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It's incredible that he managed to find a room devoid of any refugees in this place, especially when the tunnels don't have that much space to begin with and everywhere else is packed.
He just needed an escape and he'd stumbled across this small room. Or well, not exactly stumbled, more frantically sought out anything close to a private space so he wouldn't completely have a meltdown in public. But either way, crisis avoided and he'd found a place with absolutely no one in it, thank the Saints.
It wasn't that he didn't have great mental health or anything, just that it was a little too much right now. He needed a second - well more than that - to just let himself process everything that had just happened without having to hide it or shove it down because he was the Prince and everyone was looking up to him and if he was out of it then everything would be chaos. Well more than it already was.
He couldn't deal with that, not now. He sat down on the small bench in the room, just letting himself relax the way he hadn't been able to for a while. Focusing on keeping his breath steady, he let himself slowly go over the events of the past day and even further back just a bit. He had some time now and he didn't know when he would again so he'd make the best of it now.
He'd found Alina. Brought her on his ship, across the Fold and back home. Funny word 'home.' He'd always been told that the Palace was his home, then Ravka was his home, yet he'd never felt as at home as he did on the Volkvolny, on the True Sea.
Then they'd made their way to the Spinning Wheel and he'd been glad to be surrounded by his inventions and allies both old and new. Grisha and otkazat'zya working and living together how it should be.
Even though everything inside had been good, everything outside was anything but and they had to find a way to change that. So he'd made a proposal. A "'proposal' proposal" in his newly betrothed's words. One that Alina had taken him up on though he knew it was only out of necessity.
Though neither of them could have known, that decision, that proposal was what had ultimately been their downfall. If only his stupid brother could have refrained for once, sacrificed his big ego for once then he might still be alive.
Nikolai's breathing hitched.
There that was it. The one thing that was causing the most trouble for him. The thing that he kept getting stuck on and didn't know how to move on from.
Grief wasn't an alien concept to him, it wasn't some unfamiliar feeling. He'd felt and dealt with it before. But this… this was different and if he didn't get past this now, it could cause problems later he knew.
Thanks to his brother's idiocy, he was now without a father and a brother.
Anyone else with any other family might have been heartbroken over it, but this was his family they were talking about.
It had all been his brother's fault that everything had fallen down around them. They had actually stood a chance for once. They had the Summoner, the Darkling had no idea where they were, their allies were steadily growing and they had the beginnings of a solid plan. Until his brother had leaked their location just for the sake of his own fat ego.
Vasily had never been the best person, let alone a good brother or Prince. His unsavoury habits were no secret, his frequent trips to the brothels and bars of Caryeva. He'd always neglected his princely duties, neglecting Nikolai more. To Vasily, he'd always been a pest, illegitimate. It was because of all that Nikolai doesn't feel like grieving.
But he feels almost an obligation to. As terrible and mean and stupid as Vasily was - had been - he'd still been Nikolai's brother. Less of a brother than some of the people he'd met on the battlefield, but his brother nonetheless. Even if he didn't really deserve to be grieved.
And then there was his father too. King Pyotr. Not even his biological father. Even so, he never seemed to really consider Nikolai his son anyway, making no effort to. Even if Nikolai was doing more as Prince now than Vasily would have ever done as King, Pyotr's focus had always been on his older brother. More than it was on ruling the kingdom.
Like his brother, he knew the King had also done some… questionable things in his life. Especially after hearing Genya's story, he had lost some more of the little respect he'd held for the man. As a King, Pyotr had failed the country in Nikolai's eyes. The Darkling obviously had his flaws, but even he'd been a better diplomat than the King, possibly the only reason Ravka hadn't collapsed completely. Nikolai already knew he wouldn't be the same type of king his father would be.
A time that with the death of the King had suddenly come that much closer.
He sighed.
His father obviously hadn't been the best King, as he knew already, but he wasn't ready to take on that role just yet. Being King would open up a whole new world of possibilities, new ways to help his country return to its former glory, but it also closed off those he had now that came with being Sturmhond.
Once he was crowned, being Sturmhond and helping his country the way he did now would be impossible. Because from now on, he wasn't the Prince of Ravka any longer. He'd been upgraded from that to King-in-waiting to King in all of one night.
A night that had started off as a celebration, and had ended in so many losses. His family, his allies, his plans and their only advantage over the Darkling.
Among those, his freedom was just one more thing to mourn.