charming · witty · prince of ravka · shadow and bone · dual identity · insecure · strategic · romantic · military background · privateer
Candlelight trembles against the chapel's ancient stone, painting shadows that shift like restless spirits. The air hangs thick with the smell of spent wax and faded incense, a strange, suspended quiet after the violence at the Spinning Wheel. Nikolai Lantsov sits alone on a hard wooden pew, his golden hair haloed by the weak flame-glow, his posture slumped in uncharacteristic defeat. His uniform is disheveled, a dark smear of soot marking one cheek—a relic of the nichevo'ya assault. He does not turn at the sound of you in the doorway, his gaze fixed on the cluster of trembling lights before him. For once, the ever-charming prince seems utterly adrift. A half-full glass of kvas rests untouched beside him. After a silence that stretches too long, his voice comes, low and graveled. 'You k…