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Chapter Text

Alina had been waiting for the Lunar Ball for what seemed like her whole life, ever since she had snuggled up to Mal in his tiny bed in the orphanage and asked him what a mate was. Mal, always bigger and stronger with his two years of age and growth on her, had wrapped an arm around her shoulders and told her the story of the sun and the moon wolves from long ago. 

“Once upon a time,” he’d begun, shushing her when she complained that she didn’t want a story, she wanted an answer . 

He stuck his tongue out at her and began again, putting on an important voice like he was a storyteller for the tsar , making her giggle. 

“Once upon a time, there were three wolves in the Great Forest. Alpha wolf, who was strong and swift, with midnight fur and great white teeth for killing. Beta wolf, who was clever and loyal, with brown fur and strong paws for running. And Omega wolf, who was patient and sweet, with pure white fur and a graceful tail for speed. The three wolves lived in the Great Forest but had never met until one day, when Omega wolf was drinking from a stream and Alpha wolf came upon her. Alpha wolf looked at Omega wolf, her beautiful white fur and graceful paws, and he loved her. But Omega wolf saw only Alpha wolf’s big teeth and strong form and was scared, so she turned and fled. Alpha wolf chased her and though Omega wolf was faster, he never gave up and eventually, when he caught her, he showed her with gifts of fine deer and berries that he loved her. So Alpha wolf and Omega wolf were mates and they were happy for a time, each the half of the other, until Beta wolf found them. Beta wolf was jealous of the happiness they had found and he wanted Omega wolf for himself; he left gifts of rabbits and geese for her when Alpha wolf left to hunt, and though she ignored them, he never gave up. Alpha wolf came upon Beta wolf chasing Omega wolf one day and, in rage, he slew Beta wolf with one swipe of his great paw. The Sky Spirits, watching from above, were angered at the death of Beta wolf, who was meant to serve as the balance between Alpha and Omega wolf, and so the Sky Spirits decided to punish Alpha and Omega wolf. The mates were separated, Alpha wolf sent to live in the sun forevermore while Omega wolf would live in the moon, the two mates chasing each other through the sky but never able to meet again. Beta wolf would live in the Earth, circling his rival and his lost love but punished never to have a mate of his own because he had coveted another. Mates are a gift from the Sky Spirits, a moon or sun half to complete each wolf, but also a reminder of the first Alpha and Omega wolves who were foolish and didn’t cherish the gift of a mate above all else.” 

Mal had finished his story and then immediately regretted it as he saw that Alina was crying, big tears rolling down her cheeks and her nose red and raw. 

“But why did the Sky Spirits separate Alpha and Omega wolf if they were mates and loved each other?” she had asked, her voice wobbly and still shedding tears. 

“That’s not fair! They didn’t do anything wrong.” 

Mal pulled her closer and leaned his head on hers, shaking her gently. 

“It’s okay, ‘Lina,” he said, “they’re still together, just in the sky. They’re watching over all of us and each other. And it’s because of them that we have mates– a perfect sun or moon half who will complete each of us so that together, two people can be whole.”

“But I already have you” Alina had said, her tears suddenly drying up, and she’d curled against Mal and they’d fallen asleep together that night, under the light of a full moon shining through the orphanage window.

☀☀☀

Alina stared at herself in the mirror now, twelve years after Mal had first told her the story of the three wolves and the Sky Spirits, and wondered if the Spirits had chosen Mal as her other half. When they were little, running through the fields around Keramzin and lying in their meadow looking up at the sun, he had been nothing more than her best friend, her protector, her favorite person. As they grew older, she started to notice little things about him, like the way his blue eyes were more vibrant in the sunlight, or how strong he was when he pulled her through the fields, always running faster and further than she could. She noticed how gentle he was with the younger orphans, and that he always snuck a bit of his food onto her plate at meals no matter how often she protested that she wasn’t hungry. And his laugh– Alina loved Mal’s laugh. It was rich and warm and full, like the sparkling golden champagne she’d once seen the Duke drinking at his birthday party. His laugh felt like butter, like hot pastries on a chilly winter morning, like the brush of summer sun on her shoulders. Mal was her light and her warmth and her best friend and as she grew older she grew into her love for him, her heart pounding every time he grasped her fingers in his or ruffled her hair. 

Sighing, Alina surveyed her pale skin and limp, dark hair, wondering if Mal would notice her tonight among all the other attendants of the Lunar Ball. She began to brush out her long, dark hair, thinking about what it would be like to finally see him again. Mal, two years her senior, had entered the Ravkan First Army on his eighteenth birthday as all young men were required to. She had stayed behind, a girl and a sixteen year old, unable for the first time in their lives to follow him like she always had before. Now, though, Alina was eighteen and tonight she would attend the yearly Lunar Ball, where young women would be presented as eligible mates and the men in attendance could search for their mates. Alina knew Mal would be attending– he had said as much in the short letter he’d sent her a month ago, the one soft and creased from how often she read it and from being pressed to her skin. The letter had smelled faintly of Mal, of pine trees and warm sunshine, and it had made her miss him all the more. He hadn’t mentioned finding a mate in the letter and she hoped, so much, she hoped that tonight, now that she was eighteen and eligible to be a mate and after all this time apart, that he would see her. Alina knew she wasn’t the prettiest girl– she was too small, too pale, too weak, too tired; not strong enough to be suitable. She struggled to transform into her snow white wolf and she could never run as fast as the other orphans, on human legs or paws, but she knew that Mal could see beyond all of those things. Mal knew her; he was her best friend, her first love, and she had known him her whole life: how could he not be her other half? She did feel incomplete without him but she was sure that tonight, once he saw her again and smelled her, that he would realize she was his missing half, his mate, and then everything would be right in the world again because she would be with Mal. 

Alina smiled at herself in the mirror and got to work arranging her hair as best she could with small braids pulling the dark strands back from her face and allowing the rest of her hair to fall down her back. She was alone in the library, surrounded by the dusty books who had been her friends and kept her company after Mal joined the army. Most of her bullies at Keramzin had left for the army before Mal left her, but once she was without him at the orphanage she had simply been– forgotten. The other girls her age thought she was too strange, too pale, too interested in books to befriend and without Mal she hadn’t had much interest in making new friends. She already had the best friend in the world and she was fine waiting for him to return. So today, while the other girls who had turned eighteen in time to attend the Lunar Ball helped each other prepare and dress in the girls’ dormitory, Alina was alone in the library, dressing herself in the shafts of sunlight filtering through the window. 

Ana Kuya, no matter how strict in Alina’s younger years, had managed to obtain enough money from the Duke to buy Lunar dresses for each girl attending– each dress in shades of white or silver, as Omegas, the wolves of the moon, traditionally wore. Alina wasn’t thrilled about wearing a pale color when her skin was already so bleached but when she had found the dress now hanging behind her in the dressmakers’ shop, a sheath of dove gray silk that gave her a shape food had never been able to, she had immediately imagined Mal seeing her in it and fallen in love. She slid into the dress now, holding her breath, half-convinced that she had imagined the beauty of the dress on her but– no. There the magic was again, in a piece of deceptively simple silk. Suddenly her pale skin didn’t seem unhealthy, but rather a delicate cream complexion. The gray turned her eyes from flat brown to depthless pools of black, intriguing and mysterious. She had no jewelry but she felt that the beauty of the dress was enough– there was almost a faint golden halo around her, making her glow, but when she looked closer she realized it was just lingering rays of sunlight and laughed at herself. Sometimes the magic of a pretty dress and a new hairstyle was too much for a girl's head.

 Alina admired her reflection one last time, then stepped into silver slippers, which had taken almost all of the money from Ana Kuya, and made her way through the orphanage to the waiting carriage, already full of chattering and laughing girls. They didn’t notice Alina as she slipped inside and found a seat crammed next to the window, peering up at the already fading light. It was early June and a warm breeze brushed against her cheeks, bringing with it the scent of evening roses and the sound of chirping crickets. Alina gazed up at the sky as rose and lavender and deep crimson bled to velvety blue and the first pinpricks of starlight began to appear. As an Omega, Alina was a moon wolf and had a connection to the pure, feminine energy of the moon and the stars and their cold, cleansing light. 

But although Alina did love the moon, loved how it waxed and waned and how it felt to race through the world in moonlight, she had always felt an affinity for the sun and golden light. She loved the warmth of sunlight on her face and shoulders, how it felt to bake in the sun, the way that the world looked in a new sunrise. Alphas were always sun wolves, though, and Alina knew she wasn’t a sun wolf– how could she be, when Mal was a sun wolf and he was her Spirits-chosen mate? She leaned back into the carriage seat as Ana Kuya clambered aboard, her mouth less pinched than usual as she beheld the girls in their dresses, and with a jolt they were off. 

Alina gazed out the window as the carriage jolted along roads long-neglected in favor of funding the war with Fjerda and Shu-Han, ignoring Ana Kuya as she tutored the other girls on how to respond to an Alpha when asked to dance and what to do if they met their mates. Alina knew she didn’t need to listen– the only male she intended to dance with was Mal and she didn’t need to worry about making introductions or completing the first formal steps of the mating ritual when they recognized each other. She knew it would be easy, almost familiar with him and so when the carriage rumbled to a stop in front of an enormous open pavilion on the edge of the woods where the Lunar Ball was held each year, she didn’t feel nervous. 

The other girls were eager to scramble out of the carriage and arrange themselves, fixing hair and dresses until they were presentable again. Alina left the carriage last, following Ana Kuya, her mouth falling open a bit at the beauty of the pavilion as they approached and music reached her ears. The pavilion was huge and already half-filled with girls in all shades of white and silver and gray, swirling around the marble dance floor on the arms of men in black suits and golden ties to represent their sun energy. A group of musicians played from the edge of the pavilion, sweet music rising above the sound of chatter and movement, swelling just as Alina and the other girls reached the entrance and making her heart begin to pound. They accepted dance cards from a young man in green and white livery and attached them to their wrists with strands of ribbon and then were ushered by Ana Kuya to the chairs curving along one side of the pavilion. Almost all of the seats were empty or were filled only by older chaperones– the dancefloor was busy with activity and Alina knew that any couples lucky enough to find a mate would have retreated into the surrounding forest for introductions and privacy. Ana Kuya gestures for them to sit and then fixes the girls with a fierce glare, clearing her throat until they tear their eyes from the dancers and musicians and tables laden with food– sweetcakes and blini and pastries! Alina thinks before turning her eyes too to their chaperone. 

“Tonight,” Ana Kuya says, drawing herself up tall with importance, “Is a very special night.” 

The girls giggle and look at each other because of course they know tonight is special . Finding their mates means the rest of their lives will begin. 

“Tonight is the beginning of your new lives” she continues, echoing their thoughts. “And as such, I expect you to conduct yourselves with proper behavior and manners. Wait to be approached by a gentleman before dancing. Do not make direct skin contact unless you feel certain the male you are with is your mate. Do not go into the woods with anyone who is not your mate. Do not leave the woods surrounding this pavilion. Do not exceed the first steps of the mating ritual if you are lucky enough to find your mate tonight,” this sentence she punctuates with a glare and an even tighter pinch of her lips; Alina wonders how she could have any lips left at all at this rate. 

“And most importantly, remember that if you do find your mate, I will need a formal introduction to him as your current guardian and that, regardless of his wishes, you will all be returning with me tonight.” 

The girls sigh, but no one argues. The process and rituals of becoming formally bound to a mate take much longer than the actual moment of finding a mate. The Lunar Ball is the most exciting part of the whole process; eligible young wolves are given a chance to meet and at first skin contact, but in rare cases at first sight or smell, each person’s inner wolf will know once they have found their other half. Alina knew, however, that even once she and Mal were confirmed as mates that he would have to spend the next month or so being formally introduced to her family (or Ana Kuya as her guardian) and spend time talking with Ana Kuya about himself, his future, his career prospects, and how he planned to care for and protect Alina. Mal would also be expected to bring gifts to appease both her family and her inner wolf, as the original Alpha wolf had once done, to signal to her wolf his devotion and love as well as his ability to provide. Alina knew that old-fashioned families expected these gifts to be large forest animals the Alpha had caught in wolf form, but now most families and wolves accepted jewelry, clothing, or livestock. 

Ana Kuya moves among the girls, handing out smooth silk gloves that they will wear until they touch their mates for the first time, then steps back and surveys them all with an uncharacteristic smile. She is firm, never wavering in her lack of emotion, but Alina thinks she looks, if not proud, at least satisfied. 

“Well, girls, conduct yourselves with the manners and good behavior as I have taught you and I’m sure by the end of the night you’ll all have found suitable mates” she says and then deliberately turns her back to sit with the other chaperones, finally leaving them to freedom.

They all giggle and turn to each other, already whispering about which handsome boys on the dance floor they have their eyes on and who they’d like to dance with first. Alina listens in to their whispers but her eyes drift not to the dancers but instead to the tables of food. Suddenly she feels that she’s never been so hungry in her life and before she can think better she’s setting off for the table, eyes filled with visions of pastries and cakes and petit-fours . She surveys the spread, loading a plate that is too small for her appetite with miniature cherry and sour cream stuffed blini , a slice of honey cake, chocolate covered kartoshka and as many strawberries dipped in white chocolate as she can find. Glancing around surreptitiously for Ana Kuya and her lectures on “polite manners at meals” Alina begins shoving desserts into her mouth, vaguely hoping after her third blini that nothing spills on her gray dress or stains her gloves. 

“Are you sure this food will be enough to sustain you, my lady, or should we perhaps call the servants to prepare more?” a voice says close to her ear. 

Too close , she thinks, and whirls midbite to see a tall young man with beautiful golden hair and dancing hazel eyes smiling at her, dressed in an outrageously frilly teal dress coat over his black suit. It does look rather nice, no matter how ridiculous she grudgingly admits then registers what this strange man said and draws herself up indignantly. 

“Good sir,” she replies coldly, “I would hope that a gentleman of supposed esteemed breeding would not dare to comment upon the dietary habits of an equally esteemed lady such as myself”. 

She emphasizes this sentence by stuffing three kartoshka into her mouth at once and daring him with her eyes to comment. Instead, the young man laughs and scrapes a bow, flourishing his arms to the side and making quite a spectacle of himself. Alina, despite her annoyance, also laughs and narrowly avoids covering the man in bits of half-chewed chocolate. Well , she thinks, quickly dusting away all evidence with a napkin, at least he’s a stranger and even if I make a fool of myself I’ll probably never have to see him again. 

The stranger straightens and extends a gloved hand, waiting until she places her silk covered fingers in his before kissing them and again bowing with too much energy. 

“Nikolai, at your service, good madame” he says with a wink. 

“Might I persuade you to abandon the pleasures of the servants’ labor and instead indulge me with the pleasure of a dance?” he grins at her, deep dimples appearing. Alina frowns, wondering why his name seems familiar to her. Perhaps the son of a nearby Lord? 

“I thank you, good sir” she says, dropping her eyes to the floor as she dips into a curtsy, “but I could never be so rude as to ignore the labor of the servants in preparing so many delicious things to eat.” 

Rising, she tips her chin defiantly and stares into hazel eyes, smiling faintly. “And, dear sir” she adds “I could never dance with someone clearly determined to dress in a way that detracts attention from the devushki in attendance.”

Nikolai laughs again, rich and full, tipping his golden head back and seeming to be truly enjoying himself. Despite her best efforts Alina grins and relaxes; this young man reminds her more of a teasing friend than a real suitor trying to steal her away before she can find Mal or he can find her. Nikolai bows again, deeper this time, and as he turns away tosses over his shoulder “You have persuaded me, good lady. Perhaps for one night only I can bear not to be the center of attention”. Alina giggles and watches the ever-growing mass of dancers swallow his brightly clad form. 

Perhaps it is time to find Mal she thinks, and abandoning her plate with one last look of longing she begins to make her way around the edge of the pavilion, keeping her senses open for a hint of pine or Mal’s familiar broad shoulders. She’s starting to get a bit frantic the longer she looks, trying to tell the difference between the countless young men and women all dressed so similarly and wondering if maybe something happened, is he okay, is he hurt, what if he decided not to come? But she catches a familiar scent of pine and sun right before big arms slip around her shoulders and twirl her around until suddenly Mal’s lifting her off the floor, crushing her to his chest and she’s laughing , she’s laughing like she hasn’t in two years because it’s Mal, it’s her best friend and he’s here he’s here he’s here . 

“Mal!” she almost squeals, not even trying to contain her excitement at seeing her best friend and hopefully future mate again. As he lets her slide to the floor she steps back to beam at him, assessing every detail. And: he’s changed. Alina knows it’s been two years, knows he’s spent that time away from her drilling in the army and meeting new people and fighting but somehow she’d expected him to still exist exactly as he had in her memories, exactly as he had when he had belonged wholly to her and not the First Army or the world outside Keramzin. She notices the breadth of him first, how much space he takes up now, muscles replacing what used to be slim grace and stealth. He’s a bit taller, his dark hair now shaved close to his head, and she spots several nicks on his scalp like it was recently cut. His scent, too– there’s just a hint of something different, a new layer of sweetness under the sun-drenched pine but Alina ignores it, probably just from all the desserts filling the pavilion. 

Mal beams back at her and Alina relaxes because it’s still him, still his same crooked smile and how silly she was to feel scared even for a second of this new version of Mal. “‘Lina” he says, voice warm and full of joy, “you look so good! I’m so happy to see you! Have you danced with anyone yet?” 

She raises an eyebrow, puzzled. Of course she hasn’t danced with anyone, she’d been waiting for him, but maybe– maybe he doesn’t realize yet how she feels. Maybe it will be a surprise to him when they touch skin to skin and their wolves recognize each other. She smiles to herself, imagining his reaction and shakes her head. “No, my dance card is still empty… want to be the one to change that?” 

Mal smiles at her and attempts a bow, dipping a little too low and stretching the wrong leg out behind himself but she laughs and curtsies back, slipping her hand into his proffered one and letting him lead her to the dance floor. Mal cradles her, one hand on her back and the other twined with hers as they dance, whirling her about the dance floor and narrowly avoiding a collision with nearby dancers but Alina is too happy to care, caught up in the music and the lights and most of all the warmth and scent of Mal. She pulls back to beam at him and finds a smile on his face too, his eyes searching hers as they continue to turn without rhyme. 

“How are you, ‘Lina?” he asks, eyes serious. “Have they all been good to you while I was away?” She nods, not wanting to tell him of the last two years she spent shut up in the library living in made up lands or fantasies of seeing him again. She’d written to him often but only of good things or of the gossip of Keramzin, keeping her words light and breezy. 

“I’m good, Mal, you know that” she says softly, smiling at him, “I missed you every day, but… but you’re here now and I’m so happy to see you and I’d much rather hear about your adventures anyways!” She finishes with a laugh and because Mal is her friend and he knows her, he launches into a story about his friends and their most recent tracking mission. She knows Mal has found good companions among the trackers of the First Army and though she’s happy for him, happy to listen to him talk of them and laugh with remembered joy, a small part of her feels jealously protective of him. He was my friend first , she thinks, and I knew how to make him laugh before he ever met Mikhael or Dubrov . 

She jolts back to attention and what Mal is saying as the musicians change songs, picking up the pace of the music so that Mal is forced to whirl her more quickly among the other dancers. 

“–and really, ‘Lina'' he's saying, an earnest look on his face and his blue eyes shining with excitement “it was such a surprise because I didn’t expect it to happen and I wasn’t sure at first because, well, because of you really but I can’t wait until–” and then, as Alina stumbles to keep up with Mal and the fast tempo of the music, she feels herself whirl out of his arms and into a hard chest, colliding with enough force that she lets out a small oof of air. 

She turns, confused, an apology already on her lips, feeling the stranger place a hand on her waist to steady her and as she looks up into midnight eyes and a face that was made of the stark beauty of winter and dark night hours, something inside her fits into place and all she can think is oh, it’s you, of course it’s you . 

Chapter Text

Alina spends what feels like forever trapped in a moment in time, staring up at the face of the man holding her, drinking in his eyes, the dark hair starting to curl around his ears, the straight line of his nose. Oh , some part of her brain manages to think, he’s beautiful but the rest of her body acts on instinct, curling towards him and relaxing into his hands on her waist. She can’t seem to tear herself away from his eyes, can’t quite dredge up the willpower to swim up and out of their dark depths. It isn’t until someone– Mal the quiet place in her brain still capable of thought whispers– pulls her away from the man that she comes back to reality, the sound of delicate music and shuffling feet and laughter pouring back into the space the man had occupied in her head. 

He’s gazing back at her over Mal's shoulder and as she takes him in she finds her first assessment was correct. This man is carved from marble and ice and midnight, his dark suit and hair and gloves perfectly neat and in order. She has a feeling he would never allow himself to be anything other than neat and unruffled. Inside, her wolf unfurls from slumber and almost purrs at the attention of the man and suddenly Alina wants to race through moonlit trees and play with this wolf in a way she never has before. In a way she’s always been too weak to before. She hasn’t even touched his skin yet, white silk still encasing her fingers but she knows if she does he’ll feel– familiar. Not the way Mal does, not familiar in a comforting way but familiar and safe but also new? She doesn’t recognize these feelings and suddenly the music and the crowded dance floor and the phantom touch of both Mal and this stranger on her are too much, flooding her senses and all she wants is out . 

Both men must smell her distress because Mal gently guides her to the edge of the pavilion, the not-stranger following, still calm and collected, and steps back to give her space to lean against a marble column and catch her breath. She doesn’t know what happened, what is happening, her brain still half caught up in the whirl of dancing with Mal and not understanding what he’d been saying or how she collided with the stranger or why he followed them . Why had he followed them? 

She straightens, forcing some of the strength of the marble into her spine and lifts her chin, remembering the manners drilled into her by Ana Kuya. 

“My apologies, sir”, she says, trying , trying not to fall back into his midnight eyes, “I was…distracted by the music and didn’t mean to interrupt your dancing. I hope, sir, that no harm was caused and that you can return to the dance with no trouble?” Leave , her brain whispers, leave and don’t ever make me feel those things again . Mal, clearly believing the stranger will catch the clear dismissal in her words and leave angles towards her, reaching out to touch her elbow, words already forming; “Alina are you alright? ‘M so sorry, I’m not the best dancer and I guess my trackers’ feet just aren’t great for everything but–” 

“I will return to the dancing if you agree to accompany me” a smooth voice cuts through Mal's words and sends shivers down her spine, little sparks of dancing electricity. Mal turns, jaw set, his broad shoulders squaring as he folds his arms. Alina steps forward before he can speak for her and though this is uncharted territory, speaking for herself and standing up for herself when Mal has always been protector enough before, she wants… Her wolf wants this man to view her as an equal. Closer to him she can see the sweep of his lashes as he blinks, impossibly long, the faintest shadow of stubble on his jaw, how he stands perfectly still. She’s reminded, suddenly, of the story of Alpha wolf Mal told her as a child and the black fur and killing teeth of the first wolf. She thinks she wants to step away from this man but also closer. 

If all else fails, she has manners, and so she curtsies, deeply, unsure of this man’s status but aware that his clothes are finely made and his cufflinks are shining rounds of gold. She bows her head, unwilling to abandon protocol even as her wolf growls at her that no, she doesn’t need to bare her neck, he is equal, equal … but Alina, practiced at suppressing her wolf’s instinct to fight back in favor of surviving, dips ever deeper and rises slowly, eyes downcast. 

“I thank you for the invitation, sir, but I find that I must retire from the excitement of dancing and music for a bit.” She breathes in and out, calm, calm, never letting herself look into his eyes because if she does she will fall and she doesn’t know if she’ll ever want to climb out again. 

The man simply extends a hand, now bare, slim fingers pale in the light and faintly crossed with pearly crescent scars. 

“Alina” he says and the syllables of her name roll off his tongue, crisp and cool and sounding like he means not Alina but, instead, welcome home . 

She can do nothing but stare, stare at the long fingers which connect to his wrist, pale skin disappearing under inky wool which leads up, up to broad shoulders and collarbones almost too delicate for a man and to the only flaw in his controlled appearance; sable hair curling around his ears, just a little too long to be fashionable. She can’t think about why he’s holding bare fingers out to her, about why he wants to touch her skin. It’s unseemly of him to ask, even, when the first touch of bare skin is reserved only for mates sure they have found each other. 

Behind her she hears Mal swear, hears him murmur “General” before the scent of the man draws her in and she realizes he’s moved closer, hand still extended, palm up, waiting for her. And she doesn’t know why this man believes he’s her mate when it’s Mal, it’s supposed to be Mal, Mal who she knows and whose face shows every emotion he feels, but … but his scent. It’s steaming bergamot tea on a chilly winter morning, woodsmoke in the autumn and burning leaves and, inexplicably, her favorite sugar dusted plushkie pastries, the ones she asked Ana Kuya for every birthday. So she follows her wolf, roaring inside her, and she pulls off the white silk gloves and she reaches up and places her smaller hand in his and then even though her wolf, her wolf who is almost tearing at her skin to escape and howl at the moon with joy, her wolf already knew, Alina feels it. 

“Mate” she whispers, gazing into eyes she had thought a deep black but now she sees are every shade of dark chocolate and umber, rich and warm and familiar somehow. 

“Kirigan, actually” the man– her mate , the wolf whispers– says, his mouth quirking up the tiniest bit and for a moment she sees the slightest thawing in his icy exterior. But she’s still too overcome with how fast this has all happened and Saints , she just found her mate and it’s not Mal, it’s not Mal, it’s not Mal? She whirls, fingers still clasped by the mans’– her mates’– Kirigans ’ hand, and stares Mal down, not exactly angry but also how could he have let her believe that they would be mates when clearly this man– Kirigan – was always waiting for her? 

“Mal?” 

He’s nervous, shifting on his feet and biting his lip but he smiles even under her stare and dips his head in acknowledgement of her newfound mate. 

“Congratulations, ‘Lina” he says, but his eyes are wary and a moment later she knows why as she feels the man's fingers– Kirigan’s fingers tighten around hers. She subtly shifts her weight back against his chest, allowing her presence in these first, important moments of finding a mate to comfort him. Mal isn’t a threat now. 

“I was telling you” he says, scratching at his neck uncomfortably, “about how I met someone. My mate, actually. It was after I wrote and told you I was coming here but I still wanted to visit and see you” his eyes are earnest and she softens, forgiving him a bit. It’s not Mal's fault he met his mate after he sent the letter. 

Mal straightens, eyes bright as he senses her anger beginning to drain away. 

“Like I was saying I was a little surprised, really,” he says with a grin, “but Alina, it’s so wonderful. I can’t wait for you to meet h–” and for the third time that evening he’s cut off by Kirigan, who dips his mouth down to Alina’s ear and murmurs; “Alina, I understand this soldier is your friend but the night is short and I would like to dance with my mate before the sun rises.” 

And though she doesn't know more about this man than his name and scent, though she has no idea which things in life he values or who his family is or how he takes his tea in the morning, she knows the feel of his hand in hers and she knows that he caught her once, so she dips her head. Allows him to lead her to the center of the dance floor. Feels none of the dancers around them, sees nothing but his eyes and his face and his shoulders as he bows deeply, liquidly graceful. Curtsies to him just as deeply, her wolf satisfied as this first, tiny step of the mating ritual is completed. 

She’s glad when he intertwines his fingers with hers once again, glad for his touch though it had been only moments without it. He pulls her close, one hand on her waist and the other raising their joined hands in preparation to waltz them around the room. It’s a mere instant before the music begins but in that instant she dares to look up at his face, inches above hers, the two of them poised on the edge of a cliff, on the edge of movement, on the edge of moving forward together. And then the music swells and crests and they’re swept away on a wave of sound, taking flight, Kirigan swirling Alina through the dancers, guiding her skillfully and gently and she never stumbles, never falters, but she knows if she does he will catch her. 

And he does catch her, letting her twirl out and away from him, gray silk whirling around her feet, but always keeping their fingers entwined so she has a way back to him, a path to follow home. He lets her return at her own pace but his hand finds her waist again so quickly she knows it was a struggle, no matter how impassive his face is. And Alina– Alina is warm . She doesn’t know if it’s the dancing or the proximity to her mate but warmth blossoms first in her fingers, entwined with Kirigan’s, then spreads up her arm to her chest. Her heart is almost glowing in her chest, warm and radiant and she feels almost as though she is made of light. She can’t remember ever being this warm before in her life. She’s always cold, always wrapped in blankets or shawls, always chasing the heat of the sun or burning fires. But now she feels–she feels incandescent. Alina giggles as they dance, almost drunk on the feeling of warmth and power. She doesn’t have time to think about how this man is still almost a stranger to her, about how someone she’s never met or shared laughter with is her mate, about how she doesn’t even know how old he is or his occupation. She knows only music and movement and warmth, knows only his fingers on hers and his face, eyes watchful, waiting for her. 

As the music crescendos and then fades, the spell of Kirigan and his eyes breaks a bit and Alina steps back from him as they slow, curtsying again in an attempt to collect herself. She can’t believe she was giggling . A blush warms her cheeks and she looks everywhere but at his face as he straightens from his own bow. 

“Alina” he says and if she wasn’t so sure that he’s too controlled to feel emotion she would almost think his cool voice holds just a hint of amusement. 

“Kirigan” she murmurs, then looks up, nose crinkling. 

“Kirigan? That’s your name?” 

His face is impassive as he blinks, waiting for her to say more. Somehow, she feels her new mate is not known as a great conversationalist. 

“And why did Mal call you general?” she asks, confused. Her mate doesn’t look old enough to be a general in control of thousands of soldiers and from what she knew the generals of both armies would be in Os Alta with the tsar , planning Ravka’s next movements in the war. 

He extends a hand for her again, waiting, clearly expecting another dance as the musicians begin a slow, light melody. Alina holds her distance though, wanting an answer before she gives in to the warmth of his skin and possibly loses the ability to talk. Kirigan dips his head slightly and says, voice cool as a winter wind, 

“Many soldiers know me as General. Though I do not command your soldiers’ force, I fight alongside all Ravkans for the future of our country.” 

She waits but he is infinitely more patient, hand still outstretched, face calm as he waits for her. And– he did answer her question. She gives in, letting their fingers tangle again and immediately swaying towards him as warmth, lovely warmth flows into her. She barely even notices that they’re moving, too caught up in the light spreading through her veins for the first few minutes. 

“Shall I call you General too, then?” she asks playfully, raising her eyes to meet his. 

“You may call me General Kirigan, or Kirigan, Alina, as you prefer” he answers, unruffled. 

Alina starts, realizing he had introduced himself only with his surname, not liking it but… it is enough, for now. 

“Kirigan, then” she says, drawing herself up, her wolf shying away at the thought of calling her mate general when they are equal, equal, always equal . 

He brings their entwined fingers to his mouth, brushes her fingers against his lips. 

“As you wish it.” 

His lips bleed warmth into her fingers and she doesn’t know what to say, how to talk to her mate who agrees so easily to her wants where Mal would argue and tease. She doesn’t know what to say to someone who is a general and dances so smoothly. He must be powerful , she thinks, and probably comes from a wealthy family to be in command when he’s still young . She allows Kirigan to lead her through the dance for a few steps, mind running wild with all the things she doesn’t know about her mate and all the ways she can not be enough for him. 

“Alina”. His voice breaks her spiraling thoughts and her wolf purrs, satisfied each time he says her name, the way it sounds in his voice, no longer plain but like each letter is beautiful. 

“Is this your first attendance at the Lunar Ball?” he asks, still perfectly calm, perfectly collected. 

“My name day is the first of the month.” 

He blinks, eyes far away for a moment and murmurs, more to himself than to her, “So young.” 

Alina scowls, dissatisfied by Kirigan’s judgment of her age. He can’t be much older than her, no matter his rank in the army– which I don’t even want to consider yet she thinks– and she feels it’s a little rude of him to point out her age when of course she’s perfectly aware of it. 

“And how old are you, General?” she asks, purposefully letting her steps lag so that as he turns her, her heel lands squarely on the toe of his shoe. 

“Older than you may think, dear Alina” he answers calmly, lifting her lightly off the floor so that when her feet touch down again her steps return to the natural rhythm of the dance. And though her heart shudders when he says her name and threatens to break at the endearment, Alina feels her cheeks heat with irritation. Kirigan is her mate , her equal, the other half of her spirit and yet he is so frustratingly condescending, treating her like a child unable to handle knowledge of the real world. 

But before she can come up with a witty reply that will show him exactly how mature she is beyond her years, he dips her gracefully, bending over her as long fingers support her back and waist. He is the only thing keeping her from falling and she knows if she tenses, if she doesn’t trust him, she’ll tumble out of his hold. She has an instant, looking into his face, stark beauty and black shadows, to decide if she will trust him or slip out of his grip. Alina knows it’s just a dance, just a fanciful pose to end in, but her wolf– her wolf feels more deeply, teetering on the edge of a choice. She thinks he feels it too, in the way she can feel him holding his breath and see his pulse hammering. Alina lets her wolf rise and together, they relax into the heat of their mates’ hands on their body, draping like a wilting flower over the marble floor, suspended in a moment in time, waiting for him to choose. And he does, lifting them up as he kneels, letting them stand tall for a moment and then it’s just Alina and Kirigan again and he’s rising from the floor to kiss her hands, thanking her for the dance, his eyes almost-crinkling with an almost-smile. 

She waits for him to lead her off of the dance floor and into the dark of the forest so that their wolves can formally meet and scent each other, as the next steps of the mating ritual demand. She isn’t excited for Kirigan to meet her wolf, to realize how weak she is and how often she needs to rest between running miles of forest. She can only hope that they are close to daylight and the reprieve of the sun. 

Kirigan, however, leads her not to the steps at the entrance of the pavilion but rather only to the edge of the dancers, boxing her in with his scent if not his arms as she leans against a column. 

“Alina” he says, surveying her face with eyes that are now a deep charcoal, a darker shade of her dress. 

“I would like to make my introductions to your family.” 

Alina drops her eyes and twines her fingers together, learning further back against the column and away from her mate. In the rush of meeting him and dancing and warmth she forgot that she would have to introduce him to Ana Kuya as her mate. When she had believed the night would end with Mal as her mate, she had felt no fear; Mal knew Ana Kuya, knew where Alina came from and knew she was an orphan and had no expectations of a family or wealth from her. But Kirigan– Kirigan was wealthy, and a general, and beautiful and probably grew up with parents and siblings who adored him and were eager to meet his mate. The thought made her ill but a secret hope began to grow inside her; maybe his family can become my family too she thinks, almost a whisper in her head. 

Warmth blooms under her chin as slim fingers raise her head until Alina is looking Kirigan in the eye, his knees slightly bent so that they are equal – her wolf purrs– and at eye level with each other. 

“Never lower your eyes to me, Alina” he says and though his voice is calm, so calm, it carries the bite of winter winds on a starless night. He waits until she nods, murmurs yes , then steps back and says, again, “I would like to meet your family Alinochka .” 

She steels herself, raises her chin, and, “I have no family, mate. I was brought to Keramzin as a child and grew up there. Mal is my best friend and who I would introduce you to if I could choose.” 

She can barely keep her gaze fixed on his, her stomach in knots over what he will say next. Instead, he scrapes a shallow bow and takes her hands in his. 

“War makes orphans of us all, Alina” he murmurs. “But as I’ve already met your tracker, who should I make my introductions to as your official guardian.” 

She smiles, tangles their fingers together, too relieved to speak, and leads him around the edge of the pavilion, glad for his comforting warmth at her back as they weave among chattering couples and laughing girls, in search of Ana Kuya’s severe bun and black dress. She’s reminded of earlier in the evening, mere hours ago but somehow already lifetimes in the past, when she had searched for Mal with hope– foolish hope , her wolf thinks– in her heart. But Kirigan’s warmth is spreading through her arm and chest again and now that she knows the feel of his hand in hers, knows the scent of him as he pulls her close, she can’t remember why she had wanted to find Mal so badly. 

Ana Kuya appears in front of them suddenly, eyes sharp and face pinched as ever but upon taking in who stands close, so close behind Alina, her eyes widen a bit and her mouth drops ever so slightly. Kirigan steps forward and bows neatly, not as deeply as he had for Alina, but enough to show respect and good manners. Ana Kuya almost smiles. Straightening, he takes the headmistress’s hand and Alina sees that he has somehow managed to cover his fingers in black silk. Show off she thinks, and then immediately hopes the rumors of mates sometimes sharing thoughts aren’t true as she sees Kirigan’s lips quirk in an almost-smile. 

Alina doesn’t listen as Kirigan makes his introductions, speaking the formal words to declare himself as her mate to her guardian, instead glancing longingly towards the food tables again. Now that she’s over the initial rush of adrenaline finding her mate gave her, she feels how long she’s been on her feet, how many hours she danced away, and all she wants is some sugar . And perhaps a chocolate dipped strawberry or two. 

She does manage to bring her eyes back to her mate and Ana Kuya as Kirigan says, no room in his tone for argument, “I know you’ll understand, madame, when I say that Alina and I must return to Os Alta as soon as possible. Tonight, even.” 

“What?” Alina manages to say, mind still half occupied with visions of tiered cakes and frosting, but then Ana Kuya is agreeing and Aleksander is gathering his coat and leading her to the entrance of the pavilion, a black carriage already gleaming faintly from the dirt road. 

She stands, her feet suddenly frozen to the marble, glancing behind her at the still-swirling dancers in shades of white and black, the chaperones gossiping from their chairs, even the strange boy in the teal coat speaking with Mal in a corner. Mal, she thinks, I don’t want to say goodbye yet. I don’t want to leave this life yet . But– “Alina” her mate calls and she turns to see him, bare fingers outstretched once again, silhouetted against the dark of the night as he waits for her, as he has, perhaps, been waiting for her all her life. 

And it’s easy, so easy, to walk those few steps to him, wrap her hand around his and leave her old life behind. Leave the light, the laughter, the dancing and music and step into the darkness with him. 

Chapter Text

Alina spends her first night with her mate not running through the forest as their wolves or tucked away in a shadowy corner whispering to each other but rather bumping along uneven roads in the dead of night, traveling farther away from her home and everything she’s known in life with each mile. Kirigan’s leaning against the black velvet of the carriage and she doesn’t know if she should speak, where to look, how to hold her hands in her lap, doesn’t know how to begin to ask the questions running through her head. Her mate is serene, immovable, gazing out at the dark of night illuminated only by the full moon as they rumble along, no sound except for the gentle canter of hooves and creaking wheels. 

Alina feels too big for this carriage and also too small for this man and she wants to shrink into herself and hide away and go back to this morning when she was waking up in a familiar place and everything was easier. And she’s exhausted , and hungry , and she barely even knows her mate and she doesn’t understand why they have to travel to Os Alta tonight and Saints , they haven’t even completed the second phase of the mating ritual. She stares at her fingers, twisting tight in her lap until they’re almost bloodless white, and tries very, very hard not to cry. Dampness gathers on her lashes and she knows with awful certainty that if one more thing happens, if Kirigan looks at her or moves the wrong way or if the carriage even goes over a large bump, the tears will start. They sit that way for what feels like hours, her mate gazing out the window as Alina inspects every line and crease of her fingers and tries with all her might not to let him scent her distress. Hopefully he’ll think she’s tired, overwhelmed– which I am – she thinks, and just too exhausted to make conversation. 

Her head is bowed for so long that she eventually begins to let her eyelids droop, posture softening as her mind begins the slow creep into fuzzy slumber. The creak of the wheels is now a comforting rhythm and the darkened hills and trees passing by are unfamiliar enough that Alina feels no attachment to memories of home or homesickness. 

She startles awake, though, when she feels a warm, heavy weight drop onto her lap, suddenly covering her in Kirigan’s scent of bergamot and sugar. Like a fancy midday tea she thinks and then almost giggles imagining her mate lifting delicate china in his large, pale hands and primly sipping tea while making polite conversation. The pile on her lap is Kirigan’s coat she realizes as she lifts it, a long robe of thick black wool traced with inky embroidery. She glances at her mate but he is turned away, eyes still trained on the passing countryside as if he never moved. The June night is tinged with a chill of winter and Alina has a feeling they won’t be stopping at an inn and she’s tired, so tired and cold and his scent is right there on the coat, beckoning. She wraps herself in the midnight coat, surprised to find the inside is lined with luxuriously soft rabbit fur, nestling into the lingering heat and scent of her mate. She pulls the hood up around her face, fur tickling her cheeks, and lets herself slip away into sleep with the knowledge that Kirigan is here, watching over her. The last thing she sees as sleep claims her is the faintest gleam of his eyes in the shadows as he turns to look at her. 

☀☀☀

“Alina.” His voice wakes her, pulls her from sleep before she can even remember where she is or who is speaking to her but she opens her eyes and sees him, sees his face, his eyes somehow still alert though she’s sure he hasn’t slept. And it’s a surprise all over again, electricity dancing over her body once more as she meets his eyes and it’s her wolf murmuring– hello, you –because somehow waking up to his voice feels so right. 

Kirigan keeps his eyes trained on her face as he speaks, and of course , she thinks, of course his hair isn’t sleep-mussed and of course he looks awake as ever . And Saints, what does she look like? Alina remembers the gleam of his eyes turned towards her before sleep claimed her and hopes, desperately, that Mal was joking when he told her she drooled in her sleep. 

“We are nearing Os Alta.” 

She wants to roll her eyes as she peers out the carriage window, blinking in the pale morning light, because of course they’re nearing Os Alta. Any fool could gather that from the large towns they’re driving through, houses painted bright reds and yellows and blues as people and carriages pass alongside them in the busy streets. She notices the differences between the villages around Keramzin and those surrounding the capitol in more than the homes though. The people seem brighter, clothes full of color instead of patches and stitches, and carved signs advertise shops selling jewelry, exotic fruit, spices and books and fabrics in an array of luxuries she has never had access to before. Alina leans back, slightly ill, wondering how much of Ravka’s wealth is kept close to the burning heart of the capitol for those wealthy families in favor with the tsar . How much of that wealth is spent on dinner parties and new clothes for lords and ladies instead of the soldiers who fight to protect Ravka. 

She feels Kirigan’s eyes on her but refuses to look at him until he speaks, “The tsar enjoys beautiful things and there is nothing more beautiful than a flourishing kingdom.” 

She frowns, unsure what he means, but… “these towns are a fraction of Ravka, Kirigan.” 

He raises his eyebrows and crosses one knee over the other, calm as brown eyes meet almost-black. 

“A fraction of Ravka that is lovely to ride through when the tsar fancies a trip to the countryside.” 

She doesn’t know how to answer, unsure what her mate means with his words, unsure if he is criticizing the tsar for never leaving the capitol or condescending upon these towns by calling them the countryside. She wonders what he would think of Keramzin if he could see it, if he would scoff at the crumbling mansion she had called home. The thought is too much, making her stomach twist into knots and so she pushes it from her head in favor of drinking in the sight of the approaching capitol. 

Alina studied Os Alta in lessons with Ana Kuya, learned under the wooden ruler of the headmistress about the outer edges of the city, filled with middle-class Ravkans and skilled workers. As they progress through the tangle of streets, buildings crowded one on top of another and people flowing around their carriage like water over a stone, Alina suddenly misses the open air and fields of Keramzin. This is– too much. Too many people, too many overlapping scents, too much noise and all of it, all of it unfamiliar. 

Her shoulders lose a bit of tension as their carriage makes its way through the market squares, noticing with a wave of awe the tall spires and domes of churches rising against the blue sky. The scent of smoked meat and warm bread reaches her from the market stalls and her stomach growls, ravenous. Alina thinks she sees Kirigan cover a laugh with his hand but when she turns her head his face is smooth and he is as still as ever. She expects their carriage to slow as they pass over an arcing stone bridge to the center of Os Alta where the truly wealthy live, mansions of carved wood and elegant stone adorning the wide streets, but they continue on. Perhaps her mate lives on the outskirts of the city? The thought makes her realize, again, how much is a mystery to her about her mate. Through no help of his own, she thinks, wishing that maybe, just maybe, the Sky Spirits could have gifted her with a more forthcoming mate. 

The carriage rolls through mansions which grow ever larger, ever grander, until suddenly there is nothing but an enormous stone gate looming ahead, crowned by marble spikes and turrets  bearing the golden double eagle of the royal family. Alina feels the weight of the stone above as they pass through, catches a glimpse of shining white walls sweeping out like wings to encircle the palace grounds. She blinks in confusion, because why are they at the palace, why are they even allowed on the grounds without argument?   She looks to her mate for an answer, brow knit in confusion, but he merely gives a hint of a smile. 

“So helpful” she murmurs under her breath. The carriage emerges into light again and it’s like another world where the bustle and noise of the city behind them doesn’t exist and can't cross over to contaminate the carefully cultivated peace. They travel down a tunnel of shady green branches in full leaf reaching up at the sky above. Alina’s stomach roils, nervous and hungry and mildly ill from all the travel and then it swoops, almost jolting right out of her, as the palace finally comes into view. It’s a monstrosity of white marble and towering minarets and domes that seem to have been placed almost one on top of the other by an eager architect and gold, everywhere gold, so much that Alina has to close her eyes against the shine. 

She’s relieved when they continue on, curving around the hulking east wing of the palace to roll through neatly trimmed gardens, topiaries and shrubs cut into wolves and eagles and prancing deer. The gardens gradually grow more wild, though, flowers in a riot of color and ancient trees grown thick with age springing up to replace the manicured gardens. There is enough open, green space, a breeze blowing through the window with the scent of greenery and life and growing and she feels a whisper of Keramzin in the colors around her. The small palace their carriage stops outside of is beautiful, nothing like the overdone mess behind them. Alina admires the simple, strong lines of white stone rising into the air, beauty hidden in the graceful arch of domes crowning the four corners of the building. Tipping her head back she can see an additional layer to the palace, like a tiered cake, rising above the carved stone framing massive double doors. 

“Alina.” Kirigan says, quietly, and she lets him take her hand in his, warmth sparking as their skin meets and he leads her out of the carriage to stand under the weight of the palace’s gaze. Still nestled in Kirigan’s coat she only hopes that she can measure up to this new place, to whoever awaits her inside. They enter through the enormous doors, pulled back by servants in cream and blue livery, and though she wants to linger over the carvings around the doors, wants to trace her fingers over the images and imagine who made them long ago, she follows her mate. 

Her mate, who leads her through pristine halls, passing unmarked doors, the palace quiet around them as its residents begin to rise from sleep. Their footsteps echo against high ceilings and shining glass windows which overlook the grounds and she catches a glimpse of a lake in the distance. Alina tries to prepare herself for whatever he is leading her to – perhaps to family? If he has one? She wonders– mind racing with what will happen afterwards. Will Kirigan finally allow their wolves to complete the next step of the mating ritual? Will he overlook custom and want to take her to bed immediately? 

Alina doesn’t know how she feels at the prospect. She doesn’t know how she feels about a lot of things at the moment, actually. She doesn’t know how to feel about leaving her home behind or not being able to say goodbye to Mal or sleeping in front of her watching mate. She doesn’t know how to feel about this palace, doesn’t know if it will soon feel welcoming to her or hold bad memories instead. She doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that she has been given no choice in any of these changes, given no voice or power with which to decline Kirigan. She doesn’t know how she feels about her mate, her enigmatic, calm, frustrating mate. 

She knows only that when he touches her, looks at her, says her name, she loses herself in him and that– that is perhaps more frightening than anything else she’s experienced in the past hours. 

Kirigan halts in front of a door that is as plain as every other and Alina thinks they’re in the east wing of the palace as she steps into the room, her mate waiting for her to pass, and a view of green lawns and the wall in the distance greets her. She loves the green, loves how it feels like Keramzin and her childhood but– the wall. It’s a reminder that she isn’t home, that she isn’t free, that she can’t run and run here until her legs give out. She turns from the window, ill and so completely exhausted, and finally takes in the chambers. The receiving room they stand in now is beautiful, walls papered in shades of cream and champagne, simple wooden chairs and bookshelves lining the edges of the room. In an almost-trance she drifts into the next room, the bedroom, and immediately notices brighter shades here, the bed draped in luxurious deep golden blankets and snowy pillows while the walls are the same white and pale gold. She lets her fingers dance over the wallpaper as she approaches the bed and a slightly raised texture makes her pause. Peering closer she sees that the walls contain a subtle pattern, a golden circle offset ever so slightly by another crescent of gold ringed with spiking rays. An eclipse , she realizes, but why this symbol instead of the Ravkan eagle? And why does the symbol make her think of the man tracking her movements with those dark, dark eyes as he leans against the doorway of her bedroom. Their bedroom?The thought is terrifying and thrilling all at once. She stands next to the bed, the blankets and pillows so soft and beckoning but– she can’t. 

“Is this…our room?” she forces herself to ask, turning to meet Kirigan’s heated gaze. 

“Yours, Alina.” The words are crisp, belaying no emotion, and she could scream at how little he tells her, at how he answers her questions and offers no more. This is her mate . She is his mate . She wants– needs – more from him. 

But she’s too tired and too overwhelmed and she still doesn’t understand why they’re in a palace when he’s not part of the royal family, even if this palace is smaller and not dripping in gold. 

“Mine?” she whispers to herself and sinks down onto the bed, not caring if she appears weak to him, not caring that her wolf growls at the unequal position. 

“It was made for you. Many years ago.” A part of her heart swells at the fact that her mate has been preparing for her, thinking of her, that without even knowing her he had somehow created rooms that are beautiful and simple and just right for her. That he had even guessed her favorite color, her love of all shades of the sun, before she could ever have the chance to tell him. 

The rest of her is… concerned about his implied age at the mention of ‘many years’. 

“And where will you sleep?” 

Kirigan simply moves to the wall across from her bedroom doorway, laying his hand on a section of wall and pushing, sliding the wall back until Alina can see into a bedroom that mirrors hers but is painted in shades of midnight and onyx to her gold. She almost wants to comment on her mate’s commitment to his singular color palette but– she doesn't even know if he’s capable of laughter so why bother with a joke. 

Kirigan slides the door to his rooms closed and looks her over, his eyes more assessing than anything else. 

“Would you like to rest, Alina?” 

She nods, because of course she’s tired . They've traveled all night and unlike some people she needs more than a few hours of rest to function. 

Her mate nods to himself and goes to her wide windows, drawing shut thick white curtains until her room is shrouded in darkness, the sunlight snuffed out by his hands. His movements are brisk, quick, and she doesn’t move, too worried about what he might do next. I’m not ready, I’m not ready, I’m not ready she thinks, because while he might be her mate she doesn’t know him, doesn’t love him for who he is yet and she’s never done anything with a man, never even seen more than Mal’s bare back that one time they swam in the river. 

But Kirigan strides back to the doorway and says, calm, calm, so infuriatingly calm, 

“I have asked Genya to attend to you this afternoon and help you settle in.” With that, he bows, deeply, and turns to leave. 

Alina stares at him, too shocked to understand that he’s leaving, that her one shred of familiarity is walking away from her in this gilded, unfamiliar cage. 

“Welcome to the Little Palace, Alina.” Her mate says, almost as an afterthought, and then he is out the door and striding across her drawing room before she can stop him, before she can yell his name, before she can ask a single question or beg for him to stay so she isn’t alone . 

The hole her mate’s presence leaves behind envelopes her entirely the moment the door shuts behind him, swallowing her up so completely that all she can do is curl up on top of the golden blankets and cover herself in Kirigan’s coat, letting the scent of him and the inky softness block out her new home, the fact that she has no way out. 

She can’t believe he left her, just like that, like it was easy to walk away from her. Left her like it doesn’t matter that mates need physical contact, need to spend time together to feel well, both wolf and human. Left her like she doesn’t need him, left her like this really is her home and like she should feel comfortable here without him. Left her alone. Alina’s tears are an avalanche, a storm, flooding the blankets under her with salty misery and she can’t help it, can’t help the way her face scrunches as she cries and the snot that drips from her nose. She’s a mess but it’s her mate’s fault and so she doesn’t mind using the softness of his coat to wipe her red and swollen nose on. 

Alina lets her sadness and fear and overwhelming crush of emotions flood out of her eyes for what feels like hours, crying out the confusion and homesickness and discomfort until her heart feels empty and her eyelids are heavy with exhaustion. 

And it’s not hard, not with his sweet bergamot scent in her nose and the comfort of darkness surrounding her, a darkness her mate created for her with his own hands, to fall into the comfort of sleep again. 

Chapter Text

Bright sunlight wakes her from sleep and an unfamiliar voice pulls her up into the land of the living as a girl, perhaps the most beautiful person Alina has ever seen, sits on the edge of the bed and beams at her. 

“You must be Alina.” 

Alina groans, wanting only to slip back into the land of dreams where she isn’t required to meet strangers or talk to them. 

 “I’m Genya. The General asked me to wake you yesterday afternoon and show you around the palace but you looked so exhausted that I simply couldn’t.” 

“Yesterday?” Alina murmurs, not really following, wondering why this girl is calling her mate General when she looks much too well put together to be a soldier. 

“Yes, you slept for a very long time but then I can imagine that the excitement of meeting your mate and then traveling here so quickly was very draining for you, poor thing.” Genya pats Alina’s hand where it rests on the bedspread and Alina can only blink at her, brain still fuzzy with sleep. And– she’s never had female friends before, doesn’t know how to respond to Genya’s quick chatter, but– the older girl doesn’t seem to mind. 

Genya places a tray laden with food on Alina’s lap and then stands to stride purposefully into the adjoining bathing room Alina hadn’t noticed until now, her voice calling out over the sound of rushing water. 

“Now be a dear and eat quickly please, Alina. We don’t have much time to prepare you and I’d like you to soak for at least twenty minutes”— she stands in the doorway now, nose wrinkled– “it’s rather important that you look your best.” 

Alina, mouth stuffed with fluffy eggs– sprinkled with cheese maybe, and chives? – nods, not caring what Genya does to her as long as she can keep eating. There are soft rolls and a little block of butter shaped like a strawberry, crispy fried potatoes and fat sausages, toast slathered in honey and a steaming cup of mint tea. And oh – Alina almost squeals with joy– there are two perfectly heart shaped plushkie pastries, buttery layers dusted in a fine sprinkling of sugar and she can already hear the crunch of those layers between her teeth– and then Genya swipes the tray out from under Alina’s nose. 

“Up, up!” she says, voice bright and eyes twinkling as Alina gives her a death glare and stumbles out of bed. Genya pushes her into the bathroom and firmly shuts the door, cutting off all hope of returning to the pastries. 

Alina sighs and strips off her clothes, realizing that she’s somehow still wearing her gray dress from the Lunar Ball– had that really only been a day and a half ago? She feels like years have passed since she first put this dress on and so much has changed so quickly that she’s not even sure she’ll recognize herself when she glances in the mirror. But– no. The same pale face, the same tangled brown hair, the same shadowed eyes look back at her. She turns away and quickly splashes into the bathtub Genya has filled with steaming water and dried flowers, not wanting to look at herself any longer. 

The blissful heat of the water drives thoughts of self-doubt out of her head and Alina gives in to the warmth, sinking down to submerge her head until only her nose peeks out of the water. She sighs in happiness and closes her eyes, letting her senses be dulled by the silence of the water she floats in, enjoying the scent of the dried flowers drifting around her. She wants to stay in this cocoon of heat and warm jasmine forever, feeling warm again for the first time since she danced with Kirigan, but too soon Genya is rattling the doorknob and telling her to hurry up. 

As Alina pads out into her bedroom she realizes the bath did more than make her clean; the aches of traveling for so many hours have been soothed away and her throbbing headache, a result of crying herself dry of every drop of moisture in her body, is gone. Alina half wonders if Genya used some kind of magic on the water, smiling to herself. 

“There’s a smile!” Genya exclaims, guiding Alina by the shoulders to sit in front of a mirrored vanity and beginning to rub a towel vigorously through her hair. Alina grins fully, just for her, and Genya laughs as she works. Alina watches for a moment, looking over the coat the older girl is wearing and realizing it’s very similar to Kirigan’s, just cream and pale yellow instead of black. She can see the embroidery that climbs up the sides of the coat and encircles Genya’s throat more clearly now; it twists and curls, like thorns or claws. 

Once Alina’s hair is dry Genya runs a brush through the dark tangles, smoothing it with her fingers until it’s somehow glossy and straight, prettier than ever before. Alina watches silently, focusing on the other girl instead of her own image, unable to face her tired and pale reflection. She knows if she looks at herself, lets herself study the differences between her reflection and Genya’s, she’ll feel ill for the rest of the day. It’s not that Alina is so self-conscious; it’s that Genya is simply so beautiful. Her hair is a riot of copper curls, shining in the light and artfully arranged to frame her face and fall down her back, falling over a shoulder as she bends to work on Alina’s face. 

The older girl has a box of little jars and bottles open on the vanity and as she rubs a pale pink powder into Alina’s skin with the pads of her thumbs, Alina stares into eyes that are large and blue and framed by curling lashes. Genya chatters as she works, something about the best way to bribe the cooks for pastries and how she has priority because she helped heal one of the chefs’ children. Alina closes her eyes and lets her work, lets Genya push and pull her as she wants, unfamiliar with the sensation of being touched by someone she's just met but maybe, maybe it’s nice.

Finally the sensation of cool powders and creams being dusted onto her face ends and she feels Genya’s hands, warm and comforting, settle on her shoulders as the older girls says,

“You can open your eyes now, Alina. You’re ready.”

Almost scared to face her reflection, she does, looking at her face in increments and eyes widening as each feature of her face comes together to paint a lovely picture. Genya hasn’t changed her face exactly, but she’s taken Alina’s face and… enhanced it. The shadows under her eyes are gone, her skin is flushed with painted on health, and her eyes are once more dark and mysterious thanks to the soot Genya has painted along her lash line and used to lengthen those lashes.

“You’re lovely” Genya says with a smile and begins pinning sections of Alina’s hair away from her face with star-shaped golden pins while Alina can’t tear her eyes away from her reflection. What is perhaps most startling to her is how healthy Genya has made her look. All her life Alina has always been pale and tired, her eyes ringed by constant lavender shadows and her body unable to hold her up in games or chores. But now— she is lovely, she decides. And perhaps the day of sleep did her good because when she rises to dress, Genya finished pulling her hair back into an elaborate twist, she feels a bit more energy in her step, her spine pulling straighter with the new sensation of wellbeing.

Genya gives her a pile of clothes, soft black trousers that cling to her legs and a white shirt so silky Alina wants to pause and rub her cheek against it. Alina waits for the other girl to leave so she can dress but Genya just begins briskly tidying up her box of cosmetics, turning her back in what Alina realizes is the most privacy she’ll get. Quickly, she pulls on the clothes, struggling with a moment for the underthings in the pile which consist not of a corset or stays, as she is familiar with, but a tight camisole which she finds infinitely more comfortable. As she slips her feet into thickly soled black boots Genya returns with a coat that is a mirror of Kirigan’s— Alina thinks it’s the one she slept in until she sees that the curling, claw-like embroidery on the coat is picked out in shimmering gold instead of inky black.

As Genya slides the coat over her shoulders and begins making last adjustments to her hair and the way her clothes lay on her body, Alina ventures a question,

“Genya? What am I being prepared for?”

Never stopping her motions Genya glances up at her in the mirror, mouth tight and warm expression disappearing.

“The tsar caught a rumor that the General has found his mate and… requires an audience with you.”

“But why?” Alina almost cries, heart now racing as she realizes that in a very short time she will be face to face with the king of Ravka.

Genya straightens up, ministrations finally finished, and herds Alina towards the drawing room door, her face softening as she says,

“It will be alright, Alina. Face the tsar with pride, little wolf, and ask your mate to explain.”

Alina can only blink at her as the door swings open to reveal her mate, elegant and stark in another jet black coat.

“General” the older girl says as she bows sharply, face suddenly devoid of all emotion and back straight.

“Thank you, Genya” he replies and then turns to Alina, taking her appearance in with a perfunctory gaze, eyes lingering only on the golden embroidery circling high around her throat like a gilded collar.

“Alina” is all he says, extending a hand, and as she always does, as she needs to, she slides her fingers into his and lets him draw her out of the room and down the hall before she can even say goodbye to Genya or thank her.

“I trust you slept well” her mate says to her just as she blurts out, voice too loud in the echoing stone,

“Why does the tsar want to meet me? And why does everyone keep calling you General?”

Kirigan pulls her closer, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow and slowing their pace until their footsteps drum against the marble in a slow, staccato march.

“Your first question can perhaps be answered by the second” he says, eyes forward and face just as composed as usual.

“I am called General because that is my title here, Alina. The Little Palace is the residence and training arena of the wolves who fight in the Second Army and whose movements I command.”

They fall silent as she absorbs this information, absorbs that her mate is the head of the second largest and perhaps most powerful military force in Ravka. That her mate, who danced with her and gave her his coat, is responsible for the death of hundreds, probably thousands, of Fjerdan and Shu-Han fighters. Good , her wolf thinks, almost roaring at the thought of battle, at the thought of enemies, let him kill them, let him defend . But he lied to me, her human half whispers, he lied to me at the Ball when I asked why Mal called him general .

“And the tsar ?” she asks, breathing, breathing, trying to remain calm, to remain steady, choosing to push all of this from her mind until she can have time to think. Time to feel. Time to hurt.

“The tsar and I work…closely together in my command of the Second Army and while you have no pertinence in military matters, he enjoys… making a show of his power.”

Alina grits her teeth at the non-answer and the slight her mate has paid her, no matter if it was intended or not. Although she is Omega Alina has always wanted to enlist in the First Army, always envied the freedom and skills Mal gained once he joined the military. Always wanted to help protect her country, keep Ravka and her people safe. It was through no choice of her own that she was born Omega and therefore isn’t allowed to fight, deemed too fragile and sweet.

It is with anything but sweetness, however, that Alina tugs her hand from Kirigan’s grip and quickens her pace to walk ahead of him, her footsteps echoing more loudly as she puts all of her frustration and anger into stomping her feet down. She doesn’t care if he thinks her childish, if he hears her quick breathing and angry thoughts. She is too unsure of him, of them , to ask the questions in her mind or scream at him for how infuriating he is, how he lied to her, but she’s not willing to hide her annoyance.

Her mate left her alone and now has the audacity to bring her to the tsar , the tsar , after only one day of rest and with no warning or preparation of what is expected of her. 

They exit through the grand double doors of yesterday and though the artist in Alina still wants to stop to examine the carvings, she continues on ahead, gravel crunching under her feet as they cross the drive and down the green lawns and wild gardens back towards the larger palace. Alina still stalks ahead of her mate, but the fresh air and sunlight on her face weaken her, sapping the anger from her body as she tips her chin back and slows to enjoy the warmth of summer. Kirigan is silent behind her and it’s not until she feels his gaze burning into her cheek that she opens her eyes, brown meeting almost-black as his hair is blown back gently in the June breeze. Alina is glad to see that her mate can be moved, even by something as small as a breeze, that he can enjoy something as he also tips his head back to drink in the sun.

They stand still, two statues in the sunlight, eyes almost burned by the bright light as heat seeps into their black clothes, before together, in tandem, they continue down a path penned in by silver birches unfurling new leaves to the sky. Alina misses the sun the moment they step into the cool green shade but warmth sparks inside her as her mate, without glancing at her once, entwines his fingers with hers again. She allows it and they continue on in silence, footsteps in tandem and fingers linked until they reach the carved steps and looming shape of the Grand Palace, as Alina now knows it.

The palace hulks over them and as the doors are swept wide to allow them to pass Alina shivers, having the distinct impression of walking into the gaping jaws of a beast lying in wait. The feeling pervades as Kirigan pulls her gently through hallways bedecked in even more gold, large Ravkan eagles splashed on the walls, candelabras gleaming gold in the sunlight, even the polished marble floors embedded with flecks of gold. 

Her mate brings her to a halt in front of grand double doors covered in the largest carved Ravkan eagle she’s ever seen, the entire thing wrought of gold.

“Shoulders back and chin up, little wolf” Kirigan whispers to her, again moving her fingers to the crook of his arm, and then the doors are swinging open and they’re through, but Alina barely registers this as a servant announces their presence to the tsar . Because everywhere she looks there is shining crystal and gold and her reflection, staring back at her a thousand times over in the enormous arched mirrors which line the walls and reach halfway up to the arcing ceiling. A ceiling divided into sections by golden bands and painted with scenes from Ravka’s past; she catches sight of Sankta Lizabeta and her roses, tsar Yaromir the Determined on the battlefield, even the twisting white antlers of Morozova’s stag. Carved statues peer at them from domed alcoves set between the mirrors and refracted light from the crystal chandeliers hung every couple of paces scatters over the floor as they stride towards the throne.

The tsar , she thinks, and straightens her spine, lifts her chin, proud despite everything to be walking besides Kirigan into this room, suddenly understanding why her mate opts for simple, smooth black in the mess of all this opulence. They pause in front of the throne, an overstuffed chair covered in so much curling gold that Alina thinks it can’t be comfortable to sit on, and Kirigan scrapes a shallow bow while she curtsies.

“ Moi tsar ” her mate says, voice low and smooth but dark eyes trained directly on the king, no hint of subservience in his stance or straight back.

The court attendants gathered around the king— and the queen she realizes with a jolt, eyes skipping to the beautiful blonde woman dressed in ice blue and looking supremely bored— whisper to each other, gazes trained on Alina, clothes so frilly and clashing that she wants to avert her eyes.

“So, Kirigan” the tsar says, voice jovial, and Alina turns her eyes to him, widening as she takes in his rounded stomach, thinning red hair, and weak chin. The tsar is short, his feet barely reaching the marble floor, and a crazed part of her that is still sleep-deprived and in denial about where she is wants to laugh. The rest of her just feels sad that this man is the leader of Ravka, that he is the one with the power and responsibility of caring for her country yet he clearly cares more about feeding himself than the poor.

“You’ve found your mate, have you?”

Alina shakes herself out of her thoughts to see that the tsar’s watery blue eyes have turned to her, as well as the eyes of the queen. She feels like a bug under a magnifying glass and starts to shrink, to curl into herself and lower her eyes until she remembers Kirigan’s words and straightens, forcing her shoulders back under the combined gaze of Ravka’s rulers.

I will not be weak, she thinks, breathing in, out, in, out, heartbeat steady in thanks to the warm support of her silent mate at her side.

“Pretty little thing, isn’t she?” the tsar says, leaning forward on his throne and angling his head to look at her closely and it’s like she can feel the cold trace of his eyes as they sweep down her body.

“But not very Ravkan” the queen cuts in, face frigid as she inspects Alina like she would a piece of moldy bread. Kirigan tenses slightly at her side but before he can defend her Alina shocks herself by speaking, blood boiling in her veins.

“My mother was Shu, moya tsaritsa ” she says, voice just as cold as the queen’s, “but I’m just as Ravkan as you are, majesty.”

The queen draws back slightly and Alina knows she understood the hidden barb in her words, knows as the courtiers’ whispers pick up in speed and volume that they too recognized her allusion to the tsaritsa’s Fjerdan blood.

The king either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care at the slight she just paid to his mate because he laughs loudly, prompting the courtiers to quickly laugh along with him.

“And what corner of Ravka did you find your lovely young mate in, Kirigan?” the tsar asks, smiling at Alina while she is still trying to cool her blood.

“Keramzin, moi tsar ” her mate says, “I was passing through after inspecting the Second Army troops stationed on the Shu border and attended a local Lunar Ball with several of my soldiers.”

“My soldiers, Kirigan” the tsar thunders, face suddenly dark as his words lash out like a whip. Alina’s mate merely inclines his head, expressionless, calm as ever.

The king laughs, suddenly, and all Alina can think about is leaving this awful room of gold and mirrors to hide under Kirigan’s coat again and fall asleep. She hates the weight of the reflections pressing in on them, hates the air and how dead and still it is. 

“How goes the effort on the border, oh general of mine?” the tsar asks and her mate glances at her before replying, quietly,

“I would prefer to discuss matters of war with you privately, moy tsar . My mate”, he says, shifting ever so slightly so that one of his fingers pinches into the soft skin of her inner wrist, “is tired from our travels and I believe she would benefit from rest.”

Alina almost protests, but— she does want to leave this room and the awful, searching gaze of the king, even if it means her mate is cutting her off yet again from information and answers. She tries her best to look tired and slumps a bit as the tsar turns his eyes to her yet again, letting them linger too long on her chest.

“Yes, yes” he says, waving a hand dripping with rings, “she can go. Rest, whatever she needs. Maybe feed her more, fatten her up a bit.” He says this last part with a leer and Alina barely restrains herself from snarling at him.

Kirigan turns ever so slightly and trains his eyes, blacker than ever, on hers.

“Genya has been instructed to come if you need anything, Alina, but she is the only one besides myself who has access to your rooms.” She nods and he kisses her fingers once before releasing her, murmuring an almost silent “Sleep well, Alina” as she turns her back on him, on them all, and leaves the hall behind.

Alina forces herself to walk at a normal pace until she is out of sight of the palace, the awful weight of all that gold and crystal, then allows herself to break into a run as she races back through the wild gardens and trees to the Little Palace. She wants to scrub herself, wash the awful lingering feel of the king’s gaze from her body, but more than that she longs for the peaceful oblivion of sleep. She doesn’t know how she finds her rooms but somehow she is stripping off the black coat and drawing the curtains, shutting out the light and cocooning herself into Kirigan’s coat on the bed as she plummets into sleep. 

☀☀☀

Alina wakes at the sound of gentle tapping, disoriented for a moment in the darkness until she remembers where she is and her panicked flight from the grand palace and the king’s gaze. She sits up, Kirigan’s coat pooling around her waist, and tries to identify where the sound is coming from. She slides out of bed and pads to the far wall of her bedroom, where the secret door to Kirigan’s chambers lies, and spends a few moments pressing against the wall until she gets the trick of the door and can slide it open.

Her mate is standing on the other side, dressed in the same clothes as this morning, unchanged except for hair that is wavy and slightly out of place like he ran a hand through it in frustration.

“Alina” he says, something burning deep in his eyes, and she breathes deeply, inhaling his bergamot-and-smoke scent, something tight in her chest easing at the sight of him.

“Will you dine with me?”

Silently she nods and silently she accepts his hand and lets him draw her through his bedroom, through a library covered wall to wall in books and oh, she wants to come back to this room, but they continue on into a drawing room almost identical to hers where a meal for two has been set out on a large oak table. Her mate pulls out her chair for her and Alina sits, watching Kirigan’s face in the flickering candlelight as he makes his way around the table and sits across from her, elegant as ever as he unfolds a napkin with graceful fingers.

She can’t look at his face yet, doesn’t want to try and understand the hint of feeling there, so she studies the food spread before them instead. It’s simple, not unlike what many farming families of Ravka eat, grilled salmon glazed in honey and ginger, mashed turnips, baked potatoes and carrots sprinkled with salt. Alina serves herself a bit of everything and waits until Kirigan also has a plateful of food before she begins to eat, never meeting the eyes she can feel burning into her skin, instead focusing on the flavors of the food; richer somehow, and better than ever before.

She’s on her second serving of everything when he speaks and she darts her eyes up to meet his, sees that he is twisting the stem of his wineglass between his fingers and gazing straight at her with brown-black eyes.

“It was unfortunate that the king heard of your arrival and that you were forced to meet him so quickly” he says, voice softer than it has been since he called her Alinochka , “and I… I am sorry that you had to suffer a meeting with him because of me.” 

She blinks at him because she doesn’t think her mate is someone who apologizes often but also because she doesn’t know what to say. He’s right , she thinks, it is his fault that I had to meet that awful man.

But she merely nods and continues eating, letting him have the space to talk and hoping that now, maybe, her mate will begin to be a bit more forthcoming with information. When the silence stretches on past her plate being emptied, past an entire glass of wine, she finally relents. 

“What did you discuss with the king about the border and the armies?” she asks, meeting his eyes and straightening her shoulders just like she had in the throne room. She will take the lesson he taught her and use it well, even against him. 

Kirigan sighs and takes a sip of wine. “Sad, brutal things” he says, brow knitting ever so slightly. “How many soldiers we can afford to lose. The new weapons Fjerda is manufacturing and how they might be used against us. What we must do to ensure our armies are fed and clothed in the winter.” 

“Sad, brutal things” she says, tilting her head to the side, “but important.” 

Her mate almost laughs and raises his glass in a mockery of a toast, “Important, yes” he says, and drinks. 

Alina studies him, studies his mussed hair and unbuttoned collar, the glimpse of pale skin she can see at his throat, the way he sits in his chair, posture more relaxed and casual than usual. 

“I’d like to study war” she says suddenly, spine still straight and chin raised, “I’d like to learn about our armies, about military movements and protecting the borders and how to fight a battle.” 

Kirigan studies her for a long moment, then– “As you wish, Alina.” 

She smiles in satisfaction and finishes the rest of her wine, rising from the table and setting her napkin down gently on the oak. This was perhaps the strangest meal she’s had and she isn’t done asking him questions, wants to know more and hear him say more, drown in his voice and hear him say her name over and over, but– it is enough. For now. 

Her mate rises with her and follows behind her, a silent shadow, as she makes her way back to the door bridging their rooms. She turns to him, chin high, shoulders back, heart steady as she breathes, breathes. 

“Thank you for the meal, Kirigan.” Her voice is steady and she could dance at this small triumph but she stays still, letting him raise her fingers to his mouth, their eyes locked, and kiss them, lips soft and beard rough against the pads of her fingers. 

“Pleasant dreams, Alina” he murmurs and even after she closes the door behind her, even after she has crossed the room and fallen back into bed, she can feel his gaze on her back. She drifts to sleep that night with a smile on her face and hope in her heart; a belief that everything will be alright and that, with her mate by her side and the strength he lends her, she will be able to find her way in this new world. 

☀☀☀

It isn’t until the next morning, when she eagerly knocks on the door connecting their rooms, when she finally goes through, impatient with waiting, when she breathes in the silent, still air of his rooms, unable to scent him, that she realizes she won’t have her mate to lean on. Kirigan is gone. 

Chapter Text

Alina spends the first two days after her mate disappears curled up in his bed crying out every drop of water in her body. She refuses the food Genya brings her, accepting only water from underneath the covers and then quickly curling up again under the blankets which still hold his scent of tea and woodsmoke and sugar. She goes over every word, every touch, every look and gesture in her head trying to figure out what she did wrong, what she could have done to make her mate leave her. She thinks and thinks, straining to find something, anything , until she gives herself a headache and falls back into exhausted sleep. On the second morning when Genya tries to get her to change clothes she shrieks at her until the older girl leaves, retreating to the safety of the hallway. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t bathe, doesn’t do anything but cry out all the water she drinks and wonder what is so wrong with her that her mate left without warning. Without saying goodbye. 

And then on the third morning Alina wakes up and decides that she’s done. 

She’s done crying, done lying in bed, done feeling miserable and sick over someone she’s only just begun to know, over someone who might be her mate but who she doesn’t have to love or care for if he can’t treat her with the same respect and kindness. She’s numb, heart aching from the confusion and panic and fear and guilt of the past days but she forces herself to move, forces herself to leave his rooms and asks Genya to lock the door connecting them and hide the key. Genya starts to ask a question but Alina doesn’t even hear, just drifts into the bathroom and runs the hottest bath she can and lets herself soak in the water for a long, long time. 

When she finally emerges, fingers pruny and skin scrubbed clean of his lingering scent, Genya is waiting for her with a tray of plushkie pastries and hot chocolate, eyes still worried but her face forced into brightness. 

“I noticed how excited you seemed to be about these the other day” she says quietly and when Alina’s eyes fill with tears again at the thoughtfulness of the gesture, Genya pretends not to notice. 

Genya lets Alina eat the buttery, sugary pastries in bed as she brushes out her hair and braids it back, leaving her face which is still red and raw bare. When she’s finished the older girl plops down right next to Alina under the golden covers and they eat pastries and sip hot chocolate in silence until the tray is empty. 

“Alina” Genya starts, slowly, blue eyes grave as she looks at her. 

“I’m fine” Alina says, cutting her off, voice too loud as she speaks for the first time since he left. “I’m fine, Genya” she repeats, turning her head to look at her, quieter but managing to pull her lips up into a smile. 

“Okay” Genya says, squeezing her hand. “Okay.” 

They sit in silence for long minutes, Alina staring straight ahead at the sun slowly climbing through the sky and the perfect late June day outside, finding no joy in the puffy white clouds or chirping birds. Genya flops back against the pillows and lets her limbs splay across the bed, hand still holding Alina’s, but she doesn’t mind. It’s nice to be touched. The longer Alina sits there, gazing at the green lawns and gardens outside, the more her anger grows. He brought her to this unfamiliar place and then just left her with no direction, no purpose, no idea what to do. Well, she thinks fiercely, if he thinks he can just leave whenever he pleases and then come back to find me waiting for him as if nothing has changed, he’s wrong . Alina knows she can’t return to Keramzin, knows she has no place in the world to turn besides this palace but that doesn’t mean she’s going to be passive about her new life here. 

“Genya” she says, still staring straight ahead, mind now occupied with plans rather than the pastoral view. 

“Hmmm” the other girl replies, almost asleep on the pillows, but Alina turns to her and shakes her, eyes intense in a way they haven’t been since the Lunar Ball. “Genya,” she repeats, “I want to do something. Here. I want to learn military strategy. I want to help the people in Ravka. I want to learn to fight.” 

The older girl cracks an eye open, then seeing Alina’s face hauls herself up to a sitting position and pushes her hair behind her ears, grabbing Alina’s other hand so that their joined fingers are bridging the gulf of blankets between them. 

“Okay” she says, suddenly serious, blue eyes trained on Alina’s face, “how can I help?” 

☀☀☀

Alina begins her lessons with instruktor Petrov the next day, settling into the library where they will learn before anyone else arrives, nervous and excited and trying not to show it. Genya helped her dress again this morning and the encouragement of the other girl bolstered her through shining hallways to this room covered in shelves laden with books, desks arranged in neat rows and maps pinned to the walls. Alina wants to study the maps closer and run her fingers over the little etched symbols of mountains and villages but before she can leave her seat other students begin to file into the room.

Alina studies them, curious about the wolves who are training to join the Second Army. She knows it’s an elite force for the best and fiercest fighters, sent in to deal with the most dangerous of situations and often taking on defense of Ravka’s borders against Fjerda and Shu-Han. As the other students trickle in she notices that they all wear coats similar to her own, but crafted in red, purple, or blue. She flushes at the looks cast in her direction and resolves to ask Genya for a new coat in a color that isn’t black. Black is his , she thinks, and I would prefer something of my own . The last girl to slide into the library just before instruktor Petrov is noticeably late and noticeably beautiful. The girl takes a seat at the head of the class, silver embroidery shining on her blue coat as she tosses black waves over a shoulder. Unlike the rest of the class she doesn’t spare a single glance for Alina and instead focuses on instruktor Petrov who is already lecturing on the history of the Solovian war and the movements of General Ilyin during the first, famed days of the last battle at Khovd.

This is history Alina has heard before, though quickly glossed over, and Ana Kuya never went into detail about the brutal actions the famed General took to win. The students around Alina are silent, only the sound of scratching quills and occasional movement dimming out the instructor’s voice as he lays out a calm, concise explanation of how the last battle was won. Alina hasn’t even begun to take notes yet, can only focus on the words “ beheading ” and “ attacked in the night while the Khalka tribes slept .” Instead she glances at the schedule Genya had pushed into her hand this morning, realizing that after this class, History of Wars, she has Diplomacy with instruktor Velya, a short break for lunch, Fjerdan and Shu Studies, and finally ends the day with simply Training— instruktor Botkin. Alina slumps in her seat and, gaze drifting to the maps on the walls again, wonders if this is what she really wants. If all of her classes are as unsettling as this one, she doesn’t know how long she’ll last.

Alina endures the rest of instruktor Petrov’s lecture only by keeping her head down and writing quick, efficient notes, trying not to let her brain ruminate on what the words mean or what her teacher is talking about when he says numbers that she knows mean lives lost. The war with the Khalka tribes was so long ago that Alina can hardly muster up the righteous anger she feels towards the Fjerdans and Shu. As the lecture progresses her teacher paints a clear picture of the reality of the last battle; how General Ilyin slaughtered the entire family of the Khalka leader in the dead of night, a time that was honored as peaceful by the tribes, how those left alive after the battle were driven from their homelands while Ilyin was celebrated and the conquered land was absorbed into Ravka.

Alina feels sick at the words, sick at the prospect of people who were doing nothing but defending their lands, being slaughtered while their killer became a war hero in Ravka. She dares to glance at the students around her and is dismayed to see that their faces are nothing but calm and intent, eyes trained on their teacher as they take in his words with rapt attention. It isn’t until she’s sliding out of her seat and striding for the door, intent on escaping this room and the information she just learned, information she has never been taught before about a General she always believed to be a hero, that she realizes what instruktor Petrov’s ending words of the lecture were.

“While it is perhaps commendable that General Ilyin won the battle at Khovd so quickly and decisively, it is important also to remember that the history of Ravka and our greatest heroes, our tsars even, is a flawed one. There is no one who is truly good or truly evil, but rather people who make hard decisions and people who don’t. What we are teaching you here is how to make those hard decisions.”

His words were not encouraging, exactly, but… Alina feels slightly better and she is glad that now, at least, she has learned the true history of the Khovd battle and General Ilyin’s final movements and the lives taken which had earned him status and fame. She settles into her seat in Diplomacy class, all the students seated around an enormous oval table set with formal dinner plates, utensils, and cups. Instruktor Velya, posture straight as a rod and movements graceful, glides into the room, her face severe and already Alina wants to return to the relative safety of her rooms. The class passes in a blur of instruction about formal greetings, correct posture, keeping elbows off of tables and using this fork for fish but that one for meat and never, ever holding her utensils while she chews. With each wrong action Alina can see instruktor Velya’s lips thinning in disapproval and she thinks she catches the black-haired girl laughing at her when she picks up her spoon as Velya asks which utensil they should use for dessert.

“That’s your fruit spoon” the black haired girl says, suppressed laughter at Alina in her voice.

“And which utensil is used for dessert, Zoya?” their teacher asks, her eyes just as hard on the girl as they were on Alina, who realizes with a smug glimmer of satisfaction that though Velya may not like her, she is at least fair.

“It’s a trick question” the girl— Zoya , Alina thinks with no small amount of hatred— says, leaning back in her seat, voice icy as she looks at their teacher. “The dessert spoon or fork is brought in with the food instead of laid out on the table.”

Velya nods in approval and ends the class with a detailed explanation of the correct formal setting for a meal, passing out diagrams to each student of how the dishes, utensils, and cups should be laid out with notes about the order each is to be used in. Alina takes hers in a daze and trickles out of the classroom with the other students, brain swimming with wine glasses and spoons as she mindlessly follows the flood of peers. It isn’t until she steps into a large room, ceilings soaring high above her painted with the night sky, that she realizes she’s in the dining hall. There are four long tables set in the center of the room and though she sees three are already half filled with soldiers in red, blue, and purple robes, the fourth remains empty. She falls into line with the other students from her diplomacy class, making sure to avoid Zoya, and gathers up a plate and simple, blessedly easy utensils, shuffling along with everyone else. The food options are not exactly exciting, to say the least, rye bread and smoked herring, pickled beets, and steaming vegetable stew.

Alina grimaces at the herring and beats but heaps a bowl with stew and sneaks two pieces of bread onto her plate despite the watchful eyes of the cooks laying out the food. She pauses at the end of the line, unsure where to sit because while the students may mix in classes they stick to their own colors at meals, each wolf moving to eat with those dressed in red, purple, or blue. Not blue , she decides, thinking of Zoya and her sharp smile, and is on the verge of turning around and going back to her room to eat when Genya appears in the doorway, copper curls and cream coat standing out in the crowd.

“Genya” she sighs in relief when the older girl reaches her, cradling her plate of food against her chest and wanting nothing more than to talk about her awful morning. “Alina!” Genya says, leaning in to kiss both of her cheeks and lead her to the table occupied by purple coated soldiers, their long coats embroidered in either gray or crimson. They sit in hard backed wooden chairs and before Alina can begin to speak Genya pushes bread into her hand and beams at her.

“Eat up, little wolf, I have pastries hidden in your room for us.” 

Alina stuffs food in her mouth and chews quickly, trying not to taste the bread or the seeds mixed into it, glowering at Genya as the girl laughs at her. “It was awful, Genya” she complains as soon as she can speak, swallowing hard, “there’s so many plates! And forks! Did you know there’s different forks for each type of meat? And don’t even get me started on the cups!” She huffs as Genya collapses into laughter, fighting to keep a frown on her face. “It’s not funny!” She cries, lips trembling to hold in a grin, “I couldn’t even use the right spoon for dessert and Zoya had to answer for me and it was so embarrassing , Genya.” She slumps in her seat, trying to look as pitiful as possible so that they can go eat pastries now, please, instead of soup.

“Zoya Nazylensky?” Genya asks, laughter suddenly dying. Alina shrugs, still huffy. “I don’t know her last name, but her coat is blue and she’s beautiful and mean .”

“I’m not sure you and Zoya Nasylensky will ever be friends, but if you don’t let it show that she riles you, you’ll at least earn her respect.” Genya tells her, patting her lightly on the arm and stealing some of her stew.

They spend the rest of the lunch hour in Alina’s room, sitting in a patch of sunlight on the bed and devouring slices of honey cakes and braided sweet bread studded with chunks of chocolate. Genya tells Alina that the long coats she and the other soldiers wear are called kefta , and that they’re made of a special material to protect from knives and bullet wounds. “What do the different colors mean?” Alina asks the question that has been plaguing her mind since her first class this morning.

“They are orders within the Second Army,” Genya tells her, “Red kefta with gray for healers, or red with black embroidery for undercover soldiers training to go abroad. Blue is for the strongest fighters who head our armies and protect the borders. And purple keftas are for those learning how to make weapons and supplies for the war.”

“What does black mean?” Alina asks, examining her own inky sleeves and golden embroidery.

“It means the General.” Genya smiles at her, tracing a fingertip over the shining gold threads, “But now it means his mate too.” They both fall silent, contemplating the absence of Alina’s mate but she quickly asks another question before her mind can fall back into that dark well of sadness.

“What does your kefta mean Genya?” She tilts her head at her friend, curious, but quickly regrets asking when Genya’s face goes silent and still, blue eyes lowered to the bedspread as she picks at her desserts.

“It means I help the tsaritsa ” Genya says quietly, eyes still lowered, “I was brought to the Little Palace by General Kirigan as a child and gifted to the queen. I help her dress, do her makeup, curl her hair, that sort of thing.” Alina’s friend waves her hand airily but won’t meet her eyes and Alina doesn’t know where to begin, how to ask her what she just said means.

But— “Gifted?” she asks, trying, trying to keep her voice steady, to not let her emotions show. Genya looks at her, finally, eyes grave but mouth pulled up into a forced mask of calm.

“Gifted,” Genya repeats, “by the General.” 

☀☀☀

The rest of Alina’s day passes in a blur of Fjerdan words and Shu history and the torture that is training with instruktor Botkin, a man formed in the depths of Hell, Alina decides. She emerges from training bruised and sore, her limbs aching even after the simplest of stretches and exercises, ears ringing from the sound of instruktor Botkin yelling net at her over and over again. She feels weary down to her very bones and she walks slowly, so slowly back to her rooms, the weight of her lessons pressing down on her until all she wants is to collapse on the cool marble floor and fall into sleep. Somehow, though, she makes it to her room and as she crumples to the soft mattress of her bed she allows herself to feel the doubt and discouragement and self-pity she’s been holding back all day. I don’t fit in with the other soldiers here , she thinks as tears form, and I’m never going to be able to catch up with them. I’ll never be as good as them, never be as strong . She curls around Kirigan’s coat, the only memory of him she has allowed herself to keep, and stares out the window at the darkening sky. How foolish I was , she thinks darkly, to imagine that a little orphan girl from Keramzin could learn warcraft, could direct battles and change the flow of history . 

Alina can feel herself falling deeper into despair and the darkness that had enveloped her while she mourned her mate and so when a knock sounds at the door and she hears Genya’s voice call out, full and sweet, “Alina, it’s me! Can I come in?” It's like a ray of sunshine has fallen outside her door. Alina runs to open the door and embrace her friend– her friend, she realizes, because that’s what Genya is now– and she envelopes the older girl in a sudden, quick hug. The contact feels so good, so warm, that Alina doesn’t want to pull away but she does, walking back to the bed and patting the blankets next to her so that Genya will sit. 

Genya laughs at her exuberance and sits, bringing with her the scent of lilies, orange blossoms and– smoke? Alina sniffs, and inside her grieving wolf uncurls at the slight scent of their mate, awake and aware for the first time since he left. Her eyes dart to Genya’s, questioning, but the older girl only holds out the folded piece of paper she’d been clutching in her hand. Alina takes it, slowly, and the scent of woodsmoke and tea intensifies, making her stomach turn into knots just at this slight reminder of him. 

“It’s a letter” Genya blurts before Alina can speak, fingers now twisting in her lap, “from him. He wrote to say that he was sent to the Fjerdan border by the tsar when they met to discuss the war and that he doesn’t know when he’ll be back, but that it’s important because he’s protecting Ravka. He hopes–” at this she pauses and looks away from Alina, nose crinkling slightly in disgust– “he hopes you’ll settle into the palace while he’s gone and perhaps take up a new hobby.” 

Alina slowly lowers her eyes to the letter, still folded, though she can see a hint of clean, elegant pen strokes through the thick white paper. She doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that her mate probably wrote to her the moment he could but that he also sent no apology for leaving without warning. And he knew , she realizes with a burst of anger, he knew when he asked me to eat with him that he would have to leave. He knew the entire time we dined together and he still couldn’t find a moment to tell me or say goodbye . 

Alina feels the despair, the discomfort, the pains and aches of her grueling day drain away in the face of her bright, burning fury. Suddenly she doesn’t care how many times Zoya will laugh at her, doesn’t care how long and hard she’ll have to work to be able to fight and run with strength, doesn’t care how much difficulty lies ahead of her. She is determined to learn, to grow strong, to take advantage of where she is and become better despite the loss of her mate. She is determined that when he eventually returns he will meet not the dancing girl of Keramzin but a girl who is his equal, clever and strong and able to command her own armies, fight her own battles. Have her own life. 

Slowly, Alina places the still folded letter in Genya’s lap and looks up at her friend, face blank as she learned from her mate and eyes burning with the heat inside her soul. 

“Tell him” she says quietly, voice calm and controlled, “that I have found a new hobby.” 

Genya blinks at her, confused, brows furrowing as she slowly curls her fingers around the letter again. 

Eyes glittering in the gloom of the room, the sun now set beyond the rolling fields outside, Alina glares down at the letter and the memory of her mate. 

“War.” 

Chapter Text

Alina slowly sinks into the routine of her new life like a stone through honey, her days passing quickly now that they’re filled with lessons and training and meals spent with Genya. It’s not what she expected, never what she envisioned her life would be like after she left Keramzin, but it’s good in a new way and each day she’s finding little joys that spark bright light in her chest. She likes her classes, she realizes, and though it frightened and disgusted her at first to learn about the realities of the decisions generals and leaders make in war, she’s glad to learn because it means she won’t repeat their mistakes. She likes eating in the large dining hall surrounded by all the other training soldiers of the First Army, likes the noise and feel of so many people around her. She’s beginning to learn the faces and names of the other students in her classes, has even laughed with them a couple of times. She curls up in the library at any chance she gets, devouring books they never had at the orphanage. She walks in the gardens and fields when the gold of her room grows too oppressive, enjoys the wide open spaces and the summer weather as June slips into July, then August. Every night as she cocoons herself in golden blankets and Kirigan’s kefta , which has long lost his scent, she makes a list of the things she’s grateful for. It helps her fall asleep, helps her settle herself and gives her reasons to climb out of bed the next morning and do it all over again. Her life is growing fuller with each passing day, with Genya and classes and books and her fledgling connections with her peers but still Alina is full of wanting . 

It’s always there inside of her, a gaping hole that tunnels down to her toes and stretches up to the tips of her ears, filling her whole body with a deep drain. Alina sometimes feels like one of the paper dolls she and Mal played with when they were little, like if anyone looks closely they’ll see she’s just one dimensional, flimsy and easily burned up into ashes. She eats her wheat berry porridge and brown bread at breakfast and she wants , the food never filling up the emptiness inside her completely. She goes to class and she learns, can feel her head expanding with the new knowledge and skills, but she wants , can feel the empty spots multiplying. She trains with Botkin, feels her legs and arms slowly begin to remember the steps, strengthening a bit day by day but even when she falls into bed at night, exhausted, the wanting is still there. Waiting for her. It’s a hole, a pit of quicksand, it’s half smiles and glazed eyes and most of all it’s a monster in the shadows following her, waiting for her, ready to pounce the moment she acknowledges it. 

She never turns around, though, never lets herself acknowledge the wanting and how empty she is all the time. She doesn’t even glance over her shoulder when she walks through the gleaming halls of the Little Palace or when she reads late into the night. She keeps her back straight, chin high, walks with purpose and only looks forward. She convinces herself it’s not there and that if she keeps moving, keeps talking, exhausts herself so thoroughly that she doesn’t have time to think, it’ll be enough to gloss over the hole inside of her. And so although Alina is wanting, waiting, empty underneath her skin, bones starting to hollow in with nothing to support them, she is fitting pieces of her new life together every day. She realizes one morning when she strides into the dining hall and is waved to sit with two girls from her Fjerdan and Shu history class, both dressed in dark blue keftas , that she is maybe even starting to have friends. Their names are Marie and Nadia, both training to be frontline warriors, and they chatter with her about the students’ gossip and admire Alina’s own newly made blue kefta . She had wavered for days about which color to ask Genya for to replace the black but Genya had finally, in exasperation, presented Alina with several summer silk keftas and told her that anyone who could read boring books about military strategy and not fall asleep deserved to wear blue. 

Alina tunes back into the conversation the two girls are carrying on around her, something about a soldier named Ivan and how he sent a letter to one of the soldiers still at the Little Palace, a young man named Fedyor studying to be a red kefta agent. Alina thinks maybe she’s seen Fedyor leaving advanced training with the advanced spies in training but it’s harder for her to tell the older students apart. She moves her eyes to the golden embroidery still tracing her blue cuffs; though Genya had been more than happy to leave the black keftas behind, she had insisted that Alina keep the golden embroidery. “It suits you” she had said, smiling at Alina in the new clothes, “and though you may be studying for a war, it doesn’t mean you have to give up the things that make you look and feel pretty.” 

“–And I heard Viktor telling Pavel that Fedyor seemed sad when he read the letter from Ivan and mentioned something about not seeing him for a long time which means he and the General probably won’t come back until at least mid-autumn, or maybe even later!” Marie is telling Nadia with bright eyes, clearly excited to share this piece of gossip in a place where each day is so similar and not much happens. Alina sits up straighter at the mention of her mate’s title and is about to ask Marie for more details when Nadia does it for her. 

“The General isn’t coming back until autumn?” She cries, looking upset. “But that’s the longest he’ll have been away in– ever! I’ll be ready to be placed by then and if he’s not here I can’t be picked to join his battalion.” She looks genuinely upset and Alina, after now spending almost two months at the Little Palace, understands why. Once the soldiers training around her are finished with their studies and pass their final physical and written exams, they are eligible to join any of the Second Army forces scattered across Ravka. Alina knows that though almost all soldiers are simply assigned to a battalion, many hope to be hand picked by her mate to join his elite group of fighters, spies, and tacticians– a group that has been nicknamed the oprichniki by her peers. The oprichniki go where they are needed in Ravka, often fighting at the borders or undertaking secretive missions– Alina has heard more than one rumor that they can blend in and out of the night to silently murder Ravkan enemies in their sleep. She isn’t sure if she thinks the rumors are true or not. 

Marie is comforting Nadia with an arm around her shoulder as the other girl lets a few tears slip down her cheeks. Alina has seen the two friends in training and knows they are strong fighters and both have hopes of joining the oprichniki – but she can’t imagine wanting to work under him like that. She tries not to think about the implications of what Ivan’s letter supposedly said– that her mate won’t be returning to the Little Palace for at least the next two months, if not longer. Letters have continued to arrive from him, at least once every two weeks since the first was sent and though Alina refuses to open or read them, Genya still brings them to her room. Alina burns the letters each evening whenever they arrive, glad to let the scent of her mate curl away into smoke and ash. She’s furious with him still, and hurt, but she’s also glad of the distance now, glad that she doesn’t have to see his face or hear his voice or be around someone who she knows doesn’t love her. He can have his life and I can have mine, she thinks, and I don’t particularly care that he’s been gone for so long or that he’s in danger . 

“Alina, have you heard anything about when the General is returning?” Marie asks, pulling her out of her thoughts and back into the dining hall echoing with chatter and the scraping of chairs. “From Genya, I mean? I know the General sends her letters.” 

The other girls’ eyes are worried and she’s still consoling Nadia but Alina just shakes her head, not wanting to talk. Somehow Genya, like the true guardian angel that she is, had managed to hide from the Little Palace and the students that Alina is their General’s mate. He had only spent two days with her before leaving and Alina wears no ring, no handfasting bracelet, bears no mating mark on her throat. Genya somehow explained away the black kefta she wore at first as a mixup by the laundresses and assured everyone that Alina was meant to be wearing blue the whole time. Alina knows the other students find her strange, that they likely talk about her behind her back, that while they were all brought here as children she arrived at the Little Palace at eighteen with no former military knowledge or skills. She knows they see how weak she still is in training, how she can barely fight back against Botkin, knows that Zoya still laughs at her in Diplomacy class and has spread a rumor that Alina is a rough farmers daughter who is as intelligent as a sack of rocks. Alina knows all this and yet– yet she can’t bring herself to tell them the truth. Sometimes late at night she fantasizes about announcing to the dining hall that the General is her mate just for the pleasure of Zoya’s reaction, but it’s not worth it, not when she’d have to admit her greatest shame and loss to them. Not when it means they’d all know that her mate left her. 

Alina twists in her chair as she sees a flash of blue entering the dining hall and of course it’s Zoya, the older girl striding through the tables to sit alone with her breakfast, her black hair and sharp face a silent announcement of her presence. Nadia glares at Zoya now that she’s finally stopped crying, her eyes red and slightly puffy. 

“Of course she’ll be chosen to join the General” she says, voice full of resentment as she narrows her eyes at their fellow student. Marie sighs and nods in agreement. While no one loves Zoya or her caustic personality it’s widely acknowledged that she’s one of the best fighters and strategists training at the Little Palace. 

“I bet she can’t wait to be back with the General” Marie whispers as she leans in towards Alina and Nadia, her eyes gleaming again now that she has something to possibly gossip about. “I think she’s always secretly had feelings for him and once she’s an oprichniki she’ll have lots of opportunities to try and touch his skin.” 

Alina feels her eyes widen– she had no idea the frigid older student could ever harbor any sort of romantic feeling, especially towards her own equally cold mate. Maybe they’d make a good match , she thinks, almost wanting to laugh or maybe cry; they could sit in silence together and cut everyone down with their eyes . 

“Has the General not found his mate yet?” Alina asks Marie and Nadia, turning away from Zoya and thoughts of her mates’ lips. 

Marie shakes her head emphatically, eyes growing brighter. “No, never,” she says happily, “And he always wears gloves and his kefta so it’d be very difficult for his mate to bond with him even if they did show up.” 

“I don’t think he wants to find his mate,” Nadia whispers, almost like it’s a secret, “and even if he did he’s– the General . He’s so busy fighting our enemies and trying to find a way to deal with the Unsea that I don’t think he’d notice his mate even if they ran straight into him. He’s very– unemotional.” 

Alina forces herself to laugh along with the two girls, to curve her lips up and push the spark of brightness deep inside into her eyes. Forces herself not to think about how maybe he left because he didn’t want to have a mate, wasn’t ready. 

“Not that all the students here haven’t tried to touch him to see if he’s their mate” Marie tells her, almost collapsing into giggles again. “It’s almost a tradition for students who have turned eighteen to try, remember, Nadia?” The friends laugh again but this time Alina genuinely laughs along with them, imagining her poor mate who seems to hate the company of others so much being chased by a flood of freshly turned adults trying to touch his pale skin. 

“And has anyone ever actually succeeded in making skin contact?” She asks, still smiling. 

“Once” Marie says, face almost awestruck. “It was Ivan. The General gave him two months of kitchen labor and then made Ivan one of his personal guards because he was stealthy enough to get close and touch him without the General noticing.” 

“I heard the General broke all of Ivan’s fingers and then forbid him from asking for help from the healers” Nadia interjects, eyes wide. 

Marie waves her hand, impatient, her gaze trained on the other students already beginning to leave the hall for classes. “Either way it’s a good story” she says, pushing back her chair to stand. “But we have to go learn real stories now.” Nadia and Alina trail after her as the three make their way to history class but Alina pauses once in the hallway to look out a window at the trees and swaying gardens outside, the late summer day perfect and blue. 

“Yes,” she murmurs to herself, “it is a good story. A good warning.” Then she turns and continues on, blue silk swishing behind her. 

☀☀☀

It isn’t until several days later that Alina finds herself with an hour of free time, liberated early from training due to her inability to even lift the wooden practice sword Botkin had handed her. She’s ended up in the library, retreating to a place of comfort in the face of the hot shame still burning down her spine and also wanting to find a book about something Nadia had mentioned at breakfast. Something she’s learned about, that every Ravkan child has learned about, but that she doesn’t quite understand– the Unsea. The Shadow Fold, as braver people call it, but most Ravkans turn away at that name and prefer the less foreboding moniker. They learned about the Unsea at Keramzin of course, but only that it was a large swath of darkness and evil and ‘impurity’ as Ana Kuya had called it, cutting Ravka almost completely in half from North to South. Alina knows the Unsea has been in place for more than a hundred years, knows it's something Ravka has learned, with difficulty, to live with and around– so why had Nadia mentioned her mate concerning himself with it? 

She trails her fingers over the spines of neatly shelved books as she wanders among the shelves of the library. This space is comforting for her– there are lots of squishy armchairs tucked away in corners perfect for curling up with a good book and the shafts of sunlight falling through the large picture windows illuminate dustmotes drifting lazily through the air. She enjoys that the library is just a little bit shabby, that the chairs are worn in from countless arms and hands, that the floorboards creak slightly as she moves. Alina feels more at home in the warm, worn-in feeling of the library than she does in her beautiful golden rooms, silent and still as they are now that she’s hardly ever there. Now she almost can’t bear to be in her rooms because of what she knows lies on the other side of her bedroom wall. 

