From the moment his cries pierced the air, Nikolai Lantsov was a force of nature.
He would grow to be a prince, a king, and a demon, all in due turn. He would love and lose and love again, his nation, his friends, his body and his mind. He would wear his duty with grace and serve his first love, Ravka, with a smile.
But first he was small, boyish, a child clearly out of place in his surroundings. He knew not what it was to bear the weight of a crown on his brow. He could not understand that no great love waited for him, at least not within his marriage.
He would grow to learn these things, for Nikolai Lantsov was a boy with a future.
(Or: Nikolai Lantsov will not marry for love. That doesn't mean he won't try.)
(ao3 link in notes)
Excerpt under the cut:
As Dominik lay on the burnt-out grass, Nikolai pressing one hand to staunch the searing pain in his stomach, he thought he finally understood what love meant.Â
âDominik the Brave,â Nikolai said to him. His voice was choked with tears, common and caught in his throat, muffled by gunfire around them. âHold on. Just a little longer. Please.â
Dust churned across Halmhend like a portent. Before they had conscripted, Dominik had struggled to conjure up what his friend might look like in the tide of battle, letting the images come to him at night â a phantom of him surging across the battlefield, rifle raised, a golden princeling shining against a sea of despair. Perhaps he would take out a napkin and tuck it into place, too, tossing Dominik a dashing smile as a bullet followed, finding purchase in his flesh. Heâd awaken and forsake the day the two would find themselves on a battlefield. But Nikolai had proven himself to be an adept soldier, as good a friend on the battlefield as he was off. He looked eerily in place in the destruction, especially as Dominikâs vision blurred at the edges, obscured by pain.Â
It was easy to forget, here, that Nikolai was a prince and Dominik a commoner. The thought frightened him sometimes.Â
âIâll do better,â Â Nikolai said, again and again, like a prayer, though Dominik knew Nikolai had no saints. Iâll do better. Iâll find a way.
Hadnât he always?
He had. The boy above him, sobbing and undone, had found a way unlike anyone Dominik had ever known. The halo of his hair, brown caramelized into gold in the hazy light of battle, seemed all too fitting.Â
There was a time when Dominik thought of his prince as nothing close to an angel. The royal family had once been something of a bogeyman in his house. If he gave his mother guff over eating his sprouts, sheâd adopt an unhappy slant to her mouth and say, do you think Prince Vasily falls to pieces over his sprouts? And, if his teacher reported that he had failed to correctly solve an arithmetic problem, his father would grunt, do you think Prince Nikolai lets his figures get the better of him?
As it turns out, Prince Nikolai rarely let his figures get the better of him, although he did often fail to keep his wandering eyes in check to know that there was an arithmetic problem at all. And Dominik never did muster up the courage to ask if Vasily always finished his sprouts.Â
The palace tutor had come to his close-set home and sat primly with him and his parents at the wood-grained kitchen table, Dominik had seen a firmness in his eyes that frightened him, even as the tutor spoke of his high recommendation from his teacher and offered the Vertov family a proposition they had never considered: they wished to educate in the Grand Palace with the younger Prince.Â
âI believe the presence of a peer would be ideal for Prince Nikolaiâs education,â the tutor had said. âHe has always taken his instruction alone, but you know boys of nine.â The tutor smiled mirthlessly at Dominik. âAlways needing companionship. And guidance.â
The word sent a shiver down Dominikâs spine, but he suppressed it, staring mutely into the eyes of the tutor.Â
âHe is so excellently quiet,â the tutor murmured. âExactly what the Prince needs.â He turned back to Dominikâs parents. âAnd your son will receive an education fit for a prince.â
His parents looked at each other, one long, unbroken gaze.Â
âWe would be honored, sir,â his father said finally. âWhen does the boy start?â
His parents had spoken at length once the tutor left about the education, the âupbringing,â as his mother said. âFit for a prince,â his father had grumbled, âbut not a king.âÂ
His mother had shushed him and drawn Dominik to her side. He curled his hand into her skirt, a habit he had never quite managed to break, much to his older brotherâs ridicule. âHeâll be educated finely, the sole companion of our dear prince,â she had said. âWhat more could we ask for?âÂ
But Dominik could not help but think there was more to the role he would be asked to play at the palace. Princely boys - boys who ate their sprouts and finished their arithmetic - did not need guidance, as the tutor had said. When Dominik had gone to bed that night, he had tried to reconcile the boy the tutor had described with the prince he had seen again and again, in portraits, on the odd dollar bill. When he fell asleep, he conjured a boy with hardened eyes, a gleeful smile on his face, tearing his papers to ribbons, taunting Dominik over the lip of a teacup until he free-fell to whatever hard, porcelain surface lay waiting for him.Â
it should be called the phantom switch. there should be two eriks (one whos an opera ghost and one whos an ordinary baker from chicago) and they should both be played by vanessa hudgens
other hockey rpf enjoyers now expressing skepticism and disbelief at the choice of man referenced above and tagging it with their preferred and more horchataesque men. i love it here and i'll leave when i die
bella was lucky she didnât have a cell phone of any kind because you know ya boi edward would be blowing up that phone 24-7 going âsaw a snail todayâŚ. effervescentâ or some shit equivalent
i dont understand people who never reread a book or rewatch a movie or series. the best art will always improve upon being revisited. girl. let it reveal more of itself to you.
