A/N: I think, at current, this is my FAVORITE chapter that I've written for this story thusfar ;3 Enjoy!

It was such a small thing, the little sphere that Alina could conjure and balance atop her fingertips. Yet it was so much more. She could feel it, the light, with all its subtle variations and motions. After escaping from Baghra's stuffy hut, she stole back into her rooms to make herself presentable rather than making the trek over to the fighting grounds. Technically she had enough time to engage in a few drills and perhaps a sparring session or two, but Alina needed to revel in the epiphany she had today.

The fact that she also had to fix her hair back into the neatly done styling that Genya had once again done for her was secondary but not unimportant. She rushed through combing out the unplaited portion then spent the next ten minutes just watching her sunlight - her sunlight! - play across the silvered glass.

She caught her own face in the reflection next. The little sphere faded away as she blinked. There was a glow about her, a flush to her cheeks that she had never seen before. Grisha were supposed to be empowered when they used their abilities. Alina had seen the obvious bloom of life on Nadia and Marie's faces when they practiced off hours by the lake and even Genya had a glow about her when she was done Tailoring - though Alina tended to take that as just a natural feature to the already beautiful Genya.

It was strange to see it on her own face. Alina leaned closer to the mirror, expecting it to be a trick of the light, an illusion that would quickly fade. She would find the hungry eyes and sallow cheeks of the orphan once again, wouldn't she?

The bells of Os Alta started to toll for the next hour, breaking Alina from her discovery. She flew up from her dressing table cursing. Her side-tracking and delaying was going to make her late to meet the general now. They were getting together at the stables as well, which originally was going to be closer to Botkin's training ring.

Still, she managed to dart down the stairs and cross the grounds to the stables without making her trip to her rooms in the first place pointless. When she got to the stable that their horses were housed in, Kirigan was already leading the pair to a post. Both horses still needed their blankets and saddles, so Alina took some comfort in not being terribly late.

The way that General Kirigan greeted her certainly didn't betray any ill will towards her not being perfectly on time. They still had plenty of time for Alina to learn how to properly saddle Zarya without needing to rush. The autumn sun would hold for a while longer.

Alina managed to hold off on blurting out her success this afternoon until they had once again run through the day's lessons and were letting the horses rest by the water. Kirigan commented with a pleased note to his voice, "You seem to be in better form today."

It could have just been a polite way of remarking that she hadn't been taken down by her sore muscles. Alina beamed nonetheless because, yes, she had been in better form. Her sides ached but she could breathe. They were both still on their saddles, even, which was the biggest victory for Alina. Zarya might not have enjoyed it quite as much, but she was trodding through the shallows of the water without too much resistance.

"It's coming to me quicker than last time," Alina agreed. She hedged one last moment before turning excitedly to the general beside her. "I've got better news, though."

"Oh?" His head tipped with the inquiry. Alina nodded quickly.

"I figured it out finally. Summoning. On my own."

Kirigan's eyebrows lifted. "That is fantastic news," he replied. There was a grin slashed across his face that Alina felt spreading to hers as well. "Since when?"

"Just today, just for a bit, but I managed it without Baghra's help."

Alina felt pinned by Kirigan's gaze. They had both stopped their horses, and he was looking at her with that level of intensity that made her feel like they were the only two people that mattered. "Just today?" She couldn't puzzle out if he was disappointed or just confirming what she had said.

"One second," Alina said. She looped the reins around the horn on her saddle and breathed carefully in through her mouth, out through her nose. Closing her eyes was difficult to do. She could practically feel Kirigan's still on her.

Out here just like by the window in her room she could feel the sunlight all around her. It wasn't blocked by heavy curtains or the fire's heat as it was in Baghra's hut. Alina still had to concentrate to let it in through the wall that she had been keeping up for years without knowing, but at very least she could feel the sun now. Taking hold of it and bringing it to her took a twist of her hands and a cant of her wrist which still didn't feel quite natural but-

"There it is," Kirigan breathed. Alina peeled open one eye and her heart leapt in her chest when she saw the bright sphere hovering once again over her hand. Kirigan stared at it for a long minute while Alina dutifully maintained her concentration.

"I can't make it any bigger yet," she admitted weakly, "but I guess that's the next step after being able to do it on demand every time." She closed her fist to quench the light rather than let it fade as her strength dropped out from under her.

Kirigan's expression betrayed him briefly; Alina caught the flash of disappointment when she stopped summoning. It was smoothed away quickly though. He once again met her gaze and smiled. "Don't be too hard on yourself, Miss Starkov. Have-"

"Patience, I know," Alina finished for him. She picked up the reins again and nudged Zarya to move again. The mare flicked her ears back and shook her head before starting.

"Well if my advice isn't wanted, I can refrain from commenting," Kirigan said.

