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[reznikolai]

[Friends. Yes, he can remember how to be friends with her again. All right.]

Then I wish you all the best. Is she cute?

[solmate]

Saints, yes.

[reznikolai]

Of course, your taste is USUALLY quite excellent.

Things have been going well with Matt BTW.

[Since this is the sort of thing friends tell one another.]

[solmate]

Is it?

[ Curiosity creeps in. The kind she might have indulged in, her attention held raptly as Nikolai traced his hands across her skin and told her stories of his escapades with Matt in warm, low tones.

Not something she has any right to indulge now. She squashes it. ]

Are you... seeing anyone else?

[reznikolai]

You saw something in me. That's proof enough of good taste.

[Their ill-fated relationship doesn't have to be a taboo subject, does it?]

Not exactly in the same way. If that makes any sense at all. But I see a few others. Gwenhwyfar, Konoha, Liem, Cardan.

[solmate]

Ah. Well you always have been the bigger social butterfly between us.

[ She does not mean that disparagingly (she's never not certain he's a charming king), but she does not share his particular talent for making people fall in love with her wherever she goes here.

And then totally unrelated: ]

Have you seen Zoya recently?

[reznikolai]

[Suddenly that list of names seems longer than he thought... There follows a rare twinge of something like self-consciousness, a holdover from their home culture, where it's not meet that a king should be so loose. But he's not a king here.]

I assume you mean seen and not "seen".

But no, I haven't. She was supposed to come be my jailer the other night. She never came, and she never answered my calls.

[solmate]

[ Oh no. ]

You haven't done anything to annoy her recently, have you?

[reznikolai]

Oh, I'm sure I annoy her on a regular basis.

But that has never kept her from her duties before.

[solmate]

I meant more than usual.

[ The base level is a given. ]

You don't suppose she's been sent back do you?

[reznikolai]

[A pause longer than usual lurks between her message and his reply.]

Would it be a terrible tragedy if she was?

She never was happy here.

[solmate]

Don't lie to me and act as if you don't care now.

[reznikolai]

Of course I care about her.

That's why it's for the best that she return to Ravka.

[solmate]

It's not your affection for her that I'm calling into question.

It's that you'd rather she'd be there than here.

[reznikolai]

What do you expect me to say?

[solmate]

The truth. Instead of just the right thing or what you think I want to hear.

Maybe it is good that Ravka has her queen back.

[reznikolai]

Don't tell me you're jealous.

[solmate]

So you know.

[reznikolai]

If our dear old pal the Darkling is to be believed.

Which, considering the last several hundred years, is a big if.

[solmate]

An odd choice for a lie, even for him.

[reznikolai]

If I'm being honest, I don't know what the hell to think.

But it must be a political alliance. Nothing more. That much I'm sure of.

[Because for all his belief in the impossible, he can hardly imagine a world where Zoya feels anything like love toward him. And he should leave it there. He shouldn't let out the hard words that sit heavy in his heart. But—]

Let that be of comfort to you as you frolic through some meadow with Mal.

[solmate]

I cannot imagine Ravka becomes so fractured that a marriage to Zoya Nazyalensky is apparently the remedy.

[ Really a political alliance to WHOM. ]

Believe it or not I don't wish for you to have a loveless marriage.

[reznikolai]

Apparently things get so dire that I step down from the throne. And apparently I find a way to legitimize Zoya as my successor. (Still marveling at how I manage that.) And apparently she refuses to leave Ravka's fate in another man's hands.

What do you wish for, then?

[A dangerous jewel of a question.]

[solmate]

Do you really think a beautiful and brilliant military strategist, as willful and stubborn and powerful as an ocean storm is a hard sale?

[ But a Grisha queen? That's the part that's unknown. The people were always quicker to call her Sankta rather than the truth of it. ]

Perhaps the people were tired of legacy.

[ Perhaps he was tired of legacy. ]

That's a dangerous question.

[reznikolai]

You ought to know better than anyone how volatile are the public's views on Grisha.

[A Saint or a witch, and nothing in between.]

I guess what either of us wants has never mattered much in the grand scheme of things.