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Olenna Lantsov's body hummed in tandem with the rustle of wind through manicured hedges and sculpted topiary. Her heels bounced, ready to fling her forward the moment she caught sight of approaching company. Today was the day she'd been waiting for. The day her brother returned home. Olenna was meant to stand vigil in the throne room with her parents and let the procession come to them, but this was one of the rare few times that the princess refused to adhere to etiquette. They could scold her later.
Olenna smoothed the front of her sky-blue gown with sweat-slick palms for what must've been the thousandth time. Her heart thundered in her chest like the wingbeats of the butterflies in her stomach. Would he look different? Had he let his hair grow long like Vasily, or was it still the same mess of short-cropped curls she knew and loved? Nikolai Lantsov would be a man now. Four long years had passed since their last meeting. Hundreds of letters, written and sent. Long days of lonely lessons and nights of quiet solitude. She dreaded the thought that she might've forgotten the timber of his voice or the exact green of his eyes.
Olenna stood before the exquisite double eagle fountain. In the shadow of the towering Grand Palace, she called home. Layers of terraces, gold ornaments, and statuary shot up towards the sky, high enough that she had to shield her eyes to make out the tips of its spires. The fountain was the same one she and Nikolai had climbed into all those years ago to swim like the swans on the Little Palace lake. It was a suffocatingly hot day, and with the fox-like craft only Nikolai possessed, he'd gotten them a few moments away from their governess. The lines Olenna wrote as retribution were seared into her memory. But the joy of that day was worth every stroke of chalk.
The sun was high above the spires of the Grand Palace, but Olenna had been up since long before dawn. The moment she'd received word that the Prince's caravan had reached Os Alta, her mind ran wild with anticipation. Nikolai was meant to be at school in Ketterdam, not in a war-torn Ravka. If reports were to be believed, it wasn't just Nikolai who'd be returning that morning. Alina Starkov, The Sun Summoner, rode by his side through village and city - a beacon of light in the shadow of The Darkling and The Fold. Olenna couldn't understand how this came to be. Her brother, with Alina by his side, returned home to her after all this time.