Alina shook her head, feeling the tips of her ears turn heated. "It's not my fault that it's getting repetitive."

"But is it working is the question."

He wasn't dismayed by her. In fact, he seemed amused. Alina sat up in her saddle and once again moved her hands in the motions she had been taught. They didn't come natural yet, but they weren't quite so forced as she once felt they were.

The sun coalesced swiftly once again. The collection of the motes of light swirled chaotically as she forced herself to pull on more than previously. "I don't know," she said with a laugh. "Does this look-"

Her retort was cut short as the light wavered in her palm. Underneath her, Zarya flattened her ears and let out a harsh whinny. When the horse jerked her head up, Alina lost her control once more. Unlike the gentle extinguishing of closing her fist this time the sunlight flared hotly before dispersing.

The white horse reared. Then she was racing off in a sprint. Alina herself was unable to hold on when Zarya first went up, and the sudden rush of motion had her thrown from the saddle. Before she could finish closing her eyes, Alina had splashed roughly into the shallows.

Cold was the main sensation that registered from the icy waters. The autumn sun did nothing to warm a lake this deep. Alina was vaguely aware that she should be thankful that the low throb of her now throbbing tailbone and hip wasn't any worse, but it was hard to be appreciative when she was suddenly drenched.

It took Alina several seconds to finish registering the fact that she had just been thrown from and subsequently abandoned by her horse. She winced when she saw Harbinger's dark hooves still tamping down next to her. Kirigan hadn't lost control of his steed.

There was another splash next to her. A pair of boots. Alina had the good sense to take the hand that was extended to her. "You're alright," Kirigan said, matter of fact.

"I guess so." She was pulled back to her feet and led to the drier, grassy shoreline in a glassy-eyed daze. Her confidence from this afternoon had fallen into the lake as well. She tucked her hair back behind her ears and tugged her sleeves over her hands. "Well now I feel foolish," Alina admitted.

Looking out ahead of them, Alina could see the mare tearing through the field in a rush of hooves. She seemed to be heading back to the stables. That was some small mercy.

Groaning, Alina dropped her head into her hand. "I think you might have assumed too much from a horse named Daybreak. She doesn't seem to like the sun much," she said.

"She will have to learn," Kirigan insisted. He clicked his tongue to summon Harbinger out from the water. As if to add further insult to injury, the gelding ambled along without complaint.

"He doesn't seem to need to learn," Alina complained before she could think to hold her tongue. The breeze that had been cooling while they were training and winding down was now cutting easily through her soaked kefta. Her arms wrapped around her middle as she stood on her tiptoes to squint where Zarya had disappeared. She looked to have slowed down from the full-out panicked gallop, but she was still heading very much away from the pair.

"If I say it's taken practice and patience, are you going to try to scare me away next?" Kirigan asked.

Alina was saved from having to figure out the best way to respond to that by being further thrown off guard. Kirigan unfastened the cloak from his shoulders and draped it around Alina's instead. The chill from the breeze couldn't cut through the thick, dry wool, and the fur at the top was warm around her throat. The whole cloak was warm, actually, still carrying Kirigan's body heat.

Somehow, Alina had thought that the Shadow Summoner would be cold. But obviously he was still just a man. One who was refastening the sliver eclipse buckle at the base of her throat to ensure his cloak didn't fall.

"I will have to warn you that I don't scare easily," Kirigan murmured.

Clearing her throat helped. Alina needed something to kickstart her brain back into functioning instead of being focused on the dark eyes and soft voice of the Shadow Summoner. "That's what they all say," she replied. Whoever the "all" was supposed to be, she didn't know. Saints, Alina wouldn't have known why she would ever try to scare someone away who was looking at her - drenched, tired, and just having botched a simple summon - the way that Kirigan continued to regard her.

She elicited one of those fleeting smiles of his. Then he turned to snatch Harbinger's reins and brought the gelding to them. He was starting to meander away, not as entertained as his master was by the shivering girl. "After you," Kirigan offered.

Alina shook her head. "That's really not necessary. I can just walk. I have to get Zarya anyway," she insisted.

There was no arguing with Kirigan though. After a short exchange, Alina ended up once again sharing a saddle with the Black General.

Kirigan hardly seemed bothered by the return to close contact. Alina had been able to rationalize the necessity of it before when they were running from Druskelle and death threats. It seemed less excusable to be ridden across the Little Palace grounds simply because her horse had run off on her.

At very least Alina thought that Kirigan might have nudged Harbinger to move more quickly. With them moving at what might generously be called a trot, he kept one hand on her waist as the other guided the reins.

On the other hand, Alina certainly could have said something as well. She chose not to. It was more polite to just be patient, right? That was what he had been asking for after all. She buried her face in the fur of her borrowed cloak, hoping that it would obscure the tint to her cheeks that was decidedly not from Tailoring.

