Raniya Ranjit

“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

“Your heart is in your eyes, Your Highness,” murmured Tamar, wiping the sweat from her brow.
Tolya poked his twin in the arm with a sparring sword. “Tamar knows because that’s the way she looks at her wife.”
“I am free to look at my wife any which way I please.”
“But Zoya is not Nikolai’s wife.”
“I’m standing right here,” said Nikolai. “And there is nothing in my eyes except the never-ending dust you two kick up.”
He was glad to see his general. There was nothing out of the ordinary about that. Her presence brought a perfectly understandable relief, a feeling of calm that came with knowing that whatever the problem was, they would best it, that if one of them faltered, the other would be there to drag them along. That comfort was not something he could afford to get used to or rely
on, but he would enjoy it while he might. If only she weren’t wearing that damned blue ribbon again.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Rule of Wolves

“I relied on him to find answers I couldn’t, to blaze a path when I found myself lost. David saw things no one else did. He saw through the world to the mysteries on the other side. I know that he’s gone on to solve those mysteries.” A faint smile touched Nikolai’s lips. “I can see him in some great library, already lost in his work, head bent to some new problem, making the unknown known. When I enter the laboratory, when I wake in the night with a new idea, I will miss him…” His voice broke. “I miss him now. May the Saints receive him on a brighter shore.”
“May the Saints receive him,” the crowd murmured. But David hadn’t believed in Saints. He’d believed in the Small Science. He’d believed in a world ordered by facts and logic.
What do you believe? Zoya didn’t know. She believed in Ravka, in her king, in the chance that she could be a part of something better than herself. But maybe she didn’t deserve that.
All eyes had turned to Genya now. She was David’s wife, his friend, his compatriot. She was expected to speak.
Genya stood straighter, lifted her chin. “I loved him,” she said, her body still trembling as if it had been torn apart and hastily stitched back together. “I loved him and he loved me. When I was … when no one could reach me … he saw me. He…” Genya turned her head to Zoya’s shoulder and sobbed. “I loved him and he loved me.”
Was there any greater gift than that? Any more unlikely discovery in this world?
“I know,” said Zoya. “He loved you more than anything.”
The dragon’s eye had opened and Zoya felt that love, the enormity of what Genya had lost. It was too much to endure knowing she could do nothing to erase that pain”
― Leigh Bardugo, Rule of Wolves

“„Pilgrims came through only a day ago,” said Zoya. „Followers of the Starless One. They claim this is punishment for the reign of a faithless king.”
„How unfair. I have plenty of faith,” Nikolai objected.
Tolya raised a brow. „In what?”
„Good engineering and better whiskey.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Rule of Wolves