Chapter Two: The Loss of Connection
"Girl."
A round piece of wood pressed against her face. Alina Starkov flinched and rolled away.
"Girl." Again the wood tapped, this time, it was her stomach. It pressed hard against the swollen bladder beneath the corset.
Alina's eyes snapped open, unsure if she would make it to the lavatory before pissing herself.
Only, a being laid at the edge of the bed. It was too short to be Alek. It was rather hunched and haggard.
She raised to her elbows. "Baghra?"
"Foolish girl," the woman answered.
Yes, it was Baghra.
"What are you doing here?" Alina glanced toward the drawn curtains. Damn. She couldn't tell what time it was. Whenever it was, it was too early for her to rise. Her eyes burned to stay open even as they spoke.
It was Aleksander's bed where she still laid from the night before. She'd been tucked beneath a blanket. Her eyes shot downward, and a relieved sigh escaped her lips when she noticed the corset still on, her bareness hidden from her the old woman.
"Get up. Now. Up now. Follow me." The woman's cane tapped against the floor as she walked. Her old face scowled to see her unmoved body still in bed. "NOW."
Alina snapped to standing. Her feet hit the cold floor and winced.
Aleksander took off her shoes last night. They were thrown across the room.
Still, Baghra was not a patient woman. She expected total obedience. Her grouchy moods were harder to ignore than her usual foul mood, so instead of riling the woman with questions, Alina followed her to the back wall of the war room, confused at what might be found there, until a small seam in the wall parted and allowed them through to a dark passageway.
The old woman pulled her inside and snapped the door closed. It left them totally encased in black.
"Fix your skirts, girl. I'd hate for him to see what you've been up to."
Baghra fell to shadow as she moved through the passage. Alina followed and tried her best to adjust her impossible dress in the dark with no clue how the thing went on in the first place. It was a joint effort to tie her into the thing.
"Who?" Alina questioned.
"A tracker," Baghra answered. "He came to the castle to find you and he'll be sorry to see how much finding you've done on your time here."
The bitterness in the woman's voice was unfounded. It cut through Alina's confidence like a diamond tipped dagger.
"What I've been doing is none of your business, Baghra."
The foul face stopped before her. A hand latched around Alina's wrist. It pulled tightly against her skin until the point of pain. "You've fallen under a spell. His spell. He'll make a slave out of you if you don't see through it."
"Whose spell?"
"The Darkling's, of course, girl. Haven't you figured it out?" It was too impatient for how new Alina was to the Little Palace and the way of the Grisha.
She paused. "Figured out what?".
"His plans for the Fold."
"He's told me, what he wants to do. What we will do."
It was we. They were one. Together.
"You, ha! You will be so smitten with him you won't see a thing past his tortured eyes."
They moved through the passages again. This time, it was in quicker pace. It was apparently they were fleeing something…or someone.
"Where are you taking me?" Alina finally asked.
"Away," the woman snapped, increasingly frustrated with the questions.
Suspicion at the base of her stomach grew hard as a rock. Something was wrong.
"Wait. Wait." Her feet dug into the floor.
Baghra's hold on her hand tightened.
Her breath caught in her chest. Away. Away from Aleksander?!
"Wait, what about Aleks-."
"Alina?" A voice rang out through the dark. "Alina is that you?"
Her heart dropped to her knees. A voice from the past, what felt like so long ago, a time apart. "Mal?"
"Alina!"
"Mal!"
"Hush," Baghra snapped. She pulled Alina to the right at the fork. It brought them to a set of stairs. Downward. She heard footsteps through the dark at the base of the stairs. Her feet moved fast. "You will leave this place. You will not come back. Do you understand? He must not have you."
It was months since she saw Mal. Her best friend. She was so excited that she forgot what Baghra was saying and the concern over where the hell they were.
She felt his presence before she saw him. The dark was so thick. Sparks zapped from her fingertips just to catch of glimpse of him.
Of course when she did that, Mal was at the end of her arm. He glanced down, seemingly shocked, at the light from her palms.
"Mal!" She smiled and threw her arms around his neck. It felt great to hug him again.
"Enough you two." Shadows emerged from Baghra's presence to extinguish Alina's simple light. It doused them black again.
Alina went rigid. "How did you…"
"Don't waste your time with silly questions, girl. It will only cost you precious time to get away." The woman looked to Mal, eyes less furious than they were at Alina. "Remember what I told you, tracker."
He nodded.
