❈ invisible string ― nikolai lantsov ❈

Yizhi

And though she also knew that whatever he'd managed to wrack up could possibly be life-threatening, she couldn't deny the childish excitement bubbling inside her. She would see Genya and Zoya and maybe even Alina. Her friends and companions, the ones she'd broken down next to and cried with.

She let out a quiet laugh at the thought.

As the servants finished packing and wheeled her bags out of the room, Yi's gaze snagged onto Akeni standing in the doorway, a puzzled look on her little face.

Yi smiled. "Akeni," she greeted, walking over to the girl.

"Where are you going?" Akeni asked, a crease between her dark brows.

"I'll be visiting the King of Ravka for. . ." A week? Months? A year, even? ". . . For a while."

"You're going to Ravka? Where the Grisha are?" Akeni's eyes widened. "And you're going to meet Nikolai Lantsov. Are you going to marry him in an alliance?"

Yi laughed gently. "No. I'm just paying a visit to a few old friends." And possibly re-murdering the man that should have died a long time ago.

"Oh." Akeni frowned. "You're leaving. . . right now?"

Yi felt a pang of sadness and hugged Akeni tight. "Hopefully, I won't be gone for long. When I return, I'll have many more stories of their dresses and palaces and magic."

She could almost hear David reminding her that it was the Small Science, not magic, but right now she really just wanted to appease an eight-year-old, and she could care less about details.

"Do you promise?" Akeni asked, searching her eyes.

Yi was reminded of the little boy named Misha she'd met and confided in during her time with Alina, the stubborn determination in his eyes and his terrible dancing. Yi's lips curled into a smile and she held out her pinky finger.

"I promise."

Akeni linked her hand with Yi's.

"I have to go now, okay, Akeni? Be good to Queen Makhi and your tutors." Yi planted a kiss on the girl's forehead and cheeks before picking up what bags she could and walking down the stairs with her little group of servants, a unit of Tavgharad bracketing them.

Yi's nerves hummed with excitement, tingling in her stomach like butterflies soaring over flowers. The prospect of returning to the Little Palace and seeing the people she'd fought next to was surreal to her, and she felt like a child again staying up to watch the red lanterns fly into the night sky glowing like golden starbursts.

She pulled her silk skirts into the carriage and shut the door, the Tavgharad all on separate horses placed expertly around the coach. In a few moments, she heard the clop of hoof beats and the carriage lurched before beginning to move forward at a steady, smooth pace.

She wouldn't lie to herself.

She cared about what Nikolai might think of her.

But it felt more so as though she wanted to preserve the image of her past self for both him and her rather than feeling the need to still be who he wanted her to be. Even so, she wondered how he would see her now, after years apart. They'd seen each other at the auction in Kerch while eliminating the drug of jurda parem with Kaz Brekker and his friends, but she'd left immediately after and they'd had little time to catch up at all.

And what of Zoya?

Yi had no doubt the Squaller was still as spiteful as she was stunning, but an irrational fear of the two no longer bonding crept in all the same. The worst possible outcome was that the Second Army would no longer see her as Grisha, as one of them anymore, and her friends would share the sentiment.

But Yi doubted it.

She hadn't felt as though anything about herself had changed too drastically, but she was proud to announce that she'd grown two inches in the past year.

As she watched the palace of Ahmrat Jen recede, she realized she was fiddling with the golden feathers at her wrists, the amplifier of the firebird. She'd earned the power and had proven she deserve it a thousand times, but it still felt like a crime every time she recalled the feeling of the dagger plunging into the mythical beast's body, her brother Altan soon to join the firebird in death.

Yi shook her head to dispel the thoughts.

It had been three years.

She had grown and matured, and she was not that girl who had cried during her first feud with NIkolai, she was not the girl who had let herself be disrespected by the other Grisha.

And soon, they would see that.