Notes: Gonna be five parts now. gdi. I also went back and added titles to the chapters (Prologue: The First War, Tsaritsa, and Tovarish). Thank you so much to Dani (morozovaaleksander), and Hannah (ignitesthestars) who both chatted The Dorkling with me and helped me out of writer's block quite a few times in this endeavor! Dani also gets credit for the "I hope she screams" exchange 3
Warnings:
Here's where I earn that rating, folks. Explicit (!), smutty material ahead. If you want to skip it (or skip to it?), the smut is in section xl. There is also Dark!Alina. Doing not so nice things Alinakin Skywalker style. And Dark!...Darkling. Also doing not so nice things. Violence + darker themes mentioned.
Part Four: The White Martyr
xxvi.
He dreams.
He's in a river, waist deep and feeling the cold leech the warmth from his skin. His feet sink with every step, mud making his movements slow, like there are hands grabbing onto his ankles. The water rises until it laps at his chin.
He sees a girl on the shore. She looks back at him, but he cannot tell who she is from so far a distance. She does not move closer.
He opens his eyes.
He is alone, but by his bedside there is a book, opened face down, and a mug of tea that is still steaming.
He's standing in the snow. And it is still and dark.
The only sound is the slow exhale of breath, steaming from the nostrils of the stag. Its inky black eyes meet his own.
He reaches for it, and the stag bows his head, antlers scraping the ground, making divots in the snow. Crimson is the only color in the field, as those divots fill with blood.
The tea is gone, the book is in the exact same place.
The girl's feet are bare as she walks across the river, though her footfalls make harsh, cracking noises. There is a rock in her hand.
He feels the sun on his face. His vision is a field of harsh pinks, the color of burned skin and closed eyelids.
A woman sits beside his bed, her fingers threading through his hair with tender movements. Her gaze is dark, almost black in the lamplight. She is humming a lullaby as her fingers grow colder and colder.
"Solnechnyy krug, nebo vokrug. Eto risunok mal'chishki. Narisoval on na listke. I podpisal v uguolke."
There is the warm, sticky sensation of blood on his pillow.
"Pust' vsegda budet solntse. Pust' vsgeda budet nebo…"
The blacks of her irises grow, expanding until they consume her entire face. He stares into the bottomless pits that were once eyes, and there exists a silent question between them that he cannot remember asking.
"Pust' vsegda budet mama…My boy," she whispers, pressing a paper-dry kiss to the corner of his forehead. Her lips come away with red stain, "My foolish, foolish boy."
He reaches for her hand, but it falls away from him, and he feels a wind rush through the spaces where her fingers used to be.
Her voice is dry as bones as she sings the last line:
"Pust' vsgeda budu ya."
May there always be me.
There is a cool cloth pressed on his shoulder, where he knows he has been shot.
The girl with the rock in her hand kneels down beside him. The soles of his feet begin to slip against the bed of wet stones that are no longer mud.
Her eyes are blue, then light brown.
"How far do you sink, Aleksander?"
He goes to answer, but his mouth is full of water, which somehow manages to taste like salt even though this is a river, and not an ocean. Or maybe it's both. Maybe he's lost in the expanse of the sea.
"How fully can you drown?"
He loses his footing. He reaches for her.
She brings the hand holding the rock back, before throwing it forward. Towards his temple.
His mouth is dry and tastes stale. He swallows hard, looking around. There is the rough, scratching feel of bandages around his arms and leg.
"Alina?" He croaks.
"Don't worry," she says, and he turns to see her sitting beside him, book open across her lap. She is not looking at him, "I haven't decided to let you die yet."
He moves his tongue over his lips. They are dry, chapped, and cracked, "Where is your rock?"
Her light brown eyes move up from the page, and she frowns, "My what?"
"Your rock. In your hand."
Alina snorts, "All I have in my hand is you."
Aleksander's eyes focus on the book. And he sees that the hand not holding it open is wrapped around his.
His eyes close again.
The birds fly overhead, in the shape of storm clouds. Their feathers float down towards him in slow, smooth crescents. He is standing on the prow of a ship.
He catches one in a slow descent, and stares at it as he twirls the end between his fingers. In that moment, suspended and surrounded by dark feathers, he thinks he can manage an easy breath.
But the birds do not stay birds. They become monsters. Their feathers become teeth. And one flies low, swiping its talons across his face, trying to take his eyes.
"Kefta," he rasps into the stillness of the night, "Could resist rifle fire."
Alina glares at him from over the top of her book. Maybe she is thinking that it is not too late to kill him in his sleep.
"That's what you get for taking over an army that doesn't belong to you."
His lips twitch up into a smile, and he hopes she sees it, even though his face is only a silhouette in the dark of her cabin, "Kidnapped?"
She does not return the expression, "Bullets."
He falls beneath the water, hand pressing towards the surface to discover only ice. He is thinking he has no choice but to drown, fully, until he sees a single ray of light streaming through the water, breaking the surface and allowing him air before he sinks to the bottom.
His eyes adjust to the dark easily, as they always have. And he looks to see her at his side again, a ghost of his conscious state. She is not reading a book this time. Instead, she is wrapped within a blanket, eyes glaring at a failed attempt of knitting in her lap.
He takes a deep breath, "Where are we."
Everything about her goes still, as if she does not want to answer the question. But she does, just after he accepts that silence is going to be his only answer.
"…my home."
Miles away, Maksim Lantsov signs a directive that gives the conquered Fjerdan territories a new, official name: Novoravka.
xxviii.
It takes him three weeks to fully heal, but after the first week, Alina disappears on him once again. He is stranded, somewhere in the cold, and convinced that she has abandoned him to a pathetic, frozen fate in an equally pathetic and frozen cabin when she arrives just as he is able to walk without stiffness.
