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Umm.. excuse me??? 😭😭

“If he kills you…” Nikolai’s eyes darkened. “I’ll burn Ravka to ash. It’ll be your funeral pyre - both of you.” He sucked on his teeth and both his brows shot to his hairline. “Maybe I’ll join you, slain on the field of battle and die heroically.”

Chapter 10: I am a world's forgotten boy

Ao3 Link.

Summary:

The morning after, Nikolai and co begin to grapple with the fact that the Lantsov Pretender means to move against them in open combat. The fallout of that takes everyone by surprise, and the stage is set for a proper conflict.

Notes:

This chapter is all nearly 5k words of dialogue and worldbuilding with very little major, plot rending action. However it does end with quite the bang! Song title taken from Search and Destroy by Florence + Machine.

Wordcount: 4,984.

Cw/Tws: Violence towards the end of the chapter; explicit reference to assault and trauma.

Chapter below cut.

Balakirev, the following morning.

______________________________________________________________

Alina woke with a start, her hand reaching for Nikolai’s. His side of the bed was stone cold. Instantly, she was awake properly, the fog of sleeve gone. Her eyes focused in on the sight of his kepi on the rack by the door, and his coat next to it. He hadn’t gone far. Maybe with Dominik?

Cocking her head to one side, Alina heard the muffled noises of men conversing below her, and shook her head. She reached across the bed to the table for Nikolai’s watch, and she regarded it. A few minutes after the dawn bell. Sighing, she rolled out of bed and crossed to the washbasin. Summer at this time of year made for a few true hours of darkness, but with the Darkling’s eclipse, darkness was all there was.

Sighing once more, Alina reached for the sponge and set to washing herself down. She tugged off her soaked shift and reached for a fresh one, then began dressing herself in a clean blouse and skirt. Her army boots went on next, buttoned up tight. Over it went the old olive coat she wore as General of the Second army, though she neglected to button it up. The manor house’s upstairs hall was wide, decked in blue wall paint edged in gaudy gold and a long running carpet of deeper blue. As Alina moved down its expanse, the sound of arguing voices grew louder.

Two white double doors with gold stag-antler handles came into her line of sight. With sharp movements, the guards on each side of the door saluted her and pushed the doors in.

Alina stepped hesitantly from the world of secluded minor nobility to a war room in full swing. Nikolai stood at its center, a map behind his head of the western reaches of East Ravka bordering the Fold. In one hand was a pointer stick, in the other a cup of coffee. Clenched between his ring and pinky finger was a fat telegram - something Nikolai himself had brought to Ravka’s First army to speed up communications. He looked furious.

“Tell me what you mean by the fact Raevsky’s reporting that bastard pretender as having claimed my right to the Ravkan throne is null and void because my mother fucked an ambassador! Saints forbid her bloody husband give her a lick of affection, which he DIDN’T!” Nikolai’s snarl sent a junior telegraph operator fishing about her handkerchief to wipe her streaming eyes.

“Nikolai?” Alina called.

Nikolai’s head snapped to her, and he sighed. “Morning, Moya Sol,”

“Good morning to you too,” Picking up a cup of coffee from a white-faced Isaak, Alina stepped to him, and looked up. She hadn’t even realized he was standing on a chair and still he yelled. “I thought you were supposed to be the calm one,” She noted with a smirk.

“I was calm, until Raevsky’s report came in.” He tossed the telegram at her without looking at her, and sipped more coffee. The fact he was wide awake at just after four bells barely surprised Alina these days. She sipped another mouthful of coffee and snapped her fingers. “Get me a chair.” She growled to a hapless cipher. The woman nodded, carrying over one of the mayor’s wingback velvet chairs. Alina stepped atop it, and surveyed over the heads of telegraph operators, machinery; the flickering gas lamps. She rolled out Raevsky’s report and read it.

Vadik Demidov, the Lantsov Pretender, released an edict today removing Nikolai Lantsov from the right of succession based on letters between Tatiana, Tsarista of Ravka, Duchess of Djerholm, and Magnus Opjer, Head of North Star Shipping Co, and Ambassador to Ravka under the Grimjer Standard, of a romantic nature. He waits for a response.

“Can I kill him?” Alina blurted, handing the telegram back to Nikolai, who dropped it on the desk at his feet. She watched him step effortlessly onto said desk and bend down to examine the incoming message of a young cartographer. The woman pushed around blocks on the massive land map with terrain that Nikolai had rolled out across four desks. He effortlessly maneuvered between boxes of graphite pencils and little flag positions as women with headsets and long sweeping tools moved around him. His years of skating and ballet dancing paid off, and Alina noted with a jolt that he was not only barefoot, but his talons and claws were on full display.

Either everyone was too afraid to say anything, or too tired. Judging by the dark circles under the eyes of the women moving around him, the latter was true. Shadows cloaked Nikolai’s shoulders as he effortlessly danced across the desk, thinking things over.

“Killing him at the hands of the saints would be too…” Nikolai gestured, sucking at his teeth for a word or ten to fulfill what his mind was leagues ahead.

Onerous? She reached through the tether.

Extraordinary. It needs to be a subtle killing.

“We’ll need the wraith.” Alina murmured, folding the telegram. “Only she could do a covert killing with no blood on her hands. Are they back in Ketterdam yet?”

Nikolai shrugged, spinning on one foot. He effortlessly picked up a flag representing the 22nd and moved it a few degrees east, then winked at the annoyed plotter, who crossed herself in shock.

“Appreciate the devotion, love, but putting my beloved 22nd mightily close to the Fold means I’ll be quite the Volcra palate cleanser.” Bowing low, he tipped the woman’s chin up and smirked.

“And do we want that?”

“No, Moi Tsar.” She murmured, eyes wide with the kind of devotion reserved for saints.

He winked again and moved back, grumbling as they rearranged the First and Second regiments to be in line with whatever the Darkling was doing in his surprise movement out of Os Alta. “He’s coming for Balakariev with how many men?” He asked Dominik, who held up a piece of paper with 1,000 written across it.

