General Kirigan's troops were spread all over the countryside in search of Alina. They invaded every town, tracked through every home, accosted hundreds to find the lost Sun Summoner.
Alina and Mal were hunkered down in a cave in the woods. The town outside the tree line was invaded with Second Army Grisha. Their shouts called for all in the small town to vacate their homes while they searched for Alina Starkov and her kidnapper, Malyen.
The cries echoed into the forest. The two fugitives listened intently as the voices carried on the wind.
After ditching the carriage outside of the town to find supplies, they fled to the forest for the night. Somehow, the Second Army noticed the carriage and believed it the getaway vehicle that stole the Sun Summoner from the castle.
The sounds of the search were less than gentle, like the breaking of dishes and snapping of furniture as they were thrown from homes with the terrorized screams of children as they fled to the comfort of their parents, forced to watch as their family home was ransacked.
Mal held an arm across Alina's torso. He inched himself closer toward the edge of the cave.
"We should go," he said. "They'll search the woods next."
"What about our trail?"
He sighed. "We don't have a choice. They'll find us here for sure."
The pair were hesitant as they emerged into the woods. Sounds of the search still rang through. The Grisha were still in town.
Mal sprinted off deeper into the forest. He silently motioned for Alina to follow.
She swore she recognized a voice. It came from town. It wasn't Aleksander's, but something about it reminded her of Little Palace. It was a distant memory now, of training and the months under Aleksander's attention.
Mal grabbed hold of her hand. "Run," he whispered.
The crunch of leaves underfoot sounded like an applause to their every motion, a commotion of their actions, a siren to their location. It raised the anxiety in Alina's mind. She felt trapped like an animal in a wolf's attacks formation. Every step further and further into their plan.
Lately, the strong sense of Aleksander loomed at the back of her mind. She felt him. Or at least, she thought she felt him. His eyes. His lips murmuring her name. Her body reacted to those faint callings on the winds like the call of the ghost he once was.
More so, it was the betrayal of herself, her principles, her beliefs that pained her. She wanted Alek. He was the one meant for her. That bond started so faint, even the night of the Winter Fete enhanced it slight, compared to the strong rope between them now. The distance pulled them closer.
Her eyes welled with tears when she thought of him. The beating of her heart burned twice as hard under the threat of exercise and his betrayal.
Still, she ran.
She breathed hard, unable to control the rapid pants from her lips as they huddled beneath the scratchy ceiling of a blue spruce tree. The strong perfume of sap coated the air. Her hand was full of the sticky leeching of the tree's sap as she touched the trunk to steady herself.
Mal did his best to cover their tracks so their resting spot wasn't discovered. Alina worried it wouldn't be enough.
There was no fooling Aleksander. Clearly, the man would do anything to get what he wanted. Even lie to the only woman who held as rare a talent as he did.
"Here." Mal handed over a scrap of brown meat. It was thick and dry. "We have to keep our strength up."
She begrudgingly ate the horrid ration. Despite her hunger, it still did not satisfy her.
"Three weeks," she said after she swallowed the last of her meat down. "Three weeks, and we're already run ragged. We can't keep this up forever."
"Shu Han is close."
"That won't solve all our problems, Mal."
"There are wild resources in Shu Han. Berries in the forest. Mushrooms. Animals. Real meat to eat."
The promise of food sickened her. Wait, no. It was the meat that churned her stomach.
A slippery wetness overtook her mouth. It filled in all the empty spaces with pools of salvia enough to become nauseating. Alina spit the excess.
Saints, that made her body repulsed. The taste, sweet and sick.
Oh no. She felt it now. It bubbled up at the back of her throat.
Alina craned over so suddenly that Mal jumped to his knees, at her side, asking her what was wrong. He wasn't prepared for it. Neither was she.
Vomit spewed out of her open mouth. Brown like sludge it fell from her mouth onto the bare dirt. Yellowy bile soured the sticky sap air to a repulsive scent.
"Whoa, whoa." Mal held back the knotted length of her hair. Not that it mattered. It'd been ages since it was brushed and cared for. Twigs and leaves were permanently entwined in the strands. "Alina. Are you alright?"
She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. "Yeah. It's just all the running."
Running and shitty food. Not that she'd tell him he was doing a horse shit job of feeding them.
