#shadow and bone trilogy

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ೄྀ࿐ENOUGH

⎯ nikolai lantsov x fem!royalty!healer!reader

nikolai and y/n experience a freak event in the middle of an argument that has them not speaking.

⎯request:anon.

⎯warnings:angst; fluff; swearing; mentions of violence; mentions of gore.

⎯wc:3.9k

⎯a/n:i realized that i think it appears a little rushed as you get towards the end so i’m sorry if that’s the case!!

navigation.

“Your Highness.”

Her tongue clicked. “Yes, Tolya.”

“You have a Triumvirate meeting in ten minutes … as you do every morning.”

“My husband has a meeting.”

Tolya went quiet, keeping his broad frame under the entranceway.

“You can stand there and sulk all you’d like,” said the Queen. “You’ll have to carry me out of here if you’d like me to go.”

His tone changed to that of a friend as he said, “You have to go, Y/N.”

She peered up from her task, “And give me a good reason as to why I should.” Her hands braced on the edge of the table. “I’m Queen Consort. I do not get to make decisions that matter and I have no involvement in things that need my input.”

“Then come as a Grisha.”

“I will come as myself,” she emphasized.

His brows creased.

“I was ‘Princess’ before I was ever ‘Grisha’,” she reinforced. “Grisha abilities may run through my blood, but the title I received before my existence was ever thought of.”

“Even if you can’t do what you want,” said Tolya, “your presence is still important to us. You’re our Queen and our friend.”

“Tell Nikolai,” she spoke the words like acid were on her tongue, “I am busy with my projects. And if he has anything he wishes to tell me, he can say the words himself.”

After a beat of silence, Tolya bowed and paid his respects. Y/N was left to her achingly quiet laboratory, alone, with the decomposing body on the table.

The king and queen never fought. Argued, disagreed, yes, but this time it felt near impossible to recoup as things veered off the path of maturity.

Nikolai was tired, so was Y/N. Y/N wanted to communicate with her husband the way she’d been feeling recently, and Nikolai wanted the world to go away for just a moment of silence. It was a spat of words which neither meant; misunderstanding and immaturity building an impenetrable wall between them.

Y/N took up occupancy in the Little Palace, giving the excuse of needing no distractions to begin Grisha projects that had been long brewing in her mind. Meanwhile, Nikolai drank himself to sleep most nights in his sitting room.

They were both tremendously stubborn. The exact reason Zoya teased she was a top choice among the women he had to choose from following his crowning. So, when Y/N was informed the king would be visiting Lazlayon, she scowled at her general.

“Don’t even think about playing ill.”

The queen scoffed. “I wouldn’t dare.”

Zoya arched a brow, “And I look good in Heartrender Red.”

“You’d look breath-taking in a straw hat and a potato sack.”

She pushed her hair behind her shoulder. “I know.”

Y/N’s guards kept a distance behind as they moved through the Grand Palace halls. Their shoes clicking on the tiles were like drum beats and the ruffling of clothing like scraping a fork over porcelain.

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“You’re fine.”

“Thank you, I’m suddenly feeling much better.”

“Good,” replied the general, who put a hand on her upper back to steer her down another corridor. “You’ll have an audience. Arriving peaky will have the King suspected of domestic abuse.”

Y/N eyes rolled. “Like anyone would care, if that were the case.”

Zoya sighed.

“I always have an audience,” murmured Y/N. “I’m the goddamn Queen of Ravka.”

“That you are,” she nodded. “So go on and say a mildly affectionate farewell to the King.”

Before she could protest, the large doors swung open. Y/N descended the steps with her hands folded against her skirts and eyes locked on Nikolai, whose back was to her as he helped adjust the reins. The grip on her fingers was near painful. With her chin lifted and spine locked, she halted a few feet from the carriage door.

Y/N’s eyes locked on the gravel near the singular step as he appeared in front of her, hands behind his back. From the blurry corners of her vision, she saw him lean to look over her shoulder.

His chin lowered slightly. “You’ll have to look at me, Y/N.”

Her jaw shifted. “No.”

“It needs to appear real.”

“What does?”

“Our goodbye.”

“They can see we’re speaking.”

