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LIANNA KNEW NINA, was familiar with all of the girl's masks and truths she chose to leave unsaid. There had been a time when she knew the girl better than anyone else. Lianna knew everything about Nina's childhood as an orphan; about her beginnings in the Little Palace; about her dreams of saving the countries, ambitions so enormous for someone like her, brought up on hunger and poverty. She knew.
And then she had left Nina behind, and now there was so much of her that was foreign. It was still Nina, that Lianna was sure of – she could recognize the girl she used to know by her laugh and the sense of easiness she brought into a room. But there was more to her now, so much trauma and greatness Lianna hadn't a clue about. No matter their past, it was possible she would never truly know the girl again.
But after all this time, even if the world would turn in on itself and the stars burned out, Lianna knew Nina would never be short of persistent.
"What will I see when I get to the Ice Court?" Nina yelled at Matthias, the barbarian quivering before her like a young dog.
Lianna hated him. She could not stand the sight of Matthias Helvar.
"You're frightened," Matthias said to Nina as the rest of them came to a stop a few meters away.
"Yes," Nina said. "Tell me. I need to know. Torture chambers? A pyre blazing from a rooftop?"
"They don't use pyres at the Court any more." Matthias seemed to think it was truly a valid response. Lianna wish she could get away with killing him right then and there.
"Then what? Drawing and quartering? Firing squads? Does the Royal Palace have a view of the gallows?"
"I've had enough of your judgements, Nina. This has to stop."
"He's right. You can't go on this way," Jesper said from beside Lianna.
"How dare you say that?" It was cruel to hear such words from Matthias. From Jesper, they were unbearable. "You... You have no god damn clue what our people have gone through. They murder us, they hunt us for sport and you stand there and tell that scum he's the right to silence Nina. You stand there and act as if– as if calling them monsters is an exaggaration. You–"
"Lianna, that's not what I mean," Jesper said softly. "You know that's not what I mean."
She knew. But at that point, after what they'd seen, with all the hatred spilling from her heart in a foreigner's land, she could not care less. Lianna would have gone against the Saints given the chance. She could not keep that rage inside her quietly. The fact that Jesper did not deserve to be the object of her anger was a different matter completely. One she didn't want to bring herself to consider.
Out of nowhere, she thought of her younger step-siblings. She remembered Andrei and Anton, mad to see her go. Milana, hopeful for her return and the day they could go for the walk by the ocean that Lianna promised to take her on. It was pathetic, really, how a mere thought of them almost brought her to tears. Andrei had to flee Ravka merely a child, to leave everything he had known behind, all because of people like Matthias. He, and Anton, and Milana. And Cassian. There was no universe in which they deserved to suffer so greatly.