“Pitiful. That’s the palace guard alone. Did we really secure all of the First Army?” Shaking his head, Nikolai bent over to peer down at his feet, which were currently standing on both branches of the Vy. He sipped his coffee, added a slug of brandy to it, then hummed a scrap from the Threepenny Opera.

“If this gets worse, I’m breaking into Jekyll and Hyde.” He grumbled, taking Dominik’s hand to kiss it. Alina navigated her way across the table to them, and accepted Dominik’s offered headset. Bending down, she heard the familiar beeps of morse-code and grimaced.

“What’s Raevsky saying?” She, Nikolai and Dominik barked in unison. Dominik snorted while Nikolai threw his head back , laughing. Alina swore. The hapless telegrapher held up his notebook. Written in capital Ravkayash was three words:

Pretender Arrives Soon.

“The Saints and their ugly mothers!” Nikolai snarled. He leapt off the table, stormed up to the side table at the end of the room. Slugging back a glass of tea, he slammed his fist into the oaken table and rubbed a hand over his face.

“What am I going to do?” He hissed to Dominik, who fused with his mussed hair. Alina examined his hand and tsked at the bruises. Casting her gaze to Dominik, he sighed. “Go out there and confront him. With the full might of the First Army with you.”

“Damn the saints for giving you the brains of this operation, Vertov,” Nikolai growled, then he sighed, and dropped his head to rest on Dominik’s shoulder. His hand Alina was fussing over entwined with her fingers and she was yanked into a tight hug.

“What, like Wolfe at the Plains of Abraham?” Dominik teased. Nikolai hissed. “Don’t jest. Let me wallow in the fear of losing you.”

“Not a chance.” Alina chimed in, grinning. “He can’t die, and I’m a saint. You’ll be stuck with us a lot longer than you think.”

A ghost of a smile traced Nikolai’s lips, and he fluttered his lashes at Alina. “If things go poorly, will you destroy the Fold regardless?”

“Of course.” She answered immediately. That had been her driving force all through this. Kill the Darkling and the monsters that made him the Black Heretic.

“And I much prefer to go the way of Richard III.” Nikolai smoothed his hair back.

“What, calling for a kingdom for your horse?” Alina teased.

“No, leading a cavalry charge that struck fear into Henry Tudor’s black heart until his death.”

Dominik and Alina exchanged mischievous glances. She shrugged.

“Anyways, no Tsar, bastard or not, is going out to meet the Lantsov Pretender with his tunic open and shirt half-buttoned.” Alina snapped her fingers. “Isaak, get Moi Tsar’s-” She looked at Dominik, who stepped in. “His dress uniform.”

Isaak’s mouth fell open. No one had seen Nikolai in his full dress uniform, not since the night of his birthday party. It was probably still soaked with blood. The color would be ruined. Alina doubted it.

“I’ll meet you in front of the mayor’s house in 20 minutes.” She picked up Nikolai’s half finished glass of tea, watched Dominik frog-march Nikolai out of the war room. She then turned back to regard the plotters, telegraphers and ciphers.

“Get me a map.” She barked. “And a bloody cup of coffee that doesn’t taste like shit.”

___________________________________________________________

Nikolai’s uniform glittered in the torch-light of the flickering fires lit around his steed as he sat in the saddle at full attention. Pure sapphire core-cloth draped down from his neck, and flowed across his broad shoulders. It sat snug at his waist, hemmed in with a belt of black leather and a gold buckle emblazoned with the double eagle. His hair was curled at the edges, and his fingers were hidden under white kid-leather gloves. The front of the tunic was emblazoned with miles of hussar braiding in goldwork, though through Dominik’s clever fingers, the insignia at his shoulder had been reworked to be his fox crowned with his gold and pearl coronet.

Atop his curled hair, rested his officer’s kepi. Thanks to Jesper’s careful fingers, the olive green had bled blue, and the gold double-headed eagle gleamed in the firelight. He locked his reins in tighter, and waited with barely baited breath for the arrival of the man who had wrestled the throne from under him.

Tsar Vadik Demidov. The name burned the flesh of Nikolai’s tongue to say such a sinful set of words. Certainly, an offshoot of his family, this boy was a blonde-haired fop, a boy who’d never tasted the blood of battle or the grit of the trenches under his fingernails. Vladik had been raised in salons and on champagne. Nikolai was going to slice his throat open with his saber and stick Vladik’s head on a pike. He’d let the revolution sweeping across Ravka take the sniveling nobility by storm and not care if they were murdered in their beds.

The procession of palace guards, wearing his father’s powder blue and gold came into the town slowly, heralded and hemmed in by the Darkling’s Oprichniki. Their black and red uniforms melted from the shadows with a disturbing level of sudden clarity. Nikolai’s fingers tensed around his saber. He hungered for his cutlass, or even better, Sturmhond’s pistols. His horse whinnied nervously.

“Attention!” Nikolai’s voice did not crack. It did not dip, or waver. This was a command he’d spoken countless times, and it soothed him now as it did then. Reaching up to his neck, he fiddled with the compass chain around his neck and pressed it to his cracked lips.

He needed the mental fortitude Alina was evidently in possession of, with her being sequestered deep inside the mayor’s house. The Darkling had no idea his beloved Little Saint had returned from the dead. The presses had stopped, and spies of the Darkling were mercilessly clubbed to death or burned violently for treason. Nikolai was inclined to agree with the barbarity, though a return to a civil court under his reign would be a saint’s-forsaken delight. Long buried would be his father’s useless edicts and proclamations. Nikolai would drag Ravka, kicking and screaming, into the modern age.

Adjusting himself in the saddle, he raised a hand and the gas lamps of the town were lit at once, bringing the circle of light out from where he stood, seemingly alone. All at once, the light and heavy cavalry brigades were illuminated. Rifles gleamed, bayonets flashed, and the uniforms of all twenty eight regiments of First Army became at once apparent. Nikolai was pleased to see that Vladik did not bolt. He expected the wolf with its pup-teeth to turn tail at the sight of so many soldiers.

