Lay down the thorn, boy king. Haven’t you earned a bit of rest? Aren’t you tired?
He was. Saints, he was. He thought he had grown used to his scars, but he had never grasped how much of his will it would take to hide them. He had fought and sacrificed and bled. He had gone long days without rest and long nights without comfort. All for Ravka, all for an ideal he would never attain and a country that would never care.
A bit of peace, whispered the demon. You have the right.
The right to wash his hands of this endless struggle and stop pretending he was somehow better than his father, more worthy than his brother. He was owed that much, wasn’t he?
Yes, crooned the demon. I will see Ravka safe to shore.
Zoya would never forgive him, but Zoya would keep marching on. With losses and wounds of her own. Zoya would not rest.
Steel is earned, Your Highness, she had said, his ruthless general.
What had he earned? What was he owed? What was his by right?
He knew what Zoya would say: You are owed nothing.
Steel is earned. Remember who you are.
Bastard, hissed the demon.
I am Nikolai Lantsov. I have no right to my name.
Pretender, howled the dark voice.
I am Nikolai Lantsov. I have no right to my crown.
But each day he might endeavor to earn it. If he dared continue on with this wound in his heart. If he dared to be the man he was instead of praying to return to the man he’d once been.
Maybe everything the monster said was true. All Nikolai had done or would do for his people might never be enough. A part of him might always remain beyond repair. He might never be a truly noble man or a truly worthy king. In the end, he might be nothing more than a good head of hair and a gift for delusion.
But he knew this much: He would not rest until his country could too.
And he would never, ever turn his back on a wounded man—even if that man was him.
Nikolai Nothing, snarled the demon. Ravka will never be yours.
Perhaps not. But if you loved a thing, the work was never done. Remember who you are.
Nikolai knew. He was a king who had only begun to make mistakes. He was a soldier for whom the war would never be over. He was a bastard left alone in the woods. And he was not afraid to die this day.
He seized the thorn and drove it into his heart.
The monster shrieked. But Nikolai felt no pain at all—just heat as if a blaze had ignited in his chest. For a second he thought he might be dead, but when he opened his eyes, the world remained—the thorn wood, the twilight sky, the golden sphere. He had a brief moment to wonder why Elizaveta hadn’t freed Zoya yet. And then he saw the monster.
It was a shape of pure shadow that hovered in front of him as if suspended in a mirror. Its wings beat gently at the air. In the place where the creature’s heart would be, a slender shard of light glowed. The thorn. So this was the demon. The dark thing that had driven him, played with him, stolen his will. I am the monster and the monster is me. They were not as separate as he would have liked to pretend, but he remembered Elizaveta’s words: Only one of you will survive.
It was time to slay the demon and put an end to this. He reached for his sword.
But he could not move his arms, could not move his legs. The thorn wood had grabbed hold of him, its stalks clinging tightly to his limbs, its spikes digging into his flesh.
Sap was still filling the golden sphere around Zoya despite the fact that he’d already called the monster. She was shouting and pounding her fists against its sides.
Something was very wrong.
He screamed as a sudden, searing bolt of pain shot through his hand. He looked to his left and saw a thorn impaling him through the palm. Another followed through his right hand and then each of his legs.
“I know the pain is bad,” said Elizaveta as she drifted through the thicket. “But the thorns will keep you from forcing the darkness to recede.”
“What is this?” Nikolai panted. Pain speared through him as he tried to break free.
“I had hoped you might simply let the monster overtake you. That your demon would win. It would have made all of this easier.”
Nikolai’s mind struggled to make sense of what Elizaveta was saying. “You’re a prisoner here,” Nikolai said. “After all this, you cannot mean to stay!”
“Certainly not. The boundaries of the Fold will remain intact, and here my brethren will be held captive still. But I will be free because I will be bound to him.”
Nikolai did not need to ask who she meant. “The Darkling.”
She nodded once. “The true king of Ravka. His spirit lived on with his power. It is only in need of a vessel.”
The thicket parted and Nikolai saw a pale body borne atop a bier of branches.
It cannot be. He had stood on the shores of the Fold and watched the Darkling burn—and yet here his body was, whole and uncorrupted. It had to be some kind of illusion, or a brilliant facsimile.
Yuri stood beside the bier, the pages of liturgical Ravkan discarded. He wore a robe of black roses emblazoned with the sun in eclipse. “Forgive me,” he said, his face contrite. “I wish it did not have to be so. I wish you could both survive this day. But the Starless One is Ravka’s greatest hope. He must return.” I find I do not know what to pray for.
“Go on, Yuri,” Elizaveta said. “This honor is yours.”
Nikolai remembered Yuri babbling when they had first come to the Saints’ Fold. All is as was promised. He thought of the curling vine Elizaveta had so soothingly laid across Yuri’s shoulders. She hadn’t been trying to comfort him. She’d been afraid of what else he might say. Yuri has his role to play in this too. He’d said the Darkling had come to him in a vision.
Yuri approached the shadow beast and reached for the glowing shard wedged within its heart. Nikolai knew with sudden surety that if he pulled the thorn from the monster’s chest first, it would be an end to everything.
“Don’t, Yuri.” He did not like the pleading in his voice. It did not become a king. “Don’t do this.”
“You are a good man,” said Yuri. “But Ravka needs more than a man.” He reached up and grabbed the thorn.
No. Nikolai would not allow it. He had opened the door. It was time to walk through. The monster was not the Darkling, not yet; it was something else still, something that longed for its own life, that had its own appetites, that he had lived with for three years.
Why do you hide the demon? Because it was angry, hungry, full of broken animal longing. And though Nikolai might not like it, those things were all a part of him still. Like calls to like. He had fought the demon. Now he would feed it.
Nikolai shut his eyes and did what that dark voice had told him to do. He let go of the perfect prince, the good king. He reached for all the wounded, shameful things he’d been so sure he had to hide. In this moment, he was not kind or merciful or just. He was a monster.