Let it be known that the Darkling used to feel. It was a long time ago, of course. And those feelings - they've since been buried deep beneath six feet of hard earth, humble and muted in their grave. It was an intentional act. The cutting off of a dead limb, per se. A necessary sacrifice in order to conserve the rest of the organism. Without it, he would've… well. (A sigh of confession.)
He would've been left to rot.
And it worked. For the most part.
But there was always… what?
A semblance of something. The itch of that phantom limb. Unscratchable. Unexpected. Uncontrollable. Infuriating.
The cut of cold wind would do it. At high altitude in the traitor territory of Fjerda, where they burned the Grisha alive. The icy slap of it, the way it nicked at his pale skin like a violent caress, like sharp nails dragging over scalp. Oh, that made him feel something buried. Like hell it did.
Or the sound of music. Not just any music. But simple music, peasant music. Otkazat'sya music. (Yes, he'd said it with a sneer. Though he was not above it. He was weak for it. And that was far, far worse.) Music passed down from generation to generation. As immortal as he was. Ah. That was what made him feel. Something that lingered. That dared to outlive him. There was power in song. It made him remember. It held on. It… well, it itched.
Then, of course, there was his mother. His mother. His mother. His mother!
He felt something once. From her. Her lips on his forehead as he fell asleep. Goodnight, my son. Young. Too young. Was he ever really young? He no longer remembered it. It was far too long ago. He was fatherless, but not motherless. The shadows they cultivated together. Her hardness and her strength. How she hardened and strengthened him in turn. How she taught him the realities of the world in which they lived. How he was destined for power. He tried to resist it. He tried to bury it! Get rid of it! The way it consumed.
And then there was her. Rediscovering things he had no intention to rediscover. Like the way it felt to be held. And to be seen. And to be no longer alone.
Those reaching hands - her reaching hands - jangled the bell of the grave digger. A desperate, keening cry of: "I'm not dead, I swear it! Please dig me up!" He felt those hands everywhere.
Fuck it if she wasn't a dead ringer.
x
There was something about the meadow that felt incomplete. She, a girl with no history and no destiny, borne from no one. She turned to the side to see the long grass before her. How it swayed and danced in the wind. She watched as it partitioned her view, how it cut up her perspective into manageable slices of earth, of sky, of sun.
A cry from inside: "Alina!"
How was it that she did not recognize her own name?
x
Black was his color.
Bit on the nose, really.
x
She cultivated the light in her palm, but only in secret. She knew of the Grisha.
But she did not know of this.
x
He smelled blood and the burn of incense. And mud. And something foul. He sat in his tent under the guise of darkness. He let the shadows crawl from him, extending outward in a web. He could sense the oprichniki at the door, the nervous shuffle of their feet, the tender suck and slap of their heartbeats. He sighed, drawing his hands into tight fists, so tight his knuckles turned first red, then white.
Outside of the tent, the war raged on. Ten otkazat'sya for every Grisha casualty. It was a ratio he could reckon with, but only barely. He felt the call of the Fold within him. The caress of it, the nearness of it, the kiss of darkness. A siren's song. Sometimes, in his dreams, he walked straight in, his feet dragging in the cold sand. None stopped him. For though he was the only chance to save Ravka, still. Still. They hated him for it.
In his dreams, there was no pain. There was only welcome, like sinking slowly, slowly, slowly into deep ocean. Pressure, magnified. He drowned in the darkness of his own making. He dissolved into nothingness, without even a grave to desecrate.
Ah.
But that would be the easy choice.
The Darkling knew the reality in which he lived. Knew that there was no hope but him. Knew that he must keep the Grisha safe. Keep Ravka safe. Keep his mother (his mother!) safe.
With the Fjerdans advancing from the North, and rumors of an independence movement in West Ravka…
There was no choice. There were none stronger than him.
After all, a divided Ravka would fall.
And there was only him to knit it together. No grip but his own strength, his own power. And he would do it. By any means necessary.
And, as always, he would do it alone.
x
"Who are you?"
But the frightened girl did not know the answer.
"What are you?"
But the frightened girl did not know the answer to that, either.
x
They sat together outside the Little Palace. There were things he should be doing. Meetings to hold. Appearances to make. Strategy to deduce. The Fold, it called to him. Still, at this distance, it called. But she sat beside him, scratching that phantom limb he'd long since buried. And there was little he could do but watch as, in her palm, the sun (the sun!) glowed hot.
x
There was a tether. She felt its anchor. In her chest, left side. Third rib down. It was a tangible thing, like a knot bound. Like circulation cut off, a string wound tighter and tighter and tighter around a pinkie finger until the nail turned bright red. How it throbbed! It was like she could feel him everywhere. Nowhere. Where he was, what he knew. His patience and his pain. There was an awareness of him, a drop of light in a pool of darkness.
She asked Genya, the Tailor, her friend:
"Do you see it?"
But Genya did not see it. She saw only the unblemished skin of an orphan, plucked from obscurity and deposited in a palace.
Alina knew, deep down, that no matter how many times the Darkling said she belonged...
She did not.
x
He did not recognize the feeling within him as panic. He did not recognize it as loss. They were too far removed from him to properly associate. The Darkling felt the absence, of course. He felt the tether left side, third rib down. How it pulled taut. Alina wasn't kidnapped, they proclaimed.
