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Zoya’s nights had been much quieter since the king’s wedding. Nikolai still had to chained up for fear of the monster but now Tolya and Tamar handled it. People had assumed that Zoya’s late night and early morning visits to Nikolai’s chambers meant they were having an affair, which obviously wouldn’t fly now that Nikolai was married. The marriage had helped their relationship with Shu Han, but that was different than saying rumors of the king continuing a long standing affair within weeks of his wedding would be okay.
So Zoya had her nights and mornings to herself, and she tried to pretend she was happy about it. In all actuality she missed the conversations she and Nikolai had had at night before she locked him in, and she missed the sleepy mornings when Nikolai blinked up groggily up at her while she put the chains away. She missed having breakfast with him and planning with him and generally having more to do than lay in her bed, stare at the ceiling and contemplate just how messed up the world had become.
She hadn’t been really asleep when someone started pounding on the door to her chambers. She was on her feet in an instant and hauling on a robe before running to the door and pulling it open. “What?”
A terrified young guard--perhaps the one who had replaced Isaak--was standing outside. “Commander,” he said. “You need to come now. The king and queen-”
Zoya’s stomach clenched. Nikolai had been spending the night with Ehri. Immediately Zoya began running through the possible things which could have gone wrong. Maybe there had been an assassination attempt. Maybe Nikolai had been wrong when he’d said Ehri wasn’t going to hurt him. Maybe they’d just gotten in a screaming fight. Hopefully they’d just gotten in a screaming fight.
It took her a moment to realize that the guard had not gone on. “Well?” she demanded. “What happened?”
The boy looked terrified at having the Commander of the Second Army glaring at him. “I-I-I don’t know,” he stammered. “Captain Kir-Bataar just told me to get you and not tell anyone.”
“Alright, thank you,” Zoya was already out of her room and closing the door. “Stay here. Do not speak to anyone. If you do I will know.” and then she was running.
She stayed on the ground the whole way to Ehri’s bedchambers. She could have flown and halved the time, but she was trying to keep her new powers on the downlow for as long as possible. They had enough problems without someone accusing her of being an abomination.
By the time she reached the hall where Ehri’s chambers were, the guards were milling around looking terrified and confused. They stared at her like she’d grown a second head. Too late she realized she was still in her silken nightgown with her robe open over the top and her hair loose. “What are you looking at?” she snapped. “Get back to your posts. Say nothing to anyone until you are debriefed!” She desperately wanted to ask for a report, but if the guard who had been sent to her knew nothing she figured these probably didn’t either. It was best to just look like she knew exactly what was going on and have Tamar and Tolya fill her in.
She let herself into Ehri’s chambers. She was braced for the worst, but thankfully there was no blood splattered all over the room. The first person she saw was Ehri, standing flat against the wall. Ravka’s new queen was wrapped in a robe, her hair was wild and her eyes were the size of dinner plates. She looked like a person who had just witnessed something terrifying, impossible and world-changing but hadn’t had the chance to figure out just what it was yet.
Zoya closed the door behind her and took in the rest of the room. Tolya and Tamar were standing on the far side of the room over an ominous and far-too-familiar lump on the floor. Nikolai. The monster. However you wanted to think of it. The creature was still and silent in Heartrender-induced sleep. One of its wings stretched across the floor as if reaching for Zoya.
“What happened?” she asked, though she already knew. She headed across the room towards the twins and the silent, still form of the monster. Someone had smashed a lamp and there was glass all over the floor. She stepped carefully, wishing she’d thought to put on boots.
“He must have fallen asleep,” Tamar said. Her hands were held up in front of her in readiness. She and Tolya were both tense as wires about to snap. “And this happened. Luckily Ehri woke up before the transformation finished--she said something hit her, maybe a wing or something. She smashed him upside the head with a lamp and screamed for us. None of the other guards saw him.”
Zoya looked over her shoulder at Ehri who was watching with fear but obvious interest. “Can you go wait in your solar, Your Grace?” Zoya asked, infusing as much respect and iron into her voice as possible. “Take some guards. We’ll be there to explain everything to you once it’s safe.”
Ehri stared at her, for a moment Zoya didn’t thought she was going to argue, then she said, “Alright.”
“Good,” Zoya said, forgetting herself. The queen began to leave, but Zoya called after her, “Ehri.”
“What?” she asked, turning around. She lifted her chin, but it was obvious she wanted to get out of the room.
“Now that you’ve seen this we have no choice but to tell you some very important secrets,” Zoya said. “Please, prove that we can trust you and say nothing to anyone until we have a chance to talk to you.”