Everyone knew where the Black General's quarters were. The doors to them were tall, dark, and watched by a rotating set of Oprichniki. Even when the general was away, there stood at least one pair of grey-garbed guards at the ready.

Alina approached with her head held high. She might not have felt like she should be able to pull off the entitled facade, but that didn't mean that she had to let the Oprichniki know. All it took was a meaningful look at the door and the rooms that lay behind for one of them to bow stiffly at the waist and allow her through.

She didn't even need to push it open on her own. Somehow that was almost worse. She was thankful that she had something to do with her hands; the black cloak in her arms was carefully folded to prevent it from dragging on the ground. Clearly both hands were needed to ensure its safety.

The room that Alina stepped into was warmly lit with orange lamp light that faded by the time it reached the corners. In the center was a large table with an array of papers, maps, and figures. Alina had heard enough chatter at the dining hall to recognize the Black General's war table. It was the final lynchpin that had even allowed her to make the gesture to come inside at all; if she had thought she was walking into Kirigan's personal quarters directly then she would have just boxed up the cloak and asked to get it delivered.

Her entrance had not gone unnoticed. Kirigan himself was, of course, at the table about three yards away. His head had turned to the door when the Oprichnik had pulled it open. "Miss Starkov," he greeted her warmly, if a touch surprisedly. He stopped leaning on the table and gestured for her to approach.

"I didn't mean to disturb you," Alina replied. It was the honest truth. Still, she approached the table without hesitation. Her attention was caught on the fabric-and-wire construct that stretched across a wide portion of the landmarks below. Of course the general's war table had the Fold so keenly marked.

She bent slightly to view the map from the perspective of the carved cavalry and infantry figurines that were scattered across it. The black strands of yarn stretched two to three times higher than the models around it. "That's not to scale," Alina remarked. She reached out one hand to pluck at the strands with one finger. The whole model vibrated with the motion. "But it is still effective. That was the one thing we couldn't always get right on the page - the height of things and how sightlines may be affected."

When she stood up again and looked at her companion, Alina realized how informally she had been speaking. Why was it so easy to forget that she wasn't chattering on with Alexei or Genya? She was in the war room of the Black General of the Second Army.

"Still the cartographer, I see," Kirigan said with a chuckle. He didn't seem to be bothered, at least.

"You can take the girl out of the army but not the army out of the girl."

"Perhaps." Kirigan gave her a look that Alina couldn't decipher at first before he leaned over to pluck a figurine from the board in front of her. He lifted it meaningfully before placing it in a new position by the permafrost, his arm brushing past her to do so. "Were you ever stationed on the Fjerdan border with your regiment?" he asked.

Alina shook her head. "We had only been on assignment for a bit over a year before the crossing," she explained. "Being in the cartography unit, we didn't move around as much as some of the others. At least while we were getting trained. And when winter started coming around, we ended up getting sent down south instead. There isn't usually a lot of activity near Fjerda when the storms start coming in. No scouts, no updating to be done."

"Mmm," he hummed in acknowledgment. His finger tapped on the figure still under his grip.

"What?" Alina leaned her hip against the table and pulled her arms to cross under the folded fabric.

He lifted his hand, leaving the figure where it was on the undefined border by Fjerda. "Just weighing what you've said with what I've been told."

"I doubt that I've said anything helpful."

That caused him to tip his head. "So quick to undersell yourself," Kirigan remarked. "It's easy to think about moving a piece on the board to a new position. It's another to think about the men and women who will end up there."

"I just mentioned that there wasn't a lot of map making information on hand when there were blizzards rolling in," Alina protested.

"Of course not. Because scouting missions are tightly controlled near enemy lines in winter, if deployed at all. And despite what they might tell themselves, the Fjerdens are just as human as Ravkans. They will have the same limits for monitoring their own borders. So-" Kirigan crossed once more in front of Alina to nudge at the infantry. They edged further north, past the uncertain no man's land of the Permafrost into the spaces that Alina would have colored with the pale blue-grey wash that meant non-Ravkan land. "-they won't notice a small, cautious unit under the cover of those brutal storms."

It was a gamble, but then again all of war was. Alina frowned at the wooden Ravkan soldier. How many people did that figure represent? How many soldiers - her previous compatriots - would be spending their winter inching through Fjerden woodland at the behest of the Black General?

"Don't those soldiers follow Zlatan's command?" Alina asked. She recognized well enough the difference between the plain wooden figures that clearly meant the First Army versus the brightly adorned ones that bore red and blue markers of Grisha colors.

Kirigan's face pinched. He stopped pushing the infantry forward and rapped his knuckles on the table twice in sharp success. "... Regrettably," he conceded. Another heartbeat later had the infantry returned once more to the safety of the Ravkan border - such that it was.

