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―NIKOLAI NEVER FELL OUT OF LOVE WITH HER.
Maybe it had been that stubborn part of him that had become Sturmhond in his youth, or maybe it was just the newfound determination that came with being Ravka's king. But that day on the port as he wished her goodbye, he knew he would never forget her. Not the look in her golden, summer eyes, not the way her cheeks dimpled when she smiled, and especially not the sound of her laugh and the feel of her hand interlaced with his.
It was far from smart.
He was a king now. And though a certain Zoya Nazyalensky had been determined to get Yizhi Kir-Taban to be his queen, even she knew that in given time, anyone could change, for worse or for better.
The hard part was that neither of them could tell.
But with each passing night, that darkness within the King of Ravka grew like a plant without the need for sunshine, something or someone lurking and waiting to pounce. And as that demon broke free and flew through the sky, it took no genius to know where the monster wanted to go, begged to go, needed to go.
And maybe, just maybe, that happened to be the very same place Nikolai's heart was entrapped and he, himself, wished to go as well.
But Yizhi Kir-Taban was afraid.
Not of her past.
But of a dark, winged monster that haunted her nightmares. Some nights, she was prey, running down an endless stone path, her heartbeat a buzzing that grew and grew in her ears as the demon chased her. Every morning, she woke up freezing cold, her heart dipped in frigid waters as she tried to slow her breath. And though she denied it, she knew.
She knew that the very thing that she, a warrior trained five years in Ahmrat Jen and three in the Little Palace, was afraid of, was the very boy that she used to love.