She combs through the shelves holding the collection of Ravkan history books until she has an armful of tomes which will hopefully cover the Unsea in greater detail and then hides in her favorite armchair nestled deep among the shelves and begins to read. She learns that the Shadow Fold was created by the Black Heretic more than four hundred years ago, swallowing up the land of the Tula Valley and killing each farmer and child the moment it descended. She learns more about the Black Heretic, a figure in history so ancient and wrapped in mystery that Ana Kuya had refused to give them more than the bare details. He was educated and powerful, a talented warmonger, an enemy of the royal family. And that was all. The books hold no mention of his true name, of his family, or origins, or motives for creating the Shadow Fold. 

Alina finds a scarce few paragraphs mentioning the powers the Black Heretic supposedly had, powers of control over darkness and shadows and the dead of night. She’s heard stories of the Black Heretic and his powers as a child, told to her while she huddled under her blankets, but Alina had always believed the stories to be more of a cautionary tale for children than actual truth. The Black Heretic and his darkness were metaphors for impurity, for sin, for bad behavior and children who neglected their chores. 

She frowns down at the books, reading the paragraphs about the Black Heretic’s powers again and again. It doesn’t make sense that one man could have been blessed by the Saints with so much power and then used it for evil. And why had he created the Shadow Fold, if that really was the truth? She knew the Tula Valley had once been a prosperous farming area and that Ravka had had to compensate for its loss with new farms to the East, but she was still having trouble understanding why the legendary figure had created the Unsea in response to being attacked and hunted by the tsar at the time. If the man had been as skilled at warfare and strategy as the books implied, he had perhaps lost all of that knowledge when he made the Unsea. 

Alina continues to read but wonders in the back of her mind if maybe the stories about the Black Heretic really were just stories and the Saints had instead cursed Ravka with the Shadow Fold for some unknown, ancient reason as most people believed today. She reads about the volcra, awful flying scaled monsters with razor teeth that live inside the Shadow Fold and attack anything or anyone that ventures into their territory. The monsters are why the Fold is so dangerous, why trade and passage between the two sides of Ravka has slowed to a trickle. Alina reads on as the hours and pages slip through her fingers until it’s night outside and her eyes are beginning to drift closed. She marks her place in a slim and very detailed book about the borders and geography of the Shadow Fold before curling back into the chair, the soft cushions now molded to her shape after so many hours. I’ll just close my eyes for a moment she tells herself and then her eyes are closed and she’s falling down into the darkness of sleep– falling into a dream. 

Alina knows it must be a dream because only in sleep does the empty pit of wanting inside of her abate. And because she’s emerged from the darkness into flickering golden candlelight and is looking directly at her mate, his inky head curved over a desk as he covers parchment in scrolling cursive. She studies him, drinks in the way his pale neck slopes down to his shoulder, the glint of black embroidery on his kefta in the firelight, even– Saints , even the scent of him. She inhales deeply, fills the spaces inside herself that are usually empty with woodsmoke and tea and sugary sweetness until there’s no more space left in her lungs. Until she has to breathe out. 

As if he heard her, as if this isn’t an illusion from her brain, Kirigan raises his head and if this was real, if she was really with him, she thinks she would cry when their eyes meet. But it’s only a dream and because Alina knows that nothing bad can happen in dreams, she moves towards him and lets her fingertips ghost over his cheeks, lets herself trace the contours of his face. Lets herself settle into his lap and nuzzle her nose into the short hair covering his cheeks and chin, lets herself inhale the scent of him again. And again. And again. 

She thinks she hears him whisper her name as she twines her arms around his neck and lays her head against his chest so that she can listen to the steady thumping of his heart but she’s too lost in the scent and warmth of him to really respond. She moves closer against him, wishing she could split him open and crawl inside him if only so that she could always feel this warm. She didn’t realize until this moment, until the warmth began to return, how cold she’s been ever since her mate left her. It’s lovely, this heat growing in her whole body, and she sinks into it, sinks into him , feeling at peace for the first time in as long as she can remember. She almost purrs when, after a few minutes, he slowly wraps his arms around her back and pulls her more firmly against him until there’s no space between them. It’s so nice to be held that Alina doesn’t know if she’s closer to shedding tears or smiling. 

It’s so lovely to be this warm, so lovely to feel that golden brightness swelling up inside her and infusing each of her limbs the longer she touches him that Alina doesn’t want to move even when she begins to feel hot. Too hot. It’s like there’s a burning sun in her chest and the longer she stays curled up against her mate the hotter it grows. Stupid dream , Alina thinks grumpily, I don’t want to feel this hot so why is my brain doing this to me ? When she’s almost feverish with heat she finally draws back, sad to leave the music of her mate’s heart but almost giddy with joy when he leaves his arms linked around her, palms now resting on the small of her back. Kirigan tips his head back slightly and gazes up at her just as she gazes at him, each studying the other. His eyes are chocolate and midnight and glittering black in the candlelight and she likes seeing him like this, likes having him look up at her with almost awe– or reverence?– in his gaze. Alina doesn’t find him much changed but– slightly less put together, perhaps. His hair is messier, longer, and the neck of his shirt sits askew on his collarbones, exposing pale skin. And there’s a new, tiny scar curving across his temple like the skin has been slashed with a sickle. 

Alina can feel his eyes on her, dark and burning with the frigid heat of extreme cold, but this is her dream. She decides what happens. So she traces the new scar with a finger and then leans in to kiss it, pressing her mouth to his skin. Once. Twice. She tries to kiss his temple a third time but he shifts, faster than her sleeping brain can process, and suddenly his lips are pressed against hers and everything is soft and the fire inside is burning a thousand times brighter. She has a moment to be annoyed that even in her dreams Kirigan is still trying to seize control but then his mouth moves against hers and suddenly she doesn’t mind. She sinks into him again, sinks into the taste of him, sinks into the series of kisses that burn hotter and hotter against her mouth. Each is better than the last and she presses closer, chest to chest and hands tangled in the longer hair curling at the nape of his neck. His hands are trailing the length of her spine, leaving blazes of warmth in their wake. The heat inside her grows and builds, almost an inferno, but it’s still not enough– he isn’t close enough. She tugs on his hair, pulls his head closer and opens her lips to him, inhales the scent and taste and feel of him, wanting more. 

She tugs on the hair tangled in her fingers again and feels him growl against her lips, feels it reverberate in both of their chests pressed so closely together, feels him lift her up and place her on his desk, papers scattering to the floor as he spreads her legs and steps between them. He kisses her thoroughly the whole time, tongue exploring her mouth and noses bumping slightly as they move. Alina wraps her trouser clad legs around Kirigan’s waist and uses her new muscles from training to draw him closer until his hips are bumping against the edge of the desk and he’s half curved over her, one hand cradling her face while the other supports her back as she leans further and further back. She doesn’t think she’s taken a breath in several minutes but of course she doesn’t need to breathe in this dream if there’s kissing to be done instead. 

She kisses him again and again and again, leaning back and teasing him with distance until he has to dart forward and kiss her, quickly, before she can escape. She presses kisses against his collarbones, biting gently, and sucks bruises into the pale skin of his neck while he strokes her hair and gives her better access by tilting his head. She traces his eyebrows, the slope of his nose and the shape of his lips with her fingertips, letting herself revel in the feel of touching him. She knows she’s dreaming when he allows her touch, when he leans into it and gazes at her with some hidden emotion in his dark eyes while she explores every facet of his face. He lets her comb her fingers through his hair, the inky strands softer than she could have possibly imagined. He lets her slide the kefta from his shoulders and run her hands over the broad width of them, lets her slip a hand under the white cotton of his shirt and settle her palm over her heart. He gazes at her, brown eyes into brown, and when he places two fingers on the thrumming pulse in her neck she shudders. And then they’re looking at each other, feeling each other’s heartbeats, and Alina can barely make it a full minute before she’s tugging him down towards her by his shirt and sliding their mouths together again. 

It’s so– it’s so good . He’s so good. Her mate. He’s so beautiful and he’s here, or she’s here, but either way they’re together and under all her anger and hurt Alina can admit that she’s missed him, desperately, missed the scent and warmth of him. Missed hearing him whisper her name as he does now, missed the feeling of his hands holding her waist and steadying her, missed– missed his lips on hers? Alina opens her eyes, enraged, to find that this dream version of her mate has decided for some idiotic reason to stop kissing her. 

“No” she says emphatically, letting her fingers slide from his hair to his neck and trying to pull him back towards her. “Keep kissing me.” 

“Milaya” he whispers, letting his forehead fall against hers and sliding one hand from her waist up her spine and into her hair, “I think it’s time to go. You must be very tired.” 

“I don’t want to go yet” she tells him, tugging his hair sharply to show him her discontent, “I want you to keep kissing me. I want more.” 

He laughs lightly, soundlessly, but the sight of her mate, even if he’s just a phantom conjured by her brain, laughing , is enough to slacken her grip on him. 

“I didn’t know you could laugh” she says, too shocked to lie and anyways this is a dream, it doesn't matter what she says, “But I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you. I miss you.” 

Her dream mate sobers, any traces of laughter leaving his face and Alina almost screams with frustration but she’d really rather be using her mouth for other purposes. Like kissing. She tries, again, to pull him closer and again he stands firm against her grip. Botkin’s training is obviously not effective, she thinks, and then; I can’t tell him that because then he’ll make me do even more exercises . 

Kirigan presses a final kiss to her lips, sweet and short and burning enough fiery heat into her that she is still gasping for air when he presses a second, lighter kiss to her forehead and steps back, disentangling their bodies and hands completely until she’s alone on his desk, looking at him in the flickering candlelight. His eyes are brown, deep and warm and open and he never looks away from her face even as the space between them seems to grow as the darkness of her sleeping brain rises to drag her away from this dreamworld. She thinks maybe he says something, his lips moving at the last moment as he fades away, but she’s too far away to hear his words. 

☀☀☀

When Alina wakes up to gentle daylight streaming through the library windows and heating the left side of her face, it takes her a moment to remember where she is. To remember that, however lovely, it was just a dream. Still, as she gets up from the squashy armchair to leave the library, she traces her lips with a fingertip and can almost imagine that they’re still slightly swollen from a night spent kissing her mate. 

Chapter Text

Alina doesn’t have any more dreams about her mate– at least, not dreams like the one from her night in the library. She thinks about that dream a lot, remembering the phantom touch of his lips on hers, his hands in her hair, the warmth of being wrapped up in his arms. She ponders on those dream memories most of all at night, when she’s tossing and turning in golden blankets and unable to sleep. Her heart won’t stop racing, won’t stop throwing itself against her ribcage like a bird trying to escape. She can never seem to calm down enough to sleep no matter how long she tries to regulate her breathing, no matter how many times she breathes in for four and out for four. She tries extra training sessions with Botkin in hopes that she’ll be so exhausted that she’ll collapse into sleep, but while her body feels like a limp rag her mind is still racing, thinking, full of frenetic energy. She tries waking up before the sunrise and shifting a series of calming movements as the first rays of light touch her, tries those calming movements again before bed in the soft glow of lamps but no matter how much peace she tries to force into her brain, it doesn’t work. She tries reading late into the night to emulate her one perfect night of sleep but always wakes up in the darkest hours with a still-pounding heart and a thin sheen of sweat covering her body. 

Alina isn’t just exhausted from her sleepless nights and long hours of classes mixed with training– she’s cold , too. Even though the heat and humidity of August still lingers in the hallways and rooms of the Little Palace, she feels cold sinking through her skin and into her bones. While the rest of the students wear light silk summer keftas and gather in the shade of trees during breaks, Alina has asked Genya for her winter kefta back and uses every spare moment to flop outside and enjoy the sunlight. The sun is the only thing able to combat her ever growing frigidity even a bit, the feel of the warm light on her face, painting the inside of her eyelids red, chasing away some of the chill in her bones. At night while she lies awake and feels her heart beating against her ribs she piles layers of golden blankets and two thick white duvets on top of herself, covering her toes in fluffy knit socks and burrowing into her nest like a hibernating animal. She curls her fingers around steaming cups of tea at breakfast and when she bathes she can barely feel the heat of the water against her skin at all. Her notes from each class are messy and sparse now, her fingers too clumsy and stiff with aching cold to write much down. She doesn’t move much at all now that she’s cold all the time, too tired and preoccupied with trying to stay warm to care about going for walks or expending energy moving. She’s constantly curling up with her favorite soft blanket and a hot water bottle, twisting into a little ball to conserve the sphere of heat and light at her center that is growing dimmer and dimmer with each passing day. 

Genya notices Alina’s discomfort almost immediately but doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t pry, and instead new wool blankets and thick fur slippers begin appearing in Alina’s rooms and there’s always a fire crackling away in the morning. Alina depends on her friend as she grows weaker, allowing Genya to help her dress in the mornings and make excuses to Botkin for her when she can no longer find the energy to attempt training exercises. As the last gasps of summer heat fade from the Little Palace so too does Alina’s body begin to fail her. No matter how close she huddles next to the fire her hands are always chilled through and it’s difficult to turn the pages of her history books or pick up a pencil to draw or write. She feels like a ghost moving through her life in a blanket of mist and though she wants to be present, want s to try and to learn and to laugh with Genya or Marie or even awful Zoya, she can’t muster up the energy to care. It’s like her mind and her heart are a blank slate waiting for someone to tell her how she should think and feel and act but until that someone comes along Alina can’t feel, can’t think, can’t do anything but go through the motions of her routine. The emptiness has crept up through her whole body and swallowed almost every piece of her, white nothing filling her arms, her stomach, nothing traced down her spine and arcing up into her temples. 

She can sit for hours, now, staring out at nothing, not thinking, not feeling, not anything except for nothing. She isn’t made up of pieces and parts of a girl but instead she’s lacking. She’s the absence of movement and laughter and joy and words. She’s a negative space, carved out around others and passing by unnoticed. 

She doesn’t recognize herself when she passes by mirrors or catches a glimpse of herself in windows, the reflection staring back at her a girl with paper white skin stretched too tightly over bones Alina’s felt but never seen so clearly before. Her eyes are dark and ringed by purple shadows from countless sleepless nights, her nails bitten until they bleed and her fingertips ache. She’s cocooned into too many layers and if she had the energy she’d make a joke to Genya about how she looks like an old woman. She’s always been skinny and weak and pale, always struggling to keep up with those around her and run as fast as the other wolves could. She’s always had a small appetite, always been scrawny and lacked the energy to do everything she wanted to. She had thought, for a little while, that being here at the Little Palace was curing her. She’d felt so warm when her mate touched her and so excited about the things she was going to learn and the life she was going to build for herself. She’d had so many ideas, wanted to use her time to help Ravka and the orphans of the country she loves so much. She had been full of life and renewed hope and the belief that even if she couldn’t be as fast or as strong or as pretty as everyone else, she could still be of use to Ravka. Of use to the people. Of use to her mate. 

It’s late October when Genya finally gets angry at Alina, the two girls curled up in bed together under piles of thick wool blankets while honeyed autumn sunlight falls across their faces, the sky outside a perfect lazuli blue. Alina is so deeply buried that only the top half of her face peeks out as she breathes shallowly, almost in that fuzzy land of sleep that has evaded her for so long. She can feel Genya’s arms around her and the older girls’ light breaths in her ear are comforting, familiar. She can smell lilies and oranges, just a hint of cinnamon from the pastries Genya ate earlier, and the sun is warm on her face. She’s comfortable and almost warm, cozy, and she finds herself almost thinking that if she went to sleep like this and didn’t wake up for a long, long time, it would be alright. 

“You’re so cold, Alina” Genya whispers, snuggling closer and nesting her head against the sharp bend of Alina’s shoulder. Alina just hums, lightly, eyes focused on the tiny eclipses printed above her, mind empty of everything except the slight heat of the sun. She can feel Genya’s eyes intent on her but doesn’t care, can’t care, just wants to feel the sun and look at nothing and let the silence around them match the silence inside of her. 

“Alina” Genya says again, sharper this time. Louder. 

Alina doesn’t react, just lets her eyes slip shut and allows the silence to buzz into her ears, dulling all the sounds around her until it’s like she’s hearing Genya from hundreds of miles away. 

“Alina! Wake up! Get up!” Alina can feel the mattress beneath her shifting as Genya moves and then there’s hands on her arms, her shoulders, shaking her. The piles of blankets are ripped off and Genya must be blocking the sun now because her face is no longer warm. She thinks about opening her eyes, about complaining but– it’s too much effort, too much energy. She’d rather just lie here. 

Genya’s hands start moving across her whole body, pinching and poking her skin through the layers of clothes she’s wrapped in, tickling her protruding ribs and pulling none too gently at her braided hair. 

“Get up, Alina!”, the older girl shrieks, voice too high and unsteady, “Just get up! React to me, say something! Just– just stop lying in bed! I don’t care how awful you feel, just get up and eat! Or go outside, or take a bath, whatever you want– but I need you to do something .” 

Alina cracks her eyes open slowly, so slowly, getting a glimpse of Genya sitting back on her heels above her, tears streaming down her lovely face and copper curls disheveled, her hands still resting on Alina’s shoulders. She feels the tiniest flutter of something inside, a drop of light at the distress on her friend's face and the words she’d shouted. 

Alina closes her eyes for a long moment, gathering energy, then opens them fully. Blinks once, twice. Breathes in, breathes out, thinks about how words work. Thinks about how to position her tongue, about which words will convince Genya that she’s okay, really. Licks her lips, wishes she had a cup of hot tea to make her voice less rough. Wishes Genya would pile the blankets back on top of her. Opens her mouth, ready to lie, ready to tell her friend that she doesn’t have to worry, that Alina is just feeling a little under the weather, maybe it’s the flu, but–. 

“I’m so cold, Genya” she whispers, her voice creaky and rough from disuse. She can feel wetness gathering in her eyes and tries not to blink, tries not to let the sudden tears fall. She didn’t even mean to say that so she absolutely can’t let Genya see her cry. 

The older girl nods, face drawn and pale and hands now tangled in her lap as she looks down at Alina with concern and pity and– love. 

“I know, milaya ,” she whispers, voice so gentle that Alina sheds more tears, “What can I do to help you?” 

Alina shakes her head, covers her eyes with her hands as she cries more. The sobs caught in her chest hurt, her sadness too big for her fragile ribs and skin stretched body, the emotions that she’s just beginning to skim the surface of not able to be contained within her. And the worst part is that even though Genya is offering to help she doesn’t know what will make her better. What will help. It’s not just that she’s cold, and exhausted, and hungry. It’s that she’s empty of everything, that she doesn’t care about what happens in her life anymore. It’s that she’s in a new place with people she’s beginning to know but that she didn’t choose this place or these people for herself. It’s that she feels like no one truly knows her, like there’s no one here who can see inside to the Alina she is. It’s that she doesn’t know if this life is for her and that even though there are parts she likes, sometimes all she wants to do is feel the relief of going home to Keramzin. It’s the fear that she might have outgrown that home but also isn’t sure she fits into her new home either. It’s that she’s lonely and so desperately afraid that no one cares about her, afraid that if she cries out for help or love or even a hand to hold her own there won’t be anyone there. 

Alina thinks all these things, feels them, and cries. She cries so hard that her breaths begin to have that awful gulping sound and there’s snot all over her face and she can already tell that she’ll have a pounding headache tomorrow but– she feels so awful. Eventually she raises her hands from her eyes up towards Genya, silently asking for a hug, her feelings too many to deal with alone. She needs– she needs to feel the warmth of another person, needs to be reassured that Genya really is there for her, really does love her and wants to help her. The other girl folds Alina into her arms, wraps her up in the scent of lilies and oranges, pulls Alina into the circle of her warmth and shares it with her. Genya holds Alina tight against her and lets her cry, holds her through her emotions and strokes her hair, rubs her shoulders, whispers comforting words and wraps the blankets around them both to block out the world. They stay wrapped up together for a long, long time. 

Alina feels empty again after crying out all her feelings but she’s not blank like before. She’s calm but she knows if she dives deep into herself again the simmering mix of emotions will still be there, under the surface. She can feel again, if she wants to. But for now all she wants to do is stay with Genya, stay in this circle of love and warmth, stay in this moment where she knows there’s someone who cares about her and will hold her when she cries. 

They fall asleep together and though it’s still restless, though Alina wakes up in the middle of the night shivering and has to scrabble for more blankets to cover them with, she feels less like nothing and a tiny bit more like a real person. And maybe Genya does see her, despite everything. Alina spends the dark hours until sunrise staring up at the ceiling listening to her friend’s deep, even breaths as she sleeps curled on her side, warmth seeping from her skin into Alina. 

☀☀☀

When Genya blinks awake the next morning, hair adorable mussed and mouth already stretching in a yawn, it’s to find Alina sitting up in bed, a book balanced in her lap while she sips from a steaming mug of tea. It’s mint, fresh and clean, and though the water is probably scalding Alina barely feels a flicker of heat against her hands and lips. There’s a large tray of breakfast foods overshadowing the small table beside the bed and the air smells like crispy bacon and two stacks of fluffy Kerch waffles dripping in syrup and fruit. Alina turns to her friend and almost manages a smile, her hair messy too but her eyes a bit brighter than they’ve been in a very long while. 

“I called for breakfast” she tells Genya, voice still a bit rough, “And I even got waffles! I’ve never had them before.” 

Genya stares at her, mouth open and looking like Alina’s just told her the sky is purple. “You want to eat?” She asks, incredulous. “Food? You want food?” 

Alina crinkles up her nose, sighs, and closes her book so that she can pass a plate of waffles to the older girl. She settles her own plate in her lap and passes cutlery to Genya before replying, studying her breakfast like it’s an interesting plant instead of food. 

“Not really, no” She says, voice calm and face resolute as she saws off a square of waffle and brings it to her mouth, “But you asked me to. And I don’t think it can make me feel any worse.” 

She chews quickly, trying not to feel the waffle, trying not to taste the sticky syrup or peaches. She swallows and immediately feels ready to be done, to stop. But Genya looks so happy and seems to be enjoying the food and even though it tasted like sawdust to Alina, she takes another bite and eats it. And another. And another. 

The sugar does help a little bit because by the time they’ve finished eating the waffles and Genya’s started on the bacon and croissants, Alina feels a bit more energetic. She goes to wash her face, avoiding her reflection in the large mirror, and even changes sheds her layers of clothing to don a newly washed robe lined in rabbit fur. It’s soft and luxurious against her skin, reminding her of the first time Kirigan lent her his kefta , and she wraps it tight around her body before climbing back into bed. 

Genya is done eating but is sitting up, awake and eyes alert as she tracks Alina’s movements. She lifts the blankets up so Alina can slide back into the warmth of their cocoon and then slides closer so that their legs and knees are bumping against each other. Alina thinks it’s one of the nicest feelings to be tangled up with another person like this. 

“How do you feel, milaya ?” Genya asks, lifting one arm from where they’re wrapped around her knees to tuck a lock of hair behind Alina’s ear. Alina feels butterflies in her stomach at the touch and tilts her face into the older girl's palm, closing her eyes briefly to savor the feeling. 

She opens her eyes again when Genya bumps their knees together gently, a small smile on her face. 

“I feel okay,” Alina begins, unsure of her feelings until she actuallys puts words to them. “A little less empty than before. I’m still cold, and I’m so tired, and I don’t know if I’ll have enough energy to leave this room until it’s summer again” Genya laughs at this and the sight of joy on her face lights Alina up inside a little bit more, gives her courage to continue. “But I feel better than I did yesterday. And you helped me more than you could ever imagine Genya, just by being here. You being my friend is enough.” 

Genya beams at her and bumps their knees together again, eyes shining slightly, but Alina pretends not to notice and just bumps her back. Tries to smile. Achieves a slight curve of her lips. 

“You make me feel less cold,” Alina tells her, wanting to be honest. To talk again, after so many weeks of silence. 

“I suppose that makes sense” Genya says, tilting her head and absently twisting one of her rings, “I am an Alpha. Maybe being near me is helping your wolf to recover a bit?” 

Alina hides the slight flash of shock she feels at Genya’s admission. She’s never met a female Alpha before and though she knows they exist, it’s still a bit strange for her to wrap her head around. But this is Genya, her friend, who she adores and who held her while she cried and who can chase a bit of the cold away. And anyways, Alina’s always believed a person is more than the alignment of their wolf. 

“That could be it” she admits, considering. “I did always feel a bit warmer when I was around Mal and he’s a sun Alpha too.” Genya nods, eyes attentive as she listens. 

“Actually”, Alina says, lips curving again slightly at the memories, “I just always felt better in general when I was around Mal. He lit everything up for me.” 

“Well then!” Genya says, sitting up straight and beaming at her, “We’ll just have to find Mal and ask him to come here. To warm you up.” 

Alina begins to protest, to explain that Mal’s a soldier and actually he can’t come visit just because she’s cold and sad, but Genya just smothers her in blankets and pillows and by the time Alina manages to tunnel out the older girl is gone, the lingering scent of lilies the only trace of her as she goes off to complete her new mission. Alina sighs and collapses on her bed, tired again and colder than before but also, maybe, feeling a spark of happiness. 

☀☀☀

It’s been a week since Genya helped her and while Alina spent several days in bed recovering from her emotions, today she felt well enough to attend her classes. Now that she’s eating more regularly again she has a bit more energy and though food still holds no joy for her at least she isn’t quite so weak. Thankfully Zoya has been absent recently to take her final exams so Alina hasn’t had to worry about being ridiculed for her layers of clothing and apathy during lessons. She’s just left Diplomacy, which wasn’t as bad as usual, and is making her way through now empty hallways to the dining hall, the other students having all far outpaced her. She’s moving slowly as always, focusing on her feet and not falling as she passes windows overlooking trees wringed in the last vestiges of autumn foliage before winter comes. She’s thinking about what to eat in the dining hall, about which foods will be easiest to chew and swallow without gagging, when she hears loud footsteps echoing down the corridor towards her. She barely has time to register the sound, to begin to lift her head as she realizes that the person is running straight at her before thick arms are wrapping tight like a vice around her and sweeping her off of her feet. She’s too shocked to scream, can barely manage a squeak with how tightly she’s being held, and she’s terrified of who is the owner of the broad chest she’s being crushed against until she inhales and smells sunshine dappled pines and clean air and– a hint of her old home. 

It’s Mal. Somehow, impossibly, Mal is here in the Little Palace, here hugging her and talking a mile a minute though she has no idea what he’s saying and here crushing her. 

“Put her down, Malyen”, a familiar voice says, and Alina can hear the smile in the man’s voice.
“Or did you forget that she needs to breathe?” 

“Sorry, ‘Lina!” Mal tells her as he gently sets her feet back on the ground and when she steps away from him, bending a bit to let her lungs recover, she can see that he really does look contrite despite the wide smile splitting his face. She can only stare at him while she breathes, drinking in his familiar face, his hair that’s grown out from it’s military cut and is now a bit shaggier, falling messily across his forehead. He lets her study him, wiggling his eyebrows at her and continuing to smile. His clothes are different, too, no longer a military uniform but instead neat brown trousers and a finely cut deep green wool coat covering his broad shoulders, a white shirt that she almost thinks could be silk peeking out from the collar. His boots are the same scuffed leather, though, and there’s a bow and quiver of arrows slung over one shoulder. And when Mal reaches out to take her hand in his, Alina knows that despite the new clothes he’s still Mal, still her closest friend, still the person who knows her best in all the world. 

“I missed you so much” she breathes out, quiet, and throws herself back into his arms because she might as well get as many hugs from her favorite person while she can. And– and he’s warm. Not like Kirigan and not enough to chase the cold in her bones away completely, but Alina already feels better and being wrapped up in Mal’s arms is bringing a bit of warmth back to her skin. 

They finally draw apart when the voice from before makes several very unrealistic throat-clearing sounds and Alina, now that she’s warmer and bit less shocked, peers around Mal’s broad frame to see, inexplicably, the boy from the ball. She blinks at him, then looks at Mal, then back at the boy who’s dressed even more finely than Mal, in another seagreen coat that falls to mid thigh, tall shining black boots, black trousers and a billowy white shirt unbuttoned to his sternum. His hair still falls in neat waves around his ears and he has that same devilish, charming smile on his face as he winks at her, eyes bright. 

“What are you doing here?” She asks, directing her question first at Mal and then looking back at the other boy. “Both of you”, she clarifies, stepping back and folding her arms, face set until she gets some answers. 

Mal dips his head and scratches the back of his neck, tracing the tip of a boot across the floor while the other boy comes to stand beside him, leaning casually against the wall and sliding his hands into his pockets like he belongs here. Alina can’t decide if she likes him or finds his manner infuriating. The boy– Nikolai , Alina suddenly remembers– shrugs one shoulder elegantly and blinks at her, lazy as a cat in the sun. 

“Genya sent a letter to Malyen, requesting his immediate presence at the Little Palace. So we came.” 

Alina sighs because of course Genya was serious when she said they should ask Mal to visit and of course her friend was successful in her mission. 

“Surprise?” Mal says, raising his head to look at her and half smiling half grimacing and Alina knows she could scold him for arriving so unexpectedly but she’s too happy that he’s here, too happy that he actually came to care much about how it was accomplished. She gifts him with her first real smile in months and is about to throw her arms back around him again when she pauses, because… 

“Why are you here?” She asks Nikolai, turning to frown at him. “And who are you, really?”

He laughs, loud and bright, dimples appearing in his cheeks and dips into an overly elaborate bow which includes a lot of flourishes. 

“I am here because I couldn’t bear to be parted from the company of my darling, sweet Alpha” he says, grinning at Mal once he’s straightened and is leaning against the wall again. 

Mal rolls his eyes and huffs, folding his thick arms across his chest so that Alina can see muscles bulging even beneath his coat. 

“You came with me because you’re nosy and because you got sick of traipsing around the woods searching for a magical stag.” He says, brows raised, staring Nikolai down while the other boy inspects his nails. 

“I think my exact words, dearest, were ‘Get me back to civilization and real food before my whole body turns black and blue from sleeping on the ground and freezing my ass off’” Nikolai replies, glancing up at Mal, lips quivering to suppress a smile. 

They grin at each other and Mal gestures to their surroundings, eyes still on Nikolai. “And you can’t say I don’t deliver– only the best for my mate.” 

Nikolai snorts, crossing his ankles and leaning fully against the wall. “You brought me to a palace that is owned by my family, Maylen. Technically, this is my palace. Also, where is the food I requested? And a bed? I’d like a bed, dear mate.” 

“I think I’d also like a bed” Mal replies, eyes growing darker, and Alina thinks she sees a flush of color begin to creep up Nikolai’s pale neck before she interjects, too shocked by what she’s just witnessed to fully comprehend anything. 

“This is your palace?” She asks Nikolai, voice too loud in the thick silence between the two boys, but thankfully Nikolai tears himself away from Mal’s gaze and turns to her, face calm but cheeks now a lovely shade of pink. 

“I suppose the Little Palace is my family’s, as it was built by one of my tiresome ancestors for the Black Heretic, but it has been occupied by the Darkling and his soldiers my entire life.” He produces a golden coin from somewhere and begins rolling it between and over his fingers as he talks, hazel eyes trained on Alinas’. 

“Your family,” she begins, uncertain because it can’t be, he can’t be, but… “You’re the prince?” 

“A prince” Nikolai says, expression still calm and gold coin still flashing between his fingers but voice somehow colder. “Not the important one, though. I’m just the second son. The Omega.” He says the last word like it’s bad, like he doesn’t want to be an omega and Alina thinks she understands– male omegas are rare and as a prince it would have been shameful when Nikolai didn’t present as an Alpha. She notices that though Nikolai is showing no visible signs of distress Mal still shifts closer to him, places a hand on the boy's shoulder for a moment or two and Nikolai softens a bit. Flashes a smile up at Mal and then turns his attention back to her. 

“And he’s my mate” Mal says, turning to her as well, face slightly strained like he’s expecting Alina to reject their bond or question why his mate is a man. She beams at them and walks forward, clasping each of their hands in hers and begins pulling them in the direction of the dining hall. 

“Tell me all about how you two met” she says, dwarfed by her escorts but feeling warmer than she has in months, “over lunch.” 

Chapter Text

Alina learns all about Mal and Nikolais’ relationship as they eat together and while meals are normally her least favorite part of the day, today she laughs until her stomach hurts and can barely get a word or question in over their endless bickering and stories. The two men met while Mal was on a nautical mission with a unit of trackers searching for the mythical sea whip Rusalye. “For no good reason at all because the damn thing doesn’t exist” as Mal had muttered into her ear while Nikolai went on a tirade about how long he’d been looking for the magical creature. It had been the last day of the mission and Mal had been disembarking the ship with the rest of the trackers at the same time Nikolai was mooring his ship at the marina– Alina has decided not to question why the second prince of Ravka has his own ship and is allowed to sail about as he pleases– and both men had tried to lift a crate at the same time, hands and heads accidentally bumping. 

“And it was at that moment that I knew I was stuck with a smelly, animal obsessed tracker for the rest of my life” Nikolai tells her, sighing and wrinkling his nose at the smoked herring and boiled cabbage on his plate. 

“He loved me the moment he set his eyes on me” Mal proclaims, leaning back in his chair and grinning broadly at both of them, supremely pleased. His plate is already polished clean and Alina suspects he’ll be hungry again soon. 

“Love is a strong word” Nikolai mumbles, cutting his cabbage into increasingly smaller pieces instead of trying to eat it. 

“The first thing he told me was that I had pretty eyes” Mal whispers into her ear, leaning in so that his distracted mate won’t hear them. Alina suppresses a laugh with the back of her hand and focuses on her own serving of potatoes, realizing with surprise that she’s eaten almost all of them. 

Alina looks back at her best friend who is still leaning back in his chair, brown eyes taking in the soldiers eating around them with rapt attention, not missing a single detail.
“Mal,” she starts, slowly, “even if you and Nikolai are mates, how were you able to leave the First Army to come here? Did you ask your commander for a leave?” 

Nikolai snorts and sets down his cutlery with a decisive clink; Alina has a feeling the food on his plate is still untouched, no matter how well he decimated it. 

“Malyen was honorably discharged from the First Army by my lovely parents; perhaps the only good thing they’ve ever accomplished” he tells her, tone sarcastic and anger simmering in his hazel eyes. 

“They had enough brain cells left to realize that if he continued to serve in the military I would, of course, follow him and as someone with an incredible knack for interesting and exciting situations–” 

“He means dangerous and life threatening situations” Mal interjects, raising his brows. 

“As someone with a knack for interesting and possibly life threatening situations,” Nikolai continues more loudly, “They knew it wouldn’t take me long to be, ah, I don’t know, kidnapped or killed or held for ransom and none of those would create particularly good political situations for my parents.” 

Alina blinks at Nikolai, slightly stunned at the manner in which he talks about his parents. While at Keramzin the thing she had longed for most of all was a family; parents to love her and know her, support her and believe in her. She’d always imagined other children lucky enough to grow up with family would love their parents, but then again, when she’d met the rulers of Ravka they’d been awful. Terrifying and cold and entirely self-preoccupied. 

“They might have had to deal with the messiness of going to war to retrieve me or, heavens forbid, paying my ransom.” Nikolai continues, twirling the stem of his wine glass with nimble fingers. Alina isn’t sure where he’d found the wineglass as it was lunch and the dining hall only ever served tea and water. 

“No, they’d much rather save their money for wine or parties. And, it was much simpler to allow Malyen to leave the army and give him leave to work when and where he wishes.” 

Mal drums his hands on the smooth wood of the table, nodding in confirmation of what Nikolai said when Alina looks to him.
“I like it better, though” he replies in answer to her silent question, eyes returning to scan the hall. “I can take tracking jobs that are actually interesting, like the one Nikolai and I were just on. It’s a bit strange because we don’t know who exactly commissioned me but they paid very well for even a bit of information. We were in the woods for weeks, though, looking for that stag from the stories, the white one…” 

Alina lets Mal’s words trail off into the fuzziness of her brain as she concentrates on finishing her food, humming along and nodding at the right moments in his story but not really caring about the mythical white stag he and Nikolai spent weeks staggering around the far Northern Ravkan forest trying to find. The minute her plate is clear of food Nikolai dramatically throws down his napkin and stands, his chair scraping loudly against the marble floor. He interrupts Mal's story but doesn’t seem to care, placing his hands on his slim hips and gazing down his straight nose at them imperiously. 

“Darling Alina, you have been the best hostess but I must demand a real lunch now. Real food. No more smoked fish. No more smoked anything; I had enough of it while we were camping.” 

Mal and Alina are both laughing at him but the prince doesn’t seem to care, just turns with a swirl of his seagreen coat and marches from the room, not giving a single glance to the soldiers in keftas parting around him and shooting him curious looks. He disappears out the doorway and Alina stands too, stretching slightly and still smiling. 

“I think we should go after him” she says, turning to Mal, “he probably doesn’t know the way to the kitchens and anyways, the kind of food he wants will be in my rooms.” 

“He’s so stubborn” Mal mutters, shaking his head, and settles her hand firmly in his again, the two orphans sweeping out of the dining hall as grandly as if they were royalty. 

They find Nikolai pacing outside the dining hall, clutching his stomach and making loud groaning noises that keep any straggling students well out of his way. 

“I’m so hungry” he whines, falling into step behind Alina and Mal as she pulls him in the direction of her rooms on the eastern side of the palace. “My stomach is going to start eating itself soon. Did you know, Alina, that while we were camping Malyen forced me to survive on nothing more than dried bread and whatever animals he killed? It was barbaric. Not even a single blini in sight!” 

Alina laughs again and catches Mal, out of the corner of her eye, turning to stick his tongue out at his mate. 

“You have your own claws and teeth, sobachka ,” he tells his mate, “You’re just too fussy to use them.” 

“Fussy!” Nikolai exclaims and even with her back to him Alina can imagine the expression of extreme offense on his handsome face. “More like civilized!” 

“Fussy little prince” Mal murmurs to her, but his voice is fond and when Nikolai doesn’t reply Alina thinks it’s because he heard the affection in her best friend's voice too. They continue on in silence but her heart feels lighter and it’s not so hard to walk with purpose, not with Mal at her side and the thought of friendly faces greeting her tomorrow morning. She feels a faint smile on her lips and doesn’t hate it, doesn’t hate the joy she feels, doesn’t hate the way the sunlight is sparkling against the glass of the windows they pass. Everything looks prettier now that Mal’s with her and Alina finds herself almost forgetting how cold and tired she is. 

It’s not until she’s opened the door to her chambers and allows Mal and Nikolai to enter that the prince speaks, bending close to whisper in her ear as he slides past, “What’s the good in having an Alpha if they can’t hunt for you in the woods?” 

She stifles another laugh and has to swallow hard when Nikolai winks at her, not wanting to show favoritism to either man but suddenly loving how the prince teases his mate. Both men are wandering about her receiving room, picking up the books and vases of dried flowers or moving to inspect the view from the wide windows. 

“There should be food better suited to your daydreams, Nikolai” she tells him and leads the way into her bedroom, momentarily embarrassed at the state of her unmade bed and how many half empty cups of tea litter the bedside table but then deciding that she actually doesn’t care. There’s a large tray covered by a silver dome set on the small round table in front of her favorite armchair and before Alina can say a word Nikolai is bounding forward and lifting the cover, almost sticking his nose in the food as he inhales deeply. 

“Now this is what I was imagining!” He exclaims, spinning to grin at them before producing cutlery from somewhere and making up a heaping plate of food. Alina sits back against the mountain of pillows on her bed and watches the two boys, watches Nikolai make another plate of food and bring it over to her, setting it in her lap with a fork and a wink. He barely manages to perch in her armchair before he’s eating too, too focused on the food to notice Mal making his own plate of food and settling cross legged on the ground in front of him. Mal leans back against Nikolai’s legs as they eat and Alina notices that the prince briefly leans forward to kiss the back of Mal’s neck before returning to his meal. 

She turns to her own plate of baked salmon with ginger, winter greens, oatcakes dripping in honey and baby potatoes smothered in butter. The food is delicious looking, fragrant and still warm from the kitchens, but– Alina can’t stomach putting anything else in her mouth right now. She sets the plate aside and instead just watches the mates, watches how their bodies shift in response to the others’ movements, watches how even though the two men look so different they somehow fit together. She notices that they’re constantly touching each other, Mal’s hand tracing patterns on Nikolai’s ankle or the prince carding his hands through his mate’s hair. She longs for that type of familiarity, for someone to touch her like she’s the most important thing in the world. 

Alina wonders if she and Kirigan looked like that during the days they spent together, if Genya or the king and queen could tell they were mates just from the way they moved. Somehow she can’t imagine her mate ever sitting so casually against her legs or smiling at her so often. And while it’s clear that Mal and Nikolai care for each other and have a strong friendship to support their relationship, Alina doesn’t even know if the General likes her as a person. He doesn’t even know me, she thinks, so how could he care for me? How could we be friends when we’re still almost strangers?  

Nikolai, who has finished devouring his mountain of food and settled back into the armchair with a contented sigh, fingers linked over his stomach and already closed eyes, seems ready to fall asleep for a long while. Alina, though, is full of questions instead of food and she suddenly has a burning desire for answers. 

“Nikolai,” she begins, softening her question with a bright smile, “What was that name you called the General before? The Darkling?” 

The prince doesn’t respond and she wonders if maybe he really is asleep but then Mal is elbowing the prince’s leg until Nikolai mumbles something unintelligible and blinks his eyes open, frowning at his mate before smiling back at her. He stretches, revealing a sliver of sun tanned skin above the waist of his trousers and yawns widely, hazel eyes briefly flashing closed again. 

“The Darkling is what I called General Kirigan when I was small, because he was so dark and foreboding and he never smiled. I was terrified of him! The name stuck, though, and even though I don’t think anyone would say it to his face, I've heard Second Army soldiers using it.” 

The prince smiles proudly and while at first Alina is too shocked, she eventually dissolves into giggles. Nikolai’s childhood moniker is perfect for her mate and really, he does always wear black, like he wants to help perpetuate the name. 

“And you’ve known him– the Darkling– your whole life?” She asks when she can breathe calmly again, a smile still lingering on her face. 

Nikolai nods, Mals’ eyes intent on both of them as he follows the conversation. 

“He’s been around as long as I can remember, swirling about in his black coat or taking my father’s place at military meetings. He probably does more of the running of the country than my parents.” 

Nikolai laughs lightly at this, probably joking, but Alina isn’t so sure if his words carry more truth than he knows. Her mate is intelligent and watchful, in comparison to the tsar who seemed more focused on parties and drinking, and though they had few conversations Alina is sure that the General cares deeply for Ravka and her people. Even if her mate must still obey the commands of the tsar , while fighting their enemies he is the one to make decisions about strategy and tactical operations. He probably knows more about the realities of the war and the abilities of their enemies than their king does, shut up as he is in his gleaming golden monstrosity of a palace. 

“Do you know how old he is?” Alina asks, hoping for an answer that has evaded her no matter how many students and even teachers she has asked. 

“He must be in his thirties at least.” Nikolai says, face scrunched up in thought, “It’s strange, but I can’t remember him ever looking any differently than he does now. Must be a lapse in my childhood memory!” She laughs along with him, but it’s forced, and she can tell Mal sees straight through her. He knows her too well to believe a single lie or forced expression, but he leaves it for now, smiling at them both and returning to his food. 

Alina is about to ask another question when Genya strides through her bedroom doorway, copper curls arranged in a braided halo that makes her look especially lovely and blue eyes flashing. 

“I thought I smelled the ocean!” She exclaims, rushing forward to meet Nikolai who has already risen to hug her, the two embracing as if they are long lost friends. And perhaps they are , Alina thinks, realizing she doesn’t know much about Genya’s life before they became friends. 

Mal stiffens slightly as his mate buries his face in Genya’s hair and hugs her tightly, both speaking over each other too quickly for Alina to grasp a single word. Finally they draw apart, both beaming, and Mal stands, brushing his hands on his trousers before extending a palm to Genya. She looks him up and down slowly, cooly, face impassive, before turning to Nikolai and quirking an eyebrow. 

“So,” she asks, solidly ignoring Mal, “This is your mate? The one who smells so good and has such strong hands?” 

Nikolai flushes a bright red and Mal laughs hard, doubling over to place his hands on his knees in mirth. 

“Those letters were confidential, Genya darling,” Nikolai says, drawing himself up and glaring down his nose at Genya despite his still red face. “And yes, this is Malyen. And he might be nice to look at but please endeavor to remember that I’m much prettier.” 

Alina laughs into her blankets until there are tears rolling down her cheeks and by the time she’s composed herself enough to look back at her friends, Genya and Mal have made introductions with each other and all three are now chatting about how Nikolai and Mal came to the palace. 

“–Thank you for coming so quickly, she’s been getting worse and I just didn’t know who else to ask, really” Genya is saying, her face earnest and a bit worried as she talks to the mates, both of whom are frowning. 

“What about asking her mate .” Mal mutters, frown deepening as he purses his lips in anger, but Nikolai bumps their shoulders together and glares at his mate until Mal murmurs a quick apology. 

“I’ve sent letters to the General but he's either choosing not to reply or isn’t receiving them” Genya says, sighing and settling her chin on her knees, lips pulled down in sadness. “And I just– I didn’t know what to do. I’ve read about this kind of thing but I’ve never seen it happen, especially not for such a long time and… and she said you make her feel better, so that’s why I wrote to you.” She says as she looks at Mal, Alina’s two closest friends sharing a long glance before Mal nods, once, and all three of them relax. 

Alina feels icy embarrassment spilling down her spine and into her limbs, flushing her ears and making her head ring with anger. She hates that they’re talking about her so openly, right in front of her, and acting like she can’t hear them. She might be unwell but that doesn’t mean she isn’t still a person, isn’t still able to make her own decisions and control her own life. 

She clears her throat, loudly, and suddenly three guilty pairs of eyes are trained on her. Alina glowers at them, wanting to berate them, wanting to tell them that she’s managing very well without her mate in a new world, but more than anything she wants to forget about him and just enjoy the company of friends. 

“ She is perfectly capable of speaking for herself and also for taking care of herself” she tells them with one last glare, then relents a bit, expression softening. “But also she’d really like a hug and some desserts right now.” 

She doesn’t expect all three of them to come bounding over to the bed, doesn’t expect three sets of arms to embrace her or to feel the whisper of three apologies against her skin. She stiffens at first, not used to being touched by anyone but Genya for months now, but there’s the familiar scent of pines, and lilies, and briny seawater that must be Nikolai and it feels so nice to be touched, so lovely to be held by people who care about her and know her that she sighs happily. They stay like that for the rest of the day, a pile of limbs in Alina’s bed, hands tangled together and legs bumping and faux anger from Nikolai about how his hair is being irreparably mussed. They drink countless cups of tea and scatter crumbs all over the sheets when Genya produces cheese danishes from somewhere and Alina could care less about the state of her room because the light in her chest is growing brighter with each smile and hug and burst of laughter. 

They trade stories, Nikolai talking about sailing the oceans on his ship with clear affection and making them all double over in laughter when he recounts the many trials and mishaps of his crew. Mal tells them more about the mysterious white stag they tracked for so many weeks as well as the friends he made in the First Army, the names of the men he mentions familiar to Alina from his letters. Genya explains how she and Nikolai became friends as children; she worked for his mother and the two formed an alliance against the frigid woman, hiding itching cream in her favorite dresses and slipping spiders into her bed just before morning. Alina cries more tears of laughter at Genya’s stories of their childhood antics and finds herself glad that Genya had a friend and ally in the Grand Palace while growing up, someone who treated her like a child and played with her. Alina tells them briefly of her classes and her studies but doesn’t really want to talk, prefers to listen and drink in the words and laughter of her friends. It’s enough to just be with them now and be included in their circle of joy and light. 

They talk long into the night and by the time Alina closes her eyes to try and fall into sleep, she can hear three sets of deep breaths around her and she thinks there’s a foot pushed up against her calf but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care anymore how or why they came here, only that they are here and that they stayed with her all day. That they’ll stay with her tomorrow, too, and probably the day after that and even the day after that one. The emptiness inside of her has been slowly disappearing all day, the holes she carries filled up with each laugh, each brush of fingers against her skin, each shared joke and each smile. She sighs contentedly and drifts off into peacefully dreamless sleep, surrounded by the warmth of her friends and less chilled than ever before. 

☀☀☀

It’s while Alina’s walking through the brown gardens and hedges the next morning, arms linked with Mal and Nikolai as she tells them more about her classes and fellow students, that she begins to have a strange feeling. It’s not bad, exactly, but there’s a certain awareness creeping down her spine and she can feel all the fine hairs on her arms standing straight on end. She tries to ignore it and continues walking, the hem of her blue wool kefta brushing the gravel beneath their feet as they move back towards the Little Palace. The November air is chilly against her cheeks but blocked in on either side by the heat of Mal and Nikolai she suddenly doesn’t feel cold. 

The realization stops Alina in her tracks and both Mal and Nikolai turn to her, concerned, but she doesn’t hear the questions they ask her, doesn’t feel their hands on her shoulders or cupping her face. Her whole body, from her toes to the tips of her ears and the crown of her head, is growing warmer. The icy chill is receding from her bones with each passing minute and she thinks that if she were to look in a mirror, she’d see a pink flush in her cheeks. She feels like an ice statue slowly melting in the heat of a summer sun, awareness spreading through every inch of her as feeling returns to her skin. 

All she can do is stand, her limbs frozen like a statue while warmth suffusses through her insides, and stare straight ahead. She’s waiting, for what she has no idea, but some instinctive feeling is telling her to stay right where she is, to not move a muscle. Mal and Nikolai are whispering to each other now, having given up on a response from her, but she doesn’t care what they’re saying. Can’t care. All she can do is wait and watch, feeling like a single brick facing down the wave of something rushing towards her. 

Several minutes pass and the feeling grows, more and more heat diffusing through Alina and if she could move, if she could speak, she thinks she’d almost be screaming with the feeling of light and warmth and life coming back to her body. The sound of hooves on gravel reaches her first, and then in the distance she can see a figure, dressed all in black and riding a large black stallion at a ferocious pace, approaching. Mal and Nikolai turn at the sound too, surprised, but Alina can’t react, can’t feel anything but warm. The horse and rider approach rapidly and it’s not until the rider is dismounting and running towards her, midnight coat flapping around his knees and black clothes spattered with mud and possibly blood that she releases the breath she didn’t even realize she’s been holding. He doesn’t slow, doesn’t spare a glance or bit of attention for Mal and Nikolai, just keeps those onyx eyes focused solely on her and barrels right into her, sweeping her up in his arms and pulling her tight against him. She can feel his chest rising and falling rapidly, can hear his gasping breaths in her ear, can smell woodsmoke and the tang of metal, can feel the scratchy wool of his kefta against her cheek, can feel his hands clutching her waist and cradling the back of her head. 

Most of all she can feel the heat he always generates in her growing and though she can’t see his face she feels when he opens his mouth to speak, can imagine the way his lips form her name. 

“Alina” he says, and the world explodes into bright, shining, golden light. 

Chapter Text

Alina’s drifting in a sea of sleep, cradled in a boat made of fluffy pillows and soft blankets, the sun shining hot on her face and casting sparkling rays of light on the water around her. The horizon is a foggy white line in the distance and she knows that if she chooses to go towards that horizon, sleep will cease to hold her. She’s so warm here, though, so calm. So peaceful. She likes the way the sun shines on the water. She likes that she can’t feel anything, has no awareness of her body. Her mind drifts just as her body does, flowing languidly through memories of her life and stopping to examine certain moments more closely. 

☀☀☀

She’s little, probably not more than a year or two old because she’s just learned to walk, chubby legs and small feet stumbling awkwardly across the floors of their cottage. She can see a doorway filled with bright light and she pushes her little legs towards it, wanting to know what the brightness means, wanting to feel it on her fingers. She tumbles over the lip of the doorway and falls, hard, but the wail already forming gets caught in her throat when she lifts her eyes and sees that the brightness is all around her now, lovely fingers of warmth licking across her skin. 

☀☀☀

She’s six or seven in this memory and it must be her first weeks at the orphanage because she’s huddled in the library, gazing out the window at the sunny summer day. She’s tracking the position of the sun across the sky and wondering what makes it glow so brightly, wishing that she could escape into the sky like that. 

The memory shifts and now Alina’s sitting in her and Mal’s meadow, still pale and skinny, hair in two long messy braids, but there’s a smile on her little face and she’s listening to Mal talk with big eyes full of excitement. Her fingers, so much smaller, are moving absently through the air, swirling and twisting and though it’s hard to see, though Mal doesn’t notice because he’s too engrossed in his own story, the shimmering sunlight beaming down on them seems to follow Alina’s fingers. The sunlight is like an eager puppy, moving where she wills it and dancing across her shoulders to warm her. 

☀☀☀

She’s older now, facing down a group of bullies in the courtyard with her hands in fists and her shoulders set straight, features pushed into a stubborn frown. The older boys have hidden the book she was reading and she just got to the really good part but they won’t tell her where it is. Mal isn’t here but for once Alina isn’t scared, too angry to back down from the boys. The children face off, glaring at each other, the boys whispering to each other and Alina just knows they’re insulting her, saying she’s too weak, too scrawny, that she’ll be easy to beat in a fight. She stands her ground, though, still as a statue until two of the older boys rush at her. She instinctively brings her hands up to cover her face, palms facing out and wrists crossed and there’s a bright flash of light; suddenly, the two bullies are rolling on the ground, covering their eyes and yelling. Alina stares at them for a moment, shocked, then turns tail and flees before the rest of the boys can chase her or attack. She hides in the woods until the evening when Mal finds her and brings her back to the orphanage. 

☀☀☀

It’s the first summer after Mal left to join the army and Alina’s alone in their meadow, lying on her back in the tall grass, the book she was reading next to her and her hands folded over her stomach. She’s gazing up at the blue, blue sky and enjoying the way rays of sunlight sink into her skin. She’s warm and peaceful and finally away from the whispers of the other orphans. She inhales the scent of the meadow, listens to the humming and chirping of insects, watches a butterfly lazily spiral past, digs her toes into the soft grass beneath her. She breathes in the sunlight and the summer and feels energized, full of life, like she’s just woken from a long and restful sleep. The rays of sunlight that touch her body seem to ripple, coalescing around her limbs until she glows brighter and brighter. 

☀☀☀

It’s the eve of the Lunar Ball and she’s dressing herself in the library, dust motes illuminated in shafts of sunlight. She finishes and goes to inspect her reflection in the mirror, noticing with a half smile that she almost seems to glow. But no, it’s just the dying rays of sunlight forming a halo around her, illuminating her against the creeping gloom of the shadows. 

☀☀☀

Alina drifts in and out of sleep and her memories for a long, long time, sometimes coming so close to wakefulness that she could choose to open her eyes and rejoin the land of the living. But she never chooses this, instead lets herself slip away again. Sometimes she’s on the edge of the horizon, so close to the land that she can hear what’s happening beyond the veil of sleep. She catches voices murmuring together, hears her name several times, sometimes feels a damp cloth being pressed against her forehead. She thinks she smells a hint of lilies, or pines, often tea and woodsmoke, but everything is eventually swallowed up by the lapping waves of sleep. She doesn’t worry about the voices, doesn’t worry about what those left behind are saying or doing. She just lets herself drift, lets herself be rocked back into sleep and lets herself enjoy the sunlight that is only hers, just hers, for the moment. 

When she has those moments of falling back into her body, of choosing to keep her eyes closed and body still she feels the sensation of another presence in the room. Her eyelids are always black when she wakes and so she knows her room must be shrouded in darkness and though she never gives a signal, never speaks or opens her eyes, she can feel the presence in the darkness watching her. It reminds her a bit of the monster that had trailed her during the weeks that the emptiness inside of her grew but this monster is– benevolent. Alina doesn’t think it wants to hurt her. She can just– feel it, curled up in the shadows piled in the corners of her room, slinking around her body in the dead of night, huffing warm breath against her palm and watching, always watching. 

She falls into sleep before she can think about the beast too long and when she’s back on the ocean, cradled in her boat of pillows, there’s no space for bad thoughts or questions. There’s just her and the light and the way they play together. 

☀☀☀

When she finally blinks awake, body still heavy with sleep but brain mercifully clear and calm, the first thing she feels is warm. No, more than that– she feels hot . She stays still, lets herself register that the cold, the aching cold that had settled into her bones and skin and fingers is gone. She feels– she doesn’t even know. Light, free, incandescent, joyful, like she’s been born over again and is just discovering the beauty of life. She doesn’t care that her skin feels sweaty and feverish, that the heat trapped around her under a mountain of blankets is almost suffocating, doesn’t care that her throat is dry and parched. It’s so lovely to be able to feel her entire body, to feel the heat of blood and life and energy coursing through her that her lips automatically curve into a wide grin and then she winces because her lips are cracked and painful and she can taste metallic blood.

She must make a sound because suddenly his face is hovering above her, dark eyes slightly bloodshot and cheekbones more pronounced than she remembers. His skin is pale, almost bloodless, and his hair has grown longer so that it curls almost around his shoulders now, the dark strands limp. There are shadows under his eyes and the hair on his chin and cheeks needs to be cut. Alina jerks back in surprise and discomfort, hitting the back of her head on the wooden headboard behind her, the sudden pain letting her know this is all real. Kirigan retreats but only a bit, still sitting beside her bed but no longer invading her immediate space. They stare at each other, silent, her heart pounding but his face and body are so infuriatingly calm, calm as he crosses his legs and interlaces his fingers. 

 Her wolf is doing a joyful dance inside her stomach where butterflies should be erupting at the sight of him but all Alina can feel is anger and hurt and dread. She clutches the blankets to her chest as she slowly sits up, pulls the golden fabric over every inch of exposed skin despite the burning heat pushing to escape her body. She feels better now that they’re on the same level, more equal, but she still doesn’t want him this close to her. There are hundreds of questions bubbling up inside, each a little spark of heat, and she knows if she opens her mouth, if she says a single word, those little sparks will turn into a blazing inferno and pour out of her to destroy this room. Destroy the Little Palace, perhaps destroy even all of Ravka with the burning, scorching rage she feels. She thinks maybe the reason she was so cold the whole time her mate was gone was because she was suppressing her rage, not letting herself feel it because it wasn’t time yet. But now– now she’s burning so hot, red hot embers and blue flames smoldering inside her until she feels like a fireball about to combust, the heat pulsing at the edges of her skin pushing towards him so strongly that she isn’t sure her bones are a strong enough cage.  

“Get. Out.” Alina grits out, teeth clenched, golden fire lapping at the roof of her mouth and pooling in her fingertips. 

She’s barely holding it together, barely holding the heat inside back, and even from those two small words her teeth feel warm from the light and fire that almost escaped through her mouth. She glares at Kirigan, fingers clenched around the golden blankets covering her body, sweating, hot, wanting to open her mouth and pant to relive some of the burning but knowing that she can’t until he leaves. 

But her idiotic mate, who looks so pale and exhausted and almost human for once, leans forward in his chair and reaches long, tentative fingers towards her, eyes dark pools of night. 

“Alina” he whispers, voice steady while something in his eyes seems to be falling apart but Alina doesn’t care, can’t care, because she knows if those fingers touch her she will explode . She starts shaking her head violently, the back of her skull still aching slightly, draws away from his touch and huddles against the headboard, drawing her knees up to her chest under the sheets. She wants to cry but her tears have been evaporated by her fire before she can even shed them. She can’t open her mouth, can’t move again, too terrified of what will happen next. Of what the scorching light inside of her will do. 

Kirigan stilled when she moved away from him again and now he’s frozen, unmoving, fingers still suspended in midair and dark eyes gazing into hers like he can see the fire she’s holding inside herself, like he can see that she’s a thin layer of skin and fragile bones wrapped around a burning sun that will kill them all. 

“Alina” he murmurs again, still frozen, pale lips barely moving. It’s the way he says her name that makes her explode, the way his lips form the syllables and give the word that encapsulates her very essence a deeper meaning. It’s as if he’s said not Alina but instead it’s alright or I’m here or I love you . 

“Get out!” She screams at him, face screwed up in fury, “get out get out get!” And then she’s throwing her head back and screaming more, screaming over and over again, but this time it’s light, bright and golden and glowing hot that flows from her mouth instead of words. It’s pain and joy and the feeling of surfacing from water after a long, long while. 

The light floods the room, floods Alina’s whole body and she can do nothing but allow it to erupt out of her, spilling from her mouth, light trailing from her fingertips, shining around the crown of her head, golden tears falling down her cheeks and leaving glistening tracks on her skin. 

She can’t even breath , air forced out of her lungs by the light, the essence of who she is tamped down by the burning gold and she isn’t sure anymore if she’s screaming in pain or relief as it leaves her body but she can’t move, can’t speak, can’t be anything anymore but a vessel through which the light escapes. She thinks Kirigan might be saying her name, might have tried to touch her, but the light doesn’t notice, the light doesn’t care, all it wants is to get out . 

It’s heat and pain and relief and movement and burning and an awakening in her soul but that awakening is too much, too fast, and she knows somehow that this light may kill her. 

And then sudden dark shadows are swallowing up her light, gulping down the golden heat erupting from her, surrounding her and engulfing her in the cool relief of night. It’s a struggle between light and darkness at first, her golden fire not wanting to surrender, not wanting to submit, but the shadows feel so good . Slowly the light abates and as it leaves Alina relaxes back against the sweat-soaked sheets beneath her, panting with exertion and emotion but the awful burning heat is slowly, finally, draining from her body. The room around her is so filled with darkness that Alina can’t see anything anymore, not even the ceiling above her or her mate breathing loudly beside the table. Alina concentrates on that sound, tries to match the rise and fall of her breath to his, tries to focus on the air in her lungs and nothing else as the heat seeps out of her. Her body cools by degrees until she’s almost normal again, skin still flushed and sweaty, damp strands of hair clinging to her cheeks and forehead but she no longer feels like a living inferno. She breathes in the darkness, brings in the cool shadows and lets them settle in her chest, imagines them snuffing out the glowing light that has retreated to just below her breastbone. But that light is stubborn, burning brightly golden now that she’s become aware of it, and somehow Alina thinks it will take more than shadows to conquer that light. 

She’s so aware of her body, of every inch of skin and twitch of her fingers, of every thumping heartbeat and the way her tongue feels in her mouth. She wants to claw out of her skin, escape the hold her bones and flesh have on her, wants to leave the heat behind and return to her ocean of sleep where she held no form. This body has caused her pain, burning pain, and it no longer feels familiar– it’s a cage of power and life Alina doesn’t understand, doesn’t know, doesn’t feel at home in. Doesn’t want to know. Everything begins to be too much– her beating heart, the sweat sliding down her spine, the air moving in her lungs, the twitch of her toes and the roiling in her stomach. Her body is too much but so is the room around her, the feel of the slippery sheets against her skin, the darkness pressing down on her eyes, even the now-steady breaths of her mate. 

Her mate is what tips Alina over the edge again, rage flashing through her just as brightly a second time as she concentrates on his loud, too loud , exhalations. 

“Stop breathing so loudly” she snaps before she can consider her words. She’s still staring up into dark nothing, lying still but wanting to crawl out of her own skin and away from this room, away from this palace, away from him. 

She thinks maybe she hears him huff lightly but his breathing turns near silent and it– it doesn’t help. Alina closes her eyes in distress, wanting to scream again, but her throat feels rough and swollen from how much fiery light had licked through it. She still feels that burning rage but she’s done with the darkness now, can’t lie in this nothingness and focus too much on her senses or she’ll go insane. She needs action, needs movement, needs– she needs to fight. 

She senses more than hears him open his mouth to speak but Alina simply can not take the sound of her mate’s voice at the moment. 

“Don’t say anything” she tells him, voice rougher now that her vocal cords have begun to swell, “unless it’s that you can turn on the lights and get rid of this awful darkness.” 

He huffs again and Alina opens her eyes, rolls them, annoyed despite everything that her mate is able to find amusement in her words when all she wants to do is rip out his throat or slap him. 

“I can turn on the lights” her mate whispers into the darkness, voice as cool as the shadows that are now slipping away, retreating from the corners of her room and slithering across the floor towards him and twining around the legs of his chair like an affectionate puppy. Her mate is as relaxed as ever, legs slightly extended and crossed at the ankles while he leans back against her chair, which Alina knows for a fact is uncomfortable, looking as regal as the tsar . He’s smiling slightly, the new scar on his temple glimmering in the daylight again streaming through the open curtains and bathing them both in gentle light. Alina begins to shrink back from the light, half convinced it will burn her, but it’s warm and buttery and nothing like what had escaped out of her. Nothing to be scared of. 

Alina pushes herself to a seated position, legs curled underneath her and pillows supporting her spine as she lifts the damp golden blankets and unceremoniously dumps them on the floor, lip curled in disgust. The blankets land on her mate’s crossed ankles and Alina smugly watches his lips tighten, watches the almost imperceptible breath he lets out as he toes the mass of fabric aside and returns his midnight gaze to her. The shadows are still curling around his feet, resembling tongues or octopus tentacles and she stares at them with half fascination, half revulsion. The part of her brain which has spent months learning about logical strategies and reading books about reasoning and possibilities rejects what she sees, rejects that this is reality and tells her she must be dreaming. But she remembers the stories she was told of the Black Heretic as a child, the stories of his powers, and she raises her head to look straight into her mate’s dark eyes. 

“Who are you?” 

He tilts his head slightly, blinks at her, long lashes casting slight shadows on his sculpted cheekbones. His face betrays no emotion as he answers, voice cool and slippery as silk. 

“I am your mate, milaya . You know this.” 

Alina grits her teeth and glares at him, fingers instinctively curling in her lap and she wishes suddenly to be a wolf, to have claws and fangs with which to tear him apart. It would be so satisfying , she thinks, to taste his blood in my mouth . 

“I have a name, mate ” she tells him, voice hard and jaw clenched. “And I don’t want to hear another word from you until you can promise it’s the truth.” 

They stare at each other for long minutes, neither moving, neither lowering their gaze or backing down. Alina doesn’t care what he thinks of her at this moment, doesn’t care that she’s still sweat-slick and wearing only her nightgown. She needs answers from him, needs the truth, needs to finally have some solid ground to stand on in her relationship with this man. He blinks at her again and she blinks back, face set, spine straight. 

“There is no one truth, Alina,” her mate murmurs, “But I will give you my truth if you will accept it.” 

She doesn’t answer, just blinks at him again, waiting. Finally something in his face shifts slightly and Kirigan dips his head in acquiescence, barely half an inch, and inside her stomach something tight loosens and she relaxes slightly, spine curving as she settles. 

“Kirigan is my name” he begins, and she notices that the shadows around his ankles are perfectly still now, “but I have been called by many names. The most popular, though perhaps the most misleading, was Black Heretic.” 

Alina wants to be shocked, wants to flinch away from him in confusion and disbelief but somehow she’s resigned. Of course , a small part of her can’t help thinking, of course it would be him. So she just nods, face impassive, waiting for him to continue. Her mate studies her for a moment before he speaks again but if he’s surprised at her lack of a reaction he doesn’t show it. 

“I have spent many years fighting for Ravka and for our people. I have taken many roles throughout my lifetimes, served many kings and led many battles.” He lapses into silence, dark head bent as he twists his fingers through the air and the shadows follow, cool night twining over and around his hands. 

When Kirigan looks up at her again his mask has cracked slightly, eyes far away from their time as he remembers something. 

“When I was a young man,” he begins and smiles faintly, “I was bold and impulsive. Foolish, as my mother called me.” She wants to laugh, wants to smile at the thought that he had a mother once, but she’d rather just have him talk faster. This glacial pace is not going to suit Alina’s needs. 

“My power grew as I did and like many young men I believed I could change the world through my strength alone. I read many books, studied the history and people of our country, met with scholars and began to think I was most knowledgeable about the needs of Ravka.” 

Alina can’t help but roll her eyes at this and Kirigan laughs just a touch, shifting in his chair until he’s slumped a bit more, fingers still moving through the air. 

“I fell into the trap of all powerful men” he says, laughter still glimmering in his dark eyes, “and I began to believe that the only way to save Ravka from the attacks of her enemies, to protect the land and people was through my powers. Through myself alone.” 

Her mate peers at her suddenly, leaning forward in his chair and tilting his head as he considers her. She blinks, refusing to budge an inch but uncomfortable with how much closer he suddenly is. 

“Do you know what merzost is, Alina?” he asks, brows arched. She shakes her head silently, afraid that if she speaks she’ll ruin whatever spell is making him talk. 

Her mate leans back again and she breathes once more, in and out, in and out, shoulders drooping with relief. 

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t” he murmurs to himself, eyes trained on the shadows now pooled in the palms of his cupped hands. “ Merzost is an old magic, perhaps the oldest magic at the heart of the making of things. Life and death are a balance, a give and take, and so must creation be. To make is to draw from the world and so something must also be given.” 

Alina isn’t sure she follows, doesn’t really understand why this relates to his story but she knows her mate would never waste words on an unnecessary subject, would never utter a sentence more than he had to. 

“I was only in my twenty-sixth year of life, had never even left Ravka or fought in a battle but still I was convinced that I was the savior Ravka needed. My mother argued with me, though, persuaded me to join the military and fight alongside my countrymen. So I went to the tsar and showed him my powers, asked to lead his army and fight our enemies for him. I had learned of warcraft from books and scholars, trained myself to wield a sword and ax. I felt I was ready, that I could be of use to him.” 

Alina can almost see her mate as a young man, can imagine the swagger he would have walked with and the air of confidence with which he would’ve gone to see the king. She imagines him with hair reaching past his shoulders, tied back by string, the scabbard of a blade rising over one shoulder and shadows trailing his steps as he stalked into that long ago throne room of an ancient king. 

Kirigan’s voice is softer now as he speaks, hands clenched into fists and dark shadows leaking out from white fingers. “The king denied me. Turned me away. He was weak, and foolish, and scared of my powers. So I began to travel the country and build my own army, those who were strong enough to realize what Ravka needed was action , not more negotiations with our enemies. We spent years fighting in the forests and mountains of the borders, protecting our people and doing what he was too weak to.” 

There’s a snarl in her mate’s voice and Alina can see that his teeth are slightly elongated in the daylight, a bit of his wolf breaking through. 

“We were growing in power, in strength. The people knew of us, told stories of our battles around hearthfires and tucked their children into bed with the promise of our protection. But the tsar– that weak, terrified man who was so afraid to lose his power, he had heard of us too. And so he came to challenge us, to cut my friends and allies down, to cut down Ravka’s best protectors.” 

Kirigan lapses into the longest silence yet, perfectly still, head bowed and palms full of darkness upturned on his knees so that he almost looks like a statue of a weeping angel. If Alina weren’t so impatient she thinks she might feel sad for him, might want to comfort him, but she really just wants to know the ending to this story. 

“I used merzost ,” he finally says, almost whispering, “I ripped the life from the soldiers sent to capture us, from the king himself as he rode at the head of their party, and I used that energy to give life to something new. To create. It was meant to protect Ravka, to be a barrier against our enemies and a blessing for the people. But I took too much, drew upon too much death to create and thus only death could come from me. From my power.”

His head is still bowed but within his hands the shadows have risen, no longer dormant, and are now dancing above his fingertips. Suddenly, the shadows collide and flash out into a starburst, dissipating and then resettling to form a long slash of darkness across both his hands. Alina studies the shadows and suddenly she understands, his story clicking into place in her knowledge of Ravkan history. 

“The Shadow Fold” she whispers, eyes trained on his bent head. “You created it. To protect Ravka?” 

He raises his head and looks back at her, dark eyes full of an emotion she thinks is anguish, lips pulled into an expression of deep sadness. 

“You have to know, Alina” he says, words so quiet she can barely make them out, “that I didn’t mean for it to happen. I didn’t know what it would do to Ravka, what it would do to them .” 

His dark eyes are intent on hers, so full of sadness and pleading that she softens slightly, relaxes her gaze and lets out a quiet breath. “The volcra ” she says, voice sure, and he nods, finally dropping his eyes to the floor. 

“The volcra are…the people who were with you that day?” She asks, though when he doesn’t respond with anything but silence she knows she’s right. She doesn’t know what to say next, doesn’t want to offer him comfort but also there’s a slight ache in her chest at the thought of being the cause of that much death and destruction. At the thought of one person being responsible for all the lives the Shadow Fold had swallowed up over the years, at all the harm it had caused Ravka economically and politically. 

She hears Kirigan draw in a deep breath as he straightens, leans back in the chair and his mask is back in place, his eyes calm and face expressionless as the shadows in his hands snuff out and he crosses his legs again. 

“I have waited millenia for you, Alina” he tells her, voice no longer betraying any emotion, “I have searched for you, searched for the true savior of Ravka who will wipe away my mistake and unite Ravka once more. Protect Ravka.” 

He smiles at her slightly, voice wry as he continues, “And I suppose it would be logical that the one gifted with powers of the sun is my mate. You are my balance, Alina, my natural half. The light to my darkness.” 

Alina stares at him, stares her still smiling mate straight in the eyes and says, voice crisp and as cold as snow, “I don’t care.” Kirigan’s face goes blank again as he registers her words but Alina continues before he can speak, too furious to care, too angry to let him utter one more word because it’s her turn now. 

“I don’t care” she says again, feels the sharpness of the words as they lash out of her, can feel the blood warming her face as her anger warms her blood but she simply doesn’t care. “I think it’s horrible that you murdered so many people and I think it’s horrible that you’ve never done anything to try and fix your mistake. And I think it’s shameful that you’ve been looking for someone else to clean up after you, to do away with your mistake , instead of working on it yourself. But I don’t care . I don’t care who you are or how old you are or what you did before we met.” 

She’s breathing hard and fast, chest almost heaving with the strength of the rage she’s been holding in during his entire story. If she hadn’t spent so much light and energy earlier she thinks she’d be burning again with how strong her emotions are. 

“I care that you lied to me when we met. That you took me away from my home and everyone I knew without my consent . That you didn’t tell me anything about yourself or where you were taking me. That you left me . That you left me here alone without any warning . That you left me for months .”

She can see each word hit him and crack his mask little by little and can see how his spine is beginning to curve as he absorbs what she says. But Alina isn’t done; she’s had months to think about what she would say to her mate if he ever returned and she’s just getting started.

“I was sick” she tells him, heart cold and hard as ice even as his eyes fly to hers, “I was sick for so long and I was getting worse each day. Genya had to take care of me, make excuses for me when I was too weak to attend classes or training. I was freezing all the time. I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to do anything but lie in bed and cry. I was hurt and confused and lonely. I was dying, Kirigan, because you’re my mate and you left me for months and it almost killed me .”

Alina wants to devolve into screaming at him again, wants to burn him with her light, but she knows that words can hurt far more and she’s chosen hers with precision and care to slice him as deeply as possible.

“You weren’t here for me when I needed you most. You left me alone to die and I was dying . I would’ve died sooner, if Genya and Mal hadn’t loved me, hadn’t given me their light and warmth to stay alive a little longer.” She takes a moment to breathe, deeply, straightening her spine until it hurts and raising her chin though Kirigan is no longer meeting her eyes.

“You’re supposedly the other half of my soul. You say we complete each other, that you’ve been searching for me for hundreds of years. How could you hurt me so deeply, how could you abandon me to die if you’re my mate?”

Alina doesn’t expect him to answer but he’s raising his head in a flash of movement, black gaze wide as he opens his mouth to speak, hands braced on his thighs like he’s about to rise. Like he’s about to move forward, about to attempt touching her again. Alina feels the ice that had inhabited her bones for so many months coating her heart, relishes the freezing burn as she stares her mate down, voice glacial.

“I reject you as my mate, Kirigan” she tells him, the formal words rolling off her tongue with no difficulty. She’s had more than enough time to consider this decision, to weigh the outcomes and think about his actions. To decide if this is what is best for her, best for her heart and her future. It hurt her so much at first to even consider it but as the months passed, as her heart grew duller and duller and the light inside her faded, she thought about it more often. Obviously her mate didn’t want her, didn’t want to be with her, or else he wouldn’t have left her alone for so long. Really, she was doing them both a favor. He would be happier without her and with the blazing rage still coursing through her, flowing around her frozen heart, it’s easy to say the words. To reject this man, to reject a future with him, to reject their bond. She ignores the whimpering of her wolf, ignores how it curls up in a tiny ball and howls at her.

He leans back in his chair, shadows erupting from his hands to hover about his shoulders and curl at his fingertips like phantom claws. Alina isn’t scared, though. He can’t hurt her and neither can his shadows, not with the light burning brightly inside of her. His face is somehow still, infuriatingly calm. Expressionless. A mask of nothing. His dark eyes are blank, too, a window into more nothing. She can hear his breathing though, raspy and too quick, and while he’s meeting her gaze again she can see the pulse jumping in his neck. Alina tilts her head, considering him. Strangely, she doesn’t feel any pain. Doesn’t feel anything. She’s always imagined rejecting a mating bond would be incredibly painful but neither of them seem to be in any danger of fainting or worse from her decision.

“As you wish it, Alina” he finally murmurs, clasping his fingers over his crossed knees and considering her with those dark, dark eyes. She almost snarls at him, furious that he accepts her rejection of him, of their mating bond, so easily, but then again he has accepted her choice. Accepted her decision, her desire. I suppose apathy is better than pleading or trying to convince me to change my mind. She thinks, annoyed and so full of hatred directed at him that she can’t stand being in the same room together much longer.

She raises her chin again, tries to forget she’s sitting cross legged in her bed in a nightgown and that she’s crusted in dried sweat and probably looks awful. “I don’t want to see you” she begins, words sharp and sure, “I don’t want to speak to you, or look at you. I don’t want you to ever open the door connecting our rooms. I don’t want you to interfere in my life again and I never, ever want you to touch me.”

“As you wish it” he says again, voice stronger and black eyes trained on her face like the words she’s saying mean nothing to him. His calm is so disconcerting that she has to dig her fingernails into her palms to stop herself from lunging at him and drawing blood.

“I will stay at the Little Palace” she continues, tone brooking no room for arguments, “to continue my training in warcraft and military strategy. I intend to help Ravka and help my people in any way I can. I will be allowed to join a battalion when I finish my training and I will be given the rights and responsibilities of any other soldier in the Second Army.” She darts her eyes away from his left ear to his eyes, curious if these demands will finally elicit any emotion but he merely dips his head. Agrees to what she wants that easily.

She didn’t expect him to agree without a fight, to simply give in to what she wants. It’s throwing her off, making the solid foundation of rage and hurt she stands upon tremble. Maybe even begin to crack. She thinks quickly, mind racing, wondering if there’s anything else she wants that she should make a deal for while he’s in an agreeable mood.

“I want Genya” she says quickly, the words rushing out. “And Mal. And Nikolai. I want them all to stay here at the Little Palace with me and not be sent anywhere else. And Genya— she doesn’t belong to the queen anymore. She gets to do whatever she wants— even if you don’t like it.” He looks at her for several long minutes and she almost starts to squirm, feeling like a bug under a glass, before he finally nods.

Alina almost crumples in relief, wants to let out a deep breath or smile in excitement but she can’t do any of those things, can’t show any emotion while he’s here. So she tips her chin up, leans back against the pillows and says, as casually as she can manage, “You can go now.”

He rises smoothly, elegant as ever despite the words she’s just hurled at him and turns towards her bedroom door, black clothes blending seamlessly into his dark hair and boots. In the doorway he turns, hands clasped behind his back and standing tall as if she didn’t just shatter a hole in his heart.

"I have one final request of you, Alina,” he says, cool and calm, “in exchange for your extensive needs.” She bristles at his words, wants to snap back at him, but more than anything she wants him gone so she rolls her eyes and waves a hand for him to continue.

“The truth of your powers is yours to share with who you will” he says, eyes focused on her face as he leans slightly against the doorframe, “But I would ask that you share the truth of mine with no one, especially not the young prince or his parents. And, Alina, I would advise you to keep your powers from the royals as well.”

She smiles at him, but it isn’t nice, isn’t kind or sweet. It’s a smile meant to show all her teeth, to hide the rage burning in her eyes. “As you wish it” she tells her mate and at the same time lets a fiery golden tendril of light escape from her hands and snake across the floor towards him, burning a trail into the wood as it goes. She thinks she sees his mouth lift slightly before he turns and, in a whirl of black clothes and even darker shadows, disappears from her rooms. 

Chapter Text

Genya isn’t nearly as surprised as Alina thinks she should be when she tells her friend that she can create and control light. The redhead listens intently, book forgotten in her lap, and merely blinks when Alina explains everything, explains that Kirigan thinks she’s the one who can destroy the Shadow Fold and save Ravka. There’s silence when Alina finishes with her story– she’d poured out her feelings about her own power, told Genya that she’s rejected her mate but hasn’t shared the truth of his powers or age. She doesn’t want to talk about him or who he is. Doesn’t want to even think about him. 

“I think it’s wonderful that you’ve discovered this part of yourself, Alina,” her friend tells her quietly, tipping her head to the side and letting her long copper curls fall over one shoulder. “But don’t let the fate of Ravka rest too much on your shoulders. Wars are never won by just one person, no matter how capable they are.” 

Her friend's blue eyes are kind and warm, and Alina knows she means well but still she frowns. “But if Kirigan was telling the truth I’m the only one who can banish the Shadow Fold.” 

Genya snorts and rolls her eyes, waving a hand. “Yes, as if he’s never lied to you before. Also, how are you supposed to ‘banish’ it? Light it up until it disappears? That doesn’t seem very practical.” 

Alina draws back at her friend's words and when Genya notices her expression falls instantly, mouth tightening. “I’m sorry, Alina,” she says quickly, tone remorseful, “I shouldn’t have said that. It was rude and unnecessary. I’m sure we can find a way for you and Ravka’s soldiers to get rid of the Shadow Fold.” 

Alina nods and smiles tightly, appreciating that her friend so immediately and easily offers her help and believes in her abilities so readily. When she tells Mal and Nikolai neither react as well as the redhead. Mal nearly faints, terrified even though she barely lets a few beams of sunlight escape from her fingers, and Nikolai has to feed him several pieces of bacon before he’s back to normal. The young prince, despite Kirigan’s warning, swears to keep her secret and as Alina sees the disgust on his face at the thought of his parents she’s suddenly sure he won’t tell them or anyone else. The prince also reacts quite well to her powers, joking that from now on her new nickname is ‘Lightling’. Alina shoots burning hot sparks of light at him for this comment and feels remorseless about the holes singed into his sky blue waistcoat. 

She spends one day after her conversation with Kirigan with her friends, telling them everything and assuring them that she’s alright. Better than alright, really. She’s burning up with shimmering golden energy and she still feels too big for her body, like it doesn’t fit her anymore but she’s so happy to finally be better, so relieved that she doesn’t complain. Her friends can see the change in her, not just that she’s physically better but that she’s happy too, no longer sinking into a well of cold sadness. They share all three meals together, chattering over breakfast pastries and discussing her new powers over lunch sandwiches and cuts of meat. They laugh together, Nikolai making endless jokes and Mal glaring at his mate but always eventually breaking into laughter at his antics. Genya presides over it all, pretending to be above the silliness and food fights but she’s grinning wider than Alina’s ever seen. Alina thinks it might also be her newfound freedom– she’d told Genya early this morning, before the boys arrived, and her friend had collapsed into quiet tears before hugging Alina tightly and thanking her over and over. She’s going to move into her new rooms across the hall in three days time and Alina can’t wait to have her friend close to her and away from the frigid gold of the Grand Palace. 

They lapse into comfortable silence after they’ve devoured the roast chicken and vegetables the servants delivered for dinner, empty sparkling glass cups which had held chocolate mousse studded with cherries now littering the floor. Nikolai and Mal are in a sleepy pile on the rug, the prince’s golden head resting on Mal’s stomach while her best friend slowly strokes his hair. She thinks Nikolai might be very faintly purring but the sight of the two mates is a little too much for her and so she turns away, not begrudging them their happiness exactly but also not wanting to watch too long. Genya is curled up like a cat on top of her freshly washed golden blankets, eyes closed and face peaceful as she clutches a pillow to her chest. Alina’s perched in the window seat and after her gaze skips over her friends and she assures herself that they’re all okay, all close to sleep, she cracks open the book in her lap and begins to read in the fading light of the late November sun. 

She’d slipped out of her room at the crack of dawn this morning while the first rays of sunlight were just beginning to touch the Little Palace and ran to the library, bare feet whispering against the marble hallways. She’d been dressed in nothing more than a nightgown but she hadn’t been cold; the light inside of her kept her pleasantly warm and filled her body with new energy. The book she holds now in her hands is the same one she’d read months ago in the library, right before she slipped into her dream about Kirigan. The pages are dedicated to the story and powers of the Black Heretic and though she’d skimmed it before, this time she wants to carefully read every sentence and detail. 

She reads long into the night again, lights a candle and holds it close to the pages so the flickering light doesn’t wake her sleeping friends. And while the book details the rise of the Black Heretic, the troops he amassed and describes the many skirmishes and battles he won alongside those troops, it doesn’t give Alina what she really wants. There’s nothing in the book about how the Black Heretic came to possess his powers, nothing about how he learned to control them. In the final chapters which cover the creation of the Shadow Fold and the disappearance of the Black Heretic, there is no mention of merzost . The author simply states that they believe the Shadow Fold was the Black Heretic’s last act; his revenge against a king and world which had been scared of his powers and attempts to help Ravka. The book notes that though the king, all of the soldiers from both sides, and the Black Heretic were never seen again, there was no guarantee of their deaths. Alina snorts at this, because of course he had managed to survive while everyone else died. The last pages barely describe the Shadow Fold beyond its initial creation; instead the author ruminates on the possible fate of the Black Heretic, wondering if he’s living in the Shadow Fold as a sanctuary for himself or if he’s dead but will rise again one day to save Ravka. 

Alina closes the book once she’s finished the last page, head spinning with more questions than answers. While she wasn’t entirely satisfied with the answers the book provided, she has a better grasp on how much Kirigan and his allies had helped Ravka, defending the villages and towns of the countryside while the current tsar of the time had left the common people to be attacked as long as the cities and Os Alta were safe. The Black Heretic’s forces had beaten back Fjerda and Shu Han on the northern and southern borders, doing what the tsar was too weak to. Begrudgingly, Alina admits to herself that she can admire that about him, admire that he remembered the everyday people of the countryside and protected them. She thinks she can almost understand why he was driven to use merzost , why he was angry and frustrated enough to attempt to kill the king and soldiers who had come to capture his allies. She absently strokes the soft red leather cover of the book as she thinks. The author had said that Kirigan and his allies worked together for years to protect the people, that they lived and ate and slept together and trusted each other completely. She wonders if they were Kirigan’s friends, if he loved and cared for them after so many years fighting alongside each other. She wonders if the first crack in his soul appeared when he created the Shadow Fold and unknowingly turned his friends and allies into the monstrous volcra . 

The thought is enough to make her ice encased heart warm the tiniest degree and so she’s standing, suddenly, immersing herself in the hot water of a bath and scrubbing her hair and body clean until any trace of him is gone. Not until her skin is bright pink and wrinkly does she emerge from the now lukewarm water and then she curls up in bed with Genya and firmly banishes any last thoughts of the Black Heretic from her mind. She names Ravkan towns and villages in her head until sleep claims here but it’s a restless sleep, her mind never fully dipping into the peace of true rest. Throughout the night she dreams that her former mate is watching her, can almost smell his rich bergamot scent and feel his eyes on her as she twists and turns in bed. But when she wakes in the morning, mind hazy and surrounded by her yawning friends, she realizes it had to have been a dream. The doors to her rooms are locked and Genya has both keys to the door connecting their rooms; she’d made sure of it. And besides, the room smells of nothing but the cool morning air flooding in through the open window and the enormous tray of breakfast food steaming outside her door. 

Alina eats with her friends but she’s too full of energy, too jumpy and twitchy to care much about the food. Her friends notice and try to tease her about it, try to draw her into the conversation and though she’s grateful for their attempts and listens to their words with a smile, all she really wants is to get out of this room and run . Eventually they leave, Nikolai rubbing her hair affectionately and telling her not to burn the Little Palace down because he’s moved his favorite clothes into his new rooms here and he does not want to go through the trouble of replacing them. Mal hugs her goodbye, promises to visit in the evening if she wants and she nods her assent, smiling back at him. Genya is last out the door, squeezing her shoulder with warm fingers and leaving a lingering scent of lilies as she retreats down the hall. 

Alina shuts the door behind them and takes a moment to breathe in the silence of her rooms, the sudden stillness and lack of other bodies, before dashing to her enormous wardrobe and changing as quickly as she can. She sheds her nightgown in favor of sleek black pants and her blue winter kefta , a soft white shirt clinging to her arms and swooping below her collarbones underneath. She stuffs her feet into soft brown boots and then she’s out the door, racing through the marble hallways of the palace and not slowing despite the surprised looks she’s catching from servants and students on their way to breakfast. She doesn’t care, just races on, legs pumping and heart beating in her chest but it’s not too much, she’s fine , her body is fine. She can run and she can breathe and she can move again . Alina lets out a loud laugh as she pushes through the wide doors of the Little Palace, her laughter ringing out like bright sunlight against the cold of the early morning, and she jumps over the stairs leading to the doors and lands, hard, in the gravel. Her feet are steady, though, and she doesn’t fall, just stands still as a statue balanced in a moment of pure awe at what she’s just done. At what her body can do. And then she’s racing on, bursting into movement and speed again, legs eating up the brown grass and dried flower beds, footsteps pounding against the gravel until she’s in the freedom of the meadows she’s spent so many days staring at from her rooms. 

She takes a moment to fill her lungs with the crisp, cool air, to breathe deeply and assess how her body feels. It’s okay, though, all of it– her legs, her stomach, her head and spine and insides are all fine, all okay, all brimming with energy and the need to move. So she does, bounding towards the dark spikes of trees in the distance, wanting nothing more than to be in a forest again and feel the towering presence of trees all around her. Inside, her wolf is awake and watchful, senses attuned to anything around them and ears perked in anticipation. Once she’s passed the edge of the forest and is sure she’s alone, Alina sheds her clothes and folds them into a neat pile which she places at the foot of an enormous pine. She breathes the cold air in and out, in and out, but no gooseflesh rises on her skin and she doesn’t feel the need to cover herself. The light inside her is keeping her warm, heating her blood and toes against the cold leaves and earth of the forest floor. 

She’s hesitant, unsure despite her energy and the fact that she’d run all the way here if shifting will actually work. She hasn’t been a wolf in so many months, hasn’t ever been able to shift easily or painlessly. But she can’t just stand here forever and besides, Alina wants to have faith in herself, wants to have faith in her power and the strength flooding her body. So she reaches deep inside herself and embraces her wolf, imagines fur and claws replacing skin and fingers. It happens so quickly Alina doesn’t realize it worked until her hands are hitting the ground, but they’re not hands anymore but paws, and her senses are sharper too, new sounds and smells flooding into her brain. Alina is still Alina but– less so. She’s curled up inside her wolf, human worries and thoughts and emotions tucked away neatly in her brain because all her wolf can think about is the rich earthy scent of the forest and the hare hopping about nearby. 

She turns in a circle, chasing her honey golden tail, white teeth snapping and four legs learning to work together again instead of two. She halts, suddenly, catching the hare in the distance move again and suddenly she’s off, racing across the forest floor like she’s been a wolf forever, like she’s shifted and hunted in this form every day, giving chase. The hare is fast but Alina is faster and soon she’s running through the forest with a full belly and streaks of blood on her muzzle. This version of her feels no remorse, though, only satisfaction and pride as her paws touch down on the ground and spring off again. Her tail flows behind her and her ears are pricked, angling to catch the sounds of the forest while her eyes scan the trees ahead. She runs deeper and deeper into the trees, reveling in the freedom of her body, in the freedom all around her after months of feeling weak and being confined to her rooms. Her soul burns a bit brighter with each step, the light inside sparking with each breath she draws and each movement. Sunlight filters through the trees and reaches her, warming the fur along Alina’s spine and making the forest come alive in new shades of green and umber and ocher. 

She finds a clearing deep in the forest and flops down on the brown grass and still bright moss, rolls to her side and lets her wolf senses take in every aspect of the forest. With these eyes she can see the birds fluttering through the trees far above her, can see the slight movement of pine needles and bare branches in the breeze. She can smell the earth, rich and dark underneath her, can smell the seeds buried under the earth waiting to rise again in spring warmth and sunshine. She can hear the creaking of branches against each other, the chittering of chipmunks and squirrels in the trees, the soft breathing of a group of deer far away across many trees and miles. For a moment her ears perk, her wolf sensing or hearing something before Alina can register it, some deep breathing or hint of a scent on the breeze that is enough to make her stand, but as she waits and strains her ears, nothing reaches her. She huffs, blowing a cloud of warm air into the cold and sets an easy pace back to the edge of the forest and her clothes. Her wolf is at peace now that she’s been allowed out, allowed to run and be wild and free for a bit. Alina eventually reaches the edge of the forest and whispers a quiet goodnight to her wolf before she’s shedding fur and claws and a tail in favor of her own two legs, trembling slightly with exertion. The shift is easier than it’s ever been before and Alina marvels at how quick and almost painless it is, wondering if this is what it’s been like for everyone else while she’s dreaded and struggled with changing her entire life. She dresses quickly and then goes in search of a stream to wash the blood from her face, trying hard not to think about what’s in her belly. 

Droplets of cold water are still drying on her cheeks and chin when she enters the Little Palace, black hair windblown and probably snarled from her race back, but she’s too happy and excited to care. She can’t wait to find her friends and tell them of her success, tell them what it was like to be able to shift into her wolf and run , truly run, with nothing to hold her back. She knows they probably won’t find her experience that exciting as they’ve been shifting and running and inhabiting their wolves their whole lives with ease, but she knows they’ll listen and be happy for her anyways. She’s thinking about what it’ll be like to run with Mal through the forest, their wolves racing each other and playing together, as she enters the dining hall. She hasn’t eaten here in weeks; she was too weak and cold and tired to want to leave her rooms or deal with the loud chatter of her fellow students. But now she stands tall, walks with purpose, and she can’t think of anything except how good food will taste and how she’d like to talk to her classmates again. Despite Genya it was a lonely couple of months and now, infused with new energy and vitality, Alina feels like she has another lease on life and she’s determined to find more friends and form more relationships. She knows in the absence of her mate she’ll begin to feel a bit lonely and sad again but she firmly believes that with enough friends, with a full and busy enough life, she’ll be okay. 

She stands in line for food and chats with the student behind her, a young man named Luca from her military history class, learning about the subjects they’ve covered while she was sequestered in her rooms. Luca doesn’t ask why she was gone for so long and she appreciates it, but she does notice his eyes lingering on her straight spine and the healthy flush she can feel in her face. She enjoys the conversation, enjoys talking to someone besides her small circle of friends and already she’s making a list of books she’ll need to borrow from the library to catch up on her studies. She collects her plate of baked cod and roasted carrots, chooses a soft roll and slices of pear in a little bowl before turning to scan the long tables. She spots Marie and Nadia and decides it’s time to go make her amends for not seeing or speaking to them for so long; they look a bit shocked when she sits down on the bench and greets them but both smile at her. 

“So” Alina says with a warm smile as she sips from her water, “how are your final exams going?” The girls launch into fast paced explanations and complaints of their final tests, lamenting the long hours spent studying and the bruises they’re covered in from training for the physical tests. Alina nods along and listens intently as she eats. To her surprise, the food is better than ever before; not delicious, but good and solid, filling her stomach and replenishing her energy. She asks the two friends questions about which battalions they hope to join if not the oprichniki and catches up on the palace gossip while she finishes her carrots. Nadia is in the middle of telling her about a new romantic interest, a young healer with kind eyes and gentle hands, her cheeks stained a dark pink, when a wave of silence begins to ripple across the students as conversations drop off one by one. Alina turns to the entrance of the dining hall where she can see the gazes of other students directed, curious about what could be important enough to stop her fellow students from socializing during one of their few free hours. 

Her heart sinks and anger bubbles up in her stomach as she sees a dark head of hair and long black cloak sweeping through the doorway and among the unmoving students. He pauses to gather food in his hands and then strides for the fourth table, at the head of the great hall, which is always left empty. Even carrying a plate full of fish and carrots he manages to look dignified and regal, steps long and echoing against the marble floor and high ceiling of the silent hall. Even from a distance Alina can see that he looks much better than he did when they talked; in fact, he’s been restored to perfect, dark health. His hair has been trimmed so that it no longer touches his shoulders and is neatly short again, long strands artfully combed back. His beard has been shaved close to his skin once more and the dark shadows have disappeared from beneath his eyes. His kefta is the same inky black as ever, embroidered with shining onyx thread and trimmed in black rabbit fur but the cloak flowing over his strong shoulders and trailing dramatically behind him is new; it’s also trimmed in black fur and she thinks she can see the gleam of his golden eclipse symbol clasping the fabric at his throat. His black boots are polished as ever and as he reaches the table and settles himself in the lone chair, exactly positioned in the middle of the table and facing the hall, Alina realizes that the only thing that hasn’t changed about Kirigan is his cheekbones. They are sharp and cutting as ever, but rather than detracting from his image of health and power, the acute shape of his face serves only to accentuate his dark, cold beauty. 

He surveys the hall full of frozen students with those dark, dark eyes, legs casually crossed beneath the table as he leans back against the high back of his chair and sips from a glass of water. He sets the glass down, pale fingers precise and deliberate as he unclasps the cloak from around his throat and drapes it over the back of his chair. His eyes study the room the whole time but never once do they meet Alina’s, his head not even moving in her direction. Only once he’s settled does he nod at the students, one side of his mouth lifting, and suddenly movement and sound return to the room in a burst. The chatter is louder than ever, students bending their heads together while they whisper and glance at Kirigan every couple of seconds as he begins to eat. Alina glares at him, hoping he can feel the heat in her gaze even across the room, but he gives no sign of noticing the cacophony around him or the many eyes studying his every move. She can feel the golden light pooling in her fingertips as her anger grows and heats inside her chest. She hates how calm he is, hates that this entire room of powerful young men and women is so in awe of him, that they give him power over them with their reverence. 

“What is he doing here” she hisses, more to herself than anyone else as she continues to glare at him, but both Marie and Nadia turn to her from their hurried whispers. 

“He’s back later than we thought he would be, but at least he’s back!” Marie exclaims in a low voice, beaming at both of them. “And he’s back in time for our final exams!” 

“I hope he’s staying for a long time” Nadia says, sighing happily as she gazes across the room at the general. “It feels so different when he’s here. Everyone’s much more serious and we all have to work harder, but….” 

“But it feels better. More real. Like we really are soldiers even though we’re still training.” Marie finishes for her, nodding her head in agreement as she tucks pale hair behind one ear. 

“And now we have a real chance of being picked to join the oprichniki !” Nadia says and both girls almost squeal in joy, clasping hands and grinning wildly at each other. Alina rolls her eyes skyward to study the constellation painted ceiling, unsure if Kirigan will ever choose two people who are so loudly enthusiastic to join his elite force but also happy that the girls are so full of excitement. 

Alina considers her plate, which is empty for the first time in what feels like forever, and then glances across the hall again at her former mate. He’s still eating but his dark eyes are moving slowly around the room, studying the students, and there’s a tall young man with brown hair and a sharp nose dressed in a red kefta standing beside him, occasionally bending to whisper in his ear. Alina frowns at the man who frowns right back at her which is when she decides she’s done with her meal and done with being in this room. She bades a quick goodbye to Marie and Nadia, who are still discussing their futures with rapturous expressions, and leaves the table, making her way towards the doorway and weaving among clusters of gossiping students. She thinks she can feel his dark gaze burning warmth into the back of her blue kefta as she leaves but she doesn’t give him the satisfaction of turning around. She spends the remainder of the lunch hour tucked into her favorite corner of the library catching up on the subjects she’s missed in military history class and trying to remember what they’d last been learning in Fjerdan and Shu class. 

When the hour is up she makes her way to class, sliding into her seat and smiling at the students around her as they greet her and ask after her health. None of them pry too much but she’s happy to tell them that she’s alright, that she feels much better now, and she realizes with a quiet jolt of energy that most of them truly seem as though they did miss her and worry about her when she didn’t attend class for so many weeks. Soon, though, the room is full of nothing but chatter about Kirigan’s return and speculations about how long he’ll stay and who he’ll choose to join the oprichniki . Alina huffs at the topic and fixes her eyes on a map of Fjerda across the room, memorizing every detail until their teacher enters the room and the lesson begins. She’s confused for the first couple of minutes, trying to situate what they’re learning about now with the last thing she remembers from this class, but eventually grasps that they’re learning about Fjerdan culture now instead of the country’s history and begins taking notes. The class is interesting enough that Alina doesn’t notice the minutes slipping by, too fascinated by the Fjerdan’s god, named Djel, and the ways in which they honor that god. 

Sooner than she’d expected the students around her are rising, trickling away to their last classes, but Alina lingers a moment to ask her instructor which books and topics she should read about to catch up. She exits the room happily, pleased at how interesting the class had been and at how kind her peers and teacher were to her, how understanding. She’s also marveling at the fact that she was able to focus, really focus, and pay attention throughout the entire class. She’s always enjoyed class but with her lower energy levels she’s used to working twice as hard as everyone else to concentrace and stay awake in class, to take good notes and learn information. Normally she’d feel exhausted by this hour of the day, ready for a nap instead of training, but today her body is still thrumming with energy and she feels alert, awake, ready for anything. 

So of course when she reaches the training building and slips inside it’s to find that Kirigan is standing in the corner of the room, talking quietly with instruktor Botkin while the angry man in red stands at his shoulder, looking bored and annoyed. The other students milling about the training room aren’t really practicing, just making a show of it, aiming lazy kicks and punches at each other while all of their attention is focused on the general. Alina, in contrast, almost turns right around and walks right out of the room. But Botkin spots her and waves enthusiastically– Alina has no idea why when she’s absolutely his worst student, but she grins back and lifts a hand in a faint wave. Slightly bolstered, she sheds her kefta and goes to hang it on the wall, hoping that Botkin and her former mate will be done talking soon and that he’ll leave. While she waits she ties her hair back into a long ponytail and begins to move through the set of warm up stretches she hasn’t done in so many days that she’s a bit incredulous she remembers them. But her body moves easily through the stretches, lets her sweep down and touch her toes and dip into a deep lunge without breaking a sweat. She moves more fluidly, enjoying the stretch of her muscles, enjoying how it feels to move her body and warm it up like a fine instrument, enjoying how each twist and turn brings only satisfaction, not pain. By the time she’s moving through the stretches for a third repetition she’s grinning, uncaring of how she looks to other students, uncaring that this is the easiest part of training. It feels good to achieve this, to ask her body to do something and have it respond without reserve. 