"W-what? What's going on?" She struggled against Mal's arms as they secured around her, pulling her away.
"We have to get away from him," Mal murmured.
"Him who?" Alina demanded.
"The devil, you stupid girl. Can you not see any of the deceit in the walls he's crafted for you. Beloved saint."
She looked to Mal. He was determined. Those wrinkles on his forehead, the sharp clear-cut color of his eyes. Her hands held onto his shirt. "That's not true. He wouldn't. He couldn't."
"He is! All that I say and more." The woman's eyes snapped to Mal. "Come, tracker. Precious time. Precious time."
She shook her head as they plunged further into darkness. Wherever they were. Hidden. Away from Aleksander's reach. Mal held her tightly. Too tightly. Tears leapt to her eyes as she tried to pry her wrist free on his grip.
Mal stepped unafraid of the shadows. Little did he know that shadow was where Aleksander lived, breathed, thrived. He should have been scared.
Baghra followed them through the darkness. For the first time, Alina noticed the way the blackness interacted with the woman. The shadows in her cave dwelling. The way she moved. Tendrils of the beloved shadow that once cradled her now bent to the presence of another.
Her fingers scratched at Mal's hand. "You. You!"
Mal dropped her with a hiss.
Baghra was not amused. She turned with an impatient look.
"You're his mother." The words shocked Alina as she said them, not realizing that it was her voice that gave them life. "You. Your bloodline have the dark gift. Shadow summoning. You're his mother."
"He has lied to you, mighty sun summoner. My existence being only one of few," the woman growled. Her cane clinked against the stone floor underfoot. "He is not what you think he is. He is not a nobleman. He is not a savior, but a devil. He's taken you here to manipulate your allegiance with him."
A smack to the face would have shocked her less.
Thoughts raced around her mind. How? How could that be truth? He told her of his inner desires to destroy the Fold, to redeem his family for the creation of the horrid Fold.
She shook her head. "No."
"He's the one who made it, Alina. He doesn't die, doesn't age. The Black General is the Black Heretic!" Mal was convinced of it. No shred of him doubted what he told Alina.
"You must hide away from him," Baghra said. "Hide and train. Grow your powers. Grow them enough to destroy the Fold from the inside, out of his sight. Before he uses it to further his own agenda."
Mal took her hand and used it as an anchor to her as they moved through the darkened passageways below the castle, farther and farther away from Aleksander.
She huffed behind. It was difficult to wrap her head around much except the urgency in Mal's body. His fear made her frightened. It took her back to their days at the orphanage when all they had was each other, fleeing the Grisha test.
Baghra sent them out through an earthen tunnel upward toward the sky. Only the eerie light of early morning showed. The ramp was loose dirt. The dirt coated her toes as he climbed up first. Her fingers dug in the dirt after Mal.
"Come on, Alina." His hand grabbed below her elbow and pulled her up.
They were deep in the woods, not far from the Little Palace but enough that their journey would be covered from a line of sight by the rustling branches of trees.
They ran through the forest. A pack hanged from Mal's back. It slapped against his back each time he had to stop and wait for Alina to catch up. Her bare feet hurt against the woody ground. Roots breeched the soil and tripped her every few feet.
Her beautiful dress was ripped to shreds. It tore on roots and low hanging branches of the trees as they ran through, trying to lose their trail as Mal said.
He glanced down at her feet. "What happened to your shoes?" He gaped at her bloodied toes.
"I never had any." Her stomach lurched. She hadn't eaten and the constant sprint drained her energy quicker than she ever thought. "It's the middle of the night. I was sleeping, you know."
There was a small chance to take a breath as he rummaged through his pack.
Alina finally had some energy to devote to thinking. "How…how the hell are you here?"
"First Army sent me. He requested a bullshit assignment; First Army didn't want to oblige… He saw me today. He told me he'd tell you," Mal explained.
He hadn't.
"You could have told me yourself," she said. "A letter isn't too hard to write. You had plenty of time."
"Hey. Don't be angry with me," he barked. "You haven't written me either."
"I wrote you! All these months. I wrote and wrote with the hopes that you might write me back." She wiped the corner of her eye. "You were my only friend. I needed to hear from you."
"Alina, I wrote. Of course I wrote to you. I sent them to the Little Palace each time the dispatcher came," he explained. "I thought you were still pissed about that Grisha girl."
