92
" Do you know the only time I felt beautiful?” Hanne asked, her eyes still
closed.
“When?”
“When I tailored myself to look like a soldier. When we cut off all my
hair.”
Nina exchanged the shimmer for a pot of rose balm. “But you didn’t look
like you.”
Hanne’s eyes opened. “But I did. For the first time. The only time.”
Nina dipped her thumb into the pot of balm and dabbed it onto Hanne’s lower lip, spreading it in a slow sweep across the soft cushion of her mouth.
“I can grow my hair, you know,” Hanne said, and moved her hand over one side of her scalp. Sure enough, a reddish-brown curl twined over Hanne’s ear.
Nina stared. “That’s powerful tailoring, Hanne.”
“I’ve been practicing.” She drew small scissors from a drawer and snipped away the curl. “But I like it the way it is.”
“Then leave it.” Nina took the scissors from her hand, brushed her thumb over Hanne’s knuckles. “In trousers. In gowns. With your hair shorn or in braids or down your back. You have never not been beautiful.”
“Do you mean that?”
“I do.”
“I’ve never seen your real face,” Hanne said, eyes scanning Nina’s features. “Do you miss it?”
Nina wasn’t sure how to answer. For a long while she’d startled every time she glimpsed herself in the mirror, when she caught sight of the pale blue eyes, the silky fall of straight blond hair. But the longer she played Mila, the easier it became, and sometimes that scared her. Who will I be when I return to Ravka? Who am I now?
“I’m beginning to forget what I looked like,” she said. “But trust me, I was
gorgeous.”
Hanne took her hand. “You still are. "
― Leigh Bardugo , Rule of Wolves (King of Scars, #2)
94
" There were battles ahead, dangers she and Hanne would have to face. What they were attempting was audacious, maybe impossible, but somehow she knew they would manage it. Nina rested her cheek against Hanne’s. She’d honored Matthias, and this path, somewhere between revenge and redemption, was the right one. My place is with the wolves.
Nina sat up straight. “Hanne, what do I call you now? Rasmus?”
Hanne shuddered. “I can’t stand that. We’ll have to choose a new name. A Saint’s name. To honor the prince’s newfound faith in the Children of Djel.”
“All Saints, you’re a quick learner. That’s a politician’s move.”
“But we have to pick a good one.”
“How about Demyan? Or Ilya? He was famous. And he changed the world.”
Her prince smiled. “I don’t know the story.”
“I’ll tell it to you,” Nina said. Outside, night was falling and the sky was full of stars. “I’ll tell you a thousand stories, my love. We’ll write the new endings, one by one. "
― Leigh Bardugo , Rule of Wolves (King of Scars, #2)