Suddenly she hears loud clapping from behind her and turns to see both Botkin and Kirigan looking at her, her teacher smiling while her mate is expressionless as ever, hands clasped behind his back. The man in red is glaring at her again and Alina barely restrains herself from snarling at him. I bet he’d look less grumpy, she thinks savagely, if I burned his eyebrows off . Out of the corner of her eyes she thinks she sees Kirigan stifle a sudden cough but she determinedly keeps her eyes trained on her teacher. 

“Well done, Alina!” Botkin exclaims, still smiling at her and bouncing lightly on his toes, “You’ve completed the first step of training. I think you’re ready to move onto hand-to-hand combat.” 

Alina wants to wilt at the fact Kirigan just heard she’s only finished the first of probably hundreds of steps of training, but she nods jerkily and follows Botkin to the center of one of the fighting circles. He shows her several moves, quick punches and how to position her arms, then steps back and asks her to repeat them. She does, not perfectly but much better than she’d have ever managed before, and Botkin nods. “Keep practicing,” he tells her, and stands back to watch her roll through the punches and hits over and over again, giving her suggestions as he watches. It takes her several minutes but soon she can shift through the movements smoothly and she isn’t dropping her shoulder, is punching the air with force and precision. She finishes a full round and then stops, weight balanced in her toes as she laughs, joy at what her body can do suffusing through her just as the light inside of her spreads. She thinks she might be glowing faintly but she doesn’t care, just wants to learn more, do more. 

For a moment she forgets everything, forgets her anger and hurt and spins, wanting nothing more than to look into her mates eyes and share her joy with him. She finds his dark eyes already trained on her, a slight smile curling his lips as he leans against the wall watching her. She grins at him, wide and happy and warm, body humming with golden energy. There’s a connection between them, just like there was the night they met each other, brown eyes burning into black and she knows he can see how excited she feels, knows he’s just as proud of her as she is of herself.

 But then she remembers, suddenly, and drops her gaze. Drops her smile. Turns her back on him and asks Botkin to show her more. They work together for more than an hour, learning the steps she should take next and how to combine them with the punches and blocking movements as all around them the other training students try their hardest to impress the general. But Alina can feel him behind her the whole time, can feel his eyes on her no matter where she moves, and she knows he isn’t paying a bit of attention to any of the other students. She learns, slowly at first and then faster as her body begins to remember the movements and she finally understands how the movements fit together, flow together, understands what Botkin has been trying to explain to her during all these weeks of training. 

Botkin nods once she’s done the series of combined movements twice through, eyes approving as he studies her form. “Good” he says, “very good. Now let's try it against someone.” 

Alina feels a swell of nausea in her stomach but she only nods, breathing deeply to try and steady her heart as she reties her hair and wipes the light sheen of sweat from her forehead. But she waits, body still but knees slightly bent and hands loose at her sides as Botkin goes in search of someone for her to fight. He returns with a tall young man in tow, red kefta covering his broad shoulders and dark blond hair shining above bright eyes and a brighter smile. 

“Hi!” the young man says, extending a hand to Alina in greeting, “Botkin said you needed someone to practice basic punching and blocking with?” Her spine snaps straight at the word ‘basic’ and she raises her chin, looking up at the taller student and firmly shaking his hand. She thinks she hears a very quiet growl from the wall behind them when their hands meet but she ignores it. Probably her imagination anyways. 

 “I’m Alina” she tells him, voice quiet but not weak. Never weak. 

“Fedyor” he says with another smile and moves several paces away from her, bending his own knees slightly as well and shaking out his hands at his sides. She bounces lightly on her toes, waiting for him to attack, but instead he begins circling. They tred a quiet, slow circle for what feels like forever, eyes focused on each other and the nerves are only growing in Alina’s stomach the longer she has to wait for the attack to come. Finally, fed up and feeling like she’s about to throw up, Alina dances forward on nimble feet and throws a quick one-two-one punch sequence at Fedyor, who blocks all three but raises his eyebrows at her. She grins back, suddenly no longer nervous, and returns to circling. Or at least, tries to– Fedyor is suddenly upon her, aiming a fist at her stomach while aiming a kick at her ankles. She manages to jump and twist out of the way of his punch but not before he can land another hit on the junction of her shoulder. She winces but keeps moving, ignoring the slightly louder growl from the wall and the sudden darkening of the shadows in the corners of the room. She launches a series of punches and hits aimed at Fedyor’s stomach, back and shoulders, creeping around behind him and wondering if she could choke him. He’s bigger than her but she’s faster than him. He twists quickly, though, blocking the continual movements of her arms but failing to notice the kick she’s aimed at his kneecap until he’s falling to the ground, kneeling like he’s about to propose. His face is pained as he stands and she retreats, both lightly panting, waiting for the other to attack. Alina catches a glimpse of the man beside Kirigan and his face is, if possible, even stonier and she thinks if looks could kill she’d be dead by now. 

Her body is warm with light and energy though and she wants nothing more than to keep fighting, to keep learning, to see what she can do. So she attacks again, feeling a slightly crazed smile on her face as she and Fedyor try to hit each other and also block any blows. They go on for what feels like mere minutes, her body never failing her, limbs never giving out, and with each move Alina can feel herself learning, her movements growing faster and more sure the longer they practice. They both get several good hits in against each other and she knows that by tomorrow she’ll be bruised black and blue but for now she doesn’t care. She’s so caught up in the fighting, in the joy of moving and using her body, that she doesn’t even notice when Fedyor sweeps his leg at hers at the same time she blocks a hit aimed directly at her face. She doesn’t even notice when she begins to fall, doesn’t feel it until her back is hitting the ground, hard, and all the air is knocked out of her chest. 

She lies there for several moments, gasping for breath and feeling only hollow space in her chest as all sounds and sights fade away from around her. But then something in her lungs clicks back into place and she’s inhaling suddenly, filling her lungs with air and panting, the relief of breathing never so sweet as now. Sounds slowly bleed back in and as she slowly sits up, still panting but glad for the rapid flow of air in her lungs, her eyes widen when she sees that Kirigan is standing toe to toe with Fedyor and talking to him so quietly she can barely hear the murmur of his cool voice. Whatever he’s saying, though, must be terrifying because the younger man’s face is a chilling white and his neck is bowed in submission as he nods, shoulders hunched. The general’s face is frigid, dark eyes a burning cold and his arms are folded across his chest in a stance of power she’s never seen from him before. Alina also thinks she can also see the faintest wisp of shadows peeking from beneath the hem of his cloak and curling around his boots but she can’t be sure. She begins to clamber to her feet but then Botkin is there, the small man supporting her with surprising strength as he helps her up. He smiles at her and claps her on the shoulder. “Good fight,” he says, “but all good soldiers need to practice.” 

Alina nods and smiles back at him, bows in thanks of all that he taught her today. He dips his head in return and turns away to help the other students still training around her. Kirigan has finished speaking with Fedyor and is standing next to the wall again, dark eyes intent on her but she doesn’t look up, refuses to meet those eyes. 

“Good fight, Alina” Fedyor tells her, crossing to where she stands and bowing slightly to her. “I’m sorry about the way I took you out– and I’m sorry if I hurt you.” He really does look sorry, mouth pulled into a frown and big puppy dog eyes boring into her soul with how earnest he is. Alina frowns right back at him, annoyed. “You don’t have to apologize to me, Fedyor” she tells him, crossing her arms and cocking one hip to the side. “You were only following Botkin’s instructions and fighting me fairly, as you would any student.” 

He’s still frowning at her, though, and she’s pretty sure it has to do with whatever Kirigan said to him. “I accept your apology, unnecessary though it is” she tells him, bowing, “and don’t worry. You didn’t hurt me.” 

Fedyor’s face clears like a spring day after a rainstorm and he smiles brightly at her before walking off to return to his training area with the other older students. Alina sighs to herself and takes a moment to dust some of the dirt off her back and ass, brushing down her black pants and deciding she’ll have to take a bath as soon as she’s back in her rooms. Then she makes her way over to where her kefta hangs and wraps herself in the blue fabric and black fur, relishing the familiarity of the coat as she steps out of the training room and begins to make her way across the gardens back to the Little Palace. She pauses, though, when she hears footsteps crunching in the gravel behind her. Rolling her eyes skyward and cursing whatever Saints decided to gift men with complete and absolute audacity, she turns, already knowing who is following her. Sure enough, Kirigan and his ever present grumpy sidekick are only steps behind her, one set of blue eyes glaring at her while he is smiling at her faintly again, breeze lightly ruffling the fur at his neck and several strands of his hair. 

“I don’t want to talk to you” she bites out, ponytail brushing against her cheek but she doesn’t move, just stares him down. 

“Ivan” Kirigan says to the man beside him, voice smooth and cool even as those dark eyes never stray from her face, “Please tell Miss Starkov that her fighting today was admirable. And tell her that I applaud an opponent who is brave enough to strike first.” 

The man– Ivan , Alina thinks with hatred– sighs very loudly but opens his mouth, begins to repeat Kirigan’s words in a bored voice, words monotone like he couldn’t care less what he’s saying.

“Shut up!” She snaps at him, tearing her eyes away from the insufferable general to glower at him, wanting to release the light roiling inside and burn him. Scorch him, smite him, turn him to dust and embers. Ivan must see some of the fury in her eyes because he closes his mouth and averts his gaze to the ground. 

“I don’t want to talk to you” she tells Kirigan, turning her glare back to him and that still present smile on his face. He looks almost pleased and if she wasn’t sure it would please him even more, she’d scream at him. “I don’t want to see you either. Leave.” 

Kirigan tilts his head as he gazes at her, perfectly still except for that single movement. “Ivan” he begins again, lips twitching, “Please tell Miss Starkov that it is an unavoidable fact that we live in the same palace and thus, sometimes, must necessarily see each other when walking in the same direction.” 

Alina does scream as Ivan opens his mouth to follow directions again, screams out her fury and rage and annoyance in one loud shriek then turns and begins stomping up the gravel path towards the Little Palace, fists clenched tightly and muttering to herself about all the ways she wants to hurt him. The sound of footsteps resumes behind her and she knows they’re following her, knows he’s smiling at her back in satisfaction and enjoying her anger but at least they’re not walking next to her. She makes it inside the palace, continues to stalk down the marble hallways to her rooms and she can’t even turn around and snap at him again as the two men follow her because Kirigan’s rooms are right next to hers – it’s not like he’s walking to the same place as her for no reason. She’s so angry that she can feel golden sunlight escaping from between her clenched fingers, can taste fiery heat against the roof of her mouth but she just keeps her eyes trained forward and keeps walking. 

They reach the door to her rooms after what feels like forever and Alina unlocks it quickly, spinning to block the doorway and face the smug general and his stoic bodyguard. He’s close to her, not enough to be in her personal space, but almost. She can see each black thread glimmering on his kefta, can watch the steady rise and fall of his chest as he smiles down at her, sees his lips start to open to speak to her. She steps back, quickly, and slams the door shut in his face. Locks it with sure fingers and then stalks away, retreats to her bedroom and closes that door too, blocking out any words he might try to press through the door. 

That evening when Alina is going through the books in her sitting room, searching for something to read before bed, she notices a creamy white envelope that’s been slid underneath her door. She bends to pick it up, the paper heavy in her hands. Her name is scrawled on the front in beautiful, elegant cursive and she can already smell the scent of smoky bergamot the paper carries. She can just see the hint of more black cursive on the letter within the envelope but she doesn’t open it, doesn’t spare a second thought to consider what he could've written to her. Instead she lets golden light pool in her palm and set the letter ablaze, light licking at the edges and burning the words Kirigan wrote to her into nothing but ashes and dust.

Chapter Text

As the last weeks of November fade into December and give way to the long nights and gray days of true winter, Alina picks up the pieces of her life and begins to slot them together into a new shape. Outside the Little Palace thick drifts of snow coat everything in silent white, muffling all sounds and wiping away all color but inside, the palace is alive and bustling. The students are in their final weeks of classes before a well deserved holiday rest and the palace staff are busy preparing for the Winter Fête. Every student and most likely all of the teachers and servants as well are waiting in anticipation for the festival, which will be held on the longest night of the year to celebrate the death of an old year and the beginning of a new one. The tsar and tsaritsa will be in attendance, as well as the royal court, and there have been whispered rumors that diplomats and important military leaders from Novyi Zem, Kerch, and the Wandering Isle will be in attendance too. Alina has celebrated solstice each year, but always only with a small party held at the orphanage and an extra hour of cookies and presents before bedtime. She’s just as excited for the festival as anyone else, has had several enthusiastic conversations about it with Marie and Nadia and she knows Genya is already working on her clothes for it. Each time she passes servants draping strands of evergreen along windowsills or hanging blown glass ornaments from the enormous fir trees lining the dining hall she feels a burst of fizzing excitement in her stomach. The only true party she’s ever attended was the Lunar Ball but she can’t wait for the fête, can’t wait to dance with her friends and try champagne and peruse all the delicious food she can smell being prepared in the kitchens as the cooks finalize the menu. 

 Alina finds a routine that works for her; not like the one she had before, in the fall, but a better one. She runs in the woods with Mal as weak winter sunlight coats their fur and ears in trembling warmth and plays with him, races circles around her friend and snaps playfully at him with her teeth. She knows Mal relishes their time in the woods just as much as she does, but she often sees him glancing back at the trees as they walk on two legs towards the palace and she understands the look in his eyes. Mal misses tracking and spending days on end stalking through the woods on the hunt for his prey. He never mentions anything to her though and so she teases him extra hard each morning as they walk back through the fields, jokes with him and asks about his plans for the day and inquires after Nikolai. 

Mal lets her, responding only with laughter and good humor, and Alina is so grateful for her friend who came when Genya asked and who has never once begrudged her for uprooting his whole life. So she leans on him, lets herself be physically affectionate with him as they were when they were children, easy touches and hugs, arms around shoulders and whispered words pressed into ears as they laugh together. Just as she can feel new muscles forming in her thighs and calves from running with Mal each morning, so too can she feel the bonds of their friendship strengthening and glowing with joyful light. She delivers Mal at the door to the rooms he shares with Nikolai each morning, grinning at the sleepy prince each time he complains that they’re disturbing his beauty sleep, and then turns to take her breakfast in the dining hall. The large and echoing room which had once been so frightening and overwhelming to Alina is now one of her favorite places; she can always find someone to talk to, can always walk away from a meal with a full belly and the name of a new acquaintance on her tongue. She eats with Nadia and Marie most often, taking the time to truly begin to know the two friends and ask them questions about themselves, share stories about her life with them, laugh with them. She finds that she likes them more and more, realizes there’s much more to the two friends than their giggling happiness and obsession with the general. Both are dedicated soldiers, skilled at fighting and strategy; Marie is especially adept at languages and history while Nadia prefers to use her talents to mix chemical poisons or train. 

Alina widens her circle of friends to include not just Marie and Nadia but Fedyor as well; the smiling young man finds her at lunch a week after they’d first fought and asks to join her. They’d slipped into easy conversation, first about training and how excited they both are about the upcoming festivities and break from classes, but Fedyor is such a good listener and so easy to talk to that Alina begins to open up more. She shares stories of what solstice was like at the orphanage, of the small parties they held with the children dancing in circles and slightly sugar crazed, of how much she still misses Keramzin and the shape of the places she grew up in despite the circumstances. Fedyor nods along, face wide and open as he listens, giving her the silence to tell him more. When she’s finished he shares his own story of being brought to the Little Palace as a small child, left to die after a Fjerdan attack on his village. Alina reaches out to squeeze his hand when she discovers he’s an orphan too and they smile at each other for a moment before he continues, describing his awe during the first solstice celebration and how he’d stuffed himself sick with desserts. 

Alina had laughed at that and shared her similar experience at the Lunar Ball, telling him that they can have a competition at solstice to see who can eat the most treats. Fedyor had laughed along with her, dark blonde hair shining as his eyes scrunched up. Several days later as they eat together again Alina describes her feelings of trepidation and fear and loneliness when she first arrived at the Little Palace, how scared and uncomfortable she felt as an orphan in the shining grandeur of this place.

“Why did you choose to join the Second Army?” Fedyor asks, pausing in the middle of downing his third bowl of thick rice porridge. And so the young soldier becomes the fourth person Alina tells about her mate, pours her story of heartbreak and confusion and hurt out to as she explains how she came to be at the Little Palace. Fedyor listens to every word she says, doesn’t pry when she lapses into long pauses between her words or struggles to voice her feelings. He just offers her a quick hug when she’s done and to her own surprise she accepts, sinking into the warm cinnamon scent of his arms and smiling against his shoulder, chest slightly lighter now that she’s told another person what happened to her. 

“Thank you for telling me” Fedyor says, pulling back and locking eyes with hers. “I’m sorry we didn’t meet sooner– I would have liked to be your friend during those months and eat pastries with you and Genya.” At his last words Alina laughs just as she knows he intended her to and they both smile, both pretend not to notice the salty tear tracks on her cheeks. Fedyor joins her and Marie and Nadia at meals sometimes after those long conversations and to their glee the three girls discover that the young man is a depthless well of palace gossip, always willing to share what he knows about their students and teachers. Alina spends many happy meals with the three of them laughing so hard that she doesn’t always manage to eat all of her food. She quizzes them on the subjects for their final exams, discusses dress designs and fabric colors with Marie, makes plans with Fedyor and Nadia to have a snowball fight. She feels happy and excited for each new day and the light Genya and Mal and Nikolai lit inside her heart glows brighter every day.

Her classes have also improved and while Alina is unsure if this is due to her new joy and energy or the fact that her teachers are tired and ready for the holidays to begin, she’s happy to be learning, happy each time she understands a lesson and can begin to connect concepts in her mind. With each book she reads in the library, each diagram she studies and each story of the battles of old, she begins to dream of military movements, of how to fight Ravka’s enemies and protect the borders. Protect the people, the children in the villages who deserve to keep their homes and parents. She excels most of all in training; now that her body is growing stronger from her morning runs and her bones are filled with boundless energy, all she wants to do is move and learn. It thrills her every time she tries a new move and can do it, when her body answers each question she asks it. She can lunge and twist and jump now, can punch with purpose and precision, can sweep her legs out in powerful kicks and hit a piece of wood so hard with the heel of her hand that it shatters. She’s still working on hand-to-hand combat but Botkin nods at her in approval at the end of each day and he’s promised that if she continues to learn quickly and well, she can start with weapons in the new year. Alina can’t wait; she’s always wanted to have a sword and she likes the feeling of growing stronger, of cultivating her body and mind. 

Each evening after dinner she retreats to her rooms, takes a moment to savor the silence after hours filled with the breaths and scents of so many other people. Just like the rest of her, her rooms have begun to change as well. She’s tried not to ask too much of the servants because she knows how busy they are cleaning and decorating the entire palace, but she’d wanted her space to feel like it was hers . The first thing she’d done was ask Genya for help and the older girl had immediately started pulling squares of colorful fabric out of somewhere for Alina to choose from, already rambling about decorative pillows. They’d worked together to strip all of the golden blankets from Alina’s bed, as well as the snowy white sheets and pillowcases, then remade the bed with soft cream sheets sprinkled in small blue flowers. Her pillows were now the deep cobalt blue of the ocean and she’d draped several fluffy copper blankets the exact shade of Genya’s curls over the foot of her bed. The older girl had squeezed Alina in a tight hug when she noticed and then carted away all of the discarded blankets and sheets with a satisfied expression. It had felt good to banish the colors and personality he’d chosen for her, to banish the girl he’d imagined she would be. Alina hadn’t stopped at her bed, though. She’d spent two long evenings ripping eclipse embossed paper from the walls, wrinkling her nose at his symbol, and coating the walls instead in a thick coat of rich forest green paint. Now a soft rug hides most of the polished oak floorboards beneath her feet, rich turquoise and teal patterns weaving together and brightening her room even more. An enormous and very comfortable midnight blue couch is tucked against the wall besides new bookshelves already overflowing with tomes and Alina knows her friends will make good use of that couch, will spend long hours laughing and talking in her room. She hasn’t had time to tackle her sitting room or bathroom yet and there’s still finishing touches to be made, decorative pillows for the couch and more fluffy blankets, but she feels much happier now in her rooms. Much more at home. 

So it’s in this different and newly colorful space that she practices each evening, closing the long curtains to block out the darkness of the night as she tries over and over to summon and control her light. She’s still in shock about the sudden reveal of her powers and doesn’t understand why they didn’t manifest sooner. She can’t wrap her mind around how she never noticed that extra light inside of herself, never tried to grasp it or wonder what it was. She thinks maybe the death of her parents, then the years of bullying and eventual loneliness at the orphanage probably chipped away at her inner light, made her too fearful and complacent to even consider it. She doesn’t want to be weak anymore and she doesn’t want to lose her light so she tries, again and again, to make it appear. But nothing ever happens. She tries meditating, tries visualizing the glowing ball of light flowing up her arms and out her fingertips. She tries twisting her fingers in strange shapes, tries talking to the light, pleading with it, yelling at it, begging it. She surrounds herself with candles one night, hoping the flickering light will draw her own light out, but her palms remain stubbornly empty. She even sneaks outside one afternoon to stand in the pale sunlight and tries to move it, tries to grasp the beams with her hands but the light is a slippery phantom. Alina doesn’t give up no matter how frustrated and angry she is, though; she’s been through too many challenges recently to let her own power beat her down. She knows she’ll prevail eventually if she just keeps practicing and trying; there must be a key to summoning the light. She just has to find it. 

Whenever Genya stops by to share tea and cookies with her or quickly work on another fitting for her solstice dress she confides in her friend about her lack of progress. The older girl doesn’t have any ideas about how to help but she listens sympathetically and assures Alina each time that she just needs to keep trying, to keep practicing. 

“It’s just like any other skill” Genya reasons one morning as she drapes stiff white fabric around Alina’s waist and shoves the pins sticking out of her sleeve into the cloth. “You won’t get any better unless you practice, and at first it’s going to be a bit difficult because you’re still learning.” 

Satisfied with her work she steps back to admire Alina, who is standing with her arms out straight at her sides and trying not to move so that she won’t be pricked by one of the many small slivers of needle holding the fabric together. She isn’t sure yet what Genya is creating for her but she trusts her friend's vision, trusts her to make something beautiful and comfortable and completely Alina . She examines the shape starting to take form on her and decides that she’s very glad sewing and tailoring aren’t skills she needs to learn or practice; it all looks much too difficult for her. Genya, though, is muttering to herself and jotting down notes with an almost fanatical gleam in her eye and Alina grins at her friend, suddenly sure she’ll have the most beautiful dress at the solstice. 

“Genya” she says suddenly, brows bunching together, “are you sure you have enough time to make your own dress for the festival?” Her friend’s face falls a bit as she registers Alina’s question and pulls herself out of her notes, turning to look at her in a whirl of copper curls and guilty blue eyes. “I don’t think I’m going, actually” she says quietly, biting her lower lip as she looks up at Alina with obvious nerves. 

“Why not?” Alina exclaims, forgetting the pins as she places her hands on her hips and instantly pricks herself. “You have to! I want to dance with you! And think about all the desserts, Genya– blini and caramel waffles and chocolates and things we’ve never even tasted.” Her tone turns pleading as she widens her eyes at her friend and sticks her slightly bleeding finger in her mouth. The redhead looks down at the floor, studies her toes as she shuffles them, sighs deeply. 

“I don’t want to see the queen again” she murmurs, eyes still downcast. “Or the king. I know I don’t work for them any longer but it’s– I just don’t want to see either of them. I don’t want to have to worry that they’ll talk to me, even though it’s very unlikely, or that– I don’t know.” 

Alina softens at Genya’s words, softens at how similar the older girls’ feelings are to her own towards Kirigan. She steps down from the pile of cushions and wraps her arms around Genya in a tight embrace, squeezing the older girl and murmuring a quiet I understand in her ear. Genya squeezes her back and then squeaks– she’s been pierced by one of the offending silver pins too. They separate and laugh at each other, Genya sucking on her own bloody finger just as Alina did. It’s at that moment that Nikolai dances into the room, decked out in a beautiful dark jade dress coat embroidered with shining silver waves and tiny fish. Alina thinks she glimpses a sea dragon peeking over one shoulder as he turns but he’s moving too fast for her to be sure. Underneath the coat his clothes are normal– the billowy white shirt he refuses to abandon even in the cold of winter and long black pants and boots. Mal is following his humming and whirling mate, arms crossed and resigned expression on his face as he collapses onto the long couch and immediately closes his eyes. 

“Genya! Alina!” Nikolai cries as he whirls towards them, grasping Genya’s hands in both of his and dancing her around the room, letting her twirl away and then reeling her back in with graceful steps. They waltz a circle around Alina, then twirl towards the far side of her room and back, Genya laughing all the while but managing to keep pace and finally finish when Nikolai dramatically dips her right in front of Mal. The prince’s mate cracks an eye open and groans, pulling a pillow on top of his face to try and block out the laughter of all three of them. Nikolai sweeps Genya upright, her cheeks flushed a bright pink as she smoothes her clothes, and dips into a very fanciful and painful looking bow. “Save me a dance, beautiful maiden?” he asks, peeking up at Genya from beneath golden lashes and shining golden waves. 

“She can’t actually,” Alina cuts in for her friend, who smiles at her in relief and returns to her notebook, “she has something very important to do– a hot bath and going to sleep early to welcome the new year properly.” She hears Mal mutter something about how he’d like to have a quiet night of sleep for once but his words are muffled by the pillow over his face– she thinks he should be grateful Nikolai didn’t register what he said. The young prince is clutching at his heart like he’s been stabbed and gazing at Genya with wounded eyes. “But who will feast upon all the pastries and delicacies of the night with me?” he asks, dramatically flopping down on the couch beside his mate and placing a hand on his forehead like he’s about to swoon. “Who will cause mischief and mayhem? Who will help me put centipedes on my mother’s chair and poison my father’s wine?” 

“Alina can do all that,” Mal mumbles, “and stop plotting to kill your parents so loudly. They might take you seriously someday.” 

“They’ll never take someone as pretty as I am seriously” Nikolai replies, waving a hand and moving Mal’s legs so that they drape over his lap. “You’ll dance with me, though, won’t you ‘Lina?” he asks, turning pleading hazel eyes to her and clasping his fingers under his chin like a cherub. “You’ll wreck madness with me?” 

She’s already laughing but she nods at him and Nikolai pumps the air with his fists, looking more like a child who’s just earned a great prize than the second prince of Ravka. “I don’t need you anymore, Malyen” he says grandly, poking his mate in the stomach. “Alina’s agreed to be my dance partner. I know it may squash your spirit not to dance with the most handsome man in Ravka but you’ll just have to find a way to survive somehow, darling. Try not to be too crushed.” 

Alina and Genya are both snorting with laughter now, clutching each other as they try to stay upright and laughing into each other’s shoulders. The pins around Alina keep pricking their arms but neither one of them moves. Mal is laughing from beneath the pillow on his face too and as he stuffs it under his head he grins widely at his mate, chestnut hair tousled and eyes bright. “I think I’ll survive the heartbreak somehow, sobachka, ” he says, “and an evening of rest for my feet will surely help soften the blow of your rejection.” 

Genya and Alina finally right themselves and the older girl finally unpins the fabric from around her waist and spine while Nikolai berates Mal in the background, his mate just laughing at his antics and replying in a fond tone. Alina slips the warm fur of her kefta back over her shoulders and rolls her eyes at a smiling Genya because of how dramatic the boys are being. Her heart is full of the laughter and playfulness of her friends, glowing bright with her love for them. As Genya busies herself gathering her sewing supplies and the lengths of fabric Alina turns toward the couch but pauses suddenly, catching a glimmer out of the corner of her eye. Twisting back to face her reflection in the mirror she frowns at her long black braid and brown eyes. She’s sure she saw something, a flash of glittering brightness, but– maybe it was just one of the pins scattered across the floor catching the sun. Satisfied, Alina joins her friends on the couch and spends a happy afternoon laughing and talking with them, forgetting all about the small flash of light. 

☀☀☀

As the winter solstice creeps closer and closer Alina goes about each day and attends her lessons and eats her meals without ever catching another glimpse of Kirigan. She’s grateful that he’s finally decided to listen to her and leave her alone but she feels jumpy too, constantly glancing over her shoulders and scanning the dining hall for his dark kefta . Now that she knows he’s in the Little Palace his absence is glaringly obvious and even though it’s what she wants, what she asked him for, each day without his presence heightens her nerves. She feels like there’s a constant thread of electricity humming just beneath her skin, setting her nerves on fire and increasing her heartbeat until she can barely concentrate. She startles at any small noise and is distracted at meals, unconsciously searching for him and then mentally scolding herself when she realizes what she’s doing. Her wolf is on alert for him too and any time she catches a whiff of burning logs from the lit fireplaces she perks up for a moment before realizing it’s not him. Alina hates that even his absence can set her on edge so much, can make her grind her teeth and lose her concentration. 

Her scattered mind and attention span aren’t helped by her continued failure at summoning her powers despite her attempts each evening, dedicating a solid hour of every day to calling that light within herself. The light never answers, though, always dances just out of reach as if it’s teasing her. She falls asleep each night with a wrinkled brow and frustration in her heart as she ponders how to make the light answer her. It had seeped out of her so easily whenever Kirigan touched her, had come when she demonstrated her new abilities to her friends just a day after her conversation with him. And the worst part is that she can feel the light, knows it’s in every inch of her, flowing just beneath her skin and encasing her entire body like golden armor. 

As she lies in bed exactly a week before the solstice, glaring up at her newly snowy white ceiling and thinking about how offensive it is that her own power won’t answer her, the door to her room bangs open and Genya comes rushing in. As Alina turns her head against the pillows to look at her friend she thinks that maybe she needs to get a lock for her door; everyone seems entirely too comfortable barging in at all hours of the day. “Genya?” She asks, sitting up against the cobalt pillows and pushing her loose strands of hair over one shoulder, “What is it? What’s wrong?” 

The older girl is clutching a creamy envelope in her hand and looks less put together than ever before; her copper curls are in a simple braid and she’s wearing a fluffy pink robe over gray felted slippers. Her face is paler than usual as she collapses besides Alina and stuffs the letter into her hands. “Here” she says, panting slightly, “read it.” When Alina doesn’t move Genya groans and takes the envelope back, twisting it in trembling fingers. 

“The tsar found out about your powers somehow– that bastard probably has spies hidden in the walls and sleeping under our beds.” Her blue eyes are wide and Alina can tell that she’s close to tears, but her own stomach is already tangling into nauseating knots as she processes her friends’ words. She can feel the blood draining from her face, can feel cool sweat beginning to slide down her back and there’s an awful fluttering in her chest as her heart picks up speed. “What?” she whispers, barely moving her dry lips, “How?” 

“I don’t know!” Genya cries and now tears are sliding down her pale cheeks as she pulls her knees to her chest and huddles over them, letter forgotten on the bedspread. “But he’s demanded that you perform at the fête– to demonstrate the ‘light of Ravka’s newest weapon’ to our allies. He’s going to tell them that you’re the Sun Summoner who can destroy the Shadow Fold and save Ravka.” 

“I can’t do any of that!” Alina cries, drawing back against the pillows and clutching her arms around her roiling stomach. “I don’t even know how to make my light appear, Genya! How am I supposed to save Ravka?” 

“I’m so sorry Alina” the older girl whispers, chin trembling, and they lapse into tearful silence as they gaze at each other, dread and anxiety reflected in blue and brown eyes. Alina tries to steady her breathing, tries to swallow past the lump in her throat as she considers all that’s happened– the king and thus likely the whole royal family as well as the court are aware of her powers and in a week’s time Ravka’s allies and the world will know about her too. She doesn’t understand how the tsar has discovered her secret; the only people in the world who know are her three friends and Kirigan. She’s certain none of them would have shared her secret; even Kirigan, full of lies as he is, wouldn’t betray her like that. And she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to be able to demonstrate her powers at solstice; she can’t even manage to make her fingertips glow right now. 

“What happens if I can’t do it, Genya?” she whispers, raising her eyes to her friend and biting hard on her lower lip until she tastes blood. The older girl swipes her hands across her cheeks and sits up straight, tossing her braid over a shoulder. “You can do it, Alina,” she says in a suddenly firm voice, tangling their fingers together across the bedspread. “I know you can do it because you’re strong and determined and powerful. I believe in you and I’m going to help you every minute of every day from now until the solstice.” 

Alina nods, her own spine snapping erect as she draws comfort from her friend’s words. “And,” Genya continues, “you’re going to ask the General to teach you how to summon.” 

☀☀☀

Two days later Alina finds herself standing outside the door to Kirigan’s rooms, glaring at the wood like it’s his face instead of an inanimate object. She’d laughed at Genya’s suggestion to ask her former mate for help and then abruptly stopped when she’d realized her friend was serious. Genya had argued with her, shouted and glared and explained over and over again why the man was the best person to help her until Alina had finally relented. It did make sense that Kirigan would be able to teach her– he was a summoner too, the only other person she knew of in Ravka with powers similar to her own. And he had hundreds of years of experience and knowledge which he could share with her when it came to their abilities. She knew Genya wanted only the best for her, wanted nothing more than for Alina to master her light and succeed at the solstice so as to avoid the tsar’s wrath but she hated that she would have to ask him for help. She didn’t want anything from him ever again but here she was, standing outside his door about to speak to him again. 

Just as she’s raising a clenched fist to knock the door swings open and her senses are suddenly assaulted by his presence and smell and eyes after so many days of nothing; black kefta and black clothes, dark hair and darker eyes, warm bergamot and a hint of evergreens as if he’s just come from a walk in the woods. He’s right there , so close she could reach out and touch his face as she had in the dream, could kiss his neck and trail her fingertips down his chest. Alina shakes herself out of the memories of that dream as Kirigan blinks at her, face calm but not unkind. “I need your help” she blurts out, shifting from foot to foot and wondering if it’s too late to just give up and let the tsar kill her when she can’t summon her light at the festival. 

Kirigan merely steps aside to allow her into his rooms and then closes the door behind her with a soft snick that is as loud as the thud of a guillotine to her ears. They’re in his office and she can see from the stacks of papers and open inkpot covering his large cherry desk that he was in the middle of working when she interrupted him. She spins to face him before she can become too distracted by the tiers of books covering almost every wall, surprised to find that he’s still standing across the room and far away from her. She knows he’s waiting for her to continue, to explain, and she swallows once, twice, trying to calm her racing heart. 

“I need to be able to call my light at the solstice” she begins, “for the tsar . And his allies. He wants them to see my powers, but– I can’t make the light come to me, no matter what I do.” 

Kirigan blinks, crosses ink stained fingers across his chest. “I had learned from my spies in the Grand Palace that the tsar has discovered the secret of your power, yes” he says and the warm silk of his voice makes Alina shiver slightly. 

“You knew?” Alina cries, incredulous and angry all at once. “And you didn’t– why didn’t you tell me?” 

“I believe that would have been in violation of your wishes, Alina” Kirigan replies, raising his brows as he sheds his long kefta and sets it on a chair near the door. She glares at him, fingers clenched into fists and tries very, very hard not to let her eyes dip to the pale skin exposed by his shirt. “It appears my tutelage is already taking effect, though” the general says, a wry smile curving his lips as he nods at her fingers and Alina glances down only to find that bright gold is leaking from her fists. 

“I don’t– I don’t know how I’m doing it, though” she tells him, uncurling her fingers to study the light now pooling in her palms and radiating warmth. 

“The light is a part of you, Alina,” Kirigan says, crossing the room to stand just outside the light now dripping onto the dark carpet at her feet and looking at her with intense eyes. His scent of bergamot and pines is so much stronger when he’s close to her like this and she can see every detail of his face now, each sweep of his lashes and the slide of his Adam's apple as he swallows. For a moment she’s entranced by his small details, can think only of what his skin would feel like under her fingertips, of the taste of his mouth. 

“Your emotions rule you at the moment and you unconsciously call your light when you feel especially strong emotions– anger, for example, or fear.” He looks pointedly at her clenched jaw and she rolls her eyes, tries to relax her shoulders and let go of the anger still heating her blood. The light in her palms slowly drains away and he nods, smiling slightly at her. “Good” he says, slim fingers moving to his shirtsleeves and rolling the dark fabric up pale forearms covered in glimmering white scars. “Let’s begin again, now.” 

Kirigan walks Alina through the first steps of finding and summoning her light, voice calm and almost kind as he describes how his own shadows work. She’s surprised when he describes them as a thin layer of darkness beneath his skin instead of a ball in his chest like her light is for her. But she listens as he tells her how he calls on them, draws the shadows up through his skin and commands them just as he would another limb. Tries to follow his words and do the same with her light, exclaims with happiness when she can feel glittering gold sliding down her arms and lighting up her fingertips like flaming candles. Kirigan nods approvingly as he watches her and she grins at him just like she had that day in the training room, giddy and proud of herself. 

“The light will always come to your hands first” he tells her, summoning dark talons of shadow at his own fingertips. “We can summon and control our power best with our hands.” 

“Teach me more” she breathes, feeling the warmth of the light against her cheeks and nose as she lifts her hands to study the light and he does, darkening his own shadows and explaining how he imagines them coalescing, taking any form he imagines or circling around his feet in a pool of inky black. Alina struggles for the rest of the afternoon, though, can’t make anything more happen than the warm glowing light at her fingertips. No matter how hard she strains her mind, no matter how long she squeezes her eyes shut and imagines the light coalescing into a bright ball of light in her palm nothing happens. Kirigan seems unperturbed, though, merely leans against his desk and crosses his arms as he watches her practice. He looks so casual without his kefta , younger somehow, and Alina’s reminded of the very vivid dream she had of him and another desk. Of what happened on that desk. Blushing, she drops her hands and lets the light fade away, tired and hungry and ready to be done. 

“I don’t think I can do any more today” she admits, slumping to the ground and leaning back on her warm palms as she crosses her legs and looks up at Kirigan with a frown. She expects him to berate her, to push her, to tell her that she is a soldier and soldiers have no need for rest, but he merely nods. He surprises her by sliding to the ground as well, resting his back against the dark wood of the desk leg as he stretches his long legs out in front of himself. Alina knows that if she moved her legs slightly or unfolded them they would be touching, skin on skin for the first time in months. She doesn’t move, though, refuses to think about why her traitorous heart is beating so quickly again, about why she can feel her pulse hammering in her neck. 

“I struggled with my shadows for many years” Kirigan says quietly and when she jerks her eyes to his he’s rubbing a thumb over the pale skin of his wrist, lost in thought. “I had no one to teach me, no one who understood my power or what it meant. I learned alone by trial and error, and I’ve spent hundreds of years perfecting my control.” 

Alina blinks at him, stunned at this sudden candor, hardly believing that he’s sharing something personal with her. “That must have been very difficult,” she whispers before she can stop herself. 

“It made me stronger,” Kirigan says, turning his eyes to hers and his eyes are burning with a dark fire. Suddenly she knows that those four words are hiding years of pain and isolation he’s had to face alone, mountains of fear and disgust he’s climbed alone. 

“I learned as a small child not to share the truth of my shadows with others,” he continues, eyes still locked with hers. “I had two friends, brothers from a nearby farm, and we would play together in the afternoons. They were bigger than me, and stronger, and they always won our games. I made a plan, though, and I used my shadows one day to win at hide and seek, to cloak myself in darkness until they gave up and called for me.” 

Alina grimaces, drawing her knees to her chest and resting her chin atop them, already feeling that this story doesn’t have a happy ending. 

“I was pleased with myself and my victory but when I showed them how I had won, summoned my shadows and pulled them around myself, they were terrified. They thought I was cursed by the Saints– a demon. So they tried to kill me.” 

Alina’s heart hurts for the little boy the General had once been, for the pain it’s clear he’s had to face since his earliest years because of his ability. “That’s awful” she murmurs, brows furrowing as she looks at her former mate with sad eyes. He shrugs and his cool mask slips back into place, skin smoothing of any expression as his eyes darken. “They helped me learn an important lesson,” he replies. “A lesson you have just begun to learn with the tsar’s discovery– trust no one, Alinochka.” 

She doesn’t protest at the nickname, doesn’t say anything as he walks her to the door and tells her that he expects to see her at training at the same time tomorrow. She doesn’t say much for the rest of the day, is quiet and distracted at dinner as she imagines over and over a tiny dark haired boy killing his two best friends to save himself. 

☀☀☀

Alina and Kirigan continue to train for the next four days, meeting in his rooms each afternoon in an unspoken agreement. The general guides Alina through the discovery of her powers and the control she is slowly building with calm words and steadfast encouragement. He never wavers in his belief in her, never loses his temper when she struggles to do something or doesn’t understand what he’s asking of her. She knows it must be difficult for him too, to try and translate the way his shadows feel when they answer him into words so that he can help her, but he is a limitless well of ideas as they work together and slowly unearth her light. Kirigan was right in that large emotions, great swells of anger or fear or love or joy will call her light, so Alina practices drawing her light up from her chest until she can do it no matter how she feels. Together they experiment with the finger movements needed to swirl her light into a glowing ball and Kirigan works alongside her, letting her watch his hands as he sweeps his shadows into a hovering orb of inky darkness. They realize that though their powers are similar, not everything that works for one will work for the other. The way Alina perceives and summons her light is different from how the general calls his shadows. While his fingers move in deliberate, precise strokes to control the darkness, Alina is freer in her movements, more artistic. She summons the light but also allows it freedom to play, to twirl around her and warm the air. 

Alina’s joy in her light grows with each hour of practice and she smiles at the golden brightness that now coats her hands and drips past her elbows like melted gloves every time she calls it. There is a seemingly endless well of light inside of her; her heart glows so brightly with it, fed by her morning runs with Mal, the laughter of her friends at meals and in her room, the new strength and skills she’s developing, that she doesn’t think she’ll ever run out of light. She’s warm, too, warm all the time, always shedding extra layers and opening windows to let the cool winter air kiss her flushed cheeks. She’s warmest of all when she’s with Kirigan; something about his presence heats her blood to almost boiling and suffuses her whole body with sparkling warmth. She can’t help but enjoy the way his shadows play with her light, smiling as they work to discover and learn more about their abilities together. She thinks he enjoys their training sessions, too, for he smiles at her sometimes and he seems energized as she appears in his rooms each day, always coming up with new ideas for her to try. He teaches her how to separate one glowing orb of light into two, then three and four, then twirl the orbs around her head in a shining halo. He shows her how he can flatten his own shadow orbs into long, thin spears of darkness that can be thrown to pierce through wood or metal with enough force. Alina finds it strange to think of her light as a weapon when it’s so obviously a gift from the life energy of the world but practices anyways, flattens her light into shards and hurls them at the wall over and over until the dark wallpaper is littered with holes. They work on creating starbursts of light and shadow, on swooping sunbeams and pools of glittering light, on wrapping the golden warmth around Alina until her whole body glows. 

When Alina collapses to the floor each day, demanding food and a break, Kirigan obliges. They share freshly baked bread and chestnut butter, warm gnocchi with mushrooms and tall glasses of sparkling cider. He shows her how to do fanciful things with her light while they eat, demonstrating his shadow claws and blooming flowers of darkness, even an inky crown that looks entirely too good on his pale brow. She discovers that the general has an incurable sweet tooth– at the end of each meal there’s always a dessert to be shared; tiramisu one day, rich chocolate cake the next, orange biscuits and lemon cake and blini in flavors she’s never tasted. Alina is already fed a steady stream of sweets because of Genya so she always gives Kirigan the bigger portion of the desserts and enjoys the small smiles he flashes her each time. She enjoys all of his expressions, actually, enjoys how his brows bunch in concentration when he’s summoning or how his eyes shine with pride when she masters a new skill. She loses her breath a bit each time he smiles at her and finds that she works harder in hopes of receiving his approval. 

She finds herself opening up to him a bit more during those meals on the floor, something about his casual posture and rolled up sleeves as they eat, rendering him more trustworthy, more human. He never wears his kefta while they train together so she feels like she’s talking to Kirigan, not the General. It’s to Kirigan that she tells stories of her childhood in Keramzin when he asks, describing the days of lessons and her favorite memories of summer meadows and Mal. He listens when she describes how lonely she was once Mal left and they talk about all the books she read in the library at Keramzin, discussing characters and plot lines as they discover they love many of the same authors. Kirigan even loans her some of the books from his personal library to read, asking that she return to discuss her thoughts on the books once she’s finished with them. He tells her about the part of Ravka he grew up in, about what the country was like and how the first tsar looked. He tells her, with pride in his voice, of how he worked with a later tsar to design and build the Little Palace as a sanctuary for any future Ravkans who would share their summoning powers or any other abilities. He describes his visits to Shu Han to her, paints a bright picture of the country and its people, the culture and food and sunny weather. Alina drinks in his words, hungry for knowledge about the country of her mother that isn’t tinged with hatred, tries to form her tongue around the unfamiliar sounds of Shu words Kirigan teaches her. 

Those four afternoons they spend training and talking and eating together are, in the grand scheme of life, a mere second of time. But to Alina four afternoons feels like an eternity. She learns so much about Kirigan in the hours they spend together; not so much from his stories, but more from how he moves, his expressions, his face as he watches her and helps her learn. She likes that he trains alongside her, that they learn and grow from each other. She even teaches him something new; on the third day she discovers how to angle her light just right through a glass cup and create a rainbow of scattered light. When Kirigan tries he creates only fragmented shadows but he looks thoughtful and Alina knows his mind is whirring about how he can use this new trick. 

On the evening before the solstice Kirigan watches as she gives him a demonstration of the skills she’s mastered and plans to display for the tsar and festival attendants tomorrow. Dark eyes follow every twist and turn of her fingers as she tosses balls of light through the air then transforms them into glittering starbursts, pushes those starbursts to the corners of the room and blows them apart with clenched fingers, lets the glittering light rain down in a gentle shower of sparks and then coalesces the light again to twist and bloom as golden flowers. Finally she’s done, light still hovering around her limbs and coating her palms in glittering warmth but she knows when she meets his eyes that Kirigan is pleased. He doesn’t move from his position against the desk, doesn’t unfold his arms from across his chest, but he’s smiling at her, a true smile. 

“Well done, Alina” he tells her, those dark eyes warmer than she’s ever seen, “I believe you’re ready.” 

“I think I am too” she replies, smiling back at him with all the joy and brightness still lingering in her heart. It’s not that she isn’t still furious at him but– these past four days she’s begun to learn that he’s a person, too. And he has been very, very helpful, offering his knowledge and help freely. He’s continued to respect her wishes, never touching her, never invading her personal space. He hasn’t sought her out either and she still doesn’t see him outside of these training sessions, never even a glimpse of his dark hair in the halls of the palace. Movement behind him catches her eye and she peers through the glass over his shoulder only to gasp with excitement. 

“It’s snowing!” she exclaims, bouncing slightly on her toes. Kirigan, who had tensed at her gasp, twists slowly to gaze in the direction of her finger where fat white snowflakes are drifting through the air, bright against the darkening sky. “It’s beautiful,” Alina says, hugging her arms around her stomach and smiling out the window at the snow. She loves snowflakes, loves how each one is different but perfect, loves how such tiny things can build up to massive snow drifts. 

“Yes,” Kirigan says, “it is.” But though her eyes are on the snow she can feel his dark gaze on her face as he speaks and suddenly the space between them is taught, pulling tight like a line. Alina steps back, then back again, roiling sparks lighting up her skin and increasing her heartbeat. “I should go” she says quietly, still backing away from where Kirigan leans against the desk watching her, “Genya will be so angry if I have dark circles under my eyes tomorrow.” 

“Goodnight then, Alina” Kirigan replies, cool voice softer than she’s ever heard as he holds her gaze with his dark eyes. She backs up until her spine hits the polished wood of the door and fumbles for the handle, pulls the door open and is just about to make her escape when he speaks again. 

“Will you save me a dance tomorrow, Alina?” 

His voice is still quiet, still soft and cool like black silk, but something in his tone has her grinning at him, letting some of her light trickle into the growing gloom of his study and illuminate the floor around her feet. “Maybe” she tells him with a tilt of her head, a sweep of her hair over one shoulder and then she’s turning and shutting the door swiftly and running the few paces back to her own rooms, the sound of her name on his lips ringing in her ears.

Chapter Text

Her heart is pounding hard against her breastbone as she sweeps through the silent marble hallways of the Little Palace. Her fingers, covered in snowy white silk, are looped through the crook of his elbow. The contrast of white against ink wool is as stark as the image they make together; his dark suit and hair, black eyes and face as devoid of emotion as ice while her dress is composed of layers upon layers of delicate, palest blush tulle. Her skirts make a slight shushing noise against the marble with each step and as the first strains of music reach her ears Alina curls her fingers tighter around Kirigan’s arm. His head is high, gaze focused ahead as they stride in unison past windows showing nothing but the deepest blue of night and their own reflections. His scent of woodsmoke and bergamot, mixed with something new that reminds her of licorice, wraps around her in a warm blanket of comfort and she lets his silent strength infuse her steps, raise her chin and settle her insides. 

She can feel the silk lining her slippers against her toes, can feel the slight itch of the long black waves carefully arranged to fall down her back. Genya had spent hours weaving tiny braids into an intricate braid crossing the top of her head and then curling the rest of her hair to fall perfectly. Alina knows there are enough golden suns of varying sizes pinned into those braids that from a distance it seems as if she is wearing a diadem of gilded rays. She catches a glimpse of their reflections in the last windows before the turn of the hallways which will funnel them into the dining hall– now ballroom– and thinks, suddenly, of the myth of Perseophone and Hades. Alina can empathize with the goddess a bit now, perhaps, can understand what it was like to embody spring and life and growing things but to love the darkness of deepest night, to crave the peace of eternal sleep. To want nothing more than to be wrapped in her love’s shadows. 

The music grows louder as they approach the open double doors of the dining hall which have been thrown back to allow guests to flow through, the sharp scent of the evergreen bows around the doorway filling her nose. Kirigan squeezes her arm slightly against his side before they enter and she knows it’s a silent signal from him to ready herself, to stand tall and present the polished face of Ravka’s soon to be savior to the room full of people. She takes a deep breath, forces air into her lungs despite how tight her throat feels. She lets the air fill up all the hollow places inside her until her spine is straight, her shoulders are thrown back and her posture is so perfect even her diplomacy teacher would be pleased. She feels Kirigan nod in approval and then they’re sweeping through the entrance and entering the hall of glittering lights and ornaments, crowds of colorfully dressed guests and party goers turning like a giant beast to study them. It’s only because of Kirigan’s arm hooked through hers and the purpose of his steps that Alina keeps moving, though her feet do falter for a moment as she realizes just how many people are in the dining hall. Young and old, caked in makeup or fresh faced, dressed in bright reds and pinks and blues, verdant green and shining yellow-gold, deep purple and soft aquamarine, every shade of the rainbow represented in feathers and jewels and silks. And each of them, every one, is gazing at her as Kirigan leads her through the room to the foot of the raised dais that has been erected for the Ravkan royals. With the suns in her hair and the beautiful layers of pale rose fabric trailing behind her, Alina feels almost equal to the royals as they halt. The gold in her hair is echoed in the shimmering golden suns, surrounded by spiking rays, embroidered thickly on the fine boning of her bodice and sprinkled loosely across her hips and sweeping skirts. She feels like a living ray of sunshine, a goddess of daylight and warmth, and so she merely dips her head to the rulers of Ravka instead of curtsying. 

The tsar looks as pudgy and ugly as ever despite the best efforts of the beautifully crafted cobalt blue suit he’s been stuffed into, his face slack and already red from the wine clutched in one meaty fist. His wife is dressed in a shade of palest blue that reminds Alina of the thin ice that cracks beneath your feet; the color compliments her flaxen hair perfectly, making her seem as though she is a living statue with her too-smooth skin and eyes such a bright azure they burn to look at. Those eyes are boring into Alina like she’s a bug under glass and it’s only the flickering warmth of her sunshine in her chest and pushing against her fingertips, only the reminder that tonight she is a sun goddess and nothing can hurt her, only the soft wool of Kirigan’s suit against her bare arm that keeps her upright and tall. 

“ Moi tsar ” Kirigan says, voice smooth and no louder than usual yet the room is suddenly near-silent with only the occasional clink of glasses or whisper of words as all around them the guests observe. The general bows, but not as deeply as he should to the royals and Alina can only hope that the wine has addled the tsar’s brains enough that he won’t take offense. 

“General,” the tsar replies, waving a hand vaguely in their direction and upending his wineglass into his mouth, “I’m surprised you’re here. You’re so stiff and such a bore– shouldn’t you be off fighting our wars?” 

“I make exceptions for occasions as fine as this one” Kirigan replies calmly but as Alina peeks at his profile she thinks she can see anger and something else burning deep in his black eyes. Around them the whispers of the guests pick up in volume; the tsar has, with one comment, publicly reminded each person present of who truly holds the military and strategic power in the country. Somehow Alina thinks maybe this was Kirigan’s intention after all; the ambassadors of countries friendly with Ravka will remember the comment and approach the man at her side tonight instead of the king. 

“Hmph!.” The tsar snorts into his empty glass and then frowns at it, holding it out so a nearby servant can hastily refill it with rich red liquid. “Well, whatever your pleasure, indulge tonight and make merry before I send you back out again” the tsar tells them, watery eyes already focused on his cup. Alina frowns at the statement, wondering if the general is going to be leaving the Little Palace again so soon and trying to ignore the awful swooping sensation in her stomach at the thought, but Kirigan is already turning and leading her away from the dais onto the dancefloor. He positions them exactly in the center of the marble floor, other guests trickling in around them to form dancing pairs while the music slowly begins again. Kirigan extends a hand toward her, pale fingers bridging the slight space between them and dark eyebrows raised as he inspects her. 

“Shall we dance, then?” 

Alina entwines their fingers in answer and steps forward in time with the opening notes of a stately waltz, feeling her heart begin to calm a bit with the distance from the Ravkan royals. She hated the way the tsar had completely ignored her but had hated even more how the queen’s eyes had studied every inch of her, had skimmed over the golden suns in her hair and embroidered on her sweeping skirts to the tips of her scarlett slippers. Though much more of her skin than ever before is exposed, the almost see-through layers of blush tulle covering her torso obscuring anything scandalous in thanks only to the heavily embroidered suns, the air is warm from the throng of people and the inner warmth Kirigan always seems to draw out of her is heating her blood already. She can feel the shimmering glitter Genya dusted onto her bare arms and shoulders and collarbones shining in the light, can feel that she’s illuminated slightly as she dances. Kirigan matches her steps perfectly, adjusting with each of her movements and never letting them falter or fall out of the dance, strong hand at her waist ready to catch her. 

He sweeps her round and round the dance floor in endless, precise circles, the elbows of their joined hands held at a sharp angle as they both keep their chins up and try very hard not to look into each other’s eyes. Kirigan had barely said a word when he’d arrived at her door to escort her to the Winter Fête, merely scanning her form with those dark eyes and extending his arm. Genya had still been brushing the shimmering glitter across her skin and reminding Alina not to touch her hair too much but the general had paid no head, simply marching toward the party like it was a battle rather than a celebration. As they dance and Alina takes in how stiff he still is, how his eyes never stop moving across the dancers surrounding them, she wonders if he feels as nervous about tonight as she does. It’s hard to imagine someone as old and war-hardened as the general feeling anxiety about a ball, but then, she is about to expose herself and her powers to the world in a few short hours and she knows he doesn’t like that he will no longer be able to hide her. She doesn’t know how she feels about it, either. Alina is proud of her light, proud of herself and of how much she’d learned and grown while preparing for this showcase but she doesn’t want the attention of her peers at the Little Palace for her light, much less the attention of the world and Ravka’s enemies. But she pushes those thoughts out of her head and tries to simply focus on the sweep of her feet across the smooth floor and the scent of licorice and tea lingering in her nostrils. Her head comes up to just beneath Kirigan’s chin and she has the perfect vantage point to each breath he takes, each swallow, each minute twist of his head as he restlessly switches his attention from person to person. 

“Kirigan'' Alina murmurs while sweeping beneath his arm in a smooth circle, “calm down.” Her serene smile never slips and she barely moves her lips but she knows he hears her when those black eyes dart to her and stay trained on her own. He dips his head so quickly she almost misses it but her warning seems to have worked; for the remainder of the dance, as haunting violins flow with the lower symphony of a viola and sweet piano ripple out, the general is focused only on her, spinning her round like a top but always waiting for her to return with gentle fingers and slightly warmer eyes. She enjoys the feeling of his bare skin on hers, rough calluses on both of their palms sliding together. She admires the way the fine black wool of his suit fits so closely to his body, how his broad shoulders and slim waist look in the sleek fabric. She finds that she prefers him without a kefta , prefers to see him as a man instead of the famed general and forget for a while his boundless age and powers. She’s so deep into her thoughts, so focused on letting her body follow the stops and studying Kirigan that she tries to keep dancing even when the music ends. He has to tighten his hands on her to halt the movement of her body and hold her back and it’s such a silly thing but it also startles Alina so much that she doesn’t know whether to laugh or draw back. The guests around them are applauding the musicians and moving off to sample the food overflowing the banquet tables or already positioning themselves for the next dance but all she can do is stand there and stare at him. All she can feel is his hands on her and the rapid rise of her chest as her heart thumps against her ribcage. All she can hear is the shallow gasping of her breath, all she can see as her vision tunnels is his glossy black hair and the straight line of his nose. 

“Thank you for the dance Alina,” he says softly, releasing her before she can decide whether to step closer or step away and then he’s cutting his way through the positioned dancers towards the older men and politicians gathered around the edges of the hall. Alina is still standing where he left her, warmth leaching from her palms and a frown on her face when suddenly Marie and Nadia are colliding into her and shrieking over each other into both ears. They look lovely, Marie in pale lavender which compliments her platinum hair well and Nadia dressed in a deep wine red that lights up her dark skin and long black braids. They’re both exclaiming about the food and the guests and the handsome young men who came with the performing troupe but Alina doesn’t really register their words because they’re talking over each other so quickly. The music starts up again and her friends each grab a hand and tug her into the circle of dancers, laughing, and Nadia shouts in her ear over the music; “Time to dance Alina!” 

And dance they do. 

Alina holds tight to the two other girls as the dance begins, the circle spinning in an unbroken chain first to the right for eight counts then to the left for the same measure, her feet quickly falling into the familiar steps of the folk dance. Soon she’s clapping along with everyone else while the men skip in and out of the circle, then it’s her turn and she darts into the center and out again, moving quickly to grasp hands with those around her in the original circle. They turn in circles, separating to dance round in pairs and then rejoining, clapping and laughing and feet moving along to the joyful beat until Alina can feel the music thrumming in her blood. She swirls in circles, joins hands and skips to the right, skips to the left, claps for the men and darts to the center alongside all the women around her, links elbows with an older gentleman and beams at him as they swing round and round. Her body moves with the music, faster and faster, and she flows among the other dancers on the floor like water over rocks, coming together and separating over and over until they’re one large rotating wheel of movement made of many smaller cogs and gears. She’s laughing and slightly sweaty, palms red from clapping so hard as she waits for her turn to run in, to circle, to move. There’s such a sense of belonging as she dances with the other guests that she never wants the music to end. It’s so easy , this blending in, so easy to be one among many– just another small gear in the greater dance of life. 

The musicians finish with a flourish and Alina lets go of the hands of the people beside her only to clap with all her strength, beaming from the exhilaration running through her and turning to kiss the cheeks of the dancers around her in thanks. Many of them are people she’s never met but she feels a strange sense of kinship with these strangers who danced with her and held her hands and treated her like any other person. These people who gave her several happy minutes of feeling anything but alone. She spots her friends across the floor but the musicians are already lifting their instruments again in preparation for the next dance. And because all Alina wants to do is dance, to keep moving, to feel the glimmer of the chandelier light on her sparkling dress and skin, she falls into line facing a young man with vibrant red hair and smiles at him. Sweet notes cascade from the violins and harp and the dancers are off once more, this time joining palms with partners and weaving together in a flowing line dance. 

Alina can feel the scents of each of her dance partners building up on her skin in layers and knows in return she’s leaving traces of glitter on every person she touches. She doesn’t care, though– it might be a bit uncouth to touch so many people with bare hands but she doesn’t care about the formal rules, doesn’t care if her partners wonder at her hands when there’s no bond mark on her throat. She’s in a trance, rippling music coating her limbs like a second skin and flickering firelight from the chandeliers shining down on her loose hair and painted face as she dances. The chatter of dancers around her and the surrounding crowd discussing politics or the war or the new year buzzes in her ears but all she can care about is this music and this dance and this room. It’s as if everything outside of the hall ceases to exist for her. No classes, no light powers, no war or Shadow Fold or worries about the future. She is more than Alina but still simply herself; a sun goddess gracing this winter celebration with her presence and light but disguised as just another girl. 

She feels powerful. And beautiful. And she can feel the burning light inside her chest soaring up through her veins, chasing across muscles and joints and bones until her skin is shining with more than just iridescent glitter. That soft glow surrounding her like a leashed sunburst only grows brighter by slight degrees the longer that Alina dances. She spins in many arms, holds hands dark and pale and all shades in between, smiles at faces young and old. All the while she moves easily, letting the river of music flow through her and guide her. She doesn’t hear the words they might speak to her, doesn’t learn their names or try any political maneuvering. She simply lets them exist around her and dance with her if they wish, if they dare, gracing them with a bit of the warmth of her light and always leaving a trace of shimmering powder in her wake. There’s so much light bubbling up inside her at the force of her joy that she’s glad she can let a bit of the heat out, glad that in this crowded room full of flickering candles no one will notice an extra glow. 

She isn’t sure how long she dances for because outside the large windows of the dining hall the night is black as ever, showing nothing but starless night and the colorful reflections of the party guests. Certainly hours must have passed already but she doesn’t feel tired or in need of a break, simply wants to live in the flow of movement. Vaguely in the back of her mind she knows she’ll have to stop eventually, for the demonstration, and that afterwards the ambassadors invited to the fête will want to talk to her but it all pales in the fervor of dancing. She stamps her way through lively folk and country dances, glides serenely across the floor in stately waltzes, spins from one pair of arms to another in a fast swing dance, joins hands with others skips round in round in circles. Laughing, she dances with Marie and Nadia, giggles into her friends’ shoulders as they stumble through the more complicated dances and spin in dizzy circles before a new composition begins. She finds herself in Nikolai’s arms as well many times throughout the night and finds that the prince is a fantastic dancer, if a bit showy. He has a tendency to embellish each swirl of any dance and occasionally throw her up in the warm air but for tonight Alina doesn’t mind– she likes the feeling of flying high above all the other guests and surveying them for a moment as a god would. Mal appears during several of the group country dances they learned as children and she grins at him across the circle of clapping and skipping guests and sees happiness in his warm brown eyes. She almost cries with laughter when Nikolai forces Mal into a foxtrot, the golden haired prince leading by strength and determination alone as his mate attempts to break free of the fast paced dance. Fedyor even dances with her once, though she’s sure she can feel Ivan’s glare warm on her bare back despite the fact that she and the young soldier are barely touching throughout the formal two-step. 

She’s moving in a simple circle dance with Marie and Nikolai, the prince’s jade coat shining in the flickering candlelight, laughing with her two friends about the older Baron who has two left feet when she feels a cool slip of shadow curl around her ankle. She almost stumbles and manages to stay upright only by grabbing at Nikolai; the prince steadies her and makes a joke about having had too much to drink though Alina hasn’t left the dance floor all night. As the three of them circle she scans the crowd surrounding the dancefloor, searching for a glimpse of a dark figure and darker hair. Finally she finds him, deep in conversation with the Ravkan minister of finance, but as her eyes land on his pale cheek he turns to look at her and it’s like a bucket of ice being poured over her. Alina gasps, stumbles again, and this time she has to clutch at both her friends in order not to fall. 

“Alina darling, are you quite all right?” Nikolai asks, pausing in the dance to frown at her and press bare fingers to her sweaty forehead. “You’re burning up!” He exclaims, worry taking over his features as he studies her face more intently. 

“Is she really?” Marie asks curiously, pressing her own gloved fingers to Alina’s brow and then drawing back in surprise. “Oh you’re hot as a summer’s day, Alina! I think you’d better take a break from dancing,” she says, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. 

“I’m fine, you two,” she tells them, waving a hand and trying to draw some of her inner heat back beneath her skin. “Stop being such fussy mother hens.” 

Nikolai looks as if he’s about to accept the title of mother hen and usher her off the dance floor no matter her protests but before he can the music ends and as the dancers all around them turn to applaud the musicians Alina plunges into the crowd in search of Kirigan. The throng of colorful bodies soon swallows her up and all she can do is worm her way between silk and taffeta and velvet, murmuring excuses and smiling brightly at everyone as she searches for the one shred of darkness in this rainbow of color. The shadow still curled around her ankle helps, pulling her home to it’s master until she emerges from among a press of ladies to find herself in the corner of the ballroom facing a loose group of men sipping from glasses of kvas and making quiet conversation. Kirigan’s tall form and neat black suit are a stark contrast to the vibrant green, deep purple, and weak yellow of the men he’s talking to but his face is calm and smooth as he listens. She notices that of all the men his glass is the only still full. 

Taking a steading breath and trying not to think about how much of her pale skin is visible to anyone around her, Alina approaches, a beatific smile plastered on her face and white silk gloves hiding her fingers again. Kirigan turns just as she reaches her back and places cool fingers on the bare skin of her lower back, just above the fabric of her dress. His touch makes her shiver and she forgets her words, forgets her introduction to the men in the circle as she stares up at him. 

“Gentlemen” Kirigan begins, turning back to the older men but swirling his fingers in small circles across her skin, “I would like to introduce you to Alina Starkov, a promising soldier of the Second Army.” 

The men all murmur their greetings, heads dipping in bows and lips pulled up into smiles she’s almost sure are forced. “Is she not quite young to be a soldier?” the man in the too-pale yellow suit asks, moving his face into an expression she thinks is supposed to resemble grandfatherly concern. Alina glares at him and is about to answer with some rather choice words when Kirigan sends a swirl of shadows up her spine beneath her hair, shocking her into silence. 

“Young, yes” he says with a half smile, “but no younger than you were when you fought your first battle General Belov.” The men laugh together and the older General raises his glass of kvas in a toast, shaking his head. “True, true” he says with an almost wistful sigh, “but at the time I was more concerned with glory for Ravka than staying alive.” 

“As am I, General” Alina cuts in, staring down her nose at the older man and feeling very aware that the suns pinned in her hair form an almost-crown. “I think you will find that all of the soldiers in this room, no matter how advanced in their studies, live and breathe with the shared purpose of safety for Ravka and our people.” 

The General twists his lips at her and takes another long sip of kvas but doesn’t say anything in response. Instead, the middle aged man dressed in deep plum who had been observing until now smiles faintly and steps forward to introduce himself as Petyor Andreyev, governor of Novokribirsk. His eyes and hair are a dark brown, nothing remarkable, but his handshake is firm and he doesn’t comment on Alina’s age or gender so she likes him more than the General immediately. The last man, in a shade of green so bright it hurts her eyes, is also middle aged but clearly in very good shape beneath his clothes, arms and shoulders thick with muscle. His square face is set in a harsh frown and it seems as if he would rather be anywhere else than this room. 

“General Zlatan '' he mutters, voice lower than Alina had expected, and doesn’t extend a hand in greeting. She dips her head in acknowledgement and wonders what these three men are doing talking to each other and to Kirigan. They must be of at least some importance if he’s bothered to hold a conversation with them and she’s sure he wouldn’t have introduced her to them if they were inconsequential. Governor Andreyev is of the most obvious importance as he holds stewardship of Novokribirsk, one of the largest cities in East Ravka and formerly a major trading port before the Shadow Fold descended. The two Generals are both familiar to her, Belov a retired strategist for the First Army who holds great respect among the common soldiers and Zlatan– she’s heard that name before, she’s sure of it, but she can’t remember why. She studies him as the men fall into conversation with Kirigan again, Belov and Andreyev doing all the talking while Zlatan sips slowly from his glass and clenches his jaw as if he’s physically in pain. She studies him, the way his body is angled away from all of them, how his arms are folded tightly, the tension in his shoulders and the short military cut of his hair and decides that whoever he is, he’s supremely uncomfortable right now. The thought makes her lips curl in a small smile and she returns to the conversation of the men who are discussing the former glory days of Ravka before the Shadow Fold. 

Alina wants to tune out, wants to let the music swell up and fill her ears and bones again but she forces herself to listen, forces herself to absorb every detail and analyze the men as they talk. She studies their expressions, which subjects they avoid and how they talk of the past with a great fondness, the way that Belov laughs too loudly and how Andreyev agrees with everything Kirigan says no matter the question. Finally, though, the musicians sound out the trumpet call that means it’s time for the performance troupes to begin their show and Alina almost slumps in relief; she can’t wait to escape these men who are more tiresome and full of false compliments than even her most boring teacher. She and Kirigan bid the men goodbye but linger in the corner of the hall for a moment as around them everyone streams towards the performance space cleared in front of the royal dais. “Did you enjoy their company Alina?” Kirigan asks, gaze impassive as he reaches out to slowly brush a curl of hair behind her ear. She almost doesn’t answer him, too focused on the intimacy of the gesture and how casually he performs it to form words. 

“I enjoyed their company about as much as I enjoy herring” she answers finally, blinking rapidly at him as he lowers his hand to his side again. “But like herring, I know they must play an important role in strengthening Ravka’s armies.” 

“Ah, the many unsung virtues of the noble herring” Kirigan says, voice light and teasing, and she laughs in surprise at the joke. 

“Belov is old but commands much respect yet among the soldiers of the First Army, who you might remember dislike the soldiers in our army and often refuse to fight alongside us.” Alina nods at this, suddenly understanding; Kirigan needs someone the First Army soldiers like and will follow in order to unite both Ravkan armies against their enemies. She feels a tiny spark thrill through her at the way the general had said “our armies” so casually, but doesn't let herself become too distracted. 

“Andreyev?” She asks, tilting her head and feeling her hair shift against her back. 

“Andreyev is not a fighter but he cares greatly for his city and will do what is best for Novokribirsk.” 

She frowns at him, waiting for an actual answer. “What have you learned of Novokribirsk in your classes, Alina?” He murmurs, smiling down at her. 

“It was a very important city for trading and sending goods to both sides of the country in the days before the Unsea” she answers, annoyance heating her face at the fact that he can never give her a straight answer. 

“Exactly,” Kirigan nods, “And it will be an important city for trade once again after the Unsea has been destroyed. We must also plan for the future of Ravka to come and that includes caring for both halves of the country.” 

“You mean to use Novokribirsk and Andreyev as means to unite Ravka through economic actions and free passage if I destroy the Shadow Fold,'' Alina breathes, finally understanding. 

He raises his eyebrows at her use of “if” and she raises her eyebrows right back, silently challenging him to say something. If this is where and when he wants to have this fight then she’s ready. 

Kirigan says nothing but tucks her fingers into his elbow and begins to lead her toward the crowd already caught up in the first opening acts of the performance troupe. They pass a group of several men in long forest green silk robes embroidered with a black falcon over their hearts. The men are huddled together, casting wary glances at anyone who comes too close and not moving to watch the performers. With a start Alina realizes the men all bear the dark silky hair and slightly upturned green-gold eyes she associates with her mother. Kirigan catches the direction of her gaze as they pass the men and whispers so quietly she barely hears; “A small delegation of Shu ambassadors and politicians. They arrived this morning after spending weeks wavering on their decision to come– but it seems curiosity won out in the end.” 

She’s just as surprised as Kirigan that the Shu ambassadors actually decided to attend the celebration but something in her chest glows a bit brighter at the sight of her mother’s people, even if they are enemies of Ravka. She’s always wanted to visit Shu-Han and to perhaps try to find any remnants of her mother’s family but with the two countries at war it’s a dream she’s never been able to voice. 

“Were the Fjerdans invited as well?” She murmurs, tilting her head so that her lips pass close to the general’s bent head. He huffs slightly and she stifles a smile, wondering how many letters he had to send to their icy neighbors in the North. “Yes” he says, disgust clear in his tone, “they were cordially invited and rather rudely, they declined. They claimed it would offend Djel for their royals or ambassadors to set foot in a country so clearly cursed by demons.” 

Alina rolls her eyes at this but Kirigan is already guiding her through the thickest crowds of guests surrounding the performers and though she wants to protest at how the crowd parts for him, automatically allowing him to pass, she appreciates it when they have the best view of the contortionists currently performing. She covers her mouth with both hands as she watches the young men and women stretch and twist into impossible positions, squeaking with imagined pain as she watches their limbs fold and unfold. Next are fire eaters who begin with lit matches and eventually are swallowing down burning torches to the wild applause of the watching guests. Graceful acrobats flip through the air as if gravity has no hold on them, performing death defying jumps and falls on long silk ribbons that make her heart patter quickly in fear. Costumed dancers and jugglers, petite women riding strange wheeled contraptions and balancing bowls on their arms, a strong man who slips through miniscule hoops and several boys who can pile into a perfect towering stack. The audience enjoys it all, laughing and gasping by turn, applauding raucously at the end of each act and whispering bets to one another about who will fall. 

Alina watches with blank eyes, not truly registering the logic-defying acts of the performers as she realizes that soon she will be the one up on that cleared stage, the one making a show for the fête guests. Suddenly the press of warm bodies so close around her isn’t comforting but oppressive and, combined with the heat of her light starting to bubble up at her nerves, too much for her fraying nerves. She shrugs her shoulders several times to try and relax, bites her lip and begins to lightly shake one leg in distress. Her stomach, which had been calm all night, is suddenly an aching chasm of emptiness and she feels lightheaded when she thinks about how long she danced for without eating or drinking. Her nerves are only mounting as the performers continue, icy sweat slicking her slipper-clad toes while the fine hairs on her arms stand on end. She feels hot and cold all over. She feels like she can’t get enough air into her lungs, like each breath she draws brings her closer to vomiting on the shining marble floor or collapsing in a faint. 

The performers begin to enter into what Alina is sure is their ending sequence and she wraps her arms tight around her stomach and tries to breath very, very shallowly. Tries not to think about anything. She’s so focused on simply keeping her eyes open that when several cool shadows slide beneath her skirts to curl affectionately around her ankles she almost shrieks in surprise. She stops herself, though, and instead turns to glare at Kirigan who is focused on the performers hauling themselves into a human pyramid as if it’s the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. Alina continues to glare at him as the shadows slither up her spine, leaving a slight chill in their wake, and pass over the nape of her neck to circle around her throat in a macabre mockery of a fine necklace. Coolness bleeds from the shadows into her, taming her light a bit, and though she’s still annoyed that he assumed she needed help she appreciates the way that her heart begins to slow and the sweat now drying on her skin. 

It’s only the loud cheers and applause of the other guests that breaks her glare and brings her attention back to the performing troupe who have now finished and are taking their final bows, faces lit up by bright grins as they wave. Alina breathes in and holds her breath, twists her gloved fingers in her blush skirts and tries to stay very still in order to hide that she’s trembling. The floor is slowly clearing of the costumed performers and though she knows she has to, that the tsar has demanded it, she just doesn’t know if she can summon her light here like this. Despite the hours of practice and the lovely feeling of her light she is suddenly, irrevocably, sure that sharing her abilities with the world is a terrible idea. She starts to turn away from the stage and the awful royals on their dais and Kirigan follows, a black shadow trailing her as she almost runs through the crowds of chattering and laughing guests toward the windows showing only endless night. When she leans her forehead against the frosty glass and closes her eyes she’s reminded of the night they first met, when he followed her off another dance floor. She can feel when he reaches for her, can feel that his fingers almost brush her shoulder before he hesitates and draws back. 

“Please don’t” she whispers to the glass and the night outside, refusing to open her eyes and risk seeing his reflection in the window. 

“We have time, Alina” he whispers back, words carried perfectly to her by his shadows despite the chatter and rumble of the celebration. 

“I don’t want to share it with them,” she tells him and she knows she sounds like a child, knows that her voice is plaintive and high but it’s how she feels. Her light is hers and she’s had it for such a short time that she suddenly doesn’t feel like giving this newest and most special part of herself to the world. He’s asking her to rip herself open and expose her inner workings to this room full of stuffy lords and calculating politicians, to let the awful king and queen claim her light as their own. 

And– she’s scared. She’s scared to perform, to show her true self, but also she’s terrified of the consequences of revealing herself to the world powers represented here tonight. She never imagined a life of fighting and being constantly on edge for herself, wanted nothing more than to always be with Mal and someday have a home and family of her own. She doesn’t know what will happen once they know, what they’ll do, if Shu Han and Fjerda and even Ravkan allies will try to kill her or worse capture her. She doesn’t want to live a life of fear and constant running, to be surrounded by guards the rest of her life for safety. Alina thinks that she’d like to go back to Keramzin and be a quiet nobody rather than be anyone important. 

“It’s still yours, milaya, ” he tells her, cool words seeping into her back like drops of water, “no matter how often you show them or share it you are the one who commands your light and decides when to use it.” 

“But why do I have to be the savior of Ravka?” She asks, and it truly is a question because she still doesn’t understand how she can be the solution to a problem she didn’t create. 

He laughs and it’s annoying enough to make her open her eyes though she doesn’t turn or search for his reflection in the glass, merely drinks in the darkness. 

“Old as I am, even I can’t claim to understand the workings of the Saints and the old magic of Ravka,” he says, shifting closer to her so that his voice becomes slightly louder. “I do know, though, that you are the one who can save Ravka because you’re powerful, Alina. You have enough light at this very moment to destroy my mistake if only you believed in yourself as I believe in you.” 

It’s a bit of a backhanded compliment but she chooses to ignore his slight and just continues to lean against the glass and let the chill of the winter outside chase away the heat lingering on her skin. “You’re not very nice to me” she tells him, no anger in her voice because she has too many emotions filling her up to be anything other than honest. 

She feels him straighten behind her and knows that the slight drop in temperature means more of his shadows have come out to play. “I am your general Alina. The general of half of the soldiers in Ravka. It is not my job to be nice to you, or kind, or to lie to you with honeyed words.” 

“Really?” She asks, whirling to face him and tilting her chin up to meet his dark gaze. “Then be honest with me, General, and tell me which corner of the world you disappeared to for so many months this fall.” 

It’s not the time or place to ask him this question that’s been eating away at her for months but she needs to know she can begin to trust him, needs some sort of sign that he’ll be honest with her. For tonight, at least, it’s imperative that Alina feels Kirigan is supporting her but to let him help her, support her, she has to believe that he’s trustworthy. 

She’s staring up at him, arms still wrapped tight around her stomach in a defensive position, ready to snap at him or walk away or maybe even burn him if he does anything to displease her. He looks unruffled, as he has since the first day she met him, and it’s so annoying, he’s so annoying, but all she does is blink and wait. His hands are clasped behind his back in a formal military stance as if he’s preparing to give a report and even the dark waves of his hair are still perfectly combed back and in line. 

“I didn’t want to leave, Alina” he begins, lashes sweeping down to slowly brush his cheeks as he blinks and looks away from her. “The tsar urgently ordered me to the Northern border with my battalion of Second Army soldiers– we were sent to protect a mountain pass on the border with Fjerda which our king feels is particularly important despite the fact that it holds no strategic relevance at all.” 

There’s a slight snarl in his words and his dark gaze is far away as he speaks, pupils trained anywhere but on her face. “We defended the pass, fought a contingent of Fjerdans and their white wolves and began to return to Os Alta only several weeks after having left but… we were delayed first by heavy winter storms and then by news of a tiny village on the edge of the Shadow Fold in need of help.” 

Alina frowns and cocks her head– she has no knowledge of any settlements within even fifty miles of the Shadow Fold and doesn’t understand why anyone would choose to stay so close to the slash of darkness. 

“It’s a tiny settlement, barely over a hundred people, but the area has been lived in for generations and once was an important city of art and music, before….” 

“Before you.” 

“Yes, milaya , before me. And so I brought my soldiers to do what we could, to help or rescue the villagers if possible.” 

“And?” 

“They were gone by the time we arrived. Dead, probably, or turned to volcra . Their village was swallowed up by the Fold.” 

His face is blank and his eyes are empty of all emotion but the shadows swirling in tiny whirlpools around his clenched fingertips tell a better story of what he truly feels. He cracks his neck violently from side to side and shifts his weight onto his toes, curving over her like a beast about to strike. She doesn’t let him intimidate her, doesn’t let her face display the sorrow and anger she feels because she knows it will only compound on the guilt he already wears like a heavy mantle. 

“And then you came home?” She asks, voice steady and trying to make sure she doesn’t blink more often than usual. 

“No” he says, deflating slightly and shifting back until he’s no longer towering over her as he runs a hand through his hair. “We stayed so that I could have time to study the Fold. It’s expanding, you see, and I wanted to attempt fixing it myself or pushing it back.” 

Alina’s mouth drops open at the news that the Shadow Fold, which has always maintained solid borders, is now expanding into Ravka and swallowing up land and people. Never in the hundreds of years since the Fold appeared has it moved or shifted.; it’s the one small blessing Ravka does have among its many troubles. 

“It’s expanding?” She exclaims, digging her fingers into her ribs and taking a step closer to Kirigan. “Are you sure? Do you know why? Could you make it stop?” 

He gives her a look that means she’s being too loud, too conspicuous, and so with a monumental effort she slowly lowers her hands to her sides and pastes a weak smile on her face despite the roiling dread in her stomach. “Please explain” she grits out, tilting her head and batting her lashes at him which makes his mouth twist into an almost-smile. 

“I spent weeks studying the Fold and taking measurements, trying to push it back. I entered it, to explore the ruins of the village– the volcra reached me before I could learn much.” He indicates the new scar on his temple and she imagines that there are probably more curling white marks hidden beneath his dark clothes. 

 “It hasn’t grown much yet, around a mile on all sides, but I expect it will continue to expand and gain momentum” he tells her, clenching and unclenching his fingers at his sides, jaw tight. 

He looks older suddenly and though his face is as unlined as ever Alina can see a hint of the years of life and experience and worries he carries on his shoulders each day, can see how responsible he feels for the lives lost to his creation. “Ravka needs you and your light more than ever, Alina,” he murmurs, raising his eyes to hers and pinning her into place with the dark emotion swirling in his gaze. “I couldn’t push it back or control it no matter how often I tried. It won’t respond to me but you– you, Alina, have the life and light and power to save our country.” 

His words are bolstering and his voice is so full of surety, of belief in her, enough to make her reach out for his hands and wrap their fingers together. For tonight at least she’s willing to let her heart soften to him because she’s still so scared, so nervous, and she feels so much sorrow at what he endured while he was away from her. “Okay” she whispers, rubbing the pad of her thumb across the soft skin of his right hand, “I can do it. But just– stay with me?” 

“As you wish it, Alina” he whispers back, smiling at her with eyes and features that are suddenly young and burning with a stark light. She thinks he’s maybe going to lean down and kiss her, just as he had in her dream, starts to let her eyes fall closed in anticipation, unsure if she wants him closer or wants him to leave her personal space but as if he’s read her conflicting emotions he smoothly steps back. Though their fingers are still linked there’s now a gulf of space between them and she relaxes slightly. 

“Dance with me again?” Kirigan asks, lifting her hands up so that she can spin beneath their connected arms. 

“I thought it was time for my demonstration?” She asks, confused, wrinkling her eyebrows at him and refusing to move. “We have time yet” he says and begins to pull her back through the crowd toward the dancefloor of swirling couples. “What do you mean?” she says as they walk, the people around them parting to let them pass, “I thought the tsar wanted me to perform after the troupe?” 

He spins once they’re on the floor and pulls her fully into his arms, palm to palm and arm wrapped around her waist as if she’s tiny. And maybe to him she is. He seems unconcerned with her questions as he begins to move them to the music, their bodies swaying and almost immediately falling into sync with the other dancers surrounding them. She can hear him humming slightly under his breath as he twirls her across the floor, can smell the cool scent of licorice enveloping her in a dark embrace as he pulls her body slightly closer to his. The soft wool of his suit is scratching against her bodice, golden suns and pure black whirling together as they dance. 

None of the heated fervor of her earlier dances is suffusing her body and mind now though. She’s clear headed, focused, and still aware of her life beyond this room and the dancing. She can still hear the sweet violins and harp chords of the musicians as well as the rumble of hundreds of voices and moving feet but it’s almost as if there’s a transparent bubble around her and Kirigan separating them from everyone else. She wonders if the other guests can feel it too, if it’s why there’s always an empty barrier around the two of them wherever they dance, if it’s why no one has touched them all night. 

“Kirigan?” She says, wanting an answer to her questions though she’s loath to pull him out of the happy trance he’s seemed to slip into– she can hardly believe he’s humming along to the music and seemingly enjoying himself as they dance. “Your light will have a greater impact if it is separate from the foolery of the common performers,” he says, never once moving his eyes from his sweeping assessment of the room, spinning her flawlessly around and then reeling her back into the circle of his arms without ever missing a step. 

She scoffs but continues to follow his lead, enjoying the warm air rushing past her face and rippling the hair falling down her back as they move. Her blush pink skirts are streaming out behind her with the speed of their movement and she decides it’s an absolute miracle that she hasn’t tripped or fallen over them yet. Her gaze falls on the pearly scar on Kirigan’s temple and she frowns as she studies it, blinks twice in confusion as she realizes that she’d somehow seen this mark on him before he ever even returned to the Little Palace. The music ends and he’s swinging her into a final twirl before bowing formally and she curtsies back on autopilot before her hands are reaching out and seeking his again. Their palms slide back together so easily and it almost feels more natural to be touching him than it does to be alone in her skin but they’re already off, swaying in the smooth circles of a slower dance. 

“Is that new scar from the volcra ?” She asks suddenly, tilting her head back to look him fully in the eyes. Kirigan blinks in answer but now his attention is focused on her and his humming has ceased. And because he’s been so honest with her tonight Alina decides to offer him a truth in return. 

“I had a dream about you,” she says frankly, studying his face for even the most minute of expressions, “while you were gone.” 

“And what did I do in this dream?” 

“That’s not important,” she tells him, hoping he’ll dismiss the blush warming her cheeks as mere exertion from dancing. “But– you had that scar, in my dream.” 

“Fascinating.” 

“Yes, actually, it is. Because how could my brain have conjured a version of you with that scar when I didn’t see you until last month?” 

She knows she has him when he falls silent and the teasing gleam in his eyes disappears. She refrains from smiling, barely, but doesn’t let him look away from her as they dance. She’s hoping that his pool of honesty hasn’t dried up yet and that he’ll answer her instead of deflecting as he usually does. 

“We are connected in more ways than one, Alina” he finally says after a long silence. “I believe we have a sort of bond because of our abilities and how our shadows and light play off each other– a tether bond. It allows us to visit each other in spirit when necessary.” 

She feels anger, first, then frustration and disgust that no matter what she does, no matter that their mating bond is gone, she will always somehow be tied to the general. It’s as if her body will never truly be hers and hers alone again. He must see the emotions flashing across her face because he frowns at her and says, words cooler than before, “I will never purposefully draw upon the tether Alina. You won’t be visited by my spirit.” 

“But it was real– my dream.” 

“Yes, Alina. It was real for me as well.” 

She begins to pull away from him, to untangle their fingers as she focuses her eyes on anything but his face. She can’t believe it wasn’t a dream, can’t believe they actually did that, can’t believe Kirigan’s lips against hers and the feel of his hands sliding against her breastbone weren’t imagined. She’s so embarrassed and angry and full of shame that all she wants to do is run from him and hide. She hates that their first kiss was months ago but that she didn’t even know it, that she’s been talking to him and training him while all the while he’s known what happened was real. Kirigan, of course, tightens his grip on her until his arms are like iron bands around her and she could no more escape him than she could a pair of shackles. 

“I don’t want that to ever happen again” she says, pulling back as far as he’ll allow and studiously studying every detail of his fine white shirt. “It won’t,” he assures her, stroking long fingers down her back in what is probably meant to be a soothing gesture but it just makes goosebumps raise on her arms. 

“But I obviously don’t know how to control it” she snaps, and then grudgingly admits as her brain works though the possibilities, “and besides, it will be very useful for communicating troop movements and information when we’re both stationed on the borders or fighting.” 

“Your classes are paying off, then” he murmurs with a raised brow and a smirk. 

“No,” she says, tossing her hair over her shoulder and raising her chin higher, “my hard work and studying are paying off.” 

He laughs and because it’s the first time Alina’s ever heard that sound from him she falls silent. It’s so rare to see the general smile, even, that the sound of his laughter, ringing out bright and loud across the heads of the crowd, is astonishing. There’s still a smile lingering on his lips as he sinks to one knee in front of her, hand extended so that she can circle around him in the final moves of the dance. She feels like a queen as he kneels before her and the way he looks up at her from beneath silky lashes makes the glowing warmth in her hand travel up her arm to flush her cheeks pink all over again. As the music ends and applause breaks out among the other dancers she uses their clasped hands to draw him up to his feet, preferring that they remain equal. 

“You dance very well for a soldier” she tells him, secretly hoping for another laugh. 

“And you dance very well for an orphan” he responds, gently disentangling their fingers and stepping back. “But the time for dancing is over Alinochka– they need to see your light” and he nods to the people around them who are growing slightly confused at the lack of music as the musicians sit, unmoving. “Oh” she breathes, and then she’s standing, alone, as he makes a gesture and the dance floor begins to empty as the guests draw away from her. Soon it’s just her and him on the polished marble and hundreds of eyes in hundreds of faces are all trained on her. She feels like a choice leg of mutton under the hungry gaze of vultures, about to be devoured, and the sweat that had dried while they danced springs up on her skin again. 

And then Kirigan is there, stepping into his place beside her and smiling smoothly at the guests like they’re nothing to be afraid of. “Dearest guests of Ravka,” he calls, shoulders set back and hands clasped behind his back as he directs his gaze around the now-silent hall. “I would like to present to you a most special demonstration this solstice evening: the abilities of my Second Army.” 

He extends a hand to Alina and steps back, giving her center stage as he somehow fades into the background despite the fact that he’s still on the cleared floor with her. Though he doesn’t move, the lights in the hall suddenly go out so that everyone is plunged into darkness. She wants to stick her tongue out at him for his little speech and also shoot spears of light at the watching crowd to end their whispers, but instead she rolls her shoulders back and raises her hands in preparation. The light that has been glowing and flickering in her chest all night, growing with each burst of laughter and smile, is almost already a bonfire because of how long she’d touched Kirigan for. But this power, at the end of the day, is hers and hers alone so when she twists her fingers and lets the golden light seep out and begin to pool in her palms it’s with a sudden surety that she can do this. At first the crowd doesn’t react likely because they can’t see the subtle glow of the liquid sunshine in her hands but as the light continues to grow and eventually spills over her fingers to puddle on the marble around her skirts the guests begin to gasp and point, talking over one another. Alina is calm, though, finally at peace now that her light is with her and she simply waits, face impassive, until she’s surrounded by a shimmering pool of pure gold. She takes a moment to look around, look into the stunned faces and wide eyes and smile at them before she clenches her fingers and then the light is moving, liquid transforming into a dozen glowing orbs that she tosses up in the air and spins around her head like an enormous halo with a lazy finger. The heads of every guest tilt back to watch the glowing spheres, light reflected in hundreds of eyes. She arrays the spheres into an arch behind her back so that she’s lit up and illuminated by her light, then draws the light back into her body with a sharp flick of her wrist. 

The absence of sunshine lasts just long enough for the guests to begin to mutter at each other and frown at her but she feels nothing except joy and power in her heart. Alina grins fully at the discontented partygoers just before light explodes out of her, illuminating the entire hall with burning white gold so bright that everyone will have to cover their eyes or choose to go blind. The light is noon bright, reminiscent of summer months, and fades slowly from the corners of the enormous room. She moves her fingers in a flowing pattern and commands the pure light to change into small glowing starbursts hovering above the crowd like a sea of golden stars. The guests, some wary and some smiling with rapture, ooh and ahh at the pinpricks of light in the air, while some are even brave enough to reach up and touch them. Their efforts are rewarded with singed fingertips and warm faces. Alina allows them to enjoy the beauty of her power for a few moments more than lifts her hands to push the starbursts to the corners of the room again and explodes each one with a twitch of her fingers. The stars burst into glittering platinum dust and she holds it in the air, immobilized, before dropping her hands to her sides and letting the dust rain down on the crowds in a shower of sparks. These sparks don’t burn but instead leave traces of liquid gold on everything they touch, gracing upturned faces and cheeks and lips with streaks of her light. Alina can feel tiny streaks of light appearing on her own shoulders and falling in her hair, one spark even anointing her cheek with a simulated golden teardrop. The hall is quiet as everyone watches the sparks in wonder and examines the new color on their bodies and clothes. She feels joy bubbling up at the wonder on so many of the faces, wants to smile along with the guests already beaming at each other and her. 

Slowly, she lifts her palms skyward and coalesces the sparks covering the marble like fine grains of sand into curling vines climbing upward among the colorful skirts and suits of the crowd. The vines blossom into large flowers, petals of burning light spread wide and heart shaped leaves uncurling to create a garden of light scattered across the floor. She’s just as entranced by the flowers as everyone else in the room, admiring the details of pollen covered golden stamen and the veins picked out on the leaves in delicate shimmering threads. But she can’t play with her light forever and so she swirls her hands upwards and directs the flowers to shoot upwards in glowing beams of light that converge on the ceiling in a swirling mass of gold. That mass slowly, so slowly, begins to take on a shape until after several long minutes there is a perfect golden sun surrounded by spiking rays illuminating the ceiling and everyone in the hall. She holds the sun there long enough that everyone can see it, believe in it and her, and then she claps her hands together and drops them back into darkness. As a last, thoughtful gesture, she restores the flickering light to the candles and torches across the hall. 

The throngs of people are completely silent as they blink in the sudden light and turn to look at her, no one moving or speaking as they study the slight glow she’s allowed to radiate around her limbs. She stands tall, proud and full of fizzing warmth, confident with the knowledge that no matter their reaction she’ll be safe with her light. Kirigan steps forward in the silence and catches one of her hands up with his, raising her fingers to his lips and gazing at her with shining eyes as he drops a kiss onto her bare skin. She blinks at him, shocked– this is a gesture reserved only for mates and no one in the Little Palace besides her friends has any idea of their former bond. 

“Alina Starkov,” Kirigan calls as he turns to face the crowd though their hands remain clasped together at their sides, “Sun Summoner, savior of Ravka and– my mate.” 

Alina whips her head towards him as all around the crowd erupts into gasps, exclamations, loud conversation and even several screams. She doesn’t care, though, doesn’t look to see their reaction to his proclamation, merely raises her hands in preparation to blind him with her light. “Take it back” she hisses as she moves towards him but he merely wraps his own hands, wreathed in cool shadows, around her fingers and leans down to whisper in her ear; “not here, volchitsa .” 

“Fine” she snaps at him under her breath and sees a hint of a smile on his face before he pulls her towards him by her waist and turns her so that they can begin to stride out of the hall. The crowd, now almost shouting at the multiple revelations the general has made tonight, still part for them and Alina sees a wide range of emotions on those around her; wonder, awe, adoration, desire, but also disgust, fear, hatred, jealousy and disbelief. Some guests reach out to brush their fingers against her arms and shoulders but Kirigan snarls lightly and the touches stop– Alina would be grateful if she wasn’t so enraged. She glances over her shoulder at the entrance of the hall and sees the tsar standing on his dais shouting at a group of servants and ministers gathered round him, face redder than a poppy and blue eyes slightly crazed. Beside him the queen is extremely pale and still, a frozen statue but for her electric eyes trained on Alina and Kirigan with pure venom. Alina doesn’t react, though, just turns and follows the general from the cacophony of the celebration into the cool and silent halls of the palace. 

Their hands are still linked as they walk and when she realizes she rips her fingers from his, wiping her palm on her skirts in a visible display of how vexed she is with him. Kirigan just sighs slightly and stalks ahead– it isn’t until they’ve reached a plain white door that she realizes he’s brought her to his rooms. “Why–” she starts to ask but he’s opening the door and ushering her inside with pleading eyes and, against her better judgment, she complies. His war office is familiar to her now after days of training here and she immediately makes her way to the heavy wooden desk and perches on it, putting space between them. Unfortunately Kirigan can’t seem to read her mind as he follows her, stopping just outside her space and Alina frowns when she realizes he’s a bit too far away to kick. 

She watches with narrowed eyes as he sheds his inky coat to reveal the slightly sheer white fabric of his shirt, pale skin visible at his throat as he unhooks the first two buttons with nimble fingers. He runs a hand through his hair and the dark strands fall about his face in a disorganized riot she can perfectly recall the softness of. She realizes he’s breathing faster than normal, pulse jumping in his throat and it isn’t until he grins at her that she realizes he’s happy– no, thrilled . She opens her mouth to ask exactly what he did in the hall or threaten him again, maybe, but then he’s stepping into her space and crashing their lips together in a kiss so sudden and burning with his emotions that it’s all she can do to clutch at his shoulders and hold on for the ride. His arms, slim but corded with muscle from hundreds of years of sword fighting, slide around her waist and pull her body flush against his until there’s no air, no space, between them. His lips are warm on hers and heating by the minute from the light touching him conjures in her whole body. His scent of licorice and bergamot is shoved so far up her nose she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to smell anything else ever again but she’s losing herself in the feel of his skin on hers already. There’s hot fury thrumming in her blood and lighting her up but she can also feel excitement and pleasure in Kirigan, can feel how pleased he is and how proud of her. She knows she did well with the display of her light but now she can feel that he thinks the same, too, that he’s overjoyed with how well her demonstration went, overjoyed at how the people reacted. His pleasure is flowing into her, chasing the anger in her veins away and leaving nothing but his happiness and her lingering adrenaline from the light until their emotions collide on a wave of roiling heat and sweep any thoughts of talking or questioning him out of her mind. She’s moving her lips against his now, tilting her head and opening her mouth to let their tongues tangle together and searching for every bit of sweetness in his taste. 

Her hands are tangled in his hair just like in the dream– not a dream – and she’s somehow spread her legs on the desk so that he can step between them, step closer. She’s arching her spine so that she can press her body into his, can eradicate even the tiniest bits of space separating their skin. One of his hands begins a slow slide from her waist up her back, cool fingers leaving shivers in their wake as he glides the lightest touch up her neck to cup her cheek in his palm as he explores her mouth. She leans her whole body back, trusting him to keep her upright, letting him support her as she loses all her thoughts and just sinks into the experience of kissing him. Touching his hair isn’t enough, though– her fingertips crave skin and so, tearing her lips away from his, Alina focuses on unbuttoning his shirt. She thinks she’s trembling but it’s a mix of good and bad nerves and besides, with the way Kirigan is sucking bruises up the column of her neck, she doesn’t really care. She rips through the buttons, tearing his shirt in the process but her energetic work is rewarded with an expanse of smooth, pale skin marred only by several long scars and a trail of dark hair disappearing into the waist of his black trousers. 

She delights in pushing the shreds of his shirt off his shoulders and skating her fingers over his skin, feeling the smoothness of him against her fingertips and stopping to trace each scar with special attention. There are three long curling slashes spread across his lower left ribs like something with talons slashed at him, and a small ring of pinkish bite marks on his shoulder. She presses his lips to those bite marks, trails butterfly kisses across his collarbones and then touches her lips featherlight to his cheeks, his eyelids, teasing him. She pulls back far enough to see that he’s just looking at her, no emotion on his face, just gazing steadily at her with those dark eyes. She tenses and starts to slip out of his arms, suddenly worried she’s done something wrong but before she can go too far he’s shaking his head and drawing her back in, tangling his fingers in her hair and tilting her head back before leaning down to kiss her again. She purrs deep in her throat and wraps her arms around his neck, holding herself up as his tongue twists with hers and their lips move, hot and fast, for what feels like an infinite moment in time.

His fingers slip down to the tiny line of buttons keeping her dress closed and she hums in encouragement but then he’s pulling away, again , and she’s glaring at him but he says, voice rougher and lower than usual, “Can I?” and then she’s nodding so fast her hair sways around her face and then his fingers are back on the buttons, trying to work out how to undo them. He struggles for a moment or two and she stifles a laugh in the bare skin where his shoulder meets his neck, inhaling wood smoke and feeling the tickle of hair against her nose. When he still can’t unhook the tiny buttons from their loops he growls and braces his hands on either side of her spine, ripping the pale pink fabric so that her back is exposed to the cool air. She shivers and leans into his warmth, tucking her head under his chin as he runs his hands over her gooseflesh covered skin, exploring. It’s quiet in his study and she notices the maps of Ravka and Fjerda pinned to the walls, enjoys the beating of his heart beneath her ear, purrs lightly as his hands swoop around her exposed hips and up her ribs. He takes his time exploring her body, petting her skin as if it’s the softest thing he’s ever touched and tapping each of her ribs gently like he’s counting them. He curls one hand in the silky space between her breasts beneath the loosened fabric of her bodice, places light kisses along her jaw until his mouth reaches hers again and they’re kissing. It’s fire and cool shadows and hot and cold dancing and melding together just like they are, a joyful greeting of sun and moon as their limbs tangle on top of the desk. Alina’s so engrossed in kissing him, in scratching her nails down his bare back and shuddering lightly each time he runs a finger over her stomach or flattens his palm against her heartbeat that she doesn’t even notice the knocking at first.

It’s loud, though, and persistent, a heavy banging against the wood of his door. She’s the one to disentangle their tongues and separate their lips, the one to brace her palms on his chest to stop him from leaning forward again. His hair is disheveled, a beautiful mess of black strands falling around his face and framing his sharp cheekbones. His eyes are a bit wild and his pulse is speeding in his neck, a pale rose flush creeping up his throat and spreading across his cheeks. His lips, though— Alina almost gives in and kisses him again when she sees how red and swollen his lips are. She knows she must look just as undone, can feel that he’s pulled some of the golden stars from her hair and run his fingers through the curls so many times that they’re limp and loose. Her dress is ripped open at the back, exposing bare skin from the base of her spine up and while the bodice is still loosely covering her chest, his fingers have managed to explore her whole torso. Her legs are wrapped around his slim waist and he’s pushed her skirts up her thighs— she thinks he might have run his hands along the ticklish places behind her knees while they kissed but it’s all a bit hazy. The glitter Genya dusted on her so many hours ago is now glimmering on Kirigan’s pale skin, smudged across his collarbones and shoulders, even a trace of it in his hair. She laughs when she sees it and tries to brush some of it off before he goes to answer the door, which is now reverberating with the knocking, but he gently catches her hands in his and kisses her nose lightly before turning to the door, sweeping up a spare kefta to cover his fair skin with. 