A thick, unresolved tension surfaced between them. The joy of reuniting only burned half as bright at the memory of why they parted. It was his rolling, tumbling adventures with Zoya all around camp like a prized turkey whilst he convinced her to reject Alexei's growing attentions. He was active in the campaign to drive a wedge through the cartography unit.
Mal's reputation throughout the camp was not unknown. Even to her. She knew he was sleeping with Zoya in a way to earn better rations. Stealing was his gift, and motivated many of his actions, but what hurt was that he kept other men away from her so that she might not find another.
"Right." The taste was bitter in her mouth. "Would you like to know how Zoya is? She's a real hit at the palace."
He reaped spoils of the bodies of women without recognizing that she had one, was one.
"The Grisha don't mean anything to me."
"I am Grisha," she growled.
His hands thrust a pair of woolen socks forward. "They're the only ones I got. But it's better than nothing."
Aleksander would never let her walk through the woods without shoes.
She grunted in anger as the rough fabric encased her feet. It was true. The Little Palace raised her comforts to higher quality products than what the rest of the country had.
"We should get going."
She rose to her feet. The fabric helped eased the growing cold, the only benefit she saw.
They kept running. Running and running.
Feeling left her flesh, wave after wave. The chill consumed her. It was only that when she touched the muscles of her thighs, they warmed from her palms. Little balls of light brought life back into the wearied limbs as they ran. Ran where?
Horses of the palace ran faster. It would only be a matter of time.
Aleksander would look to the ends of the world for her.
"Mal, stop." She cried out through the empty forest.
The trees were lifeless. There were no singing birds, no stirring animals. Silence filtered through nature, foreign and strange.
"We have to keep going," Mal urged. "Just a little farther, Alina. It's so close."
"We can't outrun him. He'll chase us and find us. He has the whole fleet of the Second Army. He'll hunt us down."
No matter where she would go, he would follow. They were bonded. Drawn like magnets to one another for their polarity and balance in the world.
Mal didn't understand; he couldn't.
He was not Grisha.
"I have to go back, Mal." Her chest heaved with heavy breaths.
His footsteps stopped. "No, no. You can't. Didn't you hear that old woman? The General will use you. He doesn't care about you at all. All he wants is to turn you into a weapon. No. That woman told me everything. All his plans for you. Controlled by him, chained, a weapon to be used and put away. That can't happen to you, Alina. You aren't strong enough."
"I'm exhausted. Not weak. I haven't eaten since yesterday. And I don't run like this. Not anymore."
His arm grabbed hold of her bicep and pulled her onward. "Just a little further, Alina. We're almost there."
She wanted to argue, really. But the weariness was stronger. The soreness in her body, from running and at the back of her pussy where she'd just been fucked for the first time, drained all her power. She needed rest. Aleksander let her rest. He let her dine and wine and smile and train and learn and grow and love.
"Where?" She questioned.
"A little place I know," he answered. "It'll be somewhere to find a ride."
A ride. That was a lift!
"Where the hell is she, Ivan?" Aleksander shouted. Papers crinkled under hand. None of them spoke to where she'd have gone. "Shut down the Palace. Don't let a soul leave until they've been vetted. Find me Miss Starkov."
Someone stole her. Someone took her from his bed after he left to attend to the other distraction in his life, the man whom tried to murder Alina in his very home. His home! The one he built for her. For all Grisha to be safe.
The man had no information. He'd been dealt with. An assassin from the other side of the Fold.
But Alina. He'd kept her safely tucked in his own bed. His own bed!
Who would take her without a sign of a struggle? Who would have her willingly leave when they were bonded together deeper than any other person alive?
Then a memory hit him. "Wait," his voice softened. "The tracker."
Malyen, the tracker. Her childhood friend.
"Where is he?"
"He was being escorted to his room when the attack on Marie and Genya. He was left with Baghra to respond and when they returned, she had showed him to his room."
The mention of the woman turned his blood cold.
"Bring me the tracker," he demanded. "I want to see him now."
Ivan dispatched immediately. Not quickly enough.
"Zoya!" He barked.
A blue kefta emerged through the doors. The woman with straight black hair held an indifferent face. Their eyes met across the room.
"Shut the door."
The lock latched closed in the door. She approached; hands held behind her back.
"The Conductor is dead," she proclaimed. "His body is being disposed of as we speak."
"I need you with me." His eyes scanned his desk. There were papers scattered all around as he searched for some calling, like he expected Alina to appear on a map like a landmark. "To search the countryside for Miss Starkov before she is injured and to capture whomever stole her away from me."
