Chapter Text
After half a semester at Ketterdam University, Nikolai had found precisely one thing that mattered. Oh, he had found friendships, the sort with future moderate successes he might foster–he knew his drinking buddies had sturdy careers ahead. He had found vendors selling delightful morsels at streetcarts, though poffertjes truly were the oladi of a morally bankrupt nation.
None of it mattered. Not enough, not to Nikolai, not to a man who grew up in a country at war, aware of the hemorrhaging blood of his nation and barely able to lift a finger to staunch it. He almost missed his infantry days. At least he did everything he could.
"So explain this again," Will said, licking a spot of oil and sugar from his fingertips.
Nikolai snagged an oliebol from Will's paper cone. The pair headed for the harbor, trading the faint scents of industry for the fish-ripened fresh air off the True Sea.
"You want to take on my dimmest student. And I saw that," Will added, taking one of Nikolai's poffertjes. He could have the lot as far as Nikolai was concerned!
Ah, all right, they weren't bad. They were tasty–even if they did make him a touch maudlin and homesick.
Nikolai shook his head, buying himself a moment to enjoy the snack. The two walked close together, dodging pedestrians on the busy street, just a couple of university students enjoying what passed for a sunny afternoon. Nikolai and Will weren't the only people falling victim to street cart vendors, either.
"Wylan isn't dim. And that's not the point."
"Then what–"
"Brothers!" cried a man offering no snacks, only pamphlets.
Nikolai and Will moved as one to go around.
"My brothers in Djel," he insisted, moving before them, "please, a moment of this beautiful day."
The two traded glances. The man before them had typical Fjerdan looks, blond and pale with ice chips of eyes, though he was rather more… civilian, than Nikolai's stereotype. He supposed he ought to update his assumptions. They were not all druskelle.
"I'm Ravkan," Nikolai said.
Though his looks favored his Fjerdan half, which well may have been why the man stopped them.
Nikolai looked past the man, down the wider walkway to the busier berths at the harbor. The day was clear enough that he saw dots of sails past the harbor, where ships waited at anchor for their turn to dock and unload their cargos, but it wasn't the bolts of silk and crates of oranges that interested Nikolai. It was the ships themselves. They followed a careful order in this busy port, but he knew that beyond his gaze, past the brick walls and to the left of his line of sight, there were less orderly spaces, smaller ships slicing into harbor and out again and only following the orders they chose to take. He knew the Kerch with their rules and standards and measures had tamed these great beasts of oak and canvas, but only by their concession to it.
There was freedom out there. A man might define himself on the open water.
"The Wellsprings flows through all waters of the world," insisted the Fjerdan. "Borders mean nothing to the love of Djel. Please. All of his children need to be aware of the danger of drusje, what you call–"
"We know what it means," Nikolai said, taking Will's elbow to guide him forward, toward the harbor, the ships, the sea.
Besides, he wasn't in Kerch to argue with Fjerdan bigots. The Saints knew Nikolai bore his own grudges, but he wasn't about to blame all Grisha just because one had turned the head of the only father he ever met.
"They should do something about those Northmen clogging up our streets," commented Will, brushing at his coat and only smearing the sugar from his oliebollen.
"Fjerdans use Djel, is it so different from the Kerch troops in Eames Chin?"
"Of course it is."
Nikolai wasn't sure he saw how. And he knew full well his own country did the same, just as unforgivably.
"About the boy," he said. He didn't want to argue this with Will, not now, not here. What good would it do? What was that point? It only made Nikolai's collar feel tighter while the open sea air tugged to loosen it.
"You want him," said Will, slugging Nikolai playfully on the shoulder, "well then, my brother in Djel, he's all yours. Just one more obstacle."
"All right, he's mine if I can jump over the ledge of that planter."
"No," Will said, laughing, "as much as I would enjoy watching you plant your nose in the lilies, it's not my decision, Nik. You'll need the father to approve."
Ah.
Nikolai raked a hand through his hair.
