Tolya Yul-Bataar személy
Idézetek
„Of course it won't last,” said Zoya. „What does?”
„True love?” suggested Tamar.
„Great art?” said Tolya.
„A proper grudge,” replied Zoya.
100. oldal, 8. fejezet
“I thought I was supposed to be guarding Alina,” Mal said. “Not running around with a bunch of pampered royals.”
“Tolya and Tamar can manage while you’re away. And this is a chance for you to make yourself useful.”
Great, I thought as I watched Mal’s eyes narrow. Just perfect.
“And what are you doing to be useful, your highness?”
“I’m a prince,” said Nikolai. “Being useful isn’t part of the job description.
247-248. oldal, Chapter 14
“What do you have in this thing?”
“Three pairs of socks, one pair of trousers, an extra shirt. One canteen. A tin cup and plate. A cylindrical slide rule, a chrondometer, a jar of spruce sap, my collection of anticorrosives—”
“You were only supposed to pack what you need.”
David gave an emphatic nod. “Exactly.”
Chapter 4
„We'll be entering an area crawling with militias, not mentioning the Darkling's oprichniki. You're recognisable,” he said to Genya. „So is Tolya, for that matter.”
Tamar's lips twitched. „Would you like to be the one to tell him he cant come?”
Mal considered this. „Maybe we can disguise him as a really big tree.”
51. oldal
„But the power that created the presence inside the king wasn't ordinary Grisha power. It was merzost.”
„Abomination,” murmured Tolya.
„Are we calling it a presence now?” asked Nikolai. „I preferred 'monster.' Or 'demon.' Even 'fiend' has a nice ring.” The monster is me and I am the monster. And if Nikolai didn't laugh at it, he was fairly sure he'd go mad.
„We can name it Maribel if it suits you,” Zoya said, pushing away her empty cup.
89. oldal, 6. Nikolai
Nikolai was dictating a reply to General Raevsky, and trying to ignore the noise of Tolya and Tamar sparring outside the stables, when he sensed her. What they had endured on the Fold had connected them in some way, and he knew he would see Zoya when he turned—yet the sight of her struck like a sudden change in the weather. A drop in temperature, the crackle of electricity in the air, the feeling of a storm coming on. The wind lifted her black hair, the blue silk of her kefta whipping around her frame.
“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.”
8 Nikolai
“What we do next will determine not only what kind of war this is, but what every war will look like after. Launching a rocket without ever needing to put a soldier or a pilot in harm’s way? War is meant to have costs. At what point are we as bad as the Fjerdans?”
“Maybe that’s what we need to be,” said Zoya. “This is a world where villains thrive.” Where men like David died buried beneath a heap of stone in their wedding clothes while the Darkling and the Apparat somehow still drew breath.
“Does that mean we become villains too?” Tolya asked, and Zoya could hear the pleading in his voice.
“You’ve never been the weakest person in the room, Tolya. Mercy means nothing if we can’t protect our own.”
“But where does it end?”
20 Zoya
“I was warned of your glib tongue. You talk of breaking bread, but I spent last night confined to what amounts to a cell—”
“The Iris Suite? My aunt Ludmilla decorated it herself. Overly fond of the color puce, but cell seems a bit ungenerous.”
“The color is fine. It is the armed guards that offend my sensibility. Is this how you treat all of your guests?”
“Tolya,” whispered Nikolai, “I think he’s calling you bad company.”
9 Nikolai