Zoya glanced to the open doors of his bedchamber. "Are you certain that she did not leave on her own accord?"
"No," rumbled up through the frail calm that he pretended he had. "She wouldn't."
"It wouldn't surprise me," she carried on, misreading the mood in which he had. "She never really fit in. Here. Never truly embraced the Little Palace and all that it gave. The bonds of her kind."
It was not that she was different. It was that she mattered more. More than any of them. She was more powerful as a newborn than they'd be in their prime.
He held his tongue. None of it aided his search for Alina.
"You know, once upon a time, there would be a time when you would call for me to cure the ails that kept your desk messy, and bed neat. We switched them, didn't we?"
It was grating to hear the pleasant recall in her voice.
The only woman that mattered now was Alina. Alina Starkov, the only true equal in the world. She was meant for him. It was she that made a commitment to him. His Alina. She said it herself. He would have her, forever.
He would never know another again.
"That doesn't matter. All that matters is that we find Alina."
A sudden surge of air shot through the room. Loose papers ripped from his hands, their neat stacks on his desk, onto the floor. They flowed on the gust from Zoya's hands. The small clinks of figurines as they toppled over filled his ears over the sound of whistling wind.
His fingers twisted. Subtle shadows amongst the room twitched alive. Out of the corners, underneath the table, the long billowy edges behind the drapes. They all rose up. Their darkness filled the air. Tendrils of his power kneaded out every ounce of light, dousing every candle, blocking the very light of the sun from the windows so only black prevailed.
Shadows lashed out against Zoya's wrists. They created a grasp unable to be broken no matter how hard she struggled against the dark of his power.
Aleksander jumped to his feet. His eyes narrowed in on his prey, the things that stood in his way of finding his soul mate.
Indignation was all that greeted him. Her face was not stricken with fear nor laced with doubt over survival.
The way he wanted to hurt someone, it should have worried her.
One swipe of his arm spun Zoya around, still trapped in place, arms restrained apart to prevent her from using her own powers on him. He moved her forward. Through the open doors of his private bedchambers, upon the threshold of the room still wrapped in the scent of Alina's body, her gasping moans still a lullaby to his ears.
A trickle of light slipped through the part in his shadow to show the mess of his bed.
"Alina will be the only one to twist these sheets. Do you understand?" His hand gripped the back of Zoya's neck. Her face was forced to look at the seriousness in his face. "I'll never call you to these chambers under the pretense again, so do yourself a favor and remember the importance of Miss Satrkov's survival or it'll be you without sheets."
Alina dropped to a bed of straw. Her legs shook from exertion. Lungs burned; throat raw from breath.
The intense scent of animals tainted the air, but the rest was appreciated more than the bother that it was to share the moment with two foals.
Mal brought her to a forgotten carriage house in the middle of nowhere. It was filled with various parts of carriages. Wheels laid against the rotten, old building. Layers of grime coated the walls, the floor, everything. A bucket hanged against the wall thick with a layer of dust.
Wild horses now populated the clover fields. Their young nestled together under the protection of the walls while the morning sunlight started to split the darkened sky. Water collected in a metal trough near the door. Her lips dipped into the ice-cold water without hesitation and drank until her belly ached. The taste repulsed her. It coated her tongue like a piece of burnt meat.
There were noises outside. Mal. He moved things and tossed things about. The wall shook as it thrusted a wheel back against the ancient wooden walls seemingly without concern that the entire building might collapse on top of her.
Alina fell back into the old straw. The corset prevented any real breath. It hugged her chest so tightly that it physically pained her to inhale deeply.
The black fabric was tinted brown from all the mud of their journey. It dulled the vibrance of the color. She frowned as she brushed her fingers with all the hopes that it might once again resemble the dress that made her confident enough to chase a man she never thought possible. It was her night. A dress that made her beautiful to the eyes of an entire room, quite possibly the entire country, but only one burned brightest.
It was Aleksander whom adored the dress and what laid beneath it, shared the spoils of her patience, reaped the benefits of her affection and worshipped the ground that she walked upon. He lavished her. Respected her. Cared for her.
Everything that was wrong with the situation right now.
Knees trembled in place, but she managed to pull herself to standing. Every muscle voiced its resistance with a sharp pain as she moved. Each step nearer Mal, nearer Aleksander, would be earned.
"I want to go back," she said. "I can't do this. I can't live like this, Mal. Dirty and on the run. Scared you're going to be caught."
