As Vladim moved to turn the locks, I heard Genya whisper. "You definitely owe me a kiss after all this, Don't think I won't hold you to it."
I laughed lightly. "We'll see."
"There is no seeing, you will, if I have to be the one to do it then so be...
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"I HAVE A GIFT FOR YOU."
"Ooh?"
"It's quite the gem if you ask me," Nikolai winked. He reached into his pocket and placed something atop the wall.
Light glinted off an emerald ring. The lush green stone at its center was bigger than my thumbnail and surrounded by stars of tiny diamonds.
"Understatement is overrated," I said with a shaky breath.
"I love it when you quote me." Nikolai tapped the ring. "Console yourself knowing that, should you ever need to punch me while wearing it, you'll probably take my eye out. And I'd very much like you to. Wear it, that is. Not punch me."
"Where did you get this thing?"
"My mother gave it to me before she left. It's the Lantsov emerald. She was wearing it at my birthday dinner the night we were attacked. Curiously enough, that was not the worst birthday I've had."
"No?"
"When I was ten, my parents hired a clown."
Tentatively, I reached out and picked up the ring.
"Heavy," I said.
"A mere boulder, really."
"Did you tell your mother you planned to give it to a common thief?"
"She did most of the talking," he said. "She wanted to tell me about Magnus Opjer."
"Who?"
"A Fjerdan ambassador, quite a sailor, made his money in shipping." Nikolai looked out at the cloud bank. "Also my father, apparently."
I wasn't sure whether to offer congratulations or condolence. Nikolai talked about the conditions of his birth easily enough, but I knew he felt the string of it more deeply than he admitted.
"It's strange to actually know," he continued. "I think some part of me always hoped the rumors were just that."
"You'll still make a great king."
"Of course, I will," he scoffed. "I'm melancholy, not daft." He brushed an invisible piece of lint from his sleeve. "I don't know if she'll ever forgive me for sending her into exile, especially to the Colonies."