Alina shifts only enough to pull her skirts back around her legs but stays on the desk, comfortable where she is and unwilling to change positions and possibly break the spell of kissing and touching. She doesn’t let herself think while Kirigan opens the door and murmurs to whoever is on the other side, keeps her mind blank as she runs her fingers through her hair to work out any tangles. She carefully swipes beneath her eyes to clear any stray traces of makeup and then arranges her torn bodice more tightly around herself, slightly chilled in Kirigan’s absence. She swings her feet in the air, kicks off her scarlett slippers and realizes, belatedly, that she is a Sun Summoner and never has to be cold again if she doesn’t want to. She calls some of the light in her chest to the surface and lets it ripple out around her skin, illuminating her slightly against the shadows of the room and warming her body. It feels lovely and comforting and she relaxes into the subtle heat, pulls her legs up on the desk and covers her mouth in a yawn as she realizes how tired she is after such a long night of dancing and using her power. 

Kirigan is still at the door and with him there, and her light, she feels safe enough to curl up on top of the very large desk and pillow her head on her arm, letting her eyes fall closed as she waits for him to return. It’s lovely and dark in the room, no light except her own to chase away the shadows, and she can still smell his bergamot and smoke scent lingering in the air and on her skin. She’s content and sleepy and her lips are happily swollen, the lovely memories of his fingers on her skin still fresh in her mind, ready to be examined and picked over for details for many nights to come. She’s starting to drift off into fuzzy sleep when she feels the air change as Kirigan walks towards her and then his hands, gentle and cool, are stroking the hair back from her forehead and he’s dropping a kiss to her bare shoulder. 

“Alinochka” he murmurs, voice so soft in the darkness of the room that she almost doesn’t want to move, wants to make him have to say her name again. But his fingers are tracing the lines of her face to wake her and besides, she wants to keep kissing him. So she rouses, opening her eyes to his face and his dark eyes and his still red lips– all of it enough that she automatically smiles at him. He doesn’t smile back, though, and so as she pushes herself up she frowns at him, wrapping her arms around her waist to ensure her torn dress stays up. He steps back to allow her space, eyes alighting on the warm golden glow still surrounding her and something about it makes him smile, truly smile, face thawing a bit. “Kirigan?” She whispers, blinking at him in a question she hopes he’ll answer. 

“I need to leave for a bit, volchitsa , just a small while” he whispers back, both of them unwilling to break the peace of the night with louder words. “It’s an urgent matter with the tsar but I will return as soon as I am able.” 

There’s a vow in his words and she reaches out to place her hand over the inky embroidery on the kefta covering his heart, feeling the truth of his words echoed in the steady beat. “Will you–” he begins, but then she’s cutting in, smiling at him; “I’ll wait for you. Here, if that’s alright.” 

His shoulders droop a bit and he traces her brow with a finger, taking in every detail of her face like he’s memorizing it. “Yes, that’s alright” he murmurs and kisses her once, then twice before he’s wrenching their lips apart with effort and striding out of the study without a backward glance. She laughs lightly and imagines that whatever situation of the tsar’s he has to deal with, it won’t be very fun for the other people involved. She kicks her feet in the air for several long minutes and then, bored, gets up to inspect the maps on the walls. They’re lovely, old and detailed, tiny villages and churches picked out in black ink and in one map she notices a sea dragon dancing in the waves off of Ravka’s coast. She even pinpoints Keramzin on the maps of Ravka, looks for that small dot in the east which represents her home and life before coming here. She doesn’t touch the maps, worried the paper is too old and fragile but as she moves to the bookshelves she trails her fingers across the leather spines. There are books on history and wars, science and natural plants and animals, Ravkan literature and Shu poetry and Fjerdan fables, dry economic texts on business and trade written in Kerch, even several books she thinks contain recipes. So many books she thinks she’d need years to read them, to curl up in a soft chair with a cup of tea and let her mind wander to distant lands and stories. 

Finally done inspecting the bookshelves she settles herself in the large leather chair behind the wooden desk, feeling slightly dwarfed by the size of the desk. Her feet barely sweep the ground and it feels a bit odd to sit here and imagine the hours Kirigan has spent in this exact spot. There are drawers on this side of the desk and she opens them one by one, rifling through stacks of papers about military supplies, bypassing legers of accounts and soldier payments, rolling her eyes at the precise charts he’s drawn of tactical movements for battles past. She finds ink pots and feather quills, neatly organized rolls of blank parchment, wax and official Ravkan seals for letters. There’s even a battered copy of the Ravkan holy text, bound in faded red letter and bearing the initials A.M. on the inside cover in curling script. She blinks at it for a moment, surprised Kirigan would have anything to do with something as unproven and unpredictable as religion, then gently replaces the book and shuts the drawer. This is something she doesn’t need to pry into. It isn’t until the last two drawers that she finds anything of true interest– stacks and stacks of letters. She begins to shuffle through them, quickly learning his artful cursive as well as the large scrawl of the tsar , the neat print of the ministers of finance and agriculture and even several brief notes in spidery letters from Ivan. 

She skims most of the letters, focusing more on what Kirigan’s written, his thoughtful arguments with the tsar and the way he lays out losses and gains in blunt, precise language free of emotion. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to see lives lost as just numbers instead of living, breathing people with families and lives but she supposes he has had many years of practice. At the bottom of the topmost drawer is a letter that looks newer than the rest– it’s less creased and bears no broken seal. Curious, she unfolds the paper and begins to read, Kirigan’s now familiar cursive peering back at her from the page. It’s short, barely a few sentences, but the words are familiar to Alina and the glow surrounding her abruptly blows out like a candle in the wind after she’s read the letter twice through. She lets the paper slip from her fingers to fall on the desk, absorbing what she’s just read as she sits motionless in the dark, the polished wood of the desk cool against her forearms. The letter, penned in the general’s curving handwriting, is an almost exact replica of the letter Genya brought her from the tsar . The letter demanding that she demonstrate her powers at the fête and expose herself as the Sun Summoner to the world. The letter that had led her to ask for help from Kirigan, to practice with him and grow her ability, that had been the catalyst for sharing her light with Ravka’s friends and enemies. The letter she had obeyed because she had believed it carried direct orders from the tsar himself. 

A flash of memory, of how angry the tsar had seemed after her demonstration this evening appears in her mind and Alina understands, with a sick feeling like waking up from a lovely dream or popping a shining bubble, who truly directed her movements tonight. Who truly controlled her and her light. 

Carefully she folds the letter and returns it to the bottom of the drawer then stands and smooths her skirts, pushes the leather chair back into place with one hand while the other holds her ruined dress against her skin. She feels as ripped open as the dress, just as raw and open and exposed, but she takes measured steps towards the door, slips out into the shadowy hallway and makes it into her own rooms without collapsing. She sheds her dress immediately, stepping out of the gaping fabric to stand naked and vulnerable in the moonlight for a moment before sinking into her bed and wrapping herself in a cocoon of light, letting the warm brightness chase away the darkness in her bedchamber. 

☀☀☀

Genya’s waiting for him when he enters the room, huddled on the sumptuous cream carpet in a puddle of red silk, copper curls tumbling about her shoulders as she rests her head on her folded knees. Despite her position on the floor and how tiny she’s managed to make herself appear, she isn’t crying, isn’t showing any signs of distress. She’s just waiting for him in the dark, eyes gleaming slightly in the darkness as she tracks his movements towards her. He’s wearing nothing but his kefta and suit trousers but he’s buttoned the coat closed at least so that none of his bare skin is showing. He stops just before her, crouching down so that they are eye to eye as she remains curled on the floor. From this close he can see the red paint smeared around her mouth, the glittering sweep of her eyelids. Can smell her scent of lilies and oranges mixed with something darker, something of the deep woods. They blink at each other in silence, one predator assessing another, neither willing to be the first to speak or show any emotion. 

“Is it done?” he asks quietly, finally relenting first. 

“Yes, moi soverenyi ” she murmurs, steel and quiet triumph in her voice. He can see a bit of that triumph flickering in her eyes as she watches him, chin raised and head held high. He dips his head and rises to his feet, turning to stride towards the door and leave this room behind. 

“Well done, soldier” he throws over his shoulder, voice quiet in the darkening shadows of the room as he pushes the door open on silent hinges, allowing himself a small smile.

Chapter Text

The sun is rising on a new year and a fresh coat of sparkling white snow as Alina slides from her bed and starts to make lists. She locks all the doors to her rooms and wedges a heavy chest against the door connecting her bedchamber to his for good measure, then throws the curtains wide to let the sunlight in. She starts with a list of all the things she does know (pitifully short) and a list of all the questions she needs to ask (it’s overwhelmingly long). There’s a list for people she trusts, which is less names than she can count on one hand, and then simply everyone else . She makes a list of possible options, futures she can choose when she unlocks those doors and lets life filter back in. She scrawls out a long list of all the lies Kirigan’s told her and it’s almost every word he’s said because she doesn’t know, anymore, what was fabricated and what wasn’t. She loses track of her thoughts in the sunlight streaming onto the mahogany of her desk and simply tilts her face back, lets herself remember a bit of the magic of last night before it all soured. In the light she makes a list, this one neat and precise, of all the things she wants to claw from the fabric of this new year. Her dreams, her goals, her hopes and the things she wants to do that she’s always dreamed of but wasn’t in a position to achieve before. She draws little suns and moons around that list, makes small boxes so that she can check off her accomplishments one by one. 

It isn’t until her desk is covered in a thick layer of creamy paper striped with the inky scrawl of her thoughts and plans that she twists in the chair to stretch her back before rising. She studies the papers for a moment, then stacks them in a neat pile like battle plans– and for her, these lists are battle plans. Her mind is finally clear and cool, no haze of light or feelings to make her stray from her chosen path. She steps into her bathing chamber on light feet and draws a bath in silence, adding honeysuckle oil and rose petals before undressing. In the cool silence of her rooms she expects each limb, curls her toes against the ceramic tiles and glances over a shoulder to study the expanse of pale skin laid bare. She feels like herself and not like herself. It’s so strange to think of what she did with this body last night, to remember all the places his fingers pressed into her skin and traced along her bones. It seems a thousand years away and almost as if it happened to another person– not her. This Alina, standing here breathing in the fragrant steam rising from her bath, would never allow herself to be so easily tricked. So easily distracted. 

In silence she slides into the steaming water, barely registering the heat against her skin, and it’s because of the silence inside that she ducks her head under the water and lets the warmth rush against her senses to block out the world. She lingers in the bath longer than she should because she knows that when she emerges, she will be a new Alina. So she allows the memories of him from last night, the memories she would have cherished and looked over like well-loved pages in a favorite book, to replay in her mind over and over underneath the water. The sparks each of his touches alighted on her skin, the feel of his lips on hers, the slip of his hair through her fingers; the way it felt when she believed he cared for her. She lingers over what they would have looked like dancing together, his smile when she showed her light to everyone, the exact pronunciation of her name every time it fell from his lips. She examines each memory and each moment closely, caresses them with bittersweet love. And then she folds them up and tucks them neatly away in a corner of her mind and heart, turns them into well-worn memories that she’ll take out again and smile over someday far in the future. When she stands from the bath, water droplets already steaming on her skin and the perfume of flowers adorning her, she is a new person. 

This Alina is determined, focused, balanced on the edge of a knife on tiptoes with arms slightly spread so that she’ll never fall too far to one side or the other. Her mind is so silent that she can hear every exhale of air and the quiet tread of her feet on the carpet of her bedchamber. Cool silk slithers against her skin as she dresses in the flowing ivory shirt of the Second Army and outfits herself as she would any other day. She deliberately keeps her brain a mass of buzzing white nothingness as she smoothes sooty kohl along her eyelids and paints her lips a sweet peachy pink. She lengthens her lashes as she’s seen Genya do a hundred times and leaves her long midnight hair, still damp from the water, to fall about her face in slight waves. She never wears her hair down normally but this way she looks a bit younger, her face rounder. She twists away from the mirror before thoughts can dive into her calm nothing, leaving her feet bare as she slides the last piece of clothing over her arms and shrugs her shoulders until the black wool of the kefta lies flush against her skin. 

She examines her reflection in the mirror until the black no longer shocks her, until she can pull her lips into a smile and make her eyes shine in a genuine simulacrum of joy. She practices keeping her face calm and pleased, says his name over and over in her first words of the new year until she can do it without screaming. She smooths the anger from her bunched brows, bites her tongue until she tastes blood but on the outside she looks the same as ever. It isn’t until she’s sure of her mask, sure of the list burned into her mind in golden light, that she unlocks the doors of her chambers and goes through each slowly; they’re just doors, just pieces of wood, but it feels somehow like she’s clearing the final stretches before a battle. The few steps down the hall to his door last for miles and when she places ice cold fingers against the wood of his door she feels as if she’s aged a hundred years. His rooms are just as silent as hers were and for a moment her plan flickers like a candle in a gust of wind but then she continues on, through the study so heavy with memories, past his library and war room, into his bedchamber. His dark head is bent over a smaller desk as he covers sheets of paper in flowing calligraphy and she’s reminded eerily of her dream-not-dream, of the first time she found him at a desk like this and what transpired after. 

She stands there, silent and still, just watching him for a moment, studying the steady rise and fall of his shoulders beneath his midnight kefta and the way the sun illuminates the pale skin above his collar. She doesn’t feel anything at any of these details. She’s nothing but white silence and lists. 

“Back again so soon Alina?” he says without turning around, continuing to write with one hand while picking up a sheaf of papers to examine more closely with the other. The old Alina would have been startled at his knowledge of her presence but this Alina just smiles like her mouth holds a secret and walks forward to perch on the windowsill in the sun. She can feel the light behind her illuminating her, knows it will blind him if he looks directly at her, but she still tilts her head and arranges her limbs to look as small and docile as possible, widens her eyes and quickens her breathing like she’s nervous. 

“I wanted to see you” she whispers on an exhale, lowering her lashes and twisting her fingers together like they’re trembling. 

The shadows curled around his ankles and the legs of his chair wriggle across the floor to her– like leeches she thinks with disgust– to tap inquisitively against the hem of her black kefta . He hasn’t looked up at her, still engrossed with writing, but he’s noticed the change in her attire. Good. 

“And why did you want to see me?” The words are sleek and silky but her mind is blank whiteness so when she answers her voice is full of blushing sincerity. “To wish you a prosperous new year, General.” 

Dark eyes flick up to hers and he slowly sets down his ink pen, sentence unfinished, and leans back in his chair to study her. She can see him perfectly despite the sun at her back and it’s amazing to her how unchanged he is, how his hair is still a tamed riot of midnight strands, how finely carved his features are. She can’t quite understand how this man before her, so calm and elegant, can be the one who betrayed her and kissed her and danced with her and lied to her. He’s a million versions wrapped up into one and she doesn’t think she’ll ever have enough lifetimes to learn each rendition of who he is. “And a prosperous year to you as well” he completes the customary wish like he truly means it, like he wants good things for her. 

He’s a snake , Alina thinks with a rush of icy anger down her spine, but so am I . 

“Last night,” she begins, biting her lip and trailing off into silence as if she’s too shy to discuss what they did and what they would have done if he hadn’t left. Sudden shadows blot out the light shining through the window onto her shoulders and when she blinks her eyes open it’s to see that Kirigan has leaned forward in his chair, studying her with suddenly intense eyes. 

“I apologize for leaving you” he tells her, reaching out to trace his fingers along the shining golden embroidery covering her thighs as the shadows around her feet begin to wind up her ankles. She allows her mouth to droop into a slight pout, tilts her head to the side and lays her hand on top of his to stop the steady climb of his fingers. “I didn’t mind too much,” she murmurs, “but I did miss you.” 

Something starts burning in his eyes and he’s looking at her now like she’s something special, something to marvel at. He’s following her trail of breadcrumbs as easily as a dog. She knows, though, that talking about emotions is still too new for him to actually say anything back so she continues on. “I missed you while you were gone too” she whispers as she stands and steps forward until their knees are bumping together and he’s leaning his head back to look up at her. Even standing his head comes up to her stomach and if her mind wasn’t so full of blank white nothing, maybe she’d enjoy their height difference in this position. Instead she’s curving forward to trace her fingers across his cheek, smooth skin and stubble, allowing her hair to fall around them in a dark curtain. It’s just the two of them, just his breath ghosting over her lips and if she was any other version of herself Alina thinks maybe this would be the moment she would break. The moment that would make her give in. 

But she’s a snake poised to strike now, mind and body sharp with coiled tension and she can’t let go of the blankness, can’t do anything but focus on her lists and her plans. 

So like a wilting flower she folds into his lap, curls her legs up against both their chests and leans her body weight into him until his arms come up around her and draw her closer. She slips a hand around his neck and digs gentle fingers into the ends of his hair, scratching slightly, and she thinks her wolf senses a rumble of satisfaction from deep in his chest. He’s looking at her with eyes that are a softer shade of black than she’s ever seen and she wonders if the emotion in the corner of her mind steeped in shadows is happiness. He seems content in this moment, with his arms wrapped around her as he relaxes further into the chair and drops the shadows from the window to allow sunlight to fall on them both. 

“This seems very familiar, milaya, ” he says, raising an eyebrow, and she knows he hasn’t missed that she’s almost exactly copied her movements from the not-dream. “If I remember correctly you kiss me next.” 

She sticks her tongue out at him and he laughs, a full belly true laugh that resonates in her chest and makes her bare toes curl where they rest against his thigh. She’s like a baby bird caught up in the circle of his arms, delicate and fragile, in need of protection. Or so he thinks. “I could never be a creature of habit” she says with a haughty air and he laughs again at her words. Her plan is going quite well and so she gifts him with a smile, a kiss on the cheek, a caress of her other hand up his side beneath the fabric of his kefta. He isn’t wearing a shirt underneath– good , she thinks, that makes it easier – almost as if he slept in the same clothes from last night. Or never slept at all. 

“Where did you go last night?” she asks, looking up at him with eyes hopefully full of affection. 

“The tsar was not in the best of health after the festivities and was in need of council before he did something rash.” 

Alina can see a bit of the hardness creeping back into his eyes and she doesn’t want that at all so she simply hums in disinterest and tilts her chin up to press kisses on the side of his neck and along his jaw. Kirigan’s eyes are a deep chocolate when she pulls back and one of his hands is idly stroking up her spine as he gazes at her in the sun. 

“You look lovely in the sunlight” he murmurs, slipping the words past clenched teeth as if he tried to hold them back but couldn’t. In answer she lets some of her own light out to play, lets it illuminate her all the more and grins at him when he notices and huffs a laugh. 

“Vain little creature” he whispers in her ear and then nips her jaw, teeth sharper against her skin than she’d expected. It’s not an act when she shivers and presses closer, words falling away from her tongue as she tries to burrow beneath his kefta . She presses both palms to his warm skin beneath the black fabric, tugs at the soft fur lining and frowns at him until he relents and raises slim fingers to the clasps keeping him covered. She watches him undo the kefta , helps slide the protective coat from his shoulders to pool on the floor and smiles at the pale skin they expose together. She shifts until she’s perched on her knees on the chair beneath them so that she’s rising slightly over him, swaying forward until he’s forced to let his head fall back. He’s looking up at her like he wants to worship her, pray to her, confess all his secrets and ask for forgiveness. Beautiful , a quiet voice whispers in her mind and she doesn’t know which one of them thought it but it’s true.

The room is quiet, just the two of them and their breaths and the golden sunshine. She bends over him and makes her mind a haze of nothing but blushing pink affection and sweet kisses; kisses she teases him with but somehow their lips never touch. When she draws back to look down at him again she expects frustration but he’s simply amused, eyes glimmering as he smiles at her and pushes her hair behind her shoulders with gentle hands. “ Solnishka ,” he whispers, “how long I have waited for you.”

A deep flame of hot anger licks up the walls of her stomach and travels up her throat to push against her vocal cords, wanting to escape and burn him with her words and her light but she just dips her head down to nuzzle into the warm dip of skin between his shoulder and neck. She needs to be as small and precious as possible, as unassuming and trusting as she had been last night, so she lets him pull her body down until he’s cradling her against his chest like she’s valuable cargo. She turns her cheek to press against his collarbone until she can feel nothing but the warmth of his skin and the stroke of his fingers across her back. He rests his cheek on the crown of her head and in the warm stillness of the sunlight she allows his presence and his touch to comfort her one last time. She drinks in his heat, his scent, the way his hands feel on her body and in her hair. She soaks up these last moments of peace, of how it feels to be held and adored by another person after so many years of wishing for any type of love.

The deep contentment that’s settled into her bones is a heavy weight of peace, enough to slow her movements as she uncoils and lifts her head to look into his eyes. She doesn’t know any words that will convey what she wants him to believe and so she simply shifts forward enough to press their lips together in a kiss sweeter than she’d intended. He lets out a low murmur against her lips and draws her closer, slides warm fingers beneath her kefta and shirt to stroke her sides and flatten a palm against her spine. It shouldn’t be a shock because she’s felt him touch her almost everywhere already but a jolt of heat still goes through her, still makes her spine snap straight. Their lips never break, though, and she struggles to keep her mind a calm white when the liquid ambrosia of golden light he always conjures in her is already brimming at her toes and fingers, a wave waiting to be released. She moves closer until every inch of their torsos is pressed together, until she’s curving over him and trapping him in place with her body. Kirigan doesn’t seem to mind; he just kisses her like she’s air and he’s a drowning man. She lets more of her light out to play, lets it wrap around them both in a golden cocoon, traces sunbeams along his shoulders and arms and ankles until his blood should be as hot as hers. She presses deeper into him, against him, makes a little sound high in her throat that makes him grasp at her with a sudden fervor and that’s when she strikes.

The dagger is small, barely a knife at all, but it’s very sharp.

She strapped it to her wrist beneath the loose sleeve of her kefta this morning, trusting the draping wool and thick fur to hide the slight bulge. It’s such a tiny piece of metal, flashing silver like a fish in her hand as she presses it to his throat and breaks their embrace in one smooth movement. The light tracing around his limbs solidifies instantaneously into glowing golden bonds tying him to the chair.

Kirigan stills, limbs and face frozen statue-like as he regards her position on his lap, her height as she kneels over him and looks down at him. The room is as quiet and unchanged as ever, the winter’s day sunny and fresh outside, but somehow the world has narrowed to just the two of them and the slight movement of the blade against his throat as he swallows.

“Why shouldn’t I kill you?” She whispers, keeping her mind white snow and swan feathers.

He blinks slowly, easily, like it’s a regular afternoon and she couldn’t end his life with one twist of her hand.

“Perhaps if you tell me what I’ve done to anger you, Alina, I can explain” he says in a smooth voice, rotating his hands beneath the bonds of sunlight.

“It would take me hours to convey my list of grievances” she bites out, pressing the knife a bit closer until she sees a trickle of satisfying crimson, “but let’s begin with the letter from the tsar , shall we?”

“Ah, yes. That letter.”

Alina presses the knife in a little further and shifts so that her knees are digging into his thighs at what she hopes is a painful angle. “Tell me,” she hisses in his face mere centimeters away from his eyes, “why you wanted to expose my power to the world. Tell me why you fabricated that letter instead of just asking me.”

“Would asking you have worked?” He says, raising both brows and looking remarkably calm despite the beads of blood now seeping down his skin.

“Answer the question!”

Kirigan flexes his fingers, tries to shuffle his legs but stops when he realizes she’s pinned him completely then relaxes back into the chair as if it’s his choice to be here in this position. “I have never lied to you about my devotion to Ravka, Alina” he begins, looking straight at her. “The Unsea is growing, our enemies creep ever closer along our borders and our country is ruled by a weak, uncaring drunk.”

He tilts his head back slightly to swallow but she follows his movement with the blade, keeping the cool metal flush against his skin, never moving her eyes from his face. She’s ignoring the pain in her knees and how her fingers are cramping. All that matters are his words and her reactions to those words.

“I will always do what must be done to protect Ravka and our people” he says, chin raised. “And I will never apologize for any actions I take in that course of protection.”

“You will apologize when your actions harm me ” she spits at him, words sharp against her tongue and teeth like broken glass. “You will apologize when you manipulate me and force me into choices and actions instead of letting me choose for myself.”

“If I had allowed you to choose for yourself and come to the same eventual conclusion, it would already have been too late for Ravka” he says in a voice so smooth it’s like black silk running across her skin. Despite her knowledge of how cruel he is she can still barely believe he’s really saying these words, really admitting so boldly to being uncaring and ruthless. “The world needed to be made aware of your powers to give our soldiers at the borders a brief reprieve and you needed to realize that you are strong enough to destroy the fold now. Not in five or ten years but now, Alina, before it swallows Ravka whole and turns every citizen into volcra .”

“You created the Fold, General. You fix it. Not me.”

For the first time she can see a glimmer of emotion in his eyes, maybe frustration, and he pulls his left hand against the bonds like he was about to run it through his hair. Instead he just frowns at her and shrugs his shoulders back as if he’s trying to relax. “I wish I could Alina,” he tells her and she thinks that for once he truly is sincere. “If I could take the whole weight of Ravka’s wellbeing on my shoulders I would. I can’t destroy the Fold—I need you. Please, Alina. Think about the greater good.”

“Maybe if you had told me the truth, Kirigan, or asked for my help or tried to find a way that we could work together to save Ravka you wouldn’t need to beg me to help.” Her words are soft but she can see each one hit him like a tiny lightning bolt, can see the way his eyes widen and the way he tilts his head as if he’s never considered telling the truth before.

“Maybe,” she continues, sinking back onto her heels and switching the blade to her left hand so she can stretch her cramped fingers, “if you had taken the time to know me you would understand that I too would do anything for my country. And that I would freely give my aid and my light for Ravka.”

He’s silent for a long moment, like he’s thinking about her words and really letting them seep in. She hopes he can hear the truth in what she said, hopes he can internalize her words and finally, finally start understanding her.

“I find it difficult to leave any part of Ravka’s wellbeing up to the whims of other people” he finally says, blinking several times and suddenly averting his gaze to where her knees are still digging into his legs.

“You can start working on your trust issues right after you apologize to me.” She says in a bored tone, rolling her eyes slightly as yet another of his ugly traits makes an appearance. “And for someone so old you should have learned by now how not to be a controlling, egotistical narcissist.”

He huffs slightly at her words and shuffles his legs again— she knows he’s uncomfortable and his feet have probably gone numb by now but she doesn’t care. “Apologize?” he asks with a half smile that causes her blood to boil so quickly she’s surprised steam isn’t escaping her ears.

She angles the blade in her hand and lets it slip a bit; she’s rewarded with a fresh stream of red as a new cut appears lower down on his throat. “Ah, yes” he whispers, barely moving his lips as his smile drops and he looks up at her with eyes so dark they could be depthless, “I remember now. My apologies.”

She simply waits, unmoving, hand steady as she holds the knife against his throat and tightens the light binding him to the chair. For the first time she can see shadows seeping out of the corners of the room and slithering across the floor towards them but with a flick of her fingers bright sunlight chases them away and then forms a protective bubble around the two of them. Alina is prepared to be here all day, to make as many cuts as necessary to bleed the truth from him.

“My apologies, milaya , for all that I have put you through these last months,” he begins, and if it weren’t for their position she’d think the words were rehearsed for how easily they fall from his mouth. “I am sorry that I concealed the truth of my station and abilities from you when we first met.”

She blinks in acceptance; he’s hit the first apology on her long list but all she can do is hope that he understands why he needs to apologize. As if he’s read her mind, he starts to speak again; “I do not enjoy being lied to and I understand that it must have been very— frustrating — for you to meet your mate under false pretenses.”

“I’m glad you’ve finally realized that,” she says icily, nostrils flaring in anger. He blinks at her and then dips his head before continuing on. “I apologize for leaving you to settle into the Little Palace alone and so abruptly— I was careless in my consideration of your feelings and the sudden change in your life circumstances.”

“Very careless,” she agrees, flicking the nails of her free hand against his cheek and injecting a bit of burning heat into his skin. He inhales slightly but doesn’t flinch or blink. “And don’t for a second believe that being here, living in a palace with servants and pretty clothes, made me any happier than being at Keramzin did," she hisses at him, brows lowering into a glare, “Don’t you dare think that I wasn’t miserable just because I was surrounded by beautiful things.”

His face goes through several emotions so quickly she can’t register them and in the corner of her mind draped in shadows all she can hear is a rushing roaring sound but his expression finally settles onto placid neutrality again and he simply nods. It’s not quite enough of an acknowledgement of her feelings or how much hurt he caused her but she’ll take it for now.

“I am sorry, Alina, that I left you for so many months,” he tells her and for this apology she lowers the blade to sit between his ribs as he swallows once, then again. He glances down at her hands; one positioned to slide the knife into his heart and the other braced against his bare shoulder as she uses her body weight to pin him down. It’s not until he meets her eyes again that he continues while the words he whispers echo softly in her mind.

“I never intended to cause you harm or pain. I never wanted to leave you alone in an unfamiliar place. I did not want to leave you at all.”

He blinks, long lashes sweeping against his cheeks, and the shadows pooled in the corners of the room begin to climb upwards in sooty vines studded with thorns.

“I am sorry that I hurt you so deeply. I am sorry that I departed from Os Alta without wishing you farewell or making you aware of my orders. I am sorry that I wasn’t here to help you settle in. I am sorry that I wasn’t with you as your general or as your mate.”

Alina’s holding her breath, scared somewhere deep inside that if she moves or makes a noise this spell will break and he’ll stop apologizing. It feels so strange to hear him voice all the grievances she’s held against him for so long, to realize that maybe he really did know the full extent of the harm he’s done to her and she wasn’t just making it up in her head.

“You left me” she whispers so quietly the words are barely there but he hears; she knows he does because he flinches as if she’s just slapped him.

“I am so terribly sorry that I left you, darling,” he whispers back, and if his hands weren’t restrained she’s sure he’d be cupping her face in his palms.

“I almost died” she tells him so softly that it’s almost a caress but his eyes drop closed for a long, long moment and it’s like she can physically see some of the decades he’s lived settle onto his face in new lines and heavy brows. She stays strong, doesn’t let herself say anything as she waits or reach out and touch him. She has no desire to comfort him over the consequences of his own actions. She has no need to be a shield for him against her own suffering.

“I know,” he whispers at last, though his eyes are still closed, “I almost died too. And I apologize, Alina, truly— I am sorry, so incredibly sorry, that I caused you to suffer and weaken to the point of death. That I wasn’t here to care for you, to affirm our bond and greet your wolf, to be the mate you deserved— I am sorry for it all.”

“You have every right to hate me,” he continues quietly and though he’s opened his eyes he’s not looking at her, “I was foolish and uncaring with my behavior and because of my actions you almost lost your life. I almost lost the most precious thing in my life— and that is entirely my weight to carry. I am sorry, solnishka , truly sorry— for what I almost took away from you and for what that would have meant for Ravka.”

“Forget Ravka for a moment,” she bites out, pressing the blade already tipped in scarlet against the thin skin between his ribs, “forget your duties to her and remember instead that because of your abandonment we both almost died.” 

“I can never forget Ravka,” he tells her, burning eyes trained on hers suddenly as he raises his head in a flash of movement while completely ignoring the knife pricking his skin. “Just as I can never forget you. You are my heart and Ravka is my soul.” 

“But you did,” she breathes, digging the nails of her hand on his shoulder into his warm skin until he clenches his jaw. “You forgot about me and our bond for months. I was all alone.” 

“I wrote to you,” he murmurs in response, tilting his head slightly as he looks at her with troubled eyes. “Genya told me you received the letters– did you not find the contents to your liking?” 

Her stomach sinks into her toes like lead and now it’s her turn to look away from him, to concentrate instead on the contrast of shining silver against his pale skin. The letters– the letters she’d burned and ripped up and anticipated with an equal mix of dread and excitement– they had been important after all. And she’d never even opened them, never even wondered what he could have been writing to her about. 

“I didn’t read them,” she admits quietly, idly tracing the tip of the blade along the outline of his fifth rib. “I burned them.” 

“Ah,” he says after a long beat of silence, “I see.” 

“Were they rather important?” She asks without looking up, now counting each of his ribs with a tiny poke of the silver blade so that beads of blood well up across his torso. 

“Rather, yes,” he replies and she can’t tell if he’s amused or just masking his anger very, very well. 

“What did you write to me?” 

“Words,” he says in a voice so smooth she can tell he’s trying to be nonchalant, “about this and that.” She responds by cutting a small asymmetrical letter A over the jutting bones of his left rib cage– it looks so nice she considers adding the rest of her name but then decides that’s a bit too much. 

“I wrote to tell you that I missed you,” he murmurs to the top of her head and Alina tenses, pausing the movement of the knife across his skin as she waits and listens. “I missed your scent, and the color of your eyes, and being close to you.” 

When he remains silent for several minutes she resumes the perusal of his bare skin with the dagger, lets the metal wander over his body in place of her fingers. It isn’t until she holds it to the column of his neck again that he speaks, peering at her from half-hooded eyes as if he’s tired or very relaxed. She hates the expression immediately. 

“I wrote to you about the military, what my soldiers and I were doing, about my concerns for the Fold and what its expansion means for Ravka. I wrote about the sky each time it was blue and described the first snowflakes when they fell. I apologized a thousand times over for leaving you.” 

She wants to roll his eyes at this but his words are just slightly too vulnerable, stemming from deeper in his heartless chest than she’d imagined possible, so she simply watches him. 

“I don’t believe you,” she whispers at last, ghosting the blade up the column of his throat to rest just beneath his jaw, metal kissing the dark hair covering his cheeks. “You’re a liar.” 

“I have nothing but the truth of my words to offer, Alina,” he responds, unmoving despite the knife positioned to sever his pulse, “as you burned the evidence of my honesty.” 

She refuses to allow him to cause her any guilt and so she snaps her teeth in his face, almost biting his nose, then draws back slightly. She continues the perusal of his body with the knife, dragging the pointed blade down slowly between his collarbones to rest between his pectorals. She loathes that he has an answer for everything, that he is constantly calm and unruffled. She thinks she could prefer a flash of emotion or shouting to this Kirigan who is cool, collected, never able to be shaken from his plans and silky words. Even harsh words or shadows trying to attack her would be preferable. She can feel him watching her but she doesn’t know what to say next, doesn’t know how to both apologize for not giving him more of a chance while also reprimanding him for leaving her with nothing but written words. 

“If you had read them,” he begins in a voice that wraps around her like a warm summer breeze, “you would know that I wrote of my affection for you. Of the feelings you conjured in my chest the first moment we danced together, the first moment you looked at me and touched my skin.” 

“Don’t,” she whispers to the pale skin of his chest, “please don’t.” But because he is Kirigan and because he has lived a thousand lifetimes only ever forging forward, he continues. 

“I wrote to you of the feeling of being complete after hundreds of years of loneliness. I explained my elation and my trepidation at what you would think of me once you discovered the truth of who I am. My hope that you would care for me despite it all.” 

She’s trembling, just barely, frozen in her position and gaze trained on the silver metal pressed to his chest as his soft words conjure up her own memories of that night. 

“I ended each letter with my hopes for your wellbeing,” he breathes on an exhale, almost a sigh, “and I asked you to write back to me. To tell me of your life, of your lessons, of your thoughts and feelings and dreams.” 

“And yet you waited months before returning,” she snaps, hoping the sharp words will hide the lump in her throat. 

“I came as soon as you called,” he tells her, angling his head until their eyes meet again despite her reluctance. She frowns at him and averts her gaze to the side, studying every small detail about his room rather than continue to be cut open by his dark eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she tells him with a twist of her lips that makes him sigh deeply, chest rising and falling against the knife in her hand. 

“You came to me, sweet one,” he murmurs and his voice holds a fondness she doesn’t understand at first, “you told me you missed me.” 

She whips her head around to stare at him, brows raised in shock as she thinks. “The dream?” She exclaims, moving her left hand from his shoulder to tangle in his hair and draw his head roughly back. “That’s why you came back? Because I told you in what I thought was a figment of my imagination that I missed you?” 

“The sweetest words I’ve yet heard from your lips,” he says with a slight smile, completely ignoring the angle she’s holding him at and the rage in her voice. 

“You’re an idiot,” she snaps, tugging his head back further with her fingers and pressing the point of the dagger against the hard cage of bone between his pectorals. “And for someone who lies so often and well you should know that not every word from my lips is true.”

He blinks at her lazily, smile still in place, and she has the sudden and rather uncomfortable thought that perhaps he doesn’t mind being trapped under her with a blade mere inches from his heart. “I felt the truth of your words,” he murmurs, “in your actions and echoed in my mind.”

She releases him with a brusque twist of her fingers and feels a little mollified when his skull slams into the wood of the chair with a satisfyingly loud sound. She shifts on his legs until her knees are wedged against his hips in a grinding of bone on bone, ignoring the burn on her thighs and the numbness creeping up her toes.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says curtly, “and talking about it now changes nothing.”

“As you wish it,” he agrees easily, lifting his head to level his gaze at her again with a slight wince.

“You have another apology to make,” she reminds him and he huffs a laugh but bows his head in acquiescence.

“My apologies,” he begins smoothly as the humor fades from his face, “are long overdue. I am sorry, Alina, that I did not place my faith in you. That I did not trust you. I am sorry for my underestimation of your character and of your love for Ravka— of who you are.”

She nods jerkily as he blinks at her, knowing he’s looking for some sort of approval before continuing. His shoulders droop slightly in relief and it’s so oddly childlike that she can’t repress the swell of protective affection in her chest at his expression.

“I am sorry for my manipulation of your actions at the solstice celebration. I am sorry that I did not trust you with the truth or consider simply asking for your help.”

A wisp of shadow curls through the air between them to caress her cheek and ghost over her lips but his eyes never falter from hers. “I apologize, truly, for failing to place your safety and happiness above my ambitions. I am sorry for taking your freedom to choose from you; for publicly claiming you as my mate without regard to your thoughts on the matter.”

“How could you,” she whispers, blinking rapidly to keep the light licking at her fingers at bay.

“Your power is beautiful, Alina,” he murmurs in response as if that’s an acceptable answer. “I wanted— selfishly— everyone in attendance to know that I am connected to that beautiful power. To you and your light.”

“That wasn’t your decision to make,” she snarls in his face, emphasizing her words with a sharp jab of the dagger’s tip between his ribs. Blood wells up and overflows quickly but she doesn’t care anymore about being careful with how much blood he loses. “You disrespected my wishes; you undermined my independence and control over my light when you claimed me as your mate.”

“I am sorry,” he says in a calm and measured voice, “and I will lay my apologies at your feet until the last dawn of my last day if you will but allow me to.”

She rolls her eyes at the dramatic words, at the older speech patterns he’s slipped into and the formalities he’s using. “I don’t think any measure of time or apologies will suffice, Kirigan. You may talk of remorse until your lungs are empty but until your actions and patterns of thinking change I won’t be able to believe you.”

He nods, jaw firm and head tilted back to appraise her with those gleaming black eyes. She is resolute, made of stone, unchangeable in the face of his beauty and boldness. She stares back at him, unblinking, wanting him to truly understand the weight behind her words and take her seriously. She appreciates his apologies, appreciates that he was able to at least begin to comprehend the wrongs he’s paid her and voice them, but— apologies made at knifepoint are never truly sincere.

“I understand that now,” he murmurs. “But I will apologize each day regardless, though it may take many more decades of life before my actions change. I am very old, Alina, and slow to learn new habits.”

“No,” she disagrees, shaking her head and circling the fingers of her free hand loosely around his throat, “you will learn and you will change beginning even today. Ravka needs you to be better— as do I.”

He’s silent for so long she almost starts cutting him again for something to do, bloodlust roiling inside along with her burning light. She doesn’t move, though, never tearing her eyes from his no matter how uncomfortable each passing second makes her. The sun shining through the window is warm on her shoulders, a gentle caress of strength, and the numbness has spread past her toes up into her ankles. She’s thirsty, and emotionally tired already, and her stomach is grumbling slightly because she forgot to eat anything before setting out on her mission. She doesn’t feel like a snake anymore— she’s just a girl with a knife and a desperate plan, pleading with an ancient man to change his very nature.

At last he breaks the hold of their gaze and dips his head in a lengthy bow. “As you wish,” he says in a strong voice, his words pushing the trapped air from her lungs and drooping her shoulders in relief. It’s a start; a tiny start and one that required a fair amount of blood, but Alina can feel the smallest tendrils of tentative trust forming between them again. How he will act and the choices he will make when he’s free of her bonds and blade remains to be seen, though, and she doesn’t know if it’s anticipation or dread she feels when she thinks of that future.

She removes her fingers from around his throat and drops her other hand until the sharp metal is hovering loosely at his lower abdomen but her fingers are loose on the handle and it’s no longer a true threat. She dips her head in return, feeling a bit of peace settle in the air between them as she thinks back over the truths he’s admitted and his words. 

 Alina tilts her head as she considers him, her cooling mind catching on a small detail he revealed earlier as her brow wrinkles into a frown. “You were sick too?” She asks and it’s enough to make him frown right back at her. 

“Yes,” he tells her, voice no longer silky smooth but now snarled with emotion. “Perhaps not as quickly as you because I could use my ability to bolster my health, but after the first month or so I grew ill.”

“I thought Alphas didn’t suffer from mate-sickness,” she says, still confused and slightly bashful now that she knows he suffered a bit as well. Kirigan sighs and tilts his head side to side, cracking his neck and making the drying blood on his throat shine deep burgundy in the sunlight. It feels like hours have passed, like Alina’s been in this room forever, but the sun is still high in the sky and the ends of her hair still hold a bit of moisture.

“That is a myth,” he begins, “and an unfortunate one as many mates don’t realize that they will both become sick when separated too long no matter their celestial orientation.” She nods, deciding to try and reform the Ravkan educational systems someday.

“Alina,” Kirigan says, and something about his voice, how raw but gentle it is, has her tensing and raising the blade back to hover at his Adam's apple. His eyes are warmer than they should be and he’s curving forward towards her despite the band of sunlight around his slim waist.

“Alina,” he repeats and she’s shaking her head, dropping the knife to cover her ears like that will be enough to block out his voice, but; “you are a sun Alpha, zolotse ” he tells her and it’s as if he’s wrapped the words in honey and clouds to soften their blow but they’re still a bomb exploding her life into pieces.  

“You’re lying,” she whispers, hands still clutched to her ears like that will block out the words echoing around her brain. “You lie about everything. This is just another lie– it’s just you trying to make me do something that fits your plans.” 

His face is tinged with sorrow and his voice is gentle as a spring breeze as he looks her in the eyes and says with a conviction only honesty can bring, “I will not lie to you again, Alina. I promise this. And I have nothing to gain from revealing this truth to you.” 

“But why didn’t you tell me sooner?” She cries as the cocoon of light around them begins to twist and writhe until it resembles a tornado more than a bubble. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?” 

Her hair whips across her face and Kirigan has to squint at her in the now almost-blinding brightness. “I thought you knew,” he murmurs and then, louder, “please, Alina, would you calm your light? The servants will be most displeased if my rooms go up in flames.” 

“I don’t care!” She screams right in his face, hands shoving against his shoulders as the light twists faster and burns ever closer to a shade of white gold that will light the whole palace, perhaps the world, up in cleansing fire. “I’m sick of being lied to about who I am and about my life!” 

He’s still bound by her light but he manages to lean forward until their foreheads are pressed together and she has no choice but to look directly into black-brown eyes. She can feel the press of his bare chest against her arms as the scent of forests and bergamot suddenly invades her senses. “I am sorry you were taught to hide your power and told you were unable to change the world,” he murmurs and she can feel his breath ghost across her lips. And though his hands are bound it’s almost as if there are phantom fingers stroking through her hair and down her spine, bleeding a calming chill into her scorching skin.

“I am sorry that so many truths about who you are have come from other people.”

“So am I,” she bites out, suddenly weary deep into her bones despite the anger in her heart, and she slumps slightly as the light whirling around them dissipates under a veil of shadows. She doesn’t even care, though, just wants to curl up in bed and forget this new revelation. She doesn’t mind being an Alpha exactly but the sudden reversal of one of her core identity traits is jarring and frightening; Alina feels like she’s standing on shifting sand being sucked from beneath her feet by an ocean tide. She waves a hand and the bonds of light trapping Kirigan recede in a shower of golden sparks while she pushes herself up from the chair and steps back on stiff legs, putting distance between them. She feels raw and exposed all over again despite the fact that she’s the one who is fully clothed this time while Kirigan is wearing nothing but his smooth black trousers and leather boots. He doesn’t move at first, just stays seated while he regards her with that constant calmness. Slowly he raises his arms and begins to flex his fingers, then massages each wrist and twists his ankles in circles. Slowly he rises and slowly he approaches, his torso paler than usual in the sunlight streaming through the window, scars shining pearly white and pink. It’s only a step or two for his long legs and then he’s just outside her circle of space, his scent and nearness invading her mind all over again.

Her eyes drift to the now dried streams of blood decorating his throat and chest, noting that the cuts are slightly deeper than she’d realized— but he hadn’t reacted at all each time she’d used the knife on him. His hair is in disarray, loose strands pushed back about his face as if he’s been through an ordeal. She doesn’t know what he wants or why he’s approached when she was just holding a knife to his throat but she wraps her arms around her waist, hunching slightly to protect herself, and watches him. Mirroring her stance he folds his own arms over his chest, pale muscles bulging slightly, and even half naked and painted with blood he manages to look calm and dignified.

“Can you accept one more truth today, Alina?” He asks and his voice is smooth and dark again just like the shadows blossoming into curving talons and fangs around his legs.

She sighs and slumps against the windowsill, letting her head fall back against the glass as she hunches her shoulders and wishes for this day to be over already. “What truth do you offer, Kirigan?”

“My name.”

“Your name?” She whispers and the shadows around his feet erupt, twining towards the ceiling to form fanciful beasts and dragons and wolves.

“Aleksander.” 

“Aleksander,” she repeats, trying out the weight and shape of the syllables on her tongue. He’s gazing at her like she’s just given him the greatest gift possible, black fire burning bright in his eyes. 

“Say it again,” he breathes.

“Aleksander.” 

Chapter Text

His name lingers on her lips and fills her mouth with black licorice and sweet summer cherries, curling down her throat and into her chest in a warming lick of fire. He’s stretching towards her with fingers and shadows rising up the walls around them, every inch of his conjurations straining to touch her skin. The space between them feels fragile and taught as a glass ball poised to shatter. It’s a fraying rope down to the last thread, a needle the moment before it pierces flesh to draw blood– it’s standing on the edge of a cliff knowing that once the step forward is taken life will forever be changed and there’s no returning to this moment. Alina can feel the precipice under her feet, can feel the shifting foundation she stands on and how easy it will be to jump. How easy it will be to trust him to catch her once she falls and to catch him in return. 

They’re still caught in that moment of inaction, of choices and transient spaces, when the door to his chambers bursts open with a noisy bang as it hits the dark wall to reveal a flustered soldier, her flushed cheeks almost matching the hue of her scarlett kefta . 

“General,” she gasps, bowing low until her forehead almost touches her knees but they can both still hear her panting and Kirigan– no, Aleksander – swings around to glare at her. Alina thinks that if this girl was looking into his eyes she’d be burned into a cold pile of ash already from the fury held in his gaze. 

“When entering my private chambers it is recommended to first knock, Imogen,” he tells her calmly, pale fingers clenching into fists at his sides as he draws his shadows in to pool around his ankles until even Alina can barely see them. 

“My apologies, General,” the girl croaks, still doubled over in a bow. “But the king– the tsar – he’s dead.” 

An arrow of freezing ice spears through Alina’s chest and drops her stomach into her toes. She instinctively gasps, raising both hands to cover her mouth as she turns wide eyes to Aleksander. He shows no signs of shock but instead he’s already in action, striding to retrieve his kefta from beside his desk and slide the dark cloth over his pale and bloodied chest, buttoning it with quick fingers. He runs a hand trailed by shadows through his hair and it’s suddenly perfect again, neatly arranged as if she had never happened. And just like that his mask is assembled again, put back into place as Aleksander transforms into General Kirigan. Her chest aches a bit at the distance she can now feel between them, at his change into someone who belongs not solely to her but to Ravka first. 

“Show me,” he tells the young soldier with a decisive nod, and the pair of them are striding out the door before she can move or ask any of the questions bubbling up in her mind. Alina unfolds her arms and tries to rub the gooseflesh from her skin, tries to shake the crawling sensation of spider legs and snake scales from sliding down her spine. The silence of his rooms is now jarring and unsettling and for the first time she doesn’t feel safe in the Little Palace. If someone can murder the tsar , murder the ruler of Ravka in his own palace and city, then what could happen to her even with her light? 

“Alina?” 

She whips toward him with wide eyes and sees Aleksander framed in the doorway again, the soldier in red peeking over his shoulder with worried blue eyes, both of them tilting their heads to look at her like confused puppies. “Will you accompany me?” 

He asks it like a question for the first time since the night they met and she hears in his voice that she can say no, that she can turn away from him and he will accept that she doesn’t want to see the dead king. But more important than the choice he’s laid at her feet is the fact that he’s inviting her to this moment that is so pivotal for the future of their country, no matter how grisly. She nods and accepts his outstretched hand, curling her fingers around his as they start a quick pace through the silent Little Palace and across the grounds towards the looming golden monster that is the Grand Palace. Alina notes the silence in both the Little Palace and the gardens, realizing with a slight flush that everyone is most likely slumbering late into the morning due to last night’s festivities. Wine and kvas flowed freely alongside champagne and she’s sure many guests also found their way into new beds last night, likely enjoying every pleasure they could find on the last day of the year. 

The icy winter silence feels lovely to her, chilling and refreshing as cold wind whips against her cheeks and teases her sunlight to rise to the surface of her skin. She inhales the scent of snow and ice and fresh water, of the sharp blue sky and the snowflakes crunching under her now boot-covered toes. She likes this type of silence, likes being under the swell of blue blue sky but feeling Aleksander close next to her, their black keftas stark against the clean lightness of the world. She can’t stop rolling his name over and over in her head, wants to feel it on her tongue and lips again, wants to say it to him just to see his eyes darken and feel his shadows sweep towards her. 

The first two truths he shared with her unlocked a floodgate in her chest and now she’s brimming with even more questions, a hunger for more knowledge about him and his past hollowing out a pit in her stomach. She’s pushed the reveal about herself out of her mind, blocking off the corner of her brain filled with bright sunlight and the word alpha , trying not to think about what it means for her and her life. About what it means for her and the identity she thought belonged to her. She isn’t ready to examine that word yet, isn’t ready to dive deep into who she is and change the structure she’s lived her whole life upon. 

So she tilts her head back and drinks in the sky, the pure whiteness, enjoys the brush of Aleksander’s leg against hers with every step they take. She keeps her hold on him even when they enter the Grand Palace, which is just as dead as the Little Palace, holiday decorations still shining on the walls and gilded ceilings. Alina finds the decorations a little sad; they’re a reminder of the past, of joy already spilled and consumed. It’s time to move on into the new year and she suddenly wants to rip the tinsel and ornaments down with her own fingers, to cleanse every trace of the before from her surroundings. Maybe it’s just because she wants to forget the person she was yesterday. Or maybe it’s because she’s learned in her lessons that in war, generals can’t ruminate on battles of the past– they need to think only of the fights to come. 

Beside her Aleksander is a column of calm darkness, his face expressionless when she darts a glance his way. He looks as if it’s just another morning, as if there isn’t dried blood beneath his kefta and as if the ruler of their country isn’t dead. She’s so focused on his profile and reliving this morning that she barely even notices when Imogen stops, almost walks into the girls’ red kefta before Aleksander slides a warning arm around her waist to stop her. The door they’re standing in front of is enormous, golden and covered in gilded wolves and double headed eagles. Rubies and emeralds represent the eyes of the animals and Alina grimaces at the sight because this door alone could feed an entire village, could clothe children and buy books for classrooms. Aleksander releases her arm from his grasp, throwing his shoulders back and nodding at Imogen in a clear dismissal; the young soldier scurries away like a frightened mouse on quiet feet. 

“Do we need to worry about her?” Alina asks, straightening her own kefta and smoothing her long hair over her shoulders in preparation for what lies behind this door. 

“No,” he replies quietly while studying the door, “she’s one of my spies placed here in the Grand Palace but she’ll be moved to one of the quieter fighting areas far to the South before the day is done. If she chooses to open her mouth– well, she’s too young to be believed by most.” 

She frowns at his profile, disliking how he talks about the young girl who was brave and loyal enough to be a spy for him. “And how many spies do you have here?” 

He removes a long and shining metal pick from somewhere in his coat and with quick movements has the door swinging wide. “Just a few,” he replies, and strides through the doorway, casual tone and slight smile disappearing into the dim light within. 

She rolls her eyes and follows him in, feeling like a spy entering into a dragon’s lair. The air inside the great chamber is still and warm, already smelling of must and the faint sour tang of sickness. She wrinkles her nose at the smell and the memories it conjures of the winter everyone at Keramzin caught the flu and spent weeks lying feverish in bed, hurling their guts up at the sight of food. Aleksander’s dark form cuts through the faint light, solid midnight against deep charcoal, as he picks his way first through the receiving chamber into the library, then a war room that is suspiciously barren, and finally halts outside another set of golden double doors. Alina lets her fingertips hover over the velvet furniture in the rooms as she follows him, her eyes peering through the darkness at the rich paintings and jewel-encrusted baubles adorning every surface. She doesn’t let herself touch, doesn’t disturb anything in this stuffy mausoleum that already feels of death, but she does wonder for the first time what the tsar was like before he was the drunken king she’d met. She wonders if he was a good father when Nikolai was little, if he was scared when he first took the throne as a young man; if he ever tried to fight for Ravka or if the task was so overwhelming and terrifying that he simply pushed it off to others as soon as possible. She imagines what it would be like to sit on the throne in the Grand Palace and make decisions each day to help her country. The thought is not quite so daunting, a warm spark flashing in her stomach as she pictures double thrones and double crowns of gold and obsidian, pictures– but no. With a sharp twist of her head she banishes the images popping up in her brain, letting thick white paint coat her thoughts in syrupy nothing as she moves to stand by Aleksander’s side. 

His fingers flash again and then he’s pausing to look at her, dark eyes holding a question. She sticks her tongue out at him and he presses his lips together to suppress a smile, a warm shadow twining up from around them to curl across her shoulders and caress her cheek. He turns back to the door, their final hurdle before the truth, and pushes it open on silent hinges. Even from where they stand in the doorway Alina can tell that the scent of sour sickness has intensified, layered with a thick sweetness that reminds her of cough medicine. She moves to enter the room but he’s suddenly in front of her, shielding her behind him as he enters first. She glares at his back and conjures a ball of sunlight to hover in each palm as she follows him, letting her light illuminate the tsar’s bedchamber. Aleksander glances appreciatively at her hands and then turns to survey the room, dark eyes assessing as he takes in every detail in the now bright space. 

Alina vaguely notices the walls painted in forest scenes of hunting figueres and a white stag on the run, heavy velvet upholstered furniture and long burgundy drapes surrounding the enormous bed. But really, all her attention is on that bed and the small figure of the tsar . He wasn’t a large man in life and he’s even smaller in life but somehow it isn’t gruesome or bloody. There’s no blood, no vomit or signs of distress to accompany the smell. It’s just the small man’s body sprawled across the plum coverlet, blankets slightly rumpled beneath him. 

She relaxes slightly as she realizes this is something she can actually deal with and withstand and that when she walks out of this room, with Aleksander by her side, she’ll be alright. As if reading her thoughts his elbow is suddenly brushing hers as he joins her in front of the bed, both of them staring down at their dead ruler. She can see the lines on the tsar’s face, his mouth stained red from wine most likely. And yes– an empty glass sits on the bedside table, the half filled bottle shining on the floor as she extends her light. Lines lay heavy on the dead man’s face, his graying hair somehow thinner already as if his age is catching up to him with each passing hour. 

Alina shudders slightly and pushes light to surround her skin in a hard shell of armor, warming and comforting herself. Aleksander moves to study the tsar , bending over the bed but very carefully never touching or moving a single object. She extends her light even more to ease his work and the shadows now sitting docile at her feet like a puppy leap affectionately. Finally he is finished with his inspection and he stands, wrapping his hand around hers before leading the way back through the rooms, locking the doors behind them both with a slip of shadow until they’re back out in the pale gold of the hallway and striding away from those awful golden doors. The sour tang stays in her nose until they’re in the fresh air of the winter gardens, the Grand Palace hulking at their backs like a monster waiting to swallow them up too. 

She grips Aleksander’s fingers tighter in hers, resolutely keeping her gaze ahead and letting her light remain around her– there’s no reason to hide it, not now that everyone knows and not when she’s beside him. 

“I hate that palace,” she finds herself saying, filling her lungs with clean air in a large breath. 

He glances at her, studies every detail until she’s sure he realizes she really is okay, then hums in agreement. “I do too,” he tells her, “so I built the Little Palace. As far away on the royal grounds as I could.” 

“You did a good job. It’s much less– golden .” 

He laughs aloud and the sound ripples out over the pristine snow and empty blue sky around them, head tipped back in mirth. 

“Thank you, milaya . It means more to me than you will understand that you like our home.” 

She smiles sweetly at him and then sticks her tongue out when he starts to smile back. He stops in his tracks, grinning, using their tangled fingers to draw her back towards him and then pinching her cheek with his free hand when she’s close enough. She shrieks and jerks back, dropping his hand like a hot coal and bending low to gather two large handfuls of fluffy white snow. She quickly crafts a solid snowball and with the accuracy forged from hours of snow fights at Keramzin, she stands and hurls it directly at his face. She halts only long enough to snap a mental image of his confused and wrinkled features covered in snow before she’s off, running through the snow covered hedges and bare trees as she tries to stifle her loud giggles.

 Her boots keep slipping on the white powdery paths and she can hear him behind him, his feet crunching closer and closer because his legs are longer than hers and he’s ancient so of course he can run faster. Her heart is racing and she’s grinning so hard her face hurts and her cheeks are flushed pink from the exercise, her legs just beginning to warm up to the movement. She knows she can’t look back at him or else she’ll fall so instead she just hurtles around the corner of the formal garden they’re in, heading for the opening in the hedges that will lead back to the main path. She’s running too quickly and her boots are too slippery and it all comes crashing down as she tumbles towards the snow, about to plant facefirst in it and she’s bracing herself for impact and squeezing her eyes shut–. 

And then there’s a thick band of shadow wrapping around her waist followed by an arm and he’s pulling her back to tuck her against his chest, both arms wrapped around her as he leans in to kiss her cheek right where he pinched her. “Caught you,” he murmurs against her skin and she turns her head ever so slightly to grin at him. 

And then she throws all her weight back against him, using her weeks with Botkin and every trapped-prey instinct from her childhood, jabbing her elbows up to push him down into the snow behind them. He takes her down with him although he makes sure her landing is soft, his lungs letting out a heavy exhale when she happily lands her solid mass on top of him. She wriggles until she’s on her belly on top of him, hovering above him and gazing down at his flushed face. His hair is haloed out around his head and his arms are spread out like he’s about to make a snow-angel, dark eyes sparkling and lips parted as he breathes deeply. Her hair is wild from the wind and the running, falling around them in chocolate tangles and she’s suddenly very aware how despite their keftas , almost every inch of their bodies is pressed together. His chest rises and falls with hers, his sharp hip bones digging into her softer abdomen. She folds her arms on top of his pectorals and sets her chin down, drinking in this person that she is only beginning to know. 

“I think I won,” she tells him with a bright smile, emphasizing her point with a dig of one of her folded elbows into his ribcage. “Never,” he grunts out, breathing slightly labored by her weight, so she lets herself go even more limp and heavy. He huffs out a laugh and brings his arms up to stroke across her tangled hair, smoothing the locks back over her shoulders so the planes of her face and the tips of her reddened ears are exposed to the wintry air. It’s such a sweet gesture that she closes her eyes, enjoying the closeness of their bodies and the feel of his fingers against her scalp, light and gentle and– and pouring a pile of snowflakes directly on the crown of her head. It’s light and fluffy and freezing and immediately begins to melt, dripping down her forehead and across her cheeks, little rivulets of icy water running down to drip off her chin onto his kefta . She’s silent, her face screwed up in surprise as she gazes at him in betrayal, making her eyes as large as possible and projecting as much sadness as she can. 

Aleksander takes her in, the water on her face and the still-melting snow in her hair, her expression, and laughs so hard his chest and belly shake underneath her. “Evil!” She shrieks at him, scooping the snow from beside his head and ripping open the collar of his kefta to stuff the frozen water droplets down his shirt. He stops laughing as abruptly as he had started and what ensues for the next fifteen minutes can only be called war; snowballs fly, hair is pulled and they both fall several times, snow is stuffed into ears and down backs, and by the end of it they’ve both collapsed in the snow again, panting, faces flushed a bright rosy red. 

Alina’s hair is in damp strands around her face, she’s so sweaty underneath her kefta that she knows she’ll have to take another bath and she’s never been happier. The clean snow scent is all around her and she knows that even if she didn’t win their fight, she definitely didn’t lose either. 

“Tie?” She pants out, extending a chilled and dripping wet hand to him. “Tie,” he agrees, reaching out to shake her fingers and grinning at her again. “I’ll win next time though.” 

“As if!” She scoffs, curling her fingers to summon a ball of light and beginning to pass it over her hair. 

“I never lose,” he says and his tone is so full of satisfaction and surety that she narrows her eyes at him and points to the snow in warning. He holds up his hands in surrender, still grinning at her, not a trace of his shadows in sight in this world that is just clean brightness and snow. She smiles back and they lapse into silence, both enjoying being outside in their own little wintry world despite the cold– although Alina doesn’t really feel cold anymore. It isn’t until her hair is dry and warm that she speaks again, tracing patterns in the snow with the tip of her boot. 

“Was it poison?” 

He sighs from beside her, his long fingers shaping and packing handfuls of snow to assemble a tiny snowman at his feet, but she’s almost certain he isn’t angry with her or her question. “Yes,” he murmurs finally, the snowman now complete, “it was poison.” 

She nods silently and bends her neck back to look up into the great blue sea of sky above her. This winter morning world of fresh snow and cutting breezes feels so large and open and free, so pristine and new that she doesn’t worry about asking her next question. Nothing bad can happen in this world, in this snow covered garden, so honesty slips from her lips with ease. 

“Did you kill him?” 

He doesn’t look at her when he answers, just continues to breathe in the cold air. “I did not administer the poison that ended the tsar’s life, Alina.” 

“That’s a slippery truth, Aleksander. Give me the clear answer.” 

He stares at her until she lowers her gaze from the sky to meet his dark eyes, his face already returned to pale alabaster except for the flashes of rose on his cheeks, ears, and nose. She wants to draw him like this, sitting in the snow, hair falling everywhere, snowflakes caught on the fur edging his kefta . 

“Can you accept another truth today?” He’s expressionless but she knows that if she says yes not only will she have to accept his answer, she will have to shift and change and deepen her understanding of him and his actions. She’ll have to accept another truth about the things he’s done and the lengths he’s willing to go to to fulfill his plans for Ravka. 

But the sky is so blue and the air smells like clean laundry and pine trees and how could any truth he could utter hurt her in this world? Alina nods and knots her hands in her lap, ready to listen to whatever he has to say. 

“I did not kill him with my hands,” he begins quietly, “but I said the words that led to his death. I gave the order and I knew he would not live to see the new year.” 

His eyes are dark and fervent now as he looks at her, almost pleading as if he’s terrified she’ll run screaming from his confession. “He had to die, Alina. He was poisoning Ravka and slowly bleeding us dry–- with his parties and feasts and golden palace.” 

He’s looking at her like whatever she says next will either damn him to the underworld or lift him up on high and so she takes a long time to think about his words, rolling them over in her mind and reconciling this new thing he’s done with what she already knows of him. She thinks about how much he cares about Ravka, about her own knowledge of the tsar and what Nikolai’s told her of him, but somehow she keeps returning to that golden door covered in precious gems. She lets herself remember all the winters they were hungry at Keramzin, eating cabbage soup for every meal and the pinched faces of all the smaller children who grew too skinny. She thinks about all the families who have lost sons to the First Army, the people working tirelessly to farm their land and then giving up half of that food in a tithe to the crown. She thinks about a lot of things and examines her own morals, her own thoughts on murder and what she can live with. 

“I understand,” she finally tells him, focusing on his face to see every shift of emotion, “I don’t like what you did, but I understand. I think there were other ways to have helped Ravka and I expect us to find those other paths in the future, but I understand , Aleksander.” 

He closes his eyes briefly and then he’s catching her hands up in his and kissing her palms, tickling her skin with the stubble covering his cheeks and making her laugh out loud again at the feeling. “Come on,” she says, standing and using their connected hands to pull him to his feet as well until she has to tip her chin to look up at him. “Let’s go back inside and figure out how to save Ravka.” 

“Just Ravka?” He asks as they continue their walk through the gardens, fingers intertwined as he leans over to kiss the top of her head. 

“Ravka first,” she replies with a bright smile, “and then the world.” 

☀☀☀

Genya feels like she’s been buried under slabs of stones when she wakes up, the layers of goose down blankets cocooning her body suddenly so heavy she can barely move. She remembers the instant her eyes open and it takes everything in her not to shriek in joy or throw up the contents of her stomach. Her skin feels tacky from last night’s makeup and there’s a sour taste in her mouth, fermented grapes heavy on her tongue and drying out her mouth. She feels awful, her stomach roiling sickly and a thin layer of sweat popping up on her forehead and spine as she thinks about last night. She doesn’t want to remember it at all but she can’t not think about it, can’t banish the images no matter how hard she tries. Eventually she manages to roll over onto her side and curl up into a little ball, hugging her childhood stuffed bear that is now worn from age and use to her chest. She buries her face in the bear’s brown fur and finally, finally allows herself to cry, tears rolling down her cheeks and across the slope of her perfect nose in the silence of her room.

Chapter Text

Inside the white halls of the Little Palace all is quiet and still. Even though Alina feels that years have passed since she woke this morning, for those sleeping off last night’s celebrations it's only mid-afternoon. She’s following Aleksander mindlessly, not really noticing where they’re going as she turns over everything that’s happened today in her brain. She’s just beginning to absorb the tsar’s death and with it the fact that someone will have to tell Nikolai, that Prince Vasily will have to be brought back from Ketterdam University for a coronation. 

She stops when Aleksander does, not really seeing where they are until he reaches out to gently touch her still damp shoulder, looking down at her with eyes that are more open than she’s ever seen before.  His hair is tousled from their frolic in the snow and a flush of red still blooms in his cheeks. She realizes they’re outside the massive double doors of the public war room, the low hum of voices seeping from inside. 

“The tsar’s ministers and advisors have gathered to discuss how to proceed from today,” Aleksander says quietly, eyes trained on her face like a beacon. “Would you like to join this meeting?” 

She opens her mouth to say yes but, instead, what comes out is “No.” 

He frowns at her and she’s sure her face is mirroring the surprise evident on his finely carved features, but– something low in her belly is tugging her away from this room. “I have to go,” she says suddenly, “I think Genya needs me.” 

And then she’s spinning, skirts whipping around her ankles as she almost runs down the hallway and takes a left, boots skidding slightly on the marble. She’s trying to think of the fastest route to Genya’s room because the tugging feeling is growing stronger, her heart beating out a rapid pulse of need against her wrists and throat. She races past windows displaying a sparkling world of snow, passes the great dining hall where early risers are slumped over their breakfasts, turns another corner and smacks into Mal’s back with a heavy exhale. Her nose is stinging and she claps both fingers over it as Mal, accompanied by Nikolai, turns. This moment is so reminiscent of his reappearance in her life weeks ago that she almost smiles but she just hurries forward instead, beckoning for the boys to follow her. 

“Did you feel it too?” Nikolai asks, his tone serious and golden face grim for once. Beside him Mal looks dangerous, walking silently the way he does when he’s stalking prey through the forest. 

“Genya,” Alina says, voice slightly muffled by the hands clasped over her aching nose as they all run-walk through the Little Palace. At last, at long last, they reach Genya’s rooms and Alina doesn’t even hesitate before throwing the door open, lowering her hands from her face to summon sunlight in case of an attacker. She can feel Nikolai and Mal at her back, two steady warm presences and she’s suddenly so grateful for her friends, for the gift of their presence. 

They creep through the rooms on silent feet but the receiving room, made up in pale shades of peach and russet, is empty without even a trace of Genya’s lively presence. The next room must be their friend’s workshop because there are bolts of colorful fabric neatly stacked on racks affixed to the cream walls, baskets of lace and feathers and sequins, small trunks labeled with words like wooden buttons, whale bone , or eye hooks . On the enormous wooden table spanning one wall of the room are spools of thread in every shade of the rainbow, laid out beside pin cushions stuffed with shining silver needles and a large book laid open to show dress designs. Alina looks over the riot of colors, the shining baskets of tiny seed beads and the lengths of velvet in rich emerald and deep aubergine, filmy white lace draped beside shimmering jacquard silk woven in silver and gold. She feels a burst of awe and pride at her friend’s talent, that Genya can take all the pieces in this room and somehow make beautiful clothes with just her hands. 

As they enter the last room Alina’s breath catches in her throat. The air is unmoving and heavy, tinged with the iron of blood and salty like a sea breeze. She races towards the bed where a small lump is curled beneath the deep ruby covers, a hint of copper curls peeking out from the blankets. But there is no movement, no rise and fall of the blankets, no sound as they slowly approach. 

“Genya?” Alina whispers, terrified to peel back the covers, terrified of what she’ll find. Beside the bed is a crumpled pool of crimson silk and she thinks that’s where the smell of blood is coming from. 

The lump shifts slightly and a tiny whimper emanates from under the fabric. Behind her Nikolai lets out a whoosh of air and Mal mutters something that might be a prayer but Alina ignores them, diving forward to tear away the blankets and lay her cheek against her friend’s. 

“Genya,” she murmurs, tears already welling up in her eyes, “darling, what’s wrong?” 

Her body curves protectively over Genya’s as she instinctively tries to shield her friend from whatever is hurting her. Genya is shaking so hard that the tremors or her body travel into Alina and rattle her own teeth, both girls now subsumed in a cloud of sadness. Alina has no idea what happened, no idea what to say or how to pull her friend out of her misery as Genya rescued her so many times but she’ll stay here and hug the other girl as long as she can. She stays where she is on the bed, only moving far enough so that now she’s curled around Genya’s back like a kitten, the two girls slotted together. 

The wide mattress shifts and dips as first Nikolai and then Mal join them, the two boys crawling across the bed and settling around Alina and Genya like hesitant puppies. Nikolai drapes an arm over Genya’s waist, his fingertips brushing against Alina’s arm slung over Genya’s hips. Mal curls at Nikolai’s back but his arm, thick with muscle, loops over his mate’s shoulder so that he can clench rough fingers with Alinas’. She smiles at him over their friends, grateful for his steady presence. 

“It was so easy,” Genya whispers as tears carve a path across her pale cheeks and over her cracked and bleeding lips. She slowly raises huge blue eyes, made brighter by a sheen of salty tears, to Alina’s face. “Why was it so easy to kill him, Alina?” 

Alina feels her eyes widen, feels the way her face involuntarily reacts before she can control herself and Genya sees. Genya sees and cries out, ducking her head to hide beneath her arms. “You think I’m a monster,” she cries through renewed sobs, her voice muffled. “You think I’m a monster because I killed him and you’re right .” 

“No one thinks you’re a monster, darling,” Nikolai whispers as he gently smoothes Genya’s long curls back from her sweaty neck. 

“You should!” Genya shriekes, her voice so high pitched that Alina’s wolf cowers beneath her skin. “I am! I am! I killed him, Nikolai–.” 

“Genya, please, it’s alright,” Alina soothes, trying to pull her friend out of the cocoon of her arms so that she can look at her. “It’s alright. We love you, darling, it doesn't matter–.” 

“Yes it does!” Genya nearly screams, finally uncoiling her arms and springing up into a seated position, her back slumped in grief and her face pink and puffy from crying. More tears are coursing steadily down her cheeks and her eyes are almost swollen shut, lashes clumped together and shining with tears. “I killed– Nikolai, I killed your father.” 

The second prince stares up at Genya from where he’s still sprawled on the bed, his golden hair tousled and hazel eyes very still as he takes in what she just said. “You– what?” He manages at last, expression blank. Mal sits up as well and shifts closer to his mate, placing protective arms around Nikolai as he draws him to his chest. 

Genya breaks down into a fresh wave of sobs and collapses against Alina, allowing herself to be cradled against Alina’s chest as she curls her knees to her chest and hugs them close. She doesn't even attempt to wipe the wetness or snot from her face, just lets all her emotions tumble out. It’s the most un-put together Alina’s ever seen her glamorous friend and it’s jarring, scary. The world doesn’t feel right when Genya is so out of sorts and upset. 

“I killed him,” Genya murmurs as she clutches her knees closer. Alina can see that her knuckles are white and bloodless. “I brought a bottle of wine to his rooms and I let him think it was going to be a normal evening with me and I watched him drink cup after cup of wine and then– then I watched him die.” 

Her sweet voice breaks on the last words and she’s breathing heavily, like confessing the truth took all her strength. She squeezes her eyes shut as if she can’t bear to look at the world anymore and Alina thinks she understands, a little bit. She holds Genya closer and rests her cheek in the crook of her friend’s shoulder, offering all the comfort and warmth and love that she can with her body. 

She doesn’t have the words right now to make Genya feel better, to comfort her, but she has her arms and her love and her warmth. 

“Explain it to me again,” Nikolai says woodenly, finally sitting up. His back is ramrod straight and he looks more serious and more princely than Alina’s ever seen before. Over his shoulder Mal’s brow is pinched with worry and he’s running a soothing hand down his mate’s spine again and again. 

“Nikolai, no, she’s been through a very difficult ordeal and I really don’t think now is a good time to have her go over it aga–,” Alina starts to say, but Nikolai holds up a hand to silence her. “No,” he says and his voice is winter winds and frozen ice, “now is a good time. I won’t pretend to like my father, but he was my father . If she killed him, the very least she can do is give me the details.” 

“She already did!” Alina protests, glaring at him as her arms grow damp with the tears dripping from Genya’s chin. “She gave you the details and asking her for more is only going to hurt you both.” 

“No,” Genya whispers as she wipes her nose on the sleeve of her nightgown, making an awful sniffling sound that cracks Alina’s heart a little. “He’s right. I killed his father. I owe him the truth of how it happened.” 

Alina frowns and then gives Mal a pleading look over the top of Genya’s copper head, asking him for help with her eyes. 

“Nik,” he begins quietly, placing a hand under his mate’s jaw and tilting his head back, “maybe Alina’s right. You both need time to process this. Asking Genya for more right now, when you’re both hurt and upset, isn’t going to help either of you.” 

Nikolai softens for a moment, looking into his mates’ eyes, but then he turns back to them and from his expression Alina can tell he isn’t going to give this up. Mal shrugs at her, as if to say, “I tried,” and she just sighs. 

“Did you kill him of your volition?” Nikolai asks and the angle of his head reminds Alina of a fox inspecting its fresh kill. 

“No,” Genya whispers against her knees, her spine pressed so tightly into the curve of Alina’s stomach she thinks their bodies might begin to grow together. “Not really. I hate him for what he did to me, but– but I don’t know if I would have killed him on my own.” 

“What he did to you?” Alina asks quietly, placing a kiss against Genya’s temple. 

“He hurt me,” Genya says so softly that her words are barely an exhale of breath. “Ever since I was thirteen or fourteen, he– noticed me. He liked that I was pretty. And so small– he called me his little porcelain doll.” 

Hot light, hotter than even the fires of a great forge, kindles in Alina’s belly. But she can’t react. This moment isn’t about her and her anger– this is about Genya and listening to her friend’s story and then doing whatever it takes to help her. 

“How did he hurt you?” It’s Mal who asks this time and surprisingly, Genya answers. 

“He just touched my face at first, or my hands. Sometimes he made me sit in his chambers while he dressed and tell him how nice he looked. But then– I got older. And he got braver. He started slipping his hands under my clothes and trying to kiss me. And I tried to resist. I tried to say no. But he was the tsar – how could I say no?” 

Mal’s face is like a thundercloud while Nikolai seems colder and more frozen than a glacier. Alina just feels sick. She doesn’t want to hear this but she has to. She has to. Genya is her friend and she will listen for her, so that she doesn’t have to bear this truth alone. 

“I think he began to prefer me more than the queen,” Genya whispers and her voice is oddly calm, as if she’s talking about someone else’s life. “That made her angry and so she began to punish me. She woke me before dawn or hit my hands with a stick or sent me to bed with no dinner after hours of preparing her. But it wasn’t so bad– I could take that.” 

“You were a child,” Nikolai says in a low tone and Genya shudders in Alina’s arms involuntarily, clenching her eyes more tightly closed. “No one deserves that but especially not a child.” 

“When he came to me and asked me for help, I said yes. He told me I could hurt the tsar a little bit like how he’d hurt me, and that after, I would be free.” 

“He?” Alina asks, wrinkling her brows. Across the sea of blankets and sheets, Nikolai and Mal look just as confused. 

“The General,” Genya says, turning her head and opening her eyes for the first time to look straight at Alina. “He gave me to the queen as a child but he promised if I helped him kill the tsar, I’d be free from her. And I– I said yes.” 

Her sharp chin begins to tremble and she dissolves into tears again, laying her head back down on her knees as she cries. Alina hugs her friend close and strokes her hair, rubs her back, whispers comforting words in her ear. But she’s not really there, not really in the room with her friends. No, she’s far away in a carriage rumbling toward Os Alta months ago as her mate expresses his dislike for the tsar . Then she’s in a ballroom, watching as her former mate humiliates the tsar . Then she’s in a gilded bedchamber that smells of sickness and wine, watching her former mate look down at the body of the tsar with no expression. 

“He killed him,” she whispers more to herself than anyone else, “he killed the tsar . And now he’s going to take the throne for himself.” 

Genya and Nikolai don’t hear her, too lost in their own grief and pain and thoughts, but Mal does. He blinks at her twice before inching forward, leaning over Nikolai’s shoulder to really look at her. “What did you say, ‘Lina?” 

“He killed the tsar ,” Alina says, stronger this time, “not you, Genya. He did. And he’s going to try and take the throne for himself. He wants to be the next tsar .” 

Nikolai looks up, hazel eyes snapping to hers as he runs a hand over his face as if to wipe away the anger and sorrow and pain and confusion jumbling his features. “The General?” He asks, “you think General Kirigan wants to seize the throne?” 

“I think so,” Alina says grimly, continuing to stroke Genya’s back. “He’s said things to me before, just little comments, about how he didn’t like your– about how he didn’t like the tsar . And he has all these plans. All these ideas about how to make Ravka better, how to help the people.” 

“And he’d have the soldiers to do it,” Mal says as he tips his head, considering, his mind already running over the possibilities behind dark brown eyes. “The majority of the Second Army is already here for the festivities and from what I’ve seen they’re loyal to him and him alone. They’d kill for him if he asked them to.” 

“It wouldn’t be much of a fight,” Nikolai says with a snort, dropping his head back to rest on Mal’s shoulder. “The nobles will barely be able to muster up a weapon between them and the First Army is off protecting the borders. And my brother is in Ketterdam, at university. The only thing standing between him and the throne–.” 

“Is you,” Genya finishes, slowly lifting her face to look at their friends. “The queen can’t rule– she’s a woman and she’s only Ravkan by marriage. Your brother is too far away so that just leaves you, Nikolai.” 

“So what do we do?” Mal asks, looking between them all with a slightly panicked expression. “Can we fight him?” 

“No,” Alina and Nikolai say in unison, sharing a look. “No,” Alina repeats, training her eyes directly on Mal, “we could fight him, perhaps, but we would lose.” 

“So we flee?” Mal asks, frustration evident in his voice as he squeezes Nikolai closer to his chest. “That’s our only option? To just give up Nik’s throne and leave?”

“It’s the safest option,” Genya mumbles and then ducks her head when they all turn their eyes to her. 

“What about you, Alina?” Nikolai asks after several moments of silence, sharp eyes examining her face. “Could you convince him not to hurt us, or better yet to abandon his insane idea of ruling? I know you're not exactly mates but I think you would hold a great deal of sway with him.” 

Mal nods along with his mate and even Genya perks up slightly, looking almost hopeful. “I agree,” she says, nodding, “I think you could have a chance at changing his mind, Alina.” 

Alina shakes her head, unsure. So much has happened between her and Aleksander. They have a long history to work through, a tangled web of lies and hurt and distrust that will probably take them decades to sort out. And though they’d begun to reconcile just this morning, though they’d had that lighthearted moment of fun in the snow, she still doesn't trust him. She doesn’t know how to act around him, doesn't know how to talk to him or balance who she is and the role she wants with his expectations of her. When she isn’t with him she feels a sick sense of relief. When she isn’t with him, she never wants to see him again, never wants to talk with him again. But when she is with him– something strange comes over her and she softens, somehow. She begins to forget herself, begins to give into him, begins to allow him access to her body and her words. She doesn’t like any of it. 

“I don’t know,” she says slowly, twisting a lock of dark hair around and around one of her fingers. “We have a very complicated relationship. He’s just begun to tell me the truth. I can ask, but I don’t think he’ll listen to me. I don’t think he can change that quickly, even if I try to force him.” 

“He’s your mate ,” Mal says in disbelief, his voice filled with more anger than Alina’s ever heard directed at her. “You could ask him for the moon and he would give it to you.” 

“He’s not my mate–,” she starts to protest but Mal scowls at her, actually scowls, and speaks over her in a loud voice. “I don’t care what you say, ‘Lina. He is your mate, no matter how complicated things are between the two of you right now. And I’m your best friend. I’ve been your best friend since we were children. And Nikolai is my mate . If I mean anything to you– anything at all, if you care about me even the littlest bit, you will go to your mate and you will demand that he allow Nikolai to live and freely leave this palace.” 

Nikolai places a placating hand on Mal’s arm, turning to kiss his jaw, as Alina shrinks back. Mal’s eyes are filled with a bright fervor of rage and fear and though she knows he’s just terrified for his mate, just trying to protect Nikolai, she still doesn’t like how he’s talking to her. Mal has only ever been gentle and kind to her, a warm ray of sunshine and laughter, but now he truly seems an Alpha. Protective, intimidating, powerful. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers quietly, trying to fold her body down so she can hide behind Genya, “I didn’t mean that I wouldn’t try to help, Mal. And of course I care about you– you and Nikolai. I love you both. I just– I don’t have the same faith you do that he’ll listen to me, but I’ll try. I promise I’ll try.” 

“Thank you, Alina,” Nikolai says with a very slight curl of his lips. At his back Mal has seemed to calm slightly and he’s now pressing kisses to the side of his mate’s neck, arms curled tightly around the prince’s waist. “And perhaps putting some of your Omega wiles into effect would help achieve the desired result?” 

Alina blinks at the prince, her mouth catching up with what he said before her brain does. “I’m not an Omega, actually,” she says promptly, “I’m an Alpha.” 

Her friends stare at her, their eyes widening so comically that she lets out a little giggle before clapping both hands over her mouth. Even Genya twists to goggle at her, each of them shocked into a deep silence before they explode into sound. 

“I knew it!” Mal shouts, tugging his hands through his hair and pumping the air triumphantly, “I knew you weren’t an Omega! After that day with the bullies when you made one of them blind I just knew it!” 

Nikolai has closed his eyes and is muttering to himself, his fingers steepled under his chin and it appears as if he is trying to meditate. Genya throws her arms around Alina, hugging her close as she sniffles into her neck. “That’s wonderful, Alina,” the other girl murmurs, “I’m so happy for you. It’ll be so nice to have another female Alpha around.” 

Nikolai’s eyes snap open and he waves an imperious hand to silence them all, looking like a true royal despite the fact they’re all sitting in a bed and he’s wearing pajamas under his teal frock coat from last night. Mal stops celebrating and Genya releases Alina, though their hands remain clasped as they look to their friend. 

“I have a plan,” he says and the smile that spreads across his face is wide and mischievous and slightly crazed. 

☀☀☀

Alina raps smartly on the great wooden doors of the war room, gazing down at the white marble beneath her boots as she waits to enter. 

“Come in!” He calls and she slips inside before she can consider the fear curdling inside her stomach. This larger war room is similar to the one in her former mate’s rooms, but it smells worse and is much more disorganized. Deep mahogany panels the walls, though the wood is barely visible beneath the shelves laden with books on military tactics and the many maps tacked up. Books lay in piles on the great oak desk and on the chairs scattered in the corners, some still open as if just abandoned. Empty cups and plates of half eaten food litter the desk and the air is heavy with the tang of sweat and wine and stress. An absolutely massive oval table occupies much of the room, a detailed map of Ravka and her surrounding neighbors carved into the wood. Little mountains rise into the air and small carved houses represent villages and settlements. A perfect miniature of the Grand Palace marks Os Alta while a section of wood painted purest black represents the Fold as it splits the country in two. Alina can see little wooden pieces that must represent troops and battalions scattered across the table but she quickly draws her gaze away to focus on Aleksander. 

His hands are braced on the curved lip of the table as he bends over it, studying the borders and troops as if he’ll come up with a new solution somehow. His dark clothes are slightly rumpled, probably from the snow she’d pelted him with, and when he glances up at her his eyes are tired. Pale lavender shadows ring his eyes like petals and his lips are so pale they’re almost bloodless. She wonders, suddenly, if what she did to him this morning hurt him. He always seems so powerful, so in control and confident, that she hadn't imagined losing a little blood would actually weaken him. But now, with the way he looks– perhaps. 

“ Solnishka ,” he breathes almost in relief, and then he’s rounding the table and opening his arms as if he’s about to embrace her. She takes a step back, though, and he stops, tucking his hands into the pockets of his kefta as if to try and save face. She knows she’s probably supposed to say something, to ask him if he’s well or how the meeting went, but all she can do is look up at him across those scant few feet between them. He’s so beautiful, even when he’s tired. He’s such an awful, awful liar, even when he looks at her like that. She thinks she hates him still. She thinks she loves him a little. 

“Is Genya alright?” He inquires, tipping his head a bit to study her, and it takes her several long minutes to understand what he’s talking about. So much has happened since she left him that she can barely remember the person she was when they played together in the snow. Can barely remember the person she was when she allowed him to wrap an arm around her shoulders and kiss her head. A person of hope and foolish dreams, probably. 

“She’s fine,” Alina says finally, still looking up at him with that blankness as inside her heart and mind tussle over her feelings. Everything she knows about him, every moment and look and touch and whispered word, is scrolling through her mind. Every feeling and smile and touch of his lips is imprinted in her thoughts as she looks at him. 

“Good,” Aleksander says and turns to stride back around the table, returning to where he had been before. She thinks maybe he’s nervous or a little awkward. It doesn’t seem as if he knows what to say to her, either. She wonders for a moment if this morning was humiliating for him, if he feels stranger around her now that she knows more about him. Now that she’s spilled his blood and bound him with her sunlight. 

“My meeting with the advisors went well,” he says as he picks pieces up from the table and then replaces them, making no changes. “They responded well to my ideas about how to spread the news of his death and my ideas for Ravka’s future. I think the transition to a new leader will be a smooth one. They are concerned, of course, with the matter of how our enemies will take this new–.” 

“Actually,” Alina interrupts him, finally forcing her feet to move until she’s leaning against the table across from him, a sea of wooden mountains and soldiers separating them. “Genya isn’t very well.” 

“I’m sorry, Solnishka ,” he replies and it’s so sincere the way his brow wrinkles and the way he blinks at her. It’s so sincere, the sorrow in his gaze for her friend’s pain, that she has to curl her fingernails into the skin of her palms to stop herself from hurling a book at him. He knows exactly why Genya isn’t well. He’s the reason for it. He’s the reason for all of it– the pain and the tears and the death and the suffering. He’s the reason the Fold exists. He’s the reason so many people died back then and he’s the reason so many young men and women have sacrificed their lives fighting in a pointless war. He’s the reason Ravka has been ripped in half and is barely surviving. He’s at the heart of the problem. 

“What ails her?” He asks, glancing down at the table again as he moves tiny ships around the edge of Ketterdam harbor. 

“Someone made her kill the tsar ,” Alina says calmly, eyes trained on his face. “And she’s very upset about it.” 

Slowly he sets down the wooden piece and slowly he raises his eyes to meet hers, face impassive as he tips his chin and folds his arms behind his back, considering her. He looks so much the part of General Kirigan, of the powerful leader of the Second Army that she almost forgets herself and trembles. 

But then she remembers who she is. She remembers the power she carries in her bones. She remembers the plan she created with her friends and the secret advantage she holds over him. And she stands tall. 

“Alina,” he says very slowly after a long, long several minutes of staring each other down. “You knew already that I had ordered his death.” 

“Yes,” she replies very, very calmly. “But I didn’t know that it was my friend, who is kind and happy and gentle, who was forced to kill him. Did you know she’s still got a bit of his blood on her? And she’s been crying in her rooms for hours.” 

“If you think Genya is gentle then you do not know her as well as you think,” he tells her with a light snort and it’s those words that kindle the fire dormant in her blood. 

“I know my friend,” she snarls at him, leaning forward across the expanse of wood, “I know her. And I know that even in her darkest moments she would not have chosen to become what you have made her.” 

“And what’s that? A killer? As if that title is so bad,” he says arrogantly, raising his brows. 

“You are despicable,” Alina spits, baring her teeth at him as inside her wolf raises its hackles. “You have no idea how precious friendship is or you would never have made Genya kill him. If you cared for her, if you cared for anyone, you would never force a choice upon a friend like that.” 

“I did not force her,” he says, affronted, his brows lowering as he looks down at her from what seems to be a great height. She doesn’t understand how he’s still so calm when her blood is boiling and she’s spitting mad. She’s almost sure that if this entirely too large table wasn’t between them, her hands would be wrapped around his pale throat. And wouldn’t that be satisfying. 

“I value the freedom to choose more than you will ever know, Alina. I would never force any of my soldiers into an action or corner them until it was their only option left. I gave Genya the choice of revenge and she agreed.” 

“You cannot,” he says slowly as his eyes skim the length of her form, assessing, “lay the blame for her distress entirely at my feet.” 

“You gave her no choice at all,” Alina replies, flexing her fingertips as she feels her nails begin to lengthen and harden. “You gave her only the illusion of an option, but when she was forced to pick between following your orders or remaining in service to the man and woman who were abusing her– that is not a choice. That is not freedom.” 

“That is cruelty. That is force. That is abuse in and of itself. That is not who you should be.” 

“Alina–,” he starts, finally allowing his arms to drop to his sides as his eyes crack open a bit, allowing a flicker of emotion to shine through the pure black. 

“You have taken choices away from so many people,” she tells him, the fire in her blood cooling as she studies him. As she really looks at him, looks at this man who has made so many mistakes and who has hurt her and those she loves. “It began with the Fold. You took away the right of Ravka to choose your own special form of protection and instead forced what you thought was best for the country upon us.” 

“I didn’t–,” he says but she’s already talking again, her voice rolling over his like a tidal wave. 

“You took away the choices of so many young men and women throughout so many lifetimes. You forced them to enlist. You created the draft and the mandatory military service. You took away their futures, their time with their families, their options. You gave them nothing but death and violence.” 

“I had to protect Ravka,” he tells her, the words steely, but she doesn’t even notice his voice. Just continues on. 

“You took away Genya’s choice when you gave her to the queen. The decision you made for her led to a life of abuse and pain for her. And you took away her choice again when you forced her to kill the tsar. You are the reason her hands have blood on them. You are the reason she will always feel pain when she looks at Nikolai.” 

“I will never forgive you for the pain you have caused her,” Alina tells him and there’s no fire or fury in her voice. Just calm, chilling truth. 

“Alina, I– I have always done what is best for Ravka. You have to understand that in the grand scheme of life, in the hundreds of years I have served and protected and fought, sometimes great pain must be the cost of peace for the people.” 

He’s looking at her like she’s supposed to agree with what he’s saying. And maybe, if she had been born in another life and lived as many years as he had, she would. Maybe if she hadn’t felt the warmth of Genya’s arms or heard the laughter of small children at the orphanage or danced with Mal or laughed with Nikolai, she would understand his view on the world. But she hasn’t lived hundreds of lifetimes. She has lived this life, just these eighteen years. She knows the warm glow of friendship and the joys and hopes each person holds in their hearts. She knows that there were Ravkans before her and that there will be Ravkans long after her, but how can she care for people who haven’t been born yet? How can she allow her friends, her people, to suffer for a future that is only a possibility? 

“I don’t care about the grand scheme of life,” she whispers and though her voice is a little weaker now, a little cracked and fragile, it’s the truth. “I don’t want to have to sacrifice my friends and the people I love for the greater good. I don’t think that’s how we save Ravka, Aleksander. I don’t think that’s how we stop the suffering.” 

“Then how, Alina?” He asks and she can tell that he genuinely doesn’t know, that he genuinely wants an answer from her because he’s been seeking one for so long but hasn’t found it yet. 

“I don’t know,” she admits and it feels so awful that she drops her gaze from his for the first time, looking down at the carved map beneath her fingertips. “All I know is that even with the pain and the sacrifice made by the few to save the many, Ravka still doesn’t have peace. If violence hasn’t worked for such a long time– we need a new solution.” 

“Then give me that solution, Alina,” he says and his voice is angry and exhausted, just like how he’d looked when she’d walked in the door. “Tell me what to do and I will do it. Tell me how to save Ravka and it will be saved.” 

She stays silent, because she can’t. She doesn’t have a solution or an answer for him. She knows even less than he does about how to save Ravka and end the fighting. She has no idea how to rule a country and is just beginning to grasp how to direct an army or fight a battle. If there’s a way to help Ravka, she doesn’t know it yet. There’s nothing she can give him except her words and her frustration and her light. And even that might not be enough. 

He is silent too, both of them simply breathing and existing in this shadowed room. The sun set hours ago and long shadows dance on the dark walls, cast by the flickering flames crowning white pillars of dripping wax. Alina feels so tired that even her bones seem to ache with it. She thinks she’d like to go to sleep for a hundred years and only wake up when everything is better and war is a long forgotten memory. 

“I’d like that too,” Aleksander murmurs and Alina startles as she realizes she said that last thought aloud. “But it wouldn’t work. I tried that, for a while. Just isolating myself and not caring about what was happening in the world. But I couldn’t do it– I never could. I cannot leave Ravka behind. It is too important to me. I care too much about what happens to ever give up trying to save our country.” 

“What if you trying to save Ravka is just hurting it more?” 

She hadn’t meant to say the words. They’d just slipped out. She’d forgotten who she was speaking to, in the flickering shadows and long silence. The darkness softens him somehow and her exhaustion softens her, loosens her tongue and jumbles her wits. Aleksander physically recoils at her words, a myriad of emotions flashing across his face. Hurt, anger, fear, disgust, doubt, anger again, resignation, and at last cool blankness. 

“You don’t understand,” he says with a wave of his hand, “you’re barely more than a child. You haven’t been alive long enough to witness all I have done for Ravka.” 

She snarls at him, a wordless sound of anger and aggression. He steps back slightly, ducking his head before jerking it up to glare right back at her. “Don’t sink to your wolf, Alina,” he sneers and though she knows he’s in pain, knows he’s just feeling hurt and lashing out, she still wants to rip into him and make him pay for his words with blood.

“Why,” she bites out, cocking her head to study him with eyes that are more lupine than human, “are you scared?” 

He huffs a laugh, rolling his eyes slightly, but with her wolf so close to the surface of her skin she can see the way his jaw clenches, can spot the slightest of trembles in his pinky finger. She smiles, wide and big, until each of white teeth is gleaming in the flickering candlelight. She has him now. Her prey. 

Alina begins to stalk around the curve of the table toward him, her boots soundless on the wooden floor as she moves closer. Aleksander takes a step back, then another, trying to maintain the distance between them. They circle the table, each keeping pace, each focused wholly on the other. His face is blank as ever and he still looks strong and imposing in his midnight clothes but Alina walks with surety, her steps enforced with a newfound confidence. 

“Stop running from me,” she tells him, her voice powerful and strong, and he obeys. His feet grind slowly to a halt and then he’s standing there, staring at her while he grinds his teeth together so loudly she can hear it. His shoulders are a stiff line of tension and his hands are clenched into fists at his sides, but he listened to her. He stopped. He obeyed. 

Alina grins wider despite the sick feeling creeping up the lining of her stomach. 

“Good,” she purrs as she advances towards him, stopping only when their chests are brushing together with each breath and she has to tilt her head back to look at him. “Now stay there.” 

He doesn’t move, just looks down at her with eyes blacker than the night sky, pale lips pressed together as if he’s trying to hold back an insult. She lifts a finger to trace the strong line of his jaw, short black stubble tickling her fingertip. “Good boy,” she whispers but he hears her because he startles, moving as if he wants to step back. But he can’t. He can’t move from the spot he’s standing in. 

“Alina,” he breathes and in his eyes she can see a dawning realization. She can also see the first cracks in who he is, the cracks of who he has been and who he has built himself into over his hundreds of lifetimes. It’s unnerving but it also fills her with a giddy sense of power. Here before her is the most powerful man in Ravka and she can tell him to do whatever she pleases. And he will obey. 

“You took so many choices from me, Aleksander,” she whispers, her breath brushing across his chin as she looks up at him. He lifts a hand as if he wants to touch her but she snaps her strong white teeth at his fingers and he drops them again, eyes liquid black-brown as he studies her face. She feels a little bit wild, as if even she doesn't know what she’ll do next, and she thinks he can see that in her eyes. “So many choices from other people and yet you’ve had all the choices in the world.” 

“No,” he says very quietly but very surely, shaking his head a little bit. “I haven’t, Alina. It may appear that way to you but I have not been blessed with a plethora of options in my life. I would always have ended up here, trying to save Ravka, no matter the path I had tried to take.” 

“I don’t think that’s true,” she says coldly and he closes his eyes for a moment, as if he’s in pain. 

“I think you’ve never had to experience the loss of a choice,” she says as she reaches out to play with a shining gold and ebony button on his kefta, rubbing her finger over the eclipse stamped there. “I think you don’t really understand what it’s like for the people you take those choices away from.” 

“Alina,” he says and his voice is raw and cracked with an emotion she can’t place, “please.” 

That one word almost breaks her. 

She rolls up onto her toes and curls her fingers around the collar of his coat until she can draw him down, their breaths mingling together as she ghosts her lips over his. “I think, Aleksander,” she whispers against him, “that you should experience losing your choices.”

She expects him to be stiff and he is at first but then he softens, gradually curving into her as his hands come up to settle at the small of her back. He dips his head lower, chasing her lips as she lowers back to the floor. His eyes are almost entirely pupil, so dark she can see a flash of her reflection in them. His spine is bent into a hook as he hovers over her like a question mark, lashes fluttering against his cheeks as he blinks several times. 

“You will not take the throne,” she whispers to him, the words as sweet as if they were a lovers caress. “You will not kill Nikolai or harm anyone in Os Alta. You will not lie to me again.” 

“Yes,” he breathes. His face is warm and soft, his hands still cradling her body against his, but his eyes are swimming with pain. In his eyes is a storm of emotion, layers of fury and hatred and disappointment and pride and disgust and fear and revulsion. In his eyes she can see his heart cracking open. In his eyes she can a piece of his soul, a vital piece, slipping forever out of her reach. 

“You will not kill again,” she tells him, voice firm despite the tears beginning to well in her eyes, “without my permission. You will not give orders to your soldiers or your spies without telling me of your intention first.” 

“Yes,” he agrees again and she hates it. She hates how easily he gives in to her, hates how she can bend his will to hers. This isn’t him– Aleksander would never agree with her so easily. He would argue and cajole and convince and debate until he was blue and then he would still find a way to disagree. She had thought it would feel good, to wield this power and control over him, but it just feels wrong. She feels sick and dirty and like she’ll never be able to look at herself in a mirror again. 

“You will not take any action pertaining to Ravka or the war without consulting me,” she tells him, her eyes trained on his despite the salty tears slipping down her cheeks. “Do you understand, Aleksander?” 

“Yes, Alpha” he whispers a third time and the word has barely escaped his lips before she’s stepping back and away from his touch, raising an arm to dash the tears from her face. 

“Good,” she says with a sharp nod, “then you’re released. You may move again.” 

He doesn’t, for a moment. Just stands there and stares at her with eyes that are wide open and brimming with emotion. With disgust. With horror. With revulsion. With hatred and fear and anger and so much sorrow and disbelief that her own eyes well with tears again. She opens her mouth to say something, anything that will stop him from looking at her like that. Perhaps even an I’m sorry , but he’s already moving. He brushes past her without a word and then he’s through the door, leaving so quickly that she doesn’t have time to ask him to stay. And then Alina is alone in the dark and shadowy war room, nothing but the melting candles and lingering scent of pine to keep her company. 

Chapter Text

“You’re safe,” Alina tells them when she flops onto Genya’s bed, immediately laying her head on her friend's lap while Nikolai and Mal turn to her with questioning eyes. Identical smiles spread across their faces and they fall into each other, arms wrapped around waists and necks as each mate holds the other close. Alina closes her eyes at the sight, nestling further into Genya and trying not to think about mates. She’s trying not to think at all, actually. She wants her mind to be pure white nothing. 

Genya strokes her hair, bending to press a kiss to her forehead. The older girl is still pale and quiet, none of her usual vigor lighting up the room, but she is with them. She’s dressed and freshly bathed, and while they had planned yesterday she had listened and argued, even sipped some tea. 

“Thank you, ‘Lina,” a voice says from above and she cracks her lids to see Mal hovering over her, a tracery of worry lines still visible across his brow. “Thank you for keeping him safe. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” And then he’s crashing on top of her, wrapping her up in an embrace so tight she feels ready to burst, but he smells of warm sun and her childhood and there is nothing she wouldn’t do for his happiness. So she hugs him back. 

“You’re welcome,” she whispers into his ear but that’s all she can get out, a lump lodging into her throat as she works to return her mind to calm blankness. 

Mal releases her and clambers back to his feet, making his way to Nikolai who is flopped onto the thick carpet, smiling stupidly at the ceiling. “I guess you’re stuck with me,” the prince says as Mal settles back down beside him, her best friend digging his fingers into the prince’s ribs. 

“What a horrible burden,” Mal teases, poking his mate as the younger man wriggles away, “I don’t know how I’ll deal with you for the rest of my life. I should be given a stipend just for putting up with you.” 

“Make the bill out to the crown,” Nikolai wheezes, trying his best to crawl across the floor. He finally succeeds in escaping and comes to bestow his own embrace on Alina, pressing a kiss to the top of her head as he murmurs a quiet thank you into her ear. 

