Leigh Bardugo: King of Scars (Nikolai Duology #1) | Lina
Nikolai Lantsov has always had a gift for the impossible. No one knows what he endured in his country’s bloody civil war—and he intends to keep it that way. Now, as enemies gather at his weakened borders, the young king must find a way to refill Ravka’s coffers, forge new alliances, and stop a rising threat to the once-great Grisha Army.
Yet with every day a dark magic within him grows stronger, threatening to destroy all he has built. With the help of a young monk and a legendary Grisha Squaller, Nikolai will journey to the places in Ravka where the deepest magic survives to vanquish the terrible legacy inside him. He will risk everything to save his country and himself. But some secrets aren’t meant to stay buried—and some wounds aren’t meant to heal.
”We have some bad news.”
“There’s more?”
“It’s Ravka. There is always more.”
This is not okay. I am not okay. In fact, I don’t think I will ever be okay because hOW CAN LEIGH BARDUGO KEEP DOING THIS TO ME?King of Scars is a literal masterpiece, all the way from that stunning cover to the beautiful writing and all the amazing characters. At this point, I think wouldn’t even care if Bardugo’s following books were all physics textbooks or something equally dreadful, I’d just read them all because dammit, her writing style is just so kriffing gorgeous! (@ fellow Star Wars fans, where you at XD)
Just a brief summary of what this book is about before I continue fangirling over it…
Three years after the events of Ruin and Rising and a year after the events of the Six of Crows duology, the young king Nikolai Lantsov and the Grisha Triumvirate are doing their best to save the drowning man that is Ravka and get it back on its wobbly legs. The civil war that struck the country three years prior has certainly taken its toll, both on the country itself and on its king, and with enemies at all Ravka’s borders and huge debts it owes to Kerch, its future doesn’t seem much brighter either. But as the darkness within Nikolai grows stronger with every passing day and threatens everything he’s worked so hard to establish, it becomes clear: in order to save Ravka, they’ll need to find a way to save its king first.
”Lesser animals whined and struggled when they’d been caught in a snare. The fox found a way out.”
The story is told from four different points of view, which certainly adds to the dynamics of the plot and enables the reader to see the bigger picture. While Nikolai and Zoya—with an occasional interjection from Isaak, a newly introduced character—take over narration of the main plot, Nina’s POV takes us far north into Fjerdan territory, on a mission to investigate the threat to Ravka brewing inside Fjerda’s borders, but also to try to finally let go of her feelings of grief and anger over Matthias’s death and say her final goodbyes.
I have to admit that I was a bit sceptical of how Nina’s part of the story would fit in with the rest of the book, as at first it did seem a bit random. But as the story progressed and tension slowly built up, I found myself getting deeper and deeper invested into it and eager to uncover all secrets Fjerda had to offer. On top of that, I think I’ve grown to love Nina’s character even more in this book than I did in Six of Crows. We get to see another, darker side of her, the way she copes with her grief, but also the way she learns to accept and use her new powers. Bardugo did a truly amazing job with portraying her psychological state and internal struggle and integrating it almost seamlessly into the story I may or may not have found myself blinking away tears on more than one occasion while reading from her POV.
Things that did make me cry…
…a.k.a Zoya and Nikolai. God, can those two just adopt me already?!
(also the part when this review stops resembling anything coherent so proceed at your own risk)
”But he knew this much: He would not rest until his country could too.
And he would never, ever turn his back on a wounded man—even if that man was him.”
In The Grisha Trilogy we’ve gotten to know and love Nikolai as a brilliant and slightly mad young prince and privateer. I dare say he was even used for comic relief in Siege and Storm (not that I blame Bardugo for that, as it probably saved me from dying of lack of action). In King of Scars, however, we get to meet the real person behind the cheeky demeanor; a scarred but brilliant young man battling his inner demons (both figuratively and literally); a bastard king trying to prove himself, to save his country; a man who’s been through hell and back and still doesn’t give up fighting.
His struggle with the demon inside him hit me especially hard—just seeing him, who always relied on his mind and his sanity, having to confront the prospect of losing himself over and over again and still managing to stay such a soft cinnamon roll completely wrenched my heart. And honestly, at this point I’m practically terrified of what else Leigh might have in store for him until the end of this trilogy.
”Zoya of the lost city. Zoya of the garden. Zoya bleeding in the snow. You are strong enough to survive the fall.”
Don’t be fooled by this being called “Nikolai Duology” and think everything is going to be about him—because Zoya played just as (if not even more) important role. And you know what? I was totally okay with it. More than okay, actually, as she very soon ended up practically being my favourite and hers were the chapters I looked forward to most.
At first, I couldn’t believe I didn’t realise sooner what an amazing character she was and how much potential she had—until I realised that actually wasn’t the case before this book. While fun to read about, in Ruin and Rising she was still rather flat and two-dimensional. But Bardugo truly did wonders with her characterization, capturing the essence of her personality and yet adding layers upon layers to the way she was portrayed. King of Scars Zoya was such a badass female protagonist and I absolutely loved reading about her!
And now let me introduce you to the perfection that is Zoya and Nikolai together. Honestly, no amount of smut anywhere could ever replace, or even be compared to, a well-written slow-burn romance—and we all know Leigh is a queen of that. I swear there were actual sparks flying between them, that’s how high the tension was. And the worst part is: those two are so damn stubborn and insistent on putting their duty before anything else and we just can’t know for sure if they are even going to be together ajskasjdksk (the rational part of my brain is saying they will but,,,what it they don't)
”In that moment, he wished things might have been different. That he might not die tomorrow. That he could be led by his heart instead of duty.
Because Zoya was not kind and she was not easy.
But she was already a queen.” AJSKSKSJ MY HEART
But why 4.5 stars then?
I have actually long and hard about this, as I really wanted to give this book a pure 5-star rating. But however much I loved the style, the characters and this beautiful world Bardugo created, I couldn’t ignore the fact that I didn’t really like the direction some parts of the plot took. Namely, the whole saints-thing, which, although relatively well executed, definitely wasn’t something I had expected to see in Grishaverse and have to admit I wasn’t exactly thrilled by it either. I rarely enjoy reading about alternate worlds/whatever that was, and here it just didn’t seem to suit the overall feel of the story and my perception of Grishaverse. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it either, and I do wish Bardugo chose to resolve the situation in any other way.
Just because that one thing didn’t work for me, though, it doesn’t mean it won’t work for you as well. King of Scars is definitely worth the read, especially if you are already a fan of Bardugo’s work.
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