And she arrives with a sled of all things. It's loaded with what appears to be supplies: furs, food, and what looks like paper. It's archaic. And he decides that it's good that he didn't leave as he desired to, after that first week alone. There are no roads, and sleds can only mean they are somewhere in the remote.
Alina stares at him, and he notices that when she looks at him from the top of his head to the bottom of his boots, it is not with the appraising stare of desire. Instead, it's like something a child might give an insect under a magnifying glass—as if she's trying to discover what appendages can grow back.
"You've made yourself at home," she says dryly.
He is wearing clothes he found in her cabin. And he does not like entertaining why she might have a man's jacket and pants folded tidily in a chest.
"There was little else to do."
The Darkling's gaze moves towards the sled, where she has blankets strapped down to the end. His lips must curl in distaste, because Alina smirks.
"I had you strapped down there, too. After the battle. Like luggage."
He feels his lips tug down into a frown before Alina throws a bag of provisions at his chest.
"Time to earn your keep."
The Darkling stares at the bag of what appears to be flour in his hands for several, long seconds. As if he's never seen it before.
Alina doesn't look back at him as she goes inside to the cabin, though she leaves the door open behind her.
Conquered lands are not patriotic.
Tsaritsa Oksana sends contingents of soldiers to guard the new settlements belonging to Ravka. And they are almost all Grisha, for it has become public opinion after the death of Tovarish Starkov that only the Grisha have the power to ward off Fjerdan. That they are the most capable.
Her decision is met with respect by some. Hostility with most. For it is common knowledge that those of Fjerdan burn their Grisha.
The Grisha feel they are thrown to the wolves, the otkazat'sya feel inadequate. The people who were once Fjerdan find themselves Ravkan, and feel angrier for it. Everyone must rebuild together, but production is not what it used to be.
Conquered lands are not wealthy. Conquered lands are not balanced.
Conquered lands are not safe.
It's unsettling, to say the least. Watching the Darkling injured, watching him recover. Watching him shelve provisions and make tea and just. Seem so human. Though it is, admittedly, a little less unsettling than watching him sweat out an infection and bleed all over her good linens. And it's far less unsettling than thinking about why she's allowing him to stay here, in her home. Why she allowed him to survive the Fjerdan ambush.
Alina sighs, returning to her knitting. She's had over a century to practice it, but can still only manage lopsided sweaters at best and gnarls of what should be potholders at worst. Time, it appears, doesn't always lead to mastery.
It's been a week since she returned from the nearby Fjerdan village with supplies, and the pair of them have lead an uneasy co-existence since. Well, uneasy for her. The Darkling appears as if he's been born in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere. He cuts wood. He stocks provisions. During the day he disappears for hours and returns as if nothing is different. And Alina doesn't know what to make of it. She doesn't know what to make of him, anymore.
At night they don't speak much to each other, and it's almost like they're back in the War Tent with the Bol'shoy again. Her, finding things to occupy her mind so she doesn't have to question the sanity of her decision, and him, occupied with whatever his thoughts are and staring at her like she's some kind of puzzle.
He hasn't touched her. But she feels like he wants to. Because she sees the way his stares don't stay just on her face. Because she knows him, and she's known what he's wanted for some time now. But he sleeps on her spare bed, tucked underneath the window that the sun hits first in the mornings.
Alina goes back to her hideous knitting. The Darkling makes tea. Sometimes they play chess together. And domesticity feels like the heavy weight in the air before a thunderstorm.
The first week of Novoravka's occupation, the Bol'shoy contingent is forced to execute six rebels for conspiracy. Five of the insurgents are originally Fjerdans. But one is a Ravkan.
"What happens when I leave."
Alina doesn't look up from the goats she is feeding. The cabin isn't illustrious, but she has enough land to herself where she can house a small hobby farm. Two goats, the female of which—Babushka—is expecting, and four chickens. It's been five weeks since the death of Commander Starkov, and two since he's been conscious enough to coexist with her.
And she notices that he says when and not if. Not that she expected anything else.
"Depends on where you're leaving to," she feeds Babushka the last of the sweet rolls she's been stockpiling in secret, smiling as the goat playfully licks granules of sugar off of her palm.
"Where else would I go."
Alina sighs, watching Babushka almost wistfully for one more moment before turning to face him, wiping her hand off on her apron. It's still so strange, to see him wearing the old peasant clothes. To see him acting like he has the life of a mouse.
"I don't know. Travel? See the world without trying to conquer it?"
His cold eyes meet hers, and though it is spring and still somewhat warm, she can almost see puffs of steam coming with his exhale, "We were conquered first."
We. Like they belong with the Grisha. They don't. They don't belong anywhere, which is something Alina is all too familiar with.
"Don't go to Ravka."
The Darkling takes a step forward, and she takes a step back almost automatically. He frowns for a quick moment, but it's gone just as fast, "Or."
Babushka nuzzles her nose into Alina's apron. She sighs before feeding the goat another sweet roll, "Or I try and stop you."
"How."
Alina wonders how it's not obvious enough, "Any way that I can."
The Darkling absently pats Babushka on the head as she searches his pockets for food. The goat wobbles away, unsatisfied. He stares at Alina for a few more moments before he nods, retreating just as silently as he left.
Alina is about to gather eggs when she hears his voice carry over.
"The Fjerdan and Ravkan border was an interesting hole to bury yourself in."
She scowls, not surprised he knows where they are in the wilderness, but not happy about it either, and has no response as she marches back to feed the chickens.
Sometimes, the sound of change is quiet. It is the sound of stale bread crusts, being broken at a table. The sound of small coughs, hidden behind scarves. It is the sound of missives, quickly crumpled into hands.
Revolution can be silent. And Novoravka will be a land doomed to thirst for war.
xxix.
They start playing chess nearly every night together.
