Dear Mal,

I hope you're doing good. This may perhaps be the last letter I send you, and tonight I am letting go of things. There is but one story that I wish to get off my chest; the one I never told you or anyone else, and perhaps not even myself. I remember the days at the orphanage before you came along. I remember those older boys beating me, the names I was called to my face and behind my back. And i remember when u came along, how i suddenly had a friend to sit besides and run laughing in the meadow. Then one day the testers arrived. I was seven, you ten. You were called into the room before me, and I remember the dread of that day. I was frightened one way or another we were going to lose each other. I breathed one tiny sigh of relief when u came back; bleeding but still here, still safe. But I couldn't let go of my dread when my name was called. And you'd noticed. I remember the encouragement on your face, you looked so assured my test would go the same as yours. And I went inside the room. The woman in the red kefta waved me forward. She was an amplifier, I realise now. My feat refused to move towards the place they were seated, frozen perhaps in terror or dread. When I finally stood besides them, the woman in the red kefta seized my arm. I wriggled out of her grasp, perhaps I shouted, for I heard your voice through the door- Alina, Alina. But when she caught my arm again, I felt something. I felt her calling to me, and I felt something rise up in me to answer her call. Terrified, I knew I'd have to make a permanent, irreversible decision. I took hold of the thing inside me, and I pushed it down with everything I had. Maybe the girl noticed, for she frowned, but I snatched my hand away- and she let go. I was safe. We were safe. I remember how sick I felt in the days after, unable to move or do anything. Perhaps I never truly recovered; the shadows under my eyes certainly never left. But I was happy. For a decade, this is what I held onto, even as I became the scrawny, useless girl who always got left behind,or left out. I didn't mind. I had always loved being alone, it didn't bother me how my entire days passed inside the library, poring over some dusty tomes, while you, Mal, grew up, made new friends, chased after girls and cracked jokes you picked up from your Pit friends. I was still the only person you came to seek advice from, the one who got to hear the story after a day of sauntering bravado. Girls who never spoke to me wanted to be my friend, only to get close to you. I was happy, I was tired. Same old, same old. And then that night in General Kirigan's tent, after the volcra attack, he tested me himself. He was too powerful an amplifier, and I was too exhausted, for me to do anything except give into his will; the thing inside me rose to give the answer he demanded. And there was a blinding light. I haven't seen you since, but I know well enough what you think of the Grisha to doubt your reaction.

Tonight, I offer no apologies. Tonight, I am telling you I am too tired of holding it all together. Of smiling and wanting to be normal. Because I have never been normal; and I killed myself slowly to be just that, but I am different. I have always been different. And I will not apologise anymore. I will not tear myself apart for anyone else's comfort ever again.

I am Alina Starkov.

I am the Sun Summoner.

I am Grisha.

And tonight I tell the girl of 7, I am sorry. Tonight I beg her forgiveness, for I smothered her for too long.

Our paths diverged some time back, and I kept pining for what could have been. I never truly understood the price of that. Never thought the price of building a life on a farm with you would have been me.

I wish you the best, dear friend. I wish you happiness and joy, though it cannot be with me.

Goodbye,

Alina.