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I did. Merzost. Darkness. 

“It’s not too late. You could stay. You could come back with me to the Grand Palace.” 

“Teach, help me rebuild the Second Army, rusticate by the lake?”

“You could stay with me. I still need a Queen.”

Begging her to be his ally, his friend, his wife, his Queen, and in the last minute before her departure, he settled with friends because being her friend is at least better than being nothing at all.

And the fact that he still can’t get over her even years after the rejection(s).

i would love to have nikolai as a friend.

i literally don’t care if people think i’m reading too much into this excerpt, but this is so important to me.

“Nikolai had added the sun in ascendance to his own Lantsov heraldry, a gesture he could admit had been driven by the need to court public opinion as much as by personal sentiment.”

damn, alina was so lucky to have nikolai as her friend. because who wouldn’t want a friend who, upon ascending the throne of a kingdom, decided to permanently alter the centuries-old heraldry of his royal house just to include my personal symbol?

oh, and i suppose it’s mundane. and that it’s probably necessary. except he could have chosen anything that screamed "i am a war hero and an inventor," but instead he chose to make a statement that his kingship really was built on her light. he could have chosen anything as a symbol since his oldest grisha friends weren’t alina. and yet, he didn’t. he didn’t just honour her; he integrated her, ensuring that every time a citizen looked at a coin, a banner, carriage doors, uniforms, or a royal seal, they were looking at her.

the literal face of the new version of his reign was her. he saw himself and her as so intertwined that they became a single unit—to the point where you cannot mention his reign without mentioning her. he ensured she was by his side on that throne even while she was living a quiet life elsewhere, dead to the public, knowing he would never get a thank you or a wedding out of it. yes, he did all that even when she was already "dead." that new crest basically made her his co-regent in the eyes of history.

and when he eventually descended from that throne, he closed his chapter with her still intertwined with him. but sure, it’s just about a man who binds himself and his country to a girl [space] friend he only “sort of liked.” i, too, weave my crush’s soul into my national identity just for the mundane fun of it.