She couldn't venture out in public since her image had been circulated. Flyers from the Little Palace showed her face to every part of the country in search of her.
There was no space that was safe for her now that wasn't another country.
"Let's go." She struggled to her feet. "The sooner we're in Shu Han, the sooner we won't have to run so hard."
They continued south. Ravakan terrain ran ragged the closer they got to the border. There were boulders, rocks, deep valleys and steep hills that required maximum effort on their part.
Alina and Mal continued until the sun started the final descent into the sky. It would be black soon.
Darkness reminded her of Aleksander. She did her best to avoid it.
"Let's make camp." She kicked a pebble by her foot.
Mal frowned. "We can't risk fire. They're too close on our trail."
She nodded. Any attention was too much. They had to forgo warmth of a fire, again.
Alina dropped to the ground. Her face went into her palms. Thoughts swirled in her brain like she was too drunk to stand.
"Saints," she murmured.
Their only pack dropped to the ground with a vibrating thud. It was so heavy. She couldn't believe Mal carried it all the way. Everything they owned was in between the canvas walls. Everything in their world…
Mal produced their canteens. They drank from them greedily, water being too easily used in the aftermath of exertion when their throats burned like fire, only water could douse. Alina took many thick gulps. It brought tears to her eyes how cold it was. Like ice in her stomach.
While Mal divided up their rations for the day, Alina grabbed hold of their thin blankets and spread them on the ground. One overtop the ground, one for them to share.
Temperatures dropped so low at night that they had no other option than to huddle together for warmth under a single blanket.
Her rations were placed on her side of the makeshift bed. She grimaced. Her stomach warned what would happen if she were to eat any one of those things.
Mal took his side with his meal without care. His arm propped his head up as he ate, legs stretched the entire length of the blanket. His boots, off. Only dull brown socks covered his toes.
"Our plan should be changed," Mal said.
Her head popped up. "In what way?"
The plan was the plan for a reason.
"They have to know now where we plan to head. We're so far south. They'll know we head for the Shu border. We should fix our path. Head east some before we point south again."
"That will take twice as long," she replied. "The shortest distance is a straight line. We should keep south."
It was too long already. They were exhausted and broken. Poor. Without secured food or lodgings. How would they survive a delay in the plan to head to West Ravka?
"Not anymore it isn't."
"What do you mean? The miles don't change."
"But the presumption of our location does," he explained with frustration. "Straight line, they are faster. They have more resources. They are well rested, have multiples to send in each other's stead. If we head straight, they will hunt us down faster than we could ever make it. Our only option is to change course and hope they don't know it until we've reached Shu Han."
The longer they were in Ravka, the closer Aleksander got to his goal: her.
"We have no choice?" She didn't want to believe they were trapped. As always. Life on the run was a series of no option decisions that wore down their resilience to the journey. Nothing left of them would survive if it kept growing.
"None." Mal confirmed.
He glanced sideways. The pile of untouched food right in view.
"I'm not hungry," she said.
His thin white lips sloped down to a frown. "You have to try."
"I'll throw them up if I do."
"You've barely eaten a thing since we left Os Alta."
"Os Alta had better food," she groaned.
"Food is food, Alina. It is fuel. The fuel we need to keep going. You can't do this on nothing."
Warm food. She wanted warm food. Flowing juices of meat, sweet bursts of berries and pastries, perfectly ripened cheeses so sharp and perfect on her tongue. She missed the smells. Oh, saints, the smells of Little Palace were so satisfying! They were almost as good as the food itself.
Satin sheets, she missed those too. Training with her friends and learning her power. Embracing her power unlocked parts of herself stowed away for too long. Their surface made her happy, fulfilled to be a Sun Summoner, and brought a completion that she missed.
Little Palace was home. She was comfortable there.
Now, the bitter wilderness of Ravka, back to the streets in which she roamed as an unimportant person, it stung harder against her flesh.
"Let's get some sleep," she grumbled as she tucked her body beneath the blanket. "I'll eat in the morning."
Again, Mal was the only person she had. That was what she missed most about Os Alta, Little Palace, the Grisha. There was another person who cared where she existed. And he turned out to be a traitor.