Perhaps cowardice kept him moving forward. Or blind idiocy. He couldn’t call the Fjerdans on side, and West Ravka’s threats of secession were a mere gadfly in Nikolai’s mental map of what to do about Ravka. He examined his pocket watch. Just after ten bells and still darker than proverbial sin.

“Ah, the Little Prince.” The Darkling purred. “What a welcome surprise.”

“General.” Nikolai did not incline his head. Dominik’s gaze sharpened. He wore the full dress of a First Army general, kepi included, and kept his steed on a tight rein. Nikolai’s fingers instinctively reached to stall him. Shielding him from the bullets no doubt loaded into the chambers of the Oprichinik and Darkling’s Oprinchiniki’s rifles.

“I hope defeating you is as easy as it was your mother.” The Darkling growled, his gaze cutting to Dominik, who stilled dead. Nikolai stiffened. Killing his mother? He was just using this to off-balance him, right? He couldn’t have…

“She cried for you, you know? Begged on her hands and knees to spare her little malenchki.”

Nikolai’s throat bobbed with bile. His fingers, clawed and sharp, wanted to rip the General’s throat out. With a smirk painting his face, the Darkling closed his fingers into a fist. All of Nikolai’s work restraining his inner monster went to waste as the beast within him rose up greedily. It was going to kill his inner child once and for all.

BACK! Nikolai screamed helplessly. Go back!

Kolya?! What’s happening?! His inner child cried out, his blonde hair a flash in the darkness. Nikolai whined, an edge of hysteria creeping into his voice. Breaking him here, in front of his soldiers? They’d never trust him again. Nikolai fisted his fingers into his thigh and dug hard enough to draw blood. The stench of it, as always, created a shift within the monster. It hated self flagellation, and amazingly, calmed.

“How are you resisting me?” The Darkling hissed, panic creeping into his voice. “I made you into this!”

“You forgot, Moi Soverenyi,” Nikolai sneered. “ Second sons are well used to the dark. Some of us-” He stared at Vladik’s sickly face with eyes as black as tar, and watched the false king stiffen with fear. “-Like it. I prefer this house guest you inflicted on me more when it’s not about to eat my inner child.”

“Oh, you don’t have a soul.”

“I do.” Nikolai straightened in the saddle. He raised a hand to his mouth, and tugged off his gloves with his black fangs. He spat them into the gutter, and flexed his claws. The light casting his shadow quivered under the sight of his wings emerging from behind him. He flicked a finger out to scratch Dominik’s cheek, and instead lightly traced it, a ghost of a coo slipping from his lips.

“The Apparat was wrong.” He raised a finger and pointed it amongst the motley crowd of guards. It parted to reveal the cassock-clad, sniveling form of the Apparat. The man stiffened in genuine fear and opened his mouth to proclaim him a heretic of the throne. Nikolai leaned forward in the saddle and pressed a finger to his lips.

“Not a word from your holy mouth, Apparat.” He purred. “I’m not much in need of your prayers or words.” He fished around in his pockets and with a grimace, pulled out a rosary chain. “But I think you’re missing these.”

The Apparat’s eyes bulged in their sockets as he set his eyes onto the rosary chain that had bound Nikolai’s wrists for ten years straight, until he’d snapped the chain at sixteen and not looked back. The sins of the Apparat went with him and Dominik to their graves.

The prince is cloaked in sin.

Nikolai smirked, and dangled out the chain. Opening his hand, Dominik watched with wide eyes as Nikolai tossed the chain onto the ground. From here, he could see the blood-stains of holy Lantsov blood marring the beads. The blood of kings had been spilled for worse, but this had been the blood of a boy. He watched Nikolai carefully as he settled back in the saddle. He prayed to any saint listening that the darkness crowded in on Nikolai’s soul would be cleansed from him before he was anointed with the holy oil and crowned Tsar.

But in order to do that, they had to kill Vladik and the Darkling. Dominik looked to Nikolai, whose hand rested on his sabre, and steadied his own shaking hands. Nikolai, gripping the reins tight in his fingers, nodded to Isaak.

Get Alina out, and flee to the Fold. We’ll cut them off here.

Isaak saluted, and slipped into the darkness. The Darkling either didn’t notice or refused to as he rode back and forth on his steed, proclaiming of how he’d be Ravka’s savior. Nikolai rolled his eyes, and made a discreet motion that Dominik didn’t recognize. A line drawn horizontally. It barely even registered in his field of vision, and he shrugged, believing it to be a mischievous tic. He saw through the circle of firelight, Iorek Brynison, corralling the heavy artillery into proper lines.

Just what was Nikolai planning?

“What’re you doing?” He murmured to Nikolai, whose brow rose in query. He shrugged. “Just the men being shifty. They didn’t expect to be brought out in full dress this morning.”

Full Dress.

Dominik’s gaze whipped to the left, and amongst the burning braziers, he spotted the colors of each regiment in full splendor. This wasn’t some simple presentation of arms. The pipers and drummers were ready and waiting for some secretive signal. Nikolai had done something by responding to Vladik’s telegram to get him here.

Isaak appeared at Nikolai’s shoulder mounted on a simple white mare - a west Ravkan steed. He and Nikolai shared a glance and Nikolai clapped the younger man on the shoulder. Dominik could only watch as Nikolai tightened the band of his kepi under his chin, and his free hand moved towards his sword. They were waiting for something to happen, and it unnerved Dominik, but he held himself steady.

Before them, the Darkling continued pacing on his steed. He raised a hand, and his horse stilled. “Where is the Little Saint? You bear her symbol, yet I don’t see her amongst your forces. Isn’t she a general?”

“She is still dead, Moi Soverenyi,” Nikolai replied, reaching to the flank of his horse. He tapped a simple two finger tap that Dominik caught. He hated being left out of whatever Nikolai was planning, and his eyes widened as Tolya brought before the General of Second Army a singed and scarred Kefta of emerald green with fox-fur.

“This was found after the heretical followers of the Apparat burned her body on a pyre in Dva Stolba. It was all they could find of her.”

