any of what he knows to be true be destabilized by what occurs here?
Alina paces and Nikolai leans back against the table, struck briefly silent before his gaze lifts to her once more.
"Are we certain he wants to give up the possibility of working together?"
Alina stops pacing and looks back at him, frozen a moment, disgust apparent in her expression. She may be approaching the pragmatic mindset needed to lead an army, but she's still no politician by any means. Her feelings are written there all over her face, as long as they aren't her pain.
"He destroyed Novokribirsk. He disfigured Genya." Even as she says these things, they feel ... foreign. Distant. Genya's scars are real and present in front of her, and yet she can't fully reconcile that Aleksander put them there because she hadn't seen that kind of violence in him firsthand. But she knows them to be true, speaks of them like they are, because it is enough to know he is the Black Heretic, who made the Fold, which killed her own parents. "You can't be serious."
The expression she wears is a guide, of a sort. A reminder: she is months behind him. They are not yet at a point where she knows him, can track the path his thoughts take.
Braced there against the table, his hands come back together. Watches her for a moment. Maybe thinking again of the library, and how easily she turned a true, painful thing back against him. Maybe thinking of her hands on him, or the press of her back against his stomach as she slept.
His sweet wife, sharp as a blade when she wishes to be.
"I loved my brother, you know," he tells her, because maybe she had never known this of him. Because it is a raw, painful thing to bare to her even now, after spending an evening naked, on display. "When I was little I was just...desperate for his attention. Trailed him everywhere he went. Tried to do everything he did. I thought if I could just master all that my brother did, the two of them would spare a second glance. But even after all my best efforts, and my father was barely interested, and my brother..."
A spreading of hands into that space between them. Her pacing has made him still, or near to it. Holding his ground.
"They were monsters, both of them. But I still had to watch the Darkling's nichevo'ya tear them apart while my mother screamed for them."
These are minor sins, Nikolai knows. What are two lives compared to Novokribirsk? Against Genya's suffering? There is the cynical, terrible truth that the best his father and brother could have done for Ravka was to die as they did.
But the purpose is this: it is personal for Nikolai too, in the way it is personal for Alina, and for Genya.
(He does not name the scar, twinging at his shoulder.)
"Know that I want nothing more than to see him stripped of his power and thrown down into the grave where he belongs. If I ask after his hopes of allegiance, it is only to the extent that it serves that purpose."
It feels like being scolded. Maybe she deserves that, a little. Maybe she should apologize for deliberately eliding the loss of King Pyotr, but she would never mourn him. Can't bring herself to.
In fact, she can't help a flare of defensive anger in her chest because she cannot think that watching the man who'd presumed she would only speak Shu die painfully could compare to what she's had taken from her, to the feeling of Aleksander's shadows crawling across her thighs and the knowledge that he'd known even then, when she was giving herself to him, and had made her twice the fool for it.
It shouldn't matter. She believes him. She believes that he is as serious as she is, as hateful, and that should be enough. It is easier to distract herself from this sense of competition, this notion that only one of them can be the most injured, can have authority over Aleksander's crimes, when she stops to realize—
"What is a nichevo'ya?" She shakes her head. "His 'nothing'?"
How can he expect Alina to mourn Pyotr, or Vasily? Nikolai himself had not.
There are moments when it feels like a failing. It feels like a failing now, speaking of it and realizing how little he had done to recognize their passing. How little he intends to do, knowing what he does now?
Alina's question brings Tamar to mind, her uneasy accounting of the creatures that had billowed into the ballroom. The things that had speared him through the chest, gave him his scar.
It brings to mind Genya, speaking of her fears for Alina behind a closed door.
"His shadows," Nikolai answers. True, on a technicality. "Made of nothing. Impossible to hit with a bullet or a knife, unless they've hold of something."
Or, she thinks she does. His shadows, his nothings, it's just his power. The same power that made the Fold. She'd hoped that her light would be able to fight it, but it's a stupid thought. Without an amplifier, of course they would be stronger.
If she could just get her hands on one... but there's no hope for that here. She rubs at her brow, sitting with that thought. Back to the question at hand.
"We can't be certain he's ruled out cooperation, no. But even if he hasn't, he doesn't want cooperation. He wants obedience." That had been clear to her in the library. "He doesn't want allies. He wants tools."
