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“You are perfect, Hanne. That your father can’t value your strength speaks only to his weakness.”
He was afraid he’d be found out. He was afraid he’d make the king look like a fool. He was afraid he’d send the Ravkan economy into a tailspin just by scratching his nose wrong.
I am Nikolai Lantsov. I have no right to my name. Pretender, howled the dark voice. I am Nikolai Lantsov. I have no right to my crown. But each day he might endeavor to earn it. If he dared continue on with this wound in his heart. If he dared to be the man he was instead of praying to return to the man he’d once been.
“Stop punishing yourself for being someone with a heart. You cannot protect yourself from suffering. To live is to grieve. You are not protecting yourself by shutting yourself off from the world. You are limiting yourself, just as you did with your training.”
“Zoya of the lost city. Zoya of the garden. Zoya bleeding in the snow. You are strong enough to survive the fall.”
Zoya had loved him with all the greedy, worshipful need in her girlish heart. She had believed he prized her, that he cared for her. She would have done anything for him, fought and died for him. And he had known that. He had cultivated it as he had cultivated his own mystery, as he had nurtured Alina Starkov’s loneliness and Genya’s desire to belong. He used us all, just as he is using Elizaveta now. And I let it happen.
“Maybe they dressed up a scarecrow and put your crown on its head,” said Zoya. “I should adopt that strategy at council meetings.”
To think that someone could take his place so easily, well—a lesser man might have found it humbling. And yet his mind couldn’t help but spool out the possibilities. He could have this actor sit through state dinners and the openings of orphanages and concert halls. Nikolai could be in two places at once.
They would build a new world together. But first they had to burn the old one down.
Zoya knew there would be no mercy from the Starless Saint. The Darkling was not in the business of answering prayers.
“So many of my old friends, gathered in one place,” said the Darkling from the mouth of a loyal, gullible boy, another fool who had loved him. “It’s good to be home.”
