✵ SWEETER THAN HONEY ― nikolai lantsov ✵

The Reunion

This is an unedited, rough draft from a few months ago of chapter 5 from the upcoming King of Scars I'm working on. I've been pretty caught up with school, but I'm thinking of publishing the drafts that I have so far and expanding upon them during winter break. the writing is shabby because i was surviving on a scrap of creativity when writing this but let's not point that out bcs ik we all want to see them back together again🤞

enjoy

( - yvonne xx )

" YOU'RE SO GORGEOUS

I can't say anything to your face

'Cause look at your face "

―IT WAS A STUPID RISK.

But some days Nikolai found he lacked logic, and sometimes idiocy made things a bit more interesting. Besides, he needed someone with information on the khergud and, in full honesty, he just missed Yi. As he stood at the docks with Zoya and the twins, he wondered if she'd come at all. By his calculations, she'd be arriving at any second, and it only took a minute or so for him to confirm that, as per usual, he was splendidly correct. The ship was grand and the unmistakable Shu flags snapped in the wind as it approached. Nikolai realized that he was nervous, which was perfectly irregular considering he was the King of Ravka.

But that didn't matter to him. The girl aboard that ship was the same girl he'd fallen for a thousand times, and while that feeling had died out, for both of them, he guessed, he still just knew that there was so much between them that they would both never quite forget.

And on these very same docks, he'd wished her farewell three years ago.

It seemed oddly fitting that she was returning and stepping foot on the very last place she had before leaving. Nikolai knew that Zoya could sense his dangerous excitement, but he suspected she shared the same sentiment, if not a million times over.

The ship docked. It was nothing too large but still luxurious all the same, and Nikolai knew she had come alone, save for a few guards and perhaps a group of servants. It had been his plan all along. He hadn't specified the desire in the letter, knowing it would only tempt Makhi Kir-Taban to send someone other than the required to join Yi, and by not including the detail, it had convinced the queen that this was nothing of any importance.

Nikolai would be lying if he said that he and all the others hadn't spent an entire night perfecting the brief letter, all of them knowing that Yi would read the very words, their old friend, the one whose gaping absence was like a searing hot hole in the middle of the universe.

Nikolai watched as a unit of Tavgharad surface on the polished deck of the ship and filed out onto the docks, their boots hitting the wood in perfect unison. They all went still as statues in a flawless row, backs pin-straight. Next was a group of servants scurrying out with a heavy amount of bags of which Nikolai suspected only carried gowns and the occasional blade of Grisha steel.

At long last, Yizhi Kir-Taban appeared.

Nikolai felt his breath catch as Zoya, Tamar, and Tolya all evidently stiffened.