A wooden tool fell from his hand. "We have to try. You can't just give up."
"Give up? Look at us. No matter what we do, we've lost."
"You're going to destroy the Fold on your own," Mal stated, as if it was just as simple as wishing it possible. "She said so."
"She happens to be his mother, Mal. What kind of mother would hurt their own son if not for being an awful woman? It is not possible for Alek- General Kirigan to be the Black Heretic."
The slip of her tongue was noticed. It changed the look in his eye. So powerful, Mal turned away to avoid any comment on it.
"How?"
She shook her head. "What?"
Was he always this infuriating?
"How is it not possible?"
"Because," Alina said strongly, "he would've told me. He would have said he was it."
An audible swallow echoed through his mouth. "You trust him then, yeah?"
She trusted his ambition. It would not stop until they were together again.
"I know he wants to destroy the Fold."
Mal nodded. His lips pressed in a taut line as his feet paced a line through overgrown grasses.
"Do you know why I came to Little Palace, Alina? Why I, a tracker, came to report to the General yesterday?"
"Of course not. No."
"That mission he asked of the First Army, it was in search of a mythical beast. I was enlisted to find it for him…I tried to find the stag. That silly dream you used to have as a child. The white stag the size of a tree. I was enlisted to track it down by your precious General." His voice spat out the man's name like it was foul and decayed. Her pride stung. It was bruised just a bit by the insult of her choices. "That lady, the thing's mother, told me what that stag is. It is Morozova's stag, the one he created from the bones of his finger, like in the myth…only it is not myth anymore. The stag is real. And he wants it. He wants more power."
Alina's knees trembled again. "No. No that cannot be."
"He never took too much stock in the creatures, she said, until you came to the castle. That's when the flyer got sent out to all the units. He put a price on the stag's head."
It was only in her dreams that she saw the stag. She hadn't told Genya or Marie. No one knew about the stag except Mal.
"My letter," her lips murmured the startling revelation. "One of my letters to you, I sent a sketch of it. I've been dreaming about it again. But…he'd never do that."
"He's using you, Alina. You must see it. He's a liar. A Darkling. What could you expect from a man like that?"
Alek would never betray her trust like that. He held it so preciously in his hand, and only took what was offered by her, with express consent. Last night, he was nothing but tender. Every action was prompted by her consent, nothing done to her discomfort.
But the stag. That white stag she dreamed of.
How could he have known it was real? What would convince him of such a thing?
Suddenly she remembered. "Did you find the stag?"
Mal shrugged. "In a way. I tracked it north to Fjerda. Only, locals got to it first. It was slaughtered. Body burned. Bones shattered to nothing but ash. It's nothing but a pyre now. He can't use it."
One creature down. But there were two more out there.
Untold power rested within those creatures. What if he sought the others for their power? What then? Would it be for himself? What would he do with more power, when he already held such might?
They would be long gone. She would be across the True Sea, away to lands of the world far away from his reach. Nothing could bring her back except destruction of the Fold. That would only come with time.
Time she needed.
She watched Mal assemble a carriage from the miscellaneous parts around them. It took time. He worked as quickly as he could but building a working carriage was difficult in a rush. There was one that was dilapidated. It was mostly working, if not for a few exchanges that required Mal's muscle. His hands held tight to the wooden axle as he placed it beneath the frame he supported with a few shaky blocks.
The horses grew curious of the two humans in their home. They'd been tame at one point, Alina believed. The foals nestled into her skirts, nipping at the fabric and trying to play. She petted the length of their nose, up from between their eyes down to their wet nostrils.
Old tackle in the trunk of the carriage was pulled with a sharp clink. It thudded to the ground.
"Which ones should we take?" Mal asked.
He eyed the herd. His gaze dipped down to the pair of babies at her feet.
She rubbed their little faces and wrinkled her nose, smitten with their faces. "Their mothers?" She asked, hopeful her playmates could come with them.
Mal sighed. "It won't be safe for them where we are going. We have to leave them behind."
Alina couldn't explain why it made her incredibly sad, but it did.
"How about that black one? It looks bigger. Might pull for longer."
He squatted down. His roamed all over the horse's body until he finally shook his head. "She's big because she's given birth to one of those little ones."
Both foals were chestnut.
"Are you certain?"
"Yes," he said as he eyed a thick, bay horse near the back. His hand reached out. Pace slowed. He clicked his tongue softly as he inched closer and closer.