She releases him and cups his cheek in the palm of her hand, smiling slightly as she looks deep into his hazel eyes. He has the face of a future king, charming and beautiful and slightly distant. 

“You deserve to be safe,” she tells him, but then her smile drops and she lets him see the sincerity in her eyes, how much she means every word as she says; “but I will never do that again. Do not ask me to, Nikolai. Never again.” 

Her face must be colder than ice because Nikolai stiffens, his expression transforming into a mask of frozen calm as he dips his head. “I understand,” he tells her, “and I promise never to make such a request of you again. I thank you for granting me this safety.” 

She just nods but when she glances over at Genya, the older girl gives her the tiniest flash of a smile and that melts some of the ice in her. 

“So, what’s the next step? What do we do, Nik?” 

The prince returns to his mate’s side, folding his long limbs down to the floor and steepling his fingers under his chin as he thinks. “I do have a plan,” he says slowly, “but I think Alina should decide what we do next.” 

Three sets of eyes turn to her and she feels the weight of those gazes like lead chains attached to her wrists and ankles. It’s heavy, this sudden responsibility they’re placing on her. She isn’t sure if she likes it. But she does know she’s ready for it. 

“We need to hold a coronation as quickly as possible,” she begins as she runs over all she’s learned in her classes, “or our enemies will begin to think us weak and prepare additional attacks.” 

“I can meet with my father’s ministers and advisors about that today,” Nikolai says and she nods at him in thanks before continuing. 

“We also need to ensure Ravka appears strong,” she tells them and they all nod, as if she truly is a commander making war plans. She wishes she had a map to wave importantly or a beard to stroke. Instead she has limp hair and tired eyes and a throat scratchy from crying. 

“The best way to do that is through alliances. Most likely none of our allies will wish to make a bold statement with us while we are in the vulnerable transition between leaders and still assuaged with enemies. We can, however, find internal allies for Nikolai.” 

“Like who?” Mal asks, frowning as he looks at his mate. “There’s not very many rich lords or ladies left in Ravka and those still here support the crown.” 

“Someone like you,” Genya says suddenly, turning to Alina with eyes that are still ringed by shadows. “You’re perfect, Alina.” 

Alina tilts her head, confused, but Nikolai is nodding on the floor, his face transforming with some inner realization. “Yes,” he agrees slowly, “it might work. It would just be a bit difficult, what with last night, but– I think you’re right, Genya.” 

“Right about what?” Alina and Mal ask, studying their friends with twin looks of confusion. 

“Alina, you’re the Sun Summoner,” Genya says quickly, her eyes darting back and forth between the prince and Alina. “You’re about to be the most well known and adored person in all of Ravka, which also makes you the most powerful.” 

“Where you go, the masses will follow,” Nikolai murmurs and Genya nods sharply, leaning forward to clasp hands with Alina. 

“If you and Nikolai are engaged, his rule will become stronger because of his connection to you and your power,” the older girl explains, eyes trained on Alina’s as she waits for her to catch up. 

“Engaged?” Mal sputters, mouth falling open as he looks between all three of them. Alina wants to react to the word as well, wants to rail against it and protest and declare that no, she will not become engaged to someone who isn’t… 

But– when she thinks about it, Genya’s right. Publicly connecting herself with Nikolai will lend legitimacy to his rule while also putting her into the position to do as she pleases to help Ravka and destroy the Fold. She will also be out of Aleksander’s reach and technically above him in status. 

She quickly slides the last thought from her mind, folding it up and tucking it away into a tiny speck lost in the blank white nothing. 

“It’s not the worst idea,” she grudgingly admits. “But I am never going to love you as much as you love yourself.”

“I’m never going to love you as much as I love myself, either,” he replies with a grin. “Or as much as I love Mal,” he adds and then turns to his mate, reaching out for him as his whole body softens. 

“Alpha,” he murmurs and Alina turns away, trying not to hear this conversation that is meant only for the two of them. “Will you be alright? Can you wait a few months before taking your place with me?” 

“I’d rather escape into the woods with you,” Mal says frankly and she can hear reluctance plainly in his voice. “But I trust you and I trust Alina. It’s everyone else in these dark little palaces I don’t trust.” 

“I’d like to go to the woods too,” Nikolai whispers and then their conversation devolves into murmurs too low for even her ears to catch. 

“A silver for your thoughts,” Genya says, leaning over to place her chin on Alina’s shoulder, her sharp chin diggin in slightly. 

“My thoughts aren’t worth that much,” Alina replies with a little laugh that sounds false even to her ears. 

“Alina,” Genya pleads, peeking up at her with eyes so wide and blue they could be pieces of the sky. “Tell me what’s wrong, please. Let me listen and help if I can.” 

She remains silent for a long moment, trying to sort over the events of yesterday in her head and untangle her emotions so she can explain them. But the aching hurt in her chest and the slick oily feeling of what she did still coating her mouth seals her lips. She shrugs at last; the smile she’s trying to stretch across her mouth withering away almost immediately. 

“I’m fine.” 

“Liar,” Genya breathes and bumps against her gently, smiling a little bit. “But I love you anyway. And I’ll be here if you ever want to talk about it.” 

“I think I’ve messed everything up horribly,” Alina whispers at last, raising her eyes to the pale ceiling so the tears welling up won’t spill over. She didn’t think she had any more tears left for him. Her throat hurts and she can barely squeeze the words out past the lump lodged there, almost big as her fist. She feels wobbly and pale and in need of a strong cup of tea. 

“I think I’ve done something awful. And the way he reacted to me– you should have seen his eyes , Genya, how he looked at me…” 

Genya’s lips pull her pale face down into an expression of sadness and she lifts a hand to Alina’s back, rubbing light circles over the fabric of her blue kefta . 

“I didn’t think I cared anymore,” she admits as her chin wobbles, “but when I was telling him what to do, I could see how much it was hurting him and that hurt me .” 

“It’s all just a mess,” she says weakly and then at last she allows several tears to escape down her cheeks, her throat too tight to speak anymore. Her chin is still trembling and there’s a loud sob caught in her chest and she wishes she was alone so she could really cry. She needs the kind of crying that rips out of her, the kind with stifled screams and tears that fall faster than a waterfall. 

“You know I didn’t agree with Nikolai’s plan,” Genya tells her as she wraps an arm around Alina’s waist, “but I don’t agree with what he was going to do, either. I think you made a very difficult decision, Alina, and though I don’t support it, I think you also learned why what you did was wrong. And I’m sure you won’t do it again.” 

“But I can’t take back what I did,” Alina mumbles, swiping futilely at the wetness on her face. “I hurt him. I saw his trust in me break last night. I watched it happen. He hates me, Genya. He hates me and he’s never not going to and he’s right .” 

“He hurt you, too, darling,” her friend murmurs against her skin, rocking them both slightly, the motion calling up soothing memories of being very little. “You’ve both made some mistakes, yes, but I also believe that if you both work hard enough you can regain his trust and he yours. And together, you can find a way back to the light.” 

No we can’t , Alina thinks, but she doesn’t say anything. 

☀☀☀

Nikolai proposes to her the afternoon following his coronation, two days after his father’s funeral. They do it in the ballroom of the Grand Palace, at the beginning of a luncheon for the new tsar . She’s wearing a new golden dress embroidered with little suns and shards of mirror so that she reflects light wherever she goes. He’s wearing a sapphire coat emblazoned with Ravka’s double eagle, the heavy ruby crown shining against his blond curls. 

The ring is gorgeous, a huge emerald surrounded by a halo of small diamonds and set on a band of pure white gold. Looking down at it, and Nikolai’s dancing hazel eyes, she imagines another life where she could be excited about this proposal. Her skin feels coated in wrongness instead. 

Yes , she tells the young king when he finishes professing his love and asks her to marry him, injecting every ounce of happiness from her stolen night with Aleksander, their snowfight, their first ever dance, into her voice. Yes, of course I’ll marry you . 

When he slides the heavy band of sparkling jewels onto her finger, it feels like a manacle closing around her. The ring is beautiful, heavy with importance on her hand, but not heavier than the dark pair of eyes watching them from across the hall. 

As she turns with Nikolai, raising their entwined hands in triumph, emeralds and diamonds flashing in the light of a hundred candles, those eyes close to her as he blinks and turns away. The loss of his gaze cuts more deeply than the weight of it. The eyes are the window to the soul , she’d read once in a book. 

 The loss of his eyes feels like a door sealing shut between her and Aleksander forever. 

☀☀☀

Whispers of Sankta and printsessa follow Alina wherever she goes now, the eyes of those around her tracking her movements with awe or reverence, jealousy or fear. She’s never alone anymore, followed always now by two of the royal guards as well as a retinue of admirers and worshippers, people who want to ask for her blessing or touch her skin. She’s presented with babies to kiss and shower in sunlight, old grandparents seeking a cure from her, young men convinced that they love her. When she shuts herself behind doors she is always with her friends, scheming and planning and writing letters, or else she is attending events with Nikolai and pretending to love him. She no longer has time to attend classes and prefers to take meals in her room, grasping at each moment of peace and quiet. It’s all exhausting. 

Only her nights are hers and she uses the hours of darkness to practice with her summoning, testing her limits each day and training with just her own power for company. 

She meets more members of the Grand Palace court, ladies dressed in layers of fabric who give her barbed compliments, honeyed words stretched thin over sharp malice. She greets stuffy gentlemen who treat her like a child and runs to hide any time she catches sight of the royal wedding planner. She tries to train with the soldiers of the Second Army at first, tries to rejoin them and find a place among them, but even there she sticks out. The soldiers stare or glare at her in equal measure, whispering about how she’d jilted their General and been swayed so easily by a crown. She leaves her first and last training session after twenty minutes, almost in tears. 

She is surrounded by people day and night, never without a partner in conversation or laughter or dancing, but the one person she truly wants to talk to is always absent. 

She wonders, as the sun drags through the sky each day and as she pulls herself through each hour, if all of this would feel different if he was by her side. If his hand, not Nikolai’s, escorted her to meetings and dances, would she be able to smile more easily? Would he whisper little jokes and bits of gossip to her, making her laugh more loudly than was polite? Would he listen to her worries and soothe them away each night? Would he hold her close when they danced? Would he train his shadows with her sunlight again? Would he be the partner in mind and soul and abilities that she longs for?

She thinks she knows the answer, now that she’s lost the possibility of him forever. But she doesn’t like to consider it. 

She looks everywhere for him, even a glimpse of his black kefta or dark hair, but like a phantom he always manages to disappear before she can find him. She knocks on the door connecting their chambers but never receives a response and Genya refuses to return the key to her, saying they both need time apart to reflect. When she eventually grows desperate and goes to his main door one evening she is greeted by two guards who are very polite but who very firmly turn her away. She comes to his door for the next week, plying the guards with pastries and threats and even her sunlight. They turn her away each time. She tries feeling for him through the tether that had brought them together in a dream but it either no longer exists or she is too inexperienced to find it.

As the first two weeks pass, then a third, she grows more and more restless. Nikolai is busy with ruling and trying to understand all of the issues his father left behind. Mal spends his days in the forests around the palace, hunting on two legs or four, and when she sees him he is always in a hurry to bathe and sleep. Genya refuses to leave her rooms and spends her time helping Nikolai with paperwork, or knitting; she’s made several pairs of socks and a very knobby hat so far. Alina loves her friends and she is grateful for the warmth of their presence in her lives. But that warmth, a comforting glow at first, is beginning to stifle her.

Spending all of her time with them, planning and discussing and trying to figure out how to save an ailing and debt-ridden country in the midst of war, is exhausting. Nikolai only knows so much and he complains constantly of his ministers treating him as a child. The former prince is always buried in paperwork, stacks of letters and reports and bills piling up around him as they throughout the afternoons. His blond locks are tousled and his fingers are stained with ink. He mutters to himself about budgets and borders and West Ravka at all hours and his eyes have a slightly far away look. Genya gives advice where she can and shares any useful gossip about courtiers or ministers, tries to explain the inner machinations of the Grand Palace. Mal and Alina describe life in the country to the new king, try to help him understand the struggles the common people face and what he can do to help them most.

But they are four teenagers saddled with the weight and responsibility of ruling and running a nation and they are slowly sinking under that load. Every time one of them mentions the Fold Nikolai looks at her and he’s also begun to inquire about her training and the growth of her abilities. Her train of admirers question her constantly about it, asking when she’s going to destroy the Unsea, wondering if she’s nervous, asking about how she plans to do it. Almost every feast commences with a vow of thanks for her powers and the ‘imminent deliverance’ of Ravka from the evils of the Fold. The words and questions and looks pile up on top of Alina, coating her limbs in a thick layer of expectations. She begins to find it difficult to eat or sleep, her mind overrun with fear and apprehension and worry so that she can never shut it off. She twitches anytime someone asks to see a demonstration of her light and even the mention of the Unsea sets her to pacing.

She knows what is expected of her by all of Ravka, all of the world perhaps now that news has had time to spread, but with each mention of it she grows less sure that she can actually accomplish her task. Sometimes she allows herself to imagine her life after the Fold is gone, if she’ll be deemed irrelevant and cast off or held up forever as a Saint to be paraded out at festivities. Or if perhaps history will eventually forget her once Ravka is whole again. She decides she doesn’t really care as long as she emerges alive.

The weight of their expectations and hopes and dreams, all pinned on her, is enough to almost crush her through. 

January slips into February and Alina begins to glimpse weak rays of sunshine outside her window again. And yet she has seen no evidence of Aleksander. She continues with her days of meetings and paperwork and drafting letters for Nikolai. She goes for a walk in the snow with Genya and beams to see her friend outside for the first time. She tries to talk to Mal but he grunts and changes into his wolf, running from her before she can follow. She attends a formal dinner with Nikolai and an ambassador from Ketterdam, smiling sweetly at the dour man dressed all in black with a funny black hat as beside her the king negotiates for a loan. She blesses babies and attends a weekly church service in Os Alta, shrinking into her seat as the Apparat waxes on about the war between light and shadows for hours. She smiles at Zoya in the dining hall and receives a look so cold it freezes in return. She writes a letter to Aleksander and slips it under his door, learns all the names of his guards at last. She manages to create an array of sunbeams and almost sets her room ablaze. She curls up in her massive bed each evening, exhausted, but unable to sleep.

The words she’d spoken to him are burned in her mind and they play over and over each evening and each moment of free time she has. The words are enough to hurt her without remembering the way he’d looked at her when she’d finally released him. And the way he’d responded to her— curved into her and called her— called her Alpha .

It had felt delicious and right and so, so terrible in that moment. 

Alina’s curled up in her bed, covered only by a thin quilt as she continues her evening tradition of trying and failing to sleep. She longs for the oblivion of sleep, for the way her mind can slip into rest and cease to know all of the frustrations of her life for a few hours. Most of all, though, she wants to dream of him. His face, his voice, the first dance they’d shared together. She is hungry for any piece of him.

She twists and turns, flopping in her bed like a dying fish before making a sudden decision. She creeps from her bed and through the silent halls of the Little Palace, moving silently on bare feet. She should have moved her residence to the Grand Palace to be closer to Nikolai but as they are currently only engaged, she’d managed to persuade the wedding planner to allow her to remain here instead. As if she’d even consider living in the golden monstrosity. Reaching Genya’s door she slips inside, making her way through the familiar rooms until she finds her friend. The older girl is curled up in her own bed, covered by fluffy blankets and sipping tea as she reads a thick book.

“Boo,” Alina whispers and Genya startles, almost spilling her tea before she spots Alina and her face transforms into exasperation and fondness. The girls giggle together and while Alina climbs into bed, Genya sets her book aside and finishes her tea. They curl together like puppies from the same litter finally reunited, limbs and breath mingling beneath the covers.

“Hi,” Genya whispers, grinning at Alina as she reaches out to tuck wild strands of black hair behind her ears. “Hi,” Alina echoes and she can’t keep the impish smile off her face. For all that she suffers with her friends, she will always adore Genya like a sister and it’s difficult to be truly angry with a sibling.

“You couldn’t sleep?” Genya asks, blinking in the hazy dimness beneath the blankets. It’s warm and soft and Alina thinks maybe if she stayed here she truly could rest. But that’s not why she came.

“I never can anymore,” she says with a grimace. “But I wanted— will you tell me about being an Alpha, Genya?”

Her friend’s copper eyebrows flick up in surprise and she stays silent for a moment longer, studying Alina, before nodding. “What would you like to know?”

“Everything,” Alina sighs, rolling her eyes in annoyance, “because I don’t know anything about being an Alpha. I grew up as an Omega because that’s what everyone thought I was.”

“Another flaw of our education and child care systems,” Genya says with a dark look. “But— well, I suppose the first step is to know that you are an Alpha. If you feel differently, of course that’s alright and there’s a possibility you could be something else, but acknowledging the truth of this part of you is important.”

“I feel like an Alpha,” Alina tells her immediately, eager to share with someone who might understand what she’s going through. “It feels— right . Like a part of me that’s always been there but that I just couldn’t recognize until now. Until I had a name for it.”

“That’s how it was for me, too,” Genya says with a warm smile. “The first time I heard the story of the three wolves I liked Alpha wolf best, but it wasn’t until I understood Alphas and learned more about their roles that I realized I was one.”

“I’m so happy I have you to talk to about this,” Alina whispers, squeezing her friend’s hand.

“I’m a very good teacher,” Genya says in an imperious tone and it’s just silly enough to make them both laugh a little.

“What about— how do Alphas and Omegas interact? If they’re mates?” 

“Mates are special,” Genya says with reverence, eyes going a bit distant. “There can be all kinds of mate pairings, and all kinds of mates– the bond doesn’t always have to be romantic.” 

Alina widens her eyes; she’s never heard of platonic mating bonds before. Ana Kuya taught them only that they would mate with an Alpha; a strong man to care and provide for them. 

“Alpha and Omega mates have the most interesting bonds, though, and also the most desirable which is why everyone talks about them so much,” Genya continues. “In our stories Alphas are portrayed as strong and protective; they care for their mates and anyone who is weaker. They are associated with masculinity and physicality and therefore represented by the sun, which dominates the sky and makes life possible.” 

“That doesn't sound like me,” Alina says doubtfully, biting down on her bottom lip. 

“Shh,” Genya says and wags a finger in her face, “I’m still talking. Omegas are portrayed as weaker and in need of protection by Alphas because they can’t fend for themselves and because they’re also so alluring that their mates need to constantly be fighting off other suitors.” 

Alina nods; this is all familiar to her, the information she grew up with. The information she based her whole life around. 

“Omegas are smaller but faster and because of their size they are typically associated with femininity and the moon; slipping through darkness and hiding, as well as the… fertility of a full moon.” Here Genya blushes a bright scarlet, her pale skin coloring quickly, while Alina plugs her ears and sings the alphabet twice over. 

“All of this is ridiculous, of course,” Genya says loudly, talking over Alina’s singing. “The stories tell us a version of our wolves that is antiquated and prejudiced and takes no account for the complexities of each person.” Alina falls silent, drops her fingers. 

“Alphas,” Genya continues more slowly now that she has her attention, “are just people. So are Omegas. What’s important is that mates can treat each other as equals and form a true partnership as humans. Mates are a balance of night and day, sun and moon, and that balance holds only as much importance as you allow it to.”

Alina nods along but she isn’t quite sure she understands. The stories she grew up with and the lessons she was taught of mates, Alphas and Omegas, always painted their relationship as one of protection and submission. And in each story the importance of the wolf was emphasized– Alphas were always strong and jealous, fighters, while Omegas were weak and hid with the children. She’s never really considered a partnership in which she and her mate would be equals and in which who they were as people, instead of their wolf alignments, would matter most. 

“Alphas are aligned to the sun because it is bright and energetic and a little bit wild,” her friend says with a smile as she gestures between them. “Alphas act impulsively sometimes and we tend to plunge headfirst into adventures without really thinking about it first. Some might even call us hotheaded.” 

“Omegas, however, are aligned with the more intellectual and logical energy of the moon. They are rational and tend to make plans, seeing farther into the future and anticipating possibilities. They are our level-headed balance.” 

“Alpha and Omega pairings are desired because of the balance each mate brings. Each will find a way, as a person, to bring balance to their mate’s life and to enhance some aspect of it.” 

“I believe,” Genya says, squeezing their fingers together, “that mates do not complete us. They merely enhance us and our lives. They make what was already good and whole even better.” 

“You don’t think our mates are the other half of our souls?” Alina whispers, feeling her eyes widen. What Genya is saying goes against everything she’s been taught of mates and split souls all her life. 

“I think we are born with an entire soul,” Genya says and there’s a fierce light in her eyes though her voice is very soft. “I think we could live our whole lives without our mates and survive. Finding a mate is merely finding a complement to your soul, instead of the other half of it. But that’s only my belief of what the Sky Spirits intended for us.” 

“So my role isn’t to protect him?” Alina breathes, the question slipping out before she can stop it. Genya’s face softens and she looks impossibly sad for a moment, fingers reaching out to caress Alina’s cheek. 

“Your role is whatever you and he decide together, Alina,” she whispers back. “Protect him if you want to. Be strong for him if you want to. But do only what feels right for you and him– don’t let the stories influence your partnership and how you see him.” 

Alina feels her face crumple, feels the warm slide of tears across her cheeks and nose. “I forced him to obey me,” she whispers, chin wobbling and brow scrunching up. “I used my power over him instead of treating him as my equal.” 

“You let your wolf take over,” Genya says and strokes her hand down Alina’s arm, her touch light and comforting. “But what matters is who the two of you are together, as people. As Alina and the General. Not as your wolves.” 

“I wish I could take it back,” Alina whimpers and then she curls fully into Genya’s arms, dissolving into cries beneath the canopy of the blankets draped over them. 

☀☀☀

The first note arrives the next morning, slipped under her door on a small square of creamy parchment. A little silver eclipse is stamped on the bottom right corner and she can smell his scent on the paper before she even picks it up. Her eyes snap up the words, greedy for any piece of him. 

Word must be sent to the three battalions stationed near Tsibeya that they are to travel North by 35 leagues in the next two weeks. I require your permission to proceed. 

The flowing cursive of his writing is familiar and sweet to her. She presses the note to her nose, inhaling any traces of woodsmoke and bergamot, wanting any reminder of him. She feels giddy, ecstatic that he’s finally contacted her. Hurrying to her desk she flips the note over and scrawls a quick reply; Yes, proceed as you wish. Goodluck.  

She practically runs from her room, handing the note to one of the guards standing outside his chambers. “Will you give this to the General, please?” She asks, breathless, kefta hem swirling about her bare ankles. The guard nods and she beams at him, running back to her room and giving in to her emotions. She dances a happy little circle, cheeks flushed and heart beating quickly at the fact that she’s finally received some small piece of him. 

That elation carries her through all of lunch in the Grand Palace and two long hours meeting with the minister of finance, her brain filling up with scrambled numbers and figures. She feels breathless with hope when she returns to her rooms but no little square of parchment awaits her, no matter how many times she checks beneath the door. She falls asleep with a frown on her face but she sleeps more deeply than she has in weeks. 

In the morning, another note waits for her, pale against the dark floorboards. 

The Second Army is in need of increased rations of hardtack and peas. I require your permission to meet with the ministers of agriculture and transportation to discuss this matter. 

You have my permission, she writes back. Is there any way I can help? Does the Second Army require any additional supplies I can secure for them? 

His response comes in the form of another note, delivered while she takes her lunch and pores over a map of Ravka’s borders and Fjerdan advancements. 

My soldiers are falling ill in the snow and cold. I require your permission to purchase a shipment of wool from the Wandering Isle.  

Of course they need warmer uniforms, Alina writes back, frowning down at the scrap of parchment. Would you like me to purchase leather for new boots as well?

The Second Army is not in need of new boots, the next note begins. I require instead your permission to give orders to an agent stationed in Shu Han. 

No, she writes, scowling down at her rounded letters next to his elegant cursive. You do not have my permission. What orders do you intend to give? Where is this agent stationed exactly? What will their mission be?

His reply is slipped to her by a young boy as she walks through the gardens, trying to soak up a moment of peace. She scans the paper quickly, then snorts and quickens her pace. She needs a pen. 

This note is the shortest yet; I intend to order my agent, who is at this moment staying in a house in a small village, to kill an enemy of Ravka. Your permission? 

Don’t muddle the truth, she writes back, underlining the words with a heavy stroke of ink. She slides the note beneath his door and then spends the rest of the day pacing her room, glancing with each turn towards her door. His response doesn’t come until the following morning, arriving with the first rays of sunlight breaking through the window drapes. 

It’s simple, short. Just four words. Is that an order? 

Alina doesn’t write back. 

☀☀☀

The notes continue to arrive, piling up thickly like creamy white snowflakes on her desk. Each piece of parchment carries his scent of woodsmoke and tea and she presses each one to her nose, inhaling the lingering traces of him. The notes are all she can think about and her heart beats faster each time one is delivered to her or slipped beneath her door. His words scrawl across the paper in curling black stripes and she devours them hungrily, burns each letter into her brain and shoves the memory of where his fingers have been down her throat. 

She treasures the notes and she hates receiving them. Each is a perfect little present, wrapped up in the possibility that they will carry a request for her presence or a message of warmth. Reading them burns that hope away but she can almost hear his voice beneath what he’s written and that is another kind of pain. A pain she almost enjoys, despite the sting of it. 

Alina thinks maybe she would fall to the floor if she heard his voice again. 

It’s not quite the same as it was when he was gone. At first, when she’d gone a week and then two without seeing him, she’d been afraid that the wasting sickness would creep up on her again in his absence. But though they do not speak, do not spend time together or even glimpse one another, her health remains intact. Perhaps it is the continued reminder of him in the notes that does it. Perhaps it is merely that he remains at the Little Palace and sleeps just on the other side of her bedchamber. She isn’t sure but she’s grateful. Alina wouldn’t be able to bear it if she somehow managed to hurt him in another way. 

The notes become her secret. She presses them close to her skin and carries his words with her, tucking notes into the pockets of her kefta and worrying the parchment between her fingers until it’s soft as skin. Sometimes she imagines the notes are his hands on hers and the words he’s written are whispered in her ear instead. She sleeps with them under her pillows and smells them until his scent has faded completely. 

She reads the notes so many times she memorizes them. Their little scribbled conversations begin to take up more of her time, always her asking to help, asking what she can do, trying to give him more while he remains still and formal. She treasures their conversations, enjoys writing to him as she has no one else. He never shares anything with her, never tells her how he feels or if he’s well, but in her answers she shares scraps of her day with him. She complains about the Apparat and how he follows her when she leaves the Little Palace. She draws little suns around the edge of the eclipse on the parchment and hopes that it makes him smile. She asks after his health and expresses how much she looks forward to spring. She adds little smiley faces and waits for each new note, each response in this long conversation, with a beating heart. 

On the last day of February she slips from her bed with the sun and goes to her doorway, searching as she does each morning for a creamy white note. She pounces with excitement when she finds it, wondering if he smiled at her joke about the finance minister. But when she unfolds the note and reads his word her happiness drains out of her like water through a sieve. The note slips from her fingers and flutters to the floorboards, Alina standing frozen in shock. 

A mission to the Fold will set out by week's end. I intend to accompany them. I await your notice of approval. 

Will you join me? 

Chapter Text

Release me.

Alina startles awake, breathing hard, Aleksander’s voice still echoing in her mind. They are to leave tomorrow and she has yet to see him or receive another note after she agreed to leave Os Alta with him. It hadn’t been a difficult decision for her and she’d chosen not to tell her friends. Her bonds with them, especially Mal and Nikolai, have soured somehow. Her love is— weakened. Not quite as bright as it once was. She thinks she needs time to heal before she can adore them fully again. Before she can forgive them. And much of that healing will come from how Aleksander reacts to her tomorrow when she sees him.

She pushes her hands through her hair, holding the dark mass of it off her sweaty skin, adrenaline rushing bright through her veins because of the traces of the dream still clutching onto her. The curve of his cheek, the strong line of his jaw. The little burst blood vessels turning the whites of his eyes to pink.

She scrubs her hands over her face, swinging her legs from the bed and going in search of water. It’s that special time of night, between midnight and early morning, when everything seems ghostly still and slippery, as if time can be pulled to last for hours. She navigates by the darker silhouettes of her room and sighs in relief at the cold water against her burning skin. It reminds her of Aleksander’s fingers the last time he’d touched her, so many weeks ago. Icy cold but also tempering the heat always brewing just beneath her skin. Alina stands in the middle of her room, sipping the water and studying the shadows around her. She used to be so scared of the dark at the orphanage. She would go to bed earlier than anyone else just to avoid the terror of finding the safety of her bed in the darkness. She remembers how all of her body had to be covered in blankets, from her chin to the tip of her toes, or else she’d feel unsafe. Exposed and vulnerable to the monsters in the dark. She’d always welcomed the safety of daylight with relief and adored the sun all the more for the world it rendered mundane.

Now she wonders if Aleksander ever felt afraid of the dark too. It’s easy for her to bear the shadows with sunlight filling her veins and the knowledge that she is probably the most deadly thing in the dark, but all he can do in defense is deepen the night. How terrifying that must have been as a child, having no light to guide him.

She finishes her water and stands there in the middle of the room for a moment, feeling ghostly and insubstantial and impulsive. Her nightgown is a long white affair of flowing fabric and lace and her hair is a little wild, tangled about her shoulders. Silence presses against her ears and engulfs her, all the world an apparition ready to be bent and shaped by her fingers. Time stretches like taffy and her brain is still half submerged in the dream world of Aleksander and his rough velvet voice. Her feet are silent against the smooth wooden floorboards as she slips from her rooms, floating more than walking the few steps to his door. It’s not that she decided to go to him; she just has, without thought. She doesn’t hesitate to open the door because somehow she knows it will be unlocked, during this hour of night that seems full of possibilities and half-dreams. The door swings wide and she steps into the darkness of his rooms easily, thinking nothing, just acting.

His war room is deserted, only the oak desk that holds so many memories there to greet her. She turns away before those memories can jostle her from this state of action and continues through his rooms. The library is empty, as is the receiving room. She pays them no mind, searching only for him instead of mere traces of his presence. She follows the thing in her chest, long buried and ignored, to the door of his bedroom. This time she hesitates before opening it, wondering if she’s really allowed to be here after everything.

Her fingers fall from the cool metal of the doorknob and she starts to turn away, head suddenly clearing of all remnants of sleep and dreams, but then his voice calls out to her. “You may enter, Alina.”

She thinks she must still be dreaming but she obeys him, turning mindlessly and entering his bedchamber. Her breathing is coming fast, as if she’s just run a lap around the Little Palace, and her heart is beating a now familiar rapid drumbeat against her breastbone. She twists her fingers behind her back and tries not to worry about how she looks. She knows he doesn’t care.

She peers around the almost pitch-black room, unable to see him or anything inside but feeling him somehow. That childish fear of the dark returns with a sudden vengeance and she lifts her fingers, about to conjure light, when he speaks again.

“Stop.”

Alina obeys again. This is his space and she is the odd thing out here. She isn’t sure where he is in the room, though. His voice had come from everywhere and even with the thing in her chest guiding her towards him, there’s an odd slackness to the connection. A space between them despite how close they are physically.

She’s never felt it before and she hates how it makes her feel miles away from him despite the fact that they’re both in this room together.

“Aleksander?” She ventures at last when it seems as if he’s content to remain in the silence and dark with her. Her eyes are still straining against the pure black, trying to make out any shapes, but it’s simply too dark. Even the white of her nightgown is invisible to her.

“Release me.”

Alina lets out a breath and wraps her arms around herself, goosebumps rising on her skin as the chill of the room seeps into her. Normally she can’t feel the cold but with her sunlight lying dormant and the crushing darkness, her childhood fears have returned and along with them her vulnerability. She feels weak for the first time since her world exploded into sunlight.

“I can’t,” she whispers, her voice carrying through the room and echoing over and over, her words hurled back at her by the walls and ceiling and shadows. She sinks to the floor, closing her eyes tight and pressing her hands over her ears until the attack falls away. She feels very small and young in this room and she wishes, more than anything, for light.

Light to drive away the shadows and light by which to see him. Light to chase away her fear and light to warm her skin.

She hears a deep exhale from somewhere but her eyes remain firmly shut. She’s too scared to try and look into the yawning chasm of the room where he hides again. First she needs light.

“Of course you can’t,” he murmurs and his voice is sarcastic and raw, tinged with loathing and resentment and all sorts of things that make her insides shrivel up and blacken. If she could make herself any smaller she would. “You and I are the same and neither one of us can ever relinquish control, can we?”

Alina doesn’t know if it’s a true question or not but she shakes her head, denying him anyways. “No,” she tells him and her voice holds a tremor, “that’s not true. We can give up control, if we trust one another.”

He laughs aloud but the sound is a bitter and twisted thing, holding not an ounce of joy. “And do you trust me, Alina?” He asks her wryly. She digs her nails into the soft flesh of her forearms, curls her bare toes against the cold floor. Rests her chin on her folded knees. She doesn’t answer him.

“No, of course you don’t,” he murmurs at last and the words are impossibly sad.

“I do,” she protests immediately, going so far as to open her eyes to glare into the darkness to where she thinks he is. “I do trust you. I just…”

“Don’t lie to me, Alina,” he snaps and then releases another breath, calming himself. “I do not have the option of concealing the truth from you. I would appreciate if you would return the favor.”

“Fine,” she whispers, curling back up again and resting the curve of her cheek on the hard bone of her kneecap. “I don’t trust you. I’m not sure I ever have.”

“I trusted you,” he tells her and the words are marked by honestly, positively dripping in it. It’s so surprising that without his need to obey her, she isn’t sure she’d believe him. “My trust is a hard-earned gift and there are few, after so many lifetimes, that I give it to easily or readily. You were different.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers into the darkness, her heart slowing into a steady beat that drums pain into her body with each thump. “I’m so sorry I threw away that gift.”

She can hear him moving, can hear the faint crinkle of bending cloth and the scraping sound as he stretches his legs out or moves his feet. She’s very glad, suddenly, for the darkness. She hopes he can’t see her just as she can’t see him. The words they’re trading are too raw to be spoken under anything but the cover of night.

“You did,” he acknowledges slowly, the words drifting to her as if on a gentle breeze. There’s no emotion behind them and she wishes there was. Wishes she could decern his feelings from his voice. “But I must also apologize. I have lied to you and deceived you and misled you. I am sorry, Alina, for all the truths I hid from you and withheld from you.”

“I wanted to be better,” he continues quietly. “I had such dreams for us. And dreams for myself— of the mate I would be, of the man I would be. How I would build a life of equals with you.”

“I dreamed of that too,” she tells him, blinking back the familiar moisture beginning to gather in her eyes. Her emotions are writhing as a captured beast does and inside her wolf is tensed, whining every so often. “I’ve always wanted someone who— who is my equal, no matter our alignments.”

He hums lightly in agreement and Alina rises to her feet, stepping slowly and carefully across the floor. She stretches her arms out so that she won’t run into anything but she can’t stay still anymore— she needs to touch him. Needs to feel his skin against hers and hold his face in her hands, no matter how angry he is with her. She follows the line in her chest, no longer taught but slack and drooping, hoping it will guide her to him anyways.

“Stop,” he says and his voice cracks, the word almost frantic. “Stop, Alina.”

She halts immediately, only having made it a few paces into the yawning darkness of his room. She can’t feel anything around her but she must be close to him, if he sounds so panicked. “I’m sorry,” she whimpers, her brow and nose and chin all scrunching up in sadness. “I’m sorry. I stopped. I won’t come any closer, I promise.”

“Thank you,” he breathes and her insides crumple, her stomach sinking to her toes as her heart begins a slow and steady bleed. She feels— horrible. Awful. Miserable. That he doesn’t want her near him, that he’s maybe even scared of her— if there was a mirror she’d claw her face off rather than be herself in this moment.

“I’m sorry,” she says again and her voice is very small. Her apologies feel meaningless but she doesn’t know what else she can do or say to show him how much she regrets her actions, except maybe cutting herself open and showing him the sadness stamped upon her heart.

“Then release me,” he replies, his voice a little brighter, a little closer like maybe he’s leaned forward to speak to her. Alina sways forward instinctively, reaching for him, then remembers herself and draws back. Curls into herself again, drops her chin to her chest and hunches her spine.

“Can I summon light?” She asks him, talking to her invisible feet. “I would like to be able to see you while we talk.”

“Fine,” he says, sounding tired, and there’s some light shuffling from where he must be as she slowly allows light to bloom in the palm of each hand. She raises her head, blinking and squinting against the illumination of the room. As she does, she can see shadows retreating from the walls and ceiling, darkness flowing ebbing away in the face of her light to gather around him. She glances around to find that she’s standing halfway across his bedchamber beside a small table and two deep emerald armchairs. Aleksander is in front of her, a mere four or five feet away, but his back is turned and he’s looking out a window at the night beyond.

For a moment she lifts her hand, fingers reaching across the air towards him, but his shoulders are stiff and set; she can feel the tension radiating around him in an array. And the shadows— they’re still coiled at his feet, barbed thorns of deepest ink curling around his ankles and calves. The vines remind her of snakes readying to strike and she lets her arm fall, retreats back a step or two. His shoulders fall slightly and her stomach knots in pain. She just stands there, doing nothing and saying nothing but feeling every shade of remorse and agony, waiting for him to take the lead. If she does anything now it will simply end in the world on fire.

“Do you know how long I waited for you, Alya?” She can’t see his expression, ebony shoulders and back still facing her, and she desperately wants him to turn. Wants to be able to read his expression. Wants to drink in the sight of his face.

“A very long time,” she whispers, every inch of her straining towards him but there’s that odd space between them that she doesn’t know how to breach and it just feels empty, none of the usual warm glow he conjures for her inhabiting the air between them.

“Yes,” he agrees easily, “a very long time. I didn’t mind the wait though. I was impatient sometimes, especially as a young man, but I was glad that I would have time to build things for you and our life together.”

Alina sinks to the floor, one hand gripping the edge of the table as she bites her lip to hold back the cry rising up her throat.

“My ideas were simple at first,” he says with a slight laugh, his shoulders rising a bit, the words tinged slightly with self-deprecation. She wants to run to him and draw him into her and tell him that she would treasure anything he made for her, that she would love anything he made with his hands.

“I dreamed of making a meal for you, that we would eat together in the home I would build, walls and windows and a bed just for us.”

The first tear slips down her cheek, hot against her skin. It’s soon followed by more, tears falling thick and fast as she silently cries over the future he’d imagined for them.

“I thought maybe we could have a garden for vegetables in the summer, flowers in the spring and pumpkins in the fall. I liked to grow things with my hands, once. And books. There would be books everywhere.”

If Alina could have spoken, she would have told him that the home he’s describing has been one of the wishes cradled in her heart for all her life. That the life he’d imagined sounds perfect. That she would have loved to plant a garden with him and watch the seasons pass. That she wants, more than anything, to have that life with him still.

“I knew you would like to read,” he murmurs with another little laugh, tipping his head back slightly. “How could any soulmate of mine not adore books? They are the best company I have had in my loneliest moments.”

She nods even though he can’t see her. Licks the salty tears from her lips. Books have been her greatest friends in her loneliest moments too. She would have loved to curl up in a little cottage with him, sipping tea and reading by the fire and discussing the adventures they’d gone on between the pages.

“I lived for a long time, though, and my dreams for us began to grow grander. I served many tsars and I saw many things, traveled the world and gathered riches and saw so many possibilities. I imagined no longer a cottage but instead a palace, large and safe as you deserved. I imagined a peaceful Ravka in which we could dance at festivals and ride through the countryside.”

She’s crying silently somehow. Her sobs are just long exhales and though there’s wetness dripping from her chin and nose, she’s frozen in place on the floor as she listens to him paint a shimmering picture of what could have been. Each word hurts her, each hammers a crack in her heart, but she needs to hear too.

“I wanted to make a happy world for you, Alina. A world in which we would love each other with no hardships.”

He leans his head against the glass of the window, his silhouette a darker shade of black than the night outside, pale moonlight gilding strands of his hair silver. His hands clasp at his back but his shoulders slump and his voice grows quieter, so much so that she has to stop breathing to hear him.

“I did not go about building that world in the best of ways,” he murmurs against the glass, “but I have spent years trying to fix it and make it better. And all with the goal of living with you in the Ravka I would shape.”

She wraps her arms around her bent knees and buries her head against the hard bone of her kneecaps, pressing her eyes shut and crying silently into the warm dark space. She can smell cinnamon on her breath and the salt of her tears but somehow it feels better to cry this way. To hide her face in shame like this.

She hears him move but she doesn’t look up. The space between them, that strange stretched out emptiness, has not lessened and she can feel that he’s still across the room from her. Still standing as far away as he can.

“Nothing I had ever imagined in all my long years of dreaming could have held a flame to the truth of you.”

She jerks her head up, eyes searching for his through a haze of tears and tangled hair. He’s turned to look at her, leaning against the window with his hands casually tucked into his pockets, ankles crossed. She drinks in the sight of his face as if she’s suffocating and he is air, reacquainting herself with each familiar detail while marveling at them all anew. He is the same as he ever was and yet more precious to her than ever before.

Her heart is aching, straining towards him, and she would do anything to conquer this space between them if only he would let her. She can think of nothing more exquisite, more wonderful, than the feeling of him in her arms. She would die a thousand deaths if only to see him smile, to hear his laugh again.

“Aleksander,” she whimpers, and in that one word is the truth that if he asked her to, if he gave her permission, she would go to him. But he shakes his head, drops his eyes from hers. Denies her.

“You are more wonderful than any dream of my mind or wish of my heart, Alina.” He says it with absolute surety, as if his words are truth.

“I could have summoned light with the happiness I felt when I found you. I cannot even describe the feeling. It was as if I was a fire waiting to kindle all my life, without knowing it, and meeting you, touching you, speaking with you— that was the spark that set me ablaze. And suddenly I was awake and alive, truly alive, and I felt everything.”

Images of the night they met rise up before her, two small forms dancing among a frozen crowd of shadow. She watches those dancers pull away from each other and then twirl back together, always finding a way to maintain touch. The shadows dissolve, turning into a fire, a blooming lily, a puzzle piece slotting into place, a broken heart sewn together by a gleaming needle. Alina understands what the shadows mean. She’d been searching for Aleksander for only one night but her heart has been waiting for him much, much longer. She doesn’t know if he’s truly the other half of her soul or if her soul simply feels more vibrant alongside his. But he is hers and she is his and they will always be a set, a pair, a correct answer.

“Whatever our souls are made of,” she whispers, scrubbing tears from her cheeks as she tries to peer through his eyes into what lies beneath, “yours and mine are the same.”

“Yes,” he breathes and she feels his relief that they both understand the way they fit together.

“When we met and when I began to know you, the reality of you as my mate instead of the idea of a mate turned the years of waiting into dust. Time ceased to lose all consequence unless it was time spent speaking with you, or hearing you laugh, or watching you sleep.”

Alina wraps her arms around her stomach, trying to contain her insides. She feels ready to burst apart at the seams from the emotions swirling in her body. She’s still crying, tears coursing silently and steadily down her face. She hardly notices them anymore. She doesn’t know why he’s chosen this specific form of torture for her but it’s a blade edged in sweetness, slicing through her with words of love and hope and adoration. It’s all she can do to remain still and listen to him, to his voice that soothes her and wrings her heart out.

“I could have waited a hundred years more for you to love me.” His face is traced in lines of sadness, sorrow crumpled beneath his eyes in lilac shadows and regret hidden in the corners of his mouth like forgotten kisses.

“Could have?” Alina whispers, barely forcing the words out. Her heart is beating fast as a hummingbird in her chest and she feels sick and lightheaded, vision beginning to blur with tears or disbelief.

“Would have,” he replies, finally untucking his hands from his pockets and wrapping his arms around his stomach just as she has, sinking to the floor in a graceful movement until their positions mirror one another. He looks smaller and younger on the floor, a remaining shade of the young man he’d been so long ago. It makes her heart hurt all the more. “I adore you, Alina, and I barely know you. I can only imagine how much I would love you if given the chance to truly court you.”

His words are just as quiet as hers and she ducks her head, closing her eyes as if that will undo what he’s telling her. She thought she was a strong person, a person who had been through challenges and tribulations and could withstand more. But this slow fileting of her soul, this dissection of her heart and her hopes and her dreams— she isn’t sure she’ll survive it.

“You knew,” he says and his voice is shaking, a tremor of pain and hurt underlying the words, “how important my freedom is to me. How much I value the ability to make decisions freely. You knew some of what I have experienced in the past, some of what I have endured to reach this point and how it has— how it has hurt me.”

“You knew of my responsibilities to the Second Army and to Ravka. You knew how much I valued being general of my soldiers and you took that away from me. You know how vital this war is and you stopped me from helping our country to my full abilities for almost a month. A month is a very long time in war, Alina.”

She doesn’t want to look at him. She misses the sight of his face more than anything in the world. She raises her head, unclamps her eyes. Wipes away the snot and tears on her face, tucks her hair behind her ears. Nods at him. “I knew,” she confirms and he lets out a little puff of air, lets his head fall back against the wall.

“You are my mate,” he whispers and she nods, even though it’s unnecessary. She realized after he told her his true name, during their walk to the Grand Palace. They have always been mates and she was just too stubborn to acknowledge that the bond was still there, despite her rejection, burning bright and strong as ever. “And yet you took away my ability to freely decide my future and govern over my decisions.”

“Yes,” she whispers again, and again he lets out another breath. It’s as if with each confirmation of her actions, of what she did to him, he’s reaffirming that it really did happen. That his memories are correct.

“You took control of me. You used your influence to command me. You forced me to obey. And all of it— all after I trusted you enough to tell you my name and my past.”

“Yes,” she tells him, stronger. “I did. And I am so, so sorry Aleksander.”

Some of the confusion and disbelief clouding his expression falls away and he nods to himself, as if she’s answered a question he’d never voiced aloud.

“I understand your actions,” he tells her as he looks back up and the blankness on his face, the lack of any emotion, hammers the largest crack yet into her heart. She doubles over with the pain of it, letting her tears soak her folded legs for a moment. “Ambition is a trait we share,” he continues calmly, “and I understand that your friends are precious to you. And that Ravka is as well. You would do anything for the people you love. For the country you love, as would I. Of course you did not wish for Nikolai to be harmed.”

“Yes,” she mumbles, “but—.”

“I have hurt you,” he says firmly, “and you have hurt me. I have apologized and you have apologized. We have hundreds of years together, Alina. I would like to move forward if you will give me your word that you will never command my actions in that manner again. And if— if you will release me from your orders.”

Here his voice cracks a little, but he regains control quickly and reins every part of himself in again, even the shadows at his ankles disappearing completely. Meanwhile she feels like the pieces of a shattered vase held together by nothing more than thread.

Alina stares at him and she’s so surprised that her tears cease, her eyes drying up with shock. She can’t believe how calm he’s being at the moment, even if she does know it’s a mask. She also can’t believe that he wants to forgive her and move on. She’d spent months stewing in anger over how he’d treated her and if she thinks about it, resentment and hurt still burn inside at what he’d done. But it’s nothing— nothing compared to what she’s done to him. And he’s just— accepting it. Pretending as if he can understand and forget how she’d hindered the progress of the war by controlling any military orders. Accepting that she hurt him so terribly and violated his free will, his mind, his body. He’s accepting the hurt she so thoughtlessly bestowed upon him and he’s trying to tell her that he can still love her.

But Alina is a country girl through and through and she knows that a cottage built of rotten boards falls apart in less than a year. And she knows that if she accepts Aleksander’s offer right now, if she agrees to forget everything she did to him and every way they have hurt each other, they will both end up in pieces at the end of this. They cannot build a relationship or any type of trust on an unstable foundation and they cannot simply pretend away their problems. Or wait for time to soften the edges of their suffering.

“Aleks,” she whispers and he jerks slightly, the mask slipping a bit again at the nickname. She can feel tears pooling in her eyes once more but she doesn’t move to wipe them away. She can feel how important her next words will be and she wants, more than anything, to treat his heart as gently as possible. She can almost feel the weight of it cradled in her palms and it’s terrifying and wonderful and somehow familiar. But she’s determined not to hurt him again, or his heart.

“Yes, you hurt me. And I was angry with you, but you came back and you were honest with me and you gave me the answers I needed. And in the end, I’m alright. I’m beginning to forgive you, I think.”

He slumps with relief and Alina feels the space between them finally finally fill again with light and breath, inhaling at long last. She knows that now she could cross the floor between them and he would allow her near him. But she won’t.

“I think I forgive you,” she says again and even through the tears she manages to smile a little. She looks deep into him, past the mask and his beautiful features and into his soul, which is shining back at her with her own light. And she knows what she needs to tell him.

“I forgive you, Aleksander. And I promise never to influence your actions or decisions again. I promise never to use my voice on you at all. And I release you from each order I gave.” 

He goes even more boneless, relaxing against the wall in a dark puddle. The mask has slipped almost completely and now only relief tinged with joy colors his expression, his eyes beginning again to shine with light. She has to speak quickly, now, before too much hope settles on his shoulders.

“But I cannot allow you to forgive my actions.”

He tilts his head, a frown slowly pulling his brows down. She clears her throat, tries to swallow the tears and snot in her throat. Gives up.

“I cannot allow you to take me back as your mate. I cannot allow us to move forward with any type of relationship. I cannot allow you to excuse what I did to you.”

“No,” he says and he looks both angry and scared, half his face caught on each emotion. “I decide who I forgive and who I allow into my life, Alina. And I choose to forgive you.”

“No,” she tells him vehemently, shaking her head even as she cries harder, every drop of moisture wrung from her body by this conversation.

“Yes,” he spits, now glaring at her, fingers clenched in his lap. “This is the exact discussion we just had, Alina. I am free to make my decisions without your input. Therefore, I and not you, decide if you will be in my life.”

“I can’t,” she cries, her face crumpling and mouth screwing up as she finally fully gives in to the sobs trapped in her chest. “I can’t, Aleksander. You might forgive me now but you’ll end up hating me. And we have too much to do together for you to hate me. And— I couldn’t bear it if you hated me. I couldn’t live with myself.”

“We have to learn how to trust each other, to begin with. And that’s just the first of so many steps— we have so much to do, Aleksander. We have to save Ravka and defeat our enemies and feed the poor and plan for the future. We have to help Nikolai rule and end the fighting and return the soldiers to their homes. The future relies on us and that future is too important for us to muddle it with our relationship. We need to be generals first.”

“We must be equals. We need to work together. And to do that— we have to learn how to trust one another.”

“I could never hate you,” he says, looking at her with eyes brimming in hurt, and that just makes her cry all the harder. “I could never hate someone who cared so deeply for Ravka even if you weren’t my mate.”

I know,” she whispers, trying uselessly to stem the wetness sliding down her cheeks and onto her legs. “But it has to end here. We’ll hurt each other too much if we try to continue on as we have. And then who will there be to save Ravka?”

That stops him. He opens his mouth as if to speak and then stops, pauses, presses his lips tight together. Considers. Glares at her, then looks down at his lap and shakes his head. Twists his fingers round and round, lets out a loud noise of frustration. Closes his eyes for so long she wonders if he’s fallen asleep. The whole while she just watches him steadily, too tired to do anything except occasionally wipe the tears dripping from her chin away.

“Alright,” he whispers after almost an hour. Alina’s curled up on the thick rug, one arm cushioning her head as she watches him between tear-clumped lashes. Exhaustion is a heavy blanket laid across her body and sleep is calling to her, a gentle melody of blissful nothing that will give her a respite from this evening. But she pulls her eyes open, blinks at him several times.

“Only for Ravka,” he clarifies and she lets out a tiny huff of air that would be a laugh on any other day. She can see the dark glitter of his eyes across the room from her but more than anything she can feel the weight of that gaze on her as he traces the lines of her body. She’s too tired to scold him, though. And too starved for any shred of him to complain.

“For Ravka,” she whispers back and then she shuts her eyes, burying her face in the crook of her arm as she sheds what must be the last of a thousand tears. She is wrung out and limp with exhaustion, her mind almost numb with how tired she is. Sleep isn’t far away and she begins to slip into the land of dreams almost instantly.

“We will have all the time in the world after we save our country,” he whispers and the words are the last breeze that blows her from the land of wakefulness, his voice carrying her into dreams of a different life. 

Chapter Text

“I’m not getting in.” 

“Yes, you are, Alina,” he replies, crossing his arms over his chest and probably suppressing an eye-roll. Maybe if he wasn’t so old he would even be huffing at her. “The carriage is for your safety. You are too well known in Ravka and to our enemies to openly ride.” 

She frowns at him, wanting to protest. But in the light of this new day and in light of their conversation, she’s resolved to try harder. To be better. She’s going to work on truly forgiving him and in return maybe he’ll eventually be able to do the same. They’re working on it, whatever it is. So Alina nods and climbs into the carriage, wrinkling her nose at the black interior and small windows. She’d much prefer to be on a horse, feeling the biting wind on her face and enjoying the scent of early spring. 

She slumps back against the velvet seat and fiddles with her hair, making tiny braids as she waits. She props her feet up against the opposite seat and examines her new boots, the tips a shiny silver and the rest black to match her traveling apparel. A tight black shirt made of finely woven wool, soft against her skin and covered by a thick sweater knit in blue so dark it’s almost ink. The tight shirt tucks into a matching pair of skintight leggings, thick wool trousers covering the indecent stretch of the fabric. Her feet are snuggled up in two pairs of socks and the new boots, an unadorned black kefta lined in fur snug around her shoulders. Genya had tucked a pair of leather gloves into one pocket and a knit hat into the other. 

Alina is absolutely sweltering. She thinks everyone must have forgotten that sunlight runs in her blood and that she’s never cold anymore. She peeks out the window of the carriage to where the walls surrounding the palaces are just visible in the distance, white stone bright against the pastel sweep of sunrise. The first fingers of warmth are just beginning as the sun rises and she wants to go , wants to race the sun across the earth. A tiny cloud of steam rises from her lips as she sighs, tilting her head back and rolling her shoulders to release some of the tension trapped in her spine. She feels like a caged bird about to be set free but still on the cusp of captivity, waiting in front of the gilded gate that will eventually lead to her freedom. 

Outside the carriage she can hear the huffing and stamping of horses, the jingle of bridles and harnesses, the low murmur of soldiers and guards as they prepare for the journey. She isn’t sure how many people will accompany them but she’d caught sight of several familiar Second Army soldiers and some of Aleksander’s oprichniki . As she continues to look out the window, studying the shifting colors of the sky and the sparkling white expanse of snow, her mind wanders towards how much her life has changed in a few short months. Her days are usually so busy and filled with tasks that she doesn’t really have time to reflect on the path she’d been set upon because of one person. 

She’s never liked to think too much about her life; at the orphanage, she’d been lonely and felt out of place. She’s sure she’d fit with her parents once, and been happy, but she can’t remember much of them and she prefers not to dwell on that part of her life. Those memories make her too sad, dredging up images of what her life could have been if they had lived. And after – after Aleksander, after moving to Os Alta, that other part of her life had seemed so far away and distant that she’d barely remembered it or thought about it. But still, sometimes, when she allows herself to, she can feel the longing building up in her chest. The longing for something that sweeps through her in waves when she looks at empty summer fields or pink sunsets or laughing families or friends holding hands. 

It’s not a longing she can fully understand because she doesn't know what it is that she wants, only that sometimes her heart feels as if it was meant to be beating for a different reason and her feet feel as if they should be treading a different path. 

Alina looks down at her hands and wonders distantly if these hands and this body and the sunlight were always meant to be hers or if she was somehow pushed into the wrong life by a series of mishaps. 

“It’s too early to be thinking such deep thoughts,” a cool voice says suddenly and she jerks her head up, seeing Aleksander clambering into the carriage to settle himself across from her. He’s also dressed in pure black though his kefta is as devoid of adornment as hers. She’s seen him in black every day of knowing him and yet somehow the contrast of the color against his pale skin is still enough to send a murmur down her spine, thumping her heart a little faster. 

“Maybe I find morning the best time to do my thinking,” she says with a tilt of her brows, almost playful. “We can’t all let our brains rest until halfway through the day.” 

“Mmm,” he agrees, blinking slowly, “I will communicate your advice to my soldiers. They are sure to appreciate it.” 

Alina huffs a little bit, thinking that actually her comment was directed at him, and it isn’t until he smiles slightly that she remembers mates can occasionally share thoughts or feelings. Aleksander raps on the side of the carriage loudly and with a jolt the carriage begins to move, trundling slowly down the curved road towards the gates and city beyond. He turns to gaze out the window, face impassive, and outside she can hear the clatter of hooves as their contingent of soldiers rides around them. Alina thinks it’s all a bit much but she doesn’t want to argue with him again so soon. 

“Could you hear what I was thinking just now?” She asks him, twisting her fingers together in her lap as she looks straight at him. There’s still so much she doesn’t know about mates, especially about being an Alpha, and though it feels strange to acknowledge and talk about their bond he’s also her only conversation partner for the next few days. He’ll just have to get used to her questions. 

“Not exactly,” he says as he turns to look at her once again, leaning his head against the back of the seat and crossing his legs calmly, expression unwaveringly blank. “Sometimes I can sense an emotion that doesn’t belong to me, but often it only occurs when we are physically close.” 

“I think I can hear words from you sometimes,” she tells him, leaning forward a little bit. There’s so much to learn and she wants to discover everything she can about how they work together, her and Aleksander. “Not full sentences, just a word or two and also sometimes your emotions can seep into mine.” 

“How interesting,” he says but his eyes are a little brighter, as if he really does want to learn as much about their bond as she does. “And can you feel my emotions when I am physically apart from you?” 

“I don’t think so,” she says slowly, trying to remember but not truly succeeding. “I think I hear words more often from you. And your emotions can influence mine sometimes– if you’re angry then I feel it too.” 

“Ah,” he murmurs, “how interesting that this is the way we have been paired.”

Alina tilts her head, blinking at him in a silent question. “Your emotions do not influence mine,” Aleksander clarifies, brushing a hand through his dark hair and ruffling the locks. He says it easily, as if this isn’t a huge revelevation. 

“Really? Does that happen with all mating bonds? Why do my feelings not influence you as well?”

She’s a little excited, to be honest, eager to know more about their bond. Aleksander just frowns, turning to look out the window again, his sharp jawline clenched. 

“It is because you are an Alpha, Alina. Your sun alignment means you tend towards emotional decisions and intuitive feelings. And as my– as my mate , sensing my emotions may help you to… protect me.” 

Alina feels a warm umber wash of annoyance sweep across her shoulders and up her neck, heating her skin from beneath. She knows it doesn't belong to her. She opens her mouth to protest what he’s just told her, to inform him that she doesn’t care about the traditional mating roles and that she’ll always protect him no matter his alignment, but he cuts her off. 

“We have reached the edge of the city,” he says, gesturing to the view outside with an elegant sweep of his fingers. She turns to see nothing but an expanse of white and dark spikes of forest in the distance, the sky now a lovely shade of light blue as the sun climbs higher. She wants to fling herself from the carriage into the warming world outside, wants to breathe the air and feel the absence of walls and stares around her, wants to feel like a child in the countryside again. Her eyes drink up the colors, so much more vibrant than in the city, and an empty corner of her heart begins to fill in a slow trickle. 

“It’s lovely,” she whispers, beaming out the window and choosing to forget what they were talking about in favor of peace. “I love the countryside. I love the sky and how it feels to have so much space around me and how quiet it is.”

“I prefer the forests and fields to cities as well,” Aleksander agrees and she can feel the umber beginning to fade away from her skin as they roll along. “They are more familiar to me than any city or palace. The forests have been my home for many seasons and battles. My chest is lighter under an open sky such as this.” 

“Did you grow up in the countryside?” She asks, turning to look at him full on again and this time he shifts to face her as well, eyes into eyes and knees just brushing. 

“Yes, I did. If I had lived a normal human lifespan I believe I would have stayed in the countryside forever. Perhaps I would have been a farmer.” 

“I think you would have been a very good farmer,” Alina says gently, for she can sense a vulnerability in his voice whenever he talks of his past life and his youth. “But I think I like you best as you are now. A general who cares for his people and fights for them.” 

“If you like me as I am now then you do not yet see the truth of me,” he says sharply and then closes his eyes, ending their conversation. Aleksander spends the remainder of their bumpy ride until lunch pretending to sleep and then, in the afternoon, rides on a horse in the fresh air while Alina is stuck sitting with an unfamiliar and very grim looking soldier. She alternates between glaring out the window at him and immersing herself in a lovely romance novel Genya had gifted her for the journey. 

She passed several pleasant hours in this way, even going so far as to summon a small sphere of sunlight to read by when evening began to fall, but soon her eyes are drooping and she wants nothing more than to stop for the night and sleep. They don’t stop, though, just continue to trundle along in the darkness as outside soldiers talk in low murmurs and horses huff against the chill of the night. 

Alina dozes against the velvet seat, eventually curling up as comfortably as possible in the small space. She pulls her kefta over herself like a blanket and uses her hat as a pillow, knees crunched up against her chest and hands pillowed beneath her cheek. Her tailbone hurts from all the bumps in the roads and her ass hurts from sitting all day and she’s full of restless energy but also terribly tired. She’s frustrated from the lack of conversation with Aleksander and that he’d left her and beneath it all she’s terrified of what lies ahead of them. 

She falls asleep to the sway of the carriage and the creak of wheels, the low murmur of Aleksander’s voice drifting in and out of her dreams as his hands tuck a blanket around her shoulders and caress her hair and mark the page in her book for her. 

☀☀☀

The next morning dawns gray and drizzly, a wet kind of day that is meant to be spent curled up in bed with hot tea and good books. Instead, Alina is trapped inside the pit of velvet as she’s begun to think of it, a musty scent rising from the fabric as everything somehow becomes damp. Her hair is damp, her skin is covered in a fine layer of moisture and her clothes are sticking uncomfortably to her body. She feels like a bedraggled cat and she’s just as angry as one too, practically hissing at the soldier who brings her a breakfast of bread and hard cheese. 

She tries to read her book but the romance, so steamy yesterday, has lost much of its luster for her and so she ends up slumped in her seat, practicing with her sunlight. Her day grows remarkably better when she remembers who she is and then uses that sunlight to dry herself, peace flowing over her as her clothes fluff out and her hair no longer sticks to her neck. She spends a while longer forming flowers and spears of golden light and then emerges from the carriage when they stop for lunch, smiling at the grumpy soldiers all around her. 

They’ve stopped under the cover of ancient pine trees, the green shadows of a forest only deepened by the slate gray sky above. Alina forms a bubble of light around herself to stay dry while she wolfs down her lunch of salted herring, hard bread, and boiled egg, licking her fingers and then looking around for more. Instead she finds soldiers who are drenched to the bone and looking very grim indeed, keftas wet and heavy on their shoulders. Even the horses look pitiful, their manes shrunken by the water and heads bowed as they search for grass among the trees. Alina feels very guilty and very selfish suddenly; her clothes are warm and dry, she’s been riding in a comfortable carriage all day, and her food portions seemed suspiciously larger than everyone else’s. 

She clambers to her feet and brushes pine needles and a dusting of snow from her kefta , making her way towards the closest group of soldiers. They’re two men, one fair skinned and one dark skinned, both dressed in dark gray but in her memories she sees them in navy and scarlet. Second Army soldiers, then, and probably experienced if they’re on this mission. 

“Hello,” she says as she crouches down next to them, feeling a little awkward as they both incline their heads to her and stop their conversation. “I’m Alina,” she continues, wanting to kick herself the moment her voice comes out too high and squeaky. “I’m– I can summon light?” 

The soldiers exchange a look and the one she thinks is called Kirill seems as if he’s suppressing a laugh. “We are aware, Sankta ,” he tells her with a little grin and she flushes hot red, huffing out a too-loud laugh. 

“Of course, I’m sorry, that was silly of me. But– I can dry you off and make you warm again, if you want.” 

She feels as if she’s just run a marathon and her pulse is hammering with how awkward that whole interaction was and as the silence begins to stretch she prepares to stand and hide in the carriage for the rest of the trip. Maybe she can pretend to sleep the whole time so no one will talk to her. 

“Thank you, Sankta ,” the other soldier says eventually, blue eyes lighting up as he smiles widely at her. “Your light would be much appreciated. We’re very cold.” 

“We feel a bit as if we’ve just come out of the bath,” Kirill says dryly and all three of them share a little laugh. Alina lifts her hands and sweeps deeply golden rays of light over their bodies, moving from their short hair to the tips of their boots. She increases the heat of her sunlight at their feet and hands, pouring her concentration into warming but not burning them. The two men visibly relax, sighing as the heat moves across them and their clothes and hair begin to steam. When Alina’s done she creates an arc of light to hover over them and keep them dry as they finish their meal, accepting their thanks with a genuine smile. 

She stands and moves to the next group of soldiers, two women and a man, repeating her offer of warmth and dryness. Again the soldiers accept and her heart feels a little brighter at this small way she can help. She makes her way through all of the soldiers and oprichniki , learning names and faces as she goes, surprised to find that in total a dozen people have accompanied them from the Little Palace. So many for this mission when truly the only presence the Fold requires is hers. And maybe Aleksander’s. 

Alina steps towards one of the last soldiers, the woman’s back and pure midnight hair facing away from her as she eats alone. She reaches out to touch the soldier, the words already forming on her lips, but the woman jerks away from her touch without even turning. 

“Do not,” the woman says icily, “touch me.” 

“Zoya?” 

The soldier turns and piercing blue eyes meet Alina’s, drilling into her with a chill so bitterly frigid that it makes her sunlight shrink back. She bites her lip, faltering a little bit. Zoya is looking at her with a level of hatred she’s yet to see directed at her and she doesn’t know what she can say or do to make the other girl despise her less. She also hadn’t known Zoya was part of their traveling party, hadn’t known she was accompanying them in their guard. 

“I only came to ask if you would like me to dry you,” she says quietly, twisting her fingers together behind her back. The other girl just stares at her silently, face blank but freezing anger burning in her eyes. Alina shuffles her feet, wanting to leave but also wanting to help, unsure how to exit this standoff. 

“I did it for the other soldiers,” she says, her voice too loud in the crisp forest chill, “I can also warm you, if you’re cold from riding…” 

“Of course you did,” Zoya snaps, turning back to her meal, spine stiff as a board. “You’re the perfect little Sun Summoner who spends her time dancing around with the General and warming people up like a good Saint.” 

“I’m not– I don’t– I’m not a Saint,” Alina sputters, caught halfway between shock and anger. She stomps around so that she’s facing Zoya, planting her hands on her hips and glaring down at the older girl. 

“Look, Zoya,” she begins, the words rising from a deep pit inside of her, “we don’t have to hate each other. I know you don’t like me much and maybe that has to do with my sunlight or my proximity to the general– either way, I don’t really care. It’s very silly of you to decide to dislike me before even getting to know me because I, for one, think we could be rather good friends.” 

“I don’t hate you because of your sunlight or because the General is your mate,” Zoya snarls, standing, her food forgotten at her feet. She towers over Alina and an icy wind blows her hair back so that she looks like an avenging figure descending from the sky. 

“I hate you because you have the ability to save Ravka and help everyone who lives in our country and you’re not doing a thing with it . You could have ended the Fold months ago and then gone to fight off the Fjerdans and the Shu but instead you’ve been sitting in the Little Palace, eating sweets with Genya and pretending at being a soldier instead of actually being one.” 

Alina opens her mouth, feeling a bit like a fish, but Zoya just snarls at her in disgust and stalks away into the trees, muttering under her breath. Alina stays where she is for several minutes, collecting herself, trying to wipe the impact of the older girls’ words from her mind so that she can properly inspect them later. She has a nasty and sneaking suspicion deep down that the soldier may be right. 

And then when she’s collected and calm and wearing her best innocent girl mask, she goes in search of the remaining soldiers still dripping with rainwater. She has a job to do, no matter what others think of her. 

☀☀☀

She stands from the last soldier, smiling goodbye, and then sweeps her gaze over the assembled people in search of dark hair and a scowly expression. Her mate, however, is nowhere to be found and if the oprichniki weren’t so calm Alina might be panicking a bit. She frowns at the soldiers again, a mass of gray when all she wants to see is midnight black, and then begins to pick her way around the carriage, wondering if perhaps he’s wandered off into the forest for some solitude. She can imagine that he needs time alone after being constantly with other people for almost two days. 

Alina allows the faint pull in her chest to guide her towards where the horses are tethered at the edge of the road through the forest, steam rising from their velvety noses as they graze among the brown pine needles and snow. She can just spot a tuft of black hair among the chestnut and gray of the horse's backs, blankets and saddles draped over low hanging branches to dry. She treads quietly, not wanting to startle him or the large animals around him and also curious about what he’s doing. As she approaches she picks up on the low murmur of his voice among the quiet huffs and shifting of the horses, their heads shifting towards him as if they’re listening to his words. 

“Hello, beautiful,” he says quietly, stroking a pale hand across the cheek of a misty gray mare, his other hair tangled in her white mane. The horse shifts so that Alina can see his face and she drinks in the openness of his expression, the faint smile curving his lips and the gentle warmth in his eyes. She’d never have believed it but it seems as if her mate is a lover of animals, or at least horses. The mare nudges into his hand and he leans his forehead against her side, smoothing his hands across her dampened back as she turns to nuzzle at his hair. He laughs a little and so does Alina, smothering the nose quickly with her fingers. The horse chuffs and he straightens, slipping a sugar cube from his pocket and proffering the treat on an open palm. 

“Our little secret, yes?” He says, looking up at the mare as she delicately nibbles on the sugar. “I enjoy a bit of sugar every now and then as well,” he murmurs and when a dark chestnut stallion dips his head over Aleksander’s shoulder, the general procures another sugar cube from one of his many pockets. 

“You deserve one as well, after such a long day,” he says to the stallion and when his hand is empty again he steps towards the remaining six horses, offering a treat to each. Large heads swing towards him and ears prick up as he talks to them, thanking them for their hard work carrying the soldiers and the carriage and promising many more sugar cubes when they return to the Little Palace. The animals stay close to him, brushing against him and nosing at his hair and trying to nibble his clothes. Aleksander merely laughs at them, stroking noses and flanks and inspecting the horses for any injuries. When he reaches the last horse, a dappled black mare, he gives her one two sugar cubes. The horse bends her head, focused on the treat, but her ears prick when he begins to speak. 

“I hope you make it out,” he murmurs, studying the sleek lines and muscles of the horse. “Even if my abomination swallows us up, I hope you all run far and fast. And that you find greener pastures to graze in than those of Ravka.” 

The mare raises her head and pins him with liquid black eyes, looking back at Aleksander as if she wants him to continue. He runs a finger down her nose and she nuzzles into his palm, sniffing around for more sugar. 

“Good girl,” Aleksander says with a laugh, searching his pockets for more food, “you deserve a reward for being so cheeky.” And the mare happily snuffles up another lump of sugar. 

Alina steps forward loudly, crunching a stick on purpose as she clears her throat. “Aleksander?” She says and he turns, eyes a little wide as he quickly stuffs his hands in his pockets. She stifles a smile and gestures at the horses instead, saying, “I came to dry them off and maybe warm them up too, if that’s alright.” 

“That would be very appreciated, thank you,” he tells her and dips his head, moving away from the horses to stand nearby as she gathers a ball of light. She pulls her hands apart and the light flattens into a wide ray that she pushes to hover above the animals, bathing them in warm light and slowly evaporating the water from their bodies and hanging saddles. She feels herself begin to falter after the first fifteen minutes, her head going heavy on her spine as exhaustion seeps up into the soles of her feet. Aleksander reaches out a hand to steady her and immediately her light burns brighter, a flood of vitality washing through her. She stands taller, smiling at him in thanks as he leaves his hand to rest gently on her arm. 

She can feel the heat of his fingers even through the cloth of her kefta . 

“Would you like me to dry you off as well?” She asks, turning to face him once the horses are happily steaming and settling down to doze off. He lifts his hand from her arm quickly and shakes his head, moving towards where the soldiers are still gathered. “No, thank you. I’ll look after myself.” 

Alina sighs and lets her shoulders slump, watching his retreating back with the feeling that no matter how hard she tries he’ll never be able to open up to her. And if he can’t open up to her and learn to trust her, how can he ever forgive her? 

☀☀☀

Alina looks up in surprise when Aleksander climbs into the carriage as they set off later that afternoon, the soldiers and horses seeming much happier now that they’ve been fed and dried off with her light. She did catch Zoya scowling at her but she pretended not to notice, deciding she has to learn to take the high road if so many people consider her a Saint. 

“Hello,” he says, a little awkward as he arranges his legs in the small space and tries not to let any part of his body brush against hers, bringing with him the scent of fresh rain and wet wool. Drops of water glisten in his dark hair and on his shoulders, dripping from his boots to the floor in little rivulets. Alina, who had been curled into a ball with her romance novel already open to chapter twelve, just blinks at him. “Hi,” she manages at last, still staring but too curious to know what prompted him to return to the velvet pit of musty air. 

“You need a guard,” he says, glowering at her a little bit. 

“I absolutely do not need a guard,” she says stoutly, closing her book with a snap and frowning right back at him. “Bringing twelve soldiers along with us is already ridiculous. Don’t insult my abilities by imagining I need someone trapped with me inside this awful carriage for my protection .” 

“You’re the–,” he begins but she cuts him off, rolling her eyes as the carriage begins to rumble along once more. “Yes, I’m the Sun Summoner, I’m the one you think can destroy the Fold and save all of Ravka and deliver us from your darkness. But I’m also me, Aleksander– I grew up in an orphanage as a half-Shu girl and I thought I was an Omega. I know how to protect myself, even if you can’t see it.” 

“Growing up in an orphanage has absolutely no impact on your ability to fight,” he tells her stiffly, eyes sweeping her form as if he finds her lacking. She grits her teeth, sitting up straight and setting her book aside. Her blood is heating and she wants to strangle him but also push her hands through his hair and bite his lip. It’s really a tossup between which she wants more. 

“If you think that children, especially orphans looking for anyone different to pick on, aren’t some of the most vicious fighters then your military education is severely lacking. I learned how to fight like an alley cat at the orphanage and I learned how to fight like a soldier from Botkin. Don’t underestimate me.” 

“What was your life at the orphanage like?” He asks, abruptly changing the subject. Alina smiles, knowing it’s because he’s realized she’s right but that he doesn’t want to admit it. 

“Boring, mostly,” she tells him, letting her eyes drift a little as she thinks of the years of memories that make up her childhood. “A little dangerous for Omegas; the boys liked to pick on us, asking us to cook for them or make their beds. I spent most of my time with Mal or in the library. I was also sick almost every day.” 

“Ridiculous,” Aleksander says crisply, folding his arms across his chest. “Housework belongs to no gender or affiliation and the notion that Omegas are better at menial chores in the home is outdated and prejudiced. Your director should have taught them better.” 

“I wish,” Alina agrees, her mind alighting on the Omega classes Ana Kunya had held on how to cook, how to iron, how to sew and care for children and polish men’s shoes. “I wish I had learned more about the truth of mates and our alignments. I wish someone had told me the truth about what I am.” 

She turns her eyes to Aleksander, peering intently at him as she thinks. “Were you taught those kinds of things,” she asks quietly, “about Omegas and the role they’re supposed to have?” 

“No,” he says after a long pause, turning his fingers over in his lap and studying the faint lines etched on his palms. Rain beats a study drum on the roof of the carriage, blurring the view outside the windows and she almost feels as if they’re alone, no soldiers to guard them or horses trotting around them. 

“My mother was the one to educate me, at least in my first life, and she preferred to focus on summoning. She cared most about my shadows and what I could do with them. I don’t believe she would have noticed what alignment I had as long as it didn’t interfere with my ability.” 

“Do you miss her?” Alina asks before she can stop herself, covering her mouth immediately once the question slips out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ask that. You don’t have to answer.” 

“I think I do miss her, sometimes,” he tells her with a little smile, leaning his head back against the seat and slumping until his legs bracket hers in the small space. “It has been so very many years since I last saw her or heard her voice and she was not the kindest of mothers, but… she was my family. She understood me, or at least the shadow part of me. I think I would like to have someone who still remembers me as I was in my first life.” 

“I would like to have known my parents,” Alina whispers, studying his face and finding only understanding pressed into the lines of his cheeks and brow. “To have people who I fit with and who knew me my whole life– I have always wished for that.” 

“Family is not always delineated by blood, little wolf,” Aleksander says very gently, “I have found brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, even grandparents in the friends of my many lifetimes. There are people you will fit with in your life who will share nothing with you but love.” 

“I have begun to build my family already, I think,” she tells him shly, thinking of Genya and Mal and perhaps even Nikolai. She glances at him, wondering if he considers her part of his family as she does him, but too anxious over the answer to ask. 

“Have you been treated differently at the Little Palace?” He asks, the topic shift catching her off guard. She tilts her head at him, wrinkling her nose because she has no idea what he’s asking. 

Of course she’s been treated differently. Moving to the Little Palace was a monumental shift from her life in Keramzin not just because of the people she was surrounded by but also because there were maids to wash her clothes and bring her food and make her bed. Guards to stand outside her door and protect her and take her orders. And there were the other students– the ones who laughed at her and the ones who were kind to her and the ones who ignored her. And then once she’d been presented as the Sun Summoner– absolutely everything in her world had changed again. She’d ceased to be a person almost; when believers looked at her and reached out to touch her she had sensed that to them, she wasn’t Alina. Instead she was something elevated, a higher being, an embodiment of hope and daybreak wrapped in flesh for them to worship. She had been unable to leave the Little Palace without a train of supplicants and even the students in her classes had treated her differently, looking at her with awe or disbelief or sliding glances her way as they whispered about her. 

“Has anyone– have you been mistreated because your mother was Shu?” 

Alina levels a flat look at him, not actually believing he’s really asked her this question. For a very old man he can certainly be clueless sometimes. 

“I’m not clueless,” he murmurs, the palest brush of rose feathering across the tops of his cheeks. “I merely– I wanted to inquire after your experience at the Little Palace, but I now see this is an unacceptable topic of conversation. I apologize.” 

He seems about to retreat into himself and his thoughts or perhaps leave the carriage again so Alina speaks quickly, not wanting to lose this time with him no matter how silly he can be. 

“Yes,” she tells him hurriedly, “of course I have. There were bullies at the orphanage when I was growing up and they were cruel but they were also– they were open about their dislike for me. At the Little Palace it was… different. Less open. Little things, the type of incidents I wouldn’t have been able to voice exactly as wrong but still I knew, I felt , that it was because they didn’t like the way I look.” 

“Mostly it was other students gossiping about me and saying that I was a spy or that I had come to steal Ravkan secrets for my home country no matter how many times I told them that I was raised here. Sometimes they told me to ‘return to my country’ or acted as if I wouldn’t know Ravkan history. In my first classes one of my teachers assumed I didn’t speak Ravkan. Things like that.” 

Shadows twine around Aleksander’s wrists and drip to the floor, little beasts crawling forth from the darkness as if they can vanquish the injustices of her past. 

“Who?” He grits out, face very calm but she can feel the anger broiling bright and crimson red beneath his skin, beginning to heat her blood as well. 

“You can’t decimate half of your soldiers in training just because they're ignorant and prejudiced, Aleksander,” she tells him with a little smile at his wrath. She finds his urge to avenge her endearing if misplaced. 

“No, I cannot,” he replies crisply, “but I can promise to do better. I will ensure new classes are created to educate the students about the variety of Ravkans and the many lovely histories of Shu Han. And I would like to apologize, Alina, for the idiocy and hard welcome you suffered.” 

“I survived,” she says wryly, “I had Genya. And I’d rather talk about something else besides problems of the past.” 

They sit in silence, staring at each other, for a few long moments. Alina wants him to come up with something to talk about but she can also sense that he has no idea what to say or where to begin with her. She feels the same. It’s so strange spending time with him– it’s as if he’s been a part of her life forever, as if she’s seen him in all her dreams, but on the surface she doesn’t know him yet. She understands the shape and color of his soul but the little details, how to easily fall into conversation with him– it’s all muddled up. 

“What is your book about?” He asks suddenly, gesturing at the book jostling on the seat beside her. His expression is inquisitive and attentive as if this is the most important question he’s ever asked her but she immediately flushes a deep magenta, running over how to tell him she’s reading a romance novel filled with naked men and kissing. 

“Oh, it’s not very interesting,” Alina says at last, waving airily, “I’d much rather hear about how you and Ivan met and became friends.” 

“Ivan is a soldier, not my friend,” Aleksander replies, expression clouded with confusion, “and I would enjoy learning about your book. A love for reading is something we share.” 

“Ivan is your friend, Aleksander,” she responds with a laugh caught in her voice, “have you not realized? You two spend so much time together talking about battle strategies and looking at weapons as if you want to marry them– how could you not be friends?” 

“To call someone my friend is to open myself to the pain of losing them,” he says straightforwardly, not making a single change to his expression. “And thus I do not have friends. Now tell me about your book.” 

“Aleksander–.” 

“That was an order from your General, soldier,” he says so sternly that she sits up straight and obeys. 

“Fine,” she snaps, irritated, once she realizes how she reacted to him. It seems as if all of the Omega training hasn’t left her yet, or perhaps it’s just that her mate is a rather commanding figure no matter their alignments. “You want to know what my book is about?” 

He nods sharply, just as irritated as she is– she can feel the yellow-orange emotion bleeding into her and increasing her own annoyance. Alina narrows her eyes at him, realizing that she’s going to enjoy this. She’s going to make him as uncomfortable as possible and then relish in his embarrassment– what color will that emotion be, she wonders. 

“This story,” she begins with a sweet little smile, “is about a girl who falls in love with two beautiful men and has to spend many, many chapters kissing them each passionately and caressing their bare chests and doing other things with them before she can decide which one she wants to marry. And they have wings.” 

She’s rewarded with nothing but a laugh from Aleksander, his emotions shifting from sky blue curiosity to deep bronze amusement as he laughs. 

“It sounds very educational,” he murmurs with a grin, winking at her, “I’ll have to borrow it once you’re finished.” 

Alina growls at him from between her teeth and curls up into a ball again, angrily cracking the spine of her book and keeping her eyes trained on the pages no matter how many waves of gentle amusement roll towards her. 

☀☀☀

The morning of their third day of travel Alina steps from the carriage with the rising sun, picking her way through the clusters of sleeping soldiers and waving at the two guards keeping watch. They’d stopped for the night and she’d slept in the carriage again, cozy under two keftas and knowing that she was safe under Alexander's watchful eyes. She’d woken several times throughout the night but each time he had been there to look back at her and she’d slipped into her dreams quickly, though she’s almost sure that she had glimpsed him reading her book one of the times she’d woken up. 

Standing ankle-deep in the field of snow across from their camp she gazes out at the countryside. She knows they’ve passed small towns and villages, knows that people do live in this part of Ravka, but somehow the world feels empty and ready for the taking, a fruit just waiting to be plucked. Alina wants to sink her teeth into the world, wants to leave her mark and shape history and suck every moment of joy she can from this life. 

She stays where she is to watch the sun inch higher and higher, enjoying the perfect fade of pastel sunrise into pale blue and the way the clouds part to allow a bit of sunshine to fall on her. She sends ripples of her own light out to play, feeling her pale gold reach and ache for the sun in the sky. When Alina looks at the sun she feels as if she’s seeing the great golden eye of some ancient deity looming over her, the being watching all the humans on Earth just as they watch it back. 

“Hello, whoever you are,” she whispers, sending dancing threads of sun high into the sky. “I hope you’ll protect us when we reach the Fold. If you can, it'd be much appreciated.” 

Where is she?

Alina’s spine stiffens and she turns her head, listening, wondering who had spoken. The voice sounded familiar…

“Alina,” he sighs as he approaches, his dark boots crunching through the snow towards her. He’s emerged from the carriage remarkably fast and he’s at her side before she can greet him. “You can not wander off on this journey,” he admonishes, reaching out to hold her forearms and peer down into her eyes, “not when we’re away from the safety of Os Alta. Attacks can happen at any time and I would feel… better if I knew where you were.” 

“You can’t chain me to your side, Aleksander,” she says with a roll of her eyes, “and besides, the guards knew where I was. You’re just an overprotective mother hen.” 

She hears his laugh in her mind before it ripples through the air towards her ears and she smiles involuntarily, beaming back at him. The morning air is fresh and lovely on her face, chilling the tip of her nose a bright red but more invigorating than any passage of time inside the carriage. 

“If you would promise to stay near me I wouldn’t have to be such an overprotective mother hen,” he tells her in amusement, moving one of his hands to trace a gentle line down her cheek. She snaps at his fingers playfully and he draws back, avoiding her teeth with graceful balance. 

“Fine,” she huffs at last, giving up as he continues to evade her, “I’ll promise to be a good little sun summoner and stay where you can always see me on one condition.” 

“I’m listening,” he replies, narrowing dark eyes at her and tilting his head as if trying to ascertain what she wants. A slow smile spreads across her face because she can tell, whatever she asks for– Aleksander will say yes. 

☀☀☀

“This is wonderful,” Alina calls to Aleksander, craning her neck to look back at him from where she sits astride a misty gray mare. Her heart is light with joy and blood rushes through her body, warming her with fizzling sparks of excitement at the passing countryside and wind whipping her hair around. It feels so good to be on a horse, so good to be riding in the fresh air and to have the ability to race ahead if she wants to. 

“Don’t you love riding?” 

“Yes,” he calls back, his voice a deep grumble that goes with the grumpy expression pasted onto his features ever since they set off. “I am quite amused at the moment.” 

She laughs and faces forward again, uncaring that Aleksander is unhappy with the situation. She wouldn’t have been able to bear another moment shut up inside that carriage and besides, she’s sure the soldier she switched places with will be happy to nap or rest. Her hair is blown back in long tangles by the wind and her cheeks are slightly chilled, her tailbone jostling with each pound of the mare’s hooves. She doesn’t care. She’s just happy to be free, to be traveling without a wall or gate in sight, to be moving and doing something. 

Zoya’s words come back to her and Alina bends low over her horse, urging the mare into a slow canter, wanting to release the animal and release herself and run like the wind. She wants so much in this world but she feels as if all those things, those hopes and dreams for her life and wants for her own future, lay behind a locked door. And that door blocking the rest of her life– it’s the Fold. 

“Once I destroy the Fold,” she whispers into her horse’s pricked ears, “once I do that, then I can have my life. It’ll be mine again, not Ravka’s, and I can do as I please. Won’t that be lovely?” 

The mare snorts in what Alina takes to be agreement and she smiles, clicking the reins to urge the animal to go a bit faster. The wind on her face picks up and her heart feels as if it’s a bird about to take flight, her feet itching to run, to speed across the surface of the land and leave everything in her dust until she’s raced fast enough to be in a new life where every decision belongs to her and her alone. 

She needs to slow down 

Alina hears the echo of his voice in her mind and chooses to ignore him, continuing to urge her horse ever faster. “Or maybe you just need to speed up!” She shouts over her shoulder, ignoring the flush of deep indigo resignation from Aleksander. 

She grins at him once he’s reached her side, his own horse the great black stallion of course (as he can’t seem to break away from his monochromatic theme). “Hi,” she half-shouts, focusing on him despite the hair in her face and the deeply disappointed face he’s giving her. 

“Want to race?” 

She thinks he’ll say no or that he’ll tell her it’s a bad idea but when he nods, a little glimmer dancing in his eyes, she thinks she’s beginning to glimpse more of the man he was hundreds of years ago. They take off like bullets from a gun, arrowheads racing the gust of the wind and it’s only as they speed towards the treeline in the distance, both laughing, that the first druskelle appears. 

Chapter Text

Sound is the first sense to come back to her. Alina’s vision is a field of red, her nose stuffed with a metallic tang that’s also seeped into her mouth. She knows she’s touching something but she can’t feel what it is yet, doesn’t quite care to think about it too much as a small corner of her mind whispers one word to her.

“Alina,” a cool voice is murmuring in her ear, against the crown of her head, “come back to me, solnishka.”

That voice is a thread she latches onto, a rope thrown into the chasm of red that engulfs the rest of her senses. Hand over hand she claws her way up that rope, following the timbre of his voice as it calls to her.

Touch comes to her next. Alina can suddenly feel a cold wetness on her hands, probably melting snow. The suppressive warmth of her layers of clothes comes next, then the awareness that arms are holding her, cradling her close to the chest of the person who is still speaking to her softly. Fingers, brushing so, so lightly across her cheeks and over the pulse at her wrists, the gentle sensation of what she knows is a kiss being pressed into her hair. She makes a little sound low in her throat and turns her head, nuzzling her cheek into the rough softness of fabric against her cheek.

She thinks she’s laid across this person’s lap, their arms wound around her as they hold her up and call her back into herself. Her nose twitches as smell and taste return almost simultaneously, a heavy tang of iron landing on her tongue and the smell of something metallic invading her nose. She curls her tongue against the roof of her mouth trying to identify that taste and realizes, fuzzily, that it’s blood.

“That’s it, open your eyes darling,” the voice is telling her, and a hand beneath her neck supports her head as she tries to force strength back into her muscles. Dizzy and nauseous from the taste of blood, Alina slowly blinks her eyes open, furrowing her eyebrows when all she can see is Aleksander’s pallid face peering down at her. His tangled black locks, slicked back with something wet, are obstructing her view of the sky as he hunches over her, filling her vision with broad shoulders and the fur at his neck.

His face loses some of the tension when he sees that her eyes are open and he dips down briefly to bury his nose in the curve of her neck, clutching her even closer to his chest. “Aleksander,” she croaks, blinking slowly and lifting a shaky hand to rest in his hair. “What happened?”

She feels something wet against her neck but chooses to believe it’s just his lips instead of the infinitely worse possibility that he could be crying. Then, her eyes focus on her hand in his hair; her fingers, covered in darkening red as it dries, fingernails ruddy halfmoons. Blood. And his hair, too, beneath her hands is tacky and stiff with drying redness, the iron scent of all the blood suddenly overwhelming in her noise. Alina heaves, reaching to weakly push Aleksander off as she rolls to the side and retches, her stomach emptying nothing onto the pinkish snow despite her best efforts.

She’s still half draped over his lap once she’s finished, limbs weak and trembly as she just lies there and focuses on her breathing. She can feel his hands on her again, knows that he held her hair back for her while she tried to be sick. Those fingertips are now loosely wrapped around her waist, petting the back of her neck. Her skin feels flushed and sweaty but she’s cold for the first time in ages, can actually feel the bite of the air on her face. When Alina dares to open her eyes again, she’s met with a sea of pinkish-red snow and scattered bodies, growing pools of red and a wrecked carriage. There is no movement but for the sway of trees in the distance and the up-down up-down of Aleksander’s chest against her spine.

Alina jerks back from the field of red, curls into Aleksander and his arms around her, closes her eyes again and scrunches her face up in pain. Physically, her body is doing okay; she feels sick and dizzy, but can feel no true pain or injuries. She can feel him responding to her emotions; his arms wind more tightly around her and he stands, carrying her as if she weighs nothing, walking for several minutes until the metallic tang no longer suffuses the air. When they settle on the ground again he shifts so that she’s sitting in his lap, moving her arms for her so that they’re loosely draped around his shoulders and her cheek is laid against his neck. Alina breathes shallowly, trying very hard to focus on the scent of tea and woodsmoke beneath all rusty speckles on his skin.

“It’s alright, milaya,” he whispers, running a gentle palm down the length of her hair over and over, his other hand spanning the small of her back to cradle her against him. Alina allows herself to slump into him, allows herself to be comforted and vulnerable in this moment as she tries to make sense of what she saw. The last thing she remembers is the joy of riding, flying on her horse, turning to laugh at him…

“What happened?” She mumbles into his neck, eyes squeezed shut as she continues to breathe and concentrate on the sensation of his hands on her. His arms around her, his scent in her nose, his voice in her ears. Aleksander is all around her, encompassing, and Alina likes it for now. Allows it, for now. Trusts him, for now.

“Fjerdans,” he replies lowly, hand never ceasing its constant motion down her hair, tipping his head so that his cheek rests atop her head. “They were hiding in the tree line. They attacked.”

His voice is rumbling through her, sending tiny little shivers down her spine as it soothes at the same time. “Who killed them?” Alina whispers, nuzzling ever deeper into his neck. Her breathing has evened out and she’s almost fully relaxed against him, feeling much safer now that he’s curled around her. She can’t sense a single emotion from him but she’s too preoccupied to worry about that at the moment.

“You did,” he tells her and his voice is cool, his eyes unflinching as he looks at the top of her head. There is no fear in them, no retribution or judgement for the blood on her hands. His words ring with steely truth and Alina shudders in his arms, once, before going still again.

“All of them?”

“All of them,” he confirms softly, pushing some of her hair aside to press a light kiss to her temple. Alina lets a few tears leak out and wet his neck, allows the guilt and horror to wallow in her heart. Those were people she killed, even if they were enemies. People, with lives and families and pets who will wait forever at empty doors. People who had dreams and hopes and years still sprawling out before them until she cut them short.

“They were going to kill us, Alina,” Aleksander tells her and she nods a little against him, then lets out a choked sob. “What you did was not wrong.”

“It’s not that simple,” she mumbles into his neck, then draws back far enough to look into his eyes, a cool black as his grip on her tightens. His fingers clutch her as if he doesn’t want to let go, as if he’s afraid to release her from the safety of his arms. “Even if they’re our enemies they were still people,” she manages to wobble out, tears leaking steadily down her cheeks and a lump forming in her throat. “We could’ve— we could’ve, I don’t know, captured them or tried to talk to them or, or—.”

Aleksander’s already shaking his head, cutting her off. “Talking would not have worked. Attempting to take prisoners would have ended in the same result. Killing them was the most logical and efficient option. You have no reason to shed tears, milaya.”

Alina absorbs his words, rolls them around in her head alongside everything she’s learned in her tactical lessons at the Little Palace. She thinks about how much Fjerdans hate all Ravkans and what they would have done to her or Aleksander if given the chance. She wonders for a moment if it would have been possible to change or undo that brainwashing, but then decides that’s not a healthy path to go down. For now, she will have to compartmentalize. She will have to view the world in black and white, in good and bad, as Aleksander does when it comes to war. The Fjerdans would have killed her, which makes them bad. Enemies. Wrong. She killed them; she protected herself and her mate, which makes her actions correct. Good.

Her tears dry up as she thinks and when she comes to her final conclusion and lifts her head, feeling a bit more at peace for the moment, Aleksander gives her an approving nod. Traces his thumbs across her cheeks to wipe away any lingering wetness, lifts her chin gently until her head is held high. Alina holds his gaze despite her puffy eyes and dripping nose, despite the dried blood now flaking from her hands and spattered across her face.

“Come, then,” Aleksander says suddenly, sliding her from his lap and standing swiftly, reaching down to draw her up as well. It seems the moment of peace and comfort is over, his impenetrable mask back in place. “We need to continue. It is unsafe to stay in the open.”

“Continue?” Alina asks, still holding onto him, her legs feeling unsteady beneath her and a headache beginning to bloom between her temples. “What about the guards? And the horses? We should go back and gather everyone else. We can’t just leave them, Aleksander,” she tells him reproachfully, furrowing her brows as she looks up at him. She still can’t feel a single emotion from him and it’s beginning to unsettle her, this blank colorless-ness between them.

Now that she thinks about it, she can’t believe they haven’t gone back sooner to check their traveling companions for wounds and help them. “We have to help them,” she says quickly, attempting to twist and go back the way they’d come. “I can’t believe you took me away from them for so long, what if some of the soldiers are hurt Aleksander? We can’t just leave them.”

“Alina,” he says and something about his voice has her drawing away from him, hunching her shoulders and shaking her head at just her name. “Alina,” he repeats, firmer, reaching out to wrap warm fingers around her wrists. His hold is gentle enough that she could break free but she doesn’t, just freezes, breath stuttering in her chest. Aleksander’s face is impossibly gentle as he inches closer, treating her like a frightened animal.

“There are no soldiers to go back to,” he says and his eyes are now liquid pools of velvety black, understanding and sympathetic and sad.

“Not— not any?”

He shakes his head, then sees that she needs a verbal answer and mutters a quiet no. Alina lets out a muffled scream, tearing her hand from his grasp and biting down on her fingers so hard that she draws more blood, doubling over as waves of pain and grief radiate from her heart. There had been twelve soldiers traveling with them— twelve. Twelve lives, twelve futures, twelve voices that will never fill the air again. Alina doesn’t have to have known the soldiers personally to grieve their loss. She’s crying silently, hands clenched into fists and blood dripping down her fingers as she tries to turn some of her inner pain outwards.

Aleksander is right there with her, though. He sinks to the ground in front of her and engulfs her hands in his once more, prying her fingers open with iron strength so that she can’t continue to squeeze the cuts left by her teeth. He’s shuffling into her personal space and engulfing her with his scent of bergamot, his arms holding her once more and his voice rumbling in his chest against her. He fills each of her senses until he’s all she can focus on, until the rest of the world disappears.

“Was it me?” Her voice is flat, tired, small. Dead. She’s limp against him, cried out and wrung out.

“Yes, milaya,” he murmurs into her hair, thumb rubbing soothing circles over the back of her hand where his fingers encase her own. “But you were protecting me. And yourself. It was an accident.”

“So that makes it okay?” Alina cries, jerking her head back to glare up at those eyes that are so full of emotions she can’t even begin to pick apart. With nothing flooding their bond she can’t understand him or what he’s feeling. “Our lives are worth more, Aleksander? That’s awful. That’s not how I want to live, not ever.”

She trails off, not really knowing how to teach him that other people’s lives matter if he hasn’t learned yet in his centuries of life. His nostrils flare and he shakes his head once, sharply. Curls his fingers more tightly around her palms, attempts to pull her back into the shelter of his chest. She resists, glares at him despite how pathetic she probably looks.

“I value life,” he grits out, looking a little pained almost. “I valued those soldiers, Alina. I cared about them as people and I will add their names to the very, very long list of those that I mourn each evening. But I cannot change that they are dead. I cannot change what has happened and I cannot help but to be grateful that we have survived.”

“It’s not that simple,” she almost yells at him, trying fruitlessly to break free of his grip on her hands. Aleksander is a wall of stone and he holds steady against her struggles, just looks at her and looks at her.

“It is that simple,” he says calmly, twisting her head to follow her gaze when she looks away from him, her mouth curling in disgust. “I do not believe our lives are worth more than those of any other person, Alina. Never think so cruelly of me.”

She huffs but looks back at him, uncurls her mouth. Nods a tiny bit and unconsciously drops her shoulders when the pinched expression on his face relaxes. “However,” he continues slowly, “it does logically benefit the most people if you and I survive. And…you are my mate, Alina, no matter our current relationship. I will never not be thankful for you protecting me and in turn, I will never not want you to live. I can not fault you, my mate, for doing what is necessary to save yourself. And I can not find it within myself to recoil at an action that I myself have committed.”

“It’s different,” she whispers, closing her eyes against the words of acceptance he’s so easily granting her. And is he even the person she should be looking for acceptance and comfort from? Aleksander’s moral judgements, his ideas of what is acceptable and what is not, are so skewed that she isn’t sure his absolution of her actions is actually forgiveness at all. “You probably had good reasons for killing people. And they were probably enemies of Ravka. But these… these were Ravkans, Aleksander. They were nice to me. They were protecting us, they were helping us, they…they were good.”

“They didn’t deserve to die,” she whimpers and then lets herself go completely loose in his arms, collapsing, hoping despite herself that he will continue to hold her up despite this horrible thing she’s done. “No,” he agrees, hands coming to rest on her spine, “they didn’t deserve to die. But neither did you deserve to die at the hands of the Fjerdans. And Alina— it was an accident. You were overcome with rage; your sunlight could not distinguish between friend and foe.”

She just shakes her head where it rests against his collarbones, going silent as she wishes for nothing more than oblivion. She’s too exhausted and emotionally drained to even begin to sort through her feelings right now; all she knows is that beneath the numbness, she’s filled with an overwhelming amount of grief and self-hatred and horror. And for the first time since she’d exploded with sunlight, she wishes her powers away. Alina’s eyelids are growing heavy and her head feels like an enormous weight atop her neck; all she wants is to stay right here, uncaring of the blood on her and snow around them, and sleep.

As if he senses her train of thought, Aleksander shakes her lightly, hands moving to prod at her face and force her eyes open. She regards him with bleary eyes, angry and sad and so, so tired. All she wants to do is sleep— why can’t he understand that? Why won’t he let her?

“Alina, darling,” he utters in a low voice, “it’s no time for sleep. We need to run.”

He moves away from her and she sways where she kneels, about to fall over, but then in the flash of an instant, pitch-black fur is pressing against her side, holding her up. Alina buries her face in the fur for a moment, enjoying how soft and warm it is, how thick, before her slowed down brain realizes what she’s seeing. Pulling back, she stares into familiar dark eyes, though now Aleksander is a beautiful inky black wolf. He’s enormous, bigger than any wolf she’s ever seen, and she scoffs at the stereotypes about omegas that had been drilled into her head. His fur is a pure black to the tips of his ears and the point of his tail, long midnight claws curving from each paw, ready to kill with a single swipe. Sitting down, Alina’s head comes an inch or two short of the back of his spine and she can already tell that he weighs several hundred pounds, layers of muscle likely hidden beneath that soft fur.

“You’re so pretty like this,” Alina mumbles, not really aware of what she’s saying. Aleksander the wolf twists his head and presses his cold, damp nose against her cheek, huffing out a warm puff of breath against her skin. She lets out a noise that isn’t quite a laugh but isn’t quite a sob either and sinks her fingers into the fur along his spine, using him to anchor herself as she stands. He presses his weight against her hipbone and steadies her balance, a reassuring line of warmth even through her clothes. Closing her eyes, Alina takes several deep breaths before reaching for the wolf that’s so deeply hidden in her chest she can barely find it. The shift is long and difficult, her bones rippling from one form to another more slowly because of how exhausted she is, but eventually she’s standing on four feet instead of two.

She’s smaller than Aleksander as her wolf, just as she is in her human body. She noses a little bit at his muzzle in greeting but then she’s just standing there swaying slightly, head bowed, as he comes closer and presses his side against hers, still supporting her even now. She tracks his movements as he snaps their clothes up in his jaws and then he’s turning away from her, raising his nose to the wind and the late-afternoon sun before taking off in a flat out run. Alina startles, tails pricking and tail raising, instantly alert, as she watches her mate’s black fur vanish between the tall trunks of the forest.