It isn't a surprise. Of course Kirigan wants tools. (Again he recalls his father, thinking no more of grisha than a man may think of a hammer in a toolbox, a holstered gun waiting to be fired.) He would make all of them subservient to him, if he could. Zoya back at his right hand, Alina at his left, Genya trailing after him, Nikolai—
Where? The picture doesn't immediately complete, though it does lend itself to the possibility of an early grave. It's hard to say what use Nikolai is here and now, and Alina is right: Nikolai occupies his throne. The saving grace is that no one has divulged that just yet.
"No alliance starts off that way," he muses. "We'll have time, to shape our approach as we please. And we outnumber him. That will make things easier, if it comes to that."
We'll have time, he says. Our approach. It's all together. The presumption of trust and their own cooperation, at the very least. The certainty that they can depend on one another.
It has that feeling of something that ought to be familiar to her. Something that must be familiar to him.
"Is this it, then?" She asks, amused rather than cynical. "The political alliance of legend?"
How differently they've come to it here, their understanding of each other. He can feel the lingering warmth from the wax burns she'd left on him still. The sense memories from the night before come back to him now, sudden awareness as he looks at her, expression softening into a smile.
"I made you a more attractive proposal then," he admits. "There was a ring involved."
As he speaks, he leans forward, seeking to catch her hand up in his own.
"Mm," she hedges, allowing him to catch her hand all the same. She draws nearer to him, turning his hand over in turn to study them. The rough callouses that suit a privateer and not a prince. He may have idolized Prince Vasily, but she knows he wouldn't have been able to say the same.
It is an attractive proposal all its own. She won't tell him this. It would give him a power over her that she doesn't want anyone to have, anymore. But if this is what some other Alina had signed up for, then maybe she was starting to see how, and why.
"You're not the first powerful man to tell me we could change the world together." This is a warning of her skepticism, the same skepticism that makes her wonder, privately, what becomes of a political alliance when it no longer has a cause. She wants to trust him, but when Aleksander is dead, what then?
"To fix Ravka together," has the cadence of a correction, gentle as his fingers go loose in her grasp. Yielding to this inspection, content with the contact it brings with it.
Change the world? It would be a lie to say Nikolai doesn't have some appetite for it. But Ravka—
There is no greater calling than Ravka, the grasping, drowning, fractured wreck of a country. He has served her since he was twelve.
"There is so much that is broken in our country," he says, quieter, looking at their hands. "I have been seeking ways to repair it since I was a boy."
And now, after all his roundabouts and sideways approaches, he has been saddled with the power to address all these problems plaguing Ravka directly. It is overwhelming. He had stumbled over that, when he'd tried to express that to her, straying into her rooms just to see her turn towards him with a smile and ward off that sense of isolation.
"Alina Starkov," is very fond, his eyes lifting from their hands. "I would be so...incredibly alone in this task if it weren't for you."
She recalls finding Aleksander in his war room, late in the night. The way the shadows had crawled from the corners of the room as he admitted his own failings, his own sense of powerlessness at not being able to turn the tides of the war and fix this country. How her hand had slipped into his not unlike the way she holds Nikolai's hand now, how she had reassured him against the tide of his loneliness.
She wants, desperately, to believe that this is different. That Nikolai will not use her as a tool to make the country that he wants. That he wants her, and does not merely want to control her power.
Because he's right, of course. He is terribly alone. She can see it in what he's said already. The loss of his father, his brother, worthless as they were, has assured that. And his mother has always been a vain idiot more than a ruler, sitting by while Pyotr and Vasily let the country dissemble into something weak and atrophied.
She squeezes his hand, reaffirming for him as she had for Aleksander before, "You're not alone."
She is, though. She can see it now. The long life of a grisha, especially one with her power, made more powerful still by the amplifiers she will need to destroy the Fold and Aleksander, to ensure that she is really alone, utterly. It is several lifetimes away, and she still can't help but wonder how the people will look at her when the last otkazat'sya king is in his grave and she still sits in the Grand Palace, alone.
But she smiles at Nikolai. A fluttering thing, determined to comfort the boy who just wants to fill the role given to him. She had fallen down on her job of protecting him when she'd fallen asleep; at least she can do a better job of it now, here.
"But we can't fix it from here." So all of this is very far off. She draws a deep breath, shuttering away those dark feelings, those doubts. "One thing at a time."
On the table behind them, his porridge must have cooled completely by now. Alina is steadier; the fear has left her voice. Nikolai reels her a step closer, off hand lifting to tuck a stray wisp of hair back behind her ear.
"One thing at a time," he agrees, though Nikolai's perception of one thing is liable to stretch to include all of what happens around them within this boarding house, the village, the woods and the void and the Duchess in her castle. All pieces to draw together to bring them closer to their return home.