The journey was harder with Mal. She resented him for taking her away, for forcing her to break the spell that was Alek's lips, and be the saint the country needed her to be. Although, he did it. He risked everything, including his life, to save her. It was so harsh for him to bear the weight of her survival and her scorn. She had to let it go. Aleksander Kirigan was no more.
She rolled over closer to him and snuggled close. Their bodies huddled close, instantly drawn to the warmth of the other.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
Mal opened his eyes. "Sorry?"
"Yes. I'm sorry. It may not seem like it, but I missed you," she answered slowly. "It was just nice there. A Palace. A place to belong. If only you'd been there, it would have been perfect."
His hand patted her shoulder. "Don't be hard on yourself. You look cared for. Better than you ever looked before." He swallowed. "They really took great care to feed you."
"It wasn't just the food, Mal. It's my powers. I looked the way I did because I repressed them for so long."
"Oh." His voice hummed.
Grisha. They were the devils of existence, or so they were taught as child. Freaks of nature. Sure, they were fed well and trained in a palace, but they didn't fit in. They didn't belong anywhere but there.
Mal feared most of them. Until Zoya. She was the first woman of the Second Army that he cared to take an interest in. He claimed that it was different. Grisha women weren't really women. They didn't count in the scheme of things…
She swallowed. "General Kirigan made sure I had everything I ever needed."
Mal went quiet at the mention of the man. By now, he had to suspect it. His first name near slipped from her lips. It was a form of intimacy that was beyond the usual mentor and mentee relationship.
"I can't believe you trusted a devil, Alina."
Her lips exhaled softly. "I did more than trust him, Mal."
Breath caught in his throat. She heard the sharp stall of movement in his chest.
"What?" He finally managed to choke.
"When the devils calls, you'll find that it isn't with malice and fear, it is with everything you want. And I answered that call…I gave myself to him. Tumbled around in his bed."
She hadn't felt the rising tide of sobs at the back of her throat just behind those words, but once they spilled out, the sobs emerged in continuation. Her eyes dripped ever downward. Lips quivered as her chest rattled with gasping breaths.
A pair of strong hands wrapped around her. They pulled her in close. The neutral smell of dirt and must of the natural air filtered in through her nose and downward to the pink of her lungs.
"Shh, shh." He whispered. "It's going to be okay."
"How can you say that? I slept with the man who ruined the country and killed innocent people. And I wanted to. I loved to. Nothing will ever be okay ever again."
"Sure it will," Mal said. "Listen here. We'll find a meadow. A big one filled with flowers. And we'll watch the sun rise and set like old times. You won't think about the man. You won't even remember his face. It'll be like he never existed."
If only that had been true…
It was not long after that when Alina thought of something she'd forgotten. Her menstrual cycle. Mal had gotten rags for it – they were too close of friends to pretend he didn't know when it happened – but when it came time to expect it, nothing came.
Three days she tried to keep it off her mind.
They marched through the tricky lands of southern Ravka. Loose stones made it easy to lose their step and twist an ankle in the process of falling.
Mal was ahead of her, pointing out all the stubborn rises in the ground so that she wouldn't trip.
He made no effort to point out the fact that she hadn't used any rags for the entire time they were together. A blaring obvious fact. All women bled. Every month, like clockwork, most did. Alina was one that could count on it to ruin a few days of her week, with ravenous hunger and drastically changed moods where her energy was diminished.
It came more and more a source of tension between them the longer the topic was avoided.
Her feet trudged up through the rocky terrain, covered in muddy boots she'd traded for a bracelet, and kept a line of sight on Mal as he trekked ever forward, away from her. She watched him agile and nimble on his feet. He danced around the exposed boulders in the long grasses. They hid the presence of obstacles very well.
"Here, Alina. Pick up your feet," he called back.
Alina grimaced at his tone. "I pick up my foot each time I step."
"Not high enough," he said. "You've tripped over stones not large enough to trip a bunny."
She stepped down hard. It crunched harder through the dry vegetation.
"If you have something to say, just say it. Don't say things you don't mean."
"I do mean it," Mal grumbled. "You're falling too much. It's slowing us down."
"I'm not the one who changed the plan!"
His pace stopped. "I'm not the one who required a plan in the first place, am I?" Alina was so stricken, her feet stepped backward. "If you hadn't done what you did in the Fold, no one would have known. We could have went anywhere. Did anything."
