#ask.gv

"Did you know that you talk in your sleep?"

Zoya's voice carried over from the adjacent room. Nikolai scowled at his reflection, pausing his efficient ministrations of toothbrushing to poke his head out and make sure he'd heard her right.

"I what?" He asked around the brush still caught between his teeth.

Zoya was massaging the back of her neck, looking like the couch hadn't been very kind to her during the night she'd spent in his quarters. He had offered to share his own bed, but Zoya had only scoffed and said she'd prefer Genya dying her hair orange to that.

He had dutifully pointed out that his company was far less humiliating, but Zoya's reaction suggested she disagreed.

"You talk in your sleep, Your Highness." She repeated, her dark eyes glaring daggers at him from across the room. He hair was frazzled and her clothes were wrinkled and mussed. Nikolai couldn't stop his traitorous mind from wondering what it would be like to be greeted with such a sight every morning. "Still, I'm glad to hear you've made some progress with Ehri- or at least with your feelings towards her."

If it wasn't for the fact that every statement issued by Zoya was naturally venomous and tinged with boredom, Nikolai might have suspected there was something more to her tone.

"Zoya, dear," he said, popping the brush out of his mouth to wave around like a conductor to the music of his words, "I'd love to pretend I understood anything you meant but even I'm not that great of an actor- and especially not before tea."

She huffed, rolling her blanket up and evading his gaze, "you needn't pretend, Your Highness, I've met the woman myself and I can sense the appeal," she looked back up at him thoughtfully, "although I do wonder about the ribbon, as I've never seen Ehri with her hair tied before."

Nikolai felt his heart drop from the security of his ribcage. How had he thought this was a good idea? Zoya, in his quarters during the time his mind chose to torture him with such thoughts? With memories, and ridiculous, improper feelings about her? Never mind the leak in her own room, this had been a bad idea from the start.

Still.

He let an easy smile grace his lips, tipping the brush her way and allowing himself a wink as he spoke. "Some things aren't for the public eye, Zoya dear."

He would have to learn to better conceal his feelings, his thoughts. Especially as the wedding grew nearer and he signed away his future as well as his heart. Nikolai let himself mourn this loss, lock it away where it could do as little damage to him as possible.

And he tried not to read too much into the way her face closed up, the way she averted her eyes and nodded solemnly. He tried not to wonder if she was thinking the same thing. If possibly, they'd both just let go of what could have been the seed that would grow to be a very different future.

But Kings and Generals didn't have that luxury.

hehe this is my one strong theory about row here’s why:

“One day you will overstep and I will not be so forgiving.”

Magnus Opjer is coming to Ravka with Nikolai’s face (quite literally) and the blood of a Fjerdan. Now we know Zoya has told the King time and again that her loyalties are with Ravka, not with Nikolai specifically (her feelings on the other hand...) she was a soldier for Ravka’s army and then fought side by side with Alina long before the country gave her something real to fight for. So if worse comes to worse, she is more than ready to take the reins (not as queen, mind you, but she would never have allowed Nikolai to hand her his country if a small part of her didn’t know that someday she would have need to take over).

Zoya burning Opjer’s picture wasn’t for Nikolai, it was for Ravka. But if Opjer appears and reveals the truth, she’ll have to be the one thinking on her feet since I doubt even Nikolai has thought of a solution for his father.

So she is the one that throws Nikolai in jail.

BUT SHE HAS A PLAN I SWEAR!!

Ok so my current theory is that she keeps him out of the way, it’s likely the Darkling is in cohorts with the Fjerdans (we don’t know who else Elizaveta manipulated from her saint castle)  so let us assume that Nikolai is dethroned and Zoya takes temporary charge as interim queen/ruler. She most definitely has some plan to save Nikolai, but his reputation was going to suffer either way, and if she was the one backing him, she wouldn’t have garnered enough power to actually help him.

Also...I doubt Nikolai even knows about this plan.

My guess is she and Genya, possibly the twins, put together a safeguard plan in case that happens, and no one was allowed to tell Nikolai because it was a plan Z-- not to be used unless in emergency.

So he’s in jail...thinking Zoya betrayed him...and his father is in Ravka shredding his credibility by just existing..and everything, everything Nikolai has worked for is stripped from him.

“Excuse you," said Nikolai, crossing his arms over his broad chest like a child demanding a few more hours before bedtime. "I can be as dramatic and ridiculous as I want, outside of work hours. You can't stop me."

Zoya sighed, knowing any argument here would be futile. "As though you aren't the same during work hours, Your Highness,"

Still she had known since Tamar first approached her about this madness that there would be no way to dissuade Nikolai- which was why Zoya had come in the first place.

"Careful, Nazyalensky, that sarcasm could almost be mistaken for fondness."

"Only by you." She muttered before turning away from the perfect grin he'd tailored for her benefit.

He always had one at the ready.

"Alright then, Your Highness," she began, fluffing back her hair and turning to face the empty fields, "last one to the fountain and back gets to tell Genya exactly what happened to her shipment of dresses."

want one?

“For once, this isn’t actually my fault.” 

Zoya cast Nikolai a glare that could cripple armies, “not directly, yet I’m sure leaving you within range of anything destructible is a wish for chaos.”

“I was asleep!” he countered, indicating his green silk pajamas as proof. Zoya raised a brow.

“And now there is a hole in your ceiling, Lantsov, and it was either the King who grows wings in his sleep or Tamar's axes. Somehow I doubt it was the latter.”

“I wouldn’t challenge her like that,” Nikolai muttered, casting Tamar a sidelong glance. 

She grinned in response, “I wouldn’t either, Your Highness.”

“Your Idiot-ness, most days,” Zoya said under her breath, earning a wounded look from Nikolai. “now tell me exactly how are we going to fix this?”

and that part where he says that it's important to have standards, yk in that chapter at the start where they're discussing prospective brides and then he reiterates it in the fold which is symbolic of the fact that he keeps his word and stands true on that at all times bro bRO THEM-

BRO THEM GFAGSHDGDHDGDDH

goshh I'm always thinking of this...