a/n: This unedited piece was inspired during my reread of the original trilogy when there was a mention of Ilya Morozovapossibly being alive. This will most likely be jossed in King of Scars.

Disclaimer: Nope.

Title: kings and saints

Word Count:645

Summary: "Your entire line is dead," Nikolai informed the ancient man. "An otkazat'sya girl killed them."

In a hut by the sea, a king waited for a saint to speak.

The man was beyond ancient, more skeleton than man with cataract eyes and yellowed teeth, hunched over a cane that appeared to be made of bone. Nikolai had no clue what to initially expect from a dead saint. In his experience, they were prickly creatures who threatened to stab him if he denied staying for dinner. But Ilya Morozova was not an orphan child from Keramzin, a girl turned into a soldier and a saint only to be immortalized as a dead relic. This man had gone beyond sainthood, more memory than the man who had once sought to understand the secrets of the universe.

"Your entire line is dead," Nikolai informed the ancient man. "An otkazat'sya girl killed them."

Morozova let out a wheezing sound. "Dead?" He raised his head, fixing his blind eyes on Nikolai. A shiver went up the king's spine as he was reminded of Baghra behind the iron door, knowing her only child had followed the family's obsession.

Morozova had been found through Nikolai's network of spies. They had followed cults and poured over religious documents, tracing the stories of monsters and men and madness until they had found a destitute hut on the cliffs of the Wandering Isle. It was, as far as Nikolai could tell, the only proof of the Fabrikator's abilities that such a structure could survive the harsh winds and deteriorating rocks.

Nikolai looked over the room. Rusted kettles and pans dangled above a cracked tile oven. A single cot shoved against a discolored wall with tattered books littering the floor. There were no decorations, no icons of painted saints on his walls or tokens from his travels to illuminate his dark home. A single window with an ill-fitted piece of glass looked over the cliffside and the waves below. It was a homemade for the forgotten dead. The father of monsters and shadows.

"Dead and gone," he confirmed. He looked over the side of his leather boot and winced at seeing the dirt had gotten into the decorative gilt. "Unlike you, I'm afraid."

There was only silence. Sea-salt wind hissed through the cracks in the walls, stirring papers. Morozova leaned back in his chair and looked out the window to where the late fog was coming in. The sun had started to set.

"Is that all, moi tsar?" he said in a mocking tone that echoed Orestev's. "You followed saints and demons to only report their deaths?"

Nikolai straightened in his seat. "I told you as a warning."

He thought of the Darkling's madness, the volcra and Nichevo'yadescending on his people. Baghra's warnings before she turned her power onto herself because love wasn't enough to save her son. Orestev becoming a blade in Alina's hands, the power of the three amplifiers burning the shadows away and turning ordinary men into weapons.

The cursed scars under his gloves pained in the memory of bones breaking into unnatural shapes, a monster growing under his skin and demanding blood. Nikolai was forcibly reminded of Baghra's last warning of what could happen if the power took too much of Alina.

Would you sacrifice her to save us?

Without question. Without hesitation.

But a king could allow mercy to the man who had started it all.

Nikolai stood and gathered his regal air into something imposing. "If an otkazat'sya girl could become a saint to kill your grandson, imagine what a king affected by merzost could do to you if your experiments continued. Pray to your fellow saints, Morozova, that the rest of your miserable life is a quiet one." The gun glinted by his belt.

Morozova smiled. It was a vicious gesture with his skeletal face and black gums. "I see someone has finally learned. Very well, King of Scars, we have an understanding."