That was some nerve.
"I risked my life to save you in the Fold, Mal. Don't forget about why I had to use my power. It wasn't for fun. It wasn't because I wanted to live my life like this, hunted and scared and alone."
He shook his head. It was a sign of defeat. Either he didn't care to continue on arguing or he hadn't a reply worth giving.
Either way, Alina took it as an end. She continued walking. He watched her navigate until she got close.
Her brow cocked high in challenge.
Mal stepped aside and let her pass through. They walked alongside one another the rest of the days journey. She examined the ground ever so carefully so she didn't fall in his presence. Mal's face was wrinkled in distaste. His boots kicked the rocks before he had a chance to step over them.
They fell down wearied that night from all the anger in their bodies. Apparently there was a lot more left to be said between the friends with no much courage to do so.
Mal found a cavern to light a fire. It opened in the opposite direction they went, so he hoped it would be unseen by those who pursued them.
She rested her back against the wall of the cave. It was hard and cold. Much like the day they'd had.
There was a patch of wild cabbages they found on the day's hike that would feed them. Alina's tongue bubbled. Warm food. She longed for it. The hunger in her belly, despite the unlawful churning, was aggressive. It yearned for cooked, soft, moist, pleasurable food.
Mal burnt down wood until it was just glowing embers. He placed one green cabbage atop the heat. The sizzle was music that sang to their wearied bodies. They needed this.
Morale was at an all time low. Something – anything – needed to change their luck or they'd be done before Shu Han.
The wash of warmth against her body did wonders. It brought life back into her stiff fingers. She stretched them repeatedly, right near the touch of the fire, without care or concern if they burned.
The memory of her hands encased in burned light flickered in. She felt awash in the distance she put between her powers and who she was.
She saw the look on Mal's face when she used her powers to light the dark. It was frightened. By her, by her power.
Still, her body craved the feeling of it between her hands, as it poured from her core to the flick of her fingers. More so, she burned to feel Alek's power intermingle with hers. His touch fueled her higher, stronger, brighter.
"Alina."
Her brown eyes blinked away the memory. "Hm?"
"Would you like some?" The cooked cabbage was cut open. The wafting smell of its cooked insides made her throat dry with hunger.
"Sure," she said as she grabbed hold a piece of the slippery, warm cabbage.
It was all that was said for hours. Hours, they stared at the fire. They ate it up. Its warmth comforted them more than sleep.
A while later, Alina rose. Her need to urinate near explosion.
"I'll be back," she said.
Mal's audible chewing slowed. "Alright."
His eyes twisted in suspicion when she left. They were still in the same position when she came back.
"What?" She asked.
His mouth opened to reply but was filled with ash. A strong gust blew in through their cave and tossed the elements of their fire to nothing but ash and coldness.
The strength was only that of Grisha ability. It was not a random surge of wind.
Alina summoned the sun like a ball of light. She exposed the intruder to their private meal.
"Well, well. What have I caught, unaware?" In through the ash, stepped Zoya. Her blue kefta was pristine and clean, untouched by the nature that ruled outside the cavern.
Mal jumped to his feet. "Zo."
Zo. Alina grimaced at the sound of it. The surprise.
"You'd think a tracker would know better than to light a fire," Zoya pronounced very cleanly. Her eyes narrowed at Alina.
"You can't take her," Mal said.
"It's my orders," Zoya replied flatly. She was not too keen on the idea. "The General wants the sun summoner returned to him, unharmed."
"You don't want that," Mal reasoned. "Neither do we."
Alina expected more. More Grisha. More, force. Only, it was Zoya in their presence. Just Zoya.
"You didn't come here to arrest us," Alina accused. Her teeth clenched. She bared her two palms in front of her, like her own threat. Zoya was trained, but Alina was at the edge of her sanity.
Zoya's indifferent face revealed a more lethal scowl. "Careful, Sankta. I am not as kind as the General."
Mal did not hesitate to approach the Grisha despite the yield of her power. "Zo," he said again in an intimate plead. "We can slip away. We can forget this ever happened."
"Mal, I can't lie to the General. He will be here. He will hunt you down," she said. "I make no promises."
Breath caught in Alina's throat. That sounded like…release.
"Thank you," he breathed.
