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Nikolai stood up and swayed in slow motion for a moment before collapsing. Hard, and with a loud thump.
It was almost comical at first when they were able to sustain disbelief. After a moment of silence, everyone rushed towards the fallen king.
“Nikolai?” Zoya asked, dropping to her knees next to him. She didn’t want to examine the sharp pain of panic that she felt. What happened to him? “Nikolai!”
She shook him gently, rolling him to his side with increasing urgency. “Someone get a medik!” she called to the rest of the gathered friends. Pushing his blond hair out of his face with shaking hands, she felt his pulse. For a horrible second, she thought he was dead, but as she felt movement, the world seemed to come spinning back to her.
With a shudder of his entire body, he flinched awake, eyes fluttering right on the edge of open and closed. He was deathly pale and was certainly not fully conscious.
“Nikolai. Can you hear me?” Genya asked, leaning over them.
He coughed weakly, a harsh, hacking sound. His body spasmed again with the cough, energy sapped. “H… hu…” He managed to get out before his limps spasmed uncontrollably, body convulsing.
“Nikolai!”
He took a ragged breath, eyes finally opening wide and worried. “I—” He started, voice rasping and hoarse.
“Shh.” Genya soothed. Zoya wasn’t so sure that was the right way to go. Nikolai was still worryingly pale, lurching up onto his hands and knees suddenly to vomit on the ground, body trembling when he was done. What was wrong with him?
“I should—go—” He mumbled, the words broken and barely coherent. Putting an arm around his back to support him and using the other hand to tip his face up, her fears were confirmed as she met those lovely hazel eyes, glazed over with fever.
“Poison.” Genya confirmed. “We need—”
“Get me a Fabrikator.” Zoya ordered, her voice authoritative and sharp. Queenly, almost. “Now, Genya!”
Her friend nodded and ran out of the room with a single backwards glance at Nikolai. Zoya pulled him up to her, slinging his arm around her back and trying to get him into a standing position. “We just need to go to the couch, Nikolai. That’s it.” She murmured. “Goddammit, Lantsov, if you die on me now—”
He stumbled around, trying and failing to walk himself. That worried her immensely as she deposited him on the low divan, his long legs hanging over the edge.
He lay there limply for a few moments while Zoya glanced to the door. When was Genya going to be back? When she looked back to Nikolai, his entire body lurched forwards if he was about to vomit, but he managed to contain it. The worrying thing was that he didn’t seem strong enough to move his head to do it over the couch. He was weaker than she’d ever seen him, and his eyes were burning with hot shame.
She—as gently and wordlessly as possible—lifted his head off the back of the couch, smoothing his blond hair back as he retched. When he was finally done, shaking and trembling terribly, she laid him back down. “Sorry.” He mouthed, the sound barely a rasp.
She knelt next to him, hand grazing over his forehead. Burning hot, just like she expected. “Nikolai. Talk to me.” She ordered. One shouldn’t give orders to a king, but in this case, it was necessary.
“Zoya,” he coughed quietly, hand twitching slightly. She took it, assuming that was what he wanted. His grip was loose, but there was a shred of relief in his eyes as she ran her thumb over his fingers. “I—hu—help,” he managed, hacking a cough and drawing in a final ragged breath before going silent.
She realized what was happening a moment too late.
Nikolai Lantsov wasn’t breathing.
Zoya thought that someone was screaming—oh wait, it was her, she was screaming—as she grabbed Nikolai’s shoulders, shaking them feverishly. “Someone help!” She yelled, but no one answered. In a moment of frenzied panic, she reached inside of herself, unconsciously calling on the dragon.
Someone help, she asked, save Nikolai.
With a start, she realized she could feel the different particles—almost like zooming in. She knew what to do, drawing the poison out ever so slightly. Once she had gotten a little bit and was completely exhausted, she drew out.
Promptly collapsing backwards, she saw Nikolai’s chest move with a breath before the dark spots overtook her vision and she faded away into the deep sleep of unconsciousness.
She didn’t know how long it was when she heard voices around her and felt hands on her wrists. With a start, she pushed her assailant backwards and stood, quickly realizing that they were in a meeting room, and that the woman she had just pushed back was a terrified-looking Fabrikator.
It all came rushing back to her as she spotted Nikolai, still splayed across the couch and looking pale—his complexion was noticeably more ashen—but better. And he was breathing.
“Did you—”
“What happened?” she asked Genya, who had hurried over at the sight of Zoya’s consciousness.
“I don’t know what you did,” she said in a hushed voice, “but it probably saved Nikolai’s life.”
“Is he—”
She nodded quickly. “He’s going to be ok.”
“Do we know who poisoned him?
“No, but Tamar is working on it. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be able to murder them slowly soon enough,” she said, with the barest hints of a grin, “but really Zoya, what did you do?”
“He stopped breathing,” she said quietly, “he was… so weak… and he was dying.”
Genya paled. “The Fabrikator said that what happened to you happens when a Fabrikator absorbs too much poison when trying to get it out of someone.”
“That’s not a question, technically.”
“Zoya.”
“Yes, I did. I’ll explain how later.” She said curtly, pushing Genya aside to get to the king, who was now surrounded by people.
“Zoya, wait.” She said, pulling on her wrist and turning her around. “Are you in love with Nikolai?”
Her eyes widened. “W—”
“We all know the way he looks at you. It’s obvious. But I always thought… I thought it was one-sided,” Genya said hesitantly, “But now… just let me ask you. Have you fallen in love with the King of Ravka, our very own Nikolai Lantsov?”
Zoya was silent for a long moment. Despite the conversation and noises from the other people in the room, it felt completely silent as she finally whispered, “I might be.”