"Why would you leave," Alina asks him in a measured tone, as she takes his queen.
The Darkling doesn't divert his attention from the board, "Opportunity."
The next morning he is making porridge when he senses her irritation across the room.
"What kind of opportunity are you hoping for."
He spoons more brown sugar into his bowl, "One that presents itself."
"What would keep you away from the Bol'shoy?"
"Little."
For three more weeks, they have chess in the evening and porridge for breakfast. Until one morning he decides to leave, and Alina decides to stop him.
xl.
She's not sure what enrages her more: that he is choosing now to leave without ceremony for the first time, or that he's choosing to do so with her sled.
Alina's in the middle of repairing Babushka and Dedushka's fence when she feels something she hasn't felt in sometime. That magnetic, unmistakable pull between them becomes strained, and she turns just in time to see that the Darkling's taking half of her food stores and tying them down to her sled.
She moves without thinking, drawing her arm down hard.
The flash of her Cut illuminates the field in front of her home, and the sled gives a harsh, wooden crack as it splits in half with a bright arc of light.
She hears him sigh as he surveys the wreckage, even though his back is to hers, "Alina."
"That was my only sled."
"I'm aware."
Alina straightens, setting down her hammer and walking away from the goats' fence. As she approaches him, she does not release the tension in the muscles of her arm, "Where are you going, Aleksander?"
He turns. Alina sees the resolve in his stare. And she knows that, finally, it's come down to this. To the two of them using their opposing powers against each other. In a way it's a relief. Because it's too easy, to forget that someone who is mediocre at chess and fond of too much sugar in his breakfast, is also someone who destroys for the sake of it.
"Ravka."
She brings down her arm again, but he anticipates it, and her Cut less than harmlessly slices into the tree just behind him as he moves.
"You've practiced," he says coldly, and she sees the way his arms are moving up, ready to clap together in that thunderous boom that brings them all to the dark.
She aims another Cut. It digs a furrow just in front of his feet, "I can do more than that."
His hands still, for a moment, "I've never had a doubt."
And then he claps them together.
Alina takes a deep inhale as the darkness swallows her. Her entire body coils, ready to spring into an attack as she tries to draw the sun from the shadows. As she tries to find her focus, something pushes her, and she staggers until she feels her body brace against the outside wall of her cabin. Dread twists in her chest as she listens for the sound of the nichevo'ya, the long-forgotten wound of her shoulder flaring with phantom pain.
She takes a deep breath and brings her hands together.
The shadows split in two, forming a fissure with her on one end, and him on the other. His eyes are narrowed in fury, as he advances towards her.
"You'd kill me, even still?"
She doesn't want to think about the answer to that question. So instead, she slashes her arm down again. Her Cut dances past him, grazing his arm lightly enough that part of his sleeve flutters to the ground. He sneers at it with distaste, before moving in on her again. Alina takes a careful step back, until she realizes that she is retreating into the cabin, its door wide open.
"Why aren't you using your Cut," she finally mutters, bringing her hands up defensively in front of her face. Her fingers glint with the light of the sun.
The Darkling follows her in to the cabin, and she sends more power into her hands but doesn't release it. He shakes his head, and she sees for the first time the heavy set to his shoulders, the dark circles under his eyes.
"Why aren't you aiming."
Alina closes her eyes, "I am aiming."
"Aiming to kill. We both know you're more than capable of it."
She shakes her head, opening her eyes to see that he is less than a foot from her. Pulling from combat lessons several lifetimes ago, she lashes out with her fist, hoping to catch him off guard as her other hand sparks with the Cut.
He slams in to her instead, his long fingers catching her fist before they wrap around her wrist, and he uses his height and weight to his advantage when he pins her against a wall. The sunlight around her hands flares, and she goes to push him off of her when-
"Enough."
His tone is distant, but Alina can see something dark and barely restrained in his features. As his grip digs into the soft underside of her wrist, Alina knows Enough isn't meant just as a command to disarm. She looks at him, into his eyes, for several long, tense moments before she reaches a decision she hopes she won't regret.
Alina curls her fingers, and the sunlight sparks off them as her Cut dissolves.
The Darkling watches her hand with a measured amount of caution, as if a single moment of vulnerability from him will cause her to fire. It's not an unwarranted hesitance. She's cut him before.
"Don't go to Ravka, and it'll be enough," Alina finally responds, looking at the lines on his face, and her eyes dart down, just for a moment, to the hollow of his throat. The lean muscles of his shoulders. It's intentional, of course. A calculation. An offer. His next breath goes in like a hiss, but his eyes do not stray from her own.
"I'm tired, Alina."
"We're all tired."
One of his arms wraps around the small of her back, and the heavy counter of it makes her shift, leaning against him. But feeling the press of his body against hers, the cool grip on her wrist, isn't enough to make her blush anymore. She is, as he said in spite so long ago, no longer a girl. She hasn't been a girl for some time. It's a different kind of heat that colors her cheeks, now.
He steps forward, making the two of them move tighter against the wall. She returns her eyes to his as he presses her wrist up above her head.
"Tell me you'll share my name."
She frowns, "No."
The hand not gripping her wrist moves to her shoulder, undoing the fastens of her cloak with all the careful, deliberate movement of a violinist, "Then tell me why I shouldn't go to Ravka."
The cloak slides off of her like water, creating a pool of fabric at their feet.
Alina does not break eye contact as she moves her leg between his, "Because I'm asking nicely."
"I didn't know you were capable of such things."
"I'm plenty capable."
His heart is thrumming in his chest—she can feel the vibrations against her own in this proximity. And it's empowering, to know that she can have this effect on him. That, if she desired, she can use a wholly different weapon to bring him to his knees. She shifts the leg she has between his further up, brushing against the in-seam of his trousers. He bites down on his lip, but they both keep eye contact.