"So, you're letting us go?" Alina questioned,
Zoya instantly heightened. "As much as I'd like the pleasure of bringing you back as my prisoner," her brown eyes ghosted down the length of her, satisfied with the pitiful look of Alina as a fugitive, "I prefer your absence more. The General doesn't need another distraction."
Distraction? Distraction.
Another distraction?
Alina lunged at Zoya, ready to scratch her eyes out, when Mal caught her first. "Are you crazy? She's letting us go."
"Bitch," Alina snarled through her bared teeth.
A distraction was a woman like Zoya. Alina, the mighty sun summoner, was not a distraction. Aleksander was hooked. He was obsessed. She knew it true. Above everything else, she knew he sought her because he was insane without her.
The deep dark possession in his eyes as he claimed her body that night of the Winter Fete, it bonded their bodies together. Forever.
Mal's hold on Alina's bicept squeezed tightly until a red imprint of his hand splintered the flesh underneath her shirt. "She's letting us get away."
"That's right, Sun Summoner. I am letting you go back to the nothingness you came from." Zoya raised a brow. The bliss that swirled in her dark eyes burned Alina's flames higher and higher.
The only stay of her hand was the fact that if she attacked Zoya, she would be forced to return to Little Palace.
…only, that was what she wanted. She wanted to forget it all. The fever dream of an illness she hadn't realized she had. If she could wake up in Alek's bed, sick, with a hot towel across her forehead and the cool palm of his pressed against her cheek, all would be right. The awful wretch of betrayal of his pretty lies wouldn't kill her each time she yearned for his embrace. The cloak of darkness to suffocate her burning light of frustration as the worlds worries mounted her shoulders and rode her around like their own pet saint to use to solve their problems.
Aleksander ruined happiness. She would never trust it. Without him, it could not be true.
She doused the light from her palms. Empty. Lost. Defeated.
"Let's go, Mal," she said wearily.
She grabbed hold of their survival pack. It fell against her shoulders with a crunch, like the bones of her spine compressed together under the massive weight. Her chest gave a shallow, trembled exhale.
Zoya shook her head with a satisfied smirk. "You've got to have much more fight than that, Sankta. Or else the General will swallow you whole."
Mal and Alina trekked farther through the night. Silent. Their steps echoed out in the darkness, but the lack of their breaths made it all a blaring siren of tension. An hour since Zoya found them and neither said a word.
There was thick palpable tension like only Zoya knew how to make. She was a single woman to tear the two childhood friends apart at the seams. And Alina didn't understand why.
Early morning light splintered through the dark blue sky. Shimmer of gold filtered through the clouds.
"Let's eat." Mal pulled at the pack on Alina's shoulders.
She scowled. "Fine."
"Fine?"
"Yes, fine."
He rummaged through the canvas pack to find their meat ration. "What's wrong with you?"
"I had to make myself physically sick all my life so that you wouldn't find out I was Grisha, yet you carry on with her like it's nothing. Like Grisha aren't bad. Like you didn't grow up saying that Grisha women were freaks that hadn't a place in the world but in the front lines. Suddenly, she matters?"
It was obvious that it took him by surprise. He'd been kneeling in front of the pack, but as her words seeped into his brain, he lowered himself to the ground. His eyes opened wider.
"Do you love her?" Alina asked. "Is that why you overlook her obvious flaw of being Grisha?"
The dumbfounded look on his face brought forth rage. As did his silence.
"I could have had a home. A place where I was loved and respected. The Fold would be gone by now if I hadn't so attached to our friendship." I could have been in love, she thought. "Instead I was given First Army. First Army bullshit. Watching my best friend carry on with that woman while preventing any other man from being interested in me, separating me from myself all for your advantage. I mean, what am I to you? A toy?"
"No."
"I'm a woman, Mal."
"I know that," he muttered, still in disbelief.
They were not emotionally honest as friends. It worked for years. Until she became Grisha.
There was real love out there for her. It was possible. If she hadn't allowed herself to fall back into the routine of old Alina with Mal and allowed the past to distract her, her heart would be whole. She could have changed Aleksander's heart. They could have destroyed the Fold together.
"I was in love with him, Mal." Her hands folded and pressed against her chest. The throbbing of her heart was at the back of her throat. She looked away from her friend's eyes to keep the emotion at bay. "I fell in love with General Kirigan and I've thrown it all away to do this with you."
