Glossary:

kefta - garment worn by Grisha

kvas - a traditional fermented Slavic beverage

otkazat'sya - orphaned, abandoned; used by Grisha to refer to non-Grisha

Alina Starkov - Sun Summoner

3

The Darkling stood on the bow of the lead sandskiff like an ebony figurehead, hands retired loosely behind his back, black sleeves billowing. He stared fixedly ahead as the sails filled, and the Squallers began to describe their science in coordinated, elegant sweeps. He barely turned to acknowledge the members of his regiment that came and went, reporting the status of the fleet. He only had eyes for what lay ahead.

Alina Starkov stared at him openly from the deck of her own vessel. The Unsea boiled before them, an incomprehensible, shifting blight drawing ever nearer. It seemed absurd that anything should distract her from it, but the fact remained she couldn't stop seeking the tall figure in black.

She had never suspected the real identity of the Grisha she had been speaking to. Her own ignorance struck her as profound, well beyond the realms of the merely mortifying. He must have thought I was such a fool. He must have felt well-prepared for this crossing to have justified wasting so much time with her.

She had never imagined a living myth could be young. She had assumed, in the more innocent time known as three hours ago, that he was only a few years older than her. But how could that possibly be true? How could the entirety of Ravka's Second Army rest on the shoulders of someone near to her own age?

And yet, there had been moments when he appeared almost ancient. His eyes had often seemed incapable of holding her own existence in their depths. Maybe it wasn't arrogance after all. The quality of his gaze was overfull, and it was elsewhere — only now she thought she understood why.

She caught herself wishing he would glance her way just once — not because her vanity required it, but because she needed some recognition of what had passed between them in Kribirsk or she thought she would go mad. She might set a record by becoming the first soldier in the King's army to lose their mind before actually entering the Shadow Fold.

"Starkov, stay alert." It wasn't Alexei's place to order her, precisely, but Alina snapped to. They were drawing nearer to the Fold, gaining speed on impossibly silent runners. The prow of their own vessel plunged after the disappearing flagship. As they submerged, Alina held her breath and shut her eyes.

When she steeled herself to open them again, it was to the unsettling discovery that the interior of the Fold was blacker than the inside of her own eyelids. This was nothing like even the worst darknesses the walls of the orphanage had conspired to create past midnight. She realized now how the Unsea must have come by its name: a person could drown here standing upright. Terror gripped her, and she half expected to choke as she forced herself to draw her first breath inside the Shadow Fold.

Ghost lights sprang up along the line of skiffs. Alina recognized the uneasy faces bathed in blue around her and decided that darkness may have been preferable. Even veterans of the Fold, those who had projected their competence and bravado back on the docks, now appeared ill at ease. She turned to Alexei and found him standing unexpectedly close; his face was set in grim determination, but she sensed from his sudden proximity that he was frightened. Something in her unclenched at the realization. She might be only Alina; "Sticks;" ink-stained without the prowess to show for it and worthless with anything resembling a weapon, but she was still a human being to seek comfort in.

She attended to her limited duties as soon as she could make herself move again. It was better than standing still. She couldn't see the Darkling at all now. Once or twice, she thought she caught a glimpse of a regal set of shoulders lit up from behind by a flicker of lightning, or the glow of a passing lantern

"Really wish he had spared us his presence," a voice growled beside her. Alina nearly leapt out of her skin, and turned, not to find that she was being addressed by a volcra, as had been her first expectation, but by a twisted old soldier of the First Army. Beneath his scars she saw the bloat endemic of too much kvas. "He's a bloody albatross is what he is."

"Don't listen to him," another nearby soldier volunteered. "He hates Grisha same as the rest of us — he just doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut about it."

"The Black General." The old scar of a man spat over the side of the skiff's railing, and a little too close to Alina for her comfort. Alexei compulsively dusted his uniform. "Glad I'm not on that skiff. The volcra always find him."

"What do you mean 'always find him'?" Alina repeated nervously.

"Like flies to his bloated sense of self-importance." The old soldier actually struck her with his poetry, and looked humbled by it himself. "Or to a corpse waiting to be corpsified." The encore sank the original performance. "They're drawn to him, is what they are. That's why he's depowered in here — keeps his abilities to himself to limit our exposure. But it don't always work out that way. Lost my eye on his last crossing." The old soldier tapped the pit of one socket. It was so dark, the shadows between them so dense, that Alina hadn't even realized it yawned empty.