The Darkling’s throat bobbed, pain flooding his face. He crumpled the expanse of Kefta in his fingers and dipped his head. Nikolai leaned forward in the saddle, a soft grimace painting his face.

Saints, how is he-

Dominik’s eyes widened as the Darkling tore the Kefta’s fabric at the hem and shadows poured off him in waves. The horses startled, shying from the cruel darkness rolling across the square and climbing the walls. If Nikolai hadn’t done this right, they were all about to become volcra or a late breakfast for said marauders. Those shadows congealed, and Dominik’s face whitened as they became Nichevo’ya, but larger. Their insect-like hum became an overwhelming screech of metal on metal noises and they leapt for one regiment - the 14th? - but suddenly, a flash grenade sent a burst of light exploding outwards. In the chaos and the smoke, Dominik distinctly heard the sound of a thud, and caught the eye of a hooded figure scaling down a wall by rope. A small figure clad in a tight cape and pant-set with fabrikated shoes.

The Wraith had counseled mercy in the form of a knife to someone’s neck. But who? He wheeled his gaze, expecting Nikolai’s mouth to be spurting blood. But, as the smoke cleared, Dominik’s jaw dropped. Lying flush across his horse, amidst the bristling blades and rifles of his guards, was Vladik Demidov. A tiny dart protruded from his neck, and before chaos erupted, it tipped from his flesh and fell to the cobblestones with nary a sound.

“Saints!” Nikolai gasped, feigning shock. The Darkling’s head snapped up, and then, pandemonium erupted. The pretender king’s guard rushed to examine the king’s body and the Darkling’s guards raised their rifles. Nikolai tightened the reins in his fingers once more, and pulled out his sabre.

Holding the tip level, he pointed it at the Darkling’s chest, who stared at Nikolai with such unfiltered rage, even the fox-king cringed. “What say you? We were meant to discuss peace under this banner, but you insulted my honor.”

“You killed my king.” The Darkling hissed. “You killed the Little Saint!”

“The King was backed by you. And besides, you’ve not killed my parents.”

Silence reigned as soon as the words left Nikolai’s mouth. Dissent began to erupt shortly after, and Nikolai raised his hand. “In order for the letters to be found, then you would have had to not kill my mother.”

“Oh, yes, I didn’t.” The Darkling clapped his hands and from the shadows, across the expanse of lamp-light, came Tsarina Tatiana, clad in her coral pink and silver gown she always wore to bed. Her silver hair was tussled, and hung limply. Months of sanctuary had softened her face, given her wrinkled hands purpose. He wondered if she’d been gardening.

But, what filled him now, was rage. Rage that his mother had so evidently been coerced into this, she’d not denied it. The Tsar had been a monster, deserved to be put down like some mangy dog, but the Tsarina was supposed to be maternal, kind. Instead, she was vapid and vain, intent on only protecting Vasily. She may have loved him, but Nikolai would always be her earthly sin, her mistake.

Nikolai removed his kepi.

“Madraya.”

“Nikolai!” Tatiana’s lower lip wobbled, and she fell to her knees before his horse. “Please, forgive me!”

“For what exactly? Allowing Genya to be willingly raped by your husband? Denying me of my true parentage until I had to find it myself? Living with your head in the sand for so long that you forgot what true leadership meant?”

Tatiana flinched, scrambled back. Opening and closing her mouth, she gaped up at her son like a petulant child delivered its first blow. “Malenchki!”

“Don’t deny this, mother. It grows tiresome.” Nikolai fiddled with his cuffs. “Admit your sins.”

“I did what I had to do to protect you!”

“Hmm.” Nikolai looked to Dominik, who was apparently wishing to be elsewhere. “Let us see. Protecting me. Shutting me off from the outside world, denying me true affection. Allowing Vasily to poison me at twelve… oh, and of course.” He pointed to the rosary beads resting in the gutter.

“That.”

Tatiana’s whole face turned green at the sight of those beads resting in the gutter.

“Allowing me to be violently…” He rolled the word around in his mouth. “Assaulted. By a man of severe religious power and position.”

“It…” She expelled a breath, her chest heaving. “You never told us.”

Nikolai’s jaw crunched audibly. The joking facade he normally wore when with his mother evaporated. In fact, so did all of his walls. Suddenly, he looked very much like the little boy who had been forced into this horrific situation week after week. He looked no more than six years old.

“I did.” He murmured, his voice the coldest Dominik had ever heard. “I screamed and cried inside my room for hours, and you refused to listen. You said it was penance for my earthly sins. A carryover of my father’s infidelity with you.”

“It was.” Tatiana replied, and then her face whitened as Nikolai dismounted from his steed and came towards her. He moved effortlessly through his guards and soldiers. He was too vulnerable. If an assassin was in the crowd now, he’d be downed without a cry from his lips. Dominik strained in the saddle, Isaak’s fingers fishing for his pistol.

Nikolai raised his hand and cut a glance over his shoulder. Stay your hand.

“Madraya, do you have any idea of the impact of your words?” He murmured, his fingers calmly reaching for his pistol. He opened the barrel and slid a bullet into the chamber. She sobbed weakly and reached for the grotty rosary chain. The toe of his boot stopped her, and he snatched the chain from the gutter.

“I do not make war against women often, but I feel as though this is a most certain case.”

“Have you no love for me!” Tatiana cried. “I am your mother!”

“You sold me out to a boy who has never once wielded a sabre in battle or sat in a place of council!”

“You had the Fjerdan throne well in hand, what with your being a bloody byproduct of my tryst with your gormless father!”

“Magnus Opjer is not gormless. He is a good man, a wonderful husband and father. A part of me wishes I was raised in his household and not yours. Then maybe I could have received better care.” He flipped the barrel back into place and raised the pistol.

“Please, Malenchki,”

“No one ever told you what that word means, Madraya.” He murmured. “It means little ghost.”

Then, he fired.

The bullet was a mercy shoot, an instant kill. He stared down at the corpse of his own mother and raised his eyes to regard the Darkling dead in the face. He threw his pistol away with a clatter of the metal on the cobblestone.

“It’s done. Now, there are no longer any claimants to the Lantsov throne.”