The Darkling's fingers move to rest heavily on her hip, dancing slow torturous circles over its crest. She can feel his skin, the heat and the weight of it, as if she were wearing nothing at all. She forces her breath to come in slowly, to exhale steadily. She forces herself to not give anything away until she is ready to exchange it.
"You want this," he says, and the words are spoken as if they are already fact, despite the quiet tone of disbelief.
"I want you to stay out of Ravka."
"Is that all."
No, it's not all. They have always held a connection between them, and there has always been a yearning for the darker things he can offer her. But she has always denied it, because the acceptance of it meant accepting those shadowed parts she would prefer to keep hidden. But now, after losing Mal, after losing Nikolai, after losing more and more, it is easier to crave that darkness. Because she knows she cannot lose him, this monster of hers. And right now, as he lightly presses the edge of his thumb to the beating pulse at her wrist, she realizes there has always been something in her that has never wanted to lose him.
But if she is going to surrender, now, to him, she is going to set the terms.
"You can have me, or you can have Ravka. But not both. So choose-"
His mouth descends on hers so fast that her head is almost knocked into the wall. The hand around her wrist tightens, painfully, before it drops down to cradle the back of her neck. Alina takes a sharp breath through her nose as she feels his lips move over her own, hot and searing and demanding. His long fingers flex, digging up through her hair and pulling her possessively closer. She barely has enough time to part her lips before he pushes his tongue past them, trailing an almost velvety pattern along the inside of her mouth.
His hips are flushed with hers, their legs still intertwined, and she's intensely aware of the pressure as he brings the hand on her hip to her back in a quick, grasping movement. His fingers are sliding down to cup the back of her thigh when she feels his anger lash out at her through their bond. His frustration. His desperation. His need.
His decision.
Once, so very long ago, these emotions made her uneasy. Now they only spur her actions further.
Alina leans back against the wall, using it as a leverage in order to bring the thigh he is cupping around his waist. She feels him already straining against his trousers as she pushes her heel into the small of his back, the friction making her arch her body just enough to force him to release a groan. The Darkling's grip on her thigh tightens, and just as the pads of his fingers press harsh enough against her skin to cause bruises, she is distracted from the pain by him slowly sucking her lower lip between his own.
When he releases her mouth, he moves quickly. His tongue lands a second before his lips on her skin as he trails a line down the column of her neck, starting with the corner of her jaw, the space beneath it, the expanse of her collarbone, the back of her ear. His movements are fast and desperate, erratic. She closes her eyes, trying to get some bearing on the situation, but he moves as if he is starving, as if he does not have enough time to take every inch he desires to take.
She slides her hands up his back, underneath his shirt. He tenses with her touch. Alina's palms glide across his skin, fingertips dancing across the edges of his shoulder blades.
Alina gives a startled gasp as he moves his arm from her thigh to lift her hips fully against him, and she wraps her other leg around his body to keep upright. He wraps his arm around her back to support her against him, as his other hand buries itself in her hair again and pulls, forcing her to expose more of her neck to him.
He kisses her throat again, before bringing his mouth to her ear. His voice is a growled rasp, "You," he takes her ear into his mouth for a brief second, still a starving man in a race against some perceived time limit, "Make me so weak."
She can't help the pant that escapes her as she squeezes her thighs tighter against the edges of his waist, "Good."
The hand in her hair pulls again, and she feels a sharp jab of his anger entwined with his lust through their tether. He bites lightly at her throat, and she gives a groan at the stinging sensation before he is running his tongue over her skin instead. And Alina rolls her eyes despite the pleasant wave of desire that's filling her. Because of course he would want to mark her, to leave the trail of him over her in red, angry patterns. She briefly wonders if he is making a trace of where the antlers hung around her, so long ago. But then she registers that he has started to move, to guide the pair of them back to the edge of her bed.
He sits on it first, drawing her onto his lap. Her knees sink into the mattress on either side of his waist, her hands move from his back to his chest. He lets the hand in her hair trail down to cup her face instead, and with that one motion the reality of what is about to happen actually hits her. They stay there, for a moment, his breathing ragged and the physical proof of his desire pressed against where the inside of her thigh meets her hip. Her neck is angry and red as she runs her tongue slowly over her swollen bottom lip before she bites down on it.
The Darkling looks as surprised as she is when his voice comes out as more of a whisper than a command, "Kiss me."
Alina manages a grin, trying to keep her heart steady, trying not to rip off her clothes, or run for the door, "Ask nicely."
Instead he stares, moving from her eyes, to her lip that is still caught gently in her teeth, to her neck, lingering there for a moment before he watches his thumb trace across the bone of her cheek. She looks at him, looking at her, and she lets out a slow breath.
"I hate you, sometimes, for this," he says before she can speak.
"For making you beg?"
"For making me want to."
His fingers move to her shirt, and still staring into her eyes, he begins to undo the buttons. It's a quiet challenge, to see how long she will allow him, and Alina moves her hands to clench at the blankets by her ankles so he doesn't see her fingers fidget.
"All you have to do is say please," she blurts, because she is not sure what else to do when he is staring at her like she is something he needs to survive.
Suddenly the corners of his lips turn up, "I'd much rather hear the word from you."
The awkward laugh escapes her mouth before she can stop it, and she looks away, down at her hands still holding onto the blankets. She misses the quick tightening of his jaw.
His hands continue their task, slowly undoing her shirt button by button. His voice is level, calm, "How many lovers have you had, Alina?"
She looks back, an eyebrow raising, "Don't worry, I think I'm experienced enough to keep up."
His fingers still with tension, "Is that. So."
Alina frowns, "Yes-"
His mouth crashes against hers, silencing the rest of her words. Alina continues to frown, until she hears the sound of something tearing and the unmistakable noise of buttons falling onto the floor, and she breaks away from him.
