I wake up to the sound of children running around the halls, the smell of Magda making breakfast, and the feel of Alina's head nestled into my neck. Or I should say Anya. She hasn't been Alina for a while now… At least not to anyone but those of us who know she is still alive. To me, she is still Alina. The girl whom I have loved all my life, yet only recently came to know it. They call me Andrei now. Anya and Andrei. I guess you could say they have a certain ring to them, but I still prefer Alina and Mal. We rebuilt Keramzin from the ashes the Darkling left. Now little kids run around constantly, never ceasing to laugh, disobey commands, or pester the teachers. I love it.
Misha, the orphan boy that Alina and I seemed to have acquired, is fourteen, making him the oldest boy at the orphanage. He doesn't fully understand what happened to Alina, just that she can't summon anymore, and that he must call her Anya. He makes me happy, and despite some issues at the start, Alina has grown to love Misha as a brother.
Nikolai and Genya come to visit us sometimes. As do Tamar and Tolya. The many glamorous gifts that arrive at our door make it known to the teachers that we have friends in high places. I hear their whispered questions about how Alina and I know these people, about the lives we lead before we came to Keramzin, and about the sorrows that trouble us. Sometimes, during the middle of the night Alina wakes screaming, awoken from the terrors of her memories. She walks barefoot through the halls of the orphanage, stopping to stare out of every window, gazing up at the sun she could once call to her. I stare at the woods, longing, wishing, hoping that somehow I will feel connected to them again, that I will regain the part of me that was the woods, even though I know it's hopeless. Anyways, there's no time to dwell on the unchangeable past when you have kids running around all over the place.
It's been almost seven years since Alina defeated the Darkling. It's been about five since we've started admitting children into the orphanage. We have thirty-three children at the orphanage, living and growing with us. We don't try to replace the parents that they've lost, because Alina and I know better than most that you can only have one real pair of birth parents, but what we do try to do is to give them a place to call home. Alina calls me her home, and I call her mine, for we grew up in a cold place, where the only bit of joy came form each other.
Nikolai has not yet found a queen, and Alina and I worry he never will. He is already allied with most of our neighbors, and there is no real threat for him to marry for power. No one truly understands the emptiness he feels but Alina and I, for we have experienced similar things. Alina still has the emerald ring, and Nikolai has always been pretty self-dependent. He can manage on his own. His sole concern is an heir to the throne. He'll find someone to give him those heirs eventually, but for now, we must all be content with being alive, and we must all keep living.