“I’m shocked, Little Prince.” The Darkling snarled. “I vaguely Alina mentioning to me once how you and I were not that different. Now, it seems, she was right.”. Nikolai pulled off his lucky compass and Tolya, who held Alina’s burned kefta still, came over. Without a word between them, Nikolai handed his old friend the compass and Tolya murmured something in Nikolai’s ear.

Nikolai closed his eyes, and nodded, then let Tolya step back.

“So.” He spread his arms wide. “You have it all, Darkling. Kill me, and there remains no pitiful rebellion. This is a trap that the too-clever fox cannot escape any longer. The watch has wound down long enough.”

“How do I know you won’t just come back like some infestation?” The Darkling dismounted from his steed and passed off his reins. The shadows around him bloomed at his feet and Nikolai refused to let his fear show as he saw the Cut form once more in the Darkling’s hands. The infection within his body writhed, thrashing vainly to be free. He pushed it forward, sending it to just under the surface of his skin.

When push came to shove, demon, you always ran. Now is your chance. Nikolai murmured, inwardly searching for the familiar flicker of his inner child. Finding him, he walled his younger self off from this gruesome sight, and awaited his fate.

The cut tore Nikolai’s stomach open along the lines of the first wound, and he groaned, staggering back. But, unknown to anyone else, the corecloth of his uniform had been infused with Alina’s powers. It absorbed the darkness, strengthening the core cloth. However, the wound the Cut still made sent him sprawling into the dirt. He looked up weakly, grasping at his chest, to make eye contact with Dominik, and then he fainted.

In the background Tolya lowered the king’s pulse to a near death-state, and slipped away into the darkness, Tamar with him. Around them, First Army stirred, and then, with a cry of war from Dominik’s lips, fell onto the King’s guard with the fury of demons from the underworld. All around them, Nikolai lay sprawled next to the form of his mother.

Inside him, a little boy rose from a slumber of 16 years and set off on a trek to free the darkness that had polluted his body and to come out of the blasted shell he lived in. As The Darkling beat a hasty retreat with the remnants of his Oprichiniki, his howling pursuers chased him. For he and his Steed ran for one place, where it all began.

The Making at the Heart of the World. But, as he neared it, a blinding white light filled the sky, and the Darkling’s years-long eclipse broke with a shattering finality. Amongst that blast, he saw through the blinding glow, the Fold being crushed under the weight of its own brightness.

__________________________________________________________

The Saints had come to collect their debts, and with interest.

End of Chapter 10, and Act II: The Sunne in Splendour.

_________________________________________________________

#Nikolai (formerly King of Ravka - now Drama Queen of Ravka)#i love when men show their affection in presence of others #Nikolina #Alina Starkov #nikolai lantsov #fanfiction

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lordbettany · 3 days

Text

9: The Cost of the Crown

(Oh yeah, there's a reason for THIS gif. Totally.) @lordbettany - I almost want (need) to see this gifset on your dash for the sole sake of your unhinged comments.

Ao3 link

Summary: Eight weeks of travel and troop movements have passed. Finally after over two years, Alina and Nikolai reunite. With that reunion comes tension, a lot of pent up emotion and some very devious plans to get a certain saint into a particular king's bed.

TWs: None, except implied smut in the end, and a church gets blown up (though no one graphically killed).

Chapter below the cut.

The Vy, a week’s ride from Os Alta.

8 weeks later.

Alina’s fingers found purchase on the spy-glass clutched in her fingers. She rode side-saddle on a calm west-Ravkan mare of the fairest white, her kefta’s skirts tumbling down her legs in a heap of green satin and fox-fur. Her kefta’s top had been closed at the throat and buttoned up against the freezing chill. Her white hair was done up in a braided chignon. Woven through it were strands of gold and green ribbon. She wore a crown of hammered gold fashioned in the style of Morozova’s antlers. A gift for Nikolai to undo when he reached her.

At her side, Olga checked her rifle. The line down her cheek had left a scar, holy anointed. She dipped her head in the presence of the Sankta. Alina’s gloved finger touched her cheek, and she raised a brow.

“News?”

“They are headed southwards, Moya Tsaritsa.” Olga murmured. Soon, the banners of the double-eagle and fox in splendour would paint the horizon in swathes of babe’s blue and emerald green. With them, at their helm, would be the true king. An open rebellion against the Lantsov pretender who’d been crowned by the Apparat had begun. Starting originally in the eastern reaches, past Os Alta, the peasantry had thrown down their plows and picked up their scythes. They prayed to their saints, begging for an end to the hunger that sickened their stomachs; robbed their cradles and meager coffers. It had been against the new king’s grain quotas, impossible to achieve even in times of peace, and the mood had become a tangible one of rage. When the militia was brought in to quell the uprising, the people lashed out, taking over the grain stores and the city’s Duma, press-house and inn. From there, they used the printing press of the press-house and a learned nobleman held at musket-point, to write an edict of the uprising. It demanded that Nikolai Lantsov, the one true Ravkan king, end centuries of Serfdom, remove the threats of Shu Han and Fjerda, and most amazingly, overturn the choke-hold the nobility had on the land.

Nikolai himself had written these peasants, and while Vasily or his father would have sent more men to crush the uprising - Nikolai acknowledged and allowed it to continue. He congratulated the peasantry on fighting the corruption of their pretender king, and asked them to keep him in their prayers.

Murmurs of the Fox-Saint, the King of Scars, had swept the country already. From inn to ale-house and banyan, the murmurs of King Nikolai returning had swallowed Ravka whole. The Fox Saint and the Sun Saint were said to join together at the center of the Vy and relieve Ravka of the Darkling and Lantsov Pretender. Unto that, their reign would be one of peace and prosperity. Already, a new design of a royal banner was beginning to spread through the villages and smaller towns - an emerald green backing of a red fox under a sunburst. The fox wore a crown. Some of the pieces added the firebird above the sunburst, wings aloft in a baptism of fire that would cleanse the land and air.

