✵ SWEETER THAN HONEY ― nikolai lantsov ✵

After

" LOVING HIM WAS RED  "

―AS YIZHI KIR-TABAN, Shu Han's princess and the Second Army's Co-Commander stood at the port, the King of Ravka standing before her, a thousand thoughts ran through her mind. She couldn't find the right way to summarize her goodbye, and though she knew she would see him again in due time, it felt like burying something between them. An old, passionate love, naive and young, childish and burning red. Something they'd both found before the world began to fall apart, before they'd saved it with blood, sweat, and tears.

Oddly enough, Nikolai felt as though this was right.

Letting go of that dangerous flame between them stoked by the naivety of two teenagers. They'd been through hell and back together, and Saints knew they'd matured. That red love was something of the past, something he knew he would have to earn when the day came that he saw Yi again. They would both change, and it was possible they might become strangers at the end of their lifetime.

But they lived for the hope of it all, and that was enough.

Yi said her goodbyes to the other Grisha, those who had suffered by her side, those who would also forever bear the burden of the horrors seen in the scar of the Unsea. She had an odd group of companions. The sickly, white-haired girl who had revitalized the orphanage. The gorgeous Squaller with a tongue dripping in spite. The scarred Tailor who was ruined to those that didn't see the glimmer in her amber eye.

And of course, the King of Ravka.

Saints knew that by the way he looked at her, his hazel gaze complex with a million emotions, he would have swam across the True Sea and back for her to stay in the palace one more day.

But that simply wasn't meant to be.

He had the Lantsov emerald in his pocket, forever left dented and shaped by the hand of Yizhi Kir-Taban, and Nikolai knew that should he have to place that ring on anyone else's hand, he would be reminded of her. It offered him little comfort, but he clung to it all the same.

At long last, the group of Grisha surrounding the pair distanced themselves, knowing the words that would be exchanged were meant for the two alone.

Yi smiled despite the tears in her eyes.

"Don't forget about me," she whispered.

Nikolai grinned. "That, lovely, would be impossible."

"When people say impossible, they usually mean improbable."

His eyes twinkled. "I love it when you quote me."

Yizhi Kir-Taban was sunshine, and so was Nikolai, despite the dark scars that marred them both, despite the shadows lurking within the king's heart. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he pulled her close, forgetting the world for once in his saintsforsaken lifetime.

He'd managed to fall in love with her a thousand times but he knew it still wasn't enough.

Yet.

Soon, maybe it would be.

He gave her a gentle squeeze as she hid her face in the crook of his neck, her shoulders shaking with silent, bittersweet sadness.

"Yi?" Nikolai whispered.

"Yeah?" she breathed.

"You know that this is goodbye, right?"

He felt her tears slide down his neck, and when she said the word, her voice was barely a whisper, something to be forgotten in the wind, though Nikolai knew he would hold onto it forevermore.

"Yeah."