heartless | nikolai lantsov

\\ Chapter Seventeen \\

Rani was up before the first rays of sun split the horizon. At least she had slept. The measly four hours were more than she got most nights.

There was nothing scheduled for her day, not after the disaster of Li's infiltration, but the thought of sitting in her room all day with only her thoughts was revolting.

That's how she found herself in one of the Palace's many libraries as sunlight began to creep through the windows. She was going to find out who told the Tavgharad she was here. She wasn't about to endure another day of looking for Li around corners and she certainly wasn't about to endure more accusatory looks from the Ravkans.

She was going to do this, and not think once about what had happened last night.

Rani had been living moment to moment for years. Living without a purpose. Tara had been all that mattered. Sure she had wanted to keep others from Tara's fate, but there had been no plan for her—nothing but keeping herself alive.

No future, no past.

Just the moment and what she wanted in it.

So she wasn't alarmed by her dalliance with the King. It was exactly what she would have done, had done all her life. Act. On whatever impulse she felt, wherever she wanted.

What alarmed her was that she couldn't stop thinking about it.

About him.

So now she had every record of Second Army Grisha spread out on the table before her, along with lists of guards and advisors. Everyone and anyone in the Palace that there were records of.

From there she made a list of everyone who had a connection to Shu Han. Any Grisha from there, anyone who had a sister or grandfather or partner from there. She broke them down by province, those closer to the capital were more likely to have connections to the Tavgharad. That didn't necessarily mean they would work for them, simply that they could.

Next Rani looked at Second Army deployment legers, removing everyone who hadn't been in the Palace since she arrived.

The list was still long, but it was better than everyone in the Palace. Going through the list again, she marked down every name that seemed familiar. It was likely that any name she recognized was someone she had met, someone who would have the knowledge that the Tavgharad was looking for. That narrowed the list still more, though not enough.

All that was done hours ago.

There was another reason she had decided to work in the library, another mystery lurking beneath her consciousness. One that she had to solve before she would get any sleep in this Saint's forsaken place.

She had found a few books on recent Ravkan history; the last one was before her now. There had been chapters about the war, about the fold, about all the Darkling's creations. His volcra and his nichevo'ya, the monsters of shadow and nothing that had destroyed so much of this country.

There had been nothing about demons though.

Rani knew in her bones that neither the volcra nor nichevo'ya were what had attacked her. The creatures were one thing, but this demon was something else entirely. There was more than just merzost to the monster. Something alive, some sentience beyond what the volcra were said to have had.

It was almost reassuring to know whatever this monster was, it was not working solely from the Darkling residual influence. It was its own, in some way, not just the will of Ravkas greatest villain.

Even if there's no mention of it anywhere.

"This was not where I expected to see you."

Her skin tingles at the voice, the feel of lazy fingers tracing her waist coming unbidden into her mind. She hadn't heard him enter, but now her body is acutely attuned to his approach, thrumming with untapped energy.