“Slowly, Genya stood, and silence fell around her. "How old are you, Yuri ?"
"Eighteen, moi soverenyi"
"When i was a year older than you, the Darkling set his mosnters on me, creatures born of the power you venerate so much. They had a taste for human flesh. He had to force them to stop."
"Then he was not so cruel-"
Genya held up a hand, and Nikolai was glad to see Yuri shut is mouth. "The Darkling didn't want me to die. He wante me to live - like this."
"More fool of him,"sais Nikolai quietly, "to let such soldier survive.”
―
Leigh Bardugo,
King of Scars