Animals responded to Mal. He was a kindred spirit, she realized. It used to amaze her, like magic, the way he would find lonely or wounded animals in the wild and how timid the wild creatures would act around him. Something in his soul soothed their worries.
Animals sensed that Mal would not harm them. They trusted.
Just as she trusted Aleksander. Their souls touched, bonded by the precious connection of their two bodies, the fluttering of her power when he touched her. Her body knew him. She knew him.
It hurt to think of the way he betrayed that trust…or the way someone betrayed him to part them.
She resisted the idea of his idea to keep the Fold. He wanted it gone. His eyes did not lie. That day when he told her his name, told the story of the Fold and the Black Heretic, she felt there was a genuine wish behind his gaze.
The subtle tink of metal against metal lifted her from her thoughts.
The bay horse was suited in a harness ready to be attached to the carriage. The faded yellow leather was worn, old, but it looked strong enough to hold for a while.
Mal led the horse – without resistance from the animal – to the front of the carriage.
"Climb in."
She swallowed. "Where are we going?"
"West Ravka."
"To the True Sea?"
"Yes, then beyond that. Anywhere. Just far away from here." His hands attached the horse to the carriage.
"How will we get through the Fold? I'm not strong enough to protect us like that."
"We won't go through it," he answered. "We'll go around. South to Shu Han. It'll be easier to slip past notice there."
He didn't say why. She assumed he meant her appearance. Her heart was Ravkan, but her body did not reflect that.
She quieted. Mal defended her during the days of the First Army when every loud mouthed, idiot with a confidence the size of Ravka and the cock size of a peanut mentioned the Shu of her eyes. His tongue never held back. Or his fists.
Her change was noticed by her friend. He walked close.
"I'm sorry, but we have no choice. Fjerda is close as permafrost this time of year. We are low on supplies the way it is," he explained. "We'd freeze if we went north."
Fjerda was not the place to go. It was snow filled with Grisha hunters all over. They'd kill them on sight.
Shu Han was different. Enemies of Ravka, yes. Haters of Grisha? No.
They held a warmer climate during winter. Their borders were easily surpassed. They were forest lines densely populated with birch and pine trees. It was something they could manage without a person noticing if they were smart about it.
Most of the Shu lived as nomads upon the land. Their towns were seasonal. Winters typically meant the people moved closer together to survive the harsher conditions, but that was not guaranteed. A family might live in the very forest they planned to cross.
The journey around the Fold, still, was long and treacherous. No doubt they'd encounter people who meant them harm. If – a large If – they outran General Kirigan.
"We have a lot of ground to cover. We have to get going."
He wretched open the door of the carriage. The hinges groaned in resistance.
Alina climbed aboard. Must surrounded her senses. The entire compartment was filled with dust and musty damp and age and slow rot of time. She pulled open the curtains and winched open the pieces of glass so that a bit of air circulated through and moved the smell out.
She shivered when the cool breeze ghosted across her bare shoulders. She looked ridiculous, half dressed in a royal gown and half naked. Her flesh prickled down the back of her arms.
Another horse hitched to the carriage. They jolted forward when Mal climbed aboard and the ancient springs screeched in response. Alina was tossed to the back of her seat.
"Easy, easy." She heard Mal's voice hum.
It calmed their restless bodies. The horse's breath puffed a smokey billow of breath through the cool air.
A few minutes later, after Mal had settled in on the front bench, she heard the sharp whistle from between his lips that sent the carriage rolling forward, then eventually sprinting.
The countryside of Ravka raced by in a blur. Side to side it moved. The carriage calmed her sore muscles. She stretched out along the bench in the hopes that it might ease the dull pains in her back.
Eyes grew heavier and heavier the longer she laid in the carriage. Her body burned. All the running, fleeing, lack of food and water. It took all sense on control away. She was propelled forward to a future that was unknown, full of danger, and all she thought of was to cry.
Cry for the loss of Aleksander. Cry that he was not who she could be with. Cry that he lied. Cry that he convinced her of emotions that were not there for her.
It felt counter productive to mourn the loss of someone she never had, but her soul felt torn in two at the vast void in her life.
Eventually the weight of the world pressed hard enough that she gave up and fell into a deep, dreamless slumber where the stag no longer lived, where Aleksander's devilish tongue no longer teased her body, where Mal's tumble with Zoya didn't replay in her head like a bad movie. Just sleep. A black blanket of nothing which awaited her.