.
.
While charting through the True Sea, over the fierce waves and unpleasant, tremendous rocking, Alina doesn't know how she sleeps.
She doesn't know how she sleeps as Mal and the overly crowded cabin of people feel nauseated.
Maybe it is to do with the voice… whispering Alina's name so lovingly… how it calls to her, lulls her into the darkness…
She dreams of arms swaying her, holding her, keeping her near to a broad-feeling chest, and lips tickling over Alina's neck as if worshiping every metre of her bare skin. Waking feels restless. She hates the waking of it, when it's moonlight cutting silvery through the darkness and everyone, including a gently snoring Mal across from her, has been lost to their own dreams.
Alina hates herself a little for the wet throbbing between her legs, clenching and unclenching, until she needs to relieve it.
Nothing but the ship's shadows can witness her.
Shadows—Alina's mind shamefully conjures Aleksander's handsome face.
Her eyelids flutter shut. Alina takes a deep, back-arching inhale and slides a hand deep under her trousers and under-clothes, flattening down to curve over her mound. She can feel each twitch and throb harder than before, as soon as she sees his smile.
Alina's finger crooks, exploring at first and then rubbing in slow circles over a tiny, sensitive nub hidden in her wet folds.
It doesn't matter if Aleksander's smile is fearsome or gentle… if his eyes cry or grin… she loved him. Acknowledging that truth frightened a grief-stricken Alina enough after leaving the Darkling to perish to his own creations, his Volcra ripping him apart…
Alina cannot change the past. There is no undoing his betrayal, and hers in deserting the First and the Second Army.
She only needs…
She only ever needs the sweet untangling of her memories…
The way Aleksander breathed on her face, his teeth exposing in a delirious half-snarl while lifting Alina in his arms… how he touched her arm mindfully when they walked alone in the Little Palace's gardens… how he laughed over Alina's jests about Ivan… when their mouths met, hot and ravenous, and Aleksander's hands gripped onto her arse, pulling her in, and it felt like every vein in Alina's body scorched alive…
Before reaching her peak, every time, Alina finds herself drifting off and then jolting back into the conscious world.
This time, Mal helps by thumping her shoulder.
"Get up," he mumbles, gazing up as the rest of the ship-voyagers leave. "I reckon this is it."
.
.
For now, Alina has to keep traveling on, hiding with Mal.
It's a busy, bustling town outside of Shriftport, the main port city.
It feels nice not to be tossed around on the bleedin' sea anymore, or so says Mal.
Inej, the kind soul she is, left them a bit of coin before departing from East Ravka and over the True Sea. Alina doesn't think Inej told her friends. She doesn't know how she can ever repay Inej, but hopes to see the young, beautiful Suli woman again one day.
They're far out enough that no one knows Alina Starkov's name or face, but indeed the whispers of a Sun Summoner.
As a deserter, as the Sun Summoner herself, Alina lowers a dark brown, wool roughspun hood over her head.
She prefers it, knowing that otherwise a stranger or two would glare at her, or even yell and chase her down looking for a fight, because she was part Shu. Mal looks a little less Shu than her, but no-one would dare bother Mal. He looks like he can fight, and Mal can.
Alina can defend herself fine, throwing punches and kicking her opponent where they may be vulnerable.
(Mal and her were always mistaken for siblings, and by now… Alina feels comfort in that. They are family. That's all.)
With the Stag's antlers still embedded deep into Alina's collarbones, and unable to remove them, she remains covered up. Alina knows the amplifier is too great. She tried to warm a fire's kindling, and nearly burned them all alive. She nearly blinded Mal.
Alina won't use her Sun Summoning while she's like this, her Grisha power behaving erratically and dangerously out of control.
In the distance, they observe the colourful, silken flags of different nations and kingdoms and lands hung.
"We are definitely not in Keramzin anymore," Mal whispers, a little awestruck.
Alina silently nods.
He reminds her about going round with their fake names in case someone might be searching for them, from either one of the Ravkan armies or the King Pyoter's men. Alina mumbles to herself "Pavel, Katina, Pavel, Katina" while they hurry down a narrow, stone-laid road.
Most of the inns and taverns were made of dark-ash wood, strong and sturdy, but ramshackle together.