"You-"
"Later," he hisses, moving his hands to tear away what's left of her shirt from her shoulders, mouth kissing her neck again, fingers ghosting over the skin that is now exposed. She's wearing nothing but a simple camisole underneath, and he is already working on pushing the straps down.
Alina's head is spinning, and part of her is whispering too fast, but then he is kissing her again and that whisper fades with the sound of her pounding heartbeat and the desperate need to understand the erratic path his mouth leaves on her skin. Her fingers tighten in the blanket when he moves to kiss the skin of her shoulders, trailing lower and lower until he is at the top of the swell of her breast. The hand not pulling away the fabric of her camisole moves to hold her calf, pushing up the edge of her skirt to hold bare skin. His touch feels like a brand, and Alina finds her hands moving up from her ankles and into his hair, pushing him closer to her as he takes a slow, torturous lick across the left side of her collarbone.
"Take it off," he mutters, moving back to her neck.
She closes her eyes and tries to get her breathing to slow down, "Or what. You'll rip this one, too?"
"Alina."
"Take it off for me."
The camisole tears, and she smiles against his lips as he kisses her on the mouth again. The air is cold on her exposed breasts, but it takes him only a second to cover one with his hand. She lets out a sharp intake of breath as her nipple grazes his palm, and his long fingers move to cup her with leisurely movements that are at odds with the way he continues to kiss every exposed inch of skin she has. He moves the hand from her calf to her other breast, his thumb lightly pressing against her other nipple.
She is losing the battle to keep her breathing slow.
And she can feel every word against her skin when he speaks to her throat, "I won't let you go back from this."
Alina moves a hand back into his hair, letting the dark, silky strands run over her fingers like water, "…okay."
His hands continue their gentle caresses, forming a light tattoo on her skin. It's enough to drive her crazy, "And I want you to say my name."
She sighs, feeling a tension starting to build in her abdomen as his fingers move lazy circles on her chest, and she decides she can allow him this concession if it means something faster, "Aleksander."
He shifts his hips underneath hers, and suddenly she feels him pressed hard against the apex of her thighs. She rotates her hips slowly in retaliation, and his inhales become as quick as her own before he lowers his mouth to replace one of his hands. His tongue is a gentle heat as it teases the tip of her breast, and when his lips close over her nipple, it's in a way that forces her fingers to dig into his scalp. He traces his tongue around the sensitive nerves over and over again, until the tension that is slowly building in her finally becomes a low, heady throb instead.
"Stop," she mutters.
"Why."
"I want this even, between us."
He looks up, and without another word he is pulling off his shirt in fast, jerky movements until it lies in a discarded lump on the floor. Then he stops, letting her look at him. She does, though she doubts it's with the lens he desires. She knows he has a more wiry than stocky form, knows that his muscles are tight, lean cords instead of prominent bundles. And even at his worst, there's always been something about the Darkling that's desirable to her, something they're both more than aware of.
So instead of staring at him with appeal or lust, she takes stock of his scars. Alina meets his cool, grey stare. His gaze is intense, and she can see from the tension in the muscles of his neck that he is restraining himself for her sake. That it's his turn, for a concession.
Alina's movements are slow as she presses her lips to every puckered bullet wound, as she kisses every jagged edge and burn. She can see his chest rising and falling faster with what she assumes is anticipation, until there is only one scar left.
Where she plunged her knife into his chest is a deceptively simple mark, straight and clean. But it's dark, almost purple. The scar starts from the hollow of his throat and trails down the entire length of his sternum, and she traces it with her fingers before she traces it with her tongue. The Darkling is breathing in near pants as she does so, one hand grabbing her hip as the other covers her shoulder, his fingers moving in a pattern that she knows is tracing the marks from his nichevo'ya on her skin. It's twisted, but in this way, they belong to each other.
The Darkling's voice is husky with want when he speaks, breaking the hush between them, "Lie back."
She smirks against his chest, "And think of Ravka?"
Alina almost misses the sound of his sigh, but before she can comment on it, he grabs her around the waist and places her back against the mattress. For a moment, he hovers over her in what looks like contemplation, and she stares back at him, a frown tugging on her lips as she tilts her head to the side.
"What?" She asks, suddenly wondering how many chins she must have from this angle.
He only continues to look at her as if she's something new. As if she isn't the same thing she's always been for the last two hundred some years, "…I'm still waiting for you to run for the door," he finally admits, looking troubled.
Alina feels an actual laugh escape her, "The thought crossed my mind."
"Only crossed?" And she hears something vulnerable in his question, something so completely human, that it makes her own voice go softer when she replies.
"I'm staying."
As quickly as it opened, that strange, human window of his closes once again, and the Darkling only nods in response. Satisfied. It's enough to make her want to throw him into a wall, if not for that still present ache between her legs.
Without warning, the Darkling grabs her hips and drags her body down until her legs dangle off the edge of the mattress. And Alina has just enough time to wonder what he's doing before he's pulling off her skirt with a deft, no doubt well-practiced, motion. Like her cloak, forgotten by the doorway somewhere, it makes a pool on the ground. Alina pushes herself up until she's lying back in a half-lean, her weight supported by her elbows. She watches as the Darkling also makes quick work of her undergarments, and as she lies there naked, she wonders if he completely missed the statement about things being even between them.
The Darkling crouches down on the floor, kneeling enough so that they are only a little less than eye-level with each other. His stare rakes over her in a way that leaves her little room to be self-conscious, and she watches his hand slowly trail up her bare thigh. He brings his grey stare to meet with her own and she, once again, bites down on her lip.
"Alina," he says quietly.
Alina can see her chest rising and falling with her breath, a repetitive motion that makes the quiet cabin seem even more still, "Yes?"
"You won't be thinking of Ravka."
Not moving from where he is kneeling, the Darkling parts her legs and presses a slow kiss between them.
