She loosed a shout and the thorn wood burst from the sand. The stalks surrounded Nikolai and Zoya, twining and twisting, the thicket growing up around them as if woven on an invisible loom. Yuri began to chant.
“Have you never wondered at the power of the woods?” asked Elizaveta, her face glowing as she drove the brambles higher. “The magic at the heart of so many stories. The prick of a thorn? The magic a single rose can carry? These trees are older than anything else in the world, sprung from the first making, before man and animal and anything else. They are old as the stars, and they belong to me.”
Gold seemed to drip from the thorn wood stalks, pooling at the bases of their trunks, then flowing in sinuous rivers toward Zoya. The sap formed a sphere around her, hardening into amber. Nikolai saw her press her hands to the sphere’s sides as liquid began to rise over her ankles. The stalks around them creaked, twining against each other, the sound merging with the jagged syllables of ancient Ravkan.
Save her. The impulse was always the same, one that somehow both he and the dark thing within him could agree upon. Maybe because the Darkling had once valued Zoya and fostered her power. But Nikolai had known it would not be difficult to call the beast this time. It had been waiting, barely leashed, gnashing its teeth.
“Draw your sword, my king!” cried Elizaveta.
Nikolai drew the saber at his side and felt the monster rise. Remember who you are. Claws shot from his hands and he roared as his wings burst from his back.
The demon’s hunger filled him, the desire to rend flesh, to feed, stronger than it had ever been. Before Nikolai could succumb and lose all sense, he slashed his sword through the nearest branch, slicing a thorn free of its stalk. It was nearly as long as his saber. He sheathed his blade and took the thorn in his taloned hands. Could he really do this? Could he really drive it into his own heart?
Both of their hearts. Slay the monster. Free himself.
He heard the creature scream as if understanding his intent. Only one of us will survive this, Nikolai vowed. It is time you met the will of a king.
What king? said a dark voice within him. It is a bastard I have come to kill.
Was it his hand that held the thorn blade? Or was it the monster that kept the point poised above his heart?
Nikolai Nothing, said the voice. Liar. Fraud. Heir to no one. Pretender to the throne. I see who you are.
But Nikolai knew those cruelties. He’d borne them his whole life. It takes more than blood to make a king.
Tell me what it takes to rule, the thing said in that taunting voice. Courage? Valor? Love for the people?
All of that. Nikolai strengthened his grip. He could feel the weight of the thorn in his palm. And a solid sense of style.
But the people don’t love you, bastard. Despite your constant striving. The voice sounded different now. Cool, familiar, smooth as glass. How long have you been begging for their love? Little Nikolai Lantsov playing the clown for his mother, the sycophant for his father, the handsome courtier for Alina? She was an orphan, a peasant, and even she didn’t want you. And yet you continue, pleading for scraps like the commoner you are.
Nikolai managed a laugh, but it did not come easy. I’ve met enough commoners and enough kings to not take that as an insult.
What do you think they saw in you to make you so unworthy? All of those medals earned, your fleet of ships, your heroic deeds, your earnest reforms. You know it will never be enough. Some children are born unlovable. Their mothers will not suckle them. They are left to die in the forest. And here you are, come to weep your last, alone in the thorn wood.
I’m not alone. He had Zoya, even Yuri for that matter, and Grigori and Elizaveta watching over them. I have your delightful company.
Now the dark voice laughed, low and long, mirth overflowing in a black tide. Go ahead and do it, then. Drive the thorn into your chest. Do you really think it will matter? Do you really think anything can make you the man you were before?
Before the war. Before the Darkling had set this curse upon him. Before Vasily’s murder, the revelation of his father’s crimes, the ambush at the Spinning Wheel, the countless battles that had cost so many lives.
How do you think I was able to take hold of your heart and burrow so deeply? You gave me fertile soil and so I took root. You will never be what you were. The rot has spread too far.
That’s a lie. Elizaveta had warned Nikolai that the demon would try to trick him. So why did the words ring true?
Oh, you make a good show of it. Compromise, patience, an endless performance of good works to prove you are still the confident prince, the brazen privateer, whole and happy and unafraid. All that work to hide the demon. Why?
The people … The people clung to superstition. They feared the strange. Ravka could not afford another disruption, another weak king.
Another weak king. The voice was knowing, almost pitying. You said it yourself.
I am not my father.
Of course not. You have no father. I’ll tell you why you hide the demon, why you cloak yourself in compromise and diplomacy and dribbling, desperate charm. It is because you know that if they saw you truly, they would turn away. They would see the nightmares that wake you, the doubts that plague you. They would know how very weak you are and they would turn their backs. Use the thorn, drive me out. You will still be a broken man—demon or not.
Was this the real fear that had chased him all these long months? That he would find no cure because the disease was not the demon? That the darkness inside him did not belong to something else but to him alone? He had been a fool. What he’d endured in the war, the choices he’d made, the lives he had ended with bullets and blades and bombs—there was no magic that could burn that away. He’d been human then. He had no demon to blame. He might purge the monster from his body, but the mess of shame and regret would remain. And what would happen when the fighting started up again? The thought made him impossibly weary.
The war was supposed to be over.
The demon’s laughter rolled over him. Not for you, said the voice. Not for Ravka. Not ever.
Nikolai knew he had come here with a purpose. Drive the monster out. Save his country. Save himself. But those were not necessarily the same thing. He could not go back. He could not heal himself. He could not take back the part of him that had been lost. So how was he to lead?
Lay down the thorn.
The thorn? Nikolai could no longer feel it in his hand.
Lay down the thorn. Not every day can end in victory. Not every soldier can be saved. This country won’t survive a broken king.
Nikolai had always understood that he and Ravka were the same. He just hadn’t understood how: He was not the crying child or even the drowning man. He was the forever soldier, eternally at war, unable to ever lay down his arms and heal.