Something in her, something in the bond that ties her chest to his, tugs at her. Tells her to follow, tells her that, no matter what happens, she can’t let him get away. He’s her mate; he can run from her, but she will always find him. So Alina sets off at a run as well, following the traces of bergamot that her sensitive nose catches on the wind, sharp eyes searching for broken branches or sunken pawprints, any signs of the errant wolf. That bond in her chest, the space mingling with shadows and sunlight, is burning, growing hotter and hotter the closer she gets to him. She feels more awake than she can remember in weeks, every sense on fire with needle point clarity, all of her focused on him, on chasing him and catching him.

She can sense him racing through the trees ahead of her, can feel tingles of bursting yellow anticipation and hazy purple satisfaction bleeding into her chest from him, his emotions egging her on and making her own anticipation grow. Alina doesn’t quite understand why this chase is so important or why it matters so much that she catch Aleksander, but her wolf is excited and proud, paws moving with a speed she’s never achieved until now. They run for hours, through glades of pines and past majestic oaks, leaping over half-frozen rivers and splashing through thawing mud and melting snow, but Aleksander never tires. And as long as he runs, so will Alina. So she races on, always following the faint scent of bergamot, sometimes catching a glimpse of black paws or an inky tail if she’s lucky. Clouds skid across the sky above and evening begins to descend, long shadows reaching through the trees towards them like creeping fingers but still they run.

As night truly falls and the forest becomes nothing but charcoal and slate, trees darker lines of ink and obsidian, Alina growls in frustration. She’s enjoyed the chase, has enjoyed pursuing him like this, but the time for games is over. She needs to catch him and she needs to do it now. She knows he’s only a several hundred feet ahead of her, can hear the occasional heavy tread of his paws against the forest floor, but he’s faster than her despite his size. He will always be able to outrun her— so she needs to outsmart him. Lay a trap and catch him with her cleverness instead of her speed.

Raising her nose to the wind she sniffs, sifting through the myriad of scents until she catches the fresh iciness of running water. She knows Aleksander will leap over the water as he has throughout the day, but if she can create an obstacle to slow him… Plan set in place, Alina veers suddenly to the left and begins making her way towards the water, stopping when she’s about halfway to it she turns to race up the enormous boulders overlooking the river, claws scrabbling on the slick icy rock. She spreads her legs and hunkers down for balance, steadily climbing until she’s reached the tip of the rocks and is directly over the water, although rather higher up in the air than she’d realized. Peering past her paws into empty air she can just see the glint of flowing water in the dim moonlight; Aleksander should be reaching the river soon.

She crouches and waits, tail tucked between her legs and ears laid back flat against her head. She knows her lighter fur is more visible even at night but she’s counting on him being too distracted by the chase to look up. Mere seconds later she catches a flash of movement between shadows; black shoulders and a tail racing towards the water, never pausing as he makes to leap. And that’s when Alina pounces.

She sails through the air more like a bird than the wolf that she is, paws outstretched and a slightly sick feeling in her stomach that would translate into terrified screams if she were human right now. But she isn’t. She’s a wolf and she’s about to catch her prey; all she can feel is giddy triumph. She hits Aleksander’s back midair, both of them tumbling downward, but they just make it to the other side of the bank. And then they’re rolling and tussling, teeth snapping at one another as they fight to be on top. Aleksander is larger but he’s also startled and Alina— Alina is so close to victory that she’s fiercer, more wild, more willing to cause a little pain if it means she wins. So she bites the vulnerable fur beneath his neck, uses all her weight to hold him down, flattens herself against her spine. And then she waits, teeth so close to breaking the skin in that most vital place; waits until he relaxes, until he tilts his head in a sign of trust.

All at once her more human senses come back to her and Alina clambers off Aleksander, nosing along his neck and sides the moment he stands to check for any injuries. She doesn’t smell any fresh pain and all she can feel through the bond is a grudging sense of deep violet satisfaction, that space in her chest no longer stretched now that they’re beside each other again. Her whole chest is bursting with warmth in fact, a fire kindling in that space right next to their bond and suffusing her limbs in a lovely heat. She feels wonderful, the energy in her body settling into a low buzz, her wolf almost purring in pride.

Aleksander allows her to check his whole body for injuries, standing patiently while she licks his cheek in greeting and then dances back, nervous and a little shy. Then it’s his turn to look her over, running his nose across her back and over her head, nipping at one of her ears and ducking his head to look at the base of her throat. He waits while she decides if she trusts him to bare her throat; then perks his ears up when she tilts her head to the side for him. Finally, both satisfied that the other is unhurt, they press their sides together and pace slowly through the trees, eyes scanning the darkness for a suitable place to spend the night.

They are lucky enough to find a small cave, though they have to crawl in on their bellies. Once inside, Aleksander drops the pile of Alina’s clothes in front of her front paws and turns his back, inky tail wrapping around his feet as he sits. The minute she shifts back onto two legs she wavers, human emotions rushing back in an almost overpowering wave. She’s even more exhausted than she’d ever have believed possible; each of her bones feels as if it’s made from lead. Keeping her eyes open feels like the most monumental effort in the world and she’s really not quite sure she’s up to the task. So she doesn’t, just closes her eyes and sinks to the uneven floor of the cave, curling her knees against her chest and uncaring of the frigid air against her naked skin. She begins to drift off to sleep just like that, blood still caked beneath her nails and covered in nothing but the tangles of her long hair.

“Tired, milaya?” She hears Aleksander ask, his voice an amused huff in her ear. She hums in agreement and presses her cheek against her folded arms, thinks fuzzily about what a nice pillow his fur would make.

“You did so well,” he tells her and yes, that’s pride coloring his voice a vibrant saffron and lighting up her chest. “You caught me, little wolf. And so cleverly, too.”

“I won,” she slurs, cracking her eyes with a herculean effort to squint at him. Her human eyes aren’t nearly as strong as her wolf sight and so she calls sunlight to her skin, letting light suffuse the small cave until a hazy gold glows around them both and she can see him. Aleksander is kneeling a mere inch of two in front of her, wearing his clothes once more and a smile curling his lips. It’s perhaps the warmest expression he’s ever worn in front of her, the biggest crack in his mask yet, and she’s just out of it enough that she reaches a finger forward to trace over the upward tilt of his mouth.

He presses a gentle kiss against her fingertip and then moves the tiniest bit closer. Her tired eyes register that he’s holding her clothes in his hands and that she’s still very, very naked.

“You did win,” he agrees easily, “but now it’s time to wear your clothes again. It will be very cold while we sleep.”

She considers his words, wonders why he’s worried about it being cold when her sunlight is always there to keep them warm. But then she lifts her arms for her shirt, deciding to listen to him for now. Slowly Aleksander tugs the tight knit black shirt over her head, working her arms through the sleeves and pulling her tangled hair from beneath the collar. Alina closes her eyes and rests her forehead against his sternum as he works, breathes in the scent of him and enjoys how solid he feels against her. The pants are more difficult; Aleksander insists that she put them on herself while his back is turned even though his eyes had darkened when she’d invited him to help. It takes her ages to figure out how to put her feet through all the correct openings and when she’s finally dressed, she collapses on the chilled rock, spent.

Aleksander scoops her up as if she weighs nothing and cradles her against his chest in what is quickly becoming the theme of the incredibly long day, one large hand wrapping around her waist to rest against the small of her back while the other goes beneath her arm to cover the nape of her neck. They’re lying on their sides atop his kefta, the fabric somehow feeling as comfortable as her feather mattress at the Little Palace. She nuzzles into his chest, letting out a little sigh as she feels him curl around her. The warmth of his body is enveloping her and it feels so nice, so comforting. She faintly registers little motions of his fingers on her back and neck, an occasional press of his lips against her temple, her forehead, the plane of her cheekbone. Alina allows the lead of her eyelids to pull her down into sleep, the cave still softly lit with her sunlight even as she drifts away. And even though this is not the first time she’s fallen asleep near or alongside Aleksander, this somehow feels different. More special, more important. Like the start of something new and meaningful.

☀☀☀

Alina wakes with a scream stuck in her throat, eyes flying open and fingers curling into her palms, piercing the sensitive skin, before she even realizes she’s awake. She’d been dreaming of the faces of the soldiers she’d chatted with just yesterday. She’d been sitting down to eat around a campfire with them in her dream, had even smiled at Zoya— Zoya, she hadn’t realized until now that the prickly girl must be dead too— and then there had been a slicing flash of golden light and they’d all been headless, frozen grins and blank eyes peering up at her from seeping pools of blood.

She hunches over, trying to relieve the awful sucking feeling in her chest, the hole that’s opened and is threatening to suck her heart and lungs into the void. Breaths are stuttering out of her as if she’s just been punched and it’s forcing her to make these awful gasping noises, short and raspy and incredibly loud in the cave. Alina can’t close her eyes, terrified of what she’ll see if she does, but she also can’t summon her light to chase away the darkness, terrified of what she’s done with the power.

So she just gazes, wide eyed and frozen, into the night that’s pressing around her like a suffocating blanket. Curls her nails ever deeper into her palms, putting the inside hurt on the outside, trying to give herself even a fraction of the pain she’d inflicted on all those people. And Saints, their eyes, the way they’d looked in her dream-memory as she’d cut through them all with one blade of light… Alina gasps and gasps, body shuddering as she tries to just survive the emotions flooding through her. She doesn’t even register Aleksander’s hands on her back or his voice as he talks to her, his words turning slightly frantic as she sits, unresponsive. It’s all she can do to keep breathing, to keep forcing a little bit of air in and out of her lungs.

Taking any of her attention away from breathing to give to him will mean the end of breathing— and Alina isn’t quite to that point yet. She does feel, however, when he pries her viselike fingers away from her palms. She misses the pain instantly, instinctively curls her fingers back down only to pierce skin that isn’t her own. The little flash of scarlet pain she feels from him is enough to have her blinking her eyes, jolting her back into her skin, back into the present, light flaring around them.

Aleksander has covered her palms with his own hands and now, ten perfect crescents bead with blood on his pale skin. Alina’s face crumples at the sight of the blood, at seeing him hurt, and she sways forward to collapse against him once more. He catches her as he has each time today and begins murmuring comforting words to her. She can feel the flush of his light blue relief in her chest as well as the palest rose of concern and an overwhelming swell of deepest creamy orange care. He cares about her. He wants to help her, wants to protect her. Wants to make her feel better, to take her hurt away if he can. Alina can’t hear any words from him, just sensing the emotions but she’s so grateful for the bond between them, the tether tying her to reality and to her body.

“Bad dream, little wolf,” Aleksander is whispering to her, fingers rubbing soothing circles on her back while the other hand gently runs across her shoulders. “It was just a bad dream. You’re safe here, darling. You’re safe with me.”

Alina nods a little bit, sniffles against him. Shuffles a bit closer, drapes herself over him even more. He’s probably sick of having her laid across him like this but she’s too horrified and upset and in need of comfort to feel bad— she’ll apologize for using him as her own personal pillow in the morning. “I’m sorry,” she mumbles finally, cheeks dry because she’s shed all her tears into the fabric of his shirt. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Not even death could have kept me from waking,” he mutters darkly and she makes a sad little noise, sad enough to have him smoothing a finger over the wrinkle in her forehead. “It is my joy to care for you, little wolf,” he confesses to her like it’s a deeply hidden secret, his face open as if the mask has slipped completely. Like this, he looks younger and somehow incredibly old, features open for her to read, each quirk of his lips and movement of his brows hers to discover and decipher. What a lovely thing, Alina thinks dizzily, to learn to read someone and then discover a new page of them each day.

“Thank you,” she tells him sincerely and though he looks slightly upset he just nods, alights a butterfly kiss on her brow. Shifts her in his arms until they’re lying down again, though this time she’s stretched out completely atop him. If she had been in less emotional turmoil Alina might have blushed at the way the dips and curves of their bodies press together, contours perfectly made to jut while the other bends, but she hardly even feels present in her body at the moment. All she notices is the steady heat of him against her, the way he supports and cradles every inch of her as if he is the sea and she a ship. Her head is laid against the curve of his shoulder, hands tucked against his chest while his arms wrap around her as securely as the the bindings of a corset. She rises ever so slightly with each inhalation and exhalation of his chest and the sensation reminds her again of water, of the way waves move with the pull of the moon.

Alina relaxes almost immediately, used to being held by him now because of today, closing her eyes and pulling her sunlight in until the cave is only very faintly lit a glowing gold. But though her breathing has almost returned to normal, now slowed to match Aleksander’s, she can’t stop seeing those smiling lifeless faces against her eyelids.

“Aleksander?” She murmurs and feels him nod, the tip of his chin just brushing the crown of her head. “Will you tell me a story, please?”

“Once upon a time,” he begins softly, large palm still moving in circles where it’s clasped around her spine. “There was a beautiful princess who wanted nothing more than to have adventures. Though her father and mother wished for her to marry, the princess had one wish and that was to see the world.”

“So one day, the princess set off to have her adventures,” Aleksander continues, chest rumbling a low and steady constant beneath Alina. “She commandeered a great ship and sailed away from her kingdom. She encountered many pirates on the open oceans and she fought them all and took their gold, setting their captives free and stealing any jewels she fancied.”

“Good for her,” Alina mumbles sleepily, cheek squished against his chest and eyes firmly shut, the fog of sleep already creeping up on her.

“When she was rich enough, the princess sold her ship and took her share of the treasure to begin her travels on land,” Aleksander whispers into the crown of her head, gentle fingers tucking her hair behind her ear. “She bought a magnificent horse and traveled far and wide, vising fantastic countries and meeting strange and wonderful people wherever she went. She made many friends for she was kind and fierce; she fought many dragons and rode some too. She swam with mermaids and talked with a sea-whip of the changing currents. She danced with fairies and visited cities floating above the clouds…”

His familiar voice fades away as she slips back into sleep again but this time, her dreams are pleasant, filled with the wonderful creatures and beautiful cities he’s painted for her with his words. And beneath it all, the scent of bergamot fills her nose and keeps her grounded even as she sleeps.

Chapter Text

They shift and run as wolves again the following morning, though this time their furry sides brush together as they match each other, step for step. Alina knows there will be no more chasing— at least not in these forms. She can feel the tether in her chest, that thing that is always pulling her towards Aleksander, has settled a bit. And though she can feel it in the space above her ribs she also understands with her human mind that something else has changed between them. When she woke to find herself tangled up in Aleksander’s’ arms, his face tilted against the crown of her head and warm breaths puffing across her ear, she hadn’t minded.

The wrenching in her stomach, that nasty coil of dread and anger and regret, hadn’t pulled so much at her insides. She had been able to take comfort from his hands on her back, from the warmth created and shared between their chests. She had been able to look at his sleeping face and see all the things he had done, to her and to others, erased by the gentle touch of slumber. Her feelings were easier to face off against when Aleksander looked so relaxed, so peaceful and normal. And so Alina had given in to her wolf still scratching just below her skin and had nuzzled down into Aleksander, listening to the slow thump of his heart until morning light poked tentative tendrils into the tiny cave.

It had been awkward once both of them were awake— neither quite knew what to say about how they had slept, how they had fallen into each other during the night for both comfort and warmth. Alina had watched as Aleksander scratched the back of his neck and looked at everything but her, already murmuring about how many miles they would need to run each hour to reach the Shadow Fold quickly. He’d led them outside quickly and Alina had watched him prowl between the trees as he planned, listened to his low voice and wished that everything could just stop, for a little while. And then she’d looked down at her hands and caught a line of dark red caught beneath one of her nails and remembered. And then, well…then she’d gone somewhere that wasn’t quite her body and wasn’t quite unconsciousness either.

Aleksander had brought her back from it. He’d coaxed her back into her body with gentle touches, wrapping his larger hands around hers and warming her fingers with his breath until she could feel them again. He’d whispered kind words to her as she shuddered and knelt on the frozen forest floor, the husks of dead leaves crumpling beneath her weight as bodies fell beneath her fingers in her memories. He’d wiped away her tears but hadn’t told her to stop crying or asked why she was upset. He’d helped her to her feet when her bones no longer felt as if they would vibrate out of her body and then crouched beside her at the rushing river as she washed her hands over and over in the freezing water. And when her hands were a bright pink and so cold that she could barely rub them together, Aleksander had tucked them beneath his layers of clothing to rest against the bare skin of his chest just above his heart.

Feeling the steady beating of his heart, something that had endured for so many dozens of years, had steadied her a bit. The warmth of his skin had seeped slowly and naturally into her hands, none of her sunlight there as aid, as they stood among the watchful trees. Aleksander had waited, unflinching, until her fingertips had twitched and Alina had been able to respond to her name, and then he had pressed a kiss to her temple and commanded her to change into her wolf.

It was easier, as wolves, all of it, and so they ran and ran. Trunks as tall as iron pillars flashed past, pines and great oaks, silver aspens and maples and ash trees. Alina allows her mind to drift away from the faces that had haunted her human self this morning, thinks of nothing but the pounding of her paws on hard earth and the scents of growing things she can pick up with her delicate nose. She listens to the deep breaths of Aleksander as he races beside her, catches glimpses of his enormous black form sometimes and feels a deep pride in the back of her mind that this is her mate. He is strong and swift, faster than her if he wants to be, and she is proud to run at his side.

They briefly detour from the course Aleksander has set to hunt for a meal, muzzles pressed low to the ground and ears pricked as they search for something beneath the murmurs of the forest. Alina catches the thumping of a warren of rabbits and leads the way, shoulders back and tail held high as she feels something in her vibrate at the thought of providing food for her mate. When they reach the rabbits that vibration in her chest grows stronger, more intent, and Alina falls upon the small furry creatures without a second thought. She drops three warm bodies in front of Aleksander’s waiting paws, his wolf calmly waiting, and settles back to watch him eat, uncaring of the red smears decorating her nails. If she were human she would be humming in content as he lowers his shaggy black head to the rabbits and snaps them up, the buzzing in her chest calming as she watches her mate accept and eat the offering she has given him.

It’s only once the feeling is completely gone that Alina truly registers the red on her paws and immediately shifts back to her human body, collapsing naked once more onto the dead leaves and barren forest floor. She curls over her knees and throws up nothing but bile, fat tears rolling down her cheeks at the sight of the blood staining her hands again. Her whole body is shaking but not from the chilling wintry breeze sweeping across her spine. As Alina looks at her fingers curled against the ground she sees the red of the soldiers’ blood, the way it had seeped so easily and quickly from their bodies. When she wipes her wrist across her chin and it comes away with a fresh red stain, she sees the open mouths of the soldiers dripping a steady flow of scarlet. She sees faces that were warm and smiling, sees eyes that looked at her with awe and joy, remembers voices that joked with her and thanked her. She hears the acerbic crack of Zoya’s voice, the dark waves of her hair and how pretty she’d looked in her official blue kefta. Alina remembers all of them, each soldier she’d talked with and known, even if only for a short while, and then killed.

She curls her fingers harder into the earth, trying to dig at the frozen ground and bury herself but she’s so weak like this. The sunlight is there just beneath her skin, ready and waiting if she wants to warm herself or blow this whole forest into a blazing inferno or murder a hundred more soldiers. A hundred more Ravkans, a thousand, as many innocent lives as she desires snuffing out beneath her fingers like candles in a wind. Her hands wouldn't even be stained red, as long as she stayed far enough away from the people who are so full of crimson and scarlet.

Alina doesn’t realize she’s letting out shuddering little sobs between her clenched teeth until Aleksander’s wet noise nudges at her jaw. She jolts at the sensation and then curls further into herself, her bare chest pressed into the tops of her knees and her arms braced on the ground as she bows her head in grief. She vaguely remembers that she’s naked when Aleksander lays down beside her, his warm side and inky fur pressed along the lines of her leg and ribs and forearm, but the thought quickly floats away in the face of all the things she’s feeling. The ones she can name are guilt and remorse and hatred, despair and longing and something that’s probably nerves, but there’s so many more, a myriad of colors and nuances that she doesn’t have words for. A great furry head rests against her knee and she dashes the tears out of her eyes, fingers probably leaving traces of dirt on her face, and squints down at him. Those eyes, black and deep as a starless night sky, watch her.

Alina wants to turn away from his gaze because it’s too knowing, as if he can see more of her than she’d like to reveal. In this moment she wants to hide all of herself, wants to fold herself up and tuck herself away inside a shell like those funny little sea crabs until no one remembers her. She wants to reduce herself, wants to strip everything about herself away until there is no more Alina Starkova. She wants to erase herself in the hopes that doing so will also wipe away the awful thing she’s done.

Aleksander presses his damp nose into her skin again and she blinks quickly, trying to hide those thoughts so that he can’t see them and reprimand her. Instead, she focuses on the emotions in his dark eyes and the corresponding colors blooming in her chest like a vivid summer bouquet. Something that could be called understanding but feels more like affection and grief twined together— a sweep of buttery yellow and slate gray bleeding into her from him. There’s a bit of carmine anger and something darker beside it that she can’t identify. And a general feeling of— understanding. Of togetherness, of support. Alina looks into Aleksander’s eyes and sees a promise there just for her; that he will stay beside her for as long as she needs him to, that he will help her through whatever storms she is weathering.

She reaches out with fingers stained red and brown and buries her hands in his thick, warm fur, slumping her torso over his back and hiding her face in the longer fur making up the ruff around his neck. Aleksander allows her to, allows all of it even when she continues to cry into his coat. They sit there for an indeterminable amount of time— and really, time is meaningless when her brain is loop of unmarked throats split open by blinding light.

“We must continue, little wolf,” a soft voice murmurs into her ear. Alina scrubs her face against the fur of Aleksander’s body and finds warm, smooth skin instead. When she hauls herself back to a seated position, she finds him beside her still, though he’s just managed to pull on his dark trousers. His torso and arms, beautifully pale and pebbled with gooseflesh in the late afternoon chill, are right there for her to study. Alina flicks her eyes over his body as he picks at the now dried blood on her hands with gentle nails, scratching slightly. There are silvery scars on his skin, some familiar to her, but the shape of a letter on his ribs catches her attention. Pricks at something in her memories, conjures the feeling of a tiny blade in her hands and bright scarlet running down that pale torso.

“I’m sorry,” Alina gasps out suddenly, shrinking away from Aleksander and pulling her hands into her chest and away from his touch. She’s shaking again, the tiny speckles of red still on her fingers coalescing with the red on him in her memories, all of it blending together until all she can see is blood and pain. She’s hurt him. Her mate, this man who is so complicated and yet somehow wonderful and sweet at times, who treats her gently but believes in her strength. He’s the first person she ever made bleed on purpose. Her Omega mate, the one person she is meant to treasure and protect and care for above all others.

“I’m sorry, 'm sorry,” she whimpers again, tracing one numb fingertip over the A, silvery white but still clear against his skin.

“Alina,” he says firmly and then there are hands gripping her wrists, caging her like manacles and grounding her. The smoky scent of bergamot and freshly lit fires is invading her nose and then he’s right there, all of him, shoving into her personal space and pressing his clothed knees against her bare ones. He’s all she can see when she looks up, just his windswept black hair that’s grown slightly too long again and now curling around his ears, just as it had when he’d returned from being gone for so long. The cut of his jaw, the way his lips are pursed and slightly pinker than usual, as if he’s been biting them while she cried. She blinks at him, waiting as a puppet on strings does.

“We need to keep running,” he tells her and his voice is all firmness and expectation, not a single crack for her to wriggle through with her tears and pitiful expression. “Night is approaching and we need to find shelter.”

“I can’t,” she sighs, going as limp in his grasp as he will allow. “I really can’t, Aleksander, just— just leave me here. Just let me be done.”

He shakes her, lightly at first and then harder so that her teeth clack together in her slack mouth. Her head wobbles on her neck like a seeded dandelion in a gale and she shuts her eyes tight, refusing to react. She stays limp, stays lifeless and hollowed out and useless. Bows her neck and gives up, finally. Lets the light inside her, the one that had been burning all her life and almost guttered out so often, finally go out.

“Get up,” Aleksander snarls at her, loud and terrifying and right in her face. She doesn’t react, doesn’t even flinch. His grip on her wrists turns bruising, begins to hurt, and yet she still doesn’t make a sound or open her eyes. She hears the snap of his teeth right beside her ear, feels the warm exhale of breath on her cheek and still she stays slumped over and motionless. The only moving pieces of her are the rise and fall of her chest and the ceaseless, steady stream of tears down her cheeks.

“Solnishka,” he growls at her and his voice is so deep and furious that if it were even two days earlier, she would have snapped her spine straight and listened with every fiber of her being. Now, though…there is nothing in Alina with enough feeling left to care. “You will open your eyes and you will get up off this forest floor and you will run.”

The delicate bones in her wrists are grinding together from how tightly Aleksander is holding onto her and her fingers have already gone numb from lack of blood flow. And it doesn’t matter.

She stays limp and boneless even as Aleksander hauls her to her feet, one arm around her waist and the other supporting her neck as her head tries to loll, heavy and useless. She registers that he’s panting, probably with anger more than exertion, but any feelings about his current state crumble into nothing in the lightless pit that is her insides. Her lips fall open when he tilts her head foreword but she just accepts it, starts breathing through her mouth instead of through her nose. Doesn’t even mind that much if the breaths continue or not.

She can hear Aleksander muttering to himself and she identifies the frustration in his voice as well as the now familiar reddish-orange anger, but what she doesn’t expect is the sickly green-blue worry, the palest icy blue thread that is fear. Terror, even. Aleksander is scared— is terrified— for some reason.

Alina almost cracks her eyes open, almost feels something because of her mate’s emotions…and then she falls back into the dark pit of nothing and loses all touch with her emotions again. Aleksander is swearing now, filthy words spilling from his lips quicker and faster than a rainstorm but she can’t even muster the energy to be amused. It becomes evident he’s given up on her walking when she feels a strong arm slide down her naked spine to curl around the back of her legs and swing her up into his hold. Still cursing and sometimes grunting as he carries her, Aleksander begins to pace through the forest. Alina doesn’t know where they’re going or how fast, refuses to open her eyes to gauge the hours of daylight left or her mate’s expression. She just sinks down into herself, down into the ashy crater where her light used to shine, and stubbornly doesn’t care.

☀☀☀

They stop after what could have been hours or mere minutes. Alina doesn’t register any of it. All she knows is the sudden change from Aleksander’s arms to the softness of his kefta, silky fur cushioning her bare skin. She feels him arrange her limbs, can tell that he’s placed her on her side and has moved her arms so that her chest is covered, has stacked her thighs together for maximum privacy. She doesn’t care.

Alina stays motionless atop the fur as Aleksander moves quietly around whatever space he’s found for them, his footsteps scraping against what sounds to be stone and grating her ears until she has to clench her jaw. The air is colder than ever and without the light inside her she’s almost frozen, missing the warmth of Aleksander’s arms already— or, she would be, if she could conjure any emotions like that. If she could muster up the energy to care about her physical body. Instead she registers the cold, acknowledges it, and then allows it to flow through her. Stops herself from shivering and just lets herself be chilled through, accepts the wintry air as it curls around her body like a blanket. So she only jolts a little when the warm glow of a fire licks down her spine, followed closely by the sounds of Aleksander settling down beside her.

He runs a hand across the line of her shoulders and down her back, touching lightly but somehow setting her skin aglow with heat. It’s painful, this sudden change in temperature, and Alina rebels against it. Refuses to curl into the warmth of him and his touch, refuses to allow herself that comfort and relief. Instead she shrinks away from him, tucks her legs up against her belly and dips her head to hide in her arms so that she won’t be tempted to look at him.

Aleksander sighs heavily and the thing in her chest tugs at her, tells her to open her eyes and help her mate who is awash in greenish worry and ghostly blue fear, wavering cobalt sadness falling thick and fast as rain. “Alina,” he murmurs and in her name is an entire ocean of words. All the things she can sense he wants to say to her, the confessions and apologies and reassurances he would like to tell her, if only she would grant him the time and attention to do so.

“Alina,” he repeats and this time she struggles up past the ashen crater in her chest, scrabbles at the blackened walls of her heart and forces her eyes to open. Forces the muscles in her neck to flex and roll, forces herself to turn her head and look at him. The relief in his dark eyes, coloring her chest with a swell of lovely lilac, cracks the ash a little bit. Weakens it, so that something might shine through.

“Are you back with me, darling?” Aleksander whispers and when she blinks at him, he traces the gentlest touch beneath her eye and down her cheek, something tender and unmasked in his own gaze. She just blinks at him again, hoping that’s enough of an answer. She doesn’t understand how to move her tongue yet, can’t recall the shape and taste of words or sounds.

“Not yet, then,” he says more to himself than to her and she’s glad, that he understands. And then she goes back to her ashen pit and her gray feelings that are nothing, colorless and easy and untethered. Aleksander touches her again, lays one hand on her bare back once more while the other begins tracing little lines down the expanse of her arm. The points of contact and the heat they bring to her skin make her shudder, at first, but then she relaxes. Allows the warmth to move through her, doesn’t think too hard about it or what the sensation echoes.

“It was very difficult for me,” Aleksander begins quietly from where he sits behind her, shuffling a bit so that his knees press into her back and add two more points of contact. Two more places for warmth to soak into her. “The first time I killed a person.”

She twitches at his words, just for a moment, and she feels it when his breath catches and holds in his chest. And then she goes limp again and he relaxes, fingers continuing to stroke her skin as his low voice rumbles above her.

“I was only a child,” he says and there’s something like nostalgia in his voice, a longing for the first years of his life that are so many decades gone. “And I didn’t understand yet what death meant. I thought that it was temporary— that when my playmates fell beneath my shadows, they would get back up again if I just waited long enough. That they would start laughing again and then they would apologize for being scared of me.”

Another tiny crack appears in the ashes inside her chest, something sliding into her charred husk of a heart.

“I waited next to them until night fell,” he continues on, fingers now running a soothing line down her side again and again. Warmth is bleeding into her drop by drop from his hands, inching ever so slowly across the map of her skin. “And when they didn’t wake up, when they only grew colder and colder, I ran home to my mother. I told her what had happened and asked her to fix them, as she had fixed every other trouble in my life.”

Alina bites the inside of her cheek, the burned out remains of where her heart should be hurting for the little boy Aleksander had been. Hurting for herself and the child she had been, the child that never had parents to run to.

“I believed she was invincible, you see,” Aleksander says in such a low voice that Alina almost has to strain to hear him, focusing very hard on his words. “But when I brought her to their bodies and she told me there was nothing she could do, I learned that she was just a human.”

“You are human, little wolf,” he whispers into the hair at her temple, lips pressing ever so lightly against the corner of her eye where crows-feet will rest someday if she lives a happy life. “You are human and you are flawed, as is your nature. As is the nature of every person. We make mistakes that cannot be fixed and we learn to live with those mistakes and go on.”

Alina understands the lesson hidden in his story and she feels— irritated, with herself, that she fell for it. Frustrated with Aleksander that he doesn’t understand how much she needs to be left here in this forest, alone, to wither and die and be forgotten as she deserves. She feels enough that she is able to claw through those ashes once more, is able to gather enough emotion to twist her heavy tongue into words and sounds.

“I can’t go on,” she grits out, so weak and fluttery that Aleksander has to dip his head beside her mouth to hear her. When he understands her words he growls deep and low and long in his chest, the vibrations of his wrath shaking her in tiny aftershocks. But Alina wants him to understand, needs him to understand this more than she has perhaps any other conversation in their entire time knowing each other. Here, in this forest in whatever place Aleksander has found for them to spend the night, she will tell him the most important words of their entire dialogue as mates. So she forces strength into her limbs and she shifts so that she’s lying on her back, drawing her knees up until her feet are planted flat on the fur of his kefta. She tilts her head back to better see him, see the golden light of the fire reflected in his midnight eyes, and she tangles her fingers in the skin of his shoulders to pull him down until he hovers above her.

The position is intimate and speaks of much sweeter possibilities; Aleksander curled just above her naked body in the hushed drape of nighttime, his knees braced on either side of her hips and both of them sharing breath in the scant space between them. If this were another night, another lifetime, perhaps they would be trading kisses instead of broken words. Perhaps in another world, a different version of Alina and Aleksander are coming together just like this but with joy in their hearts instead of sadness, with smiles curving their lips instead of tears staining their cheeks. Alina hopes so, wishes for happiness for those other iterations of them.

“Aleksander,” she breathes and his name from her lips snaps his attention to her as it always does, makes everything in him focus on her and her alone. She would purr at the attention, would preen at how he zeros in on her like a hawk with prey, if they were living in that other lifetime. Now, though, she just licks her chapped lips and tightens her grip on his bare shoulders.

“I’m listening, solnishka,” he reminds her and she jerks her chin in a little nod, tries to block out the greyish-lime apprehension flooding from him into her. “I am here.”

And he presses his fingers more firmly against her skin as if in reminder of his physical presence, of the fact that he’s surrounding her. She nods again and then conjures up every remaining shred of energy and strength and caring inside her.

“It’s a mess,” she breathes, eyes focusing on the darkness hovering above his left shoulder. She can’t tell if it’s the black of night or his shadows. Doesn’t care, because it doesn’t matter. “Everything— it’s all a mess. The world, Ravka, the war. It’s all so badly tangled and there’s nothing— nothing we can do to fix it. And the Shadow Fold…I can’t do it, Aleksander. I don’t have enough light to bring it down and even if I do, what then?”

She takes a breath and feels her chest lurch with it, feels her eyes beginning to well with unshed tears before she blinks them back.

“I know you’re going to say that I can do it, if I believe in myself, but that’s just the thing. I don’t. I don’t believe in myself,” she tells him with an awful little laugh and then she has to blink rather quickly before she can go on speaking. “And even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. My light isn’t— it isn’t good. I used it to kill people. So how can I bring down something like the Shadow Fold?”

“And…and even if I did,” she continues slowly, thinking as she speaks but somehow knowing that what she’s saying has been brewing inside of her for months. “It wouldn’t help. The Fold could turn into a field of flowers and the Fjerdans and Shu would still attack us. And then we’ll have to fight back, which will only mean more death for all of us. More young people will die and more families will lose loved ones and we’ll all keep hating each other and it’ll all be for nothing, Aleksander, it won’t mean anything.”

“Ravka is breaking in two and our people are starving, Aleksander. We have a king who doesn’t want to rule and children growing up without parents and whole generations that have died without ever really having the chance to live. There’s so many issues and problems with our country and they all require time and energy and years of hard work to fix and I just don’t know that those are things I can give. I don’t know if anyone has enough of what it takes to fix Ravka.”

And then the tears really are falling despite her best efforts, so hot against her face they feel like little drops of liquid metal.

“And,” she mumbles shakily, chest now rising fast and hurried with suppressed cries, “and then there’s us.”

Aleksander twitches above her, mouth opening as if he’s about to speak before she’s pressing her fingers to his mouth and silencing him. She finally allows her eyes to meet his and the openness of his gaze, the lack of a mask on his face, would bring her to her knees if she wasn’t already lying prostrate on the ground.

“You are so much more than I ever imagined for my mate,” she tells him earnestly, tears pooling in the hollow of her throat and coating her lips with salt. “But everything about us is a mess, too, Aleksander. We are just as broken as Ravka is. And I don’t— I don’t know how to fix us. I don’t know if we can be fixed.”

His eyes shutter and she sees the instant his jaw clenches in anger, the moment he begins to shake his head in refusal. The denial, painted clearly across his face and echoed in her chest in deepest iron.

“I think we’ve hurt each other too much,” she confesses and her voice is sweet and soft, almost a caress as shares this thing that has been haunting her ever since the night she commanded him. “And maybe— maybe there’s things that we’ve done to each other, things that we’ve done to others, that we simply can’t come back from. Maybe too much has happened between us for us to get up and live and go on.”

“No, milaya.” His voice is broken and she can feel wetness beneath her fingertips when they reach up to trace across the planes of his face. His brows and lips and eyelashes are all downturned in sorrow, in denial, in an utter rebuke of her words. He shakes his head beneath her touch and presses an achingly sweet kiss against the pulse at her wrist, those dark eyes gazing through her to the surrender etched on her heart.

“Now is not the time to give up, Alina,” he declares and she wishes, with all of her bones and blood and muscles, that the strength of belief in his voice was enough to carry her through too. “I have waited too long for you. And we have so many years ahead of us, dear one, don’t you see? We have forever, if only you will accept it.”

His face is strong, just as his voice and words are, assured. But Alina can see the miniscule cracks in him, the way he doesn’t quite believe what he’s telling her. So when she cups his face in both her hands, feels the warmth of him seep into her still chilled bones, she gives him the brightest smile she can. Conjures up the feeling of summer sunlight on her face, remembers the taste of hot mint tea and the bright shimmer of friendship and laughter.

“I would be the luckiest person in all of Ravka if I was allowed to spend forever with you,” she confesses and his bottom lip trembles, just the tiniest bit. “But I don’t think that forever, together, would be good for either of us. You will always give all of yourself to Ravka and I will never be able to give enough of myself.”

“We’ll fall into the same patterns,” she continues, stroking a thumb over the curve of his mouth, smiling at him with all the honey-sweet love in her heart. “Wanting different things and hurting each other instead of working together to achieve our goals.”

“Can’t we learn to work together,” he murmurs into her fingers, letting his eyes slip closed even as she explores the line of his jaw for what is most probably the last time. “Can’t we use our forever to undo all the hurt we’ve done to each other? Alina, I will spend each day apologizing and attempting to make things right if only you will allow me to…”

“Moy dorogoy,” she whispers and he flinches, even with his eyes shut tight. Bites down hard on his bottom lip, tilts his chin a little bit so that less of his face is visible to her. “Don’t place all the weight of this on your own shoulders. I've hurt you equally, my mate. And I can’t…I can’t continue to allow us to give each other pain.”

“You truly believe we’ll hurt each other more together than apart?”

Alina lifts her head just enough to kiss the salty tear sliding down his cheek, tasting the flavor of his grief just as she feels it billow in her chest, slate gray and pale cerulean. Aleksander’s voice has lost much of its conviction, much of its strength. His breaths are still steady but his refusal to meet her eyes is telling.

“I don’t know,” she confesses and the truth of that conviction echoes a bright white across their bond. “I can’t predict the future and I have no idea if we will even long enough to find out. But what I do know— what I do know is that I am still very young. And that I am done. I am finished training to be a soldier and learning how to sacrifice myself for Ravka.”

She feels it when he recoils, sees the rebuke in his eyes at her words when he finally lifts his lashes to look at her. She taps his lips with a finger and gives him a little bittersweet smile, something sick curling in her gut regardless of the necessity of these words. “And that is the heart of the impasse we are stuck at,” she says more to herself than to him, glad that her tears have dried up by now.

“You will never be able to love me as much as you love Ravka, Aleksander,” she tells him and he just looks at her, studies every inch of her face with those dark eyes. “And you will never be able to forgive me for not giving all of myself to Ravka as you have,” she finishes softly, pressing her fingers into his face one last time before allowing her hands to drift down to her chest. Crosses them over her heart, as if she can protect the organ from any further strain.

They spend a long while just looking at each other, eyes truly bared and souls just as naked underneath. The fire Aleksander had built crackles faintly in the background and Alina has ceased to be cold, the ashen pit in her chest giving way to smooth earth, rich and brown, simply waiting to be planted with the seeds of whatever she decides.

“I don’t agree with you,” he says finally, still hovering above her, not a hint of exhaustion on his face or in his body. His words aren’t flat or cold or emotionless but neither are they packed with warmth— simply the truth as he sees it. His face is clear of tears but she catches glimpses of the slightly shimmery tracks they left when the fire’s glow hits him just right.

“I don’t agree with you, Alina,” he repeats and the sound of her name on his lips instead of the endearments she’s grown so used to is like a splash of cold water on her skin. She flinches a little, flexes her fingers against her chest before she remembers her own convictions and relaxes. This is what she wanted. This is what is best for the both of them.

“But I will honor your wishes and give you time and space if that is what you want.” She’s nodding before he’s even finished speaking and something in his face hardens, that veil slipping back over his eyes. “I’m not finished,” he tells her firmly and she widens her eyes at him, impertinent and foolish. “I may love Ravka but I love you as well, little wolf. I have waited hundreds of years for you. I will wait hundreds more, if necessary. And when I am finished saving Ravka, I will come for you.”

Alina sees the promise in Aleksander’s eyes, feels the conviction coating his words and dripping from his voice. He allows her that moment to understand the vow he’s making, even if it is one she doesn’t want, and then he’s moving away from her and curling up on the other side of the small fire. His eyes glitter with flames and she looks away, not wanting to see his gaze focused on her. She’s left almost breathless and suddenly bare without his body to cover her, fingers grasping at empty air and her breath echoed by nothing but silence. Stunned for a moment she eventually rolls to her side and pulls half of the midnight kefta over herself, grateful for the shield of the fabric as she tucks her face away.

Alina is on the verge of sleep when Aleksander speaks again, voice just barely audible over the light sounds of the fire and the fogginess already slicking her limbs in a second skin of mindless oblivion. “Will you go with me tomorrow?”

“Hmm, yes,” she murmurs, muzzy with sleep, eyes staying shut tight. “I’ll go with you to watch whatever happens. But I won’t try to bring the Unsea down.”

She almost misses it when he whispers a quiet we’ll see in response.

Chapter Text

Alina doesn’t look at Aleksander the next morning. Dawn is still curling gray tendrils of mist around them and the forest is a monochrome of flat silver stripes emerging suddenly from the dim haze shrouding everything. Each movement is amplified by the mist yet somehow muffled too; Alina feels as if enormous eyes are peering at her from just behind each tree they pass, but somehow no matter how quickly she turns the forest remains placid and still as the surface of a mirror. Small twigs crack beneath her boots and it seems as if every pebble and twisted root has suddenly appeared before them— she stumbles with every other step and almost falls over rotting branches. Aleksander paces at her side and she notes with a pulse of anger that he isn’t struggling at all, just moving through the forest silently as if he’s one of its’ invisible predators.

The chill of the dove gray morning doesn’t seem to penetrate past the mask Aleksander has pulled over his face and while she shakes slightly beside him, refusing and unable to summon her sunlight for warmth, he just keeps moving forward. He reminds her of the great ships she had read about, manufactured by Shu Han and incredibly running on nothing more than fire and smoke. Aleksander is like one of those ships, churning relentlessly ahead no matter what lies in his path. His energy for this journey, for this goal, is boundless. She wonders if she peeled back the layers of his skin, shifted aside the mass of lungs and intestines, cracked through the strength of his ribs with her bare hands— if she did all that, would she discover that he too runs on nothing more than fire and smoke? Or would there be lighter things, the gossamer weave of love and devotion and loyalty to sustain him?

She doesn’t want to know. She stops considering what wells up inside Aleksander, purposefully strays her thoughts away from seas of shadow and smoldering pits of anger, of twisted purpose and devotion.

Aleksander moves to stalk ahead of her as the morning lightens in shades of gray bit by bit, charcoal to pewter to silver to dove’s wing to lightest smoke. Alina clutches his kefta around herself and shivers and stumbles her way through the forest, head bowed and seeing nothing more than the pine needles and roots beneath her boots. Her hair is loose and wild, tangles snarling it and catching on her fingers each time she swipes it out of her face. She thinks there’s dirt speckling her skin in some places and her mouth has a fuzzy taste that comes from not cleaning her teeth for too long. But Alina doesn’t say anything, doesn’t allow any drop of color to bleed down the tether stretched between her and Aleksander. She bites her tongue and she keeps moving forward and she very much does not think about the blood rushing in her ears.

It’s only when the backs of Aleksander’s boots ahead of her veer sharply to the left that she glances up, blinking out of her daze at the sweep of his shoulders. His dark head is tipped back and she can just catch the little movements of his hair as it wavers in a breeze that doesn’t touch her, locks grown a bit too long. She fixates on that strand of hair, thinks about how Aleksander with longer hair is less restrained, less pressed into his role as General. She wonders what he would look like, be like, if he truly released control and just allowed himself to exist. She conjures the feel of his hair wrapped around her fingers in exquisite detail, the cool softness of it, the way his eyes would slowly slip closed. The sounds he might make, low and deep, if she tugged his hair just to the edge of too painful and kissed him. How those sounds would taste on her lips, the amount of time he would allow her control before taking it back.

His long fingers, so pale against the black of his shirt, twitch where they’re clasped behind his back and that movement is enough to pull her from her reverie. She licks her lips, realizing how dry her mouth is but unable to care about something as trivial as thirst at this moment. Aleksander cuts a figure from a fairytale before her, the dark outline of him against the silvery gray forest. She almost expects a sword to appear over one broad shoulder and when she glances at his hair and finds it bereft of a crown, she feels as if she’s missed something. She looks at him, inspects the lines of quiet power that sketch his stance and straighten his shoulders, that prop his chin up and keep his steps purposeful.

Aleksander turns suddenly and their eyes meet before she can look away. They are many feet apart, chilled air and silence separating them alongside the far greater distance of pain and secrets and their history. Ghostly trees tower around them and gray mist lies in heavy drifts, the world a muffled blur of in-betweens and unformed decisions. In the twist of his neck as he glances at her, takes her in, she remembers the very first time they met and how he had looked at her then. He is just as beautiful as he had been under the light of the full moon, each feature of his face sculpted as if by an artist’s adoring hand. The sight of him and the knowledge of who he is, what he has done, still manages to hitch her breath in her chest and make her stomach flutter with butterflies. Alina knows Aleksander much better than she had upon that first meeting, understands much more of his worldview painted in shades of gray, but sometimes she can see him anew and remember how he appeared to her before she knew the truth of him.

And though she remembers that first meeting, the dashing image he’d cut, with a swell of fondness and nostalgia for how hopeful she’d been, she also isn’t certain that she would trade the reality of him, her Aleksander, for the polished and mysterious façade she first met.

Something has changed in his eyes as he looks at her now— a softness that hadn’t shone there on their first meeting, an emotion flushing her chest that is a myriad of colors but speaks to her above all of the warm glow of affection.

Alina feels the tether hooked into her heart light up between them, an expanse that seems able to stretch forever but yet is somehow tugging at them to be closer now, in this moment. She sways back, arches her back and digs her feet into the earth and though she should be falling, she’s held up by the invisible string wrapped around her heart and pulling her incessantly towards Aleksander. She can tell he can feel it as well by the way his fingers have curled into fists at his back, the slight bunching at his jaw that means he’s clenching his teeth.

Both of them are resisting, neither willing to concede and take the first step forward. Alina can’t— she feels as if she’s made enough compromises for him already, has given in and bent more times than she ever wanted to. And for her, after last night, after the past few days…she doesn’t want to salvage their relationship, doesn’t want to keep trying. She wants to give up on everything and that includes the flickering hope that is her bond with Aleksander. And as for him— Alina knows it would take many years more before Aleksander would be capable of taking that first step to her.

And so they stand, both bending backwards so as to not be tugged forward, both bracing their feet on the forest floor and practically bending over so as not to be tipped over by their tether. Alina parts her dry lips and breathes through her mouth, wishing for mint tea or even just a sip of water. Her fingers are curled around the too-long cuffs of the black kefta, anchoring her. She watches, neck straining, as Aleksander turns fully, the fabric of his shirt almost see-through but not quite, giving just a teasing hint of his outline beneath. He is a long, languid line of black, a shadow stretching and flickering to life. He looks at home in this forest, the edges of him blending in and out of focus with the gray monochrome of the trees and mist and strangely looming shapes. Again, her eyes skip over his bare head and she feels that it shouldn’t be that way, that there should be a heavy metal weight pressing down upon those black locks.

Alina looks at Aleksander and he regards her with those cool black eyes and then, like a marionette with suddenly-snapped strings, she sags and gives in. She stops resisting the tether and instead allows it to tug her forward, lowering her gaze once again to the tips of her soft leather boots as she treads closer to him. Deep plum satisfaction makes a cozy nest in her chest but Alina ignores it and brushes past him, steadfastly refusing to look up even when he lets out a low growl. The tether, which had grown wonderfully slack for the second they stood even, begins to stretch and then tighten again. But Alina is walking ever closer to the edge of the forest and this time Aleksander has no choice but to follow her, his eyes fixed on her slim shoulders and almost burning through the thick fabric of his— her kefta. She drags her feet and chews the dead skin off her bottom lip, swallowing thickly and wincing at the scrape of frosty air in her parched throat. But she keeps going and Aleksander doesn’t open his mouth once, just allows her to lead as the thread in her chest splits into two and begins to tug her in opposing directions.

One cord, bright and pulsing with greenish-yellow frustration, leading over her shoulder to where he stalks. The other, entirely steeped in black, thinner but yet somehow shining with a razor sharp edge, guiding her forward. Alina is afraid to touch it, afraid to tug on it or even acknowledge it. Instead she just follows the tightrope road of shadows, places her feet one after the other again and again to walk towards the piece of her mate the midnight thread is guiding her to. She doesn’t stop until they’ve breached the forest’s edge, slate trees and pewter haze receding to hover at their backs. Alina lifts her head and sees a sky that is beautifully blue, the brightest shade of azure she can ever remember seeing. There isn’t a single puff of cloud to mar the perfect sweep of blue, just endless color above her that stretches farther than any sea or ocean she’s ever read about.

She tips her head back until the fur lining the hood of the kefta brushes her neck and then she closes her eyes and just breathes, savoring the first color she’s seen today burned into her eyelids. She feels Aleksander move to stand beside her, silence emanating from both of them like ripples in a pond. Sounds bleeds back into her ears without the press of mist to muffle it— nothing dramatic, just a touch of breeze shifting her hair, the far off cries of a bird that could be a hawk. When she slits her eyes open and peeks at Aleksander she finds him already looking back at her, his face impassive but eyes reflecting the azure of the sky. She drinks in his face, the hair on his face that is in need of a shave, the smear of dirt on the side of his neck. She decides he looks beautiful in springtime sunshine, beautiful and pale underneath the lovely ocean of sky.

“Will you agree to accompany me?” His low voice murmurs and the sound doesn’t startle her, as if they are allowed to speak now that they are free from the forest. He lifts his arm and proffers it, as any good gentleman at a dance would. And though Alina furrows her brows first in anger and then in annoyance, she still considers it. Looks him over, the black clothes that have somehow remained immaculate, the pale fingers marked with tiny mother of pearl scars. Scars that she knows disappear beneath the cuffs and collar of his shirt to stretch across the bumps of his spine. She considers all of Aleksander, savoring his face at the very end. And then, with something tiny and bright jumping to life beneath her breastbone, she dips into a curtsy and bows her head low. She is dirty and tired and hungry, her hair is a nest of windswept tangles and the blood of men she killed probably still lingers beneath her fingernails. But Alina gives Aleksander a smile when she stands and the feeling of her hand sliding into his, the pads of her fingers swirling over the lines of his palm, quirks both their lips.

“You may lead this dance,” she agrees solemnly and then, heads held high and hands intertwined, they begin their stately procession of two down the sloping ridge towards the expanse of drab sand and the swirling mass of the Shadow Fold beyond.

☀☀☀

The walk across the sand dunes towards the hulking mass of the Shadow Fold soon turns into a grueling slog, both Alina and Aleksander beginning to lose their breath as they trudge over the never-ending expanse of reddish-brown grains. Their boots soon fill with sand and it flies up in little cyclones of air to scrape at their faces and sting their eyes, somehow making it into their mouths so that they’re even breathing sand. Alina ducks her head and slits her eyes, mostly using her grip on Aleksander to stay upright, though the black sucking whirlpool in her chest would keep her moving in the right direction even if she was unconscious. Often she has to clutch onto him for balance, the shifting sand beneath her feet seeming as if it almost wants to suck her down, her feet releasing for each new step with greater difficulty. And yet the thread in her chest has grown into a massive chain forged of heavy iron links, the great inky mass of it bending her whole body towards the Fold.

Alina’s practically pulling Aleksander forward by their linked hands, both of them steadying and leaning upon one another as they wade through the sand. Aleksander isn’t saying anything but she can feel all of his emotions vibrantly in her chest, as if any last traces of his façade had fallen away the moment they left the forest. Each time she glances back at him, however, his face is blank but still she squeezes his fingers between hers, gives him any tiny smiles she can conjure. He squeezes back, tightens his grip around hers and accepts the silent assurance that she’s still with him.

And so they walk onwards, making slow progress but always moving forward nonetheless. The gaping maw in Alina’s chest grows the closer they come to the wavering edge of the Shadow Fold, the smoky shapes above her ribcage mirroring perfectly the twining, dancing shadows of the Unsea. Alina dares to lift her head and study this thing she has only ever read of, curious and wary and disgusted all at once. The Fold is alive, almost, or so it seems to her— it moves, pulsing and undulating almost as if it is rising and falling with the breaths of a great beast. It isn’t a solid mass of one shadow but instead a writhing, twisting nest of shadows that snake and loop over and under one another, packed in tight but somehow still individual. Alina can’t tear her eyes away from the Unsea once she begins to look and the longer she studies the shadows, trying to decide exactly which shape they take, the more they change. At first they are the living hair from the story of Medusa, hissing snakes rearing forward to peer at Alina through slitted eyes. Then the shadows are arms, packed together so tightly that they can barely shift enough to reach for her. Then, the tails of rats, thin and pointed as they twine together and form grotesque tangles of deepest black. Rat’s tails shift to knotted strands of hair, which transform into burning trees which morph into seaweed pulling her down into the ocean’s depths, then flickering tongues of inky fire, slippery eels, icicles, bony fingers free of any flesh, silken ribbons that bind too tight and then the cycle begins all over, new shapes forming and falling apart until Alina’s eyes ache.

She shuts her eyes tight and, when the images continue to spin across the inside of her eyelids, tips her chin back and stares into the blue of the sky until tears catch on her lashes. Aleksander has been looking at nothing but his feet the entire time they’ve been walking across the sand and the silence rolling off him is especially loud, deafening almost in it’s absence of anything.

“What do you see when you look at it?”

Alina startles, turning wide eyes to Aleksander, unsure he’s actually spoken aloud. His jaw is clenched and his skin is paler than she’s ever seen it, but he’s looking at her from beneath his brows and his hand is still tight around hers. Alina studies him just long enough to glimpse the cracks spiderwebbing across his skin in the finest of lines and then she begins to swing their clasped hands, humming as she thinks. And when she answers, her voice is light and calm, none of the fear or revulsion coloring it that she’d felt while watching the shadows of the Fold dance.

“I think I see a shield,” she confides and the minute she says the words, they become true. The Unsea stops it’s roiling, ceases to be a mass of twining things and instead changes to be a towering, curving wall of flat, inky blackness, the shadows smoothing over until they’re hard and flawless as glass.

“That’s all?” Aleksander murmurs, tilting his head to peer at her more, a little furrow appearing between his brows. Alina nods, pouring all of her energy and conviction into believing that it is a shield, and nothing more. That the Fold will stay a shield, dark and looming but also breakable.

“I think a shield makes the most sense,” she muses out loud, conscious of how Aleksander is hanging on each of her words as if he is adrift at sea and her voice is the raft that will carry him home. “I understand better, now, why it’s been called the Unsea for so long—,” and when she catches ripples begin to travel across the surface of the shadowy mass, sees a shape that is suspiciously large and has pointed fins, she hurries to continue. “But I think a shield is a more fitting description of what it is. A shield would better protect Ravka and that was what you were trying to do.”

The sucking pull in Alina’s chest quiets to a murmur for a moment and she’s able to pause the movement of her feet, twisting to look at Aleksander where he’s stopped beside her. His expression is the same as it ever is, calm and empty, but the grip he has on her hand will leave bruises atop those already circling her wrist. “And that shield— do you think it can be broken?”

“We won’t know until we try,” she tells him gently and then she squeezes his fingers between hers before letting go of his hand, setting off at a quick pace because the chain in her chest has become a roaring, sucking drain, pulling every inch of her towards the Unsea. She knows he wanted assurance of some kind from her, perhaps even hope, but Alina has none to give. She’s past believing in platitudes and wishes, just wants to face this last hurdle and then be allowed to move into the rest of her life.

She desperately wants it all over, suddenly, and she picks up her pace, almost eager to reach the Fold and end this portion of her life.

Alina’s mouth is dry as a bone by the time she and Aleksander eventually reach the edge of the Fold, sand in her eyes making her blink over and over while her skin itches and burns beneath the tiny stones. A thin layer of sweat and grime covers her forehead and neck and she can feel how oily her hair is without even touching it. She wants to take a bath and drink a whole spring dry, then crawl into any bed big enough to hold her and sleep for days. Aleksander seems a little better off from where he stands beside her, still irritatingly beautiful and with his shirtsleeves rolled up in a way that is very distracting. He too is panting, though, and the edges of his eyes are reddened from sand just as hers probably are.

They’ve halted only a matter of mere feet from the solid, curving edge of the Unsea and the threads in Alina’s chest have finally gone slack, allowing her space within her in ribcage to breathe and feel. The pull of the towering shadows which had almost brought her to her knees in the sand is gone, her heart returned to its usual place now that she’s reached her goal. The shadows closest to her are swirling though, just subtly enough that she prays Aleksander doesn’t take note.

She slumps over a little, braces her hands on her knees as she works to catch her chest and refamiliarize herself with how it feels to be in control of her own body. The sickly green thread in her chest that ties her to Aleksander is calm because of how close they stand, humming with energy shared and mirrored between them but not attempting to rip her in half.

“I’ve never seen it before,” Alina murmurs more to herself than him, tipping her head back and letting her mouth fall open as she takes in the sweeping expanse of shadows blacker than any shade of fabric Genya had ever shown her. The shadows, when condensed and unmoving, aren’t just dark as night— when the sun disappears, stars rise to take its place. The Unsea, though, is a pure absence of light of any kind, not a single star or candle to chase away the gloom. She takes a stumbling step towards it, then another, fingertips rising unconsciously as she studies the darkness and thinks, mind whirring, just on the cusp of twisting her intelligence into an answer….And then her whole body is awash in emotions painted in such vibrant strength that she almost topples over, hands immediately moving to clutch at her heart as everything Aleksander is feeling slams into her in a tidal wave.

Fear curdles in the back of her throat, sour as spoiled milk and putrid green, making her stomach go wobbly and weak at the edges. She gags and spits on the sand, doubled over and trying to get the taste out of her mouth but the terror doesn’t abate. Concern and unease twine down her arms and color each knob of her spine a bruise-like, moody purple. Anxiety, yellow enough to blind her, dripping navy doubt and lilac-gray regret swirl across her skin and form a knot at the nape of her neck. There’s flecks of other emotions too, candy pink and dull brown, palest green and a bright but tiny spot of turquoise she examines long enough to understand as hope.

A large hand comes to rest on her curved spine and immediately, warmth begins to bleed out from his touch to dull the trembling in her body. His other hand wraps around her belly and pulls her back, away from the shadows and into the lines of his body as he curves around her. The jagged edges of Alina smooth over like glass lulled by the sea and then she’s spitting one last time and straightening up, swaying a bit as she blinks the colors out of her eyes. She works on regulating her breathing and trying to separate her own feelings from his, can sense that Aleksander is working just as hard to project nothing but soft blue calm. She counts the places they’re pressed together— hips, her spine, his arms still around her, necks lining up and the crown of her head tucked against his chin— and that soothes her too, the reminder of her own physical body apart from his even as they stand together.

She slips out of his arms and turns to face him when she feels steady enough, her body more now an empty vessel merely splattered with the flecks of his emotions. She pushes the word he’s been chanting in his head to the back of her mind and waits for him to say it aloud, biting her lip and digging her nails into her wrists. They need to continue, need to do what they came here for, need to complete the mission those soldiers ended up dying for. But at the same time she wishes time would drag by instead of galloping along; she wants the hours to drag by thick as honey, slow and syrupy and lazily unhurried.

“I’m sorry,” Aleksander tells her lowly and she can see how hard he’s biting the inside of his cheek, can easily trace the bottled up emotions in how he’s holding himself stiff and tall, shoulders thrown back and chin tilted too high. He looks as if he’s about to walk onto a battlefield and face an opponent he knows he can’t win against. “I overreacted. But please, Alina…”

He trails off and those dark eyes flick to the wall of shadows hovering over her shoulders. She expects his face to shutter even more, expects the emotion in his voice and still slipping in small increments down their tether into her, to cease. Aleksander, as always, manages to twist her expectations of him yet again.

When his eyes return to hers, Alina watches something inside him, her ancient mate whose battles she has read about in the weathered pages of history books, fall apart. The barely-there cracks in his mask she’d glimpsed earlier widen and creep outward until his whole face is breaking and then, as if it was never there, the mask is gone. And it’s just Aleksander standing before her, his thoughts and feelings and reactions bared for her and the empty world around them to see.

It’s the most beautiful he— her mate, Aleksander— has ever looked.

“I…,” Aleksander begins and then trails off, hands tucking into the pockets of his trousers so that he assumes a casual pose, though Alina can sense and see that he’s anything but. Her eyes are greedy for each shift and nuance of feeling on his face, taking in the movement of them like a sped up version of clouds skidding across the sky. His wide eyes are transfixed on the Fold as if he’s been hypnotized and though it isn’t possible for him to grow paler, the shadows beneath his eyes have somehow darkened to almost aubergine. His bloodless lips are pressed tight together and there isn’t a single shadow flaring up at his shoulders or wreathing his ankles.

“I am terrified,” he admits at last, very softly. He shifts his stance a little bit and she can tell he wants something to lean against, a marble pillar or strong wooden desk, items that could put a bit of distance between him and whatever is making him uncomfortable. “I don’t know how to— I don’t think I can do this with you here, Alina.”

Alina wraps his kefta more securely around herself and pushes her tangled hair behind her shoulders, mentally readying herself for this fight. The apathy that had overtaken her spirit the night before and in the hours since she’d awoken in a field of bodies has drained away. She isn’t quite sure when it happened— maybe just now, when Aleksander’s emotions washed through her in iridescent color, or perhaps it had been earlier as she left the gray forest behind for a sapphire sky. Or maybe it’s just Aleksander; his emotions influencing hers, or the knowledge that even if she walks away from the Unsea he will remain to face it.

There are too many feelings bubbling up in her throat, though, for her to speak clearly and articulately. Alina has to blink hard simply to keep any tears from welling up, her heart thumping in time with each twist and change of Aleksander’s expression. All of her, all that she is, is focused on him, examining his every flicker of movement. “Together,” she croaks and then, a little louder, feeling every inch of dust and dirt on her skin, every snarl in her hair and the redness probably rimming her eyes. “We can do it together?”

The confusion on his face, the immediate refusal to believe that she would change her mind about helping him, widens the cracked pit of self-hatred hidden in her belly. A gentle breeze, such a contrast to where they are and how they’re both feeling, ripples strands of her hair and fans it across her cheek. A bird cries once more, shrill and high pitched and a bit closer, as if it’s circling high above to watch this moment play out.

The world is empty but for them and three colors; the sweep of reddish-brown sand stretching to the horizon, sapphire above and pure black behind Alina. From where she stands, though, all she can see is Aleksander and the bright blue haloing him.

“No,” he tells her firmly, shaking his head even as his face remains open and vulnerable, his hope and fear and conflict all there for her to see. “No, Alina. You will leave and you will go far away from here and you will live no matter the outcome of this day.”

“My choice, Aleksander dear,” she drawls, surprising herself with her ability to be playful even in this moment. His expression is so grim, though, serious and newly painted with lines that are just seconds old. And Alina— she knows she’s wrecked their relationship, their trust, in just as many ways as he has. Perhaps after today, if they both survive, they really will walk away from each other.

But for now they have this last thing to face together, this enemy they can unite against before being faced with the many-forked road of possibility. Alina doesn’t yet know what she’ll choose when shown those paths, can’t have any idea now if she’ll take the road less traveled.

She does know, though, even though she is merely eighteen years old, is merely an orphan from a quiet corner of Ravka who grew up hungry and ill and unimportant, that she wants to stand beside Aleksander as he unravels the Shadow Fold. For the little girl who was taught she would never amount to anything and who believed it, Alina wants to be part of this moment that will be written about in history books. For the little girl who was taunted for her Shu eyes, Alina wants to help break the Fold and prove to herself that she really is Ravkan, really does belong to this country. For the girl who never dared to imagine a grander life for herself, Alina wants to be a fighter in this moment, wants to use her powers and revel in the fact that she is a sun-blessed alpha. For the girl who longed to meet her mate and longed for the companionship of family, Alina wants to stand at her mate’s side and know he will support her if her power flags.

And for the people living in her country, the people working every day to continue their lives, the people who have hopes and dreams and who might not be wholly good but who aren’t wholly evil, either, Alina wants to take away the Fold and give them new possibilities instead.

Aleksander’s palm is cool against hers as she slides their fingers together, sides brushing from how close she stands beside him. He turns his head to look down at her and she goes up on her tiptoes, rests her chin on his shoulder and peers right back at him. His mouth twists into the faintest smile and she wrinkles her nose at him when he slides a hand into her tangled hair, brushing it back behind her ear. For just a breath or two it’s only them, their shadows stretching long and thin across the red sand, the ocean of blue above and the sea of shadows in front of them their sole witnesses.

“I don’t want you to be hurt,” he whispers as if it’s a confession, a secret that he cares for her and her wellbeing. His fingertips linger against her cheek, not moving, just feeling her skin.

“And I feel the same way about you,” she replies, words equally soft. “Two is better than one, Aleksander. Let me do this with you.”

“So stubborn,” he murmurs, irritated and a little exasperated, but then he presses a quick kiss to her forehead and she smiles in triumph, knowing she’s won. She keeps her gaze on Aleksander even when he twists his head to stare down the Fold, the curving wall of shadows seemingly smooth and seamless, as any good shield should be.

“If the Unsea is a shield,” he says slowly, narrowing his eyes a little at the placid wall of blackness, “then perhaps we should begin with a spear.”

“Yes,” she agrees, memorizing the slope of his nose, the little triad of moles behind his ear. “But— shadows first, I think.”

Aleksander begins to shake his head, a bit of the general he’d been under so many different names in so many lifetimes appearing, but she cuts him off. She has a feeling and though that’s the exact opposite of what she was taught at the Little Palace, Alina wants to trust her intuition and her strange connection with the Fold.

“The Fold is made from your shadows,” she explains, squeezing her fingers around his and moving until their hips bump together, greedy for physical reminders that he’s here with her. “I think you may be able to crack it, because it might not recognize your shadows as something foreign at first.”

“Little wolf, I’ve tried my shadows against the Fold hundreds of times since it was created,” he sighs, annoyance and fondness warring on his face. “Or did you forget how old I am?”

“Not possible, grandfather,” she replies sweetly and then snaps her teeth at him when he pokes his elbow lightly into her side. Quickly, though, they both sober. “Please, Aleksander,” she tries again, widening her eyes and her stance, “I think it will work this time. Will you try it?”

“A spear,” he grumbles to himself, shaking his head a little, but he raises his hands and crooks his fingers, shadows flickering to life around his wrists in smoky bracelets. Alina traces her fingers down the line of his arm before tucking her fingers under the hem of his shirt, resting against the small of his back and stroking over the dip of his spine. Aleksander straightens at her touch, going stiff for a moment before he relaxes into it. His hands move in fluid movements with practiced grace and the shadows curling around his arms soon begin to flow into the shape of a spear, long and elegant and deadly sharp at the tip. Tiny vines etched of shadows wrap around the length of the spear and the head of it redefines, the angle and size changing slightly until Aleksander is satisfied.

“Perfect,” Alina breathes, a little bit lost in what he can do. “Now replicate it, please. As many as possible.”

“Yes, dearest,” Aleksander says under his breath, wryly, but he complies, inky midnight spears blooming into life along the border of the Fold they stand in front of. The perfect blue of the sky is marred with them, lines of darkness gathering thick and fast in the air until the daylight begins to take on a strange, tinted quality. They hover, ready and waiting for the twist of his fingers that will come only after she speaks. Alina squirms a little bit as the sense of power, the weight of the what they’re about to do, settles upon her shoulders.

“Spears first,” she decides, surveying the curve of the Fold which hasn’t changed or shifted at all despite Aleksander calling new shadows into existence. “After you send them in, I’ll push my sunlight into any cracks that appear and then…”

“And then we pray,” Aleksander finishes with a wry twist of his lips, flexing his wrists where they’re still raised. “Even though we’re the closest thing to living Saints Ravka has seen in centuries.”

“Perhaps we skip the praying and just work on being powerful enough,” Alina replies, raising her own hands in preparation but mourning the loss of Aleksander’s skin at the same time.

Aleksander hums a little laugh and then, just as she thinks he’s about to twist his fingers and begin, he turns his head just enough to look down at her. “Alina,” he begins and though his face is still that of a general heading into battle, his voice is low and sweet and reserved just for her. She swallows hard and nods a little too quickly, jerky.

“I know,” she breathes shakily, heart hammering for a multitude of reasons and blood roaring in her ears as everything that they’re about to do hits her all at once. “Me too, for what it’s worth.”

A tightness around his mouth relaxes and though he doesn’t say anything else, just nods sharply before facing forward again, she thinks she hears or feels a fragment of thought slip down the tether to her, but she doesn’t have time to examine it in the moment. Aleksander twists his fingers in an elegant movement and the spears hurtle towards the enormous wall of shadows in an instant, piercing it soundlessly and disappearing within.

It’s only a moment before the wall of shadows begins to writhe, arms and claws and hissing snakes made of pure inky blackness rising from the glasslike surface and beginning to patch up the holes left in the wake of the spears. Beside her, Aleksander is gritting his teeth with effort as he works to extend the reach of the spears through the enormous sweep of the Fold. Alina, though, is already moving, slamming her hands together and then drawing them apart as she calls up every inch of sunlight within herself, wanting nothing more than to see her golden light dance through the cracks in the façade of the Unsea and watch it fall apart under her power.

But when she draws her palms apart there is nothing cradled within, not a flicker of shining light to warm the air. Alina’s chest is hollow and aching and the barely scabbed over pit of gray nothing behind her sternum reopens, aching and waiting to suck her down into monochrome.

“Solnishka,” Aleksander murmurs, voice smooth and low and lovely, “whenever you’re ready. I’ve sent the spears as far as I can, but we don’t have long before it will repair itself.”

He lowers his hands and shifts his whole body to look at her, taking in the blank devastation on her face and her empty palms with one flick of his gaze. Instantly he’s wrapping his fingers around her wrists and stepping in front of her, blocking her view of the Fold and murmuring her name in a velvety whisper.

“I can’t,” she mumbles, incredulous and horrified and on the verge of tears, her voice trembling with them. “I can’t do it. My sunlight isn’t— there’s just nothing, Aleksander, why is there nothing?”

And she looks up at him, afraid and anxious and feeling as if she’ll be sick soon, hoping that she’ll find the answer in his eyes. His face is shifting through emotions too quickly for her to catch them but finally he settles on calm and that helps her, a little. She’s still breathing too quickly though and she’s hyperaware of the ominous way the Fold has begun to shift and move over Aleksander’s shoulder, the surface no longer smooth but rather pocked with curling protrusions that resemble talons too closely.

“It’s alright, Solnishka,” he murmurs, moving one hand from her wrist to cup her cheek, caress his thumb over the delicate skin beneath her eye. “It’s all going to be fine.”

Alina begins to shake her head but then he’s shushing her, smiling a little bit, and the joy on his face is enough to have her closing her mouth and just glaring daggers at him. He’s utterly infuriating, having the gall to smile at her when her sunlight has disappeared and the world is going to end because of it. “We’re going to go home,” Aleksander tells her and her eyes grow huge, her mind blanking out at his words and at how happy he looks. His thumb is still moving in little strokes and the other hand circling her wrist is a comforting weight, grounding her back into her body.

“We’re going to go home and recover and come back another day,” he says and it’s such a relief, this acceptance from Aleksander of her failure. It’s okay, he’s telling her with his eyes and his voice and the warm affection dripping down their tether. It’s okay, we can try again. We don’t have to save the world today.

“Really?” She breathes, heart caught in her throat, pressing her cheek more firmly into his palm.

“I promise,” he whispers, like it’s a secret. “And maybe— maybe we can go home and live our lives for five years, or ten, before we come back.”

“Ten years…,” she murmurs, closing her eyes to stop the onslaught of tears, though this time they’re from glowing delight instead of sadness. “Ten years would be nice.”

When she opens her eyes, Aleksander is already looking down at her. He moves both broad palms to cradle her face, as if she’s the most precious thing in all the world to him. Her fingers grasp loosely at his waist and they don’t feel so empty anymore, with Aleksander to hold onto in place of her sunlight. Faintly she registers that same warm breeze shifting both of their hair, ruffling the fur on her kefta. She knows the expanse of red sand and blue sky are there, can sense the wide openness around them and even hear the screeching of a hawk, but all she really has attention for is Aleksander.

It’s because she’s so focused on Aleksander, on reading every shift of his expression, that she doesn’t notice the change in the Unsea over his shoulder. When it happens, though, she catches every moment of it in perfect detail, her memories of those awful moments painted in razor clarity no matter how much time passes.

A long claw, bone white and just as deadly as the spears Aleksander had crafted only minutes before, pierces his chest and the fabric of his shirt just to the right of his heart. It emerges stained a shining red with his blood. Alina feels him jolt as it slides through his skin, feels the reverberations of it in her fingers still gripping his waist. The world goes silent as she raises her eyes slowly, so slowly, to his. Aleksander’s mouth is open, just a little, the tips of his teeth gleaming and his gaze wide and surprised. His face is still painted with traces of affection and love even as horror rises to curdle her features, her jaw cracking open in the beginnings of a soundless scream.

Four more claws, shorter but no less deadly— the edges are serrated, she notes blankly— appear seemingly from nowhere to wrap Aleksander in a cocoon, shredding through the skin of his upper arm is easily as shears cut ribbon. A monstrous head, deformed and ghoulish in it's sickening mockery of what could once have been a human, snakes to hover above Aleksander. Milky white orbs gaze down at Alina from a great height, the thing’s lupine nose rising as if it’s sniffing the air. Rows of yellowish, needle sharp teeth extend grotesquely past the creature’s jaw and Alina thinks she catches a glimpse of leathery, torn wings folded along its skeletal spine.

Aleksander is making a strange wheezing sound and his throat is working, flexing as if he’s trying to speak but can’t. Alina can’t feel anything down the tether, just a bright searing white that could be her shock or his. The remainder of the creature is half-hidden inside the shadows of the Unsea and Alina realizes, again, what’s about to happen when it’s already too late for her to change anything. The thing wraps its claws tighter around Aleksander and she hears his ribs as they break, loud cracks that will haunt her dreams and chase her from sleep for months afterwards. Blood trickles from the mess of his arm and the puncture wound in his chest, though a distant part of her mind thinks it’s strangely slow. The creature lowers its head and exhales rancid, festering hot breath on them before snapping its teeth in a terrifying loud display of intimidation.

And then its gone, retreating so suddenly into the inky embrace of the Unsea that all Alina can do is stare as Aleksander disappears from before her. The last thing she feels is the slide of his hands against her face, the softness of his fingertips on her cheeks as he’s forcibly torn away from her by the horrifying monster. Her fingers catching on his waist but not nearly strong enough to hold onto him, to keep him with her. She has a fleeting impression of his face, the fear and anger that had just begun to overtake affection, but that’s all. No last words, no time to think or act or move because she simply hadn’t been quick enough— something else she’ll berate herself for, over and over and over.

Alina drops to her knees immediately, heavy as a stone but uncomprehending of the things she’s just seen with her eyes. She kneels in the sand, uncaring of the harsh scrape of tiny rocks, uncaring of the writhing wall of shadows and perfect sky above. She’s still caught up in the moments Aleksander had held her, the feeling of his hands on her face still so recent that she can’t quite understand it isn’t still happening.

But then…she curls her fingers, expecting to feel the warm steadiness of him and instead she comes away with a handful of rough reddish-brown sand. Alina stares at her hands, flexes her empty palms, curls and uncurls her fingers because she’s just waiting for Aleksander to slide his hand back into hers and make the world right again, to help her understand. I don’t understand, I don’t understand, I don’t understand she chants in her mind, over and over, uncomprehending. Aleksander isn’t gone. He’s coming back to her, he must be. He just promised her ten years and she wants them; she’s going to hold him to that promise and then, when the ten years are up, she’s going to wheedle more time out of him until they have forever.

Alina throws her head back and screams Aleksander’s name at the sapphire sky, screams for him as if her soul is tearing apart, calls for him as she’s never called for him before. As a mate, as a friend, as a companion and lover and confidant. The tether in her chest fills with glowing, bright white light and that light spreads to her heart, down every limb and up the lines of her neck to settle in a burning crown upon her head. She lets that light grow, gives it free reign and surrenders herself to the white blankness of it, twists her body into a mirror so that that light has no choice but to reflect and grow. An inferno doubles and doubles again in her chest and Alina keens, panting, eyes squeezed tight but still giving free reign to the light. But even Saints have limits to their bodies and Alina is just a girl of eighteen, still growing and learning, and so when her chest eventually explodes with searing, blinding white brilliance, incandescent and shimmering, it razes the entire plain clean.

It will be a long while before Alina opens her eyes but when she does, she will discover three things. First is that the Shadow Fold, the Unsea, whatever names it had been called— the rift of shadows that had stood for hundreds of years and cut Ravka in two— is gone. Completely vanished as if it never appeared, along with its monstrous inhabitants.

The second thing Alina will discover is that, as far as she can see, the sand of the Fold has turned into a sheet of glass, cloudy pink and perfectly smooth.

Third, and perhaps most important to her, is that no matter how many days she spends wandering the slippery miles of glass, there is not a trace of her mate to be found.

Chapter Text

The enormous carved doors make a satisfying booming sound when Alina throws them open and stumbles inside, ancient gold slamming into unforgiving marble in an entrance loud enough to turn heads. If there were heads to turn, eyes to trace the sharpened lines of her body and follow at her heels like dogs, Alina is sure they would be riveted on her. But in reality she’s returned home during that special hour of the night in which all is silent and still, the darkness draped heavy and smothering upon every living creature.

Time pulls like taffy as she drags herself forward, exhaustion weighing heavy upon her shoulders and filling her bones with lead. But she forces herself to shuffle across the marble and keeps her feet moving because she knows, she knows that once she collapses as her body has been begging to, she won’t rise again for a long while.

Her reflection follows her like a specter, dancing across the mirrors as she passes them and darting in and out of shadows to run chilled fingers down her spine. The hairs on the back of her neck rise as she crosses the echoing expanse of the enormous hall, nothing but the painted eyes of Saints and past tsars to witness her arrival.

The air is still and too silent with just her shallow breaths to move it but Alina doesn’t question the electric feeling tensing her shoulders, just accepts it and moves on. She doesn’t care about any dangers that could leap from the shadows anymore, doesn’t feel afraid at the idea of something lingering in the dark and watching her. Her worn and stained boots whisper against the pristine marble and gold glimmers from every corner even without the illumination of daylight.

Carved statues loom suddenly from shadowed alcoves as she passes by, stone faces leering at her. Alina’s eyes, though, are drawn to nothing but the elegant chair set upon the raised marble dais, solitary and commanding in its simplicity.

She pauses just for an instant at the foot of the dais, inspecting the three steps she will have to climb.

She thinks vaguely that the girl she had been, the girl of summers’ warmth and brightness, would never have dared to climb these steps. But to the Alina of today, the Alina covered in dust and dirt and traces of her mate’s blood, these three tiny stairs are nothing.

She climbs them easily, barely spares a thought for the unspoken traditions she’s breaking as she rises. The massive hall looks different when she turns to survey it, less ornate and more ordinary. The gold doesn’t impress her nor do the intricately carved statues and embellished walls. All she sees is a space that can be used to impress or threaten, a space that can be filled with two-faced diplomats or simpering courtiers.

Alina has no desire for any of it but still she forces herself to stand before the throne and look at it, her gaze skating over every inch of the throne room and imagining the ways in which the opulence of the hall could be used to her advantage or against her enemies.

The entire space is a symbol and Alina, after her weeks spent as the Sun Summoner, is finally beginning to understand that symbols are more important than almost anything in her ravaged country. At last she allows herself to turn and survey the real prize. The throne is simple, elegant, no longer the stuffed chair of the previous tsar but now something clearly chosen by Nikolai. He’s done a good job, she decides, the chair made of sweeping lines of oak and with no adornment save the double wings of the Lantsov eagle which would jut above the shoulders of anyone who sat to frame them in power.

Alina settles the longer she stays rooted in place, her feet planted just inches from the throne but struggling with herself. It’s just a chair, just pieces of dead trees that have been cut and smoothed and shaped into a tool for humans.

And yet she cannot sit, cannot take that final step to claim something that isn’t quite hers.

A bit of that summer-child Alina still lingers inside her, omega decorum burned into her brain to hold her back.

But she stands and she imagines it until she can practically feel the polished oak beneath her, can visualize the way her skirts will settle heavy and reassuring around her legs as she sits. She knows the straight back will hurt her spine, unforgiving oak pressing into the knobs of her vertebrae, but at the end of the day the ache will be worth it.

Alina stands there for just a moment longer, extends her fingertips and brushes them lightly across the grain of an armrest to remind herself that it’s real, that it’s tangible and attainable and that she will feel it again. There’s no one there to stop her.

And then she turns and stalks away from the empty throne, leaves as quickly as she can and never looks back at the shadowed mirrors that catch little pieces of her as she passes.

☀☀☀

Alina dreams the remainder of the witching hours away, sleeps deeply and wakes as the first drops of sunlight dapple her skin with one burning thought on her mind.

Today is the day everything begins and so she has no trouble slipping from her nest of soft blankets and sleepy warmth, no trouble rubbing the dreams from her eyes because she never truly lost that gleam of awareness. There’s intent behind each of her movements, not a drop of energy wasted or exhaled without reason. She cleans herself thoroughly, methodically, not taking a second longer than necessary, not allowing herself the time to enjoy the press of warm scented water slippery on her skin.

She yanks a comb through the tangles snarled deep in her hair without thought, doesn’t change her blank expression in the mirror even as her scalp smarts and stings. She isn’t wearing a mask at this moment; merely allowing the hollow gray nothing she feels to swallow up her face and any colorful emotions.

Alina spends more than ten minutes carefully sorting through the layers of dresses and tunics and keftas in her closet, inspecting each item of clothing while thinking about the image it will present if she wears it.

She wishes that she had had time to ask Genya for something new and special and perfectly tailored for this occasion. Eventually she settles on the simplest cream gown she can find, fitted at her waist and then falling in a gentle sweep to her toes. She likes that there are filmy sleeves to cover more of her skin, likes the high neckline and row of tiny buttons that trails down her spine. She dries her hair quickly with a burst of golden light, the corners of her mouth twisting and a sick feeling roiling in her stomach at the glow.

A diadem of shining spikes reminiscent of the sun pushes the soft waves back from her face and sweeps of makeup accentuate her eyes and lips, erase the fatigue from her brow and flush her cheeks in a mockery of health.

She tries to make herself look young and fresh but also old enough to be powerful, to be listened to— a fine line to tread when her hands aren’t practiced in painting her face.

Alina leans in close to her reflection, narrows her eyes and inspects every inch of her face, rearranges her hair until it falls neatly around her shoulders and down her back.

Practices her smile until she can make her face glow with quiet humility and joy, makes sure her eyes sparkle just enough. She pulls at the folds of her dress until it falls just right, practices walking and watches herself in the full length glass, steps back and surveys herself to grasp the whole image.

She chooses no jewelry save the ring Nikolai gifted her when he knelt in front of the entire royal court and professed his love; the emerald looks wrong against her cream and champagne ensemble, loud and gaudy in hindsight.

For a second her mind replaces the heavy ring with something slimmer, darker, simple and sleek just like the man who would give it to her.

But when Alina dares to tug on the tether in her chest it remains slack and colorless without a flicker of energy at the other end to illuminate her.

She clasps her hands demurely at her waist and places her feet clad in slips of golden silk but aching from her journey home one in front of the other. She darts through the slumbering Little Palace until she reaches an exit, air still on the cusp of spring biting at her cheeks and blowing through her dress as if she’s naked.

She takes a deep breath, filling her chest with the freshness, and then readies herself again, reminds herself of what she’s doing. Allows the edge of metal to return to her bones and face and neck, remembers that she is a weapon. Her steps are tiny, mincing and much slower than she would ever usually walk but she enters the withered gardens with her head held high and begins her procession.

Strong rays of deep burnished gold sunlight raze a path ahead of her, snow melting away to reveal withered brown grass and bare gravel.

Winter exists all around her but with each step Alina takes a mockery of summer’s heat rises up. Buttery morning light gilds the windows of the Little Palace to her right which reflect nothing back at her but gold gold gold, her own image blending into the color until she can’t tell where the sunlight ends and she begins.

Alina flares the light brighter, brighter, smiling as she hears rumbling and muttering from the soldiers important enough to sleep behind the enormous windows. That rumbling soon turns into a steady hum of clattering and gasping shouts, windows cracked open and faces peeking out to exclaim at her as she passes by.

Alina deliberately slows her steps even more though she doesn’t look anywhere but forward, moving sedately through the hedges that have retained a bright shade of evergreen.

She knows the picture she makes, the delicate sweep of the train trailing behind her, golden rays of the sun crowning her head and gleaming in a haze around her.

As she reaches the edge of the gardens that border the Little Palace, a long sweep of gravel and bare trees just beginning to grow fuzzy with palest green, she catches the first set of pounding footsteps behind her. She doesn’t turn or pause but she does ready herself, digging her fingers more tightly into the thin skin covering the bones of her hands.

“Sankta,” a voice gasps from behind her and though it isn’t one Alina recognizes she still feels a spark of triumph.

The first has come and many more will follow.

“Sankta,” they repeat, out of breath and voice tinged with awe so large it could swallow her whole.

“Sankta, you’ve returned. Where are you going so soon?”

“I go to seek an audience with my intended husband,” she says lightly, her voice nothing but clear blue waters and spun sugar.

She finally deigns to glance over her shoulder, pausing for just a moment. A young man dressed in red silk pajamas and mismatched boots with a thick brown coat thrown haphazardly over his shoulders stares back at her, frozen as he bends over his knees to gulp air.

At his back others are fast approaching, a hoard of them, some running while most walk quickly and attempt to fix their disheveled appearances. These are soldiers, though, and while they might have been awoken rather suddenly she can see that their faces are already alert, wide eyed and intent as they close in on her.

“You may accompany me if you wish it,” she tells the young man, granting him just the slightest curve of a smile and allowing a line of sunlight to grace his head with warmth.

He shudders and sinks to one knee, bowing his head before her. The encroaching masses stutter to a halt, some hesitating while others almost immediately drop to kneel as well or bend at the waist and bow.

Alina dislikes the ease with which these soldiers fall into subservience, wants to pull each of them to their feet and explain the invisible blood still layered beneath her nails but this display is useful. A means to an end, she thinks and then sends one last look at the people behind her.

When she begins to walk once more her steps are echoed by dozens of feet and the morning is no longer silent but instead buzzing with the low hum of many voices.

☀☀☀

They wait in the throne room of the Grand Palace, so different now in the light of morning and filled with the colors and breaths of so many people.

Alina has perhaps five minutes before the double doors open and Nikolai darts through, golden curls wild and face still puffy with sleep as he practically runs towards her. Mal follows at his heels and a great wave of courtiers, all of them wrapped in rich velvet and satin dressing gowns, pour through the entrance.

Alina stands alone before them all, set apart in her perfect fabrication and given a wide berth despite the amount of bodies crushing into the limited space. The hall is teeming with people and each pair of eyes, old or young, bloodshot or clear, blue or gray or brown— all of them are trained on her, the Ravkans in the hall hardly even blinking as they watch this moment of history.

The press of so many bodies breeds a heat that quickly grows oppressive and though not a soul speaks as Nikolai pushes through them towards her, sounds of movement still disrupt the peace.

Already Alina longs for the silence of her own company.

“Nikolai,” she calls as he finally clears the crowd, pausing just at the edge of the massive audience.

She curves her lips into a sweet smile and extends a hand, beckoning him forward. Tall as he is, the prince-turned-king must tilt his head to fully take her in from her position atop the marble dais. The oaken throne is a steady presence at her back and it would be so easy to close those scant inches and sit. She doesn’t, though. Not yet.

“I’ve returned home,” she says and her voice rings clear and bright against the gold flecked marble, echoing and reverberating.

Nikolai, dazed and rumpled, takes two hesitant steps forward and then halts, neck bent just enough that it’s obvious he’s looking up at her. She catches Mal’s fingers rising as if to pull his mate back and then, slowly, his hand returns to his side.

The movement causes a deep rush of sorrow to swell in her chest, indigo and navy and slate gray but there’s nowhere for the emotions to go and so they tumble and swirl within her, caged forever into a bond of one.

“Welcome home, Sankta Alina,” Nikolai proclaims loudly and an instant later the words are repeated by a myriad of voices, tongues repeating it until the sound overlaps and all she can hear is Sankta, Sankta, Sankta.

She dips her head in acknowledgement and folds her hands over her stomach, elbows jutting just enough that the folds of her sleeves fall to make it seem as if she has wings.

“Sankta,” Nikolai begins and she settles her expression back into calm though she draws a web of glittering sunlight around her until the air crackles with metallic luster.

“We were brought tales two days ago by messengers from Novokribirsk. They told us a fantastic tale and one of them swore that he watched the Fold vanish with his own two eyes. Did they speak truly?”

Alina takes a moment to blink at the dozens of faces peering up at her, thinking of flowers turning to the sun or babies to their mothers.

She breathes in the suspense of the moment, fully feeling how much power she holds as the hall of bodies waits with bated breath for her to speak.

She intensifies the light at her back with just a twitch of her fingers to be sure that she will be illuminated and shining.

“Yes,” she murmurs at last and immediately chaos reigns.

People shout with joy and embrace one another, tears streaming down their faces or mouths stretched into maniacal grins. Some sink to their knees and begin to pray in thanks while others stand still, faces shocked as they attempt to process her confession. Some courtiers, the especially stuffy ones, even manage to faint dead away and cause quite a ruckus as they go down like sacks of potatoes. Alina stands still and remote above it all, watching impassively as the inhabitants of both palaces mix and celebrate with shared delight for the first time in perhaps decades.

She does catch Nikolai sweep Mal up into a crushing hug, both men clutching at one another as if their fingers are starved for the feeling of each other’s skin. She has to look away though when Mal whispers something in his mate’s ear and presses a lingering kiss to Nikolai’s cheek.

“I vanished the Fold five days ago,” she begins once she’s had enough of watching people celebrate and though she doesn’t speak loudly the hall immediately begins to quiet once more.

She graces the attentive faces with a smile for their good manners and instantly, smiles beam back at her.

Alina has this mass of people enthralled, cupped in the palms of her hands and she can feel it, knows it. It’s giddy and overwhelming and terrifying because she doesn’t know if she’ll have the strength to let it go.

“I traveled to the Fold alongside General Kirigan and twelve loyal soldiers of the Second Army,” she continues, surveying the crowd with a sweep of her gaze to ensure that each set of eyes is focused on her.

“We were attacked by Fjerdans halfway through our journey and our traveling companions died bravely as they fought.”

More gasps and tears, especially from the ranks of Little Palace soldiers gathered at the edges of the hall. Nikolai visibly pales, leaning into Mal at his side, and many of the courtiers cross their hearts as if to ward off evil.

“We reached the Fold two days later,” she says and the bite of her fingernails in her skin is starting to throb little pulses of pain up towards her wrists but she can’t do this without some kind of balance.

She needs the pain, both as punishment and as a way to ground herself because the thing she had been able to rely on before, the tether in her chest, is not strong enough to support her.

Aleksander isn’t with her and so she will have to stand tall and survive this on her own. Just Alina and her carefully constructed lies against the tsar of Ravka and his most important courtiers.

“I was able to vanquish the Shadow Fold with my sunlight,” she tells the crowd and though they already know this, have heard it twice over, they still whisper to each other and break out into smiles and cheers all over again.

“General Kirigan died a hero’s death,” she proclaims over the chatter, allowing her lips to turn down and her chin to wobble slightly as false cobalt makes her voice waver.

“He died protecting me from the volcra as I worked to save Ravka. He will be remembered for his dedication to his country and his many achievements.”

A louder wave of murmurs sweeps across the assembled crowd but it is Nikolai and Mal that Alina focuses on, her eyes trained on them with eagle sharpness as they take in her words.

She sees momentary sadness flash across Mal’s face but quickly it turns to relief, relief as he tugs Nikolai close and holds his mate in a way she will never be able to. The prince does a better job of concealing his true feelings but she can see the relief creasing the corners of his lips, can read it in the way his shoulders lose some of their tension and in the huge inhale he takes.

She takes it all in, each facet of their expressions, and she stores it in her memories with cold clarity.

If Alina hadn’t loved Mal almost all her life she would burn him and his mate to cinders for the way they react to her mate’s death.

“It is by the grace of the Saints that I have returned to you to take my place as Ravka’s queen,” Alina announces, unfolding her hands to spread her arms wide. She calls sunlight to pool in her palms and run down her fingers like liquid gold, the glittering light pooling at her feet until she’s standing in sunlight, illuminated by sunlight, crowned in sunlight. She smiles benevolently at the emotional, jubilant crowd, dips her head to them as if to say yes, here I am, your queen. Here I am, the one you’ve waited for. Your promised, your Sun Queen.

“I am ready to lead with kindness and benevolence,” she tells the people, her people, widening her smile until she’s beaming at them, feeling as if her heart is cracking open in this moment of true emotion. “I am ready to end this awful war as I ended the Shadow Fold. I am ready to bridge the divide between the halves of Ravka and unite our great country. I will protect you, my people, and I will protect our home with the strength of my sunlight and the wisdom of my heart.”

The gathered soldiers and courtiers and servants grow quiet then near silent, just breathing and the sound of small movements that come from a great horde of bodies. Those who had cried at her words, had been the first to run to follow her, are already beginning to kneel or bow or curtsy. Some people are just staring at her, uncomprehending, and there are a fair amount who don’t seem very happy about what she’s saying but Alina isn’t worried. They will learn to bend in time. Time, that endless stretch of hours and days and years, is something she has quite a lot of. Nikolai seems confused when she skates her gaze over him but he gives her a weak smile, Mal frowning at his side but also looking as if he very much wants to go back to bed.

Alina extends her right hand, open palm still dripping pure gold light towards the people in a gesture more symbolic than anything but she knows it will paint a powerful picture in the history books to come. She unfurls her fingers and stretches her arm out, out, out as far as she can reach, beckoning and inviting in equal measure. She curls morning light in a glimmering shaft around herself, raises her chin just a little and positions her face in the expression she’d examined over and over as she dressed. So she knows, when she asks them, that the Ravkans before her will see a beautiful girl who is something more than human, dressed in sunlight and heavenly white, shimmering beneath golden rays and promising them everything they’ve prayed for.

Will you accept me? She asks and they, the people who hold the scant riches of Ravka and fight the most fearsome of Ravkan enemies, breathe out yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

☀☀☀

Genya is pacing in her rooms when Alina is finally able to slip away from the masses of people who had wanted to kiss her hands and thank her and ask for her blessing or simply stare at her in awe. Her friend’s face crumples the moment they see each other and Alina feels the same, feels as if she’s finally with the one person to whom she can speak the truth. When the older girl strides forward and takes Alina in her arms, she doesn’t protest.

“He’s gone,” Alina whispers, “he’s really gone.”

☀☀☀

Alina alternates between taking her meals at the Little Palace and dining among the courtiers and foreign diplomats of the Grand Palace. She never stays for long and eats little, cutting the food that tastes of ashes into increasingly smaller pieces as she laughs and chatters away and listens, always listens. At the Grand Palace she dresses in shades of white and gold, always gold, but she only ever adorns herself with the massive emerald engagement ring. She learns about the courtiers, listens to them tell stories of silly children and sillier husbands, soaks up the more sordid gossip from Genya at night when they curl up in her massive bed together. Soon she begins to understand who is sleeping with who behind their mates’ backs, can tell the enemies and the allies just from the seating arrangements at each meal and false niceties exchanged. She works hard to ingratiate herself with them despite how vapid and spoiled most of them are. She accepts invitations for tea and nibbles at tiny cakes, nodding politely and asking questions every so often about husbands and what they do with their wealth. She gives advice about which colors look best on whom and pretends to admire new hairstyles, acting as if she doesn’t take note when more and more ladies of the court begin to dress in gold and adorn their clothes with little suns. She coos over babies and offers countless blessings, dapples proffered hands with sunlight and tells the story of how she conquered the Fold over and over again.

She arrives fashionably late to every meal and changes who she sits between so that after two weeks of decadent dishes and simpering, half the Grand Palace courtiers are wearing golden suns every day and the other half are falling over themselves to have the honor of dining beside her.

Alina is careful, though, very careful. She never allows herself to be seen sitting or eating with Nikolai, barely even exchanging greetings with him despite his constant presence in the Grand Palace. She distances herself from him as much as possible and spends longer than necessary stripping any dresses embroidered with the Lantsov double eagle from her wardrobe. She does not curtsy to the prince when she enters the dining hall and she calls him only Nikolai, never tsar. She isn’t quite sure what the courtiers think but they take note of her lack of formality immediately, have even begun to giggle at it and joke with her about the silly prince .

When Alina dines with the Second Army she dons a kefta, always, and comfortable boots and tunics and trousers. She allows herself to greet the soldiers in training with a bare face and braided hair, lets some of the shadows in her chest escape into her eyes when they ask her about the Fold. She dines on salted herring and brown bread beside them without complaint, asks about their classes and training with Botkin and even joins them in the combat arena sometimes. It feels a bit silly to her to fight with her arms and legs when the sunlight is always there broiling away and ready to lash out in a glittering golden whip but she still does it. She thinks it was the right decision when afterwards the soldiers she had fought slap hands against her sweaty shoulders and give her bright grins as they all troop back towards the Little Palace. She answers questions about her sunlight and gives endless demonstrations, sitting patiently as soldiers reach out with tentative hands and try to catch her light as if it’s a physical thing. She discusses Ravka’s enemies over hard boiled eggs and porridge, hugs Nadia and Marie close when they tentatively come to welcome her home, holds onto Fedyor’s hands tightly when he quietly tells her how sorry he is for her loss.

She is more open perhaps with the soldiers of the Second Army but she never drops her guard even within the walls of the Little Palace. The keftas she wraps herself in are always midnight black and when students tell her how much they miss the General and his guidance, she nods along with them, murmurs quietly that she misses him just as much. They know, all of them, that she has lost her mate and yet they never speak of it, instead choosing to gloss over the fact in the face of the enormous green gemstone sparkling on her left hand. No one in either palace ever dares ask her how she continues to survive despite the loss of her mate. Alina herself doesn’t understand it and can’t fathom how she’s alive, how her heart is beating when the twin to the pulse of her blood is gone from this world.

Perhaps the one true blessing of the events that day in front of the Fold is the fact that Ravka’s enemies have taken a step back in their assault. Shu Han, always cautious, has ceased attempted kidnappings of Second Army soldiers and even sent a message congratulating the Sun Saint on her ‘magnificent triumph.’ The Fjerdan royals issued a similar letter delivered by a very nervous looking and sweaty young man who had almost burst into terrified tears at the sight of Alina. The letter had been rather vague save for one specific line recognizing that the powers Alina possesses ‘ do not belong to the natural world and therefore must be a gift from Djel.’ While the troops of their northern neighbors have yet to move from the borders or retreat, no forward progress has been made and the Ravkan soldiers can take time to rest and retreat inward. Alina is grateful, so very grateful, and when the messages arrived she had sunk to her knees in her bedroom and cried salty tears of relief. It seems that the sudden vanquishing of the enormous slash of Shadows by one small girl has intimidated their partners in war into giving them a pause. Even if it is only hesitation for the moment, Alina can use this moment and use this new perspective to continue to push herself as a Saint blessed by the gods of all countries and therefore not someone to be trifled with. 

She writes back in flowing golden ink, thanking the leaders of both countries for their congratulations and reminding them that she was simply following the divine mandate she has been blessed with to banish evil from the world. She graciously gives all credit for her sunlight to the Saints and writes a clever little sentence about how strange it is that her divine mandate applies only to Ravka and, therefore, any attacks on the country are synonymous with attacks on herself and heaven. She seals the letters with suns stamped into golden wax and is smugly satisfied when emissaries from Fjerda and Shu Han promptly arrive two weeks later, tripping over themselves to bow at her feet and mutter their apologies. 

Alina gradually begins to take over the duties her general left behind, reading any letters that arrive for him from commanders stationed on Ravka’s borders as well as coded messages from the wide net of spies he has spread across multiple countries. The messages are written in cipher and she spends a week of sleepless nights struggling to decode them, Genya peeking over her shoulder and bringing her cups of steaming mint tea. It’s her friend who breaks the key at last, suggesting that Alina try her own name only for the both of them to end up in almost-tears when it works. She receives supply requests from battalions and grants them, drafts letters calling those troops to slowly retreat away from the borders, telling them that they can rest soon, that the fighting is almost over. She writes letters to Ravkan diplomats abroad, writes to the ministers of finance and education and war, to the ministers of security and agriculture and construction until her fingers cramp and her hands are stained with ink. She requests things, tells the story of what she’d done over and over, reminds them that she is a living Saint and the future queen of Ravka and that all she wants to do is help , to make things better.

Alina begins to plan her wedding at the same time as she takes up the mantle of managing the Little Palace and his affairs, leaving most of the details up to Genya but insisting on certain points. The wedding will take place in Os Alta’s grand cathedral as all royal weddings do but she demands that her coronation be outside in the city’s largest square so that as many people as possible can attend. Genya chooses flowers and samples cake flavors and makes two Grand Palace cooks cry over the menu but Alina focuses on her dresses and her crown. She knows that her wedding must be spectacular, must be perfect, but it’s her coronation that she really cares about. The moment in which she will be crowned Queen of Ravka, in which she will swear to protect and serve the country he loved and died for— that moment is just for her.

So Alina plans and sends a short note to Nikolai that she will have her own crown made instead of choosing one from within the Lantsov vault. She inspects every detail of the sketches Genya presents her with and tweaks them until they have a pattern that is just right, and then she looks at hundreds of shades of gold until her eyes blur and she has to lie down. She makes three trips into the capitol to speak with a master metalworker and though he can barely talk during their first meeting, he listens attentively to all of her requests and the crown he eventually presents her with is so beautiful that she gives him a genuine smile and showers him in golden sparks.