“Fine,” Ehri said. Her gaze skittered to the monster and then back to Zoya’s face. “You can trust me.” and she left.
Zoya stepped carefully over monster’s outstretched wing and crouched down by it’s head. The creature was drooling in sleep, blood from a head wound trickling down it’s face. Zoya gently pushed some of the hair aside to inspect the wound. Ehri had gotten him pretty good. The monster shifted and grunted. Tamar and Tolya both gestured and sent the creature plunging back into sleep.
“That keeps happening,” Tamar said. “The creature is stronger than it used to be. Way stronger.”
“How is that possible?” Zoya said though she already knew the answer. “He hasn’t transformed since the Shadow Fold.”
“Sheer force of will,” Tolya said, running a hand through his hair. “I want to kick either him or myself. He hasn’t been sleeping particularly well, if at all. I thought it was stress, but maybe this has something to do with it.” He waved his free hand at the monster. Zoya didn’t think she’d ever seen him so agitated. “I knew he was exhausted yesterday, but he said he’d be fine and like an idiot I believed him.”
“It’s fine,” Tamar put a hand on his arm. “It was always going to happen eventually. No one’s even dead: not even any livestock.”
“If this is going to start happening again, we have no idea how to fix it, do we?” Tolya asked, ignoring his sister and looking straight at Zoya. “The monk’s promises were the only lead we had; now that that’s gone there’s nothing.”
“Well there is our special friend that we’re housing the dungeons,” Zoya said.
“That’s never going to work,” Tolya snapped. He wasn’t wrong; they probably had a better chance of asking the monster nicely to leave Nikolai alone and it actually listening than they did of the Darkling agreeing to help them, but he was the only lead they had. Unfortunately, he knew that and was going out of his way to be as unhelpful as possible.
“As much as I hate to admit, Tolya’s right,” Tamar said. “We’re probably going to have to start planning for the worst case scenario,” she didn’t say “which is that we’ll have to kill Nikolai to stop the monster” but they all heard it anyway. “He has no heir and the Lantsov succession has never been murkier. Who inherits if something happens to Nikolai? Ehri? Alexander III again? One of the myriad people claiming to be Vasily’s bastard who aren’t lying? He needs to declare an heir, Zoya, and he needs to do it now.”
Zoya thought of a night in the Fold, surrounded by the strange castle. “It think he already has,” she said quietly.
“What do you mean?” Tolya asked.
“When we were in the Fold,” Zoya said slowly, choosing her words very carefully. “Nikolai showed me a document he’d written. It named me protector of Ravka and commander of both the First and Second Armies.”
Tolya’s jaw dropped and Tamar swore.
“I told him it was ridiculous,” Zoya said quickly. “And I’ve been trying to convince him to tear the order up, but he just changes the subject whenever I bring it up.”
“Why didn’t he just marry you then?” Tamar snapped. “We all that’s what both of you really want. If he’s going to give you the power to be queen in everything but name, why not just make it official and damn the consequences!”
“That couldn’t happen,” Zoya said, ignoring the tightness in her chest that confirmed that Tamar was right about what she and marrying Nikolai was what Zoya really wanted. “A Grisha queen? The nobles wouldn’t stand for it. The country would fall into turmoil.”
“That’s already what’s going to happen!” Tamar sounded frantic.
“Actually, Tamar, this might actually help us,” Tolya said. “Nikolai’s talked about Vasily Lantsov’s oldest bastard before. Apparently the boy is lazier and stupider than his father ever was. If Nikolai declares the kid his heir, Zoya could act as regent as first and then pull strings in the background when he comes of age. It would work.”
“You really want to make me the queen of Ravka?” Zoya asked.
“Have you been listening to this conversation, Zoya?” Tolya asked. “You’re already the queen of Ravka in all but name.”
“He actually might be right about this,” Tamar pinched the bridge of her nose. “You probably have more power than Ehri does right now. So much power, actually, that it’s probably a good thing you and Nikolai agree on everything or we’d be in trouble.”
“No one knows about it,” Zoya said. “So it’s worthless.”
“Then it needs to become official, like, tomorrow,” Tamar said. “The people need to have a chance to get used to this in case…” she still couldn’t say it. “Just in case.”
Zoya looked from the twins to the unconscious body of the monster. She half wished Nikolai would change back into himself and wake up, but she knew that he was more likely to side with the twins than with her in this instance. She was surrounded and outnumbered.
“Fine,” she said. “We’ll do this your way.”