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👑 N I K O L A I 👑
Nikolai was tired from the last day. The walk around the lake had been quite the workout but entertaining four entitled young woman who tried literally everything to impress him. The only two he enjoyed spending time with had been Aneela and Kheru, which he didn't get the chance to talk very much with because the others kept interrupting his time with them.
The night had been restless, and he had wandered the corridors of the Grande Palace once again. When he passed the library, hoped to see a light on but it was dark. He did slip in and walked to the spot where Aneela had stood, and he saw that the book she had borrowed was back at its palace. Another one close to it was missing – also about flowers. He reminded himself to arrange a walk through the garden with her when he returned to his room to try and get some hours of sleep before he had to get back up and attend a meeting with the Grisha to update them on the courting season.
"We have a problem, people." He announced at their early meeting. "Kheru told me some unsettling things about the fjerdans."
Genya immediately sat up straight with an alarmed look on her face. "Are they planning something?"
"Not now but ... they might in the future – far away future, meaning if they become Princess of Ravka."
"Oh no, here we go ..." Zoya muttered.
"What exactly did they say?"
"Well, while Tolya, Tamar and I were talking to the Grisha who were setting up the boat, the bachelorettes were talking and their conversation led to the topic of Grisha." Nikolai started. "Both Jana and Vilde used very cruel words and described them as demons and monsters. Aneela and Kheru got very angry with them when they talked like that, but they kept pushing especially the zemini with their horrible plans for Grisha in Ravka once they have the position they are trying to get. They haven't mentioned anything to me directly, though. Kheru told me about it as we had our private conversation on our walk – it was hard not to confront the fjerdans right way."
"They will leave right away." Zoya decided and got up to wander around her salon. She had to get the anger out of her system. "This can't be tolerated. Especially not in Ravka."
"That's not possible, unfortunately." Genya took an unsteady breath. "We would act without any proof and the fjerdan delegacy would likely do something about that. Something bad."
"We will send them home!"
"We can't, Zoya! It will cause trouble and we cannot afford that! Not again!"
"So, you want to sit around here and wait until something happens?"
"If one of them declares their hatred towards our kind openly, where we have witnesses that are not to be called biased, then we can send them home because it would be a valuable reason," the tailor explained. "Now it would be Kheru's word against Jana and Vilde's."
"Aneela would back up Kheru's story," Nikolai added.
"And the kerch?"
"They won't say anything," he admitted. "They will claim they didn't overhear the conversation."
"Makes two against two, then. Not very promising."
"And without witnesses."
Zoya rolled her eyes and exhaled loudly. "So we will really do nothing against it?"
"Genya is right, we can't." Nikolai shot her a contempt look. "But I'll try to get rid of them as soon as possible, I don't want to have them around any longer, too."
The Queen nodded slowly and turned back around as she continued her walk to distract herself. "The true colours are slowly showing. So, the fjerdans are clearly out, what about the kerch girls?"
"Getting more and more annoying by the days passing."
She gave him an annoyed look over her shoulder. "Can you get more specific than that? You keep repeating yourself."
He shrugged. "I honestly don't know how else to describe them."
"If I may ..." Tamar started and Zoya gestured at her to continue as she strolled back to the couches. "Brigitta is known to get what she wants and since Nikolai doesn't seem very interested in her, she seems to get frustrated – which is why she tops her annoying behaviour by the day, and it won't take long before her entourage will pull a stunt like the boat incident. Josefine on the other hand hasn't seen that Nikolai isn't very keen on getting to know her, she thinks what she's doing is just right. She has no clue what is going on around her and clings to Nikolai because she thinks he is the prince of her dreams. And so, she wants to show him how much she likes him back and keeps talking his ear off with irrelevant things, nonsense and bad-talking the other ladies."
Perfect summary.
"But his spirit is always lifted when he returns from an interaction with Aneela Ceron." Tolya noted.
"And you have a smile on your face, whenever you and Kheru had a short conversation about the weather." Nikolai gave back.
Tolya's jaw tightened. "I simply-"
Zoya pointed at Nikolai. "And you keep your cool about the fjerdans, try to give the kerch another chance and get to know the zemini better." She turned to Tolya. "And you don't show obvious affection towards the shu in public. That will come off as suspicious."
Tolya shook his head. "No, it's-"
"Any warning signs considering the shu?"
The discussion about the courting ladies and Tolya's little maybe-affair is obviously over.
Tamar shook her head. "Not yet, but we're keeping our eyes and ears open."
"Good." The Queen stopped in the middle of the room and gave then a confident nod. "Then we should all go back to work – and we'll hopefully meet up with better news next time."