There are things he could say here. They catch at the back of his throat, sentiments so close to hand that it would take no thought at all to simply tell her.
Instead, he turns the link of their hands so that he might put a soft kiss to her knuckles. A wordless, stall of a gesture, meant to stand in for things unsaid while Nikolai tells her, "I'll make you a proper proposal. I can owe it to you, along with all the rest I've promised. You might collect on those while I prepare."
A number of promises, as yet unfulfilled. As light as his tone is, the offer is no less sincere for it.
"You're accruing quite the debt," she remarks, unable to stop herself from smiling when his lips brush her hand. There is something gentle about it. A kind of gentleness that she had not seen enough of in her life, and a kind that she wants to believe isn't entirely out of reach.
It does its job, fishing her out of the depths of her own self-pity and pessimism regarding Aleksander's plans and reach. These things are set aside in acknowledgment of the more immediate, pressing issue — their mutual confinement.
She takes her hand back reluctantly, looking past him to the table with a sigh. "I ruined your breakfast."
So the porridge is cold, and she made off with the cheese and toast. He had enough to break his fast; if he is hungry again in a few hours, he will square with it then.
For the moment, he must relinquish his grip on her hand. Return her smile, with one hand lifting to his heart. Quite the debt indeed. A relatively small stack of favors, when set against what he already intends to give over to her.
"Can I beg your company while I clear the dishes?" is just a stopgap measure against their parting of ways.
He has put certain aspects of their acquaintance into her hands. Given Alina the excuses and power with which to fall back into each other, made clear to her his own willingness. The choice of it, he gives to her, to do with what she will.
But even now, exhaustion held so carefully in check, Nikolai would be content to simply lay down alongside her to sleep properly, make a re-attempt at the most benign of what they attempted last night.
She watches him with a little tilt of her head, like some part of her is slotting the scene into place. The quiet intimacy of seeing him this way, and deciding whether or not she could make a habit of it. A long habit of it.
"You haven't slept," she says when she gathers herself out of that reverie. She'd thought he had when she casually stole from his plate and readied herself to occupy him. But he is still coming clean off the heals of a trauma so unpleasant that he'd seen fit to shield her from it.
She maneuvers past him, taking up the bread plate and the half-stirred porridge and insisting, "Let me take care of these."
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.
This, too, draws a reluctant smile out of her. Alina makes room for him at her side as she clears the dishes off, handing one then the other towards him at the sink.
She should argue more. Offer to come back to them later, once he's asleep, and offer her company in the pursuit of a more worthy task like getting him there. But she too is reluctant to separate from him, for the company makes it easier to stave off the little fragments of misery.
Maybe, so long as they occupy the same space, all other things can be kept at bay.
Maybe he simply wants to be near her. That isn't new, not really. It is only made new when placed in this context, what they have been through together, what they are resolving to do together.
As they set aside the last place, Nikolai catches her hand, his own still damp from the water. Runs his thumb across her knuckles, remembering putting a ring there. It had been heavy, maybe more so for her, a tangible symbol of what they were embarking on together. He doesn't have any equivalent here to offer.
"Since I've already accrued a fair amount of debt, would you grant me one more favor?"
He'd kept her off the Duchess' pedestal and table. The answer seems obvious. Despite Nikolai's insistence that he is the one indebted to her, Alina can't help feeling like it's very much the other way around — even as the favors he asks include marriage and don't just save my country, but also fix it.
She hesitates, though, looking down at their hands.
"I'll consider it," she hedges. The hint of her smile doesn't quite tug the corners of her mouth, stays privately in her eyes and the little quirk of one eyebrow.
Despite begging permission for the request, Nikolai finds himself uncertain as to how to ask it.
The light stroke of his thumb, back and forth across her knuckles, holds his attention for a moment. His gaze lifts back to her face, that minor flex of tension in his expression easing at the traces of amusement he finds there.
"Walk me back to my room? We can start at the front door, if you're still set on playing the gentleman."
"Shall I sweep you gallantly into my arms?" She crinkles her nose, surrendering a little laugh. Alina releases his hand, then, but only to step nearer to him, to loop her arm through his. "I had already planned on it."
But it's good that he asked, isn't it? She hazards a sideways glance up at him. Her life has been full of unspoken things, little secrets she hadn't admitted to Mal, big secrets that Aleksander and Genya had withheld. It is only Nikolai who has been entirely honest in it all, forthright.
