#sunliht

@sunliht​  (nikolai)  said:   ‘ don’t leave me. ’   /   si.x of cro.ws starters.

the night was deathly quiet,     &   her plan to  vanish  in its silence was coming to fruition.   there would be an  interrogation  if she were to get caught               why the secrecy,   why the urgency,   why the need to escape  when she was invited to stay at the palace as a  guest of the crown               but she would find no one to ask these questions  &  inej was thankful for it.    she bounced from wall to wall  &  away from the eyes of  the guards  patrolling the corridors,   her heart leaping in its cage.    she reached the throne room,   threw a stone in a direction that would lead the men away from it  &  remained hidden behind a curtain till footsteps faded.   once certain that  the hall was empty,   she opened the door just enough to allow her inside  &  shut it behind her,   without a creak to be heard.    

there were chandeliers  &  decorated lanterns hanging from the ceiling,    reflecting the light from candelabras that lined the walls.    it was  so ostentatiously decorated  that while inej stood right at the centre of the room with awestruck eyes,   it also made her  nauseous.    the commotion of the guards outside brought her back to her senses only a few moments later  &  she hurried towards the entrance door,  but a sound caused her steps to come to an  abrupt halt.

‘ don’t leave me.’      even in a crowd of thousands,  she would recognize  that voice.   inej turned to look at  the prince,   who seemed to have  materialised  out of thin air and on the dais behind her.   her chin jutted upwards almost stubbornly as though  determined  to deny his request.    the light that danced between the glass fixtures had  limned his hair in gold and underneath it,  he did not look ravka’s royal heir  but more like a  boy,    troubled  &   lonely. her resolution to leave began to waver,   retracing her steps towards him absentmindedly             to hold him,   console him,   reassure him that  he wouldn’t be alone.    but when even in the  brightly lit  hall  she struggled to find  sturmhond  in his place            the man she had sailed with only days before,   the man beside whom she had weathered storms,   the man she had come to  trust  more than herself              inej stopped.