Alina begins to make changes to the Little Palace as spring truly blossoms. She sweet talks the cooks into preparing more varied meals, orders sugar and chocolate and spices from market vendors and grins at the students’ faces when the first dessert appears. She holds a meeting with all the teachers and requests that they begin to teach more than just military strategy and history. She asks for classes on literature and Ravkan culture and practical training about hunting and fishing and building things. She listens to the older men and women as they slowly open up, writes down all their suggestions for classes they would like to teach and subjects they think could prepare students for a life that isn’t dominated solely by war. Together they create classes and schedules and a new curriculum and she watches with joy as students slowly sign up for new subjects despite the confusion creasing their brows. She doesn’t strip the Palace of eclipses but she doesn’t add suns; she simply strips the few Lantsov double eagle flags and hangs banners in red and purple and blue instead. 

She finds time to bring the Master of Law a very large tin of gingersnap cookies and asks him questions with such a warm smile that he makes time to answer them all. The next time she returns, she brings buttery shortbread and a plethora of questions about the legal foundations of the monarchy. When the older man peers at her over his spectacles and questions why she’s found a sudden interest in law, she makes a very convincing argument that she’s simply preparing for her role as Queen. The third time she visits, the clerk who manages appointments greets her by name and the Master of Law already has cups of tea set out to accompany the chocolate biscuits in her hands. She leaves with a towering stack of books about law and legal precedent and the beginnings of the Lantsov monarchy, pages crammed with tiny writing but she’s determined to read them all. There’s also a slim volume, newer than the rest, that details the government of Kerch and how the island nation transitioned to being ruled by people rather than a monarch. 

Through it all, every hour and day of tasks to complete and people to speak with and smiles to fake, Alina keeps some few consistencies. She is aware, always, maintains the slicing edge of a blade tucked away inside her body and sometimes even forgets to control the sharpness of her movements. She surveys the people around her as a hawk would a mice and she thinks, no matter who she is with, of the value each person and each conversation can give her. She plans and plans late into the night, finding that the press of darkness is now a comfort to her, familiar and peaceful where before it had set her on edge.

She uses her sunlight almost always though the sight of gold wringing her hands conjures up scarlet ghosts and split throats. She is sure to be constantly wreathed in gold, sunlight dancing at her heels or twining down her arms or shining upon her as if she herself is a star. And every second that she spends beyond the confines of her rooms, no matter the clothes she wears, Alina crowns herself. Simple golden diadems and jeweled bands, small gilt tiaras and larger crowns formed of merging suns. No matter where she goes her head is never bare and the emerald ring is never absent from her finger, both reminders of who she is and the station she holds.

☀☀☀

Their wedding is beautiful and overwrought and Alina barely recognizes a single face from the audience staring at her as she proceeds up the aisle towards Nikolai. Her future husband is dressed in a pristine white suit, blonde curls weighed down by the heavy ruby crown. Soaring violin notes, hauntingly sweet and aching accompany her every step but she feels more alone than ever despite the hundreds of people crammed into the cathedral to watch her marry the tsar. Flimsy layers of purest white fabric float around her while her shoulders are completely bared— Alina feels a bit like a cake but Genya had seemed so pleased with the completed dress that she hadn’t protested— and a large veil secured with a band of diamonds obscures her face from anyone trying to look too closely. If she glances to the side she’ll be able to inspect the flowers and ribbons draped across the wooden pews and ancient stone walls of the cathedral but she doesn’t care to.

The man waiting for her at the end of the aisle is not the person Alina would have chosen to marry and so she feels nothing but numb and removed as she finally takes her place beside him. Up close she can see the stress punched into Nikolai’s face, the lavender shadows beneath his eyes and sweat beading on his forehead. When he reaches for her hands she notices that his nails have been bitten short and bloody. The Apparat begins to speak and Alina drifts, doesn’t register a single word or even hear the rustling and murmuring of the audience echoing beneath the domed ceiling of the cathedral. She finds herself in the sunlit fields of her childhood but this time he is beside her, shedding his kefta and rolling up black shirtsleeves as the warmth alights on his shoulders. He smiles at her with dark shining eyes and takes her hand to lead her further into the swaying grass and flowers.

Nikolai squeezes her fingers tight in his and she comes back to herself, jolts a little with the surprise of being watched by so many eyes. The prince gives her a tight smile but she doesn’t return it, unwilling to put on a mask just to ease this for him. She pays attention to the Apparat’s words and firmly says yes in the right places, echoes Nikolai’s shaky I do with a far steadier voice. She accepts the band of diamonds from her friend-turned-husband and slides the matching half onto his hand feeling the wrongness of the action all the while. Mal hovers at Nikolai’s shoulder, chosen to be his groomsman in a cruel twist of fate by either Genya or the tsar himself. She doesn’t look at her childhood friend as she seals herself to his mate, doesn’t let anything show on her face as Nikolai lifts her veil and leans in to place the lightest of kisses on her unsmiling mouth.

They separate quickly and with twin sighs of relief Alina and Nikolai turn to face the raucously cheering audience. Bouquets are tossed at their feet and hats are thrown in the air. Tears are shed and children squeal with glee and all the while Alina searches the gathered faces for the person she wants to see but can never find. When Nikolai raises their clasped hands in triumph the noise increases tenfold, approval and joy echoing and reverberating inside the cathedral until she isn’t sure the ancient stones will be able to contain it all.

Golden sunlight emanates from the diamonds at her brow but as Alina and her new husband begin their stately procession back down the aisle, this time a married couple joined before the Saints and nobility of Ravka, the light follows her and her alone.

☀☀☀

Genya helps to strip her wedding dress off her and Alina gladly discards it, feeling unattached to the layers of snowy fabric despite the meaning it carries. While she tugs the heavy fabric of her coronation dress up her body and squirms around to adjust the bodice just right, Genya’s nimble fingers unpin the braided mass of her hair and lift away the diamond band and veil. Alina rolls her neck side to side, glad to be free of the weight before stilling so that her friend can lace her into her dress. The skirt is huge and billowing, blooming out around her like the petals of a poppy. Her waist is cinched to a tiny circumference in the boning of the corset and she has no option but to stand perfectly straight.

Alina bends her head and allows the older girl to work, enjoying the momentary reprieve from staring eyes but knowing that she has mere minutes before she must reemerge and begin her performance once more.

“You looked lovely,” Genya mutters as she ties off the laces of the corset at the small of Alina’s back, moving to run her fingers through Alina’s hair. “You and Nikolai both— although I think your dress outshone him.”

“Yes, his suit was rather plain,” Alina replies with a little laugh, lips quivering just a bit. Men’s fashion is so boring though probably infinitely more comfortable.

“I think you’ll enjoy the cake I chose,” Genya continues, unraveling the majority of the braids so that most of her hair falls in loose waves down her back. Alina hums, appreciating the attempt to distract her as her friend talks her through the specifics of pairing exactly the right cake and frosting flavors. The normalcy of their chatter helps distract her from the fact that she’s married now— to the tsar of Ravka.

Too soon though the small braids left in her hair have been pinned back with little golden suns and then there’s nothing left to do except hug her friend goodbye and walk towards the double doors of the manor house she’s changed inside of. She knows Nikolai is waiting just beyond those doors and that once she appears thousands of eyes will be on her as her new husband guides her towards the coronation dais.

Alina’s hands are so thoroughly chilled that she can barely twitch her fingertips. She pauses before the doors, trying desperately to calm her breathing and steady her heartbeat, wishing for shadows to dull the light to come.

☀☀☀

The spring sunshine is blinding as Nikolai leads her forward into the massive square and Alina can’t see anything for a moment. She tightens her grip on the prince’s arm, digging her fingers into the royal blue suit he now wears to steady herself. Her head feels too heavy and too light at the same time and there’s a strange rushing in her ears as if she’s standing beside the ocean. Blood pounds at her wrists and throat and she’s terrified that it’s obvious that everyone watching can see how nervous she is.

Nikolai guides her across uneven cobblestones and she blinks and blinks, trying to clear the sunspots from her vision because this moment is vital and she will not miss it. Alina bites her tongue until she tastes blood and she smiles widely, inclining her head at the gathered masses as they pass despite the fact that their mouths are open in silent cheers. Cut off from the sound of their jubilation it seems almost as if they’re wailing.

She has to put extra force into each of her steps, muscles working against the weight of her enormous skirts and the ermine lined amethyst cape covering her shoulders and trailing around her in a lengthy train. The fur at the collar tickles her neck and she hates the drag of it, hates how cumbersome and heavy it is as the fabric attempts to topple her backwards. Flowers land at her feet, expensive white roses and exotic lilies that will soon rot upon the stones and fill the air with perfumed death. Hands reach across the velvet ropes, fingers just able to brush the edges of her clothes as she passes, so many hundreds of people crushing forward for any chance at a piece of her. Ravkan flags and cobalt pennants emblazoned with the Lantsov double eagle wave above the crowd. Alina is pleased to spot white banners embroidered with golden suns among the spots of blue and widens her smile when she realizes that gold almost outnumbers blue.

Beside her Nikolai is relaxed and cheerful or at least putting on a very good show of it. He scans the crowd and waves, grinning brightly, occasionally reaching out to press his fingertips against babies’ foreheads or take bouquets from blushing women. He walks easily, with confidence, his suit light enough that he doesn’t have to put effort into each step. Alina hates him a little bit for it.

Ascending the steps to the dais has her losing her breath, forcing her to bend her whole body forwards to counteract the weight of the cloth trying to pull her back. Slowly, though, she rises and when she’s finally standing on the dais, nostrils flared as she attempts to get enough air, noise comes rushing back in. The sea of people are screaming and cheering and shouting, calling out her name and asking for her blessing as they repeat Sankta over and over. She breathes it all in, inhales the voices crying just for her, trails her eyes over each face and tries to memorize the features of the people who have come to celebrate her.

Nikolai steps up beside her holding out an elaborately engraved golden scepter and an ancient copy of The Lives of Saints, leather binding cracked and warped with age. Alina accepts them and feels her wrists tense under the weight of each but refuses to bow to the burden. Instead she straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin, smiles with all the brightness that she can at the Ravkans assembled before her.

“Princess Alina,” Nikolai begins and almost immediately the crowd begins to hush, banners and pennants still waving in the air but lips sealed tight.

“Do you come here today before your tsar and your people to swear yourself to Ravka?”

“I do, moi tsar. ” Her voice is strong, proud, and she grips the scepter, lifts it a little higher so that it can catch the light just right. Sunlight casts a hazy glow around her edges but she keeps it tamped down for the moment, not quite ready to blind the crowd.

“And do you promise to uphold justice, to abide by Ravkan law and execute all of your judgements with mercy?”

“I do,” she vows and a light cheer ripples across the audience.

“Do you promise to maintain the laws of the Saints and their mandate to the best of your abilities?”

“I do,” she repeats and this time her smile is tinged with sarcasm; the same sarcasm that makes the crowd bubble with laughter. Alina is a living saint and each breath she takes, each action and step and decision— all that she is is blessed by the Saints. Simply by living she is maintaining their mandate.

“Do you promise to defend and protect Ravka with both your mind and heart from enemies both external and internal?”

“I have already,” Alina proclaims, refusing to look at Nikolai and instead focusing on the way heads in the sea far beneath her feet nod along with her, shouting out their agreement. “I promise to continue to do so.”

Nikolai can’t speak for several moments above the roaring of the assembled people; it takes the royal guards brandishing their swords to curb the noise. Alina maintains her expression through it all, tenses her arms and tucks her elbows tight to her torso as her wrists tremble with strain.

“Princess,” he begins and she inhales deeply, involuntarily. She knows what comes next but can barely believe it— fragments of her life as an orphan, growing up too hungry and too skinny and too sick, flash across her thoughts. Memories of her humble origins, words of her bullies overlapping and reminding her that she is useless, foreign, weak, weak, weak.

“Do you promise to uphold the virtues of Ravka and serve your country and your people in peace and war, in wealth and debt, in famine and drought and plague?”

“I do,” she calls out, making the vow despite the uncertainties tainting her thoughts and the pounding of her heart. She doesn’t know if she’s fit for this task or if she deserves it but the least she can do for her country is try. For herself, for the children who will grow up just as she did if she doesn’t attempt to change the world. Alina can try, just once more.

Nikolai steps up beside her and gently, so gently, places her crown atop her loose hair. It’s little more than a polished band of gold, slim and simple save for the twelve tiny suns engraved in clean lines along the length of it. Her crown is elegant and barely noticeable and Alina loves it because it doesn’t cause the muscles of her neck to ache. The prince curls his fingers around the weighted edges of her cape and slowly pulls it away, revealing Alina in her coronation dress to the square teeming with nobles and ministers and foreign dignitaries.

“I crown you Queen Alina, savior and protector of Ravka,” Nikolai proclaims but he almost has to shout in order to be heard over the noise of overlapping voices. The volume from the masses only increases the longer they look at Alina, taking in her shining crown, the symbols of the state cradled in her hands, the deep midnight dress that hugs her torso and leaves her shoulders and arms completely bare. Thin lines of pure golden embroidery segment the blossoming skirt and within each section a picture is picked out in shimmering thread, little figures and symbols detailing the story of her life. The bodice and corset are so entirely covered in gold that almost no black shows through; suns and flowers and crowns, hearts and swords and antlers.

She finally allows her sunlight to bloom from her skin, rays of light haloing her form until she resembles a painting of a deity rather than a real living person.

The story Alina wishes to be remembered, to be written down in history books and told around village fires is depicted on a dress the color of the deceased General. She catches the students of the Little Palace, the ones she has trained and dined beside, watching her silently. Their expressions are difficult to discern but slowly they begin to drop to the hard stones, kneeling before her and the reminder of whose color she wears. The common people at the very back of the square soon follow and then it’s a ripple of movement as across the space heads bow and knees bend until it’s just Alina, a solitary shining figure above them all.

Queen Alina , the people echo, and the chant of her title rises and swells, cresting like a wave and breaking over her skin in a rush of truth. She’s a queen now, the Queen— regent, monarch, ruler. Another title she never wished for heaped upon her but Alina can’t help the tickle of excitement zipping beneath her skin. She’s determined in the future and yet she’s still giddy at this moment, not quite able to believe the dream of every little girl has come true for her. She’s married to a prince and tonight she will sleep in a beautiful white palace and tomorrow, when the sun rises, she will rule her country.

☀☀☀

Nikolai can’t tear his eyes away from the folds of her black skirts as they jostle through the streets of Os Alta back towards the palaces, both of them waving out the windows of the gilded carriage at the crowds lining the streets. Their legs are pressed together, any available space made more cramped by the size of her dress. Alina still wears her crown and Nikolai’s shines from atop his head as well, the coronets striking in their difference. Alina keeps both her hands busy waving and doesn’t utter a single word to her freshly minted husband; all her attention is on the people and the time remaining until she’s back at the Little Palace.

“Your dress is quite beautiful,” Nikolai tells her and she just hums in agreement, refusing to turn her head to look at him. “I expected to see you in blue, though.”

The silence between them quickly fills with the cheers of their audience and the rumble of wheels on stone, soldiers shouting as they clear a path ahead of the horses.

“Alina,” the prince says after several minutes and his voice is lower, pitched with enough emotions that she feels exhausted just at the thought of untangling and deciphering them all.

“Yes, husband?”

Alina doesn’t have to look at Nikolai to see the way he recoils at the word, arms drawing in tight and leg shifting away from hers. Slim fingers reach for the crook of her arm and then fall slowly to his lap, her skin left untouched.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m perfectly happy, moi tsar, ” Alina replies sweetly, beaming so widely out the window that the muscles in her cheeks twinge in pain. They spend the remainder of the carriage ride home in silence, crowns and smiles and fingers flashing at the watching masses.

☀☀☀

Alina begins her work the morning after her wedding. The decadent food of the celebration feast still sits heavy in her stomach and her movements are limned in fatigue but purpose beats beneath her skin and she will not be deterred. She dresses simply, white tunic and white trousers and a golden kefta emblazoned with lines of tiny suns. She stares at her crown where it rests on her dresser for a long time, debating, but at last she settles it atop her head.

A crown is a symbol and symbols are important, especially as Alina works to build the outcome she desires.

She takes tea with the minister of finance, presents him with a spread of tiny cakes covered in chocolate and drizzled in caramel, just the way the Grand Palace chefs said he liked them. Her receiving room is painted in shades of cream and gold and the wrinkled man has to blink his faded eyes at the sunlight curling around her but she soon has him smiling as they discuss his grandchildren. She tells him that she grew up in an orphanage, that she cares deeply about helping children across the country. Their conversation is polite, gentile, but Alina manages to slip in several mentions of her desire for peace and interest in increasing overseas trade to boost Ravka’s economy. The old man listens quietly and doesn’t say much but she understands that hers is a battle which will be won in rounds instead of one final fight.

The old man isn’t one for gossip but when Alina continues to meet with courtiers and ministers in her rooms at the Little Palace she carefully reveals her lack of residency at the Grand Palace in half-smiles and soon the whispers begin. When she returns to her rooms that evening, tongue heavy from talking and head stuffed with plans, Nikolai is leaning casually against her door.

The oprichniki, who have taken to guarding her in their true commander's absence, stand stiffly on either side of the prince. Two pairs of eyes dart from her to her husband and back again, unsure if the tsar is to be welcomed, unsure if they are even allowed to guard her against him. It all just makes Alina tired.

“Whatever you have to say, be quick, Nikolai,” she says with a sigh, halting and crossing her arms. “I’m tired.”

“Hello to you too, darling wife,” he drawls and she frowns, realizing it’s going to be like that with him tonight. A waste of time and energy, both precious to her in the face of all she has to accomplish.

“Come inside,” she snaps and strides forward, unlocking her door and pushing through first as the prince scrambles to follow. He mutters something to the oprichniki and she rolls her eyes as sunlight flares through the dusk of her rooms— there isn’t a world in which the prince would be able to harm her, with or without her guards.

“I hear you had a busy day, Queen,” he says from behind her and though her back stiffens she doesn’t react, just moves to sink into the deep leather chair behind her desk, putting the large piece of wood between them. Nikolai’s face reminds her of a fox when she glances up at him and though he’s leaning easily against a bookshelf, trailing his fingers over the leather spines, something in him is on edge. He reminds her of tightrope walkers the moment before they fall, teetering for balance and fighting to stay afloat.

“Oh, just little chats with my friends,” she replies breezily. Even if the air was empty of golden sunlight she would still hold the upper hand and she feels it, relaxes just a bit into the feeling. Whatever the prince says or does, her plans will continue.

“Those friends seem to think I’ve barred my wife from her rightful place at the Grand Palace,” Nikolai says silkily, peering at her from half-lidded eyes, lips pouting. She imagines this is the face he would have used on lovers and teachers alike as he asked for favors. “Do you have any idea how they could have gotten that idea into their silly heads?”

Alina flattens her fingers against the polished surface of the desk and tilts her head, tired at the thought of how long it will take the prince to glean what he wants to know if they continue with flowery language.

“They believe it because I told them,” she says clearly, fatigued but reminding herself that she just has to push through a bit longer, just has to finish this one last attempt. “I don’t want to move into the Queen’s chambers at the Grand Palace but I can’t make that decision on my own— you’re the tsar, Nikolai.”

The prince’s face changes, youth and kindness returning to his features as his eyes open fully and he straightens. He moves quickly to sit before her desk, crossing his long legs and looking at her with eyes that are much softer, running a hand through tangled golden curls. “Why didn’t you just tell me instead of the whole court, Alina?”

“I haven’t quite wanted to speak to anyone these days,” she admits, biting her lip and scratching aimlessly at the varnish layered thickly atop the wood. “I can’t deal with much more change. I’m sorry if the way I went about achieving what I wanted hurt you.”

“Alina,” he murmurs and when she glances up, the face of the young man she’d first met beneath a full moon is gazing back at her. He’s still so young; his cheeks a little rounder than they should be, bumps of acne scattered across his temples. She traces lavender crescents below his eyes, notices that his coat seems just a little too big for his shoulders as if he’s lost weight. The pang of remorse in her stomach is real, suddenly, and Alina feels herself softening too.

“I understand that you want to stay here, and why,” he tells her and she presses her lips up in a trembling smile. “But, I’m sorry, you can’t. The Queen of Ravka simply can’t live apart from me. The Little Palace may be your home but the Grand Palace is my court.”

“Our court, husband,” she corrects icily, expression going flat. “And while I appreciate your input, I will not be moved. I am perfectly able to conduct my royal affairs from the Little Palace.”

Nikolai sits back, leans away and looks at her. Takes in the sunlight puddling around her flattened fingers and the blankness she can feel on her face but can’t find the strength to cover up. He steeples his fingers beneath his chin and just won’t look away ; Alina breaks their stare for him, studies the embroidered cuffs of her kefta and thinks of nothing.

“What happened,” he asks in a low voice, “at the Fold?”

“I told you when I returned, Nikolai. There’s nothing more to the story,” she says, raising her chin and moving her eyes to the crown molding around the edges of the ceiling. It really is fascinating what can be done with just wood and paint. “I banished the Fold. The end.”

“How did he die, Alina?”

Sunlight flares bright and blinding instantly, illuminating the entire room as if a noonday sun hangs from the ceiling. The prince groans and doubles over, clutching his eyes, but Alina welcomes the searing snowy light. It’s cleansing, a gold so hot and fiery that it turns white. She breathes in the heat of it, lets the whiteness raze through her until her whole body is wrapped in filaments of light. There’s an aching crack in her chest as if someone has taken a sledgehammer to her heart and shattered it and that crack extends up, travels the column of her throat and pulses at the crown of her head, coils at the nape of her neck and dips into the knobs of her spine. With each inhale and exhale the fragments of her body shudder and tremble, close to tumbling away from her skeleton if not for the sunlight threading her together.

“It’s funny,” she whispers to her white knuckles, her white hands, her white clothes. “How things can disappear so easily. Don’t you think so, Nikolai? We can just wash our hands and the spots come out. Just like that.”

The prince has tears streaming down his face but at least his eyes are open, squinting, trying to see again.

Alina giggles a little, lifts her unblemished fingers and inspects them. Her smile feels fake and overwide even to her but the thoughts are already swirling in her head again and she’s been awake for so long that her sharpness is starting to go fuzzy, control slipping. “I’m staying here,” she tells him, lowering her fingers and wiping them against the snowy white of her trousers. “I’m a living Saint and I will do as I please. You can have your palace and court and I’ll have mine.”

Nikolai says nothing, just groans and reaches up to wipe at the wetness on his face. His eyes are rimmed in red and from the way his gaze isn’t focused on her she can tell he can’t see yet, is still trying to look past the whiteness clouding his vision. Looking at him in this moment, vulnerable and crying and unable to gaze back, Alina feels a great wave of longing wash over her. Longing for the person she used to be and the life she used to have, boring and oppressed as it was. Everything was simpler last summer and she would give almost anything to return to that season and change the past. She wants to go back and hold the boy before her close, tell him he’s her friend and ask him not to make her choose. She wants to go even further back and never meet her mate at all, just so that she could spare herself the untethered drift of her heart.

“Goodnight, husband,” Alina murmurs and then rises to leave, calling out for her guards on her way into her bedchamber, hoping that they will be gentle with Nikolai when they escort him out but also hoping that his eyes ache in the morning.

Chapter Text

☽☀☾

The sweet pastel flush of spring fades into long golden days of summer, green leaves rustling in gentle breezes and cloudless blue skies greeting upturned faces. The courtesans’ and students begin to venture outside, flooding the rejuvenated gardens and basking in the heat of summer. Classes are more relaxed and happen in the cool brush of morning or dusk, afternoons reserved for free time and training. 

As the seasons change, so too does Alina’s life.

She realizes that being Queen is more draining than she’d ever dreamed as a child; the amount of meetings to attend, cups of tea to sip and tiny cookies to nibble prettily overwhelming her at first. She feels out of place every day and is sure that at each table of old men she sits down with someone is going to finally recognize how ill-fitting she is and command her to leave. Being able to sign messages and orders with just her name alone and have the words she writes listened to is foreign, a disconnect somewhere in how Alina views herself and how the rest of Ravka sees her. 

The power she holds is never something she was taught was even a possibility for her, so to have influence allowed to fall upon her shoulders is yet another lesson Alina must learn quickly to survive. 

Sometimes late at night or early in the pastel mornings when she’s confronted with her own reflection, the thread holding her together grows thin and allows gray misery to seep through. She cries in front of the mirror without moving her face at all, watches hot tears run down the curve of her cheeks in a detached way. Her pillows smell of salt rather than the jasmine soap she uses each night and her face is puffy each morning, eyelids and nose and lips swollen with the waves her physical limits can’t contain. 

The only thing holding her together is her sunlight; when she feels out of place, feels like the tiny sick child who believed she was meant to serve as an Omega, Alina calls for her light. She is almost constantly shimmering in gold as she walks through the halls of the Little Palace and greets ministers and courtesans and diplomats, practically glows with light at each meeting with all the Ravkan ministers. The old men seem fascinated by her powers at first and then quickly grow used to the play of sunlight, even begin to make dry jokes about sunburns and tanned sky. 

As she takes up her duties of carrying out justice, listening to appeals from criminals before meting out their punishments, Alina burns bright as a second sun, sunbeams radiating from each inch of her body at her discomfort. The only place Alina can be seen without glimmering gold wrapped around her arms or dripping from her fingers is the dining hall; when she sits down to eat beside the Little Palace soldiers she still feels removed and distant but she also doesn’t feel compelled to shield herself in light.

Genya helps her fake her confidence as Queen; her clothes remain simple but always they are elegant, refined, gold and white covering her wherever she goes. Suns are embroidered and stamped and embossed into her clothes in a thousand different ways, picked out in crystals and splashed across her skirts and hidden at her cuffs. Always she wears her crown and so when people pass her they bow their heads and murmur Sol Koroleva , faces reverent or wanting or afraid. She smiles at each of them, stops to hold their hands in her own or listen to their thanks, halts her steps to bestow her blessing and listen to whatever they need to say to her. Oprichniki trail her like hardened shadows but always the eyes are trained on her .

As Alina refuses to conduct her royal business outside of the walls of the Little Palace, two courts slowly begin to form. At first the ministers and judges and clerks and secretaries huff at her unwillingness to bend, to come to the Grand Palace. Soon, though, they realize that if they want to do their jobs and complete their daily tasks they must make the short journey to the white walls of the Little Palace. Each morning a group of black clad ministers, wrinkled and silver haired, can be seen trooping through the gardens towards the smaller palace as they stifle yawns behind veiny hands. A flurry of messengers and clerks and attendants scurry back and forth between both palaces, carrying messages and orders and forms. Three young scribes are devoted wholly to ferrying correspondence between the tsar and tsaritsa of Ravka— short notes that spare not a single word for affection. 

The Little Palace cooks begin to buy more food from the Os Alta markets as many of the ministers and royal attendants take their meals beneath the starry ceiling of the dining hall, too lazy to return to the Grand Palace. Alina introduces Second Army students to the men she spends hours mincing words with and sweet-talking into concessions; slowly the students grow accustomed to the sight of the stuffy old men filing into the hall for plates of spiced vegetables and chocolate desserts. Slowly the students begin to share their thoughts on the war fought with Ravka’s enemies, explaining ideas their fresh minds have conjured which could knit the halves of the country together once more.

Courtesans whose heads are usually filled with nothing more than gossip and the latest fashion designs soon begin to huff and puff through the gardens towards the Little Palace; dresses with slightly raised hems and more comfortable heeled shoes demanded from the best shops as the walk to the white palace becomes routine. Ladies of nobility begin to carry silk parasols so that as they walk to the Little Palace each morning they don’t collapse beneath summer heat. Alina welcomes each new visitor to the Little Palace graciously, hosts tea in the gardens beneath frilled parasols and asks for more tables to be placed in the great hall. 

The ladies of the court turn up their noses at the students and soldiers of the Second Army at first, huddling together in bright packs of frills and lace as they survey the much younger men and women going about their lives. Alina gently coaxes them together, though, sits the kindest women down with the soldiers who came from orphanages or lost families, ensures that stories are shared and sympathy gathered like berries in a basket.

The Grand Palace empties and the Little Palace teems with renewed life and vigor as more and more of the royal court flocks to the beckoning light of the Sun Queen. Luncheons and parties are held in the gardens surrounding the white walls of the smaller palace and the halls bustle with life, courtesans interacting with Second Army students more and more, breaking their bubbles as they learn about the lives of common Ravkans. Alina capitalizes on their newfound sadness, wheedles money and promises of more to come from pale women and grim-faced men. Her title is called out to her from each corner and room, the new members of her court desperate for any scraps of her attention and time.

The anniversary of the night that she met him comes to pass, exactly one year ago, so Alina smiles her brightest grin and laughs louder than anyone else in the dining hall of the Little Palace. She invites students and courtiers alike to an impromptu evening dance in the formal gardens and when the sight of the full moon in the sky tugs at her heartstrings too much, makes the tether in her chest ache, she tips her head back and downs glass after glass of champagne. It’s only as she curls up in bed in the wee hours of the morning, drunk and loose limbed, that she breaks down into wailing cries. Genya holds her tight, grips onto her as if the older girl can hold her together so that Alina falls asleep with salt-sticky cheeks and bruised arms.

On days Alina must listen to pleas of criminals, must be both judge and juror, she opens the doors of the chamber where she conducts the proceedings and invites anyone to attend. At first it’s just whichever students have nothing better to do and then, as she begins to ask for the audience’s input, more faces crowd the rooms. She poses her questions as exercises in Ravkan law, invites one of the teachers who is an expert in the country’s customs and defers to him more and more often, but always she asks the gathered audience for their judgment. 

She listens, too, takes in what they say and rolls the words over in her mind before declaring the final outcome. Always she is lenient and kind, almost always she releases the person from their chains and sends them off from the Little Palace with a purse of coins and a full belly, the promise of work in Os Alta if they wish.

She scours the Little Palace library for books on freedom and personal liberty, stories of countries far across the sea where a monarch has not ruled for many years. She even ventures into his rooms, dusty and dim from disuse, to gather any tomes that could light new sparks of thought in the minds of the nobles. She gathers the friendliest courtesans, the ones who flock after her like baby ducks and take the time to speak with Second Army students, and she begins an evening book club. They make their way through the books she’s gathered and she prompts them to discuss the ideas within as they learn together. 

The nobles are hesitant to speak and careful to always turn their words around into praise for the crown, praise for Nikolai and gratitude that they have such a wise and intelligent queen. Alina complains about it to Genya each evening but she doesn’t give up, doesn’t stop trying to introduce new ideas as the faces of the book club rotate in and out.

Alina makes frequent trips into Os Alta, ducking into little shops that catch her fancy and spending long minutes chatting with anyone who stops her on the streets or stares too long. She visits the capitol schools and sits on wooden boards, uncaring of her golden skirts as she discusses the future of Ravka with tiny faces and wide eyes. She asks the children what they want to be when they grow up and, when many of them excitedly tell her they wish to be soldiers and fight for their home, she reminds them of the importance of farmers and healers and merchants and teachers. She tells them there are many different ways to help their country and as she leaves, she hopes for a future in which children can dream of more than war.

Alina is busier than she’s ever been in her entire life, swamped with meetings and papers and dozens of people all vying for her attention and time. She’s barely sleeping and barely eating, food still tasting of nothing but sand and ashes, but when she lies down to rest her mind fills with all the things she still needs to accomplish and then she’s up again. 

Sometimes when she has the time to remember, she tucks herself away in shadowed corners of the palace and cries out the ocean in her chest until she’s parched and emotionless once more.

Her knife sharpness is beginning to fade as she sinks into her new life and grows used to what she must do, the familiar walls of the Little Palace lulling her into security. Still, she makes a concerted effort to venture forth from the royal compound each Sunday and attend the two hour long worship service held by the Apparat in the cathedral where she was married. The devout gasp at her presence and pray more fervently than ever, voices rising to echo off the vaulted ceilings. Each pew is packed and the Apparat’s face shines with a bright fervor as he lectures the gathered masses on Ravka’s glorious future to come; the path Alina will light for their country with her sunlight, the blessings that will be heaped upon the people under the rule of a living Saint. 

Alina smiles graciously through it all and thanks the Apparat at the end of each service, curling tendrils of sunlight up ancient carved pillars and further to the stone ceilings high above so that the whole cathedral glows with light, just another sign of her Saint-given blessing.

Hands reach out to grab at her as she exits the cathedral and though the touches make her skin crawl, make fear curl and curdle in her stomach, she allows it. She must always be kind and generous and smiling. She must always be the embodiment of the Saints, must always make time for those who want a piece of her and must always be willing to give more of herself. Alina scrubs her skin thoroughly at night and reminds herself over and over that this is the last time, her last try.

Summer slips away from her more quickly than time in an hourglass and soon golden wheat lies heavy upon the fields, a yellow corn moon shining from the sky and goldenrod blooming in the gardens. 

August the golden month has arrived and with it comes a shift in power.

Though a small number of courtiers and nobles remain at the Grand Palace and conduct their daily life there, the morning walk is now customary for almost all of the royal court. Eyes follow Alina wherever she goes and she is besieged with requests on everything from diplomatic treaties to dinner invitations. When decisions must be made about Ravka’s future it is to her that the ministers and members of the court look rather than to her husband. The sun queen shines brightly and those who see her pass are enthralled, falling into step behind her as she works each day to rebuild their country. 

Her word is law and with just a smile she can bathe an entire room in gloriously warm light; more and more the tasks of ruling are brought to her and sent only to the tsar once her seal of approval is attached.

Some follow her because she is a living Saint, blessed by the Saints who came before her. Some follow her because she vanquished the Fold and still shines with golden light. Some flock to her because it is the fashionable thing to do, scared of being left out in the cold. Some bow at her passing simply because she is kind and some gravitate towards her for no reason at all. Whatever their reasons, the mass of important people dining at Alina’s table and wearing her golden symbol grow each day until the tide of power has tipped overwhelmingly in her favor.

The Grand Palace may be the official seat of power but it is from the white walls of the Little Palace that Ravka is ruled, a Queen’s flowing signature on each new law and order and mandate.

☀☀☀

Mal comes to visit Alina for the first time since her return as crimson and auburn creep up the trees beyond her window. Delicate webs of frost coat the glass in the mornings and already the palace servants are beginning to lay stacks of wood beside empty fireplaces. Autumn is the season of change, of life giving way to death, and Alina finds herself looking forward to the longer nights and snowfalls to come. Summer was the season of her heart, her childhood, but autumn and winter fit the truth of her life far better.

A gentle knock sounds at her door and she turns from where she gazes out the window at the fiery foliage and slate sky, a cozy blanket wrapped around her shoulders and mug of hot tea tucked into her hands despite the fire burning in her stomach. “Come in,” she calls, smoothing loose hair behind her ears and preparing herself for whoever was bold enough to seek her out early in the day. Her moments of peace are few and far between and so when the door opens and Mal enters, she automatically frowns at him.

The childhood friends stand still for a moment and take one another in, eyes roving over pale faces and bitten lips, shadowed eyes and rumpled clothes.

“Mal,” she begins and then trails off into silence, voice stuck in her throat because she doesn’t know what else to say. Playing this part hasn’t been easy for her but her mask is the hardest to maintain when confronted with the person who knows her best in all the world.

“Hi, Alina,” he mumbles, shifting his weight from side to side. 

She winces at the use of her full name and then frowns even more as she really looks at him. Mal looks awful, paler and skinnier than she’s ever seen him. His eyes are dull and the hair on his chin has grown out in a light scruff as if he’s been too exhausted to shave it.

She sets her mug of tea down on the windowsill with a gentle click and moves towards him carefully, slowly, the way she’s seen him approach wounded animals. Mal doesn’t react, just keeps standing there and looking everywhere but at her, hands wrapped tight around his elbows in a clearly defensive stance. Alina settles on one end of her plush cobalt sofa and lifts her feet up too, wraps her arms around her knees and tucks herself up tight until she’s as small as possible. She makes sure there isn’t a single thread of glittering gold running across her skin before she pats the empty space beside her, silently inviting him in.

Mal’s shoulders, less broad than she remembers, slump a little and he doesn’t meet her eyes but he does drop onto the sofa beside her. His long limbs sprawl everywhere but yet somehow never touch her. She’s looking at him but his gaze is focused on his hands, knuckles swollen and red as if he’s punched something or someone recently.

“I miss you,” she whispers, voice tiny and choked with tears already. 

There’s so much that she regrets and so many snarls of emotion that she’s been avoiding instead of acknowledging or dealing with. Mal is perhaps the largest tangle of all.

“Please, ‘Lina,” he says to his hands, voice choked up and head bent, just the lines of his profile visible to her. 

She curls further into the warmth of her blanket and presses her spine back against the side of the sofa. She doesn’t know how to talk to him and she thinks, she can feel, that he needs to speak first.

They sit together in silence for a long while, steam curling lazily from her mug on the windowsill and autumn gusts of rain pattering against the glass panes, Alina watching Mal while her friend watches nothing at all. Leaves tremble against the onslaught of wind and rain but eventually give way, tumbling through the air in swirling patterns before alighting on browning grass where they will rot and help nourish new life next spring.

“When we were little,” Mal begins, still examining the fine lines criss-crossing his hands from years of hunting and trapping. “I always thought we would be mates and end up together.”

Alina feels her heart lurch as he voices the dream she had cradled within it for so many years, the first flushes of rosy infatuation reserved solely for her friend.

“When I met Nikolai, it was like my whole world shifted,” he says and though he huffs a little bit, attempts to laugh, there’s nothing funny about the way either of them have ended up because of their mates. 

“I just wanted to be with him all the time. I still do but it’s harder, now. He’s working so hard trying to be the tsar even though he hates it. We barely see each other and when I get to hold his hand, I have to do it in secret because he’s married to you. ”

Alina closes her eyes. The fragmented pieces she’s glued together with sunlight cannot withstand anything she’ll see on Mal’s face.

“I get it,” Mal says after a lengthy silence and she has to bite her lip to ground herself, hunching her shoulders and curling deeper into the sofa. 

“I understand, when he explained it, why he had to marry you. I don’t like it, but it helped keep him alive.”

Beneath the blankets Alina twists the band on her left hand faster and faster, gold and diamonds chafing against the delicate skin of her fingers.

“When we were little,” he says again, “and we dreamed of the future— I didn’t think it could be like this. I didn’t think I’d be miserable and lonely. I didn’t think I’d be aching for my mate but now I’m pushed off to corners and guard duty because I’m not the right kind of person for him to be with.”

“I’m not powerful, or special, and I’m okay with that. I was okay with that, as long as I could be in the woods and have my mate with me. But I’m so… I don’t know how my dreams turned out like this.”

“Me neither,” she whispers, cracking her eyes, and the words are just an exhale of breath but Mal must hear them because he tenses. His arms straighten and though his head remains bowed she notices when his jaw moves as he clenches it.

“You don’t really get to say that, Alina,” he tells her and his voice is hard and loud but measured, controlled so that her guards won’t hear them. 

Tears gather on her lashes and tremble, just on the edge of breaking to run down her cheeks.

“I didn’t want to marry him,” she chokes out and she hates how shaky and high-pitched her voice is, hates that she can’t control the emotion in it. “I didn’t— I don’t want any of this either. I only went along with the engagement because Genya and Nikolai thought it would help. ”

“I just wanted to help,” she whispers even quieter, lowering her chin to rest atop her bent knees. The pulsing pain of a headache is beginning to form at her temples and her eyes are dry and scratchy from holding back tears; her nose, on the other hand, is dripping steadily.

“You didn’t have to marry him,” Mal replies and his tone is once more neutral, calm, emotionless. She wonders how he can be so stoic when there’s obviously so much churning beneath his placid surface.

“He didn’t have to marry me, either,” Alina tells him shakily, extracting a hand from her blanket cocoon to swipe at the snot on her face, nose red and swollen already.

“He’s the tsar. He could have said no, or waited. I’m not the only one you can blame in this Mal.”

“I wasn’t the one in the position of power. I wasn’t the one with the ability to refuse,” she adds after he doesn’t react, digging the sharp point of her chin into her kneecap until it hurts. “Remember that, please.”

“He did have to!” Mal cries, finally turning to face her, hands clenched into fists in his lap and muscles tensed as if he’s readying to fight an enemy that doesn’t exist. His thick brows are lowered in anger and his mouth is screwed up into a scowl, heavy breaths making the pulse at his throat jump.

“He had to! To keep the throne and stabilize Ravka, he had to!”

“You’re yelling at me because you can’t be mad at your mate,” Alina says and her voice is almost a squeak but she knows she’s right, knows that Mal’s here to take his anger out on her because he can’t bear to add to the stress piled on his mate’s shoulders. 

This conversation is scraping her insides raw and she wishes that she was still alone, had never answered his knock. 

“You’re not being fair, Mal. Maybe he was forced into this marriage but so was I.”

He slumps as if he’s a marionette whose strings have just been severed, collapsing back onto the sofa and leaning his head against the back so that the line of his throat is fully exposed. It’s a vulnerable position and Alina loosens the death grip she has on her legs, just a bit. For a while it’s just the two of them and their silence, the only sound rain drumming against the windows.

“I was so scared for you when you were gone, Alina,” Mal says at last, moving to cross his arms over his stomach but visibly more relaxed than before. He sounds calm, a little sad even, voice aching with a remembered hurt.

“You just left without telling us and I thought you were going to die . I was panicking— I wanted to go after you but Nikolai wouldn’t let me.”

“He said it wouldn’t be of any use, both of us dying.” Mal laughs wryly, reaching up to ruffle a hand through the dark chocolate of his hair, longer than when he’d left for war but still too short, too severe.

“But then you came back and you were acting so different. You just stormed in and announced you’d gotten rid of the Fold and ever since you’ve been avoiding both of us like the plague. ”

Now it’s Alina’s turn to be defensive, to withdraw into herself and grind her teeth together.

“I lost my mate because of you two,” she says, looking steadily at Mal’s profile. “I didn’t exactly feel like being around either of you.”

Mal doesn’t counter her words. He and Nikolai might not have been the ones to deal the final blow but her two friends had been the catalyst for her relationship with her mate withering away. The erosion of trust, her commands of him— those had been her fault, yes, and the responsibility for them falls upon her shoulders. But the decision to do those things had been made by her friends, their words the ones to convince her and spark her into action. Mal had acted in fear to protect his own mate and, in the end, aided in damaging Alina’s bond with her mate.

Her friend lets out a long breath, lashes fluttering against the slight curve of his cheek. He looks older with a beard but the way they’re sitting reminds her of countless afternoons curled up in the safety of the Keramzin library hiding from Ana Kuya and other children and the world.

“I lost my mate to you, too,” Mal mumbles, shifting so that he can crunch his long legs up onto the sofa to squish himself deeper into the cobalt velvet. They lapse into silence once more and the light in the room gradually shifts from pearly gray to a darker slate, monochrome shadows inching up the walls and overtaking the corners of her bedroom. 

Alina’s eyes focus on the fiery tumble of leaves for a while, watches as each brittle leaf takes the final plunge and spirals into death.

There are pages and pages of words unwritten between them, enough that there would be no end if either of them allowed the dam of silence to break. But for the first time in her life Alina doesn’t want to pour every thought and emotion out to Mal. She feels the distance lengthening the space between them and she doesn’t mind it. She can sit here in this moment and her heart can ache for the closeness of friendship they had shared almost their entire lives but she can also look back over her shoulder at it and wave goodbye. 

Mal colored her childhood in shades of rosy red and forest green and she will always be thankful to him, will always hold love for him in her heart, but he’s no longer a vital component of her life.

People are people, Alina knows, and sometimes they change their minds. People can go from people you know to people you don’t in an instant, in one choice, it seems. Mal’s the person she knows best in the world, knows like the back of her hand, but here they are together in this room and somehow they have nothing more to say to each other.

The shadows continue to lengthen until she can only see the silhouette of her friend, a solid inky mass against shades of ash and slate and silver where once there had been only colors. 

Chilled through, teeth on the verge of chattering, Alina extracts a hand from her huddled blanket cocoon and reaches out for him one last time. Wordlessly Mal wraps his larger fingers around hers and holds on tight, palm pressed to palm as true night descends.

☀☀☀

Few residents of the palaces rise early enough to see Mal and Nikolai off the day they depart for Fjerda. The first snow has just fallen and the world is pristine, untouched drifts of white blanketing the skeletal trees and withered grass that had been so ugly in their bareness. The snow muffles all sound and softens everything, tiny snowflakes falling from a sky the shade of milky tea. Alina and Genya stand pressed together, hip to hip and arms linked as they watch their friends climb into an ornate carriage decorated by a Lantsov double eagle and the crowned wolf of Fjerda. Trunks and boxes and gifts for Nikolai’s relatives in the frozen north are piled high in a second carriage, servants who will not return making the final adjustments for the journey. The girls are bundled up in heavy wool keftas and fur lined cloaks, scarves almost the size of blankets wrapped around their throats and thick knit gloves covering their fingers.

Nikolai’s golden curls look strange without the weight of his ruby encrusted crown as he leans out the carriage window to wave goodbye, but his face seems younger already. There are still shadows beneath his eyes and he’d fought Alina for a long while when she’d first told him what she wanted, had argued with her and shouted and stormed around in a dark cloud of anger for days. But once he’d calmed down she and Mal and even Genya had all spoken with him, had presented this as a solution and a chance at freedom for both mates. And beyond even that, Nikolai’s departure marks the true motion of Alina’s plan for Ravka settling into the final act.

Mal squeezes his head out the small carriage window beside Nikolai and sticks his tongue out at his mate, both boys breaking into wide smiles as they look at each other. Mal had finally shaved the night before and the sight of him almost topples Alina under a wave of memories that spans years. Mal at five breaking his cookie in half and asking if she wanted to be friends, Mal at thirteen pinching her whenever she laughed at his changing voice. Mal climbing into bed with her and telling her stories, Mal protecting her from the other children and wiping away her tears, Mal dragging her outside to lie in the sun even on days she felt too weak to move. Mal dancing with her more than a year ago and watching her meet her mate, Mal making the Little Palace feel more like home, Mal sharing and understanding the experiences that formed her better than anyone in the world.

The mates turn to shout goodbye one final time, dark and fair heads pressed together and shoulders bumping as they both squish into the small opening of the window. Doors shut and drivers climb into position, the chestnut horses stamping their hooves impatiently, bridles and tack jingling merrily in the quiet morning. A whip cracks, wheels creak as they rumble into life, and then the carriages are off, ferrying the tsar and his mate to their new lives in Fjerda as Ravka’s official emissaries of peace.

Alina and Genya wave until the carriage disappears down the streets of Os Alta, not even a speck of black left to be seen on the horizon. 

Snowflakes drift gently from the sky and settle on their hair and shoulders, tiny flecks of white that could almost be ash if they didn’t melt so quickly. The girls stay where they are long after the gathered people amble inside, yawning and shivering, just the two of them beneath a bone sky. A phantom weight settles onto Alina’s bare head and she knows that once she returns to the walls of the Little Palace the mantle of ruling an entire country will settle onto her shoulders and her shoulders alone. 

She wriggles until she can free her hand from a glove and  wrap her stiff fingers around both the enormous emerald ring and diamond studded band. She tugs persistently until the rings slip free from her skin, twin strips of pale skin circling her finger, and slips the bands into her pocket. She vows right then and there that she will never wear a wedding ring again. Alina is done tying herself to other people; the only one she will have for the rest of her life is herself. Her company is all for her and her name will never be joined to another in matrimony or death.   

☀☀☀

Garlands of pine branches and evergreen bows decorate the halls and doors of the Little Palace, the sharp scent of pine laying thick and heavy in the air. Blown glass ornaments and paper stars painted gold glimmer from ceilings and doorways as candles are lit in each window, tiny flames burning bright to ward off the dark of deep winter nights. Inside the rooms of the Little Palace fires crackle away merrily and small sprigs of mistletoe invite couples to halt beneath them for a while and exchange holiday kisses.

Alina had given the day to herself as a gift and spent it buried beneath layers of blankets on her sofa, digging her chilled toes beneath Genya’s thighs and reading as the older girl had knit an atrociously ugly hat and gossiped. They’d eaten at least two pounds of candy between them and drank so many cups of steaming cocoa that their bellies had been too full for real food but it had been a glorious day of holiday cheer and falling snow and burning logs.

Now Alina stands tucked away in a corner of the great hall, sipping a glass of heavily fermented cider and watching the brightly dressed dancers twirl and jump. Her dress is a dusky periwinkle this year, not pink, and she has refused each person brave enough to ask her for a dance. She is alone in a room of people, her only company the reflections pacing their own ghostly waltz in the depthless black of the large windows. The crown tucked among her loose hair, simple and inconspicuous as it is, feels to her like a beacon that weighs a thousand pounds. She is the only royal in the room and yet for this one night of revelry and joy eyes do not turn automatically to her. She doesn’t know if she is glad for the absence of gazes or if, strangely, she misses it. It’s a little less lonely to be queen when everyone is looking at her, when she must continue the act and believe it too.

Alone, ignored for the moment, Alina is just Alina and she revels in the breathless bubble surrounding her as much as she dislikes it. There is one person she wouldn’t mind dancing with, one person who would stand with her against this wall and understand the bittersweet feeling lodged in her chest. Tonight is a momentary reprieve from the weight of ruling a country and attempting to merge two halves of it, the press of her position a little lightened by the joy in the faces around her. She hopes she’s doing a good job more than anything, hopes that the ghosts of her past would be proud of her and the slow foundation she’s building for a new country.

She cries a few quiet, salty tears into her glass of cider and then her friends are running up to her, Genya and Fedyor and Nadia and Marie clutching at her hands and skirts as they pull her towards the dance floor despite her protests that she’s the Queen and it’s not dignified for her to partake in a rowdy country dance. More hands draw her into the dance nonetheless, spin her and pass her from partner to partner until she’s breathless and can think only of the pumping of her blood. 

The lights and faces spin away from her in a blur and time loops in a circle, voices and touches flickering by in a roundabout of present and past.

She feels young and ancient all at once, part of the festivities and yet somehow removed by both the press of her crown and the sunlight glowing in her veins. She dances until her feet ache and then begs her way off the crowded floor, finds another goblet of faceted glass and sweet liquid to hide behind. Watching the celebrations continue as sweat dries on her skin revives the aching, cutting sweetness in her heart and she can’t decide if she wants to join in again or stay removed forever.

Alina watches until the stroke of midnight and then, as couples and friends and lovers embrace across the dancefloor, she gives her people one last heartfelt smile and slips away. She feels like a ghost as she walks the familiar halls back to her rooms and her feet seem to move impossibly fast, some kind of midnight magic turning the limits of reality slippery. Undressing and curling up in bed while she can still hear the faint strains of music and laughter pulls more tears from Alina’s heart, something she’d spent all year covering up and ignoring, cracking wide as she hugs herself for lack of someone else to hold her.

That night she dreams of the Fold. She relives the moments of his death in extreme detail over and over, watches helplessly again and again as that claw pierces his chest and takes him away from her. 

His words echo in her mind, the silky rasp of his voice less familiar to her ears after almost a year of absence but no less sweet. Older memories flicker up as well, the sensation of his hands on her body and the way his eyes had shone as he looked at her, studied her, laughed with her. Her head is filled with him until he fades away and she dreams only of the moon, full and shining and unreachable high in the sky. 

There are dried streaks of salt adorning Alina’s skin when she wakes and her throat is scratchy as if she had been screaming in her sleep. But it’s a new year and Alina has plans just as she did on this day exactly a year ago. 

This new year will not begin with bloodshed and spilled secrets as before but still she has things to accomplish, men to intimidate and snap at until they bare their throats to her.

She dresses in snowy white, bell sleeves billowing around her arms and a high neckline to please an older generation and she pulls her hair back until her pale face is a composition of severe angles. She very carefully wraps her crown in layers of velvet and tucks it away in a box beneath her bed. New years are a time for new beginnings and she is determined that by the time this year draws to a close, Ravka will no longer be ruled by a Queen.

The ministers and the Ravkan Master of Law, alongside his army of scribes and bright eyed assistants, all wait for her in the largest meeting room. The old men are assembled around an enormous oval table and have clearly only woken recently, yawns stifled behind hands and steaming cups of tea waiting at every elbow. The scribes and assistants form a forest of eyes along the walls of the room but they are ignored, insignificant until called upon. Everyone looks tired and worn out from last night's festivities, eyes bleary and still half asleep as they murmur quietly to each other and rustle sheets of paper. 

Alina is the only woman and the only person who looks well rested. She likes it like that, enjoys her sharp mind and unwrinkled skin in contrast to the bent and graying heads that surround her. These men are seeded dandelions, soon to blow away in a breeze but she is a sunflower and she will stand tall, grow taller still, for years to come. 

“Gentlemen,” she calls and obediently they turn to look at her, low murmurs falling away into silence save for the stray hoarse cough or clearing of the throat. Her lips tremble a little from holding back a smile and she almost wants to praise them or offer them treats for their good behavior. That would probably deflate their overblown egos, though, and she can’t wound them so deeply today. 

“Thank you for making time for this meeting on the first day of the new year,” she tells them sweetly and the stuffier ones nod, mollified. She scans their faces and, satisfied that there will be no words of dissent, finally sinks into her chair at the head of the oval table. 

Her hands are folded primly in her lap but her fingers are tightly entwined to stop the shaking wracking her whole body. Her spine is icy cold and she can’t even imagine eating a single bit of food– even the smell of tea is causing her stomach to roil in a storming sea of worry and fear. Beneath the table she digs her slipper-clad toes into the plush carpet and wishes she could push up and out of this room, could run away from all this and just let them figure it out on their own. She’s extremely aware of her bare head and she’s sure that the men around the table watching her have noticed too. The most visible and constant reminder of her station is absent and they will want to know why. 

“My dear colleagues,” she begins and though she’s thought about this speech a thousand times, all her carefully planned words go out the window as soon as she begins. For what Alina has to propose requires both her most masterful mask yet and also, somehow, the rawest version of her wants and desires. Each word she speaks will be a deliberate unveiling, another piece of armor lifted off and stored away to bare herself and what she’s truly been working towards all these months. 

This will be her biggest lie and yet also the closest she will ever get to the truth, just a thin layer of pretense separating these men from the reality in her heart. 

“I originally intended to gather here with you today to discuss our country’s progress and our plans for the future,” she tells them. “I still intend to discuss those same matters,” she continues slowly, being sure to move her gaze slowly from one pair of watery eyes to the next. “But Ravka’s future will not continue on the course we have set together.” 

She pauses for them to mutter and grumble and frown at each other, building suspense purely because she can despite the fact that it’s absolutely unnecessary. 

“Last night,” she says solemnly, schooling her face into a painstakingly constructed version of surprise and earnest belief, “I received a calling from the Saints. While I slept they came to me and revealed my true purpose as Ravka’s sole living Saint.” 

“Your true purpose?” Master Llewylyn interrupts, frowning at her from beneath an absolutely atrocious wig of tightly wound white curls. 

“Forgive me, Sankta,” Master Alexei chimes in, folding spidery fingers delicately around his glass of water. “But I believed– as did many of my colleagues, I’m sure– that your purpose was to destroy the Fold. Is that not why you have been blessed with sunlight by the Saints?” 

There are a series of nods around the table at this and several of them even see fit to bang on the table in support. 

“Members of the court,” Alina says, looking round at them while conjuring her best disappointed face, “must I remind you that the Saints determine my divine mandate? I am merely relaying the message they sent to me, to you all. Please give the Saints respect by listening to their will for our blessed country’s future.” 

Watery eyes blink at her and there are several indignant sniffs, but no one is brave enough to speak out against the Saints, especially with golden sunlight softly shining on her shoulders. 

“The Saints came to me,” she repeats, making her voice very serious and adult even though she’s barely nineteen. “They thanked me for delivering Ravka from the evil of the Fold– but they told me of another threat that I am meant to guide our country free of.” 

“It is the Saints will,” she says, smiling beatifically and increasing her sunlight until she is sure that she’s almost blinding in her brightness, “that I am Ravka’s last queen. Our Saints wish that Ravka abandon monarchy in favor of representative government, determined by and for the people.”

☀☀☀

The anniversary of the day the Fold disappeared dawns gray and rainy, wind sweeping water in sheets against the windows of the Little Palace and hammering a battle march upon the rooftops. Alina had signed a proclamation weeks ago turning the day into a national holiday and already she can hear festivities beginning beyond her rooms. It seems that the residents of the palace are adamant in celebrating an entire year free of shadows despite the dismal weather. She’d noticed the servants decorating throughout the previous days, stringing up white flags and banners emblazoned with her golden sun and preparing an array of yellow cakes and cookies dusted in glittering gold.

The Apparat had sent her a lengthy message pleading for her presence at a day-long cathedral service. Alina had considered it for half a second and then, once she’d thought about all the hands that would want to brush against her skin, politely declined. Ravka’s steady belief that she is a living Saint has helped her on numerous occasions and she’s glad that she has the strength of religious fervor at her back to lend weight to her words where they would otherwise be discarded or ignored, but she has no desire to be actively worshiped. Her skin longs for the comfort of human touch but there are few she trusts enough to touch her and each time she does, the free-floating tether in her chest trembles in protest.

So Alina begins Ravka’s happiest day by covering herself in black and settling her crown atop her head one final time, studying the pale girl reflected back at her with a detached sort of feeling. She doesn’t connect herself to her mirror-self anymore, hasn’t for quite a while, but she doesn’t know who she is when she pictures herself anymore either. 

She’s an ephemeral prenotion of Alina more than a reality; a collection of words and actions just barely held together by the binding twine of her name.

New grass a shade of green so vibrant it stings her eyes bends willingly beneath her boots and though she’s assaulted by heavy rain the moment she begins to walk through the gardens, the air smells of the freshness of spring. Winter is on the cusp of fading away and spring is snapping at the bit to be born, stubborn shoots of green pushing through melting snow and fuzzy bumps of color appearing on trees once more. The cycle of time and seasons never ceases to delight Alina no matter how often she experiences them and she lifts her bare face to the rain gladly, enjoying the pinpricks of cold that hammer into her cheeks and the crown of her head. 

She’s thoroughly soaked after only a few steps and her clothes turn heavy and sodden around her, tangling her legs and impeding her progress but she doesn’t mind. Today the weight steadies her, keeps her grounded, reminding her of a cave hidden deep in gray woods and dark eyes looking back at her across a tiny fire.

She had agonized over the decision of where to place the stones for a long time, going back and forth about where the deceased would want their graves to be. For the soldiers she had felt a bit more sure, knew that they had spent almost their entire lives at the Little Palace and that the current students would want to be able to visit the markers easily. But his grave— she hadn’t been sure. She had thought of the place he had told her of, the forests he’d grown up in and the small lake he’d loved to visit so much but no matter how many maps she scoured she just hadn’t been able to find the right place. And then she’d realized that she still didn’t know enough of his life to be certain exactly which place was most important to him.

The realization had made her cry, tears slipping in a familiar pattern down her cheeks as she mourned all the details she would never know, the stories and memories that would have been shared if they had had more time together.

The circle of stones shines even more brightly when slicked with rain and Alina pauses just outside the boundary of white marble, something solemn and weary pressing into the lines of her body. She thinks it’s fitting that the sky is raining so heavily today— it’s as if the world is mourning with her. Today may be a joyful celebration for the rest of Ravka but for Alina, today is a reminder of the most harrowing and terrible day of her life. 

The most sorrowful day she will ever live through has come and passed but the anniversary of those feelings and terrifying moments threatens to drag her under, pearly silver misery lapping at her joints.

The purple flowers Alina had brought a few days previously on the true anniversary of the soldiers deaths are still bright even in the overcast light and she spends a moment walking from grave to grave. Her fingers brush against solid stone and warmth leeches from her skin into the white marble; a little bit of life given freely for the men and women who died at her hands. She murmurs the names of each soldier as she passes and she thanks them for their work, for their memories and laughter and voices. She tells them how sorry she is and how much she wishes they were still living. She tells them they led worthy lives and that the thing they worked for, fought and trained and died for— it’s coming soon.

War in Ravka is drawing its final gasping breath and these twelve graves will be the last to rise, white bones of regret and loss springing from the earth no more.

Alina walks on, passes the empty beds of the palace gardens and the flowers sleeping beneath frozen earth until she’s striding across lifeless fields towards the dark line of the forest. His grave waits for her at the foot of an enormous oak tree where in summer green leaves will form a lovely canopy of shade and quiet. Now, though, skeletal branches jut defensively into the colorless sky and clack in the wind, rattling much as she imagines bones would. The sound is chilling and Alina shivers, registering how drenched and cold she is already but still she settles before the smooth chunk of black quartz. The stone is very simple and free of adornment, carved only with his eclipse and his name. No date of birth or death, no empty words that could never fully describe the lifetimes he had lived.

“Hi,” she breathes, brushing her fingers over his false name as if doing so will bring him back to her and will make him appear soundlessly behind her.

“Everyone else is celebrating today but all I could think about when I woke up was how it’s a new year and you’ll never get to see it.”

“I wish you were here,” she adds on an exhale and then she’s crying again, gently and easily, tears mixing with the raindrops rolling down her face until the water is indistinguishable and she can’t tell if the sorrow cracking her heart is hers or the worlds’.

“I miss you,” she tells the stone and it’s maybe the first time she’s said the words aloud since those days she spent wandering miles of pink glass and calling out his name.

“I want you with me every day. There’s so much I still want to know about you. And there’s so many things that I could use your help with.”

The stone says nothing. The world says nothing. The tattered tether in her chest, floating aimlessly and without direction, says nothing. Everything is gray and wet and cold and there will never be emotions flaring into shining color in her chest again. 

“The plan is going well,” she says after a while, sniffling pitifully but not even attempting to wipe the wetness from her face.

“I think I’ll be able to go soon. I had to argue with the ministers for a long time and the Apparat’s going to hate it, but it’s happening. Everything’s started now and I’m not sure I could stop it even if I wanted to.”

“I just have to try for a little longer,” Alina whispers and the words are more for herself than the stone. She imagines them in his voice, imagines his hands cupping her face and comforting her, imagines how he would reassure her and tell her that she’s almost done now, that she can rest soon. Oak branches click and clack above her like knitting needles and she jumps a little at the sound, startles from her own thoughts.

“I hope you can be content, wherever you are,” she murmurs and the words sound so empty, so useless, that she immediately wants to take them back. “Don’t worry about me, though,” she reassures, straightening and blinking quickly, trying to be strong like he’d taught her. “I’m okay. Ravka’s okay. The Second Army is okay. They get to go home soon, actually. Or at least go out and figure out where they want home to be.”

She sits there a while longer, leaning her side and head against the grave, curling up against the hulking black stone as if it’s the person she misses most. She allows the chill of the quartz to seep into her skin and imagines it’s the heat of him instead, imagines his arms holding her and his presence at her side. The rain continues to fall but the oak shelters them from the worst of it and for a slippery stretch of time it’s just him and Alina, as it should be. She sits there until the ache in her chest lessens and then she turns to the smooth stone, pressing her lips against the frigid surface in a featherlight kiss.

“Happy new year, zyoma maya olya, ” she whispers and then she knows, can feel, that it’s time to leave.

Her face and hands are flushed a rosy pink from the bite and snap of frigid breezes when she finally unfolds her stiff legs and stands, tear tracks long dried on her cheeks and tightening the delicate skin beneath her eyes. She trudges back across the palace grounds and tries hard not to step on the new grass, whispering apologies when she crushes the life working so hard to greet the world. She’s grateful for the warm embrace of her rooms and even more grateful when no one comes to search her out, the residents of both palaces too caught up in their festivities and drinking to wonder where their Sun Queen is. Alina crouches in front of the sienna fire dancing away in the fireplace for a long while, slowly turning her hands and warming her fingers until she can easily flex them again.

Slowly she sinks into the chair set before her desk and pulls out a stack of twelve sheets of paper, each thick and creamy and blank. Taking a deep breath, Alina dips her favorite quill into a pot of shining black ink and begins to write. 

The first letter is the hardest and she has to stop several times, tilting her head back and blinking quickly to prevent any tears from warping her words. She sniffles as she signs it and blows on the ink to speed up the drying process, thinking about how the paper in her hands will soon be held by grieving family members. Her words will be read by people who have lost a chunk of their hearts just as she has and so she tries to write the words she’s been longing to read, wanting to say the things that she needs to hear.

Alina’s body slowly thaws as she writes and by the time her blood is running easily and she’s warmed through, twelve letters sit before her. Each is a little different, each changes and spirals to fit the shape of the soldier who she writes about. Each is carefully free of tears but her eyes are heavy with unshed water and she can already tell that tonight will be spent crying into Genya’s shoulder. She should have done this long ago, should have written these letters and gone to visit the families and friends the moment she’d returned. But she’d been too scared and too miserable, terrified of making things worse or of intruding with her presence. There will always be twelve wounds in her heart and twelve names that she will remember, twelve faces she will regret losing and twelve voices she’ll wish to hear again.

Alina has tried to make her awful act better but still sometimes there are just mistakes, terrible horrible mistakes with horrifying consequences that can’t be corrected or ameliorated. Sometimes awful things just have to be endured and the shadow of those things gets pressed upon people’s hearts, dogs their steps and tugs at the corner of their smiles for the rest of their lives.

☀☀☀

Alina’s stomach is in terrible, tangled knots the day of the elections. She can’t eat a single thing, has barely been able to nibble on bread and potato stuffed dumplings these past weeks and she’s bitten her nails down so much that traces of red ring her fingertips. Her head is bare as it always is these days and she’s wearing a very simple emerald dress, not a single sun or bit of gold in sight. Genya watches her calmly as she paces and she almost wants to snap at her friend, ask how she isn’t tied up in knots too, but she’s chewing the inside of her cheek too hard to talk. 

She knows the ministers and courtiers and political advisors, whose faces she’s memorized after more than two months of intensive meetings and arguments, have gathered in the dining hall of the Little Palace to await the results. The ballots have been pouring in over the last several days and though Alina can see now, in hindsight, that it would have been more sensible to begin to count them immediately instead of waiting, at least the counting has begun. An army of clerks are being watched over by members of Os Alta and both palaces alike, women and men young and old who will ensure that the tallying is fair and that each vote is accounted for. It’s going to be an absolutely exhausting and very, very long day and they probably won’t know the results for hours but Alina is already on the verge of a breakdown. 

“Alina,” Genya says but she doesn’t even pause in her endless circuit, now gnawing the skin off her bottom lip. “Come sit darling. It’ll be ages before we have any results to be worried over.” 

“I was just thinking that,” Alina murmurs but she does manage to break her path and collapse half on top of her friend, head thrown back and chest moving with shallow, rapid breaths. 

“Now,” her friend says in a warm tone, reaching down to pet her hair as if she’s a cat, “tell me the worst case scenario and then we can plan for it together.” 

Alina covers her face with her fingers and lets out a little half-laugh half-sob, smiling without humor and closing her eyes against the imminent prick of tears. 

“You know how sometimes you have to do something,” she says and Genya just keeps petting her, the older girls touch cool and soothing. “And you think you can’t keep going, you really can’t, but you know you have to so eventually you get up and do it anyway?” 

Genya hums and Alina peels her sweaty fingers away from her face, feeling how clammy her skin is despite the glowing fire and thick weave of her dress. “I can’t this time,” she tells her friend, looking up at her with imploring eyes that hopefully don’t show just how desperate and shaky she feels on the inside. “I really, really can’t. It feels like if I have to keep going my body will just break apart.” 

Genya looks frightened for a second before she hauls calm over her features, leaning down to press the lightest of kisses against Alina’s damp forehead. “Keep going with being queen, or keep going being alive?” 

The question is casual but her hands tremble atop Alina’s head, cupping her skull as if she can crack it open and poke around at Alina’s brain until she’s fixed. Her grip only tightens the longer Alina is silent, just the two of them in their own little bubble while outside the chamber Ravka grinds towards a new future. 

“Keep being queen,” Alina whispers eventually but her hands are shaking too at how long it had taken her to choose an answer. She feels it when tears slide down Genaya’s perfect nose to land in her hair but neither of them acknowledge it. 

“Okay,” Genya breathes shakily into Alina’s temple, bending over her and curling into her until she’s practically obscuring all of Alina. “That’s okay, darling. You don’t have to keep going for very much longer at all. Just a little bit– and I’ll be here with you for it.” 

“You’ve done so well,” she croons as Alina’s shoulders shake with drawn out, wailing sobs, the heat of Genya’s exhales ghosting over her skin. “I’m so proud of you, sweet girl. You’re almost done.” 

Tears slip down Alina’s temples to dampen her hair and her ears are fuzzy, sound closing off as if she’s underwater. Her eyes hurt already, eyelashes sticky each time she blinks, and her nose feels too dry in the humid warmth of her rooms but she clings desperately to Genya, refusing to let the other girl move away. Everything she’s needed to hear for months and months is coming out of her friend's mouth and it’s all she can do to soak it up, take in the praise and reassuring that she’s helped. 

“You’re almost done, you’re almost done,” Genya chants, pressing the words into Alina’s skin like she can force them into her bones and muscles and use them to keep her upright. “You’ve been so brave, little wolf, and you’ve ruled so well.” 

Alina’s chest feels as if it’s breaking with the force of her cries, dry and stuttering, starting out high enough to shatter glass and ending in grumbling coughs of pain. Both girls’ tears mix together on her skin, coating her face in salt for what feels like the thousandth time. Her hair is damp and her cheeks are damp and she doesn’t know how many tears are left in her before she just gives up on crying and feeling forever. 

“You can rest so soon,” Genya murmurs and the older girl’s voice is cracking too, no longer sweet and soft but now tinged with desperation as she clutches Alina to her. Her fingertips are likely going to leave bruises but all Alina can feel is grateful that someone still loves her enough to try and hold her together. “You’ve worked so hard and done so much for Ravka. I see that and so does everyone else. And we love you for it, but we don’t need you anymore. You can go soon– go and rest and live just for yourself.” 

The girls curl into each other there on the couch, sitting in the same place where a season ago Alina’s oldest friendship ended but instead, as they cry together, her love for Genya swells until her heart is a balloon filled with rosy air. Eventually their tears cease but long after Alina falls asleep, exhausted and emotionally drained, the older girl holds on tight to her and whispers reassurances into her midnight hair, terrified to let go. 

“Live for yourself,” she repeats, over and over and over. “Live, Alina. Please just live.” 

It’s late into the night, almost the hazy gray wee hours of morning, when a frantic pounding wakes the friends. Blearily the girls sit up and frown at one another, hair rumpled and faces creased with sleep around eyes swollen and red from crying. The pounding comes again and, like people possessed, they manage to stumble towards the door and unlock it, leaning against each other as they squint at the Master of Law himself standing before them. The ancient man is dressed in a plum velvet dressing gown, his head bare for once, a flickering candle clutched in one hand while the other is poised to knock again. 

“ Tsaritsa, ” he says, a manic grin spreading across his wrinkled face, and then he catches himself, bushy eyebrows pulling low as he and Alina frown at each other. Her head is just as bare as his and she’s wearing a simple dress but she knows that for this man, who has lived all his life under a monarchy, addressing her as something other than queen must be very strange. 

“Alina,” she reminds him and he nods, though his nostrils flare slightly in displeasure or irritation. 

“The election,” he gasps suddenly, as if he’s just remembered. Both girls straighten, immediately wide awake, hands moving to clutch at one another for balance as they stare at him. 

“Well?” Genya snaps, raising her eyebrows impatiently at the man. “Spit it out! What was the verdict? Did they vote yes?” 

The Master of Law’s smile spreads, if possible, even further and then the girls are squealing and jumping up and down and reaching out to embrace him despite his protests. They don’t even hear when he confirms that Ravka now governs under a rudimentary republic, don’t register his ongoing tally of how many people filled out their voting ballots and agreed to abolishing the monarchy. He stutters and grumbles when they lock their arms with his and drag him towards the great hall but the scene of chaos and jubilation and frenetic energy that greets them infuses their bones immediately. Alina and Genya move among groups of students and nobles alike, hugging and shaking hands and kissing cheeks, most people celebrating or wondering about the future, some people frozen in shock while others seem as if they can’t quite believe it. 

It’s nearing four in the morning and almost everyone is dressed in pajamas– only the clerks and ballot counters wear day clothes and they are still steadily counting and tallying, shouting numbers to one another while scribes run about with boxes and boxes of papers. More piles of papers are stacked high on desks and tables, Ravkan commonfolk moving among them to watch the counters as they go about their monumental task. Chatter swells throughout the hall and trays of fruit and cheese and cookies have been picked over, those who stayed awake all night to watch eating through their apprehension. Chaos reigns and yet Alina feels an enormous beaming smile on her face, sees it mirrored back at her from soldiers and students and common people alike. 

They watch the sunrise together as the last votes are counted and tallied and sorted into boxes, golden pink and lavender turning the glass windows iridescent and setting alight the very first day of Ravka’s new republic. 

☀☀☀

Dawn is just creeping rose and peach hued fingers over the horizon when Alina escapes the doors of the Little Palace for a final time. She pauses on the wide marble steps for a moment and drinks up as much of the world with her eyes as she can, just her and the morning. The familiar trees that shaded her from summer’s heat and fell in fiery sparks outside her window. The sweep of fields in the distance and, if she squints, the top of the oak that stands sentry over his grave. The carefully cultivated flower beds and bushes, the roof of the training hall in the distance and the hulking golden mass of the Grand Palace to her right. This place is so familiar to her now and everywhere she looks there are memories, fragments of more than a year of her life that were spent laughing and crying and living in this place. 

Alina takes a deep breath of crisp winter air and feels the fresh taste of it on her tongue, feels that this is a new year and inhales it in, the freshness and crispness and possibility of it all. This year will be a new beginning for her and though she doesn’t know where she’s going or what adventures await her, she will still set her feet resolutely on her path and begin. Squaring her shoulders she buttons her wool coat and starts slowly, so slowly, down the marble stairs. Each inch of descent is easier than the last. The familiar ache in her body, the slices that have spiderwebbed across her skin, fine cracks from the same little breaks in her soul…she knows it’s time to go. She has known it for a while and had felt the ache in her chest growing each day for the past months but today is the day that Alina can give in and go. 

Sometimes giving up is the strong thing . 

Alina reaches the final step and pauses, feeling the mass of the Little Palace as it hunches over her back, protective as a mother bird before her chick attempts to spread its wings and fly. She almost wants to turn and press a kiss to the white stone of the palace, to reassure it and its buried architect that she won’t allow the world to swallow her up completely.  

Sometimes to run is the brave thing . 

Alina’s boots crunch on gravel as she makes that final jump, an inch or two down but miles in moving her forward. She sets off immediately, walking quickly and thinking only of the future and all the moments– her moments, her best, that are yet to come. In mere minutes she reaches the spiked fence and wrought golden gates of the royal compound. The gates are thrown wide, gravel turning into cobbled streets that lead down into the warren of Os Alta and, beyond the city, open hills and mountains that will eventually turn into another world if she follows them far enough. 

Sometimes walking out is the one thing that will find you the right thing.  

With a bare head and unpainted face, her hair braided back as she had styled it all her life in the countryside, Alina walks forward into the city and away from the Sun Queen. Not a single flicker of sunlight adorns her skin or flares behind her and in the months to come when the residents of the Little Palace interrogate the citizens of Os Alta for any information on the disappearance of the Sun Saint, only one old man will mention the strange girl who walked past his kitchen window– and no one will pay him any mind.

The light of the rising sun gilds rumpled edges of clouds a deep gold and, mere minutes after the echoes of one girl’s footsteps have faded from the cobblestone streets, soft golden daylight will wash the world clean anew. 

Chapter Text

clean - taylor swift 

Alina walks and walks, her jaw and neck so stiff from not allowing herself to turn and look back at the shadow of Os Alta in the distance that a headache begins to pound at her temples, tiny fists of rage sending lashes of pain skittering through her thoughts.

Sunrises fall over her in a shower of pastels that she gobbles down, memorizing the layers of color and shades of light as if she can make it all her own just by seeing it.

The moon rises and falls, rises and falls, a taunting mirror in the star speckled sky that she can stretch her fingers out and run towards but never, ever reach.

The silvery glow of it pulls her forward, a ghostly path of moonlight draped across night dark landscapes to guide her. So Alina places one foot in front of another and follows the moon's gleam, walks through sunlight and moonlight and starlight because while the sky is above her she is never without a roof. 

The aching emptiness in her chest begs her to consume, to take and take of this world that she thinks she maybe saved in another life.

Each tree and stone and flower is hers; Alina conquers it all just by passing, just by looking and touching and smelling and breathing.

Alone in the great expanse of life she wants nothing more than to stretch out her arms and wrap them around every bit of life, curl continents and oceans and mountains into her chest. To hold seas and forests and deserts against her shoulder like a sleeping baby and hush all those heartbeats until they relent to her will, slip inside her skin.

She can’t drink the world up quickly enough, slurping the colors and breezes and freshly pressed newness down as hungrily as a starving child set free in a realm of fancy.

She kneels on top of sloping hills and glances back at where she’s come from, traces the ghostly path of her former self as she huffed and puffed and moved forward, inch by inch.

She purposefully turns to look ahead and tumbles onwards, falling into movement and momentum because she can’t allow herself to stop until the ache in her chest has lessened with distance.

She inhales earth and growing things, the smell enough to make her want to unhinge her jaw and swallow the world up, hold the green pearl of it close beneath her chin or cradle it in her belly to protect it.

Alina is alive and though she may be struggling to remember it, her graying fingers loosely wrapped around her thread of vitality, the rushing movement of the world as she discovers it anew is a beast roaring in her ears to remind her what living means. 

☽☀☾

Her bones pull taught at her skin while hunger gnaws frantically at her insides, a trapped rat of desperation tucked between lengths of regret and coiled up miles of sadness.

The joints in her fingers swell stiffly and her knees shudder and ache with each step, the very calcium in her skeleton protesting as she continues and continues and continues. 

Sometimes she collapses in fields of vibrant swaying grass, lies flat on her belly and presses her cheek into the earth and waits to die.

Sun beats down on her, sheening her skin golden and dusting her cheekbones with a constellation of freckles. Rain plasters her hair to the contours of her skull and slides down the knobs of her spine in a chilling caress. Breezes batter her body and blow her about until she’s dry once more, the elements smoothing her sharp lines with sharper edges until, like sea glass, she is worn down.

Water fills her lungs, drowning her until she can finally breathe again, every trace of him washed from her skin and memory until she’s finally clean.

He is gone from her body, gone from her thoughts, gone from the space in her chest, a perfect storm of black skies and clouded shadows overtaken by a rainstorm of life after, all of him washed away by the cleansing fall of water. 

Alina’s legs give out on a pale, thin curve of beach hugging the ocean’s body. When she collapses onto the soft sandy-earth ground, she barely cares.

Her limbs are too leaden with exhaustion to move but she blinks at the soft black velvet of the sky dumbly and scrabbles her heels into the sand, attempting futilely to continue forward.

The aching emptiness in her chest will overwhelm her if she stops moving, if she just lies here and breathes and so she must go on. 

The night is silent save for the gentle lapping of waves upon sand and occasional calls of web-footed birds in the darkness.

Alina turns her head until she can press her jaw into the soft gritty sand, already feeling the warmth of daylight leached from her body though the air is warm.

Idly she digs her fingers into the cool grains, sluggishly moving her limbs until she’s made a macabre snow angel with the last drops of energy in her frame. 

Blinking slowly, Alina takes in her last view of the world, velvety dim sky and velvety dim water. She thinks she might die here, on this quiet beach in a forgotten corner of Ravka, far from any helpful roads or travelers.

She doesn’t much mind the notion. 

The gentle shushing of waves seeps through her ears into her bones, relaxing her muscles bit by bit as the sky darkens gradually, midnight to ebony to onyx to jet black.

Her body settles into the sand, tiny stones almost cradling her as if they spent hundreds of years being beaten down by the ocean just to give her this final embrace. 

It’s as her eyelids slip closed that the moon finally begins to rise, the glowing pearly edge of it peeking over the horizon.

A path of silvery moonlight shines atop the waves as the moon climbs higher and higher in the sky, leading directly to the girl on the beach who has finally slipped into sweet unconsciousness.  

☽☀☾

Miles away, a small boat of fishermen returning home ceases their conversation in favor of staring at the brightest moontrail they’ve glimpsed in years.

The path of silver light ripples gently with the motion of the waves but still clearly lays directly ahead of the prow of their craft. 

The men exchange a few hushed words, arguing with each other. Soon, though, curiosity wins and they dip their oars into the water and begin to row.

Old myths of treasure at the end of the moon, stories of granted wishes and selkie’s tears. Miracles granted by a silvery goddess, celestial luck raining down upon seaside villages in the form of falling stars. 

The line of moonlight only brightens as the small craft inches forward mile by mile.

The sea is strangely smooth around them as if all the forces of nature are conspiring to ease their way, silver light rippling in a clear path that leads towards a distant shore.

☽☀☾

Alina wakes in an unfamiliar room, tiny and sparsely furnished but clean and white and airy nonetheless. 

Crisp sheets are tucked around her in a way that makes her long for her childhood and when she sits up, honeyed morning sunlight tickles her cheeks and nose. 

Blinking, Alina rubs at her eyes and wonders vaguely if perhaps heaven is real. 

Her body aches faintly, lines of pain radiating down her spine and across her ribs when she twists, though. She winces and adjusts her perception of reality– not heaven, then, no matter how sweet and salty fresh the air smells. 

Her eyes skate over the unpainted wooden walls and bowls of seashells, gauzy curtains fluttering in a breeze that drifts lazily through the half-open window. The square of sky she can see is perfectly pale blue, richer and more beautiful than any shade of silk Genya had ever shown her. 

She feels as if each of her senses is slowly coming back to life the longer she sits in the soft bed and enjoys the breeze, inhaling the salty-sweet air. Her fingertips glide over the crisp white sheets and it’s as if she can feel every thread and imperfection in the fabric, tiny bumps and strands making themselves known. 

With each breath she can almost taste salty ocean spray, fish scales and seaweed and the grit of sand coating the back of her tongue. 

Her head moves slowly when the door opens, her eyes taking a moment too long to focus on the round woman smiling at her from the doorframe.

Gray wisps of hair curl around her red apple cheeks and she’s dressed in cheerful yellow, a clean apron tied around her generous waist.

Her face is so kind and open that Alina’s eyes prickle, her long ago yearning for a family rising up with a sudden vengeance. This woman looks exactly like the childhood imaginings she’d created of a grandmother, soft and warm and smelling of cookies. 

“Goodmorning, dear,” the woman says and her words are so thickly accented that Alina tilts her head in confusion, straining to parse understanding from the oddly rounded syllables. 

“How do you feel?” The woman continues, bustling over in a rustle of skirts to set a steaming tray of food upon the small bedside table. 

Alina tracks her movements, whole body tensing even as she freezes all her muscles. Against the sheets, her fingertips curl, tiny flickers of sunlight trapped between her palms and the cotton. She can’t instinctively feel danger from this woman, but Alina has survived too much in the past year to ever trust so easily again. 

A bowl of rich, creamy soup studded with chunks of potato and orange carrots sits beside two slices of bread, freshly baked probably. There’s a little dish of butter and a tall cup of water, the ceramic pressed with indents like it was made by hand. 

“We were so worried when the men showed up with you,” the woman tells her, her face curved into a warm smile that Alina refuses to allow to touch her heart. 

She steps back from the bed and folds her wrinkled hands over her chest, looking at Alina with nut-brown eyes. There are deep crow’s feet pressed against the edge of her temples, creased like she’s lived a life full of laughter. 

“Such a little thing,” the woman tuts, shaking her head like it’s Alina’s fault that she isn’t well-fed. As if that was her foremost concern. “Just a slip of a girl, hmm? Well, no matter! We’ll have you well fed and on your feet again in no time.” 

Alina huddles her spine against the pillows and pulls her arms in close to her body, staring at the woman in fuzzy confusion and distrust.

She doesn’t understand anything about this, can barely work out what this stranger is saying under the curve of her accent. She has no idea how she got here when the last thing she remembers is lying on a beach and staring up at a full, rising moon. 

Alina hates the idea of being brought here without her own explicit consent. The thought that she was unconscious, vulnerable and spread out on that beach…a wild animal gnaws at her insides, snapping and snarling at her to protect herself in whatever way possible. 

“I’ll leave you to eat, dear,” the woman tells her kindly, bustling over to the window and fully drawing back the curtains.

She lingers for a moment, fiddling with a bowl of shells, picking up a tall white candle and then setting it back down again. It’s clear she doesn’t quite want to leave, probably wants to stay and press Alina for answers. 

Alina just watches her, a tightness in her chest as if she’s just tried to run an entire race. She wants the peace and quiet of her own company, wants to exist without anyone else’s gaze on her. She’s sick of being looked at and examined and worried over, completely done with being the center of any attention. 

The woman gives her a last, warm smile and then finally turns towards the door. Her short fingers are just curling around the antique metal doorknob, Alina’s shoulders ready to drop and release all the tension she’s gone…

“My name is Bilgunn,” the woman tells her, spinning around remarkably fast for someone of her apparent age.

Her face is still warm and open but there’s something like worry in her eyes, little pinches at the corners of her mouth. 

“I want you to know that you’re safe here, and very welcome for as long as you’d like to stay with us.” 

When it becomes clear that Alina isn’t going to respond or move at all from where she’s hunched into herself, staring back with wide eyes and an expressionless face, the woman deflates just the tiniest bit. She doesn’t seem disappointed, exactly, more just– sad.

Still worried, leaning forward a little on her tiptoes as if she’s aching to help Alina but doesn’t know where to start. 

“Dear girl,” Bilgunn starts, her tone a little wavery for the first time.

Her hands are clasped over her plump waist, red cheeks and dark eyes giving her such a look of safety that Alina manages not to flinch at the question that she knows is coming.

 “I do not wish you to share anything you aren’t ready to, but – how did you end up on that beach? Our fishermen only found you because of the moon’s blessing. Are you hurt somewhere?”

Alina’s nostrils flare as she inhales heavily, tears already welling in her eyes while she stares back at this stranger who is so concerned for Alina’s sake that she seems to be in pain. And really– how can Alina answer this question? 

Is she hurt somewhere? Yes, of course she is.

She hurts everywhere, is sliced and cut and bleeding all over. There’s a slow fraying of her soul, a thousand invisible strings that had been anchored in her heart now blowing away in the wind one by one, light as spider silk.

Each string carries a fragment of her heart, a memory or a smile or the feeling of fingers around hers. 

Alina aches with every movement, her thoughts a whirlwind of scouring sand and piercing shards of pink glass. And the silence inside her, that great yawning thing that has coated every inch of her in white nothing and is constantly fighting to drag her down… 

Yes, Alina is hurt, but not anywhere that Bilgunn can bandage or soothe. She is alone in her pain just as she is alone in her heart, the twin shadow at her side long extinguished by her own burning sunlight. 

So Alina shakes her head in the tiniest motion possible, chin wobbling and lips pressed tight together as she tries to hold back the swelling waves of sorrow and pain. She will not cry until she is alone and the older woman must see some of that determination in her face. 

Bilgunn nods to herself, firm and sharp. She gives Alina one last smile and then quickly sees herself out of the room, closing the door so gently behind her that Alina’s tears overflow at last with that one small, thoughtful gesture. 

☽☀☾

Alina doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know what to do. 

The flowering heads of her emotions have all wilted and gone to seed, withered brown spikes where once there had been a meadow of color. Of feeling. 

She doesn’t respond whenever Bilgunn tries to speak to her and eventually, thankfully, the short little woman always goes away. Leaves her alone, leaves her to the roaring silence in her head. 

Alina curls up on her side and stares at the stark whiteness of the wall, losing herself in the lack of color. In the lack of anything, flat and unmade as she is. 

If being Queen of Ravka was the marrow in her bones and the mettle of her spine, the food that filled her belly and the purpose under her footsteps… 

Alina doesn’t know what to do, now. She doesn’t know how to be. 

There is nothing to keep her going, no goal to work towards or glimmering promise of achievement on the horizon. 

She had done what she had set out to do, had worked tirelessly for the country he loved so much. She had done it for all the children, had done it for the young men and women who marched off to die.

She had done it for her friends, for herself, but most of all it had been an act of love for him.

An offering to reach beyond the silvery veil of death, a mating gift even as her heart had ceased to be echoed by the beat of his. A final farewell. 

Alina has fulfilled her purpose, has done all she had set out to do. Her list of chores is fully crossed off, the expiration date on her future come and gone. 

Now all that lies ahead of her is a blank stretch of time, so much possibility that it overwhelms and terrifies her. 

From a girl raised in an orphanage, hampered and held back by her failing body, to a girl mated to the most powerful man in Ravka and under his control, to a queen beholden to thousands of watching subjects. 

How do heroes go back to living, once their fabled journeys are over? 

Is it easy? Alina doesn’t think so. She can’t imagine the Saints of history books doing their weekly shopping in the market, settling down and raising children or taking up a new trade to support themselves. 

They are larger than life and so it seems impossible for them to return to the rhythms and routines of normal people. 

Those heroes and Saints and great warriors were burning stars, shining brightly enough to accomplish their moment of glory. They lived for a singular task and once that feat was accomplished, well… it feels wrong for them to linger. 

Alina isn’t proud enough to think herself a hero, and has always shied away from the mantle of Saint. 

But still she finds herself drawn to the idea of a shooting star, brighter than all the rest but because of that brightness, snuffed out quickly. Her longevity is limited to the purpose she served and now, she is unneeded. Unnecessary. 

Her life as a Saint, as a queen and ruler and maker of new worlds, has burned out. Burned to an end.

And now, like a phoenix, Alina must claw a new life and a new person from the ashes and smoke of who she was before. 

Alina’s life has never been her own to control or determine, has never been a thread in the weave of fate that she was able to pluck. 

So she closes her eyes against the whiteness of the room around her, the lack of color too similar to the way she feels and looks inside herself. She is nothing but nothing, an echo where there should be music, an empty mirror where there should be a reflection. 

Alina softens her breathing into sleep, painting over the whiteness of her mind with dreams of a full moon hanging low and silvery purple in a dusky sky. 

☽☀☾

On what is perhaps her ninth or tenth day in the little white room, Bilgunn stands over Alina and doesn’t go away even when she rolls into a ball and closes her eyes. 

“Up, lass,” she commands, hands braced on her ample hips.

Her face isn’t angry, exactly, more caught between a cross of worry and frustration. “Lying in bed any longer will do you no more good.” 

Alina shakes her head, feeling vaguely stubborn and petulant as a child but also absolutely unable to care. 

Her lunch sits on the bedside table, once again untouched. She’s only sipped at the cups of water and occasionally nibbled on bread, refusing everything else the woman brings her no matter how delicious it smells. 

“Sweet girl,” Bilgunn coaxes, settling onto the foot of the bed with a sigh, her bones audibly creaking. She’s careful not to touch Alina, having realized already how much Alina keeps her limbs tucked into herself. 

“It’s time to leave this room. Come sit downstairs and eat, hmm? Set your eyes on new scenery?” 

Alina opens her eyes but just stares straight ahead, most of her vision taken up by the starched whiteness of the pillowcase under her cheek. The sky is slate-gray today, not a hint of sunlight to be seen. It looks how Alina feels exactly. 

“There’s a lovely berry pie that just needs crust,” the old woman wheedles, slowly laying a small palm atop Alina’s blanket covered calf.

She flinches but then settles, slowly relaxing back into the mattress. 

Alina hasn’t spoken a single word since waking in this small room, has refused to even tell Bilgunn her name or anything about herself. She shakes her head or nods, or simply shuts off the needs of her body and falls back into sleep. 

Alina finds the silence in her mouth fitting, the way that it matches the silence inside her.

There’s nothing that makes her feel as if she needs to speak, the steady stream of words that has always lived inside dried up and dusty. 

“Come and look at the ocean, at the very least,” Bilgunn tells her, soft like she’s close to giving up.

And Alina doesn’t know why, but she listens. There’s a spark of something in her, the tiniest flicker of color before everything fades back to silent white. 

The older woman helps her from bed, a firm arm around Alina’s thin waist as they walk slowly towards the door. Leaving her room produces an immediate gut-response in her, a feeling of wrongness, of insecurity. 

She stops in her tracks, bare toes pressed against the worn wooden floorboards, eyes wide as her heart starts to patter into the familiar drumming beat of panic.

This isn’t– she isn’t safe.

This isn’t okay. She needs to go back, needs to wrap herself up in the calming white of her room, the now familiar scent of her bedsheets. It’s too open out here, too many things overwhelming her senses in this tiny hallway. 

Bilgunn halts next to her, snowy head tipping up to study Alina. She must be able to read some of the freezing, icy panic creeping up her bones in the expression on her face. 

Without saying anything, Bilgunn guides Alina back into the safety of her room and settles her once more in the small bed. She tucks the sheets around her like she’s a child and fluffs the pillows for her, not a drop of disappointment or anger in her features. 

Just quiet acceptance of Alina’s boundaries, understanding that she is not quite ready yet. 

“We’ll try again tomorrow, dear,” Bilgunn murmurs, dropping a soft caress on top of Alina’s head. And then she leaves the room, making sure to close the door right behind her. 

That evening, sitting up in bed once her heartbeat has thawed and slowed to its regular weak patter, Alina eats half the bowl of beef stew she was brought for dinner. She can almost taste it as she chews. 

Alina and Bilgunn do try again the next day, and the day after that. 

Alina makes it another foot or two down the hallway before she freezes again, locking up and going solid. On her third day she almost reaches the top of the stairs before icy fear swells up to overwhelm her. On the fourth day she doesn’t get out of bed at all, refusing to even open her eyes when Bilgunn lays a wrinkled hand against her brow.

And so they go on like that, young woman and old struggling together to break Alina out of the bars of her own fear. 

By the end of the first week, Alina can walk all the way down the little hallway to the top of the stairs.

She knows more about Bilgunn too, now, the woman chattering about everything and nothing as they take slow, hobbling steps across the wooden floorboards. 

Alina learns that Bilgunn runs and owns an inn, taking in any stray travelers but mostly hosting fishermen and traders who pass through the small village.

The woman’s mate died long ago and though her voice dims when she speaks of her love, it brightens again as she tells Alina all about her grandsons.

The two men work with her, helping with the maintenance of the inn as well as catching the fish and fresh seafood Bilgunn serves to her guests. It is obvious as the woman speaks how much she adores her grandsons, voice affectionate and proud while she tells Alina about their largest catches and the time one of them found a pearl and gave it to her. 

Alina listens but does not speak, often panting through her teeth as she just tries to place one foot in front of the other. Her body is still weak, muscles thin and limp as she slowly recovers from her days of sleepless wandering. 

Bilgunn is careful never to ask Alina questions about her past or how she wound up on that remote stretch of beach. The older woman does not ask if she has a mate or a family, doesn’t question where she’s from or why she chooses not to speak. 

Bilgunn simply continues to accept her exactly as she is, simply fitting Alina into her life and her routines as if the younger woman belongs. She does not attempt to erase the fact that Alina is a stranger and is unfamiliar with this place, but the older woman quietly reassures her that she is welcomed with open arms.

That she is wanted, for some incomprehensible reason, as long as she wants to stay. 

Alina sets her bare feet down on the very first step and then sinks to the floor, curling over her  knees as sudden tears surprise her. Her sadness is a little weak after so many days of living in it, more tiring than cathartic by now. 

Bilgunn creakily squeezes down beside her and rubs gentle hands over Alina’s back as she shudders and heaves through her tears, hiccuping no matter how long she holds her breath for.

“It’s alright, darling,” the older woman whispers reassuringly, nudging their shoulders together lightly. “Crying is very natural. You’ll feel better once all those tears are out.” 

Alina nods, because she knows, vaguely, that crying for help most people. It’s a release for them, a flowing over of sorrow until they’re completely dried up and spent, emotions recalibrated to an equilibrium.

For her, though, tears fall whenever she loses her concentration. And the well of sadness inside her never dries up, never even lowers an inch or two.

She is constantly full of blue-gray sorrow, in danger of leaving a wet trail of indigo footprints wherever she goes. Sadness follows her no matter the path she walks.

By her third week of living at the little seaside inn, Alina can make it halfway down the stairs. Her breathing is still raggedy and she has to mostly crawl down the narrow steps, but she can do it. She can venture outside her room, if she wants to. 

Bilgunn has begun to bully her out of bed each morning with firm words and bright smiles, sitting Alina down on the wide windowsill to eat her breakfasts.

The older woman chatters away constantly, telling Alina all the village gossip, describing the changing tides and seasons of the ocean.

It doesn’t make much sense at first but soon Alina finds her gaze drifting to the tiny, colorful boats that glide in and out of the harbor. She watches fishermen in rain-slick coats and wide brimmed hats haul nets of silvery fish from their boats, watches them empty round lobster traps and throw bags of muscles over their shoulders.

She likes the funny little pipes clenched between their teeth and the scruffy white beards most of them seem to favor, a certain look about these seafaring people that reminds her of honest comfort and laugh lines. Alina spends hours curled up on the wide windowsill, chin propped up in her hand as she watches the activity at the harbor with wide eyes. 

Sometimes late at night when she can’t sleep and the moon isn’t there to comfort her, Alina will crawl from her warm bed and press herself up against the chilly glass. She’ll search the dark line of the ocean for the glowing beam of the lighthouse in the distance, yellowish light rotating and rotating in a pattern that lulls her. 

Alina’s socked toes touch the wooden floorboards of the first floor of the inn almost exactly a month after she’d arrived. Her heart is racing so quickly she feels nauseous but Bilgunn is beaming at her, round little cheeks red with happiness. 

“Sweet girl,” she says, steadying Alina with a wrinkled hand, “I think you deserve something good to eat after making it all the way down here. Don’t you agree?” 

Alina blinks until her vision stops swimming and nods a little too quickly, sounds strangely distorted in her ears. Mostly she can hear the rushing of her blood as her sprinting heart cycles it around and around her body entirely too fast. 

The kitchen is warm and cozy and exactly what Alina had expected from Bilgunn. There are cheerful curtains drawn back from the windows and a line of copper pots shine where they hang from nails along one of the walls.

There are open cupboards filled with stacks of plates and bowls of all sizes, neatly arranged. Glass cups reflect light back from a higher shelf and an enormous collection of mugs and beer tankards crowds another, a mishmash of colorful glazes.

Bunches of drying herbs and braided ropes of onions and garlic bulbs hang from the ceiling, a few familiar plants Alina can identify.

There are neatly labeled glass jars holding staples like flour, sugar, oats and lentils and beans, a well stocked spice rack nailed to the wall above them. Alina spots two doors, one likely for the pantry and the other heavy and thick, probably an exit to the back of the inn. She knows there’s a cellar out there as well as a little smokehouse Alexei built for his grandmother as a birthday present years ago. 

 Bilgunn settles her at the long scrubbed kitchen table, the wooden surface nicked and slightly stained from years of use.

Alina runs her fingertips lightly over the smooth wood, imaging the memories that have been made here. All the meals that have been cooked, the late night conversations in candles’ glow and the sunrise cups of tea.

A life, lived together and in purpose of other people, part of a community and part of a family. 

Bilgunn sets a bowl of warm, sweet smelling oatmeal down in front of Alina. There’s chunks of melting butter and swirls of brown sugar, little trails of heavy cream making tiny rivers.

It tastes like cinnamon and childhood when Alina takes a bite, heavy and rich on her tongue. She gulps it down, barely chewing, wanting that warmth to settle in her belly. 

Bilgunn gives her a fond look and bustles around the kitchen with purpose, pulling spices and ingredients from boxes and baskets. She clearly belongs in this space, knows exactly where everything is and is in complete rule of this little queendom.

Alina scrapes the bottom of the bowl with her spoon, barely holding herself back from licking it. She feels a little bit wild with life, true hunger raising its head for the first time in ages. The kitchen smells like every good thing she wants to eat and images pop into her head, all of them so delicious that her mouth waters. 

Bilgunn sets a beautiful teacup painted with stalks of lavender down in front of her, a large tray of frosted cookies making her eyes go wide. The tea is fragrant and milky-sweet, bergamot blooming on Alina’s tongue and making her eyes water. 

She sips her tea and steadily nibbles through several vanilla butter cookies as Bilgunn chops and mixes and cooks, the kitchen warming and growing fragrant.

It feels cozy and safe with the two of them there, the world shut out from their peaceful bubble but still visible through the windows if Alina wants. 

She slowly relaxes into her chair, her heart calming and the cold sweat drying on her back and palms. The kitchen isn’t quite as good as the peace of her room but the golden warmth here is a different kind of safe, familiar and acceptable as long as Bilgunn is with her. 

By the time Bilgunn is placing two bowls full of delicious smelling food down on the table, glasses of water and heavy silver forks beside them, Alina feels almost— happy. 

She sits up a little straighter in her chair, darting glances between the bowls of creamy pasta and the older woman’s face.

Bilgunns’ round cheeks bunch up as she grins, flyaway white hairs curling over her forehead. The sleeves of her green blouse are rolled up and there’s still an apron tied around her waist, frilled and white. 

Alina waits until the older woman is seated to pick up her fork, biting down hard on her bottom lip as she waits to be allowed to eat.

It feels just like her time at the orphanage to be sitting here at a kitchen table, about to eat in her nightgown and with bare feet. It’s truer than any of the elaborate feasts and formal meals she took part in at the Little Palace, harkening back to everything Alina is familiar with. 

The pasta is studded with chunks of salmon and tastes of butter and parsley and lemon, a creamy sauce that Alina immediately loves. She twirls her heavy fork in the food and eats well, enjoying this meal more than anything made by the royal chefs. 

Bilgunn keeps up her gentle flow of conversation while they eat, telling Alina about the sweater she’s knitting and how the heroine in her book is too silly to realize she’s already met her mate.

Alina nods at all the right places and finds herself almost wanting to ask questions, words curling on her tongue for the first time in forever. 

She’s so invested in her food and the one sided conversation that when the thick wooden door opens and two tall, broad young men tramp in, she startles badly. 

Alina drops her fork and shrinks down in the chair, curled up and as tiny as possible. Her mouth falls open as she sucks in shallow breaths and she stares at the men with wide eyes, watching them, ready to react however necessary. 

The safe warmth of the kitchen has been destroyed, golden glowing peace shattered so easily that Alina is reminded why it was a bad idea to ever venture out of her room. 

The men are dressed in tan trousers and tall boots, knit sweaters under layers of coats and jackets and scarves. They’re each holding large sacks of something, sucking up all the air and space in the little room simply by existing. 

Alina wants them gone.

She bares her teeth at them in silent warning, a thread of sunlight running down her arms to pool in her clenched palms. If they come closer, if they try to touch her or Bilgunn— Alina will blind them.

One of them– blonde haired, the beginnings of a beard on his ruddy cheeks– smiles broadly at her, looking as large and imposing as a giant. He’s big, the top of his wool cap almost brushing the ceiling. He sets the sack in his hands down with a loud thump, the sound making the tiny hairs on Alina’s neck rise.

