They entered Mayu’s room. It had no windows, no view of the gardens. It was more like a prison cell.
“If Queen Makhi wants war, then that is what the Tavgharad want.”
“Are you so sure you’re still Tavgharad?” he asked.
That arrow struck its mark. Mayu looked at her lap and said, “You’re nothing like Isaak. If any of us had so much as glimpsed you before, we never would have been fooled by a pretender.”
“And if it had been me you met, your plot would have ended before it began. I never would have been deceived by a bodyguard in fancy gowns.”
“You’re so sure?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “But Isaak was trained to be a soldier, not a king.”
When Mayu looked up, her golden eyes were full of rage. “You are a glib, vain fool. You are everything Isaak was not.”
Nikolai held her gaze. “I would argue we were both fools.”
“He was a better man than you’ll ever be.”
“On that we can agree.” Nikolai sat down on the edge of her bed. “You fell in love with him.”
Mayu looked away. She was a soldier. She would not weep, but her voice was ragged when she spoke. “I thought I loved a king. I thought it could never be.”
“One of those things was true.” Did it help to know how much she regretted Isaak’s loss? That they both grieved for the sacrifice he’d made? Even if it did, he couldn’t spare her now. “Mayu, my spies have found word of your brother.”
Mayu covered her face with her hands. Nikolai remembered what Tolya and Tamar had told him about the kebben, about the bond between twins. He’d understood what this information would mean to her.
“He’s alive,” Nikolai said.
“I know. I would know if he was dead. I would feel it. Have they hurt him?”
“He’s a part of the khergud program.”
“Queen Makhi swore she would free him.” Mayu released a bitter laugh. “But why would she keep her word? I failed. The king lives.”
“Thank you for that.” Nikolai watched her carefully. “You’re thinking of taking your own life.”
Her expression showed the truth of it. “I am a prisoner in a foreign country. Your Grisha keep my body weak. My brother is having his soul tortured out of him and I can do nothing to stop it.” She cast her eyes up to the ceiling. “And I murdered an innocent man, a good man, for nothing. I am not Tavgharad. I am not a princess. I am not anyone.”
“You are Reyem Yul-Kaat’s sister, and he still lives.”
“But as what? The khergud … The things they endure, they lose their humanity.”
Nikolai thought of the demon lurking inside him, the power of it. “Maybe the gift of being human is that we do not give up—even when all hope is lost.”
“Then maybe I’m the one who isn’t human anymore.” A grim thought, but her look was speculative when she asked, “Will you force Princess Ehri to wed you?”
“I don’t think I’ll have to.”
Mayu shook her head in disbelief. And perhaps in grief for the humble boy she’d met in a king’s clothes. “You’re that charming?”
“I have a gift for persuasion. I once talked a tree out of its leaves.”
“Nonsense.”
“Well, it was autumn. I can’t take full credit.”
“More foolishness. You think to persuade Ehri and me to turn against Queen Makhi.”
“I think the queen has made the argument for me. She nearly cost both of you your lives.”
“Tell me you would have spared my life or even Isaak’s, if your nation’s future hung in the balance.”
There was no room for lies now. “I can’t.”
“Tell me you wouldn’t sacrifice my life and Princess Ehri’s to save your crown.”
Nikolai rose. “I can’t do that either. But before I put anyone to death and we all go merrily to the next world, I’d ask you to stay alive and try to entertain a bit of hope.”
“Hope for what?”
“That there is never only one answer to a question. You’re alive today, Mayu Kir-Kaat, and I’d prefer you kept it that way. And Isaak, that brave, besotted martyr, would want the same.”
She closed her eyes. “Though I put a knife in his heart?”
“I think so. Love is not known for making men reasonable. I think that’s one of the few things Isaak and I had in common—an inability to stop loving whom we should not. Give me a chance to show you what might be.”