But Nikolai had done what so many men had failed to do: He’d surprised her. He had shored up Ravka’s borders, negotiated new loans with Kerch, reestablished their military outposts, and used the fleet he’d built in his secret life as the privateer Sturmhond to keep the Fjerdans stymied at sea. He had visited cities and towns, distributing food, talking to local leaders and nobility, marshaling every ounce of his appeal to win their support and cement public opinion in his favor after the destruction of the Fold. When he had finally returned to Os Alta, he had created a new flag with the sun in ascendance behind the Lantsov double eagle and been crowned by the Apparat in the newly built royal chapel. Zoya had felt the stirrings of what might have been hope.
She had been hard at work with the Triumvirate, trying to reassemble the Second Army and make a plan for its future. Some days Zoya had felt proud and full of excitement, but on others she’d felt like a child masquerading as a leader. It had been harrowing, thrilling to know that they were all standing at the precipice of something new.
But now, as they traveled from town to town, Zoya understood that the task of unifying Ravka and building a new foundation for the Second Army had been the easy part. Dragging the country into the future was proving harder. Nikolai had spent his life waiting to govern and learning how to do it, but while Nikolai craved change, Ravka fought it. His reforms to the tithing and land ownership laws had led to grumbling among the nobility. Of course the serfs should have rights, they protested, eventually. The king went too far and moved too fast.
Zoya knew Nikolai was aware of the resistance that had grown up against him, and he intended to use this trip to help defeat it. The days were given to travel and winning the commoners through spectacle and gifts of coin or food. In the evenings, their party took up lodging in the homes of noblemen and local governors and joined grand dinners that went late into the night. After the meals, Nikolai would sequester himself with the head of the house, talking through reforms, requesting aid, smoothing feathers ruffled by the peril of change. Sometimes Nikolai would ask Zoya to join them when all she wanted was to fall into bed.
“Why should I bother?” she grumbled at Baron Levkin’s dacha in Kelink. “Your charm is enough to carry the day.”
“They need to see my general,” he said.
It was true enough. The nobles still thrilled to tales of warfare and the strength of the Second Army. But Zoya also knew that her presence—tart-tongued and sour as it might be—changed the atmosphere in the room, made the conversation seem less a negotiation than a friendly exchange. It was another reason Nikolai desperately needed a queen. So she did her best to paste a smile on her face and be pleasant, and occasionally offered a word regarding the Grisha forces if anyone thought to ask. It exhausted her.
“How do you do it?” she spat at Nikolai one night as they left a particularly productive session with a duke in Grevyakin. He’d begun the conversation determined to reject Nikolai’s suggestion to use his fields for cotton farming, calling for a return to the old ways. His entire home was full of peasant woodcrafts and handwoven textiles, the props of a simpler time in which a serf might be counted upon to create pretty objects for his master and politely starve in silence. But two hours and several glasses of strong spirits later, the old duke was roaring with laughter at Nikolai’s jokes and had agreed to convert two more of his farms to cotton. Another hour gone and he promised to allow a new mill and cotton gin to be built on his property. “How do you change their minds and make them thank you for the experience?”
Nikolai shrugged. “He has a noble’s disdain for commerce but likes the idea of himself as a great benefactor. So I simply pointed out that, with all of the time and money his workers will save, they’ll have more hours to devote to the ornament he loves so much. His estate might become a beacon for artists and craftsmen—the new world sustaining the old instead of replacing it.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Not at all. His serfs will get a taste of money and education and start thinking about building lives and businesses of their own instead of praying for their master’s patronage. But by then it will be too late. Progress is a river. It cannot be called back once it leaps its banks.”
“That wasn’t what I meant anyway,” Zoya said as Tolya led them to the chambers where Nikolai would be lodging. “How do you do this?” She waved a hand from the crown of his golden head to his perfectly polished boots. “Days on the road, bare hours of sleep.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Being drugged every night and playing host to some kind of immortal evil inside you. But still you manage to look fresh and contented. I bet, if the duke had asked, you could have spent another hour playing cards and telling war stories.”
“That’s what the job requires, Zoya. Ruling is not just about military victories. It’s not even about setting fair laws and seeing them enforced. It’s about these moments, the men and women who choose to put their lives and livelihoods in our hands.”
“Just admit that you need to be loved as much as they need to love you.”
“Luckily, I’m very lovable.”
“Less so by the moment. You don’t look remotely fatigued. It’s not normal.”
“I think fatigue suits you, Zoya. The pallor. The shadows beneath your eyes. You look like a heroine in a novel.”
“I look like a woman about to step on your foot.”
“Now, now. You’re managing remarkably well. And the smiling hasn’t killed you yet.”
“Yet.”
Tamar was waiting at the door to Nikolai’s rooms. “Any trouble tonight?” Nikolai asked her. At their previous stop, Tamar had caught a servant skulking about the king’s chambers and digging through his belongings, presumably on his master’s orders.
“Nothing,” she said. “But I’ll do another search of the house just in case and have a look inside the duke’s study later tonight.”
The old duke seemed to have been won over, but if he’d had contact with Nikolai’s opponents in West Ravka or with one of the Lantsov pretenders, they needed to know.
Once Nikolai had removed his boots and settled on the bed beneath a grotesque painting of Sankta Anastasia curing the wasting plague, Zoya pulled the tiny bottle from her pocket.
Nikolai shuddered. “Whatever David and Genya concocted, it feels less like sleep than being punched in the jaw.”
Zoya said nothing. The sedatives they’d given him in the past had been simple potions that had made him softly blurry and often left him snoring before Zoya had departed the room. But with this new brew, Nikolai dropped into unconsciousness in the space of a breath—and he did not look like he was sleeping. His stillness was so complete she found herself pressing her fingers to the hollow beneath his jaw, seeking out the molasses-slow beat of his pulse. Dosing him was like watching him die every night.
“All I know is it’s strong enough to shut you up,” she said. She raised the bottle but kept it just out of reach. “Tell me how you manage it. How do you survive all of this glad-handing and unending performance?”
“You manage it every day at the Little Palace, Zoya. For all your bluster, I know you don’t always feel clever or strong, but you make a good show of it.”