Alina herself had created that idea. The new maps she was making as part of her saintly progress were tactical, a way of observing the Darkling’s weak points. As they moved along the Vy, Alina was starkly reminded of how it had been a scant 4 years ago, when she was merely 16. She had been a girl then, unaccustomed to the mantle of Sainthood. The Apparat and White cathedral had marked her 17th name-day with the mantle being a crushing one. Then, her 2 year exile and slumber had forced her to become a woman. Her childishness of girlhood burned in the fire she swore to her followers had purged her of sin, and whitened her hair for eternity. In truth, her hair was going to stay white perhaps centuries more.

She adjusted the reins of her mare, pulled close to Tamar as the procession began again. The Kefta Alina wore today, while green, would soon be changed to gold as they moved closer to the lands around Os Alta. The Duchy of Udova had sent their to-be Duchess a cape of ermine-fur and purple velvet, which she knew was safely packed into a trunk. The traditional offerings of bread and salt had passed her lips many a time as they’d picked their way north. While old maps of Ravka noted the Vy as being from Kiribirsk to Os Alta, a second wing of the Vy, known as the Yuzhnyy, ran from Dva Stolba to Os Alta, passing Keramzin as the major source of trade and travel for the southern expanse of Ravka.

The crossroads of the two Vy’s was directly west of Os Alta by a good thirty miles. Balakariev loomed before the procession, and Alina raised her hand. They halted, and Alina looked over her shoulder to regard the followers. Entire villages had vacated to follow their savior, and Alina tilted her head to the side to count the number of women, children, and older men. Normally, all of them wouldn’t be the kind to fight a war against the Darkling, but they’d followed her. The Apparat’s claws were in the hand of the Lantsov Pretender. His Soldat sol were hers to command. Indeed, Alina noted their brown robes emblazoned with her sunburst. She nodded to them, drew a line with her pinky finger.

Be covert. Be on the outlook for spies.

The weeks of training, a scant eight, had turned them from a poor force to a crack fighting team that rivaled any of the top First Army regiments. The 22nd would be their only superior. Alina couldn’t wait to show them off to Nikolai. In those eight weeks, she and her soldiers had developed a sign language of finger symbols and codes that showed who was foe or friend. Her raised hand to pause the procession had in of itself been a symbol - keep the flock together. Amongst her followers, plain-clothes Soldats were herding the faithful into a tighter group.

Their leader, Vladim Ozwal reined in his steed and bowed his head, his hand clenched to his chest.

“Sankta, What do you require?”

“Look out for spies. Disperse some of your men to the town to ensure there are no threats. Send a rider to-” Alina removed her crown and melted one of the antler fronds off it. She tied the bit’s slender tip off with a green hair-ribbon and handed it to Vladim. “-to give this to the Fox-Saint and tell him that I will be awaiting him in the inn’s bed-room.”

Vladim bowed his head, splayed his fingers out and wheeled his horse. Her commands were barked out without a word spoken. The sign-language provided the perfect covert operative in case the Darkling’s spies had slipped amongst her faithful. Alina let a smile touch her lips, and urged her horse forward.

The procession wound its way down the hill and spilled into the town. Alina, reining in her horse, accepted glasses of tea, thick slices black bread and salt. The flour stores were starkly low, but someone had still offered up the loaf to feed her. Another, sadder smile reached her face. She let the sunlight fill the town in thanks, and swung off her horse. Her boots hit the cobblestones with a welcome thud and she reached for Olga’s arm. Even though she was at full strength, her legs wobbled a little.

“Yes, Sankta?”

“Get me the mayor.”

Olga nodded, and disappeared into the crowd. The town square of Balakariev was war torn and attempting to present as anything but. It succeeded remarkably. Scrappy blue flags painted with crude gold suns waved from the windows, and the double-headed eagle flapped overhead in the town square. The mayor, a major civil servant of Nikolai’s father’s generation came over with Olga on his arm. The two of them were markedly similar, and Olga bowed deeply.

“My grandfather, Mayor Ivan Alexandrevich of Balakariev is delighted to offer you the use of his town, Sankta Sol.” Olga spoke for her elder, and he pinched her thin cheek, chuckling. “Indeed, Sankta,” He bowed deeply, and spread his arms. “I wish for you to take my home. We have many rooms-”

Alina knew refusing an offer would be sin, but she held up her hand before the mayor could worsen the bulging vein in his temple. “Your offer is most appreciated, good sir, However might I suggest you offer that room to his majesty Prince Nikolai and his General of First Army, Dominik Vertov? I live amongst my flock.” Alina’s voice softened and she folded her hands behind her back. “I am not one much suited for living amongst four walls these days, however-” She needed to offer an olive branch.

“I would be more than happy to dine with you and your esteemed family, sir.”

Ivan’s eyes widened in joy and he kissed Alina’s hand profusely. She sighed inwardly and Olga giggled, mouthing; he’s old fashioned, forgive him, Moya Sankta.

She smiled, and waved her free hand. Once her other hand was free of Ivan’s lips - which reminded her faintly of Vasily’s - Alina found herself swept into a whirlwind tour of the town. As she passed houses, market-squares and fountains, people stopped in their work and fell to their knees. Alina regarded them all coolly and let the light from a passing lantern flare in a sunburst for a moment - a sign of good fortune.

It was as they were walking amongst the town’s outskirts that Alina’s eyes settled on the town’s church and the line of homeless flowing out from the door. She gathered her skirts, and moved closer to the Mayor.

“Are there nuns here?”

“Indeed, Sankta. Mainly followers of the Order of Sankta Anastasia.”

Alina nodded. “And what do they line up for?”

“Pottage and tea, Sankta,” Olga’s fingers edged to her pistol. If there was anywhere for the Darkling’s spies, in the former sniper’s eyes, it was here. Alina shot her a glare. Not Here. The hand stilled, and moved back to its place at Olga’s belt.

“May I be allowed to see them? To offer blessings?”

The mayor’s eyes widened. “Y-you would?”

“Is it not good faith to give unto those who are suffering?” Alina asked, quoting from the Istorii Sankt’ya.