“Yes but you’re standing like someone pinned you to a tree.”

Y/N snapped her gaze to him, but the words died on her tongue. Nikolai stared at her.

“Stop it,” she snapped under a breath.

“Stop what?”

“Stop looking at me like that.”

He took a step closer.

“How am I looking at you, Y/N?” he spoke gently, his breath fanning her face.

A crease sat between his brows. Her eyes shifted between his, the breath coming and going heavily through her nose.

“Tell the count I send my regards, Your Grace.”

Nikolai didn’t have any other choice but to obey her dismissal. With hesitation, he rested his hand on her middle and kissed her cheek. Y/N pulled away from the burn, striding to the steps where Zoya waited with an emotionless expression.

The queen walked past her. When she got deep enough into the royal family’s quarters, she pressed the back of her hand to her lips as the tears welled. It was only when she reached their shared room that she let the sobs crawl up her throat and shake her shoulders.

While Nikolai attended a meeting with Count Kirigin, Y/N continued the perfection of her Grisha abilities. Being born royal, she was deprived of the opportunity. Everything she learned was through trial and error. Her legs were covered in the proof of her growth as a Healer.

Y/N had believed that, with Nikolai on a break from his duties, she’d be relieved of the anxiousness. As much as she hated worrying about seeing him around the grounds, those glances they threw each other’s way without either noticing was like curing dehydration. Without the king there, she’d never been so thirsty for the sight of him.

A commotion from the front gates caught her attention. Y/N removed the apron and slipped off her gloves. She strode past the two guards posted on the other side of the laboratory doors. They struggled to keep up with her fast pace, following her until she shoved open the main doors of the Little Palace.

“What is going on here?” with her husband’s absence she was to take over his assertive tone. She kept her hands elegantly held against her stomach, countering the effect of her wearing a shirt and trousers rather than her usual attire.

As all present guards stood at-attention, two in particular struggled. With one slumped over and another keeping his comrade from face-planting in the gravel.

“Saints,” she bit out.

Y/N rushed down the short steps to assist the soldier, who nodded at her in gratitude. She lifted the injured one to see his eyes nearly rolling back in his head, jaw slack. Blood dripped from a wound somewhere along his scalp.

“Laboratories,” she commanded. “Now.”

They hauled him down the corridor and laid him atop one of the metal tables.

“What happened, Mason?” she said, focusing on the gash in the guard’s skull.

“I don’t quite know, Your Highness,” said the guard who originally kept him upright. “He came in on a horse. He about threw himself from the saddle.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No, Your Highness.”

“Make any sort of sign?”

“No. But …”

Y/N looked up at him. “‘But’ what, soldier?”

The young man hesitated. “There’s a possibility he was with the King.”

“Nikolai is at Count Kirigin’s. He couldn’t have survived that long of a ride.”

“Your Highness, we were told to expect him a few hours ago.”

Y/N’s hands froze. They shook slightly under the tension.

“Bataar twins. Now.”

The three guards in the room paid their respects and rushed out. Y/N fisted her fingers, trying to focus on her breathing.

She managed to close the wound and was in the middle of spreading a salve on it—the man, finally fully unconscious—when the twins burst through the door. No guards followed or took post outside.

“Where is my husband?” she demanded.

Tamar winced, “We don’t know.”

Y/N’s chin flexed. “When was he supposed to be back?”

“This morning,” she answered.

Suddenly, the guard atop the table gasped for breath like he’d been underwater and sprung up. The queen managed to keep him down with an arm across his shoulders. He let his head fall back again, eyes searching the ceiling frantically. They fell on hers, sending a chill across her skin.

“We were ambushed,” he forced out. “He—We didn’t know. I couldn’t—”

In the midst, Y/N’s head shot up to share a wide-eyed gaze with the twins. Tolya, though, couldn’t take his eyes off the soldier.

“Do you know who attacked?” he said.

The guard shook his head. “No. No. No, I don’t know.”

“Was it the Fjerdans?”

“No, I—No. Ravkans. They looked Ravkan—”

“Where’s the King?”

“He ran—A guard tried to make him run but he refused. We were all—His guard was shot down and then the King was, too, and I tried—wetried but there were so many of them.” His face screwed up. “He wasn’t moving and I couldn’t tell if he— … I must have passed out because I woke up and everyone was dead and they covered their tracks.”