Her stomach dropped, and she backed away. Mal was on the lead skiff. If the old man's superstition had any truth to it, why did the Darkling bother crossing at all? Didn't he have subordinating officers to do that for him — Grisha who were less magnetic to the Unsea's bestiary?

Could it be he had business in Novokribirsk that was too sensitive to leave to anyone but himself?

"It'll be fine, Alina." Alexei applied a hesitant hand to her shoulder. He was trying to be comforting, but the gesture achieved the opposite effect; she could feel his hand trembling. An amber-hued lantern sprang to life, and a dozen voices hissed for it to be extinguished. Alina heard the crack of windborne leather, and for a moment she thought a sail had fallen.

That was all the warning they were given before Alexei was torn from space.

"Volcra!" the one-eyed soldier bellowed.

No shadow had heralded the monster's descent. Alina would have fallen back, except that Alexei had latched onto her uniform's shoulder strap. The volcra rose before her, enormous; its milk-marble eyes rolled, and it shrieked its impending victory. Answering shrieks rose from the darkness roiling overhead as others began to drop like missiles from the sky that wasn't a sky.

"Alina!" Alexei's plea to live was her own name. She watched as the volcra's talons sank deeper into him, drawing fresh wells of blood. The monster tried again to pull Alexei with it into the darkness, and Alina's coat was violently stripped from her shoulders, buttons exploding everywhere and ringing out as they hit the deck. She reacted without thinking and seized hold of what remained, until she and Alexei were both hanging on by a sleeve, like those tug-of-war games the orphans used to play in Keramzin. Back then, she had always been assured a victory: Mal had always been right by her side.

"Hang onto me, Alexei!" Alina dug her heels into the deck, but it was no use; the volcra yanked her along the holystoned surface in lurching jerks. Her panic mounted as she reached the railing, and she hooked her boots into the stanchions, muscles screaming for release. Alexei was suspended over the side of the vessel now, anchored only by her. She realized then there was no one else coming to help; chaos had broken out onboard all three vessels. Inferni fireballs lit up the Fold, illuminating the volcra churning inside the darkness like sharks frenzied to feed. Every other flash, Alina caught the expression on Alexei's face. It would stay burned in her memory for the rest of her life.

Something essential tore between them. The coat jerked in her fingers, and Alina braced harder. The stitches were about to give. There was no time. She reached for Alexei's hand, and saw him strain to reach back —

Something struck her bodily from behind; another volcra cannoning off the mainmast, half-turning to lash out at its Squaller attacker. Alina hadn't been the intended target, but she was the collateral. She released her jacket, and released Alexei into the waiting darkness, as she was knocked headlong over the side of the skiff.

Her fall was brief, but it was still the longest fall she had ever taken. Alina landed on her back, the sharp jolt of impact lancing up her spine. As she lay there stunned, she saw an impossible constellation of stars spinning above her in the Fold.

She scrambled to her feet before the stars had winked out again. Her lungs burned for air, but there was no time — no time to mourn even for Alexei, and all the others being picked off one by one. She summoned her voice to cry for help, but it was like being in a nightmare, the dust of dead villages enflaming her nostrils and choking her throat; too much of it was airborne now, being kicked up by the Squallers' frantic efforts to get their skiffs sailing again double-time despite their dwindling numbers.

All of this Alina processed, and she knew it in her bones that she was going to die. Her brain just hadn't caught up with the reality of her situation.

Then it happened. High above, on the deck of the ship furthest from her, the Darkling revolved to face at her. Their eyes met across the expanding distance. And in them, Alina saw… nothing. Recognition, maybe, but no inclination towards rescue. And she couldn't fault him his decision, as desperately as she wanted someone to blame for her death. To stop now would condemn every soul aboard. She was one body lost, her life more expendable than even a soldier's.

She just had the misfortune of still being alive.

Infernal light swam in the Darkling's eyes. Why turn to look at all? He held her with his gaze, and for an instant Alina hated him for it — she couldn't tear herself away to search for Mal in the chaos, to die assured that he at least would survive. Instead, she would take the last look of a pitiless general with her to her grave. The recognition she had longed for was all she had to hang onto now.

There was a carrion shriek above her, and Alina closed her eyes in acceptance. The last thing she saw before shutting them was the Darkling's uplifted hand.

Her eyes flew open again as something wet hit her. Blood and viscera collapsed around her. What was this? What had he done? Her horror at still being alive, at the terrible tension of near-death persisting, was only matched by her horror at the butchered volcra raining down around her in pieces.