His hands held the sides of his head in place as he struggled to blink.
She, too, took a moment to reign in the swirling thoughts. Her mind was dizzy. Spinning. A lightheaded headache overtook her.
Oh, saints. It was there again.
Alina stumbled behind a boulder before a surge of vomit spewed from her throat. It burned her eyes and pulled her face taut as it erupted. Her stomached twisted painfully as it emptied onto the ground.
After she was done, she rested her forehead against the cool boulder to steady her mind.
A pair of hands pulled back the full, tangled mess of hair from her face and wiped a cloth against her lips.
"You're with child, Alina."
She shook her head. "No. I'm not. I'm exhausted from running."
"You haven't bled. You haven't ate. You're emotional."
A single tear fell from her eye. "Just because I express my emotions doesn't mean I'm emotional." She swallowed back the bitter taste of bile. "I want to go home."
"Your home will be your prison."
"I refuse to believe that."
"Look at what he's done to you," Mal stated evenly. "Now you've got nowhere to go if not back to him. He's trapped you with his spawn. If he knows, you'll never have your freedom."
She shook her head. "I always had my freedom."
Mal exhaled sharply. He grasped at straws. Not her.
"What about the stag?"
"That could have been for me," she reasoned.
"And your letters to me? Why wouldn't he send those?" He grabbed her shoulders until she stood in front of him, unable to see anyone but him. "Why would he keep up apart if he truly cared about you? It's just like the old woman said. He wanted you to depend on only him."
It was wrong to not send her letters. She needed Mal. He was a comfort in the world, the only one she knew. Things would have been easier at the Little Palace if Mal had written one letter. Just one. Things with Aleksander would have progressed quicker, too. Mal's blessing to be who she was would have opened up the door for the power to go through.
Mal pulled her tight into a hug as her face soured with sadness. Tears soaked through the fibers of his jacket. Their darkness grew the longer she was cradled against him.
"If we're caught," Mal said. Her body quieted to listen to him speak. "Don't tell him it's his."
"Not his?"
Lie? Now she would partake in a lie, just the same as he?
"You'll have no chance if he believes you the carrier of his child," Mal explained. "Tell him it is someone else's. Anyone's. Hell, tell him it's mine if you have to. You cannot let him know the truth."
Although she was apprehensive, she agreed to Mal's plan. Until there was a time where she trusted Aleksander again, he would not know she was pregnant. IF he discovered her pregnant, the truth of the lineage of the baby would be hidden from view.
Saints, the baby.
She walked behind Mal, headed east to throw off the Second Army, and it was there that she realized what pregnancy meant. A baby. An infant in her arms.
What would she do with a baby? There were poor and starved. Mal did do his best to care for her. He gave her more food rations than himself despite all the extra work he did. Their clothes were worn thin. How they'd survive a journey across the True Sea was beyond her. It was cold on the ocean. At least, that's what she heard.
They could be at any step in their plan when the baby was born. How could they remain fugitives from the crown and the Second Army with an infant to feed?
Mal hugged her close to his body at night. His arm wrapped around the back of her shoulders and held her against his chest. He kept a gun at his side. Not that it would help if they were discovered by Grisha. A single gun did little damage with their kefta's being bulletproof.
The days passed with growing exhaustion. Alina yearned for endless rest. Her body ached and resisted constant movement. Her mind fought against the motions to rise from sleep with the intention of not returning until dark. Each took away from her strength. The weary look on her face mirrored back at her when she stared into a stream to replenish herself and she was quite frightened with how worn she was. It was like she returned to the First Army: dirty and ill provided for.
The largest change with the exception of her vomiting fits was a strange one. The sensitivity of her breasts grew strong enough to become tender at the caress of her shirt. It was different than when she tumbled with Aleksander how they yearned with pain to be touched. Now, they hated to be touched, or anything at all. All her nipples seemed satisfied with were to ache constantly.
A baby would use them soon, a fact that made her twist in discomfort. Her arms crossed against her chest.
It was not strange that a child was fed from breasts – that was their purpose was after all – but the sensation she anticipated would be rather uncomfortable for a woman just attuned to her own sexuality. Her breasts were never a topic of thought until recently. Then she wished for fuller, even breasts that bulged beneath dresses like the other Grisha had.
