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" This was where Zoya had been seen sneaking off to all those nights—not to a lover, but to this monument to grief. This was where she had shed her tears, away from curious eyes, where no one could see her armor fall. And here, the Grisha might live forever, every friend lost, every soldier gone.
“I know what I did is unforgivable,” she said. Nikolai blinked, confused.
“No doubt you deserve to be punished for your crimes … but for what precisely?”
She cast him a baleful look. “I lost our most valuable prisoner. I’ve allowed our most deadly enemy to regain his powers and … run amok.”
“‘Amok’ seems an overstatement. Wild, perhaps.”
“Don’t pretend to shrug this off. You’ve barely looked at me since I returned.”
Because I am greedy for the sight of you. Because the prospect of facing this war, this loss, without you fills me with fear. Because I find I don’t want to fight for a future if I can’t find a way to make a future with you.
But he was a king and she was his general and he could say none of those things. "
― Leigh Bardugo , Rule of Wolves (King of Scars, #2)
165
" Don’t go.”
He shut his eyes and gripped her hand in his. Zoya knew the Healer had noticed it, knew he would probably gossip about it later. But she could weather the gossip. Saints knew she’d endured worse. And maybe she needed to feel his hand in hers after the shock of what they’d witnessed. She couldn’t stop seeing those women burn.
“You shouldn’t be here for this,” said the Healer. “It’s an ugly process.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
The Healer flinched and Zoya wondered if the dragon had emerged, shining silver in her eyes. Let him gossip about that too.
Nikolai clung to her hand as the Healer stripped the ruined flesh from his arm. Only then could it be replaced with healthy skin. It seemed to take hours, first one arm, then the other. Whenever Zoya left the king’s side—to fetch a cool cloth for his head, to turn up the lanterns so that the Healer had better light—Nikolai would open his eyes and mutter, “Where is my general?”
“I’m here,” she repeated, again and again. "
― Leigh Bardugo , Rule of Wolves (King of Scars, #2)