The Darkling had spared her one grisly death, but being left behind, alive, was so much worse. Now she could watch for seconds, maybe minutes more, as the caravan receded into the distance, as darkness enclosed her in its —

She alone spotted the volcra. His own regiment's attention was turned from him; they assumed he needed no protection. They had been right, until they weren't. Until the Black General had allowed himself a moment's mercy for her. Her voice found her then. "Above you!" Alina cried, but the warning came too late. The diving volcra took its revenge; its outstretched claws, long enough to wrap around a man's waist twice, raked the Darkling so brutally that the wood railing shattered as he was flung overboard.

Alina stumbled her way into a run. She didn't dare to look around or above her, even as the deafening shrieks continued. Why? Why did they have to sound so human? Maybe it wasn't the volcra she heard screaming.

In the distance, the Darkling struggled to rise. The arm he had done so much damage with now appeared damaged itself; it dangled limply at his side, and he favored it with his good hand. The volcra targeting him came again. Alina shouted another warning, wordless this time, and drew her knife. She was nearly to him, but still too far away. The Darkling faced down his enemy and raised the hand that still worked his bidding, too late; grasping talons shredded his black glove to ribbons without sparing the flesh beneath. The Darkling flinched back where a lesser man would have fallen, and sank again to one knee.

Alina, unable to slow her momentum, tripped over him as the conclusion to her inelegant rescue.

It was absurd to find that their present situation afforded some advantage: the volcra could only swoop them, and was forced to wheel and gain altitude before it returned for its next attack. Alina's eyes hunted the roiling air above them. She felt the man she shielded stir beneath her.

"Tell me… what you are thinking, Alina."

Her eyes flashed to him incredulously. The Darkling was staring at her again with that peculiar remoteness: as if she was the alien one, and not him. As if this was really the right time to resume a conversation she had never enjoyed to begin with. "I thought my face already told you everything I was thinking," she answered in a shaking whisper.

"Not everything."

"I was just thinking you almost ran over me with your coach yesterday."

"Did I?" The Darkling gave a faint snort as she aired her grievance.

"I don't think you would have stopped even if you did." Wind flung her hair into her face, and her eyes stung with grit. That's all she would allow it to be.

"Ah." He didn't correct her presumption. "Of the things I should repent for, this numbers quite low."

"If that's your idea of an apology, I'll take it."

"I'm afraid I'm out of ideas."

Alina was afraid, too. "What are they doing?" Her fierce whisper was more to herself than the general. Amber lights flickered on the deck of every skiff now, and the subsequent shouts to put them out came far too late. Had the entire regiment lost their minds? Certainly the actions of the Black General, in regards to her, seemed evidence of a dangerously contagious insanity.

"You should have just left me!" she exclaimed suddenly. Now she was going to be responsible for both their deaths, and the Darkling was more valuable to the Ravkan effort than a cartographer would ever be.

"I was leaving you."

"If this is your idea of 'leaving' — "

The circling volcra unhinged its jaw and dropped with a scream. Alina slashed the air with her knife and somehow managed to ward it off. "You want to know what I'm thinking?" she shouted. "I'm thinking that I'm about to die with the only Grisha whose power is useless in the Fold!"

"Allow me to demonstrate how useless," the Darkling said, and his mangled hand knifed the air as the volcra dove for Alina. The monster separated into pieces of itself, still screaming, as if unaware it was already dead; a sickened Alina turned from the execution, and wound up turning into the man responsible. She discovered keftas weren't as soft on the outside as they had always appeared.

The Darkling carried her with him as he fell back, breathing hard. It wasn't the exertion of his power; his wounds were deep, she realized, deeper than any she had ever seen up close. She didn't have to be a trained medic to know there was too much blood outside his body that should have been within. "Don't move," she begged. "They'll come back for you."

"Otkazat'sya, none of us are coming back this time." His hooded gaze fell to her. "Although I didn't think it would end quite this way, it does seem appropriate for me to die here."

"Stop talking." Drops of rain wetted her cheeks, and wetted his collar. Did it rain inside the Fold? "You're annoying me. You're delirious."

"On the contrary, I find some things have a way of clarifying themselves in the dark."

His eyes flickered with the light of distant Inferni-tossed fires. It seemed to take all the strength remaining in his good arm for him to reach for her; and when, impossibly, it seemed as if that strength would finally fail, Alina guided his hand to her own cheek and closed her eyes. The gust of wingbeats, the incensed, demented howls, descended, as the Darkling's bloodied fingers ascended the curve of her cheek, gathering her tears as they came.

Alina shut the world out but for his hand.

Death inside the Fold was unexpected: it wasn't darkness that ultimately took her after all.

It was light.