She ran.
x
The lake was frozen over. The air, cool as death. No wind. She sat at the edge of the water, testing the solidity of the ice. In her palm, the harnessed sun. It sliced through the darkness. She crouched down, caught a glance of her own reflection. It was as though she didn't know who she was. But then again, she never did recognize her own name.
His exhale turned to mist as he crouched beside her. One long stream of it. Behind him, hidden in the trees, a fleet of Grisha awaiting his orders. Flint at the ready, positions posted. But she was just a girl, lost. Who did not belong. Alone. He brushed a gloved hand over the icy surface of the lake as she did the melting. There were ripples. He had felt something once, similar to what he was feeling now. Relief, perhaps. Or the snap of two magnets connecting after the tension of separation. She looked at him, her eyes dark. Fathomless. They did not speak, despite how their connection hummed. Angry. Furious for release.
"Why did you come?" she finally asked, because she did not value herself as she should.
At least, not yet.
And there was Ravka to worry about, of course. There was the Fold. There was the royal family and the Second Army and the slaughter of innocents and all those who fought and died for their own. And there was the possibility that their unification, their power together, hers and his amplified, would bring order to chaos. Would enable his power to enforce peace.
But that wasn't why he had come.
"Because if you leave, then I am alone, too."
He didn't know how much of what he said was manipulation.
And how much was confession.
x
In the streets, they called her Sankta Alina. The Saint. The savior. The Sun Summoner. The inevitable destroyer of the Fold.
And him, he who loved Ravka so, he was only the Darkling.
The jealousy. There was nothing for it.
He was the Black Heretic, forevermore.
x
She was nervous when she kissed him, but only the first time.
There was something ancient about him. Something dangerous. But also, something true.
What was it that he said? That they all said?
Ah, yes.
Like calls to like.
The loneliness drew them together, but there was something else that made them stay. Each of their own volition. After that first night, what with her fumbling fingers in the moonlight, the way she held onto the back of his neck, the skin warm beneath his robe, kefta gone for the evening, forgotten on the chair. The crinkle of paper as he lifted her atop his desk, the roll and clatter of a pen falling to the ground. There was something in her that matched something in him. And something in him that matched something in her. And when those two things met!
There was nothing else.
After that first night, well. It became every night.
He ran a fingertip down her spine. Felt each notch. Memorized them. Where her hip dipped. The jut of her clavicle. Chin to jaw to earlobe. To the spine again, down then back up to where the sweat pooled between her shoulder blades. It was sentimental. But he would deny that one to the very end.
She lifted herself up on an elbow and turned towards him, hand clutched in the sheet, holding it to her chest. In his face, the absence of expression. He let nothing through. If there was one thing he had mastered after centuries of existence, it was how to wear a mask.
After the first impulse to run from his own weakness, and in turn run from her, he had long since accepted the inevitability of her in his bed. Of her power over him, as it were. She would know it soon. That, too, was inevitable.
The nerves were long gone. In her eyes now, flint waiting for the spark.
He knew it, again, again, again. The inevitability of it.
How, eventually, he would burn.
x
They had their differences.
Hers, a heart too pure.
And his too black.
She accused him of a hunger for power. Of greed.
He accused her of simplicity. Of misunderstanding.
He loved Ravka. He loved the Grisha. And, he might even love-
No, he would not say it.
With love, there would always be sacrifice.
There would always be pain.
x
She was wearing black when she betrayed him.
Standing there in the Fold, so beautiful and bright that it nearly blinded him.
It wasn't his fault that she couldn't understand what he wanted. What he needed. That the world did not exist in black and white. That shadow and sun were not the only two forces at work. That there could be power and peace. That there could be happiness and struggle. That there could be slaughter and success. She simply did not understand. She was too young.
And she was too weak.
Until, of course, she wasn't.
He walked toward her, the darkness of the Fold a familiar comfort to him now. Like his dreams. These were his people. His monsters. His army of the dying, his consumption of the dead. She was there on her knees and he felt disgust. He felt terror. He felt awestruck. He felt obliterated.
He felt and felt and felt.
And she looked up at him, hatred in her eyes. The ones he remembered so dearly in all their facets. The frightened orphan, dropped in his lap by grace. Lost, then found. The satisfaction of belonging at first with her kind, and then with him. Because they were two halves of a whole. Could she not see that? How could she not see that? It was there between them, tangible as a rope that had
Just
Been
Cut.
The light was gone.
He felt the air leave his body, a vacuum straight from his soul. The future - their future - a wisp of smoke. Like he'd imagined it. Like, well. Like she'd buried him. And how long he'd waited for this. Centuries of time. Of watching those he loved, die. Of watching those he'd conquered, die. Of watching those he ruled over, die. Only for his one hope, that very same hope who knelt before him now as if praying to the false God that he was.
Sankta Alina on her knees. It was blasphemy.
He dropped down to join her. The screech of the nichevo'ya over his shoulders. His power crackling through his veins, begging for release. The whirl and chaos of the Fold. He could hear the death, how it continued even now. He could feel it in his bones. The white of her hair whipped around her face, caught in her lip. He reached up just one more time. He remembered every notch in her spine.
Her dagger cut mercifully into his chest.
Let it be known that the Darkling did not die alone.
x
"Call me Aleksander," he'd said. A name - his true name - long since buried, lost to time. Dig it up for him, please. Again. Again. "Say my name again."