The Mayor’s eyes almost bulged out of his head as Alina swept off in a trail of skirts, dust, and the smell of unwashed bodies. Weeks amongst her followers, who while suffering from the ruins of starvation, still possessed homes and incomes, no matter how pitiful. These people were devoid of anything. She came up to the simple wooden doors and knocked on them. Gasps went up from the congregation.

“Is there a reason this isn’t open?” She asked a woman waiting in the queue who held a babe to her chest. The little thing was hollow-eyed with hunger, and the woman wasn’t much older than her twenty years.

“The Head Sister says they have no pottage to give.”

“Nonsense.” Alina scoffed, refusing to think clearly. She went to rap her fist against the door again, and then her head twisted back as a bugle call rang through the air. The roar of hoofbeats was growing louder with every passing moment, and she stepped down the stairs of the church in shock as the full swell of First Army’s 28 regiments - cavalry and infantry - streamed into the town. At their head was Nikolai, his kepi was bent a little, the uniform he wore covered in smuts from riding hard for evident weeks. He swiveled in the saddle and dismounted from his steed with the speed of a seasoned soldier.

He was running to her. Alina’s heart stuttered in her chest and she tore up the street to him, not caring for the dust or how her hair looked or her skirts. She threw her arms wide, and ran straight into Nikolai’s waiting grasp. The crushing feeling of the collision with him knocked the air from her lungs, and she gasped in hysteria as he spun her around.

“Alina!” He cried. “We didn’t see your banners! I thought you were still back at Keramzin!” He gasped.

“We did a lot of hard travel over the past weeks.” Alina breathed.

Tears were pouring down her cheeks, and she cupped his face in her hands. She smiled, feeling the ghost of stubble against her palm. He’d not been shaving. The exhaustion and burned skin of his face gave her an estimate of the amount of land and time he’d covered from Chernast to Balakariev. Judging by the regiments he’d gathered, he’d amassed quite a mass of men and munitions. There was another bugle blast, and the artillery surged into the town. At the head of the crush of soldiers was Dominik, yelling orders to men and women. Isaak was at his side, snapping at the non-coms to get the lower ranks into file and dig latrines for the massive tent-city that was about to come into existence.

She watched Ivan and Olga head back to the town square to welcome the First Army to their humble town, and she turned her gaze back to the waiting crowd. Nikolai looked up, and his eyes widened at the gathered group. He sniffed, noted the closed blue doors of the church and fished in his pocket for his pocket-watch. Flipping it open, he noted the time - a little after the noon bell.

“Why’re they not open? It’s вторник.”

“Apparently the head sister has no pottage to give.”

Nikolai scoffed. “Let’s see about that.” He slipped his arm through Alina’s and the two of them moved back to the church. Knocking on the massive door, silence emanated back. He made a face. “Not even a priest. Hmm.”

His fingers shifted through his pockets and he pulled out a pair of lockpicks. Bending over, he began to pick the lock while the waiting crowd shifted from foot to foot and fidget. They were evidently used to such depravity as waiting with the patience of divinity. This was evidently not something remiss to them.

With a satisfying click, the lock gave and Nikolai pushed the doors open. He stepped in, and something under-foot twinged. He stopped cold, and held up his hand.

“Tripwire.”

Alina’s eyes widened as Nikolai dropped to his knees and blindly touched the wire in front of him. With the slightest touch of his finger, he felt the tension in the wire and grimaced.

“Get them into the square.” He could feel the whole church under him being boobytrapped with enough fabrikator-explosive to level the church. He rose to his foot, and was almost free of the church’s doors when one of the congregants closest to him leaped forward. Nikolai moved too slow to catch the man’s fall, and both fell to the ground, right on the wire.

Alina screamed as the explosion rippled outward. What she felt next was the feeling of being lifted off her feet and thrown into the air. Looking down, she saw black wings emerging from Nikolai’s back and the sight of the Merzost flowing over his wounded skin to heal the tissue.

She flew backwards, threw a glass-plated window, and the whole world spiraled into darkness.

When Alina came to, she found herself lying on a cot in what was certainly the mayor’s wife’s bedchamber. She coughed, the stench of plaster and crud in her lungs. She hacked, wheezed, and struggled upright. Steady hands pushed her down, and she fought back wildly, clawing at the air.

“Calm down! Alina, it’s me!”

Alina’s eyes flew open properly and she settled on Nikolai’s hands on her shoulders. She stopped fighting and stared up at him in shock. Her ears were ringing, blood dripped from her nose. She sneezed, and then her stomach roiled.

“Here.” Nikolai shoved a china basin under her chin and she expelled her stomach contents, all while he pulled back her hair. “Shh. it’ll be alright.” His wings were still looming out from behind his back. She wondered if they were a permanent fixture.

“T-the tripwire?” She wheezed. Nikolai sighed.

“A booby trap. I don’t think whoever did it accounted for the unhoused needing their food-stores of the day.” He noted her wide eyes and rushed to soothe her. “We’ve fed them and made sure they have space in the camp to be tended to and live in. No one died.”

“Except for the man who pushed you onto the wire.” Alina’s voice dropped. She wanted to maim the man, to blind him with her holy light and make him live as an example of what it meant to harm the man she loved.

“He was desperate, Alina.” Nikolai murmured. “I believe he merely panicked.”

“Or he tried to kill you.” She spat.

“That is for the saints to determine, not us.” He murmured against her hair. She snorted, and growled;

“I am a saint. I say he meant to kill you.”

“If it soothes you, no one else was hurt. The explosion was a foolish, home-made attempt. I don’t even know if they meant to kill us or anyone. It explains the lack of a priest and nuns. That is unusual. Maybe they retreated to the nunnery for the summer.”

“And left those people to starve?” She whispered.

“People are unkind.” He examined the disaster of her braided coiffure and sighed. Reaching over, he grabbed her brush and began to run the bristles through the silvery strands. The ribbons were carefully unwound and removed, and as he ran the brush through her curls, Alina realized no one since Genya had done her hair. She’d stuck it in a braid during her exiles and in hiding, and now, she was here, in the mayor of Balakariev’s wife’s bedroom, getting her hair brushed by Nikolai Lantsov.