The fingers he has on her leg begin to move back and forth across her skin, a slow dance that runs counter to the sudden tenseness that is forming at her core. She bites down harder as she feels his lips part against her, before they close gently again, this time on her clit. She's dimly aware of his other hand reaching up to cup her breast, but the sensation of his thumb rubbing lightly over her nipple is secondary to the feel of his tongue dragging up and down her center with a painfully slow pace.
Her head falls back after he finds a particularly sensitive spot, and it makes her waist rise in protest. In response, the hand on her thigh moves up to firmly grab her hip, holding it back down against the mattress. The fingers of her left hand dig once again into the blankets, clenching sheets between them, as her right hand impulsively begins to thread through his hair. Alina can feel that deep pressure within her strain as the Darkling's mouth teases her entrance.
Alina closes her eyes, her breathing no longer pretending to be even as he continues. He moves his hand from her breast to blindly pad at the space of mattress by her hips. She opens her eyes, surprised when she realizes that what he's searching for is her hand. Mutely, Alina guides her fingers in between his own, and he grips them just as his lips make her arch her back.
The syllables slip out before she can stop them, "Aleks-"
When he groans, she feels the hot breath across her thigh.
He straightens from his kneeling position, but does not fully pull away, "Do you want me, Alina?"
Damn him. She can feel her need in almost every muscle of her body, and no doubt he knew it. It's obvious from the way he's still gripping her hip, "Fine."
The Darkling's eyebrows arch, "Fine?"
Alina is sure her teeth are grinding, "Fine."
He surprises her by smiling, and bringing their joined hands to his lips. He presses a soft kiss to the back of hers, before he uses his other hand to slowly undo his trousers. She moves back on the bed to allow him more room, and as soon as he is as naked as she is, he takes it. His knees rest between her legs, and he brings their hands up over her head, placing their arms against the mattress. The fact that her fingers are still entwined with his is strangely more intimate than feeling his naked body against her skin.
The Darkling doesn't speak, and doesn't look away from Alina's eyes as he enters her.
His hips move slowly, in punctuated thrusts that are at odds with his earlier fervor. She brings her knees up before once again winding her legs around him, ankles crossed at the small of his back. When he pushes into her it's with a measured control that is betrayed with his ragged breathing, with the fingers that tighten almost desperately around her own. She matches his pace, despite the urgency she feels deep within her.
Their bodies move as if they were always meant to move like this together. As if they have already done this hundreds of times before. And yet, only this once.
She whispers his name into his ear when she climaxes, and it's only then that he allows himself to lose control. And a few desperate, hurried thrusts later, Aleksander moans and returns the favor.
A few hours later, Alina is roused from her sleep by insistent kisses trailing over the scar on her shoulder. She keeps her eyes closed, but he must know she's awake because he whispers "Again." in her ear.
Alina sighs, but climbs on top of him and decides to oblige his rudely-worded request.
xli.
He stays.
But the life of the mouse is not something he will ever find satisfaction in. And they both know that what they're doing, how they're playing these simple roles with simple destinies, is only a temporary fixture. A diversion, from the war they will eventually return to.
And it's a pleasant diversion. One that he aims to use to his advantage. For there are many ways to get Alina to Ravka, to the throne where she belongs next to him. And if it means he must feed chickens, or repair sleds, or lose at chess, than he is capable of biding his time until she realizes where they both must go.
Until then, he'll indulge his weakness.
They have two years together at her pathetic cabin, before he is able to convince her to move into the neighboring, Fjerdan city of Ledsen. She doesn't believe him when he says he desires interaction with people, but Fjerdan is still not Ravka, and so she packs her carpet bag, her sled, her two goats, and five chickens, and follows him there.
What he really desires, is news of Os Alta. Of Novoravka. Of what he left behind, and of what he can one day reclaim with Alina beside him.
Their neighbors in Ledsen assume they are husband and wife. He is…surprised, when Alina does not correct them.
"You try explaining what we are." Is all she offers in return to his no doubt startled expression.
Pretending to be otkazat'sya is a suffocating experience. But it's one he bears, in order to befriend Knut, the trapper. And Ole, the ex-mercenary. To hear the local stories at the tavern. To listen to these insignificant people curse his country and fear his kind.
But it's only a matter of time. And that's a game he knows well.
It won't be long, before they're suffering just as much as they wish the Grisha and Ravka to suffer. The thought is comforting.
After five more years in Ledsen, it has been long enough since Tsaritsa Lantsov, and Alina eventually stops dyeing her hair.
There are nights—when he sees the white strands of it against his pillow, when he feels her legs sprawled over his, and when her elbow digs into his side even in sleep—that he finds he cannot fathom the experience, or what it means to him, into words.
When ten years have passed, they move from Ledsen to another Fjerdan village: Ny Livet. The irony is not lost on either of them.
Often, when the weight of otkazat'sya becomes more like a yoke than wings, they practice their abilities in the dark woods of the village outskirts. It is during one of these sessions that the Darkling asks her where she keeps her final amplifier.
The question seems to sting her, but she only shakes her head when she determines the question is, for once, not aimed maliciously. Merely curious.
"I'll tell you one day," is all she whispers. And that night, she does not lie next to him in their bed.
Three years after they move to Ny Livet, a circus comes through the town. The Darkling stares at the white tiger in its cage as it passes by. The animal is pacing angrily up and down the length of his prison, waiting to be freed, and he feels an uneasy sense of kinship.
Four years after that, they are sitting together. And as they rest in front of the fire like they did years ago in Baghra's hut, he asks her again.
She closes her eyes, and gives a long, slow exhale, "For a little while."
His grip tightens around her and he smiles in a way that might just be sincere.
When they move from Ny Livet to Sammanboende, Alina is introduced as Morozova.