Mal picks an inn, letting Alina wander past him.
Behind a low counter strewn with inked parcels, she sees a thin man with gleaming, rosy red skin and a formal smile. "Greetings to you and yours," the innkeeper booms out to Alina, readying his quill. "If you be needing a bed, I will be needing a name."
Without thinking, Alina removes her hood politely and says, "Alina Starkov," and then grimaces so hard that Alina's teeth tingle.
From directly behind her, Mal heaves a sigh.
Saints-damn it.
The innkeeper doesn't seem to notice, jotting Alina's name.
"We had a Mister Starkov in here 'bout a fortnight," he drawls. "Are you his missus?"
Alina's heart stutters.
What?
"Aye," Mal interrupts, approaching to the low counter and putting on a Kerch accent. "He is traveling, as it were, and she is… my cousin," Mal explains in a perfectly formed lie, squinting and rubbing over his eyelid. "Would you… be able to describe him?"
"Describe 'em?"
Alina cannot feel Mal's hand resting on her shoulder, or even the heightening of her pulse. Every muscle in Alina stiffens.
"Makin' sure you saw the right Starkov, is all."
The innkeeper frowns as if contemplating. "He was tall," he says. "Wore black. Dark eyes. Spoke like one of the nobles. If I were to suppose… and I beg your pardon… Mister Starkov could be one of those Grisha. The shadows moved when he moved."
Mal's smile strains. "That would be… him."
"You be havin' a good night."
.
.
This cannot be real.
This cannot be.
This…
Alina slowly regains her sense of feeling, no longer paralysed by the onslaught of her emotions: horror, fear and longing. She hunches down over the loose, ripped pages of parchment, furiously sketching while Mal stokes the hot coals to their inn-room.
Aleksander… the Darkling… Mal said that the Volcra took him, slaughtered him in the Fold and torn him apart without mercy…
Did Mal truly see what he thought he saw? How did Aleksander survive? Did he know where Alina and Mal would end up? Why use Alina's name? Is it to torment her or is her name the only name Aleksander remembers after escaping the Fold?
Her fingertips smear dark with charcoal.
Alina gazes sullenly over her detailed drawing of a black, sweeping presence on Kribirsk's horizon. It is the view from Alina's first skiff ride when she lost her blue-grey army scarf to the winds, turning to face the man whom would love her and loathe her.
"Thank you…" Alina breathes, not looking up. "I could not make myself speak… I could not believe it was really him."
"Came close, right? You were almost the Darkling's missus."
A revoltingly hot spark ignites deep in Alina's throat. She crumbles her drawing, scowling faintly.
"I am not having this conversation with you, Mal."
"It is the truth." Mal shrugs, twirling an iron-rod between his hands. "Even if it is a hard truth." He ignores Alina's scowl now aimed at him, picking up a plate. "The hard truth is you are also not a good liar, Alina. Not to me anyway."
Alina mutters, taking the plate from Mal offered and curling her legs in. She makes herself a tight ball on the floor.
"What do you want to do about this?"
Mal asks this, glancing over her with mild but obvious concern, and she keeps her mouth shut. Alina doesn't touch the hard, stale bread. She bites into her knuckle instead, holding it there, chewing lightly. Her thoughts flash in and out like glares of light.
"Seems like he is not following us, Alina… we might only be in the same place he was before. That is something, at least."
"It should stay that way," Alina murmurs, removing her swollen-red knuckle from her mouth.
She doesn't think she sounds convincing.
She doesn't think Mal is convinced either, shaking his head as if disheartened.
.
.
Alina doesn't sleep.
The voice…
Her entire body doesn't feel right. Occasionally, Alina coughs and coughs, trembling from it.
She feels lightheaded while walking and heavyhearted while resting. There's a feeling like needing to release what Alina carries inside her, and she half-suspects it is to do with her Grisha abilities. The ones she cannot use with an amplifier on her.
Mal breaks the news that they've run out of coin.
They pick-pocket, hopping from town to town, and getting further away from the long stretch of Jurda fields. Mal has befriended a Zemeni cart-man after helping him repair his wheels. Of all things, the Zemeni cart-man knows of a Durast living on her own.