“You’d been hit,” said the queen. “They didn’t take you because they wanted someone alive.”

With a tone on the edge of toppling, she said, “Tolya, take fifteen good men and ride hard the route they took. Send six of them to Lazlayon. If Emil or any of his people are unwell or their safety appears to be in jeopardy, they will stay in Os Alta, on the grounds. You notice anythingyou report back to me and General Nazyalensky. You suspectanything … Do you understand me?”

The broad-shouldered giant nodded. “I would give my life for the King, if the Saints demand it.”

Y/N’s chin lowered. “Well, I sure hope they don’t. Go on. I don’t want my men riding back through those woods at a dangerous hour.”

Tolya bowed and strode from the room.

Y/N hadn’t realized she’d been absent until Tamar was beside her, peeling back her fingers from the knife she’d used to cut away the soldier’s hair. Her guard didn’t let go of her shaking hand.

“Where do you want to go?” she asked.

The Queen’s head swayed. “He needs someone to watch him.”

“He will be taken care of. I’ll make sure of it.” After a moment’s pause, she repeated, “Where do you want to go?”

Y/N sat in the sitting room surrounded by her friends. They were quiet, the only sounds were Zoya occasionally turning a page in her book, the scratching of David’s pen, and Genya’s fingernail tapping her glass.

Y/N knew Tolya would disobey her orders to come back before too late. It wasn’t worth it to argue and if he decided to put his life on the line to find him. They all cared about Nikolai to some degree, no matter the title of their relationship. He had wound his way into all of their hearts and because of that, they’d do exactly as Tolya would, a million times over.

Y/N vowed to not sleep, seeing as the time was almost sunrise, but it took her without warning.

The room jolted awake as Tolya pushed through the doors. He closed it behind himself before regarding them.

It was infuriating how emotionless his face had become. Zoya was the first to snap.

“Well?”

The emotions had grown palpable, even through their terrible excuse of a few hour’s rest. It choked Y/N, most of all. Though, focusing on her breath meant a moment lost where she could be praying to all the Saints regarding her husband’s health.

Tolya steeled himself, eyes catching on his Queen slowly rising from her leather chair, one arm around her middle and a hand pressed to her collarbone. Oh, how many different expressions his mind had come up with upon his return, but with it finally in front of him … it carved out another piece of his heart. When Tolya cracked the splinters of what was left of the carriage under his boots and witnessed faces he once knew now pallor and peeled, a stubborn sphere of solid rock lodged in his throat.

“The people of Lazlayon were not targeted,” he started with.

What should he say? They couldn’t find the horses? The scene was a mess?

His nose burned thinking about it.

As always, he was grateful for his sister’s ability to save him. “Did you find any evidence to figure out who did this?” she said.

His chin swayed. “The bullets were locally-bought.”

Zoya had had enough. On her last rope, she took two steps forward from behind the Queen, and spoke through her teeth, “I swear…”

“Zoya,” hushed Genya, who grasped hard at David’s hand.

“Justsay it,” she spat. “Don’t go being weak now, Soldier. If you’re as hardhearted as you make everyone believe thensay what is to be said. Stopholding back.”

But the words like a whip off the General’s tongue were enough for Y/N. The acceptance of her permanent reality saved her guard, her friend, from tearing himself apart to the core of his soul.

The great waves of the True Sea crashed down on her all at once. In the past, the water had enveloped her, kept her afloat and glittering like it did on the days she would skip rocks at her vacation home. Now, the reflected blue betrayed her, tied her last rope around her neck and refused to let up.

Her limbs fell to the mercy of gravity, now, to keep her standing, but as it always had, it failed her. She clawed at her throat where the invisible knot held firm. She screamed until she was out of breath and again, until her eardrums shook.

By the time Y/N was shoved from the arms of her royal upbringing and into the King of Ravka’s open ones, merely shards of shining bits of life were left inside her. Nikolai had made do with what he was given; stopped them from occasionally flickering out. Now, a new pair of arms held her spine tight against their chest, seated on the floor of the sitting room, desperately trying to keep them as they once were just days ago. Nadia embraced Y/N’s wilting and wailing figure with enough strength to suffocate a flake of the dark pain.