He has no doubt she notices that every move brings them closer to Novoravka. After all, she was once a cartographer, when she was pretending to be nothing.
They have their diversion for nearly thirty-five years, through four villages and two names, when it comes to an end after the Darkling hears a rumor in a tavern.
xlii.
Sammanboende is almost agreeable. And as somewhere that's almost agreeable, there are occasionally days that are pleasant. The day that Alina's life crashes is such an agreeable day.
For once, she doesn't have to work at her job in the snus factory, and instead she spends the day painting. The walls of her kitchen are slowly becoming decorated in trees, and half of them even look realistic. There's almost a sense of tranquility, in doing something so menial. It's not the luxury of the palace, or the comfortable seclusion of her cabin, but whatever is happening is something that is almost becoming home.
Almost. There's always almosts.
Because no matter what name she's currently wearing, or where they're currently living, the Darkling is still the man who burned down her first one. Part of her can never forget that.
She's in the middle of her thoughts and the third tree, when the door to their home opens. She doesn't look up from her paint, instead focusing on the shading. His presence is still like a lead weight in the room.
"Alina."
She closes her eyes, because she is starting to know him. And with him, she is starting to know what that tone means, "What is it."
"We need to return to Ravka."
His voice is so distant, so calm from where it sounds that Alina automatically assumes something is wrong. She puts down the paint brush, and slowly hops down from the counter she was sitting on. Her hands work nervous knots as she dries them on a rag.
Alina looks over her shoulder, and doesn't like what she sees.
The Darkling leans against the walkway that leads into their kitchen, arms crossed over his chest. He looks tired, in a way he has not been since before the Bol'shoy. But worse, he also looks ready—a man on the ocean braced for an incoming storm.
"…What's wrong?" Alina asks slowly, and she knows she isn't going to like what comes next.
She's right.
"The Lantsov royal family has been assassinated."
While revolutions can be silent, they are almost never bloodless.
It is all the taverns can gossip about. How the Lantsovs were murdered in the Grand Palace, one night following their winter fete, by insurgents who infiltrated the palace as servants. The soldiers who killed the royal family only left one mark to claim ownership of their deeds:
A red flag, with double white eagles. It's the flag of Novoravka.
In Fjerdan, mugs of ale are connected together overhead with cheers of "Skol Novo!"
In Sammanboende, over a century of hiding from grief finally catches up to Alina Morozova. Once Alina Lantsov.
xliii.
Loss eats at her, taking her away piece by piece, as more news travels to the Fjerdan woods. She learns that Novoravkans occupy Os Alta. That there are no surviving Lantsovs, not even the children, their children. That the Ravkan Grisha stationed in Novoravka are being burned on pyres in the wake of the assassinations' success.
The more she learns, the more that is burned away. And soon there is nothing left but an aching, angry hole within her. And it is a space that demands vengeance.
One morning, the Darkling wakes and she is not beside him. There are only tracks in the snow outside of their home.
He already knows they lead to the Novoravkan military camp only two miles from their home (he has been moving them closer, after all).
She is ready to turn away, to forget why she's come to their outpost and to find another way to salvage what is left, before she smells the smoke. It stings her eyes, and as she makes her way to the entrance gate of the military base, the air is thick with it.
A man wearing all black stops her, "You are not authorized to be here." His hands are curled tightly around a rifle. And Alina cannot see his face, or think about what his name might be or who loves him, because she can only see that rifle. She can only see that rifle firing.
"What are you burning," is all she asks instead, and she feels tears brimming up into her eyes.
The man sneers, and spits at the ground, "Häxa."
Witch.
She moves with intention, drawing her arm down hard.
The flash of her Cut illuminates the gate, before it is split diagonally in half.
Instead of faces, Alina sees Ana smiling as she learns how to swim for the very first time in their family pond. Instead of screams, Alina hears the first waltz the orchestra played at her wedding, when her husband told her there was more to them than Ravka.
Time heals all things, but grief never leaves. And pain so easily lends itself to destruction.
So she becomes a burning star, expanding before collapsing in its death.
Years later, her actions that day will earn her a new name in Fjerdan. In the tales before bed, after parents tell their children to be good, but before they pray, they will tell them a story. It tells of a white-haired witch, beautiful and terrifying, who once destroyed an entire army because the proper sacrifices were not made to the gods. As a lady of war, she claimed the deaths of the army for her own, before throwing herself onto a pyre in the ultimate gesture of reverence. The story of den Vit Offret is used to frighten children into attending religious ceremonies when they would rather sleep in the early hours of morning.
It's Fjerdan for the White Martyr.
xliv.
He follows the smoke.
What was once a camp is now nothing but ruin. The gate is bent in half, the barracks are split with clean, neat edges. The Novoravkan rebels on the ground have wounds that are neatly cauterized, made by a heat much stronger than fire. There is a pyre in the middle of the camp, destroyed and surrounded by blue, red, and purple armbands. There is nothing living here.
Or at least, that's what he believes, until he hears a rasping laugh.
The Darkling moves quickly, locating a single man still hanging on to life. His eyes are maniac, crazed, and looking upwards as he speaks.
"They got the witch," the dying man smiles with bloody teeth as he stares up into the sun, "And they're going to burn her. In front of everyone."
His entire body seems to grow cold, "Where."
"Kopingbran."
It's a smaller village, further into Novoravka.
The dying man barks out a laugh, "I hope she screams."
The Darkling's hand draws down quickly, and the man has nothing left to laugh about, his eyes forever frozen on the blinding sun.
Kopingbran is a small village, remotely located near a wide river where most of its inhabitants fish for salmon. It surrendered to Fjerdan occupation without resistance nearly forty-five years ago, then Ravkan after that, and then finally Novoravkan. The people there live humbly, but contently. It committed no other crime than being too weak, too quiet to fight.