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"There'd be no advantage in it, for him. The Duchess would blame him for ruining the evening, and she'd resurrect you by the time the month is out." As painful as the resurrection process seemed, it would appear that merely inflicting pain was not part of Aleksander's interests.
Alina thinks on what he'd said to her that day in the library. Of his aims, the little admissions that slipped through. He thinks he's doing the hard thing, the necessary thing, to save Ravka from an inept ruler, and to save grisha from enslavement under him.
But Ravka as Nikolai and Genya have described it is already saved. No Fold, a Grisha queen, and the Lantsov crown on Nikolai's head. Aleksander might have rejoiced these things with the rest of them, had he not made a monster of himself to put them into motion, had he been able to accept that the one who should rule might not be him.
"Why kill you when he can get the same reaction just showing us that he can if he wants to?" She meets Nikolai's gaze finally. There's a raggedness about her. Something tired behind her eyes already. "And without sabotaging his chance to ally with her, besides."
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She's right. There is so little room in which to gain advantage in this place. All Kirigan has is the ability to flex his power, to hold it over their heads as a threat. It would only be as effective as they allowed it to be. Without the permanence of death, how much of a motivation could avoiding his power really be?
It occurs to him that it would be a very similar punishment as the Duchess meted out; if the Darkling killed him, it would be very likely an opportunity to teach Alina a lesson as much as to cow Nikolai.
"I owe her a favor," Nikolai admits. "He can't touch me without alienating her, I think."
At least, until the Duchess calls in her favor.
"And he doesn't know what I know. That's another card for us to play on."
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Beyond the obvious, of course. "If his goal is to get back to Ravka, he'd have better luck working with us than against us. The fact that he's willing to give that up means it's a matter of the circumstances under which he wants us to return in, and making sure that those are settled first."
She draws away from him now, pacing as she thinks. It makes her queasy, realizing how well she can settle into thinking as he does. He has made her paranoid and power hungry and all the things that drive him, as well. It takes no effort at all to imagine the situation from his perspective: it's how she has been thinking all along.
"If it was me, I'd be trying to find a way to regain the kind of powerful allies I'll need back home. And I'd be trying to find a way to ensure we don't bring our problems back with us." She looks at Nikolai very pointedly. "It must have occurred to you, as it has to me, that we might return to Ravka without Kirigan. That means we have to assume it's also occurred to him to return without you."
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There's a snarl of possibility here. Alina puts a finger on it, implication weighing heavily on Nikolai as potential outcomes spin out from the question she poses.
What does it mean, to be contained here? What would it mean if he recalls the Darkling scattered into dust and his own coronation? Can any of what he knows to be true be destabilized by what occurs here?
Alina paces and Nikolai leans back against the table, struck briefly silent before his gaze lifts to her once more.
"Are we certain he wants to give up the possibility of working together?"
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"He destroyed Novokribirsk. He disfigured Genya." Even as she says these things, they feel ... foreign. Distant. Genya's scars are real and present in front of her, and yet she can't fully reconcile that Aleksander put them there because she hadn't seen that kind of violence in him firsthand. But she knows them to be true, speaks of them like they are, because it is enough to know he is the Black Heretic, who made the Fold, which killed her own parents. "You can't be serious."
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Braced there against the table, his hands come back together. Watches her for a moment. Maybe thinking again of the library, and how easily she turned a true, painful thing back against him. Maybe thinking of her hands on him, or the press of her back against his stomach as she slept.
His sweet wife, sharp as a blade when she wishes to be.
"I loved my brother, you know," he tells her, because maybe she had never known this of him. Because it is a raw, painful thing to bare to her even now, after spending an evening naked, on display. "When I was little I was just...desperate for his attention. Trailed him everywhere he went. Tried to do everything he did. I thought if I could just master all that my brother did, the two of them would spare a second glance. But even after all my best efforts, and my father was barely interested, and my brother..."
A spreading of hands into that space between them. Her pacing has made him still, or near to it. Holding his ground.
"They were monsters, both of them. But I still had to watch the Darkling's nichevo'ya tear them apart while my mother screamed for them."
These are minor sins, Nikolai knows. What are two lives compared to Novokribirsk? Against Genya's suffering? There is the cynical, terrible truth that the best his father and brother could have done for Ravka was to die as they did.
But the purpose is this: it is personal for Nikolai too, in the way it is personal for Alina, and for Genya.
(He does not name the scar, twinging at his shoulder.)
"Know that I want nothing more than to see him stripped of his power and thrown down into the grave where he belongs. If I ask after his hopes of allegiance, it is only to the extent that it serves that purpose."
