“Forgive my indelicacy,” said Hiram Schenck, the Kerch delegate, who had drunk Count Kirigin’s excellent wine and denied Ravka aid. “But can you even speak for Ravka, Nikolai … well, whoever you are?”
A gasp went up from the crowd. This was not the polite allusion to Nikolai’s parentage some had expected. It was a blatant insult— reprisal for preserving Zemeni trade routes and handing the Kerch what amounted to worthless technology.
Nikolai only smiled. “I’m the man who still wears the double-eagle crown and the demon who just tore apart a battlefield. Let me know if you need your memory refreshed.”
Brum seized his chance. “We reject this pretender, the bastard king, as the true ruler of Ravka. He cannot speak for his country when he has no right to hold the throne.”
“That may well be,” the Zemeni ambassador said grimly. “But who are you to speak for Fjerda? Why do we not hear from Fjerda’s crown prince?”
Oh friend, thought Nikolai ruefully, we’ll find no luck in that quarter.
There was a long pause as all eyes turned to Prince Rasmus. He had a strong, sharp jaw and unusually full lips.
The prince shrugged. “Who rules Ravka will be decided by Ravkans,” he drawled. “I came here to make peace.”
“What?” Nina said, stunned.
The prince gave her the faintest smile and—it was so fast Nikolai thought he might have imagined it—reached out to brush his hand against hers. Nina recoiled. She had managed the impossible: She had delivered the prince and a promise of peace. So why did she look so shocked?
Her surprise was nothing compared to the confounded fury on Brum’s face.
“That is not … We agreed—”
“We?” the prince asked, turning hard blue eyes on him. “We are Fjerda. You are a military commander who cannot control his own men. Tell me, if we return to the battlefield, are you so sure your soldiers will take up arms against a woman they call Saint?”
Brum’s nostrils flared alarmingly. “They will or I will cut their hearts from their chests.”
“All on your own?” Prince Rasmus surveyed the drüskelle, then bobbed his chin at the bodyguard beside him. “Joran, will you take up arms against your brothers then? Will you cut out their hearts for Fjerda?”
The young drüskelle shook his head. “Never.”
Brum stared. “You are a traitor and will die as such at the end of a rope.”
Despite his height, the boy couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Yet he didn’t flinch.
“I deserve nothing less,” said the prince’s bodyguard. “I committed horrible crimes for the sake of my country, because I believed I was doing what had to be done to save Fjerda’s soul. So hang me. I will die with more honor than I’ve lived.”
Brum’s face flushed dark red. “I will not cede my country’s right to protect its borders and its sovereignty just because a few naive boys have had their minds tampered with by Grisha witches.” He wagged a finger at Zoya. “That woman is not a Saint. She is corruption walking. And this man,” he seethed, whirling on Nikolai, “is just as unnatural. Let the dowager queen give testimony. She is witness to the fact that he is not royal born.”
“We will hear what she has to say,” said Hiram Schenck.
“No,” said Nikolai. He’d known the conversation would come to this. He’d understood that he was out of options as soon as he’d seen his parents enter the audience chamber with the “pretender.” He thought of Magnus Opjer, dressed as a beggar but still standing proud, who had journeyed all the way to the capital to try to save his son and a city full of innocent people. He was an inventor, a builder. Like Nikolai.
I’ve never been a king, he realized. It was never the throne or a crown he had sought. All he’d wanted was to fix his country, and now, at last, he thought he knew how.
He caught his mother’s faded blue eyes and smiled. “There’s no reason to put Queen Tatiana through this ordeal. You will have the proof you seek in my confession. I am a bastard. I have always known it and I am not sorry. I have never wanted to be a Lantsov.”
“What are you doing?” Zoya whispered furiously.
“What I must,” said Nikolai.
“The Lantsovs are descended of the blood of the first kings!” seethed his father. “Of Yaromir himself!”
“Once-great men do not always remain great. It was a Lantsov king who failed to keep the Black Heretic in check and allowed him to create the Fold. It was a Lantsov king who all but abdicated rule of Ravka to the Darkling and the Apparat, and let his country and his people languish in their care. I’m sorry I cannot claim Ravka’s crown, but I’m happy I cannot claim Lantsov blood.”
“Nikolai—” protested Zoya.
He gestured to Vadik Demidov. “But this man has no more right to the throne than I.” Nikolai cast his gaze around the chamber, gathering every bit of authority he had earned through blood and trial, on the seas as Sturmhond, on the battlefield as Nikolai Lantsov. He might have no true name, but he had victories enough. “Fjerda imposed on Ravka’s noble families to come to this place. So we will do those nobles the courtesy of letting them decide who should rule this nation.”
“Are you so arrogant you think they’ll choose a bastard?” his father said on a cackle.
Zoya turned to him and whispered, “This is exactly what Fjerda wants. You can’t let them vote and give legitimacy to such a body. You must stop.”
But Nikolai didn’t intend to stop. And if Zoya was angry now, he suspected he’d have to take cover momentarily.
He strode to the windows. “Yaromir, the first king, had no claim to royalty until he united Ravka’s warring noblemen beneath his banner. He had the help of Sankt Feliks to do it. Only one person can unite this country and bring peace to our nations. Soldier, Summoner, and Saint.”
He threw open the shutters. The winter wind blew through and on it, the sounds of the people chanting below. Sankta Zoya. Rebe Dva Urga. Saint Zoya. Daughter of the Wind. The only person to whom he could entrust this country he had fought and bled for, who might finally bring them an age of peace.
“I will kneel to only one ruler, and I will see only one person crowned this day. The age of the Lantsovs is over.” He sank to one knee. “Let the Nazyalensky dynasty begin. All hail the Dragon Queen.”
The words hung in the room like insects suspended in amber. Nikolai could hear the pounding of his heart, the chanting outside.
What happens if no one speaks? he wondered. What if they all get up and leave? Do I just stay here?
Then he heard a throat being cleared, and all the sweet Saints, a voice: “All hail the Dragon Queen! Moya Tsaritsa!”
Count Kirigin. The man did come through in a pinch.
Another voice shouted, “The Dragon Queen!”
Nikolai couldn’t be sure who that was … Raevsky? Radimov? It had come from the left side of the room. And then he couldn’t keep track of the voices because they crowded together, one on top of the other, as the men and women of Ravka’s noble families shouted Zoya’s name.
It would not be all of them, he knew that. There were voices raised in anger too, men already shuffling out the door and off to make trouble. And he knew not all of those who knelt now liked this idea, or believed in it. They would begin fomenting revolution before they ever left the building. Nikolai might have doomed both the Lantsov and the Nazyalensky dynasties in a single move. But he didn’t think that was the case. The nobles of Ravka didn’t want to be ruled by a Fjerdan puppet.