She wants to hiss at him like an angry cat, wants to swipe him away with claws of sunlight. 

“So,” he says, voice deep and rumbly like a bear, “the little moon blessing finally makes an appearance!”

The other man, not quite as tall and dark haired instead of gold, rolls his eyes to the ceiling in a long-suffering expression Alina had seen many times at the orphanage. 

“Alexei,” Bilgunn says and they all look to the older woman, a tiny bit of the tension bleeding out of Alina as she remembers she isn’t alone in this room. Bilgunn is still cradling a cup of tea between her hands, a gentle smile on her face as she looks at the young men. 

That smile cools Alina’s sunlight a bit more, her spine going lax as she blinks and glances back and forth between the women and the men. The more that she looks, the more she can see the similarities in their faces. 

They both have Bilgunn’s sparkling brown eyes, and when she glances at them she sees that they’re smiling, warm and kind. Not dangerous, as she’d first thought– no, despite their size, these strangers don’t seem as if they want to hurt her. 

“Dear girl,” Bilgunn says, reaching out with one small, soft hand to hold Alina’s. Her face is kind and open as always, though there’s a little wrinkle between her brows, like she’s worried about how Alina will react. “These are my grandsons.” 

The dark haired one raises a hand in a wave, the other working to shed his layers of clothing. “Dmitri,” he says, his voice a little less loud than his brother. Alexei, still grinning at her, introduces himself as well, both of them staying where they are instead of moving closer. 

Alina sniffs the air without any trace of guilt, trying to discern their secondary genders beneath the scents of salt and fish and woodsmoke they carry with them. Alphas, she decides quickly, though nothing about that really matters.

It’s not as if wolves mean anything to her anymore, not with a dead mate. Her own inner wolf has curled up and retreated completely, silenced by an endless hibernation. That space in her chest, in the back corner of her mind– it’s empty. 

Any trace of him is gone, her soul and mind wiped clean. The garden of their affection, the place where her memories and feelings for him had lived and breathed and pulsed with color– it’s been walled up, shut away. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” Dmitri tells her, hanging his coat up by the door and looping his scarf around the hook as well.

His face is clean shaven and he looks only a few years older than her, a little quieter and calmer than his brother. He also isn’t quite as large and Alina likes that, feels like maybe she could grow to tolerate him. 

“What should we call you?” Alexei asks, moving over to the counter and beginning to pile a plate high with pasta. She follows his movements, eyes tracking his broad frame because there’s still tension lingering in her and she isn’t quite ready to let it go yet. 

“Alexei,” Bilgunn admonishes, a small frown appearing on her face as she shakes her head at her grandson. “That isn’t polite. She is our guest and you will respect her comfort and her space, yes?” 

But Alina’s thinking, mulling over how to communicate her name without speaking. She supposes she does need to give them something to call her by, instead of Bilgunn’s endless supply of affectionate nicknames. 

“She’s a blessing from the moon,” Alexei says, leaning against the counter as he twirls a fork in the pasta, blonde hair falling around his face. “Maybe we could call her Luna?”

Dmitri settles beside his grandmother, across the table from Alina. He’d moved so quietly and slowly that she hadn’t even registered him, the slight smile he gives her further settling the fear flaring in her lungs. 

“That’s a nice name,” he adds and then he ducks his head and tucks into the meal, Bilgunn reaching out to affectionately tuck some of the dark hair behind an ear. There’s so much love on the old woman’s face as she looks at her grandsons, the softness in her more evident as she asks if they enjoy the food. 

Alina watches both young men eat for several long minutes, fingers uncurling and anxiety settling the longer that they don’t jump up to attack her.

Alexei stays tucked against the counter, his tall frame still unsettling her, but the easy conversation he keeps up with his grandmother does nothing to set off alarm bells. He cracks little jokes and grins when Bilgunn laughs at them, reminding Alina more and more of a gentle bear than a giant.

Dmitri eats quietly and neatly, complimenting his grandmother’s cooking and getting up to make her another cup of tea. She laughs and calls him sweet, the invisible ties of a family shimmering in the air clearly for Alina to see. 

Slowly, Alina picks her fork up and takes a bite of her now cool food, finding she is still hungry. The chatter around her doesn’t stop, the young men telling Bilgunn about their catch from fishing and the pod of dolphins they’d spotted, but she does feel them glancing at her. Dmitri even asks her if she wants more tea too, but doesn’t seem discouraged when she shakes her head. 

She finishes eating as the young men take second helpings, discussing with their grandmother what to make for their guests that night, the upcoming autumn harvest festival, the village dog that had just puppies. It’s mundane, easy and familiar, clear to hear in their words that these men have grown up and lived in this community all their lives.

They fit here, in the small warm kitchen with their grandmother, just as they probably fit with the ocean and fit with the other villagers. Alina’s heart hurts, jealousy and longing swelling in equal measure. She wants a life like theirs so desperately, wants to find her place and make a family, wants to grow roots deep into the soil of a corner of the world and anchor herself to that little microcosm. 

Dmitri gathers up the dishes when they are finished eating and begins the process of washing them, sleeves of his sweater rolled up as he dips his hands into sudsy water. Alexei walks around the edge of the room and bends over the large cloth sacks, probably about to start cleaning and sorting their catch of the day.

Bilgunn waves her hands at her grandsons, creakily getting to her feet as she tells them both that she can do their jobs, can wash the dishes and then clean the fish. 

Dmitri and Alexei both laugh, glancing at their grandmother without pausing in their tasks. Their faces are warm as they look at her, love and affection so clearly shared and mirrored between all three members of their small family. 

“Go and rest, grandmother,” Alexei tells Bilgunn, standing to wipe down the table with a cloth before hoisting one of the sacks atop it. “You don’t have to worry about helping us.” 

“We’re very strong,” Dmitri adds, grinning over his shoulder, a streak of water shining along his cheek. “And very well fed after that delicious meal.” 

“Well, alright then,” Bilgunn says with a smile, untying her apron from around her waist and hanging it up by the door. “If you insist.” 

There’s a familiar rhythm to the words, as if this is a little ritual the family goes through every evening. Bilgunn trying to shoulder all the work and her grandsons shooing her off to rest, each of them acting as if it’s an argument when really each of their words is underscored by affection. 

Alina stands too, realizing that the older woman will be leaving soon and absolutely unwilling to stay in the kitchen without her. She’s also longing for the safety and peace of her room, eyes aching a little from the assault of colors and things.

She wants that clean whiteness back, wants to curl up in her window and watch the moon rise over the water. 

Alina dips her head in a little goodbye to the two young men, both of them waving to her before returning to their tasks. The kitchen is still warm and golden even as true evening falls outside, candlelight flickering like little suns. The image is comforting, something about the sounds of cooking dinner and washing dishes settling the last bits of fear still caught up in Alina’s insides. 

She and Bilgunn ascend the stairs together, moving slowly through the indigo shadows. The temperature drops as they climb up step by step, hands clasped because they’re both steadying each other. 

They take breaks together, huffing and puffing, full stomachs slowing them down. Alina is trembling by the time they reach her door, Bilgunn’s face flushed a darker shade of pink and little flyaway curls falling every which way. 

“Good night, sweet Luna,” Bilgunn tells her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder and looking up at her with a warm-hearted smile. “I wish you nothing but pleasant dreams.” 

Alina nods, her throat closing up a little bit, the taste of bergamot and sugar cookies still lingering on her tongue. She watches the older woman turn away from her, small form starting off down the hallway to her own room. 

“Thank you,” Alina mumbles, the word croaky from weeks of tamping her voice down. Bilgunn falters, then glances back at her with bright eyes, both of them caught up in a moment of understanding. 

Thank you, Alina means, for caring for me.

Thank you for welcoming me into your home, thank you for walking up and down those stairs with me day after day. Thank you for not pushing me to speak, thank you for bringing me food even when I wasn't hungry. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

☽☀☾

to my youth – bol4

Alina spends a large portion of her days outside, walking the beach for miles and not talking to anyone. 

She takes her shoes off and digs her feet into the sand, just taking in the sounds of the ocean as she walks and walks. She collects seashells and bits of colorful glass washed up on the beach, little treasures spurring her on, pieces of the ocean to carry home to her room. 

She doesn’t go very fast and there’s no destination to her wandering— when she’s tired, or hungry, or simply longs to no longer be buffeted by salty wind, she turns around.

Her muscles build up again little by little, legs able to carry her further each week. 

Some days the thought of leaving her bed and the tranquil, quiet whiteness of her bedroom is still too much.

And sometimes when Alina is out on the beaches, cold spray nipping at her face and her only companion the lonely calling of gulls above, she feels as if she’s drowning in melancholy.

The beautifully beautiful memories of her past are like shining shards of a mirror, silver pieces of her life that reflect faces and people she longs to see.

The memories hurt her, are painful just like the sharp edges of glass. The faces and people slice at her even as she admires the silver shine, her friends and all those people only looking at her.

They are a reflection and so is Alina, who she is to them not how she really is and yet she can’t recapture either version of that person, just continuing to drift further and further away. 

Alina is as timeless and ageless as the ocean that she walks beside, her heartbeat as steady and everlasting as the pounding of the waves.

It is a thought that rushes up over her sometimes, tugging her mind in a riptide towards the deepest, darkest depths. Seafoam swirls at her fingertips and coats her eyelashes, salt on her cheeks and lips and pooled in her eyes. 

The ocean is her and she is the ocean and they are together in this world, rolling a slow and endless march of life as their pulses rise and fall, rise and fall. 

Alina will turn back quickly then and go sit in the little inn's kitchen, quietly chopping vegetables for Bilgunn or washing dishes. 

The light and warmth of other people, the busy bustle of life, draws her away from the yawning stillness that she and all elemental forces share in their unending lifetimes. 

Alexei and Dmitri will flow in and out of the small kitchen, new faces popping up every so often and then slowly becoming familiar as Alina learns names and makes her silent introductions. Bilgunn has a wide circle of friends and they are all eager to meet the moon’s blessing, to greet the silent, pale girl who always seems half-caught in a dream.

But the people of this tiny village are gentle with Alina and she is eternally grateful for their care, tears trembling in her lashes each time the white-haired men and women include her with ease, without any questions.

The inn owners’ friends appear sometimes with clothes that they have ‘found’ in the back of their trunks which they outgrew long ago but somehow miraculously fit Alina, warm wool skirts and linen blouses suited to her new life.

Dmitri patiently teaches her how to fish and even baits the silver hook for her when she can’t bear to do it. They spend hours sitting at the end of one of the docks in the small harbor, Alina too wary of the great expanse of the sea to go out in a boat yet.

She feels safer when there are walls around her and solid earth under her feet, something about the wide openness of the water unsettling her whenever anyone suggests a trip out.

Alexei compliments everything she makes as she learns to cook under Bilgunn’s watchful eye and teases her gently when she forgets to remove the bones from a fish one night. 

The little family of three easily opens up to embrace and include her, and the whole village easily follows suit.

Everyone seems to know Alina before she even meets them and the very first time she ventures out to the weekly Saturday market, trailing behind Bilgunn with slow steps, cheerful faces turn to greet her and hands raise in welcome. 

They do not know the reflections of her past or the people she has been, the masks she has pulled over her features. They know only Luna, a blessing granted to them by the moon and under Bilgunn’s care. 

The beautifully beautiful memories of her past are cleansed from Alina as she is accepted and taught by each villager, drops of affection pouring down on her and washing away every iteration she was before until she is only the version of herself that belongs here in this little village by the sea. 

She claps along to the music played at the autumn festival and nibbles at puffy bread shaped like fish with wide eyes, grinning at Alexei and Dmitri and Bilgunn where her little family laughs at her reaction.

Her room fills with seagull feathers and smooth stones that feel nice in her hands, ribbons for her hair and the beginnings of a sweater that she’s knitting. She plays with the village dog and watches the puppies grow larger, adorable and fluffy. Alina attends the winter solstice celebration of the entire village, old heads and young side by side as they sit at an enormous table and pash dishes from hand to hand.

She lifts her eyes to the sky and tastes the first snowflakes of winter on her tongue, breathing in clean coldness. Alina spends many frosty evenings knitting beside the fire with Bilgunn and her grandsons, Dmitri reading storybooks aloud to them while Alexei carves and paints little wooden animals for summer traders.

Together they cheer the first flowers of spring and dance around a maypole, ribbons twisting in a complicated braid that’s as tightly interwoven as this community Alina has joined. Under warm sunshine she plants seeds alongside men and women and children who have come to know her, who she has come to know and care for in return.

She walks through the village and greets everyone by name, a large basket looped over her arm as she shops at the little market for the ingredients she and Bilgunn will use to make dinner for the inn’s guests. 

Alina has a life, here, carving out space for herself just as the village and its people open up to allow her in. She knows what each day will look like, knows that she is known and wanted and loved in return. 

The saying that time is medicine rings true for her, each day softening the slicing pain of her memories, the ache of who she was in another life growing distant.

As the days go by she really does get better, really does feel her smile widening and her will to live returning. She is a withered flower slowly reviving, sparks of golden happiness lighting up her heart sometimes as she lives and lives and lives every day. 

But sometimes, when Alina feels that happiness, when she laughs at a joke or curls up in front of the fireplace with a warm cup of tea, she’s afraid.

She’s scared she’ll be in pain again, remembered hurt lancing phantom slices across her heart. She’s afraid that her happiness will be taken away, afraid that she’ll tumble once more into that silent, white place where nothing had mattered or sparked any emotions inside her.

Alina is afraid that this person she’s become here, this life she’s built and wrapped herself up in, will be taken away from her.

She’s terrified of losing her happiness, clutching at the golden sparks because she’s afraid, so afraid, of losing this life just as she’d lost her other lives, her past selves. 

☽☀☾

Almost a year after she had been rescued by a little boat full of fishermen, Alina sits in the kitchen with Bilgunn, warm candles dripping wax on the windowsills and a gray autumn day creeping under the cracks in the inn. Rain patters gently on the roof and is blown in sheets at the windows, the view of the faded indigo ocean distorted and wavy. 

Alina is making bread, the fresh scent of yeast homey and familiar as she works her hands through the repetitive motions.

Once the dough has been fully worked it will be tucked into a bowl and set high on a shelf to rest, slowly rising until it’s full of lovely bubbles. Alina will sprinkle the dough with flour and slash little marks in a leaf pattern along the top, will serve it at dinner alongside Bilgunn’s hearty fish stew and little balls of creamy butter. 

“I don’t know how to be,” Alina admits quietly, her fingers stilled atop the sticky dough.

White flour is buried under her nails and dusts the skin up to her wrists, finer than any lace gloves. 

There are hot tears welling in her eyes, threatening to fall if she blinks or sniffs too loudly. She can feel them teetering on her lashes, surface tension just waiting to be broken so they can pour down.

Bilgunn hums, the gentle scrape of her wooden spoon against the bottom of a pot reaching Alina’s ears. It’s familiar, cozy and homey. 

Alina doesn’t think she would be able to have this conversation anywhere else but in this tiny kitchen that smells of herbs and salt. It’s probably where she feels most comfortable, after the beach or the tiny bed in her room. 

“Don’t know how to be what?” 

The tiny woman doesn’t look at Alina as she asks the question, still stirring absentmindedly. Alina is so grateful for that kindness. 

“Anything,” Alina whispers, biting down hard on her bottom lip. “I don’t know how to exist as myself anymore. I don’t know who I am.” 

There’s silence for a long while, the scent of slowly browning onions and garlic and herbs filling the air. Rain beats steady fingertips on the roof, their world turned into a little bubble of warmth and hazy comfort.

Bilgunn shifts her weight from side to side, adding punches of spices to her big pot, a platter of fish and cut up vegetables ready to be added soon.  

Alina stares down at her flour covered fingers until her eyes go prickly and then she starts to knead the dough again, slowly and methodically. The push and give of the yeast and flour under her fingers calms some of the screaming in her mind, the tearing at the threads of her heart. 

“You don’t have to be anything, sweet girl,” Bilgunn offers at last, her words calm and easy as if they don’t mean everything to Alina. “But if you want something to work towards— be content. Be at peace.” 

“But how do I do that?” Alina croaks, staring at the back of the older woman’s gray head as if she can crack it open and study all her years of wisdom about how to go through life. 

“Try a little of everything,” Bilgunn responds, pouring a large bowl of water into the pot before she finally, finally turns to look at Alina. 

Her wrinkled face is soft, a depth of love in her brown eyes that makes Alina’s chest hurt.

She wants so desperately to carry that same surety in her bones that this woman does.She wants the confidence of knowing herself, the peace of being set upon the right path. 

Alina wants to find her place in life– any place, really, but eventually a home and a corner of the world that belongs to her, where she belongs. She wants to find what the older woman has in this little seaside town, wants to carve out a spot for herself and stitch together the patches of her life as she’s witnessed here. 

“Dabble in everything this big old world has to offer until you find the things that make you happy. That’s how you’ll come to know yourself, sweet girl.” 

“I don’t think that’s enough,” Alina says desperately, tearing the sticky dough underneath her fingers. She’s staring Bilgunn down, the pain in her chest worsening because this advice is lovely but it isn’t for her. 

Alina needs more. She needs better advice, needs a more concrete explanation. 

She knows happiness is out there, knows it’s a possibility, now, for her to come to know herself. To understand who she is and then begin to live as herself. 

But Alina— she doesn’t want the platitudes of the elderly who will tell her to follow her dreams, who reassure that everything will be well in the end. She doesn’t need the reminder that every young person struggles, that no one truly knows what they’re doing. 

No, Alina needs more than those false promises. She needs the truth of it, needs someone who can peer at the broken mess she is inside and reflect their sewn up wounds back at her. 

“I never–,” she says haltingly, needing to express what she feels but not sure the right words will find her tongue, clumsy and heavy as it is.

“I couldn’t– my whole life, I haven’t been able to know myself. I had to…at the orphanage, I was an omega and I was a sick girl and I was half Shu. Everyone saw those things and pressed the weight of them down on me. I didn’t get to grow up without those boxes, not ever.” 

Bilgunn just watches her, leaning back against the rounded edge of the counter. Alina’s staring down at her hands, gazing at her fingers like if she looks long enough she’ll be able to see through the skin and fine bones to who or what she is. 

“Everyone’s always told me who I am and how I was supposed to be, before I could learn those things for myself.” 

What makes her Alina? What makes her a person? What shaped her? Who is she now and who does she want to grow into?

“And this past year,” she says, her voice breaking even as a lump rises in her throat, makes it hard to breathe and impossible to swallow. “I had to be a certain person. I couldn’t be anyone but that image of myself. So I don’t really…I don’t really know who I am. I don’t think I ever have.” 

Bilgunn lays a warm hand on Alina’s shoulder, swollen fingers bleeding warmth into her. 

Alina tilts her head back and sniffs hard, hoping the tears on her cheeks will run back down her throat and into her head once more, balling up the sadness instead of allowing it out.

She’s sick of crying all the time, sick of puffy eyes and delicate red skin. She doesn’t want to be sad anymore, doesn’t want to fall asleep to salted pillows and damp temples. 

“You have time now, darling,” Bilgunn says slowly, peering up at Alina from under her snowy eyebrows.

She’s short and round and wrinkled, her spine stooped with age and her hands rough on Alina’s arm from years of labor.

But she smells like warm bread and herbs, and she looks at Alina as if she will care about her no matter who she turns out to be. She has given Alina the motherly affection and warm love that she has been missing all her life, gently carrying her back to life. Reviving her. 

Alina bends down and wraps her arms around the older woman, her flour coated fingers now growing dry and stiff. She doesn’t care at all– she can always make a new batch of bread, can knead the dough again and bake it anew. 

Life offers more than just one chance and for the first time in a long while, Alina thinks maybe she could allow herself those chances. She can be allowed to fail, allowed to climb back up and try again. 

Allowed to rest, if that’s what she wants. Allowed time to breathe, to try out all the childish fancies hidden away in her heart. 

“You can take as much time as you need, sweet Alina,” Bilgunn murmurs, her arms clasped firmly around Alina’s back. She’s rubbing soothing little circles over her spine, warm and calming. 

Alina sinks into her embrace, smothering her tears in the older woman’s shoulder that smells of fresh air and the lavender soap they use to wash their clothes. She feels as if she is in the safest place in the world, warm and comforted. 

She feels like everything will be, finally, maybe alright. 

Still, despite the tangled reflections of herself and all the versions of a person she’s been, maybe she can be a bright light in this world. 

Maybe she can look past the shattered fragments of the mirror of her memories, past the beautiful pain of her past and of the people she was. 

Maybe after all of that pain she can shortly shine a light with the remainder of her life, of her time as this person she is now. 

So Alina can’t give up. She isn’t going to. 

Perhaps this is why she hasn’t been able to sleep for so many nights throughout the past year of her life, has instead curled up in her window and watched the phases of the moon paint the sky silver. 

Maybe if she keeps trying to get up like this, keeps allowing time to heal her and fade the past ghosts of her different selves… Alina will find her self. 

“Even if it takes you years and years to know who you are, that journey of discovery is still part of your becoming. There is no perfect path for you, dearheart. There is just the path that feels right to you; but you can step off that path whenever you wish. You can turn around, you can go back or pause or make a new path altogether.”

“It’s all up to you, darling. No right or wrong, just your choices,” Bilgunn murmurs, rocking Alina lightly in her arms as they stand hunched together in the middle of the small kitchen. 

Waves roll faintly outside in a neverending rhythm, the calls of gulls winging far above now familiar and expected. Everything is soothing hominess and sleepy seaside comfort, life slowed into a syrupy glaze that allows Alina time to simply be.

“You decide it all and that’s okay. It’s okay. Whatever you decide, whatever you want, whatever you choose to give up or keep– I support it all.” 

Alina doesn’t really know when she starts to openly cry.

Just that Bilgunn’s shoulder fits the curve of her cheek perfectly. She nestles down in the older woman’s arms and lets out all the fear and anxiety and worry she’s been holding within herself for the past year, a well of emotions so deep she can’t glimpse where it ends. 

The older woman’s words are the beginning to a letter she’s needed to hear perhaps her entire life, the first notes to a lullaby her inner child has been longing for.

☽☀☾

blowin’ in the wind - peter, paul, & mary 

Alina boards a ship bound for Ketterdam and spends days clutching at the railing, inhaling salty wind until her cheeks are red and sunburnt.

The kisses Bilgunn and the others had pressed on her face linger in ghostly traces, memories of affection that make her smile whenever she looks at the ocean. They had all shed tears while they bid her goodbye, the taste of salt so familiar that Alina hadn’t even noticed her own damp face. 

Alexei and Dmitri had caught her up between them as she stood beside her horse, ready to leave, and whispered in her ears that they loved her. The men she had been so afraid of at first had grown to be her brothers, her protectors and her guides and her dearest friends.

They are a part of the family she carries in her heart, names carved in her chest just as the village and every person in it had grown to feel like family. 

Bilgunn had wrapped her short arms around Alina too, the four of them caught up in an embrace that said all the things they no longer had words for. I love you, Alina had thought, burying her face in Bilgunn’s shoulder and crying great sobs even as something in her told her it was time to go. I love you and I will miss you desperately, each of you.

She had stepped back from her adopted family, wiping at her wet eyes, wishing more than anything that she could stay with them even as the world called to her in a siren’s song. 

You will always have a home here, Bilgunn had told her firmly even as her own tears fell. She had gripped Alina’s hands in hers, strength in her small fingers.

No matter who you are when you return, or which name you bear. You are our blessing from the moon, sweet Luna, and this village will always remember you. We will always welcome you, no matter when you come home. 

In her tiny cabin, tucked away carefully inside a beautifully embroidered handkerchief, there are two milky white shells, the insides a lovely glossy rose pink. There is a sand dollar, perfectly round and unbroken, yet to be spent. And a cookbook full of recipes written in a rounded, familiar hand, Bilgunn’s accent almost audible through the shape of her letters. 

Alina’s heart is tearing in half, a section trailing in the ocean behind her and being washed back to the little inn while the rest thumps wildly in her chest, excited and nervous for what lies ahead.

She’s as hungry to finally see the world as she is sad to watch it pass away behind her, unmoving on the ship and yet constantly ferried forward. 

Bending over the rail of the ship, her cheeks pink and her hair damp from the constant spray of water, Alina writes her very first letter to Genya.

The words come slowly, letters jagged and spiking on the page as if she has to force them from her fingertips. But for the first time in many sunrises and sunsets, there are things Alina wants to tell her friend. There are memories she holds close to her chest, bright and shiny, that she wishes to share.

The first hazy shapes of hopes and dreams, a new horizon to look towards forming in the distance in place of what had only once been bleak white. 

Alina writes and writes, her smashed and crooked heart unfurling like the flowers of a petal in warm morning sunshine.

She discovers there is an entire flood of words that have been locked away in her chest simply waiting for her to be ready to spill them to her dearest friend. Musings and little jokes and questions, so many of them, all about Genya’s life. About Ravka. 

My dearest friend, she writes, glancing up at the pale blue sky, evening clouds rolling in as a ghostly waning moon looks back. I think perhaps I have found a new dream for myself. I want to live in happiness, once I can find it. 

How many years must she exist, Alina wonders, before she’s allowed to be free? How many years can a mountain stand before it is washed to the sea– and how many years will she have before she, too, is dragged under by the slow erosion of time. 

As she walks along the canals and over the bridges of the twisting, maze-like city, Alina gets lost in the sea of black-coated businessmen and traders and bankers. She has no aim other than to wander and the busy crowds take advantage of her slow pace, flowing around and in front of her with no regard to her overly large eyes or pinched mouth. 

Alina scolds herself for being scared– she’s faced down the Fold and won, had led an entire country for months by herself.

There’s no reason for her to feel like a lonesome little girl, no reason that she shudders and cringes away from crowded spaces. She is powerful, even alone, so she squares her shoulders and ducks her head and works hard to shoulder through the crowd. 

She follows the wonderful smell in the air to the nearest tucked away shop and orders a crunchy, warm waffle drenched in golden syrup and sprinkled with sugar. It tastes so good that she has to force herself to chew slowly, taking tiny bites as she walks through winding cobbled streets and squares full of pink-footed pigeons. 

Alina is too shy and nervous to ask any passing strangers for help so she wanders and wanders until she finds an inn in a tall, slightly leaning building, the top an odd spiking series of squared and rounded stone.

She musters up her courage and gulps in a deep breath, entering the inn meekly as if she wasn’t a queen in another life. She thinks she perhaps hands over more small golden coins than she should have to the owner, but her room is clean and even boasts a tiny glass window that overlooks the street. 

Alina presses her nose to the thick glass and peers out at the buildings and rooftops of the city, watching the flow of people and carts and running children while her heart beats and beats in her chest.

Her excitement is still tinged with sickly blue terror, a longing for the little white room by the sea already starting up in her belly.

But Alina is determined to be here, determined to push through her fear and apprehension to move forward. Like a wounded animal she had healed and rested by the sea, had learned how to breathe and smile and laugh again. In the salty air she had learned the tools necessary to begin to spread her wings, had been given the vitality to want to go back out into the world. 

She doesn’t go down to the communal dining room that night, too overwhelmed and exhausted to bear the idea of introducing herself to strangers. Instead she washes until the dust of travel no longer lingers on her skin, cooling her flushed face. 

Alina curls up under the crisp, unfamiliar sheets of the small bed, blowing out the candle and staring with wide eyes at the strange shadows of the room.

She feels unsettled, uncomfortable even as her body sinks down into the mattress. She knows instinctively that she is very far away from any kind of home, miles and miles from anyone who knows her or will search for her in a crowd.

She wraps her arms around herself and tries to ignore the faint strains of loud singing from the street outside, tries not to be bothered by the play of light through the window and the discomfort of an entirely new environment.

Alina is incredibly aware of how alone she is in this small room, the faint puffs of her breathing. She knows life is all around her, knows there are people and conversation just outside these walls but it all feels unreachable.

She feels as locked in a box as a precious jewel, kept away from everything that could connect her to humanity.

She is caught in a cage of silence and timelessness while the river of life flows for everyone else; a current that will never touch her, will never carry her forward. 

It is half a cage of her own construction, metal bars twisted from her fears and apprehension. But the lock on the door, the unbreachable floor and ceiling— those are crafted from the evermoving current of time.  

Alina tosses and turns for hours, trying every position as she waits and waits for sleep to claim her. Her head is spinning fast enough that she feels dizzy and she’s exhausted from traveling to Ketterdam, from all the newness.

All she wants is sleep, the fuzzy warmth of rest. 

How many more times can she start over, she wonders, before she is finally able to distance herself from her past and her memories. She wishes she could find the answer in the breeze, wishes she could look up at the sky or divine the phases of the moon to be told the truth.

Like a white dove searching for peace, Alina wonders how many seas she must sail before she is able to sink peacefully into sleep, buried under sandy layers of soft blankets. 

Gradually shadows creep across her pillow as night descends, though the sky outside her window never reaches a true black. Instead it cycles though lavender to plum to navy, the diamond flecks of starlight dulled by the city’s lights. 

A crescent moon rises, just a sliver of silvery craters shining down on her through the tiny window. The moonlight is distorted by the thick glass, splayed across her face and cheeks like flecks of paint.

With the familiar face watching over her through each of her dreams, excitement for the city she will discover in the morning beating in her chest, Alina finally falls asleep at last.

☽☀☾

the dreaming - monsta x 

Alina travels as if it is her only prerogative in life, moving and moving in the way she had in the days after leaving Os Alta behind. She never stays anywhere for long, allowing herself to be pulled whichever way the wind tempts her.

She stabs her fingers down on maps with her eyes closed and hot he arises until she feels like stopping, readily stepping off the beaten path if something catches her fancy.

She asks locals for their recommendations and falls in with groups of traveling minstrels or traders sometimes, talking with anyone and everyone who is willing to strike up a conversation.

The dirt and dust of the open road seems permanently ground into the hems of all her clothes, sun burning permanent freckles across her cheeks and shoulders. Alina just keeps moving and moving, going on with bright eyes because she is sure there is always something bright waiting to be discovered on the horizon, almost within her grasp.

The possibilities are endless and so she travels from city to town to village and back again, sleeping in barns and inns and strangers' spare rooms. In warm countries she makes summer fields her beds, the moon her watchful night light as she slips into silvery dreams.

In a land crusted over in thick layers of ice Alina sleeps in a hut made entirely from blocks of ice, warm beneath her layers of furs.

She traipses though humid forests buzzing with the sounds of terrifying and iridescent insects, wiping sweat off her face as she nibbles sweet fruit and looks at animals she could have never even imagined. 

She sails the seven seas twice over each, marveling at the different shades of blue as she hangs over the railings of ships.

She tries her hand at being a pirate but soon gives it up when she realizes it’s much more cleaning the deck and sitting around waiting than it is actual swashbuckling and raiding for gold. There’s also a decidedly dissatisfying lack of treasure hunts and too many men with scurvy for her taste. 

Alina works in libraries and tiny book stores and in dusty museums, cradling old books with gentle hands and learning everything she can about bookbinding. She loves the process of shedding old and faded covers for a new suit, redressing beloved stories in jewel tones and fine fabrics. 

Alina teaches school for a while in a tiny rural village, staying longer than she should because she desperately loves her tiny class of children and wants to see them grow up. Her heart splits in half the night she finally leaves and, after that, she never works with children again.

It is entirely too painful to watch the passage of time press a hand against other lives while passing her by completely. 

Alina learns to sew dresses and makes her own clothes, adopting fashions and styles from every culture and time period that she visits. She dyes her hair every possible shade of the rainbow and knots strands of beads into it, cutting it to her chin and then letting it grow long enough to sweep her hips.

She changes so often that sometimes she doesn’t recognize herself in mirrors or smooth ponds, the person she feels like entirely disconnected from her physical representation. It is better to be a chameleon, though, than confront the memories of her past. 

So it is in this way that the weeks and months and years pass, always new paths to be traveled and uncharted places to be discovered.

Alina loses herself in maps and long-forgotten mountain villages, running through fields of grass and soaking up everything she can without a thought for the trickle of time. 

There is no specific goal she is running towards, no award or achievement to shine golden bright upon her horizon. There is merely a vague idea of happiness, of content and peace far off as she races through life. 

If finding the gold at the end of the celestial arch is losing the rainbow, Alina isn’t sure she wants it. Is the reward of one thing truly worth losing the experiences of journeying to reach it? 

The colors will be there, of course, even after she finds happiness. The world will still be around her, bright and wide, but those colors– they’re not the same, though. 

Perhaps she will know her happiness the moment she has it, will recognize its face even as it looks back at her. But perhaps getting to hold it, cupping that happiness in her hands– doing so lets go of the magic. 

Alina will never get over the view from the top of a mountain, won’t ever stop reaching out to ring bells and listen to their shimmering chime. 

But if touching the sky is the reason she is reaching her fingertips out, stretching up and up– is she missing the point? Is she missing the meaning? 

Is it the moment of grasping that happiness that she is working towards– that sense knowing that she’s accomplished her goal, of seeing all her running come to an end. Or is it the dreaming that sweetens the journey for Alina; the dreaming of what could be, the illusions and wonderings of possibilities. 

Alina is not always perfectly grateful for the gift of her long life, though, no matter how colorful the passing of time can be. 

Sometimes as she travels she feels herself becoming desensitized to the wonders of the world, passing by beautiful buildings and sweet flowers as she thinks of nothing but finding a bed for the night.

She wanders into so many churches that she ceases to marvel at the swooping ceilings and stone arches, forgets to be impressed by snarling gargoyles and rainbow stained glass windows. 

She visits so many cities that they begin to blend together, golden palaces and grand stone arches and pyramids of glass blurring before her eyes. She looks at feats of architecture and engineering until she begins to yawn, and then she travels through hundreds of museums and studies famous paintings until she is no longer curious. 

Mountains and rolling hills look the same to her, everything that is meant to be new instead resonating with her memories of Ravka. Spices and flavors that would have once made her eyes sparkle are bland on her tongue, everything tasting of gray sameness. 

Each fresh city and memory and landscape makes her think only of her homeland, all of the places she travels to relegated to comparisons with her memory. 

The world loses its shine for her, no longer a new treasured possession but rather a tired and worn out thing, unable to shock or excite her. Her heart no longer beats for the thrill of adventure and discovery because she believes there is nothing freshly made to see. 

Sometimes she wonders if this is her first death; the one of her soul, of her hunger and joy for life.

Physically she is breathing and sleeping and eating, going through the motions of living year after year. She blends in with the people around her, smiles at babies and makes meaningless conversation with shopkeepers who engage her. 

But her heart has ceased to beat for the zest of life; the melody of rushing blood no longer calls to her in a siren song of vitality. 

When Alina realizes that she no longer cares for the great things in each new place she travels to, she chastises herself. 

She forces herself to visit the incense heavy cathedrals and tour the palaces full of mirrors, makes herself open her eyes wide and take in the great parks and stone plazas and enormous fountains crafted by masters hundreds of years before. 

She huffs and puffs her way up mountains to watch the sunrise, her breath hanging in frosty little clouds in the air.

She visits temples and bows her head to receive the blessings of many different religions, inhaling the scent of sweet marigold flowers. She eats everything that catches her eye and walks among rice fields and forests of bamboo, listening to the light singing of the wind. 

She stares at pastel dabs of color until they solidify into sunflowers and lily ponds, and she resolutely visits the great sights of each new city. 

Sometimes she doesn’t have the energy to drag herself out of bed though, can’t fathom sliding cloth across her skin or braving the eyes and voices of other people.

On those days she cocoons herself beneath the sheets of whichever inn she’s chosen and plugs her ears with her fingers, breathes her own air over and over until she’s used up all the oxygen. 

Inevitably she will cry and inevitably she will think of him as salty sadness wets her cheeks.

Her heart aches in the same intense, piercing way no matter the rising count of passing years. It is a pain so physically real that sometimes she has to press her fingertips over her breastbone, rubbing the hard plane of bone in an attempt at relief. 

Alina doesn’t like to think of him, doesn’t like to allow her memories to rise up because they always threaten to consume her whole. So she cries until her pillows are soaked and she’s too exhausted to keep going, falling into restless sleep and waking with a puffy, pink face. 

She paints over her thoughts with a familiar white brush, drawing upon some of the blankness that had swallowed up her mind before Bilgunn showed her life was worth living.

And the memories that pierce at her chest like little shards of metal, twisting her insides and ripping squishy pink– Alina locks those up tight in a chest, then dissolves the key. She refuses to remember, refuses to think of him or their time together.

It is simply too painful for her to handle, too much for her fragile mind and frayed soul.

It’s easier, too, if she chooses not to dwell on him or the year they spent together.

Alina decides that portion of her life is something best forgotten and works her hardest to allow it to drift off into hazy half-remembered scenes, not entirely substantial. 

And so she has days where all she does is cry, and then the next morning she picks herself up and forces herself to find the biggest crowd of people to lose herself in.

She sits in busy cafes and watches the faces that pass, listens to conversations in some languages she understands and some she doesn’t. Alina goes to markets in large stone squares and touches everything for sale, smelling beeswax candles and listening to street musicians play with obvious adoration for their craft.

She sits in churches, sometimes, when her soul feels very lonely and she wants to be reminded of how tiny she is.

Something about the soaring ceilings and the knowledge that the most beautiful buildings were put together by humans who lived long before her, who labored with their hands to create loveliness just because they believed so strongly– it helps, a little. 

Alina likes to feel the weight of history around her, likes to remember the enormous lifespan of the earth. It helps her to know that even if her own lifetime will be longer than usual, in the grand scheme of seasons she is still just a tiny dot. 

Alina learns to manage her loneliness as she sees the world.

She learns to hold herself at night and she learns how to content herself with only her touch. After several years her skin ceases to ache for the brush of contact and she even begins to avoid others, purposefully maintaining a strict boundary of space around her body like an invisible shield. 

She learns how to enjoy the quiet peace of her own company.

It isn’t easy at first, or comfortable, to go to museums and markets and soaring attractions alone. It makes sweat slide down her neck and prickles rise along the surface of her skin because she’s so incredibly aware of the fact that she is alone. 

Her heart aches when there is no one to discuss a beautiful painting with. Meals eaten alone, a solitary cup and set of cutlery.

Miracles of the world that she sees but can share with no one but herself, experiences that are trapped in her memories without anyone to reminisce over them with.

Glorious sunrises and curiously shaped clouds, songs Alina wants to dance to and fireworks that would be better if they were watched by two awestruck gazes. 

Alina thinks that’s what the heart of the trouble is for her; she can enjoy her own company, can go out and live in the world by herself if she so chooses.

Once she has experience in being her own dearest friend, once she is able to push through the feeling and see the things she wishes to despite the lack of echoing footsteps beside her, she realizes she doesn’t truly need anyone. 

But somehow, this life she is living is better and brighter if it can be shared with someone. 

She misses Genya desperately, misses having a familiar face to walk towards in a crowd, misses the warmth of knowing there are people waiting for her return and searching for her just as she searches for them. 

Alina writes to her friend constantly, describing the furry snout of a gargoyle she glimpsed crouching on a church, or the currant pastries she ate for her morning meal. But even as she works hard to keep her words cheery and bright, she cannot help but to be honest with her oldest friend. 

My dearest, Genya, she writes, tucked away in the sunny corner of a little cafe in a part of the world that is constantly bright. Cheerful music drifts through the open window, the tiles beneath her slippered feet a brilliant shade of blue. 

I was so sure that happiness was somewhere out in the world, just waiting for me to discover it. I thought I could look and look for it and possibly find it by the way, completely by accident. But I think now that maybe happiness is in me, not in the world.

What I want, that feeling I’ve been chasing from country to country– I think I can have it anywhere, once I’m ready to.

But Genya, she writes, dipping her head as she traces the quill in her hand over the letters of these words, when will I be ready? 

Alina knows she isn’t ready to face Ravka again. Her heart still quivers in fear at the thought and she knows she must be cautious, must wait until the memories of the Sun Queen are long and faded things before she can set foot on the shores of her homeland once more. 

Yet she longs for her country, longs for the familiar landscapes and the sound of the language that she still dreams in, even after so many years.

She may have spent more years of her life traveling the world than she has in Ravka but yet it is the country of her heart, the place she will always call home and always wish to return to. The country she finds most beautiful, no matter how many troubles may plague it, the one place she feels as if she truly belongs. 

Alina counts on her fingers and then a piece of paper how many years she thinks she’s been away from Ravka, wrinkling her brow as she tries to recall the passing of time. She isn’t sure the years have reached a high enough number, yet, and she isn’t willing to risk being recognized or remembered despite the heavy longing in her chest. 

Genya, she writes, quill moving slowly over the words of a letter she never intends to send. I wish to return home more than anything else. I miss Ravka, so very much. I believe it’s where I could be happy, could feel happy. I think Ravka is where I could be ready for happiness. 

☽☀☾

One morning when she sits down for a hot cup of tea, she looks around herself and sees the people who seem so vibrant, so young and energetic and full of life.

And all she wants to do is stop. 

Alina is tired, deep down to her very bones. 

She realizes that what she wants, more than anything, is a home.

A permanent place where she will belong once more, a place to which she can always return. An anchor, a burning hearth, a library full of books and a garden green with vegetables. A space for her to rest. 

A space of her own, a room of her own, a home of her own. 

She’s in a country that she can’t remember the name of, immersed in a language she can’t speak without anyone waiting for her to return home to them. When she glances out the windows of the little cafe she’s in, she feels no desire to go out and continue to explore. 

Her body is tired after years of running but more than that, her mind and heart are worn thin with exhaustion. 

She has learned how to be with herself in a sea of people, knows now how to move through cities and strangers without feeling saddened by her aloneness.

But she thinks perhaps she needs to go a step beyond that, needs to learn not to be frightened by the solitary sound of her own breathing in a silent forest or on an open, dusty road. 

Her curiosity and wonder have dried up after years of taking and seeing and feeling; the world is a feast and Alina has gorged herself well, but now she is finished. 

So Alina packs up her menagerie of belongings and her trunks of books and purchases a ticket on a ship bound for Ravka. 

People swarm around her as she makes her way up the gangplank, single passengers and families and young men with hungry eyes ready to gobble up the chances of the world. 

She pictures herself as she looks to the beady eyes of the screeching seagulls above, circling on currants of air. She must seem so small, so incredibly solitary among the flow of people living this moment to the fullest. 

The excitement on their faces does nothing to stir her, the calls to friends waving from the dock and loud bursts of laughter passing over her with no effect. 

Like an unmoving shadow, she stands alone, a splotch of darkness among the colorful vibrancy of fleeting life and youth. Of adventure, excitement, thirst for the fountain of glimmering newness. 

Throughout the journey across the rolling sea, Alina speaks to no one. She retreats to her cabin and longs for Ravka despite the fear coiling in her stomach and turning her face green. 

Her heart races whenever she thinks about where they’re going, half caught between fear and anticipation. She finds herself regretting her decision, thinking that she should have waited longer before boarding this ship or perhaps never come at all. 

Alina’s stomach erupts into butterflies too, though, when she allows herself to remember that she’s returning home. I’m going home, I’m going home, homehomehome.

There’s so many things that she’s missed about Ravka that she is now only just remembering with each passing day that brings her closer to her birthplace, foods she wants to eat again and places she’d like to visit. Holidays she’s excited to celebrate and the shape and sound of her native language, the syllables on her tongue that she hasn’t used in years. 

Her dreams are colorful flashes of the past, the laughter of the children she’d grown up with at Keramzin loud in her brain.

The pastries she’d loved best, the rugged landscapes and harsh winters, all of it growing clearer and clearer in her memories and thoughts. She shifts through her clothing and picks out a blouse and skirt that are most similar to the fashion of her youth, hoping styles haven’t changed too much.

She doesn’t want to be looked at as a foreigner on the day she returns home, doesn’t want to be shunned or stared at when she finally walks on Ravkan soil again. Alina isn’t sure her heart would be able to take that. 

The day their ship docks in a city port, a bustling place Alina doesn’t remember and isn’t even sure of the name of, her heart is caught in her throat. Her breaths are leaping wildly, lungs fluttering, and Alina feels as lightheaded and dizzy as if she’d just run a race. 

Her trunks have been packed for days, her chosen clothes wrapped around her body and her hair neatly braided back. She is as ready as she will ever be and yet her hands are damp with sweat, a trembling sick feeling swirling around her belly as she waits on the deck with all the other passengers. 

Alina shifts from foot to foot, heart hammering and hammering, jolting as the line starts to move down the bridge and onto the docks. She drags her trunk behind her, muscles straining, the dreams she’d been chasing after and cultivating shining brighter and brighter until her feet finally hit the ground. 

Alina is home. 

☽☀☾

cherry wine - hozier 

Alina pays a farmer to allow her passage at the back of his empty haycart, loading her trunk and two suitcases upon the rickety planks. 

Her feet dangle over the road as they rumble off, paved stones instead of the beaten earth she remembers. 

Alina watches everything they pass with wide eyes, more starved for the sights and sounds of Ravka than she’d realized. Everything seems to be the same and yet she can feel the weight of the years that have passed in the air, her memories of her home dusty in old boxes at the back of her mind. 

She is terrified to discover all the things that have changed and grown in her absence, a horrible sinking in her stomach as she realizes that life in her country has continued along without her. 

It is the realization of a small child upon returning home to their parents and seeing that the world has not halted while they were off having their adventures. And yet it is no less painful than the first or the second or the millionth time.

There is an idealized version of home that lives in all of our heads, a dreamy realm that is constantly waiting for us and will remain unchanging forever until we are there to shape it with our own hands. 

Alina is experiencing the shock of understanding she is not the sun and Ravka – all of time, in fact – is not heliocentric to her needs and experiences. She has known, in a vague sort of way, that years and years have passed. But it is easy to lose track of time,  of the events that shape history and landscapes while one travels. 

Alina builds her home in the dip of a little valley, fuzzy green mountains rising up to shelter her on all sides. 

She starts alone at first and then realizes that she knows absolutely nothing about how to build a house. So she asks the kind owner of the inn she’s staying at in the small village for the carpenter’s address and then finds her way to his workshop, a little shy as she asks him if he knows anyone who would be willing to help her. 

After three days of visits and making her introductions to many large and burly men, Alina’s purse is much lighter and she has a house to be built.

She goes with the team of men as they venture out into the woods to cut down the trees for her cottage, asking questions and refusing not to help when they try to shoo her away. Her hands quickly bubble with blisters and she ends each day of work with aching muscles and sweaty skin, but she refuses to stop.

There is so much to learn and Alina is ready to soak it all up.

She’s also excited to help build her cottage because it will be her home and so she wants it to come, even just a little, from the labor of her own hands. 

All summer long she works alongside the men, planing boards and learning about wood joinery. She tries very hard not to get in the way of the much more knowledgeable men but still she learns, doing anything she can to help. 

They pause in their work at the end of the summer and Alina helps with the village harvest, spending long hours in the fields as hot sunshine beats down on her neck and shoulders.

She picks beans and digs up potatoes and lays onions out to dry, slowly accepted by the villagers who are already familiar with her face. They ask her about where she’s from and why she had chosen their small corner of Ravka to make her home, knitting their brows sometimes at the old fashioned way that she speaks. 

But they hear the truth of her heritage in her words and accept her story of growing up in Keramzin before departing to see the world, welcoming her home without any questions of her past.

Alina smiles brighter when she realizes this, reminiscing about her favorite foods with the women of the village and then exclaiming in delight when they bring her strawberry stuffed blini a week later. Her heart glows at the way these villagers have accepted her, happiness curling her lips as she gradually becomes part of their communal way of life. 

The village harkens back to the past in a way Alina is familiar with, the passage of time almost seeming to have passed over this tiny farming community and simple people. 

As autumn shows its first colors in the leaves of the trees, faint brushstrokes of orange and yellow, work resumes on Alina’s home.

Soon a skeleton timber frame is erected, men and interested villagers showing up to nail down floorboards and begin putting up the walls. Alina is clumsy with the hammer at first but she soon learns how to bring it down in a steady rhythm. 

While half of the men work to thatch her cottage with sheaves of reeds and straw, the process so quick and complex that Alina gives up on learning, everyone else works to build the furniture for her home.

They make a large table, sturdy and thick, and Alina is the one to sand and varnish it. She arranges the dried flowers across the wood before she pours the thick varnish on, almost jumping up and down with joy when it dries and the flowers are still visible, forever preserved. They make chairs and a bedframe, a talented young man carving blooming roses into the bedposts as a favor to Alina.

She chatters with the villagers as they work, greeting the team of people who help her day by day and thanking them for all of their efforts. She wishes she had access to a kitchen so she could cook them good things to eat, but the women and girls of the village keep them supplied with a steady stream of delicious lunches and desserts.

As autumn slips into early winter, the cottage is almost ready, not quite fully fleshed out but still livable. The day that Alina moves in, hauling her trunk and boxes from the inn to her home on the outskirts of the village, she feels so happy that she has to keep blinking away tears. 

The whole village comes to help and to watch, people swirling in and out of the small home carrying pies and handmade quilts and cushions for her chairs.

They greet Alina with wide smiles and ask her questions in the way that can only happen between people who know one another, who have lived together. The men who had helped her stand with hands on their hips, surveying the timbers of her ceiling and giving her tips about how to keep the snow and cold out as winter comes.

A stack of neatly chopped firewood appears outside her door, more than enough to last her through the coming months, and there’s even a newly made ax with a carved handle.

Goose down pillows and a crocheted blanket made up of many different squares are placed with gentle hands atop her small bed, the mattress filled with sweet smelling hay that reminds her of the warmth of summer. 

Alina is absolutely overwhelmed but in the best way possible, her heart hurting at the easy care and affection these people are granting to a stranger. She is related to none of them by blood, has spent only a few scant months with them, and yet they are so effortlessly generous with her. 

Alina fills the shelves of her new library with the books she has collected throughout her travels, stacks of boxes slowly emptied as she slots familiar spines into their new home. She ghosts her fingers across the books, only needing to open the pages in order to be transported back to the time and place each had been purchased.

They are her living memory, these books, a collection of quiet companions just waiting for her to breathe their words into life. 

She is already thinking about all the days of crafting that await her this winter in order to fully furnish her home. There are pillows to make, blankets to knit and rugs to braid, comforters and pillowcases and curtains to be sewn. 

Alina buys many more things than she can possibly carry home in her large basket, enamored with almost everything she sees. There is excitement bubbling in her stomach as she chooses lovely carved spoons and forks, her eyes sparkling with each purchase of cloth and paint and vegetable seeds. 

Throughout the winter she spends many days in the warm homes of the villagers, invited to meals and holiday celebrations. Each time she is surprised to be remembered and each time she glows with gratitude, more touched than she can express at the way she is continually welcomed and remembered and invited.

Alina sits with the villagers in their homes and learns how to crochet and quilt and get much better at sewing, frowning down at strands of yarn and struggling through the days of snow until she slowly gets better.

She asks shyly about spinning yarn from wool and is quickly taught the entire process, from carding to twisting tufts of wool to spinning it into real yarn. She learns how to make beeswax candles and little blocks of soap, everything she makes and more pressed into her hands with kind smiles.

Alina crochets her first sweater and it’s a little lopsided, the arms different lengths, but it’s warm and soft and she made it with her own hands.

She burns the candles she made as she reads in bed at night and learns new knitting patterns from the grandmothers of the village. She asks the carpenter to teach her how to carve and makes her own spoons and forks when she needs them, painstakingly etching little designs in the handles just because she can. 

In the spring, Alina purchases two baby sheep and three little goats from the traveling merchants. They are adorable and energetic and they escape the pens she builds for them almost constantly, trampling her garden and eating the tops of her carrots.

Alina gives them ridiculous names and is entirely too lenient with them, scratching their heads and tying ribbons around their necks. 

She buys six adorable, fluffy yellow chicks from one of the village women and coos at the little fluffballs, picking them up so often that they become docile and calm. 

Alina plants a garden full of seeds and checks anxiously until tiny green shoots spring up from the earth, grinning wildly to herself. She learns how to milk her goats after much trial and era, churning butter and making cheese alongside the other village women under the warm sunlight. 

Alina ventures into the forests around her house and picks wild apples and tiny strawberries, baking pies and canning her own jam. She plants rhubarb and the beginnings of her very own orchard, pear trees and plum trees and more apple trees. 

Alina opens her jars of paint and traces tiny swirling vines and flowers around the door frames and across the walls of her cottage, adding little waves and mythical creatures just because she can. She paints her front door a bright cobalt blue and sews new pink curtains for the windows, embroidering hearts on them. 

Alina chops more wood for the coming winter and weeds her garden religiously, traveling into the village for weekly markets or to visit her newfound friends.

She participates in celebrations and holidays with the entire village, eyes lighting up at every chance to be included, to feel as if she is part of this community. She helps with the spring planting and again with the summer harvest, laughing at the playful children and bringing cups of water to the grandmothers and grandfathers. 

As September rolls around once more, Alina cuts the prettiest flowers from her garden and bakes the best pie that she possibly can for the village fair. She dresses in her nicest clothes and slowly looks at all the displayed animals and goods and crafts, oohing and ahhing at the horse races and cow presentations. 

After three days of games and delicious food and laughing until her face hurts, Alina returns home. She is tired and a little drained from so much social interaction, but there’s a blue ribbon tucked under her arm and a basket full of things she’d purchased on the other. 

As Alina goes about living her simple countryside life, filling her cottage with things she’s made and thing’s she’s been gifted by her friends in the village, her mind drifts to him. 

She can’t help but remember the dreams he had once shared with her, both of them hiding under the cover of darkness as he’d bared his soul. The life he’d spoken of, his dream of living together with her in a little cottage in the woods. 

Alina’s heart aches at those memories but she finds them to be edged in sweetness, too, affection and sorrow mixing strangely in her chest. 

She thinks about him as she weeds her garden and feeds her animals, begins to allow herself to examine her memories of him as she collects eggs from under her hens and churns butter.

Alina allows the memories to trickle in slowly, examining the shape of his smile and the figure he’d cut in his dark kefta carefully, looking at them again and again until they hurt a little less. She moves through her memories at an almost glacial pace, circling around the smallest details. 

The way he’d looked in the morning, just waking up, or the small scar on his face. His eyes as he’d danced with her the very first night they’d met one another, the bergamot and woodsmoke smell of him.

It takes her much longer to even consider the more painful memories, her mind darting around them instead of confronting that hurt head on. Those wounds are still too open, bleeding instead of glossed over with remembered love and affection. 

But Alina does often catch herself smiling as she goes about her daily tasks, memories of her long lost mate catching in her brain and drawing her back to happy times they’d spent together. 

The feel of his hands on her body, how warm and steady he’d been beside her. The way it had felt to dance with him in that beautiful pink dress, how bright his eyes had been as he’d looked at her walking towards him across the dance floor. His constant reminders to raise her eyes and stand tall, the constant belief he’d held in her strength and capability.

How it had felt to allow their sunlight and shadows to play together, ebony and gold tangling in a beautiful dance of power. 

So Alina slips into her new life and her new home, shoes no longer dusted with the dust of many roads but now feet firmly planted in the same spot of earth.

She roots herself in deep and builds a life and a community that doesn’t need to be left behind, learning to love the company of her own presence in a new way. 

☽☀☾

Alina is waiting in her garden when the carriage appears at the forest’s edge, trying to keep busy by weeding the neat rows of leafy vegetables.  

Immediately she drops the little green sprouts in her hands and stands, brushing gritty dirt from the knees of her skirt. 

The carriage is a lovely shade of emerald, no seal or crest to be seen on the glossy paint as it slowly rolls forward. Two chestnut horses pull it, a well dressed young man holding their reins. 

Alina stands frozen in the middle of her garden, earth dusted fingers clutched in the fabric of her apron as she stares and stares. 

The carriage comes to a halt excruciatingly slowly. The young driver jumps down from his perch and bows to Alina before moving to open the door, extending a gloved hand. 

Slowly another hand comes into view, paler and more fragile, their fingers clutched together. 

Alina’s heart is caught in her throat, her eyes unable to blink as she watches the figure of an older woman climb laboriously from the carriage. The young man helps her, a gentle arm  around her thin shoulders as he guides her down to the grass. 

Slowly the woman straightens up, her perfect posture familiar even after all these years. Though her face has softened with age and is now creased by fine wrinkles, her hair a stark snow white, Alina will always recognize her. 

Genya is as beautiful as the day Alina first met her, her clothes just as lovely in their understated elegance and jewel tones. 

Alina makes a little whimpering cry and drops her skirts, running towards the friend of her heart with open arms and already damp eyes. She halts herself a moment before they crash together, teetering as she digs her bare toes into the grass. 

The two women look at each other, old and young as a grandmother and a granddaughter. They have both lived full lives, have made memories and learned new skills and grown as people, yet only one of them bears the evidence of that time. 

Yet to Alina, those lines don't matter.

She can see past the veneer of age, can look through the wrinkles to the soul beneath, the spirit of her friend who walked at her side during the most difficult years of her life. One of the few remaining people who knows her, who has known her and who will not ask Alina to explain or tell anything about herself. 

“Genya,” she breathes, tears welling painfully quickly in her eyes. Her hands hang limply at her sides, itching to reach out but also afraid that she will break her friend if she embraces her the way she wishes to. 

“Alina,” Genya says, a wide smile blooming on her face. “How I’ve missed you.” 

☽☀☾

deep end - felix (stray kids) 

Alina spends years with Genya, the friends talking and talking as they share every bit of their lives with each other. Genya shows her the letters she had received from all corners of the world, the sheets of paper soft and faded with time. 

“I kept them,” Genya tells her, their hands clasped tightly together as they sit together, “every single one. I knew I couldn’t write back but I felt as if I was seeing the world with you. It made me so happy to know you were out there somewhere, finding your new dream.”

“My happiness,” Alina whispers, a painful vice locking around her heart as she looks at the pieces of paper covered in her own handwriting, remembering sitting down to write those letters all those years ago. 

Genya tells Alina about the mate she’s found, her husband and the father of her children.

Her face lights up as she speaks about the life she’s spent with him, the cake they’d eaten at their wedding and the house they’d built together in the countryside. She describes her children to Alina, laughs as she recounts childhood antics and glows with pride as she talks about their accomplishments and the people they’ve grown into. 

Alina listens with rapt attention, drinking up the stories of a life she wishes she could have lived with Genya.

She cries when her friend speaks of her children, chest aching even more as she longs for a history in which she had been present to watch them grow up. She knows she would have loved them, would have treasured them and cared for them as her own. 

Genya tells her about Mal and Nikolai too, reassuring her that they did find happiness in the northern court as she had hoped so long ago. The former king and his mate had adapted well to the frigid country, raising their two daughters to be true wolves of ice and winter. 

Alina, speaking slowly and with many pauses, tells her dearest friend about the dark times she had walked through after leaving Os Alta.

She cries again when she talks about Bilgunn and Alexei and Dmitri, painfully sweet memories of the small village by the sea and the family who’d coaxed her back into the beauty of life. She brings out the cookbook from so long ago and the two friends go through the pages together, little notes and messages from Bilgunn tucked in the margins of the pages. 

The friends visit each other almost every month, trading between Alina’s cottage and Genya’s country estate, welcoming each other with wide smiles and hugs.

Alina brings baskets of fresh vegetables and flowers to her friend’s home, little pots of honey from her bees and scarves knitted from her sheep’s wool.

Genya brings her adult children and her mate, introducing them to Alina and letting them in on the secret of who the young woman is. She holds beautiful dinners at her home and makes Alina laugh until her stomach hurts with anecdotes of the past, all of them gathered around the long dining table in another adopted family.

Candles glow along the table and there is more than enough good food to eat, young men and women who carry her best friend’s features sitting around them. 

There is glowing golden happiness in her chest during those years, a family found and a friend remembered as they tangle their lives together almost as if no time has passed at all. Alina feels the lovely warmth of being known and understood, able to speak of things with Genya that no one else left living would understand. 

The trickle of time ceases to matter for that handful of years, both women returned to the girls they were when they first met.

The way they touch each other’s soul and understand one another is so sweet and lovely. The days they spend together make them both feel as if they are complete, the warm circle of friendship flowing from connected hand to connected hand.

They laugh and heal, laugh and heal, touching each other’s souls and keeping one another whole. 

Alina is at Genya’s side as her oldest friend breathes her last exhale, there to hold her hand and kiss her cool brow. Her friend’s children surround the bed too, the mate Genya had loved so much already waiting for her under green grass and sunny daffodils. 

Alina stays with Genya’s children, her adopted family, for almost a month. She helps in any way she can, cooking and cleaning while the people who feel as if they are her own blood linger in their grief. 

She makes them every warm and comforting meal she can think of, often turning to Bilgunn’s cookbook, ensuring there’s always a platter of cooling cookies on the kitchen table for any of the many visitors who pass through. 

Alina holds her friend’s children white they cry, soothing them even though they are physically years older than her. She tells them stories about their mother and shares her most treasured memories of Genya, tears coating their cheeks even as gentle smiles grace their lips.

It is a bittersweet mourning of loss and celebration of life, laughter and light gradually returning to the home and family as they remember their lost loved one with gladness instead of only cutting pain. 

Alina slips away from Genya’s home after a little more than a month, feeling that it’s time to go even as her friends’ children grasp at her. She knows they love her and she adores them in return, but they are a family and time will claim them as it has everyone else she cares for. And Alina– Alina cannot bear to watch that happen. 

So she wraps her arms around them and hugs them close, sharing last memories of Genya and words of comfort. She smiles at them when they thank her for staying to take care of them, wiping away their tears with gentle fingers even though they are taller and older in appearance than her. 

Alina knows as she bids them farewell that she will never see them again. They are Genya’s children and they are in her heart, always and forever, but her time spent with them in this beautiful country home is over. 

☽☀☾

The years after Genya’s death slip by quickly, darting through Alina’s fingers like slippery silver minnows. 

Alina makes another discovery about who she is as a person, about how she moves through the currents of life. 

She realizes she is very bad at saying goodbye. She is not a pretty crier, nor is she someone who is able to strongly and nobly bear their grief. 

Everything is hushed, the songs she’d once sung drying up in her mouth. 

She retreats further into the little area of land she’s cultivated for herself, focusing only on her garden and her cottage.

She takes long walks, carrying a woven basket into the forest and only returning home when evening falls. She gathers acorns and pretty orangish red leaves and wild mushrooms, finds lady-slipper flowers and scarlet cardinal feathers and bushes heavy with thimbleberries.

The forest is quiet around her, no sounds save for those of nature. Alina doesn’t speak as she walks and searches for hidden treasures. She can’t find a good enough reason to break her own silence. 

Everything is quiet, the world hushed all around her. 

Alina retreats from the village and the communal life she had so desperately craved, realizing that the people who had first welcomed her have all passed away. Now their children and their grandchildren look at her with wide eyes, accepting because she has always been there yet unsure of her presence because she does not change. 

Her garden grows, neat rows of corn and squash and climbing bean vines sparking a warm feeling in her chest. Alina carefully collects seeds for the future in little paper packets and spends hours in her garden, weeding and hoeing and tending to the plants. 

Her animals give her generations of babies, curly soft lambs and bleating kids and sunshine yellow ducklings. 

Alina loves them all, names them after flowers and herbs and jewels. She pets them when they bump against her and thanks them for the food they provide.

She cries when they pass away and lays them to sleep under a thick layer of grass, small piles of rocks littering the acres of her land. 

Time slides and spirals until it barely holds any meaning. Only the rhythm of the seasons remains, the rise and fall of the sun how Alina marks change now. 

Everything is quiet. All is calm and still. 

Alina feels all alone in this world, missing the way that Genya and her other loved ones had felt so close to her bones. They had been wrapped up in her soul, pressed into the blood vessels and arteries of her body, their presence almost tangible even when apart. 

But now that she knows they are no longer breathing, no longer occupying space in the world, she feels as if she is sinking. 

She misses the way they felt so close to her bones, aching for Genya and him in a way that she hasn’t yet experienced. 

Alina is sinking in the deep end, trying to cry herself to sleep instead of spending endless waking hours lost in the tug of her memories. 

Please stop this pain, she thinks sometimes, curling up in a ball and holding her middle as if she can comfort her own hurt away. 

I don’t want to be alone, I don’t want to be alone, Idontwanttobealone. 

Alina is lonely in her body, hands empty and heart longing for people she can no longer walk beside. Her bones are too light, the names engraved in her chest all turned into ghosts and shades of memories long blurred hazy with age. 

In her dreams she sees nothing but the moon, silvery craters looking back at her each night as she sleeps.

Sometimes she walks atop the ocean, a path of moonlight under her feet and guiding her forward as she drifts weightlessly over the water. Sometimes she peers into mirrors and small ponds, expecting to see her own face, but instead all she is met with is the pearly reflection of the moon. 

It haunts her dreams and her waking moments too, pale crescents and half-moons high even in the blue sky of daytime. 

Alina’s chest hurts when she looks up at the moon too long, an ache blossoming behind her breastbone as a longing that she doesn’t recognize pulls at her skin. She sometimes finds herself wandering towards the moon, walking through fields and across little streams as if it would ever be possible to reach the sky and the celestial bodies that call to her. 

It becomes her best company, her confidant that she whispers all her secrets and truths to on the nights she cannot sleep.

She wraps herself up in the quilt that had been made with so many hands and perches in her wide windowsill, just as she had so many years ago in a cottage by the sea.

Alina presses her cheek against the cool glass of the window and stares up at the moon, longing and sorrow swirling inside her like the shaken up insides of a bottle of champagne. Her eyes reflect the silvery circle as she allows her mind to drift, memories drawn over her thoughts like faded sheets of paper. 

She wants to cry at the memories of all her loved ones who have passed into the afterworld and now walk at her side only as shadows, but still there is all the love that she feels for them in her heart. That love doesn’t just go away when they die, doesn't fade or slip away even years after she was last able to speak with them or hold them.

Her dearest friends and companions may be gone but the love Alina had felt for them echoes in her still, carrying memories of laughter and shared smiles with it. 

☽☀☾

happiness - taylor swift 

Alina smooths her hands over her hips, the floaty fabric light and crinkly under her hands. 

The dress conjures memories that now only prick at her heart, the long ago slicing pain of them dulled by decades of continued exposure. She looks and looks at her reflection, images of a dusty library overlaid behind her in the large mirror. 

She can’t quite believe she’s doing this, but when the village women had begun to gossip about the lunar dance being held in a nearby town, her attention had been caught. 

The women, all much older in appearance than Alina, had asked her kindly if she was planning to attend in order to try and meet her mate. Flustered, her fingers stilled around the embroidery hoop in her lap, Alina had blushed and stuttered out a quiet and unsure answer. 

She had decided immediately upon returning to her cottage that she wouldn’t attend. There was no point in it– Alina has no mate to meet, no one left in the world who spark that bright burning golden feeling in her chest.

She is forever solitary, forever alone, the heartbeat that had been destined to beat in time with hers forever silenced. 

But the women of the village do not know this and so when a beautifully wrapped package arrived at her door, tied with a pink ribbon, Alina had opened it with a fluttering heart. The dress had been so beautiful, simple and silvery soft, with an almost lilac sheen. 

And so now Alina is all dressed up to go and dance beneath a full moon with young men and women who are decades younger than her. They will be kind and lovely and none of them will be her mate, because her mate has already gone to a place she cannot follow. 

Alina’s mind, already often preoccupied with thoughts of him, drifts more firmly into the past. There is something about tonight that makes time feel slippery, a circle instead of a river constantly flowing downstream. 

She feels closer to him than she has in years, almost as if she could turn towards the door and he would be leaning against the wall, watching her with those dark eyes. She can imagine the way he would look at her in this dress, gaze lingering on the hollow of her throat and the way the fabric skims over her hips. 

Alina pushes her long, loose hair over her shoulders, the heavy brush of it comforting. She looks much younger with it down, twin to the girl she’d been before her very first lunar dance. 

There was happiness because of him, so much that Alina’s body had glowed bright and sparkling gold with it. 

There’ll be happiness after him, too, new smiles to grace Alina’s face and joy to light her heart again.

Both of these things can be true, she’s realized, memories bittersweet in a way that reminds her time heals all wounds. 

Alina carefully pins daisies into her hair, tucking the white flowers around the crown of her head until she’s graced by a halo of feathery petals. She wears no jewelry, nothing but the beauty of her dress and the flowers to adorn her. 

She studies her reflection one last time, reaching out a finger to trace the shape of her face. She has spent so many years aching and toiling away at learning herself, at worrying about who she was and who she is and who she will become. 

Alina feels settled, now, more sure of the person she is and the person she wants to continue to grow into. She knows that there is always more changing and learning to do, knows that people are like butterflies and so must metamorphosize over and over. 

She has traveled the world and experienced so many things but still at her very core, Alina is much the same. She likes to drink tea and read books by a warm fire and eat pie for breakfast. She likes to laugh with her friends and be invited to holiday celebrations and listen to rainstorms on the roof of her cottage. She likes to bring spontaneous little gifts to people and crochet sweaters for herself and hold her animals close. 

She has lived many lifetimes and gained so many skills, fingers trained in a thousand different things and knowledge stored away in the shelves of her mind. And yet she is still afraid of spiders, still hates the cold of winter and refuses to eat cooked spinach. 

Alina has changed and grown and become a person who has experienced life and loss and love, an adult of ageless years trapped in a young woman’s body.

She had lived only a year with her mate and yet those three hundred and sixty days were enough for a lifetime of memories, affection and love for him carried through all her travels. 

In Alina’s history with her mate, across the great divide of time and memory that now separates them, she believes there is a glorious sunrise. 

A beginning as much as an ending, the close to their story that has yet to be told. 

This sunrise leads to a golden sky, dappled with the flickers of light from the dress she wore at midnight when they first met. 

All those memories, all those moments and tiny gestures of love– she can leave it all behind, will walk across time and space to him, whatever their end may be. 

There was happiness because of him and because of her. 

There will be happiness because of him in her future, remembered fragments, and there will be happiness because of Alina too as she moves through life after life. 

Both of these things can be true, because in the end, there is simply– happiness. 

☽☀☾

moon - bts (jin) 

As she stands on the fringes of the swirling dancers, halfway between the burning torchlight and the shadows of night, Alina finds her mind tugged back to memories long since lived. 

She can see a phantom ghost of herself among the young women, her dress a much older style but still beautiful and shining. She looks so young, her features the same as they are now but a freeness to her laughter, to her eyes, that has faded with the passage of time. 

Alina sips from a flute of something sweet and fizzy, smiling just a little as memories and reality blend together. So much of Ravka has changed from her youth and yet, still, much is the same.

Traditions continue, people dance and kiss and fall in love. Wars are fought and families made, rulers rising and falling as easily as the ebbing of waves. 

Alina loses herself in the pattern of the dancers, her eyes glazing over as they weave in and out to create complicated patterns across the tiled dance floor. 

She leans back a bit further, truly allowing the marble pillar at her back to support her weight. Despite the youth drawn over her face and limbs she finds herself easily tired, festivities always conjuring a bittersweet ache in her chest. 

There are too many ghosts among the dancers for her to ever easily take to the steps again, phantom hands reaching for hers and laughter long since faded to every pair of ears but hers. 

Alina turns her head to press her cheek against the cool marble, allowing the chill of the stone to seep into her skin. It wakes her up a bit, pulls her back from the heavy drag of the past. 

Raising her eyes to the sky she finds the glowing full moon, bright and silvery white against the inky sky. It shines enough in the darkness of the night for both of them, a beacon in a sea of stars. 

The moon has been one of Alina’s most constant friends, there with her throughout the passing of time and the circular shift of seasons. Unlike so many things in her life it does not change, does not falter or waver. 

Still gazing up at the glow of the moon, the pinpricks of stars around it, Alina barely catches a flash of white in the periphery of her vision. 

She ignores it at first, dismissing it as an errant dancer or a trick of the light shining off the marble. 

Music swirls around her in an almost dizzying sweep, the light melody dragging up more memories she’d buried and mourned years ago. 

The graves of those memories grow and bloom into people, Genya and Fedyor and Mal and so many others she’d met over the years in a flickering crowd across the pavilion. 

They dance their own macabre waltz among the living, faces so young to Alina’s now haunted eyes.

Blinking away a glaze of tears, Alina tilts her face more firmly into the cool marble pillar. Needing a distraction she searches the dark fringe of the forest for whatever she’d glimpsed, not truly expecting to see that flash of white again. 

And yet there, among the shadowed and looming trees, stands a white wolf. 

Its pale body is almost hidden behind the trunk of a great oak, layers of charcoal and black shadows obscuring it from view. Only its muzzle and glowing golden eyes are visible, staring back at Alina where she stands surrounded by light. 

Alina stands up ramrod straight in an instant, her whole body flushed with a sudden shock of heat. Her heart sprints into a race, thrumming under her skin. 

Her fingertips tingle in the way that always happens when she’s very scared or very excited, a breathless sort of anticipation catching in her chest. 

Alina blinks hard again and again, reaching up to rub at her eyes. She’s sure the wolf is a dream or just another phantom of the past, certain that when she looks again it will be gone. 

Sucking in tiny light breaths she lowers trembling fingers, peeking through them at the tree line once more. 

Wonderfully, inexplicably, the wolf remains. Its snowy fur is such a brilliant white that Alina can almost feel the softness of it under her fingers, how thick and warm it would be. 

She takes a step forward without deciding to, balanced on the toes of her silk slippers as she watches the wolf and it watches her back. 

The dancers and music and laughing guests all fade away, unimportant and inanimate as decorations. 

There is nothing but Alina and this wolf, golden eyes gazing into brown. 

She knows the wolf sees her, knows it understands that she has glimpsed it. The white muzzle lowers a bit, pointed ears coming into view as the wolf dips its head. 

Then, as if it has suddenly been called away, the wolf swings its head around. The long line of its throat is exposed, white fur glimmering in the moonlight. 

Gracefully the wolf turns and fades into the darkness of the forest, flashes of its ivory body shown to Alina through the bars of the trees. Large paws and a long tail, the strong line of its back and muscled legs. 

Balanced in the threshold of the pavilion, half caught between dark and light, Alina falters. 

She cannot quite understand what is happening; all she knows is that this moment feels important, feels momentous. Feels like a fork in her path, a slippery circle of time wherein a decision is to be made. 

Alina has lived long enough to be aware of those moments, to be able to feel the breadth and shape of them. 

Bilgunn’s words from so long ago echo in her mind, advice she still turns to when unsure. It is your path to make, yours to continue down or turn away from. Or to forge anew.

The liminal edge between the cool embrace of night and the bright vitality of day is thin as a needle, easy to break. 

Alina steps from the light and noise and warmth of the pavilion, slipping into cool shadowed silence as easily as breathing. 

Sweet summer air wraps around her, her shadow blending into the dew damp grass as she walks silently to the forest's edge. 

Alina feels as insubstantial and sneaky as a thief, imagining herself able to slip through the towering trees and hanging branches with ease. And because she believes it it becomes so, her feet sure and steady on the uneven forest floor. 

Her eyes adjust quickly to the darkest blue night and she scans the trees and sprawling undergrowth around her, searching for another flash of white. 

There is nothing there, though, a trail of breadcrumbs she’d been expecting to guide her forward suddenly snapped up by hungry mouths. 

Alina reaches out with clumsy fingers and starts deeper into the trees, determined not to turn back. She knows the wolf came to the forest’s edge for a reason, can feel that there is something special about it.

After a lifetime of magic and moments that feel grander than reality, slippery with possibilities, Alina knows when to follow the nudging at the base of her skull. 

Every so often she will see the tip of an ear or the flash of a paw, a little jolt of lighting going through her as she’s spurred on by those hints. The glimpses of white keep Alina going, renewing the hope in her heart each time it threatens to dry up or crack. 

Alina’s imagination runs wild the longer she paces through the midnight forest, her eyes straining for each flash of white through the darkness. Her mind conjures sounds that her ears can’t register, shifting plants and snapping twigs that may be innocent in nature but, in this night haze, denote danger. 

She darts through pools of shadow and speckles of silvery moonlight, urged forward by the bits of snowy white that seem to taunt her, always further ahead than she can reach. She runs and runs, barely pausing, breaths light and fast in her chest. 

Blinking, Alina steps from the dark bars around her, silent sentries who have watched stories play out across time and millenia. She’s out of the woods, monsters turning out to be just trees. 

The shadows seem to drop away as she scans the edge of the forest around her, twisting her whole body while her eyes search and search in vain for an elegant white body. 

Biting down on her bottom lip, her chest squeezing tight for some reason she can’t quite discern, Alina swivels her head side to side. 

She knows there’s no true reason to be afraid, not with the sunlight that burns in her veins and her years of experience. She can fight off almost anything; she isn’t vulnerable, even alone in this dark landscape. 

And yet her heart is beating and beating in the way it had throughout her youth, the organ pounding a rhythm that warns her to tread lightly, to watch and listen and move with liquid grace. 

Alina’s skin prickles and she involuntarily takes a step forward, shivering even under the warm summer air. Ahead of her lies a sloping grassy bank, a lone oak tree to her left. She can see the silver shine of water just over the lip of the grass, a small pond or lake she hadn’t been aware of. 

It still surprises Alina, sometimes, how much of the world there is left to discover. She’d thought she’d seen it all in her travels but always there is more, sprouting trees and flowers and cities reworking the tapestry of Ravka she’d learned with careful fingertips. 

Not quite ready to return to the loud laughter and bittersweet melancholy of the full moon dance, Alina wraps her arms around herself and steps forward, towards the water. The hem of her dress rustles faintly against the grass and wildflowers, fireflies stirring from their beds as she moves. 

The tiny bugs whirl lazily through the air, glowing yellow bodies lighting up the space around her until Alina feels almost as if they are her own tiny stars. 

She reaches a hand out to gently cup one, lowering her face until her nose is almost touching the tiny insect. So small, yet somehow able to shine so brightly. 

Alina allows the firefly to whir away, tilting her head back as she watches the dance of tiny golden lights for a while. They twirl and break apart in patterns known only to them, a hazy waltz carried out against the inky midnight sky. 

The dusky clouds obscuring the diamond pinpricks of the stars slide away as Alina watches the bugs, the moon’s full face gazing back at her. Alina breathes in the sweet summer air and smiles at the moon, greeting her longest companion with a silent hello. 

A ripple of silver catches her eye and she twists her head, searching for white fur as her heart gives an odd little jump. The prickling across her skin hasn’t abated at all, is instead concentrated at her fingertips and along the nape of her neck. 

Alina realizes that the flash of light she’d been distracted by isn’t the shine of moonlight on white fur at all, but rather the reflection of moonlight on water. The curve of the tiny lake she can glimpse is painted a pure silver, sparkling brighter than any beaten mettle. 

Waving her fingertips at the fireflies, Alina picks her dress up and continues walking towards the water. There’s a pull in her rapidly beating heart, a thrumming of her instincts that has her moving towards the water. 

Almost as if the lake, or the reflection of the full moon upon it, is calling her. 

Walking to the edge of the water feels like traveling through the years of her life, wading through time. Through the hell of all her journeys, storms weathered and conflicts prevailed against to reach her heaven. 

Sunlight glows faintly at Alina’s fingertips, almost the same shade of gold as the tiny fireflies who still illuminate the nighttime air around her. 

She drags in a breath, heart beating and beating as if it’s coming alive after a millennia of hibernation, and peers into the lake. 

The flat water is bright and shiny as a silver coin, the moon’s lavender hazed beauty reflected back at her in a perfect circle. Alina can trace the shadows and spots of the full moon in the water, the face in the sky that has watched over her across so many years. 

“Hello,” Alina murmurs, feeling a little silly but also like this moment is just magical enough that it is right, correct, to greet the night's greatest celestial body. 

The moon shines, a silvery lake and a silvery pearl far in the sky above her. Twin reflections that peer back at Alina almost like an enormous pair of eyes, a bit world weary but still able to see all, stretching into the past and the future. 

Alina gazes into the lake, the silvery sheen lying atop the water pulling her deeper and deeper under the moon’s hypnotic pull. Her world narrows until she sees nothing but lavender limned pewter, unheeded whispers curling around her ears. 

The grasses and wildflowers she stands in rustle against the silk of her dress, fireflies climbing impossibly high until the sky is dotted with tiny burning golden flames. 

Alina sees none of it, though. Her eyes have become pure silver coins, three moons reflected back as the pearly orb shines brighter and brighter in the sky, almost blinding. 

The moon flashes, a pulse of pure white light rippling across the frozen surface of the lake, that same light flaring over Alina’s irises. She almost cries out, raising her hands instinctively to cover her face despite the lack of pain. 

It takes a long while for the brightness to fade from her eyelids, little spots of white pressed over her vision no matter how often she blinks. Squinting, tears caught in her eyelashes, Alina slowly lowers her hands and tries to see the world around her. 

Everything seems to be hazed in silvery light– a trick of the moon’s brightness, a lingering effect of that strange flaring light no doubt. 

The lake is still coated in silver, though now tiny ripples have spread across the water’s surface, waves lapping gently at the grassy bank where Alina stands. 

The stars shine freely, diamonds twinkling high in the sky as if illuminated by some inner light. Even the trees and plants of the field seem to be picked out in threads of sparkling silver light, details clearer than ever. 

Alina twists her head away from the brightness of the lake, gaze skating over the strangely shining landscape. She almost misses the figure silhouetted against the liquid silver of the lake, body picked out in a softly fading glow. 

The man is tall and slim, though the line of his shoulders belies a kind of hidden strength.

Alina blinks at him, then blinks again, white speckles still flashing across her vision. His hair is tousled, strands pushed back from his forehead in a way that gives his shadow a slightly spiky look. 

The man is dressed entirely in white, the moonlight that falls upon him somehow almost absorbed into his clothes and skin instead of being reflected back up to the sky. 

She thinks his hands might be tucked into his pockets, or curled loosely at his sides, an easy kind of grace in the way that he stands. They look and look at each other across the field of silver flowers between them, no witness to this first familiar greeting save the moon and her stars. 

“Alina,” Aleksander murmurs. 

In her chest, something long forgotten and tattered blossoms into bright burning color. 

Alina falls to her knees, clutching at her aching chest as she drinks in his face that is so dear to her, long since remembered and more beautiful than she’d dreamed. 

Warmth and light suffuse her heart, a bridge rebuilt with a single word, and the world begins anew.

Chapter Text

invisible string - taylor swift 

There’s nothing tempting or remotely remarkable about the night.

Young men and women dressed up in pale shades of finery, their faces still rounded with childish youth even as they embark on the path to matrimony. The faces and words that flash past Aleksander in a whirl of sensation blur with familiarity and strangeness, known and unknown. 

He has lived this night a thousand times before, across hundreds of years and under dozens of names. 

Past and present blend together, his memories overlapping the experience of his now body until it’s as if he’s surrounded by specters, not people. The clothes, the dances, the voices and faces and names— it will all fade, as everything does. 

Everything goes, Aleksander reminds himself. Time will pass as water flows, no matter what he does. Everything goes, everything goes, everythinggoes. 

Aleksander sips a tasteless glass of sparkling liquid and stares blankly ahead, a map of Ravka occupying his thoughts. 

He moves figurines across the map, plans battles and anticipates the moves of their surrounding enemies, scratches out maneuvers to try again. He’s so very engrossed with his planning that he doesn’t notice the hours of night slipping away, doesn’t take note of changing songs or the looks young men and women alike flash him. 

He’s merely here to accompany his soldiers and that insufferable little prince, chaperoning the young men and women despite the value of his time. Aleksander clenches his fingers as he thinks about it, the ridiculousness of his presence at this event bubbling ire under his skin once more.

He has no interest in this lunar ball, no interest in the search for a mate. 

He had, once upon a time, cradled hope in his heart for a mate. An equal, a partner to stand beside him and act as his confidant even when all the world had turned away. 

Those were the dreams of a child, though. Aleksander knows better now. 

He knows a soul as black and twisted as his would never be granted the reprieve of a mate. He is sure the Sky Spirits do not deem him worthy of the comfort of love. Not after all he has done, all that has been torn apart in his many names. 

He is doomed to walk alone, nothing at his side but his empty hands. Nothing at his back but his own shadows, stretching tall enough to swallow him up.

Aleksander is solitary, unpaired in a world of fated attraction and hearts beating in synchronization. 

Bored and restless, an itching annoyance slowly flushing over his skin, Aleksander raises his glass to his lips. He almost snarls when he finds it empty, the flavorless alcohol one of the few distractions afforded to him tonight. 

He sets the glass down with steady precision, striding quickly towards the long table loaded in refreshments. He ignores the glances and greetings that brush against his skin from all sides, shadows curling around his wrists under the cuffs of his kefta. 

The liquid no longer affects him after scores of years of drinking, unfortunately. Another path that has closed to him, something else time has taken. The glass is merely a way to occupy his hands, a tame object to cradle in his palms. 

He crosses the marble of the dancefloor quickly, with purpose, eyes focused on the table even as he takes in flashes of detail with his peripheral vision. 

There’s a slip of a girl dancing with the prince’s mate, her skin almost as pale as the silvery sheen of her dress. Her dark hair whips out behind her as the boy spins her, just the corner of a wide grin visible. 

Aleksander, despite the surety of movement that has been beaten and trained into him over hundreds of lifetimes as a fighter, manages to take a wrong step as the music swells. 

It’s just one little misstep, one motion at the wrong time.

It’s simple, really, something he could walk away from and not think about again for the reminder of the evening. He would brush off the tinge of embarrassment and return to his solitary corner, set apart as he watches the dance of vitality and sips at his drink. 

But there’s a strange kind of concurrent synchronization to some moments in time.

Halfway around the world a butterfly will flap its wings and a baby will be born, two universes separated by space and yet merged in exact seconds of time. The number 11 repeated again and again throughout a day, an old friend remembered and then spotted in a faraway country.

Little mishaps and miracles of the world, coincidences small enough they could almost be mistaken for the everyday magic of chance. 

The girl tumbles into Aleksander’s chest, warm and light against him. Instinctively he raises a hand to cup the curve of her back, the silk of her dress liquid and thin under his palm. 

Aleksander is already opening his mouth to mutter an apology, thinking of nothing but extricating himself from this situation and making it through the remainder of this night. He wants nothing more than to tumble into his own bed and let the shadows of sleep pull his mind into black dreams. 

The girl turns, soft hair brushing the bare skin of his hand. He sees her eyes first, dark and fringed by long lashes, the exact color of the earth he’d played in as a child. 

Mate, something buried deep in him says, mate. 

She is so incredibly young, he realizes with a sinking sort of dread.

Her skin is unblemished by the wear and tear of the world, her eyes just as glittering and large as a fawn’s. Everything about her screams youthful vitality, coltish limbs and smooth cheeks and the kind of bright burning energy that accompanies the reckless bravery of inexperience. 

She’s so open as she smiles at him, her entire face lighting up with a beaming smile that strikes him like an arrow through the heart. 

His mate is perfectly created and Aleksander is terrified to touch her, unable to imagine his shadow stained hands on her vulnerable skin. 

She is everything he has been waiting for, the answer to a question he had long ago given up on asking.

A gift from the celestial spirits at the very moment he’d accepted his path to be a solitary one, stretching into the pages of history books forever unmatched and unmet. 

Time, wondrous time, giving him the blues and the purple pink skies of the very first sunrise of his life. 

The scent of her, soft summer jasmine and warm sunshine, draws him forward without his body consciously deciding to move.

Aleksander follows the girl and the little soldier as they huddle at the edge of the dancefloor, every bit of him focused on those dark eyes, her pale face.

It feels as if a thousand strings have fluttered to life in his chest, his withered heart, and they all tie him to her now. 

He stops in front of them, both of them so young. Their whispered conversation hushes and they look at him, confusion clear on their unlined faces. 

His mate says something, her lips wrapping around the word sorry as if she has anything in the world to apologize for. A tiny trio of freckles at the corner of her eye catch his attention, curiously echoing the moles on the inside of Aleksander’s own wrist. 

“I will return to the dancing,” he says, heart pounding at his ribs as it tries to escape his chest and fly to her, to its other half. “If you agree to accompany me.” 

Aleksander’s blood rushes so loudly in his ears that he can’t make out the words of her response, only the sweet sound of her voice. 

But he can understand the denial on her face, the way that she is hunching her shoulders and curling away from her. She smells of fear, sour as the lemon cake he’s never been able to stomach taking a bite of. 

Aleksander reaches for her with fingertips that are blessedly bare of any curling darkness. 

“Alina,” he murmurs, her name already familiar on his tongue. Light, her name means. 

How fitting, Aleksander thinks as he waits for his mate to reject his empty palm, that his other half is named after the thing he has longed for all his life. Would she have been the sun to his shadows, had she been able to be his? 

There is no question in his heart that this girl– Alina, light– is his mate. He knows it just as he knows how to breathe, instinctively and unconsciously. Her fated presence in his life is a given, an undeniable truth that is more fact than any principle of gravity. 

The only answer left to receive lies in his empty palm, waiting for a warmth that will never be granted. 

“Mate,” Alina murmurs.

Her bare fingers, so tiny in comparison to his, curl around his palm. Their skin presses together, the thousand threads in his heart solidifying into a bond that spans the space between their chests.

Mate, mate, mate. 

Accepted and recognized, a bond built of the invisible strings that have been tying them together each day of walking this earth and living under the same blue roof. 

His mate’s pupils are blown incredibly wide, the same darkness of his shadows echoed in her eyes as she looks up at him. There isn’t fear, though, despite the myriad of reasons for this slip of a girl to be afraid of him. 

Aleksander’s chest is a glowing sunrise, golden light and pastel skies and every good thing in the world billowing in the space behind his sternum. He can do nothing but stare at her even as she looks back at him, icy disbelief freezing him in place. 

It is unthinkable for this lovely slip of a girl to accept him. 

And yet, somehow, she has. She does. Their palms press together, her hand so soft and small while his is ringed with calluses from decades of wielding weapons. They could not be more different if they had tried, set apart in every way Aleksander can discern. 

And yet something about this small, pale girl, his mate , feels right.

She is familiar to him already, her face one of a long-forgotten friend rather than a stranger.

He does not know if it is the shape of her soul that is known to him, twin to his in the starry explosion at the beginning of time, or if it is simply that he loves her already. 

Whatever the case may be, Aleksander cares for nothing more than the feel of his mate in his grasp. He wants to pull her closer, wants to tuck her into his chest and shield her with his shadows and his arms so that nothing may ever threaten her. 

He watches her as she turns slightly to say something to her friend, rubbing the pad of his thumb ever so lightly across the back of her hand. The skin there is unblemished, soft and smooth.

Everything about her is so freshly crafted, the lack of years evident in each small detail of her body. 

“Alina,” he murmurs, sliding his fingers a bit more firmly around her bird-boned wrist.

“I understand this soldier is your friend but the night is short and I would like to dance with my mate before the sun rises.” 

It gratifies a yawning need in his chest when his mate immediately acquiesces to him, turning away from the little soldier as if he never even existed. Alina’s face is tipped up to his, her eyes drinking him in as he guides her towards the swirling dancers. 

She moves dreamily, seeming as if she takes note of not a single one of the people around them.

Something about her eyes reminds him of small creatures hidden in long grass, frozen as they are stalked by much larger prey, tiny hearts quivering lightning fast. 

He wraps his hands around her, marveling at the feel of her slight body under his fingers. She is so warm, just like sunlight on his shoulders at the height of summer. 

He wonders if she would be so easily trusting if she knew what these hands of his have done, the shadows they can conjure and kill with. 

Alina fits perfectly in Aleksander’s arms as he begins to sweep her in dizzying circles across the marble dance floor, music and faces blurring as the world narrows to just the two of them. 

He loves the sound of her laugh, drinks it up like bubbling champagne as she tips her head back and giggles.

The wide smile on her face has the corners of his own mouth tugging up, happiness reverberating down their bound and rebounding in their hearts until both of them are glowing. 

He has never been so grateful for the years of dancing suffered under the rule of many different kings, his feet and hands remembering the steps of waltzes lost to time. That is how Aleksander dances with Alina, though, the two of them moving to a forgotten melody because time will be meaningless for them, for this pair of fated and matched mates. 

He spins her out wide and then reels her back in, fingertips almost separating as their arms stretch out and then sliding back into place when he draws her into the shelter of his body. Pressed close together he can feel the thrum of her heartbeat, a reassuring flutter by which he will live from this moment forward. 

Her silvery dress ripples around her, sparking liquid bright so that she seems to be entirely crafted from moonlight. 

Aleksander drinks in each little shift of emotion on Alina’s face, head bowed as he looks and looks at her. He maps the fringe of her eyelashes, the curve of her eyebrows and the bow of her lips as she smiles and opens them wide in laughter.

He cannot wait to watch her lovely features shift through every emotion, to see her sleepy soft under morning sunlight and radiant with happiness as he gives her everything she has ever desired.

This mate he has dreamed of and wished for and given up on as fiction, the person who matches his soul and has been crafted to walk at his side.

Or, perhaps, he has been made to walk at hers.

Perhaps Aleksander has gone about thinking of this in entirely the wrong way. Perchance this is her story, rather than his.

Maybe the curves and lines of who he is were shaped in response to Alina’s, his shadows and broad shoulders gifted to him in order to serve her. 

Aleksander tightens his hands on Alina’s waist and dips her low, curving over her as she comes dangerously close to falling.

There’s a suspended moment in time where she must choose either to trust him or fall, a silent challenge in his eyes as he waits for her. 

He will never allow her to fall, will not accept that humiliation or pain for his mate. But he does want her to make this second of many important choices to come, does selfishly want to test her newfound dedication to him and their glowing bond. 

Alina relaxes in his arms, bending low over the marble dance floor like the head of a wilted flower.

She is beautiful, graceful in his hold even as she goes limp. They hang in that moment for a moment, spines curving and eyes locked as she drapes over his arms and allows him to support her completely. 

She trusts him, he marvels. She trusts him, she isn’t afraid of him, she doesn’t shy away from his touch.

Aleksander has been cut and sliced by the knife of time more often than he could ever attempt to count. The blade of years sinks into his chest with each friend met and name learned, with every rising city and crowned king. 

But as he dances with Alina– mate, his mate– time heals him just fine. Seconds stitch up the wounds on his soul in golden thread, the exact color of the ring he will someday slip around this girl’s finger. 

She is so light in his arms as he throws her up into the air, dark hair fanning out around her face. She reminds him of a swan caught in the moments between weightless flight and gravity, tugged at by both worlds. Her dress could almost become feathers, pale skin and slender limbs transformed with just a small twitch of the fabric of reality. 

Alina feels even better when she returns to his arms, gravity pulling her back to where she belongs in Aleksander’s grasp. His fingers ache until he is able to catch her, the way she fits under him cracking something in his chest even as it heals. 

She ducks her head when he sets her down gently on the dance floor, eyelashes dipping in a silent signal that she’s no longer feeling brave, the girl who had reached out to take his hand slipping behind a shadow to hide. 

“Never lower your eyes to me, Alina.”

Aleksander means the words, stares at her lowered lashes until she looks up at him again. He wants to see her stand tall, wants to watch her walk with confidence even when he is not at her side. 

And so he drops to his knee before her even as he helps her rise, something settling in his chest when Alina raises her chin and straightens her shoulders. She peeks down at him, pink cheeked and her fingers a little sweaty as he holds them. 

He does not care. 

Anyone who glances askance at them will be dead in a mere handful of years, while Aleksander and Alina— together, they are eternal. 

He found her and he will never let her go, now. There is so much he wishes to share with her, years and years of life he has locked away and will slowly unveil as they live and live and live on together.

His shadows, eventually. The truth of his inner self, the truth of her own identity.

How they will fit together, though to Aleksander wolves and secondary gender matter less than how they complement one another as people. 

Aleksander’s mind drifts for a second, thoughts wrapping around the ways he and his young mate already fit and oppose each other.

Is there a chance she could hold sunlight within herself, her veins hot with it just as his run cold with shadow? Would it be too much to hope for, that in this too he has found his match, his mirror? 

Aleksander rises when Alina tugs lightly on his hand, her cheeks a rosy shade of pink that he wants to brush his lips across. 

She smiles at him just a little, still hesitant and withdrawn but not trying to put any distance between them.

Somehow, inexplicably, this slip of a girl, barely more than a child, trusts Aleksander. Feels safe enough to stand close to him, to touch him as no one has in years. 

Raising their linked hands he leads her to the edge of the dance floor, leaning into her space to inhale the scent of her. Summer jasmine and sunlight, so warm and golden he can almost taste the green of the hottest season. 

Alina presses her spine against a marble column and tips her face up to look at him, the long pale line of her throat exposed. He feels an urge to nip at the skin, to mark her and be marked in return. 

“Alina,” he says, surveying her face and still marveling at every detail despite the way he’s already memorized her. “I would like to make my introductions to your family.” 

☽☀☾

Even as he speaks with the woman who has allowed his mate to fall into awful health, who taught her to lower her eyes and lessen her presence, Aleksander is busy making plans. 

He knows he must take his mate home with him tonight. He needs to whisk her away to the safety of the Little Palace, the home he built for them hundreds of years ago when there was still a glow of hope in his heart. 

He has long believed that the palace would stay empty of its true intended resident forever, had even shut up the rooms connected to his that are patterned in shades of gold and champagne. 

Now, though, Aleksander itches to tuck his small, too-thin mate away in the luxurious rooms and feed her every delicious food until she is strong and her cheeks are flushed with color.

He wants to show her every weapon in the armory and train her in how to kill a man using each one, wants to watch her learn how to fight. He wants to ask her about her favorite books and learn which food she turns away from and listen to her spill every memory of her childhood. 

Aleksander watches Alina out of the corner of his eye, amusement twisting in him at the way his mate stares longingly at the long table of refreshments. The sugar dusted blini, in particular, seem to have caught her attention. 

He cannot wait to watch her eat every pastry in the Little Palace, curious to see if his mate has a sweet tooth to match his. 

Aleksander bids a curt goodbye to the odious woman in front of him, disdain and satisfaction warring in him at the way she so easily acquiesces control of Alina’s future to him.

He is pleased to have his mate fully within his grasp yet a bit horrified at the lack of agency she is granted, the way that being omega completely obliterates her choices and wants. 

Aleksander wraps a gentle arm around Alina and guides her away from the long table of food, already ruminating on all the things he will command the chefs to cook for her. Salted herring, of course, for health and strength, rye bread and bone broth and lots of vegetables.

Perhaps a slice of chocolate cake, too, just as a secret between them. 

Aleksander swings his traveling cape around his shoulders, searching for a wrap that carries Alina’s same jasmine scent and furrowing his brow when he finds none.

He wraps his cape around her pale shoulders, worried that even in the summer warmth she will catch a chill. He can’t stand the idea of his mate being sick, wants to snap his teeth at the thought of anything harming her. 

Aleksander steps forward, familiar brushes of darkness swallowing him up immediately as he returns to his natural environment. The moon strokes a silvery finger down his cheek, greeting him as he breathes in the cool, sweet shadows. 

Turning to look at his mate he finds her lingering in the light, fingers slowly slipping from his as she looks at him with too-big eyes. 

“Alina,” he says. Home, is what he means. Light, love, my darling.

All words that he can replace her name with and somehow not change the meaning, all hopes and dreams that rest now with her. 

Aleksander stands in darkness, shadows creeping from under the cuffs of his trousers and sliding through the strands of his hair in little fingers, out to play now that the burn of candles has retreated from his skin. 

The moon hangs high in the sky above him, full and pearly white. A silent sentry, always there to watch and watch and remember. 

His mate looks at him, safe still as she stands in the light and sound of the pavilion. Her pale skin is burnished gold by the dripping candles, dark eyes alight. He can tell she’s nervous, unsure and confused. 

Everything familiar, everyone she’s known all her life– it’s all there, in the light with her. Caught up in the circle of life, bright and warm as daylight. 

Alina steps over the threshold of light, trapped in between for a moment in time that has Aleksanders heart catching in his throat.

The shadows roll over her face, first, then swallow up her slim shoulders and silvery dress, sweeping down her body until she’s painted in charcoal and deepest indigo. 

Her fingers slip into his, air rushing to fill his lungs as his body restarts. He looks at her, a little bit stunned, drinking her face up as she leans into him. 

There’s barely an inch of space between their chests, warm breath puffing over the base of his throat as Alina curves closer. Her scent is exactly warm sunshine and August flowers, everything gold and golden in the world. 

They blink at each other, heartbeats slowing into synchronization and hands tightening as they hold onto each other. 

Aleksander feels a tugging at his heart. His heartstrings— a word he’s never understood before, never been able to parse the meaning of.

But now, with Alina’s small hand clasped in his and her dark eyes tilted up to his, her warmth nestling into his body…he thinks he understands.

Heartstrings , because there’s a million filmy threads tying his heart to hers. Wrapping around the chambers of his most vital organ, threaded through the veins and delicate, pulsing walls of pink tissue— all of them, tiny and silver and fine, linking their chests together.

He feels all of them, his heartstrings entwined with hers, their bond made up of all those thousand pearly strands. 

The string that pulled him just an inch across that marble dance floor and out of the crowd of dancers, one single silver thread the first to tie his heart to hers. 

Tying Aleksander to Alina, Alina to Aleksander.

Cold was his ire at the beginning of the night, nothing filling his chest but anger and the constant dreams of war.

Now he holds his mate’s hand in his, long fingers wrapped carefully around her warm palm as he watches her through the shadows of night.

She is more lovely than any sunrise of his lifetimes, her face already the dearest thing to him in all the world. 

Aleksander wonders if there were clues he didn’t see, little signs granted to him by the universe and the Sky Spirits above to hint at her arrival in his life. Or even earlier, before his mate ever decided to attend tonight’s lunar ball– were there invisible strings tying them together? 

What a pretty notion. What a lovely thought, to imagine that their steps have echoed one another’s heartbeats as they walked along their paths towards each other and towards this night. 

Aleksander smiles faintly at the idea, his chest alight with the glowing embers of contentment and golden happiness. He tightens his hand on Alina’s, running his eyes over the curves of her face again and again.

She sleeps so peacefully, this tiny mate of his. He cannot wait to know her. 

The carriage bumps and rolls through the night draped velvet of the countryside, sleeping animals and little cottages full of dreaming families passing by. Aleksander drinks in the warmth of his mate beside him and thanks the fickle spirits for granting her to him, her head laid on his shoulder as she slumbers. 

Aleksander decides, as he looks at his mate, that even if there were no invisible threads to tie them together, no compasses to lend him the subtle signs and directions that would someday lead him to her– it doesn’t matter.

He would find her in this or any lifetime, no matter their fated chances.