o.
"You might make me a better man."
"And you might make me a monster."
i.
The light filled her so completely, she didn't believe that her mortal body would still exist when she came back down. Alina found, through this surge of power, that she did not want to come back down. She wanted the sun and the stars, could feel her exploding with their intensity, dragging it through her veins and letting her nerves catch on fire. She could taste blood in her mouth and smell the way it crackled on her fingers - Mal's blood, coating her hands. Driving the knife into his chest. Listening to him die.
Her head was thrown back, mouth opened wide as she screamed, screamed with power and grief as light filled every corner of the darkness. Her cry was joined by so many others, a cacophony of pain and agony that elated her. She wasn't alone. She would never be alone again. The screams of terror whispered that to her, pressing gently against the tide of light.
And in the distance, she heard her name. A gentle caress of syllables from a lover she had wanted and feared and could want again. That was what the syllables of her name told her, said over and over again.
Alina.
Alina.
Say it again.
She wasn't sure if she spoke it or felt it, her words spoken with her power as if speech were beyond what she had become in this moment. Antlers at her throat, scales on the pulse of her wrist, Mal's blood etched into her skin.
"Mine."
ii.
Alina did not destroy the Fold that day. She did not destroy the Darkling like she had meant to. Too overwhelmed by her own selfishness - the universe and the greed of men - she let him fold her into his arms and tame the swelling storm that came with three amplifiers. His fingers stroked along the antlers that were as much his as they were hers.
"You made the right choice," he whispered to her. He did not care that her army - her friends - took the advantage given to them by their moment to escape the Fold.
A faint glow under her skin cast shadows across his face, and for a moment, she could lie to herself and say that it was Mal holding her, Mal telling her that she had done the right thing.
iii.
Bone encircled her empty wrist. A rib, made in a hasty request as she quelled the force that begged to be let out.
A bone that was close to his heart.
Alina wasn't sure how she got the Darkling to agree to let her wear it, but she wondered if perhaps he was overshadowed by what she had become.
iv.
It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment that Alina decided to take the Darkling's hand, her fingers entwined with his as they stood within the Fold and didn't leave. She could hardly say how long they waited in the darkness while his Grisha cowled in fear and awe, while the volcra died out around them. The few that remained stayed far away from the girl who glowed.
She knew that she did not agree with the boy that was once Aleksander. She knew that deep in her heart, in the roll of her stomach at the feel of his cool flesh against hers. She knew that every time she turned her wrist and felt Mal scrape against her as a constant reminder.
But she also knew that she couldn't be alone anymore. That only the Darkling would understand what it was inside of her. That she would consume anyone else who got too close, as if she could burn them alive if they did.
She was unnatural.
"What now?" she finally asked with a hoarse voice, surprised that it was her speaking.
His face, cast in eternal shadow against her glow, revealed a smile. A softness around his lips that belied the darkness of his slate eyes. He was content, she realized. He was beautiful. She felt a tugging in her bones that made her want him, as if finally, finally, she was able to do something right.
"You chose me." The way he said it made it sound like she had no choice. Maybe she didn't. Maybe she never had. Maybe her acts of rebellion were always a design to do exactly as he had wanted.
"Will you make me your queen, Aleksander?" Despite herself, she could feel a smirk tugging at her own lips. Her power made her bold. Her power made her his equal - and his slave. But from the look he gave her, she could see that the bond went both ways.
"Tell me what you want, Alina."
As if she were allowed to have a choice. His fingers tightened around hers, and she narrowed his gaze at her. Was this a test? What was the right answer?
Kill him, the fragile part of her whispered. Be done with him and everything he will do and had done. Disappear into the world before you become him.
But she ignored that part of herself. She was no longer a scared girl, but something far more. She was eternal. She was life. And she could reign in the parts of Aleksander that were undesirable.
"I want to negotiate."
He wanted the throne.
She wanted the safety and pardons of her friends.
He wanted the execution of the Soldat Sol.
She wanted the monster that was once Nikolai to live.
He wanted her to wear a kefta of black.
v.
Only David and Genya return to the Little Palace, a month after the Darkling marched on Os Alta and took the throne for his own.
"Ravka will be safe," he promised in that lilting voice of his. He sounded sincere. He sounded as though he cared. "No longer will we fear war. No longer will Grisha be terrorized."
The Darkling's Ravka did not include otkazat'sya.
Alina's Ravka did. She would be his balance, she told herself as they stood in the middle of the capital. A crowd of the weary gather in the square to view the spectacle laid out before them.
She stood next to him, her face stony, her hand resting in the crook of his arm like a good supporter of the new regime. Even after a month, she could not yet figure out how to dampen the glow beneath her skin. The black silk of her kefta was good for one thing, at the very least.
The remainders of her army, with their bright suns tattooed onto their faces watched her as if she would deliver them from this fate. Save us, their eyes seemed to say to her. She wanted to look away, but the moment her head moved, she could feel the cool touch of the Darkling's hands on her chin, bringing her back to them and the creak of ropes as their bodies swung.
"Long live the Darkling!" an oprichniki proclaimed. "Long live the Sun Summoner!"
Chants of tsar and tsaritsa drifted from the crowd.
Alina wanted to hate it, but she could feel herself clinging to their words. To their acceptance. She wanted them to love her, worship her, fear her for what she was. The creak of her soldiers mingled with the chant, as if providing the music for words that were sealing her coffin.
Her left wrist burned something fierce. Her chest ached with something like sorrow that couldn't be expressed. And when she was able to glance away from the corpses to look at the Darkling instead, she saw that he was watching her already.
Testing her.
Feeling her.
Making sure she wouldn't run, that she wouldn't abandon him now when he had come so far.
Her fingers pressed roughly into his arm, hard enough to feel bone through silk and flesh. "You will not go back on our deal now that you've gotten your end sealed, will you?"
His lip curled, eyes flashing hotly. Once, she thought, she would have shivered at the look. Would have been afraid. But he wasn't the sun, no matter how desperately he wanted to possess. "You've taken Ravka with me, and yet I'm still your villain, Alina." His voice was low, harsh in her ear. His breath puffed out against her cheek.
"You will always be my villain, Aleksander."
He stiffened at the sound of his name spoken so publicly.
"Just like I'll always be your salvation, right?" For the first time since before Mal's death, a quiet smile curled at the corner of her mouth. It hurt, as if the muscles didn't quite understand what being upturned meant or how to even keep the expression.
"I've lost you more than once, Alina," he said softly. There was an air around him - not quite sad, not defeated, but bordering on the two. He was as much her slave as his, she reminded herself again. "I don't think you would go away if I killed him, but I will respect this one absurd desire of yours."
She tilted her head, now that he had freed her enough for movement. In the darkness of one of the buildings, she could see the still body of a monster that waited, perched.
Nikolai.
He hadn't perished in the Fold along with the closest volcra. He hadn't been healed either. Her mouth went dry as their eyes met, even from this great distance. When they had been in negotiations, Alina wanted to ask the Darkling to free Nikolai from the shadows, but she had known that his death would have soon followed.
The Darkling followed the line of her gaze, face like stone when he caught sight of the monster he had created.
Nikolai was a threat as a human. As this being, he was nothing more than a child's tale.
This was the best that she could do for her friend until she had the power and expertise to use mervost.
"Come, Alina."
The Darkling dragged her away, a scowl permanently etched on his face as he led her back to the carriage that awaited them.
vi.
The throne she sat on was hard against her back, forcing her straighter than she had ever been, the weight of the royal crown threatening to snap her neck.
But she endured the pain with a faintly painted smile on her lips. Ravka needed balance, and she was the only one who could give it to them now.