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In fact, she can't help a flare of defensive anger in her chest because she cannot think that watching the man who'd presumed she would only speak Shu die painfully could compare to what she's had taken from her, to the feeling of Aleksander's shadows crawling across her thighs and the knowledge that he'd known even then, when she was giving herself to him, and had made her twice the fool for it.
It shouldn't matter. She believes him. She believes that he is as serious as she is, as hateful, and that should be enough. It is easier to distract herself from this sense of competition, this notion that only one of them can be the most injured, can have authority over Aleksander's crimes, when she stops to realize—
"What is a nichevo'ya?" She shakes her head. "His 'nothing'?"
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There are moments when it feels like a failing. It feels like a failing now, speaking of it and realizing how little he had done to recognize their passing. How little he intends to do, knowing what he does now?
Alina's question brings Tamar to mind, her uneasy accounting of the creatures that had billowed into the ballroom. The things that had speared him through the chest, gave him his scar.
It brings to mind Genya, speaking of her fears for Alina behind a closed door.
"His shadows," Nikolai answers. True, on a technicality. "Made of nothing. Impossible to hit with a bullet or a knife, unless they've hold of something."
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Or, she thinks she does. His shadows, his nothings, it's just his power. The same power that made the Fold. She'd hoped that her light would be able to fight it, but it's a stupid thought. Without an amplifier, of course they would be stronger.
If she could just get her hands on one... but there's no hope for that here. She rubs at her brow, sitting with that thought. Back to the question at hand.
"We can't be certain he's ruled out cooperation, no. But even if he hasn't, he doesn't want cooperation. He wants obedience." That had been clear to her in the library. "He doesn't want allies. He wants tools."
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It isn't a surprise. Of course Kirigan wants tools. (Again he recalls his father, thinking no more of grisha than a man may think of a hammer in a toolbox, a holstered gun waiting to be fired.) He would make all of them subservient to him, if he could. Zoya back at his right hand, Alina at his left, Genya trailing after him, Nikolai—
Where? The picture doesn't immediately complete, though it does lend itself to the possibility of an early grave. It's hard to say what use Nikolai is here and now, and Alina is right: Nikolai occupies his throne. The saving grace is that no one has divulged that just yet.
"No alliance starts off that way," he muses. "We'll have time, to shape our approach as we please. And we outnumber him. That will make things easier, if it comes to that."
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It has that feeling of something that ought to be familiar to her. Something that must be familiar to him.
"Is this it, then?" She asks, amused rather than cynical. "The political alliance of legend?"
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How differently they've come to it here, their understanding of each other. He can feel the lingering warmth from the wax burns she'd left on him still. The sense memories from the night before come back to him now, sudden awareness as he looks at her, expression softening into a smile.
"I made you a more attractive proposal then," he admits. "There was a ring involved."
As he speaks, he leans forward, seeking to catch her hand up in his own.
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It is an attractive proposal all its own. She won't tell him this. It would give him a power over her that she doesn't want anyone to have, anymore. But if this is what some other Alina had signed up for, then maybe she was starting to see how, and why.
"You're not the first powerful man to tell me we could change the world together." This is a warning of her skepticism, the same skepticism that makes her wonder, privately, what becomes of a political alliance when it no longer has a cause. She wants to trust him, but when Aleksander is dead, what then?
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Change the world? It would be a lie to say Nikolai doesn't have some appetite for it. But Ravka—
There is no greater calling than Ravka, the grasping, drowning, fractured wreck of a country. He has served her since he was twelve.
"There is so much that is broken in our country," he says, quieter, looking at their hands. "I have been seeking ways to repair it since I was a boy."
And now, after all his roundabouts and sideways approaches, he has been saddled with the power to address all these problems plaguing Ravka directly. It is overwhelming. He had stumbled over that, when he'd tried to express that to her, straying into her rooms just to see her turn towards him with a smile and ward off that sense of isolation.
"Alina Starkov," is very fond, his eyes lifting from their hands. "I would be so...incredibly alone in this task if it weren't for you."
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She wants, desperately, to believe that this is different. That Nikolai will not use her as a tool to make the country that he wants. That he wants her, and does not merely want to control her power.
Because he's right, of course. He is terribly alone. She can see it in what he's said already. The loss of his father, his brother, worthless as they were, has assured that. And his mother has always been a vain idiot more than a ruler, sitting by while Pyotr and Vasily let the country dissemble into something weak and atrophied.