“How do you know?” Y/N wept. “How do you know? Where is he?”

Tolya looked down on his Queen with burning eyes and a deep crease between his brows.

“That’s not important, Y/N—” Tamar had tried to prevent more anguish, but Y/N only cried harder in Nadia’s arms.

“I need to know, please,” she begged. “Please, just tell me. I need to know where he is.”

Tolya shared a glance with his twin.

“A guard, who has witnessed many honorary deaths, found the place the King fell. He said …” The rock grew bigger. He swallowed hard. “He said he bled too much. Either they took him, thinking they could save him, or took him for their own means.”

As Y/N began calling out for him, Zoya, who’d been watching the nightmare unfold in cold silence with an even colder expression, stormed from the room in a harsh wind that scraped back furniture and the glass once in her hand shattering against the floor.

Zoya imagined Nikolai bleeding out in the middle of the forest, all alone. Or, maybe it was as he was dragged or carried away, the darkness taking him before he got to understand he’d never get to say goodbye or apologize.

Nikolai, who endured war, the unforeseen death of his best friend, countless pirate attacks, countless fists to the face, possession by an abomination, and the last war against the Black Heretic, finally met his fate in the most dishonouring way for a man of his magnificence.

Tamar bolted after the Squaller, knowing just how much justice and ugliness she’d bring to their King and Ravka’s name if not reminded.

Y/N would give up a life of security and sustenance if Nikolai so insisted. She’d forget who she was: change her name, cut her hair, replace her clothes, if he’d rather live life on water than on land. Her love for him went beyond comprehension.

It wasn’t known he fully understood that before leaving.

Just maybe, if she’d caved and told him she loved him, made sure he took care of himself on his journey, he would have demanded to postpone visiting Lazlayon.

Nikolai, who shotand manipulatedthe Black Heretic; who fought offnichevo’ya; who refused a life chained to him before his birth because he simply didn’t agree; who built flying ships and covered his bed chamber walls in maps and liked the smell of morning dew and read books on philosophy and could recount the colonization of Novyi Zem for no goddamn reason, was gone.

Y/N cursed the boy Nikolai loved so dearly. Cursed him for taking her best friend away from her; letting him lose the rest of his life; ripping out half of her soul.

Word had gotten around about the commotion the previous day. So, when the servants in the halls of the Grand Palace and the ones about the grounds heard heart-wrenching grief, they all froze, sharing looks of disbelief.

Nikolai Lantsov, the indestructible and effervescent king who did more than his father or any of his lineage ever attempted, was dead.

The next morning, Tolya and Tamar managed to help her outside. The latter was tasked with pushing her along in a wheelchair, for her legs didn’t work. Servants watched their Queen gaze mindlessly up at the sky, as if she were searching for something within the clouds.

The twins granted her silence the whole way.

They took Y/N near a corner of the back of the property. It was a wide patch of well-kept grass untouched by royal projects. The left was bordered by the tall, stone wall of the property line and the back by a shaded wood which had the children of the Grisha school’s imaginations concreting an anxiety that kept them within the boundaries of the field. The school was to the right, on the other side of the lake, but teachers were granted permission to occasionally allow the students to occupy it during recess.

The bell rang and all the children fled by the path leading back to their school.

Y/N finally looked away from the sky. It felt as if she were floating. Her mouth, sewn shut, and eyes, mechanical. Not a single thought formed in her head as she regarded her surroundings.

Y/N jerked like she’d been struck. Her gaze locked between the trees, hands grasping the arms of her chair so hard she felt it strain. Words appeared, formed, slammed against the cages of her mind like rabid animals.

Out from the shadows of the forest, he stumbled. One hand pressed to his lower abdomen and pale skin screaming against the light of the sun.

The urge to scream, run as fast as she could, hit something with all her strength, overcame her, but all that left her mouth was a whimpered breath of his name. As Tolya shouted to him and she heard his faint response, the air detoxified. His name repeated in a whisper as the ecstasy slowly rose in her system.

Tolya asked him to admit something only he would know. And at the words, “Y/N is a much better actor than myself,” she was off.