Alina stares off towards the mountainside from under her roughspun hood.
"… What if she is working for Kirigan?" she murmurs.
"Dunno," Mal says, rolling his shoulder. He must be sore from the lifting. "It is our best chance to getting that thing off you."
"I know."
"We can ask her first if she knows the name Alina Starkov—"
"Alina Starkov?" One of the children playing with other children in rags overhears Mal, scampering over. She has bare, dirtied feet, but looks well-fed. An orphan. Dark eyes and dark hair. "You said you was Alina Starkov, did you?"
Mal hesitates, looking somewhere between angered and exasperated.
Alina's mouth drops open.
"I…"
"Shove off, you," Mal says unpleasantly.
"Mister Starkov said if you happened by, I was to give you this." The little girl presents out to Alina a single, golden coin. "Not sure why you would be wanting it," she chirps. "I tried spending the coin on an apple. No-one would take it. It is worthless."
No…
Alina finds herself clutching the Old Ravkan coin with both hands, already knowing the tiniest ridges and indentations from her memory.
Tears fill her eyes.
It's hard to breathe like this. Her heart refuses to slow down, galloping wildly in Alina's ribs.
She doesn't blame a confused Mal for looking so uneasy.
"What is that for, Alina?"
Her eyes locate the gigantic, granite-white water fountain. "For a wish," she murmurs.
Same wish, over and over again. That I could be anyone else.
Alina, dreamy-eyed, finds herself nearing it, leaning over into the bright-glimmering waters and recognising herself in it. It's who she is. It's who she could be. It's who she will be. Alina presses a kiss to the golden coin, and then tucks it into her pocket.
"We should go," Alina whispers tonelessly to Mal, revealing nothing as she walks on.
.
.
Up on the mountainside, climbing higher and higher, Alina swallows down what feels like a painful coughing fit to come.
They reach a stone-made hut. A door made of pale willow.
Before Mal can knock, it gently pries itself open without anyone.
"Faas told me you would come," the Durast solemnly speaks as both Alina and Mal enter the hut's front room. She's a very broad-shouldered but short woman, with bright red curls and green eyes. Her words accented in Kaelish.
"What are you doing so far from the Wandering Isle?"
At Mal's question, one of the Durast's eyebrows hitch up. "My people believe my Grisha blood is a cure-all for their ailments," she announces, but irritated. "Would you have stayed? Or perhaps I should ask you why you are so far from Ravka, deserter?"
Mal flushes. He clears his throat.
"Do you know—"
"My name is Alina Starkov," Alina blurts out, stepping forward to the Durast and holding her head high. "I am the Sun Summoner and I escaped General Kirigan of the Second Army after he collared me with bones from Morozova's Stag to amplify my power."
With a couple of tugs, she pulls off her brown, hooded cloak.
"I need your help."
The Durast peers suspiciously over Alina's exposed collar-bones, as well as the Stag's antlers.
"Prove you are who you say you are, Alina Starkov."
Alina's chest tightens. She wills herself to focus, concentrating on bringing forth a sphere of light out of her fingertips.
Within moments, Alina senses the intensity of her power deep inside, urging her, relieving her and throbbing at her nethers. Shivering over her flesh, brilliant and incandescently warm. Alina's hand visibly glows, shaking fiercely as she hopes to contain it.
That painful coughing fit seizes her, as soon as a paled-out Alina dims her light.
She drops to her knees with a heavy, loud thud. Mal rushes to her, wrapping an arm to Alina's shoulders.
"You could have KILLED her—!"
"It is not her Sun Summoning that is killing her, boy," the Durast murmurs, resigned. "It is that she refuses to use it."
Alina stares pleadingly up at her, blinking out sweat.
"I cannot have this inside me…" she gasps. "Not anymore…"
"You are right."
Mal seethes, becoming overly worried for his friend.
"How do we know you are not with him," he insists, "the Black Heretic… all of the Grisha are loyal to him."
"Then you have heard incorrectly. Whatever petty squabbles you may have with the Darkling do not concern me."
"What do you want of me…?"
"That amplifier, Alina Starkov." The Durast gestures down to Alina's collar-bones. "I wish to take it from you and destroy it."
"Why?" Mal asks, dubious. "It could make you strong."