Her stomach churned and she groaned.

“Tell me it was something I ate.”

“Not sure on that.” He reached for a silver plate and held up an apple slice. “Here. this’ll help settle your stomach.”

“How? It’s Summer.”

“A little help from the Little Palace greenhouses.”

Alina breathed.

“The Darkling rules over the Little Palace.”

“He’s neglectful of one of the tenets of building relations with Otkazat’kya. Those in positions even as lowly as gardeners appreciate basic respect and decency. I’ve known the gardeners of both palaces since I could walk.” He slipped the slice between her open lips. She bit down and the tart sweetness caused tears to bud in her eyes.

“Have your soldiers ravaged the town’s stores?” She blinked at him. He rolled his eyes. “I am but a man, Alina. Not even I as king can cease a marauding army from painting the town red.”

She laughed and then groaned again.

“No more jokes, you ass.”

He snickered, and pressed a kiss to her temple. “I thought Grisha don’t get sick.”

“We don’t, but getting thrown through a window does leave more wounds than let on.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for the next time I think of ways to dispose of my enemies.”

“Your most powerful, most dangerous enemies,”

He winked, and traced a line down her cheek. “Mmm.” A dangerous glint entered his eyes and she sighed fondly. Fisting her fingers in his hair, she set the basin aside, and dragged him down into a deep kiss.

His tongue snuck out, pleading entrance, and she let him in without a moment’s hesitation. They’d slept together before this, starting from that night in Os Alta after he’d announced their engagement. It had been a hot night filled with sweaty sheets and sinful words that would burn lesser couples.

This, however, was different. The kisses from Nikolai’s lips were hungrier, desperate. The monster within him was keening for her light, unafraid of it. She pressed her hand to his chest, feeling the flex of muscle under her palm, and grinned.

“Mind taking that shirt off?”

“Only if I get to-” His lip brushed her earlobe and murmured; “Undress you.”

“Do the wings stay present?”

“Oh, yes. And the claws.” He tore off his gloves with his teeth and she gasped at the sight of his talons, imagining those onyx shards in her thighs.

“Bring it on, Moi Tsarsevich.” She purred, dragging him down with her. He hissed, his inky fangs finding purchase in the tender flesh of her neck. He sucked at the skin, leaving a shining, wet and reddened hickey.

“That’s Moi Tsar, Sankta.” He growled. “And if you’re not good, I’ll have you begging for me to break you in half.”

“Oh, will you?” Alina teased, slipping a hand under his shirt, watching his eyes darken with that primal hunger. “Remind me, what did you say to me after my awakening?” She purred.

“‘I’ll not let you from my bed, even if you threaten to burn me to a pile of ash.’” Nikolai quoted, nipping her ear-tip with his teeth.

“And are we staying true to that?” She examined the time on his pocket watch. “Or are you going to at least let me perform my services to my flock?”

Nikolai growled. “I much prefer your services here.”

Alina rolled her eyes and stroked his cheek.

“Then, you might want to get on your knees, Nikolasha.” Her grin turned devilish.

“And start praying to your glorious Sankta to let you confess.”

The look he gave her was so hungry, so wanting, that Alina purred and shoved him back into the bed. To any listening maid or soldier, the noise the two made would send even the heartiest souls scampering for their prayer books, ears burning. The pent-up wanting of two years of no intimacy (they’d never figured out how to do it through the tether even while awake), made them into wild beasts that raked clawed hands across one another’s flesh and their releases to be violent, sweat-soaked and filled with the guttural cries of two people so deeply hungry for the other that the world and heavens would buckle under them.

As Alina snuggled into Nikolai’s arms, he kissed her soft hair and idly braided it under his fingers. At long last, the monster within him settled, and he splayed his wings out to cocoon them both in its inky embrace. She sleepily pressed her ring-clad hand to his chest and she nuzzled into his pec, murmuring something.

“What was that?” He yawned sleepily.

“I love you.”

Nikolai’s fingers stilled in braiding her hair, and a smile split his face in two.

“You know, you’ve never said that to me once.”

She reached for a pillow to hit him with, but the wing encircling her trapped her movements. He chuckled at her glare. “Don’t think of burning me. Not after that sinful tongue of mine-”

Alina buried her face in her hands and groaned. “There’s people listening!”

“Let them. You deserve to be worshiped.” He winked at her angry look and ran a thumb down her cheek. “And, you know you loved it.”

His lips pressed feathery kisses to the tip of her nose, her eyelids and lips in quick succession, like tiny star bursts on the canvas of her face. She giggled, and snuggled closer to him. “Don’t…” she yawned. “Let go of me.”

“No such chance, Moya Sol.”

She smiled, and threw an arm over his stomach, then let out a loud snore and nestled closer. Nikolai stifled a laugh and rolled onto his side, bringing her closer to him so they could spoon. He kissed her neck and nestled his face into the crook of it.

They both slept easy and for a long, long time. When they woke, a whole day had passed. With their rising, came plans to formulate an attack against the Darkling. However, these were not the half-baked plans of Nikolai and Alina in the attack on the Grand Palace 4 summers ago, but a plan that would work without fail, having no gaps for which the Darkling to poke his fingers into.

It would be perfect, it would work, and no more casualties than the ones naming towns from Os Alta to the Fold would be added. No more men would be cut down by the Volcra, no more women and children made widows and fatherless.

The Sun Saint had her fox, and the Fox had his queen once more with him. All was right in the world, and all would be so. Even if things went poorly - which they would not - all would be well, and the hell of the Darkling’s rule would end not with a whimper, but a bang.

They would meet him where all of it began - at the Making of the Heart of the World, and from there, send the bastard son of a bitch back to where he truly belonged - hell. And with him would go all of his monstrous kith and kin.

End of chapter 9.

#if he saw Alina's banners he'd run even faster 🤣🤣#my royal slut #Nikolina #shadow and bone au #grishaverse au #shadow and bone #nikolai lantsov #dominik vertov #alina starkov #almost smut #implied smut #nikolai and Alina do fun stuff together

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