Y/N gulped down air as she ran for her life, the twins’ warning shouts unheard to her. Nikolai finally let his knees hit the ground; relief flooded his bones at the sight of her, forcing a sob to shake his shoulders. Uncoordinatedly, she removed all the weight from his one arm and put it onto her.

His face, sodden with tears, and eyes drinking in her own as he held on tight to the back of her neck, pieced Y/N together again.

In the royal family’s quarters of the Grand Palace, the King and Queen were left to themselves.

“I guess this is one of the benefits of asking a Healer to be my wife.”

Y/N, closely sitting in a chair before him, quirked a brow. “Yes, as that’s all I’m good for.”

With a cheeky grin, Nikolai forced himself off the back of the chair to press a hard kiss to her cheek.

“Stop moving,” she reprimanded lightly. “You’re seconds from breaking your stitches.”

“Ah, but they’re already broken, my darling.” Nikolai lifted the corner of his shirt so he could get a good look at the hole in his lower abdomen. “Nasty little thing, isn’t it? All’s well, though. The scar is just another to add to the collection.”

Y/N tapped under his chin, “Lift.” He raised it enough to look at her through his eyelashes. “If anything, it’ll only increase your inflated ego.”

“Now, see, that’s what I have youfor.” He grinned broadly as she brushed her fingers over a cut under his jaw. “And you do a wonderful job at it, too.”

Nikolai granted her silence when she didn’t react. When she got to the bullet wound in his side, she froze. He took her fingers in his hands, squeezing once.

“I have not felt such pain in my life …” Her eyes caught his. “I’ll never be able to explain. Someone could tear me limb from limb and it still wouldn’t be as terrible as imagining you dying alone.”

“You don’t have to explain,” replied Nikolai, softly.

“Tell me what happened.”

He took in a breath.

“The attackers set off a bomb to spook the horses,” he said. “Two of the men got into a firefight with them while the third tried to have me run. I wanted to help, maybe look one of the dullards in the face so he knew just how much they failed at their attempt, but I was shot before I could even make up my mind.” Nikolai paused. “All that was going through my mind as I bled out was how I needed to get home to you. I needed to come back to you. I refused to let our last goodbye be so petty and dramatic. I woke up in a cottage. The person had fixed me up as best they could. I didn’t stay to thank them. Not just to keep my attempted assassination out of people’s mouths, but because I wasn’t going to waste another second in that damned bed when I didn’t know how long I’d been there already. I ran when they left the house and I was lucky I recognized the area from when I would visit Dominik’s family because I didn’t stop through the night.”

The pad of his thumb brushed a tear from her cheek.

“You shouldn’t have pushed yourself.”

“There were so many times I wanted to give up, Y/N.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because my love for you is enough.”

⎯tag list;

@honeymxlon@caaarstairs@jae-the-menace@tartheanmaid@staytrueblue@criesinlies@moon-enthusiast@gallysonegoodlung

kaz when inej is not around

kaz when he’s with inej

“ i’m going to get my money” kaz vowed “and i’m going to get my girl”

i’ve been seeing this a lot so. do people really not realize that mals tattoo “i am become a blade” is grammatically correct? like y’all get a dictionary idk what to tell you

no thoughts head empty just inej slightly bowing to alina and letting her escape

genyadavid is the best ship of the entire grishaverse, fight me idc

pls kaz hitting the darkling with his cane and the darkling throwing some shadows at him and kaz just ducks and smirks and goes “is that all you got?” PLSSS

“He… he said that Darklings are born without souls. That only something truly evil could have created the Shadow Fold.”

26/12/18

I read (but at the end mostly cried)

Ruin and Rising

ByLeigh Bardugo

Favourite quote:

“Hope was tricky like water. Somehow it always found a way in.”

The two lovely women were then seen picnicking together, at one point lying on the ground while Zoya manipulated the clouds.

I painted this for @zemenipearls ‘s wonderful fic Lady Thistleup’s Os Alta Society Papers - A Grishaverse Bridgerton AU! Please go give it a read. When I say your mind, rent free - I mean it. @grishaversebigbang✨

Check out @discountscoobyart ‘s amazing piece for this fic too! X