"Ask your friend if she feels strong."
Wheezing noises escape from Alina's lips.
Alina struggles to go upright, calming herself, humiliated in her loss of control.
"It is too great to be left in the hands of others," the Durast concludes, rolling up her grey-and-red chequered sleeves. "It is a curse on Grisha, as all amplifiers are. I could not live with myself knowing I had the chance to be rid of it and did not take it."
"Thank you… thank you…"
"Be still, Alina Starkov. You need your strength now." She kneels, touching over Alina's collarbone. Alina can already feel an unfamiliar, firm tug of the Durast's power. "Whatever you remember of the pain… I can assure you this shall be much worse."
And it is, it is, it is rupturing her blood and tearing her bones from within.
She shudders, held upright with Mal's arm round her.
A high-pitched scream lodges in Alina's throat, forcing itself in.
Wherever Aleksander is, wherever he hides from her… she feels him now, tied to Alina, drowning in her agony… no, no, no…
Alina reaches out to him on the brink of death and darkness, wherever he is… despite how angry she is…
Despite how…
.
.
Despite how it seems, Alina knows she has not left the Durast's home. Everything seems black and soft and weightless. Alina stares at this constant, ethereal darkness, getting off her knees. She flinches backwards when it creeps closer.
"It is alright," comes the voice of Alina's sweetest, shameful dreams. "Nothing can harm you here. It is only you and me."
"Aleksander…"
She turns to him on the darkness's fray. Aleksander looks the same as he did from the winter fete, his hair shiny and combed-back. The threads to Aleksander's kefta reflect a shiny-black even while he looms in that darkness unanswered.
Alina raises her hands, quickly and frantically touching her collar-bones. No protrusions. No trace of the Stag's antlers.
"You look well."
Her teeth clench harshly in Alina's mouth. She lowers her hands, glaring.
"I knew you were alive…"
"Only a fool would miss the path I left for you," Aleksander says, smirking faintly. "But you are no fool, Miss Starkov."
"How did you survive?" she demands. When nothing comes of it, Alina tries again. "Then have you come to strike me down?"
A low, scoffing laugh.
"Do not speak something so ridiculous…"
Alina scoffs back at him, mocking his own words in an exaggeratedly deep voice, "Make me your villain."
His smirk widens.
"Forgive me for the dramatics," Aleksander murmurs, stepping in. Suddenly, he appears much, much closer than before, facing her. Alina startles softly. "All I desired was the Grisha to live without persecution… for you and me to live truly as ourselves…"
"We could have had that. I told you that you never let me make my choice… you went about everything the WRONG way..."
"You made me realise that," Aleksander tells her, his dark eyes ferociously bright with passion. "I am grateful for it."
Her heart flutters madly, and yet… Alina cannot help but remain stern-faced.
"Why my name?"
"Because it is yours," he answers, as if it is the simplest explanation.
Alina glares again. "My name is not yours to steal whenever you want," she snaps.
"You have stolen my kisses… you have stolen my reason and my heart… why can I not steal something of yours, Alina?"
No…
"You bested me, Alina. You have proven that you are truly my equal."
"No…" she mutters, shaking her head back and forth. Alina claps her hands over her ears.
No, no, Alina will not hear it… not from him…
Aleksander glances down to her pocket. "Then why did you keep what I left you?"
What sounds like a furious, choked whimper leaves Alina's mouth.
"I do not know!"
"You do," he murmurs, soft and weightless as the black. "You are afraid of the hard truths, Alina. You do not wish to face them."
Alina breathes out raggedly, fighting against the hot, glistening tears spilling from her eyes. She reaches into her trouser's pocket, gripping tightly onto the golden, slim coin. Before she can cast it aside, or hurl it into Aleksander's face, Alina feels him. Aleksander's hand on hers.
He lifts Alina's fingers to his mouth, pressing a kiss on the same spot where Alina kissed the coin.
"But… you are not alone…"
A small, shuddery breath wrings out of Alina. They cannot change the past.
"I loved you, Aleksander."
"Then come with me…"
The darkness lifts, lifts as Aleksander's hand does, melding into warm, radiant sunlight. Whether this is her dream or Aleksander's dream… none of that matters. Alina finds them standing in the centre of a meadow swaying with beautiful, blue irises.