It has a population of about two hundred.
When the Darkling arrives to Kopingbran, he sees a woman tied to a pyre. She is unconscious, her white hair moving softly in the gusts from the torches that surround it. She is circled by men with rifles, by people chanting Häxa.
It does not take long until the village of Kopingbran has a population much smaller. Until most of the buildings and its people are torn apart by monsters that only have gaping mouths for faces.
Sometimes, the story of den Vit Offret ends with the god of death taking her away in his arms.
xlv.
The Darkling carries her until they are far enough away from their ruin, walking through the thick drifts of the snow as the wind blows away the smell of smoke from both of their bodies. After an hour or so, she wakes, and both stay silent even though her fingers are clenched in his jacket and his arms are tight around her body.
He finally manages to speak, "What happened."
She remains silent.
"Tell me."
Alina takes a breath, "I Cut."
Two syllables that say so much.
"Then what."
"Put me down."
"Then what."
"Put me down, Aleksander."
He does, and once her feet hit the ground, she increases the space between them. Her wrists are covered in angry, red welts where they had her chained. He can't stop staring at them. He can't help wishing he destroyed more than just the village.
Her eyes are dark, purple circles underneath making her appear sunken and tired. The Darkling takes an angry breath through his nostrils.
"What happened, Alina."
She looks down.
"How were you captured."
Alina bites on her lip, and one of her arms moves to hold the other.
His skin pales further with realization, "…you were going to let them have you."
She looks down at her wrists, rubbing one of them to get the circulation flowing again. But Alina says nothing, and silence from her has always been synonymous with guilt. What settles within him can only be described as dread. She's so many things that he hates, but she's also an irreplaceable part of who he is now, and he won't have her entertain such thoughts without his consent. She is not allowed to step away from them, to act like they mean nothing now.
He takes a deep breath, "Explain."
Alina shakes her head, sighing and looking up. The winter sun of Fjerdan shines brightly against the snowfall—reflecting every flake like white hot flares. They both consider them for a moment, before she speaks again.
"You asked me where I wear Mal, once."
Rage replaces his dread effortlessly with the name. Because of course she means to leave him for something so trivial, "What of it."
Alina huddles deeper into her coat, walking away slowly with her back to him. Her footfalls make small impressions in the snow, before they are scattered away in the wind as if she has never been there at all. But her words still manage to carry as she retreats.
"Mal's on my chest, because that's where I stabbed him so that I might become a match for you. Mal's under my fingernails, because that's where his blood spilled when I held him. So that he wouldn't die alone, without comfort. Mal's written on my bones, because what I did to him is never, ever going to leave me. I wear Mal everywhere, Aleksander. And sometimes, I wonder if there's only one way to take him off. I wonder if there's only one way to take any of it off."
He hates her with every inch of him in that moment. For holding on to the tracker, for somehow putting seventeen inconsequential years above the nearly two hundred and fifty they have had together. For punishing herself, because it makes his punishments to her less warranted. Because she still doesn't understand how much more they need each other than they could ever need anyone else. Because she's not letting go. Because she almost ruined the both of them in a desperate need for vengeance.
The Darkling crosses the field of snow with long, urgent strides until he is standing right behind her, "Tell me what I need to do to make you forget," he says, moving his arms so they wrap around her shoulders, pressing her back into him as he rests his chin on top of her head, "And I'll do it."
Alina sighs the sigh of an old woman, and her hands move to hold his forearms, where they are currently crossed over her chest. It's as if she wants to rip them away, but something stills her, and instead she does not move. They are at a standstill, once again, and finally she asks him a question that sounds like it has been on her mind for a long, long time.
"What is infinite, Aleksander?"
He frowns, the words coming from his lips like a lullaby half-forgotten, "The universe and the greed of men."
Her hands go limp where they are holding on to his arms, "And us."
The Darkling closes his eyes, pressing her tighter against him. His grip must hurt, it must suffocate, but Alina allows him to continue his embrace. He thinks about seeing her in the Fjerdan's grasps, how still she was on the pyre. Of what it would mean, to be alone once more after he knew what it meant to have her.
"No," and his voice breaks with an emotion he does not understand, "Not us."
As if strings were cut, he brings them both down to their knees in the snow. They stay like that, holding each other—him with desperation and her in defense—until the sun bleeds away from the sky like warmth from coals. Until they can feel nothing but each other's arms, sheltering them from the cold of the winter.
They return to their house, which will never be a home, and the next morning she agrees to go with him to Os Alta.
"They need to be stopped," she whispers against his naked chest, as they both watch the sun rise in the window, "And you'll be going there anyway. Maybe you'll need to be stopped, too."
He says nothing, moving his thumb slowly from side to side over the rounded edge of her shoulder. Over the scars he put there. And instead, he wonders at the kind of madness that makes a man continually bare his throat to the only woman who can hold a knife against it. It's a vulnerability that makes him uncomfortable, an unease in his chest, and his mind thinks of one word he has not allowed himself to think about in some time.
Alina's quiet as she packs, and he only watches. Her fingers fold what precious little she has decided to keep into a worn carpet bag. He sees nothing going in that would indicate sentimentality—no pictures, no keepsakes. He doesn't mention her moment of weakness with the pyre, and she doesn't mention his with the village.
Both understand this is a one-way journey.
They return home to civil war, and smoke hovering around the Grand Palace.
Ending Notes:
The lullaby dream!Baghra is singing to Aleksander is a Soviet-era Russian song called "May There Always Be Sunshine", the literal translation is: A sunny disk, the sky's around it. This is a drawing by a young boy. He drew it on a sheet of paper, and signed it in the corner. May there always be sunshine, may there always be sky. May there always be mama, may there always be I."
Here's an audio recording of the chorus, if you want to hear it: mp3/pust_ 3