He sighed heavily and leaned back against one of the columns that stood at intervals around the table. The return of the division between them had Alina returning to her senses and her original intention for coming here at all. She had allowed herself to be swept up in the machinations of Kirigan's strategizing.

Clearing her throat, Alina extended her arms with the draped black fur and fabric. "Anyway, I thought that I should return this. Before you had to go. And before anyone might have noticed that I had it," she explained. She had to take a step to once again close the gap between the pair of them.

"It doesn't smell like lake," Alina promised when he continued to simply look at her.

"That hadn't worried me." Kirigan reached out to take the cloak. His motions were deliberate and controlled, just like he had been while manipulating the figures on the board, even as he held Alina's gaze. He might have brushed against Alina's arms with his hand if he hadn't been so careful.

"Why were you worried that someone might see?" There was an edge to his question.

Alina drew her hands behind her back for a moment, fingernails picking at the smooth skin along her palm that no longer had a ribbon of scar tissue. She forced herself to be formal even after the casual air that had been threading between them. That was what she was expected to do. "I didn't think it would reflect well on the Black General to have some girl running around in his color."

He laughed ruefully. "Once again, Miss Starkov, I might remind you that you are far from 'some girl.' Or perhaps you've forgotten the pure sunlight that you can summon on a whim."

"It's still not… I don't want to ruin your reputation." Alina tried to figure out the best way to explain her concerns. Even the appearance of fraternization had been discouraged among the First Army, at least when it came to the upper officers. The last thing that Alina wanted would be to cause the same raised eyebrows and mess hall scandal that had plagued one of her training officers during her training days.

Kirigan blinked several times in succession. Finally he cleared his throat. "I'm a Shadow Summoner, Alina. I'm afraid there isn't much of a reputation to ruin."

"You're the second most powerful man in all of Ravka," she retorted.

"And yet there's only one thing that people see when they look at me." He laid the cloak on the table next to him, his fingers dragging along the silvered fastener with the notorious eclipse.

It was Alina's turn to tip her head in confusion. "You think people only see the shadow of the Black Heretic when they see you? Because he's your ancestor?" Everyone knew there was only one lineage that produced Shadow Summoners and exactly who that tree led back to. And it was not a respected heritage.

Kirigan swiveled his head to pierce Alina with his gaze. "Don't you?" It might have been an accusation were it not for the way his entire body froze in anticipation of her response.

She shook her head. "I think I might know a thing or two about being unable to see past someone's ancestry. If there's anything I can appreciate, it's that we make our own choices. Here and now, regardless of what happened back then," Alina replied.

His lips parted and Kirigan seemed to consider saying something further. Then he looked back down at the eclipse beneath his fingers and frowned. Whether she had said the right thing or not, Alina couldn't tell. Her head was yelling that she had far overstepped her bounds, so she cleared her throat. "I should let you get back to it," Alina said while gesturing once more to the war table. "I'm sure you have a lot to consider for your trip."

Falling back into decorum and politeness allowed Alina to skirt her way once more to the double doors. Still, she paused with her hand on the door handle and looked back at the general. He was leaning with his hands on the table once more though his head lifted to meet her eyes for a final time.

A smile flitted across her lips. "Stay safe out there. Maybe when you return you can show me those trails finally," she said.

"I'll have to hurry back, then," Kirigan called in response. "Good night, Alina."

She had nearly walked right past the box at the foot of her bed when she was running out for the day. The serving women that had gotten her dressed that morning hadn't said anything about it, but perhaps that was because they were still sour over how long Alina had taken when unlocking the door for them.

Alina couldn't resist the little jump that her heart made in her chest, especially when she found a familiar stamped insignia inside of the card nestled on the bundled tissue paper. She was getting pampered and perhaps a bit too used to these surprises. The only thing that diminished her excitement was the knowledge that the general was, at minimum, ten days' ride away and this was surely not an indicator of another personal riding lesson today.

Regardless, Alina accepted that she was going to have to rush through breakfast as she delayed herself further to read through the note before breaching the delicate tissue paper. Thick wool, familiar Durast embroidery, and the softest grey fox fur she'd ever felt was carefully secured in the parcel. All of it was black - or natural grey in the case of the fur - save for the fastening at the collar of the cloak.

That piece was gold, or at least gold plated, and was not the same as its twin. Where the Black General's motif was an eclipse, the fastener under Alina's fingers was a sun in its full splendor. When Alina tugged it onto her shoulders, the fabric stopped just shy of the floor. There was no question that it had been commissioned specifically for her.

Miss Starkov, Kirigan's note had said. The advantage of being the Shadow Summoner is that black is my color to give away

Stay warm, it had said as well. Stay safe, Alina understood it to read instead.