"Come…"
She takes his outstretched arm, grasping on and watching as Aleksander's expression softens.
"Alina…"
It's his voice.
It's his arms swaying her, holding her, keeping Alina near to his chest.
It's his lips tickling Alina's neck.
It's when Alina knows she cannot stop this.
No more than stopping the winds which freed Alina's scarf from her, pulling her in Aleksander's direction like a magnetic hold.
She turns herself in Aleksander's embrace. They lay nude in their meadow, and Alina reaches for him, cradling the side of his face and understanding that love is cruel and saccharine and despairing. That they are destined to love and loathe each other.
Alina's other hand cradles Aleksander's fingers in hers, tapping them lightly to his forehead, down against his sternum and holds there.
"Would you like me to pray to you, Sol Koroleva?" Aleksander murmurs, making an enraptured but wolfish grin.
"I doubt you believe in Saints."
"How can I not…" Aleksander quirks up his lips, nudging them to Alina's breast, "…when She descended from the heavens, banishing the darkness that surrounds us…" he exhales on her, "…and when She has been made flesh before mine eyes…"
Aleksander crawls down, leaving a warm, wet path to her navel.
She reclines onto the blue irises and widens her legs to accommodate him.
A part of her is mortified—all of that bareness and all of that heat, spread out to occupy Aleksander's whims. He goes slow, dragging his hot, opening mouth to Alina's thigh. Kissing up to her hip-bone and down her leg. Alina squirms against the sharp-scrape sensation of his beard.
"May I?" Aleksander breathes, gazing up and watching her redden.
Saints…
Alina nods, feeling herself clench in anticipation and half-embarrassed by how wet she is. She knows what it feels like on her own fingers, gushing in, stretching herself to the limit and tightening. Sometimes imagining her fingers as Aleksander's fingers.
Aleksander gives no complaint, lowering his head and pressing a long, lingering kiss to Alina's mound. His tongue flattens over her folds, stroking up and teasing with a slick-slow prod, and Alina bites down a moan. Oh, Saints. He mouths over Alina's cunt, sucking her wetness, making her quiver and gasp slackly. Her fingers thrust, winding into Aleksander's neatly combed hair.
He growl-groans, prodding the tip of his tongue further into Alina, lapping her and savouring the taste of her warmth. Alina rides against him, moaning out Aleksander's name before she can stop herself. Her head tosses back.
Aleksander's hands roughly seize onto Alina's thighs, digging in, pushing them to cling against the sides of his head.
She only needs…
She only ever needs him…
Her pleasure peaks, summoning to a blaze-burn throbbing, and that's when the awareness of pain returns full-force.
.
.
Alina jolts back into waking, back into the conscious world, letting out the scream lodged in her throat.
"No! Alina! Alina, look at me!" Mal yells over her, grabbing her face when she nearly collapses. "Breathe! You need to breathe! Alina!"
"There it is," the Durast mumbles, setting the whole pieces of antlers onto her table. "Saints preserve us… it is real."
"HELP HER!"
"Move," she orders curtly, bending down and slapping her palm across Alina's sweating-hot face. The noise rings deafeningly.
Alina immediately goes quiet, her swollen lips parted. Her dark, dazed eyes blinking.
"Aleksander…"
Her eyelids flutter shut.
Down in the Southern Colonies, the Darkling opens his.
His hand drifts up, pressing against his own collar-bones hidden beneath the black fur-cloak. An echo of pain thrums there. She reached for him, out of instinct, out of concern for him and to soothe him while they share Alina's pain. She has not changed.
"Alina…"
"That your missus?" The boatman rowing him, for the past hour, glances up in curiosity.
The Darkling dismisses the question.
"There has been a change in plans. I need to go north," he says briskly. "How well do you know the mountainside in Novyi Zem?"
"Not very well, Mister…?"
"Starkov," the Darkling proclaims, smirking through his bandages. Out of the corners of their eyes, his Volca-like shadows, his Nichevo'ya, summon themselves to life, towering out of the water and roaring hellishly. "I will manage alone, thank you."
Do not worry, Alina.
We will be together again.
Very soon.
.
.