He remembered Jan Van Eck, a face like stormclouds for his little son–not so little anymore–a veneer of decorum for a Ravkan prince.
He took a step back.
"Hold my poffertjes. I may as well jump into the planter."
By the time Nikolai and Wylan reached the stable, the stands were empty, the racetrack eerily heady with the quiet of night even in midafternoon. The sun burned hot and the air smelled of hay, horse, and baked dust.
But the stables were dim and cool as the boys waited for their vision to adjust.
"Where are you kids supposed to be?" asked a stablehand. His tone was careful. They were well-dressed: spectators. But they were young and out of place, overstepping into his domain.
Wylan took half a step back, but Nikolai didn't flinch.
"A Lantsov in Ravkan is supposed to be wherever he likes. We'd like to see the horses," Nikolai said.
"Of course, moi tsarevich." The stablehand offered a messy bow. "Forgive me. I didn't recognize you."
"Not to worry. But…" He glanced at Wylan, who was still clutching little Ships in his even littler hand. "Tell me, are there any particularly docile animals?"
When Nikolai and Wylan approached the indicated creature, Nikolai grinned. He was an appaloosa, white coat that faded to light brown hindquarters, red-brown spots.
"He looks like you with those freckles," Nikolai said.
Wylan grinned. "No!"
"Yes!"
"He does not!"
"He does so!"
Nikolai raised his hand to stroke the horse's nose, then scratched under his forelock. He had no idea when this one had run. The races were… uninteresting, to him.
"Do you want to pet him? It's okay. See how nice he is?"
Wylan reached up. The horse sniffed his fingers, then huffed at him, making Wylan giggle.
"Good pony," Nikolai said, stroking his neck. He unlatched the gate and stepped into the stall. As he petted the horse's back, he asked Wylan, "Do you want to mount up?"
"Is that allowed?" he asked. Saints, the boy had eyes as wide and deep as his madraya's favorite gilded samovar.
Nikolai could drink that joy. When was the last time someone smiled for him like that? The last time he caused something so simple and wonderful as that joy? The last time someone beamed that approval at him?
"It is if I say it is! Come on." Nikolai laced his fingers together into a stirrup, and with a huge, gappy grin, Wylan stepped up. Nikolai boosted him up onto the horse.
Sitting there astride the appaloosa, Wylan was pure sunshine. All smiles and giggles. Nikolai smiled back at him, but he did so with a stab of envy that Wylan had been so lucky: protected, privileged with safety and comfort of a kind Nikolai had never been permitted.
"Rostje," Wylan said, patting the animal's neck. Horsie. "Goed rostje."
"Wylan," snapped a voice that sluiced ice water down Nikolai's spine. Saints, that tone! "What are you doing up there? Get down at once!"
It made Nikolai feel cold through and through, he felt his smile fading. But that was nothing compared to what he saw from Wylan. It was like watching half the boy disappear: watching the smile sink, his body language change, his face pale. It was like watching a boy become a porcelain doll.
Nikolai stepped forward.
"I put him on the horse. Nikolai Lantsov. And you are?"
"Ah–Your Highness," said the man. He had a voice like oil. "Forgive my tone. I am Jan Van Eck. Wylan, my son, is all I have. I can be protective. Clearly such a large animal would be a danger to a small and vulnerable boy."
"I'm sorry, Papa."
"Don't be sorry," Nikolai said. "You're doing just what I said. Here."
He reached up to help Wylan off the horse, steadied him on his feet, and patted him on the shoulder. He hadn't expected to see such a glimpse into anyone's life that day, let alone to be warmed by a child's glee, sharpened by envy, frozen by proximity to hate… to see a boy he believed had too much, had everything, and realized it wasn't what he had that mattered. It was who he was.
That bright joy came from Wylan. Not his circumstances. Certainly not his father.
Jan Van Eck gripped his son by the arm and walked him out of Nikolai's life.
Forever.
Or at least, for a few years.