I just love how Nikolai spends the entire book unconsciously describing Zoya as his ideal partner, and he as hers.
When they’re discussing potential political matches for him, Nikolai gets very moody and dismissive of all the women Zoya mentions, and as he’s brooding about just wanting to be alone, he notes that he actually really loves Zoya’s company like this, just the two of them by the fire. Even as he’s calling her a harpy. Even during this conversation that he hates, he’s thinking about how much loves spending time alone with her. While talking about who he should marry.
When Kirigin tells Nikolai of his interest in Zoya, Nikolai shoots him down and thinks about how men are always trying to soften her up in their minds, deluding themselves that she’ll warm up for them. And then he thinks about how much he likes her just as she is; he doesn’t want her to change, for him or anyone else. He’s the only man who likes her for her and not her beauty. (And Zoya has spent so long using her looks to get men to fall in love with her that Nikolai’s apparent immunity to her beauty makes her think she hasn’t got a shot with him, when unbeknownst to her, he loves her for who she is.)
We know that Nikolai doesn’t just want to marry for love, he also wants someone who would be a good leader for his country. He’s a romantic, but he also loves Ravka. And so in Chapter 27 when he thinks about how Zoya is truly the queen that Ravka needs, but also the woman that he wants, he’s basically saying that she is it. He trusts and values her so much that if he were to die, she’s the one he wants to give his entire country to. And that’s huge for him. So much of who he is and what drives him is this need to better his country, and it just so happens that the woman he’s falling in love with is also the one he implicitly trusts with doing everything he wants to accomplish.
And it kills me because Zoya is so sure he’s too good for her. When she feels she wants to kiss him in those early morning moments, she gets uncomfortable by the intimacy of it all. When she thinks about how much she enjoys his company, just the two of them in that comfortable “rhythm” she feels, she says this is her mind turning “traitor”. She thinks there’s no way that optimistic, charming, bright Nikolai could love her. When Elizaveta tells her that Nikolai might actually want her, Zoya immediately squashes down the happiness she feels at the idea and calls it foolish. When she realizes that she’s hurt when he finally decides to marry Ehri, Zoya thinks she’s being an idiot because it was inevitable, and yet she says she had been leaving her flank open, which means that a part of her, despite her insecurities, was actually hoping that it might turn out differently, that he might have chosen her against the odds. And then she kind of desperately teases him “while she still could” because she thinks this is it, everything will be different now.