A child in that space was difficult to picture. A child in the Little Palace?
Then she pictured a child of dense, curls black as night with a black romper embroidered with golden starbursts, black the hue of their father, gold for their mother's golden shimmer against the shadow. Constant smiles from a little mouth, overjoyed and devious. Soft baby skin, bright eyes, the smell of powder and newborn infant.
A man of all black cloaked in shadow, in his arms a precious face with eyes as black as coal as they bubbled with joy up at a face they recognized. Their father. Her heart swelled as the man cradled his child and hummed a soft lullaby. Love. She felt it throughout. There was love in their eyes, the bond already formed between.
Inside the expanded pupils of the child she noticed the ripple of light reflect through the deep pools. Golden speckles grew. It splintered the coal black like the splitting of stars.
The child glowed with darkness and light. A literal god wrapped in muslin.
Suddenly the man turned. A pair of eyes widened in surprise, then slacked with comfort at her presence.
"We've been waiting for you," he hummed. "This one has been getting impatient."
"Alek," she breathed.
Saints. It was their child in his arms. Their child, the god, the angel. It sprang forth from her womb and his seed to be born to the world.
"Who is this?" The sparkle in his eye beheld their child. His lips unable to hide their smile. "Is this mama?"
Alina looked down. It was pure angelic beauty etched into human form. Her heart surged. Burning rays of light leapt up from within in need of the feeling of her child in her arms.
"No," she suddenly said. She shook her head and pulled away. "Alek, I can't do this. I can't be who you want me to be."
A sky shattering whimper escaped their child's pouted pink lips. It felt as if her chest was pried apart at the center and her heart ripped from the connections of her arteries.
Instantly, she yearned to take it back.
Aleksander did not let her draw away, but instead, drew closer. "My Alina. When have I ever asked you to be something you're not?"
Her mind stumbled to find a memory. It felt a lie. She knew it was.
"You want to use the Fold," she accused. Her mind kept focused on the betrayal stabbed inside her heart. "You have no intention to save Ravka."
"Look at me, Alina."
"You're the devil, Alek. You're - ." She couldn't finish her sentence. Her heart wouldn't allow her to. The words shredded the iron bars of her love for him with all their might. Words placed in her throat by others were rendered useless in the intense gaze of his eye.
"How can a devil create an angel, lapushka? Hm?"
Stars of the child's eyes burned bright, like fire. It swirled with shadow and light, playing with them like toy things, entangling its parents together in a twisted knot inescapable.
Alina's body was pressed against Alek's, the small infant between them like a precious bundle they were both meant to carry. It had them in raptures. The burning bright and frigid dark all mixed together in madness.
She shuddered a breath to keep her lips from begging to never let go.
"I am devil. You are saint. We were meant to find each other. Our powers call out through darkness and light for the return of their balance, their other half." His voice was calm and steady. It ate the words of others away from her tongue in a gentle swipe. "I have lived in darkness for so long. I cannot live without you, Alina. I cannot live without the light."
Tears blurred her vision. She wiped a sleeve across her face.
"You cannot have me if you intend to control the world."
"It would seem it is the world that has control of you, lapushka."
Alina found herself looking up at a dull blue sky. Her body jerked awake. She gasped for breath, hard.
A pair of hands were around her shoulders. "Oh, Alina. Thank the Saints!"
"What happened?"
She was groggy. It felt like she'd been transported, alive in another place without her body. Behind her eyes stabbed pain.
Mal eased the tense support of her back. "You fainted."
"Do you think…?" Her hands ghosted down the stretch of her torso to rest at the base of her belly. Her lips trembled.
It was still new, but she felt connected to Aleksander. It was the only way to have a piece of him without surrendering herself.
"You're safe. Both of you."
Both. That hit the ear odd.
"Oh." Her voice was soft. "Thanks, Mal."
He helped her to feet. The ache in her head eased, but the dull growing ache in her lower pain raised to attention.
Saints, if it wasn't one thing, it was another. Couldn't a baby just shoot from the sky into her arms instead of putting her through all that it had, already, yet with more to come.
"Are you okay to go a little longer? We still have daylight left."
She swallowed. "Sure, yeah."
The journey continued on.