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When Fedyor finished his tale, I asked that he be brought dinner and advised him that he should be ready to travel to Os Alta at dawn
"I don’t knohat kind of reception we can expect," I warned him
"We’ll be ready, moi soverenyi," he said, and bowed
I started at the title In an as I walked him to the door Then I hesitated I couldn’t believe what I was about to say, but apparently Nikolai was getting through to , but tidy up a bit before toood iain and replied, "Da, soverenyi," before disappearing into the night
Great, I thought One order down, a few thousand o
THE NEXT MORNING, I dressed in my elaborate kefta and descended the dacha’s steps with Mal and the twins The gold sunbursts glittered frohspun Nikolai ht not like it, but I wanted to erase the lines that had been drawn between the Grisha and the rest of Ravka’s people
Though we’d been warned that Os Alta was teerims, for once Nikolai didn’t insist that I ride in the coach He wantedthe city But that didn’t uards and I were all seated on beautiful white horses, andthe Ravkan double eagle and flags eolden suns
"Subtle, as always," I sighed
"Understateray "Now, shall we visit , and the banners of our processional hung li the Vy toward the capital Ordinarily, the royal family would have spent the hot months at their summer palace in the lake district But Os Alta was more easily defended, and they’d chosen to hunker down behind its fahts wandered as we rode I hadn’t gottencombined with the steady sway of the horse and the low hum of insects made my chin droop But e crested the hill at the outskirts of the town, I came quickly awake
In the distance, I saw Os Alta, the Dreaainst the cloudless sky But between us and the capital, arrayed in perfect military formation, stood row after row of armed men Hundreds of soldiers of the First Arrunts Sunlight glittered off the hilts of their swords, and their backs bristled with rifles
A man rode out before them He wore an officer’s coat covered with est horses I’d ever seen It could have carried two Tolyas
Nikolai watched the rider galloping back and forth across the lines and sighed "Ah," he said "It seereet us"
We rode slowly down the slope, until we came to a halt before the littering banners, our processional of ard Grisha and ragged pilgried his horse forward, and his brother cantered up to meet him
I’d seen Vasily Lantsov a few tih he’d had the bad luck to inherit his father’s weak chin, and his eyes were so heavy-lidded that he always looked very bored or slightly drunk But now he seemed to have roused hiht in his saddle, radiating arrogance and nobility Next to hi
I felt a prickle of fear Nikolai always seeet that he was just a few years older than Mal and I were, a boy captain who hoped to beco
It had been seven years since Nikolai had been at court, and I didn’t think he’d seen Vasily in all that tis The two princes simply dismounted and clasped each other in a brief efully on irl you claim is the Sun Summoner?"
Nikolai raised his brows His brother couldn’t have given hih to prove" He nodded to me
Understate wave of light that crashed over the asse heat They threw up their hands, and several stepped back as the horses shied and whinnied I let the light fade Vasily sniffed
"You’ve been busy, little brother"