She squeezes his hand, reaffirming for him as she had for Aleksander before, "You're not alone."
She is, though. She can see it now. The long life of a grisha, especially one with her power, made more powerful still by the amplifiers she will need to destroy the Fold and Aleksander, to ensure that she is really alone, utterly. It is several lifetimes away, and she still can't help but wonder how the people will look at her when the last otkazat'sya king is in his grave and she still sits in the Grand Palace, alone.
But she smiles at Nikolai. A fluttering thing, determined to comfort the boy who just wants to fill the role given to him. She had fallen down on her job of protecting him when she'd fallen asleep; at least she can do a better job of it now, here.
"But we can't fix it from here." So all of this is very far off. She draws a deep breath, shuttering away those dark feelings, those doubts. "One thing at a time."
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"One thing at a time," he agrees, though Nikolai's perception of one thing is liable to stretch to include all of what happens around them within this boarding house, the village, the woods and the void and the Duchess in her castle. All pieces to draw together to bring them closer to their return home.
There are things he could say here. They catch at the back of his throat, sentiments so close to hand that it would take no thought at all to simply tell her.
Instead, he turns the link of their hands so that he might put a soft kiss to her knuckles. A wordless, stall of a gesture, meant to stand in for things unsaid while Nikolai tells her, "I'll make you a proper proposal. I can owe it to you, along with all the rest I've promised. You might collect on those while I prepare."
A number of promises, as yet unfulfilled. As light as his tone is, the offer is no less sincere for it.
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It does its job, fishing her out of the depths of her own self-pity and pessimism regarding Aleksander's plans and reach. These things are set aside in acknowledgment of the more immediate, pressing issue — their mutual confinement.
She takes her hand back reluctantly, looking past him to the table with a sigh. "I ruined your breakfast."
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So the porridge is cold, and she made off with the cheese and toast. He had enough to break his fast; if he is hungry again in a few hours, he will square with it then.
For the moment, he must relinquish his grip on her hand. Return her smile, with one hand lifting to his heart. Quite the debt indeed. A relatively small stack of favors, when set against what he already intends to give over to her.
"Can I beg your company while I clear the dishes?" is just a stopgap measure against their parting of ways.
He has put certain aspects of their acquaintance into her hands. Given Alina the excuses and power with which to fall back into each other, made clear to her his own willingness. The choice of it, he gives to her, to do with what she will.
But even now, exhaustion held so carefully in check, Nikolai would be content to simply lay down alongside her to sleep properly, make a re-attempt at the most benign of what they attempted last night.
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"You haven't slept," she says when she gathers herself out of that reverie. She'd thought he had when she casually stole from his plate and readied herself to occupy him. But he is still coming clean off the heals of a trauma so unpleasant that he'd seen fit to shield her from it.
She maneuvers past him, taking up the bread plate and the half-stirred porridge and insisting, "Let me take care of these."
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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.
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She should argue more. Offer to come back to them later, once he's asleep, and offer her company in the pursuit of a more worthy task like getting him there. But she too is reluctant to separate from him, for the company makes it easier to stave off the little fragments of misery.
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Maybe he simply wants to be near her. That isn't new, not really. It is only made new when placed in this context, what they have been through together, what they are resolving to do together.
As they set aside the last place, Nikolai catches her hand, his own still damp from the water. Runs his thumb across her knuckles, remembering putting a ring there. It had been heavy, maybe more so for her, a tangible symbol of what they were embarking on together. He doesn't have any equivalent here to offer.
"Since I've already accrued a fair amount of debt, would you grant me one more favor?"
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She hesitates, though, looking down at their hands.
"I'll consider it," she hedges. The hint of her smile doesn't quite tug the corners of her mouth, stays privately in her eyes and the little quirk of one eyebrow.
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The light stroke of his thumb, back and forth across her knuckles, holds his attention for a moment. His gaze lifts back to her face, that minor flex of tension in his expression easing at the traces of amusement he finds there.
"Walk me back to my room? We can start at the front door, if you're still set on playing the gentleman."
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But it's good that he asked, isn't it? She hazards a sideways glance up at him. Her life has been full of unspoken things, little secrets she hadn't admitted to Mal, big secrets that Aleksander and Genya had withheld. It is only Nikolai who has been entirely honest in it all, forthright.
Honestly, it terrifies her.
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(cw: dubcon, risk of pregnancy, magic plan b)
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cw forced restraint, humiliation
cw: body shaming
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cw unplanned pregnancy contemplations
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(cw: refs to dubcon)
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