A/N: There is no natural way to address it so I'd like to put a little note here for those who commented. 1) I include abortion in my story because to me, it seems natural. They happen and have happened. It is not central to the plot nor does it diminish the character. 2) since there is no natural way to explain it in the story that I foresee, it is genuine to believe that there were Grisha in the Second Army who fell pregnant. Sex happens when people gather. And there are many adults within the Little Palace. And since they are on the cusp of either war with Ravka or preparing to destroy the Fold and whatever else that would entail, it is safe to say that soldiers would not be in the right spaces to be bearing children. That is just how I view the situation. I hope this alleviates the confusion or discourse behind my previous chapter. Thank you.
"Say something," Aleksander Kirigan demanded. "Anything. Anything at all."
Alina Starkov stood before his desk in the war room. It was where he led them after the cellars. He'd dismissed his other staff from the room, leaving only them within the walls tainted with their past. It was the first time she saw the room since that night. The night they tumbled around the room for their own body's delights.
It was the night that landed them in the situation they currently endured.
The stagnant air of the room smelled foul. Too many long nights within this place without reprieve. His search for her rendered down an entire palace to a single room.
Aleksander rubbed his chin in distress. "It cannot – I cannot - ."
"It's true."
"Yes, well." He rose from his chair. "We'll just see about that."
He fled the room in a hurried pace. The door slammed in its frame loudly behind him.
It was how she believed he would react to the news. He was not thrilled. It frightened him. It, changed him.
Alina remained stoic in the light of his resistance. She no longer hid the truth. It lifted a great weight to have the secret off her chest. She'd be permitted to wear her belly freely, the swell of her breast not so strange to cause stares, the horrid retching that took place after some meals. It was all explained. No more hidden truths.
A moment later, Aleksander remerged. A red kefta followed. The gray stitching told of their identity.
"Really?" Alina glared up at him in disbelief.
"I need to be certain," he said stiffly. His sights then turned to the Grisha. "Her. Tell me about her."
The Healer approached. He wore a timid smile on his face.
"You won't feel a thing," he assured her.
His hands crossed in front of him. Palms were centered at her stomach. The soft fluttering of her belly began as the hands of the Healer moved across her.
"I'm sensing life," the Healer said.
"She's with child?"
It was confirmation.
Weeks and weeks of agonizing over the idea that she might be, convinced that she was, but still uncertain whether her mind played tricks on her. Fate was a cruel being. It might have been a creation of her mind to cope with the stress of her life on the run for all she knew!
Alina looked up at Aleksander with hope. Hope he would come to embrace it as she did.
"She is." He moved his hands closer. "Active little bugger. Can you feel them moving in their yet?"
Alina struggled to remember if the flutters were real or imaginary. "Well, um, maybe. I feel something…"
A cold look of disapproval glared into her face from behind the Healer. She ignored the urge to meet it with one of her own.
"Is it healthy?" Thoughts went to her time in the woods. So many falls. Little food. Cold. "I've not done anything to hurt it, have I?"
The Healer revoked his hands. "Everything looks well. You've made a good home for it. Late September is when I theorize the child will make its arrival. You should visit a Healer every month until then."
September was eons away. Alina grasped the belly below her in disbelief it would take that long to form a child ready for the world. She dreamed of it now, ready and willing to hold it in her arms.
Aleksander watched her with indifference to her actions as the Healer was sent away from the room.
"You've grown attached I take it," he said resigned.
Pulse sputtered in her chest. The throbbing burn of her heart grew stronger with each waking moment in his presence with those lifeless, accusing eyes right at her.
"Of course, I have," she said firmly.
"Your precious Mal is not the father?"
"No," she said impatiently. "Mal and I are only friends. Dear friends. But we do not tumble around together for Saints sake!"
Aleksander tapped against the edge of his desk. The cool calm in him now rattled the foundations of her strength. "Why is it that every time I leave you, I discover you with him?"
She ruffled at the accusation. The accuse of her deception. As if he had a leg to stand on!
"I was doing what you could not," she said.
"Enlighten me."
"Letting. Him. Go."
The proud man that Aleksander was straightened his back in response.
"I've the power to release him," he revealed coyly. "Just not the interest."
"My interest is in your wellbeing."
"My wellbeing? What a fascinating turn of events. You've hidden your pregnancy from my knowledge for the sake of me, have you?"
Alina stepped forward on heavy feet. "Yes. You will keep Mal here until he dies as long as it means we aren't together. I know you will not let him go. So, I went to set him free so that you might free yourself from this obsession over Mal and me."
"It was not ME who you ran off into the woods with."
"So, your past is off limits, but my past is free reign?" Her voice was impossibly shrill. It took that pitch whenever she argued. More often than not, it was with Mal she argued with.
"My past wasn't last week!"
"Zoya wasn't years ago." Her fist shook the table when she dropped it to the desk. "So don't high road me."
He leaned back in his seat. Gears moved through his thoughts, plotting perhaps – it was his second nature – a way to explain it away.
Alina knew his strategy. It wouldn't work.
Had it been any other Grisha, it would be forgiven. And forgotten. The past was the past for a reason.
However, Zoya was the exception. That entitled, cruel, arrogant bitch that treated Alina like scum since the moment she arrived was the self-appointed archenemy of the sun saint.
The fact that an archenemy had used the same man choked her with repugnance. To have ridden on the same staff, galloped the same horse, tumbled the same sheets. No soap would clean that deep.
"There has been no one else since I discovered you," he stated. Calmly. All too calmly for sanity to answer.
She gritted her teeth together. "I'm supposed to believe that the months I was gone there weren't any late night tumbles to clear your head? Relieve your anger? Lash out at me for running away?"
Both hands of his poised on the edge of his desktop. "Did I seem relaxed when I found you? Hm?" He lifted his brows. "I hadn't slept in days. I barely left this room. The entire country was at my throat to find their beloved saint. If there was ever a spare moment to fuck my worries away, I'd have spent it looking harder."
She resisted his explanation. It may have been a reasonable, logical, and totally Aleksander thing to do, but the last thing she wanted was to hear that her anger was over feeling second best to someone who was given every opportunity, given a home, supported and trusted as a member of their ranks, all that Alina begged to have.
"Unlike you," he muttered full of spite, "who gave yourself to me and ran off the next moment she could."
"I've apologized for that," she snapped.
"You'll never meet the depth that I felt to return to an empty room. A thousand friends of yours may die, and you'll just breech the surface."
Her jaw hanged open a moment as she collected her thoughts. "Imagine what I felt knowing I laid with the devil who killed the country!"
"Mistakes of the recent offend more than the distant past," he recited, as if reciting lines for a memorized excerpt.
"Fine." Her foot stomped on the ground again. "I'll just wait until it is centuries past so we can move past my misgivings as we've glossed over yours!"
"Fine."
Alina fled the war room. She held her head high. Her anger assisted in keeping her primed with anticipation. She expected more. An explosive middle for the relief at the conclusion.
Aleksander chose the hard way. As was his preference.
The first thing she did when she returned to her bedchamber was toss the black kefta out one of the open windows. It was lost to the darkness of the night. Only the shimmering gold stitching caught light in its descent.
He had told her he was still angry for running away. She sank down atop her bed. He wasn't kidding.
It took days. Days. His arrival only came at the impatient request of the King to see her immediately. Genya had arrived prior to ready her for the appearance. The black kefta somehow found its way into her bed chamber. The fact that the magical kefta returned into her private room without request boiled her blood. She ripped it from the wardrobe and again tossed it out the window before Genya could disagree.
"The blue then?" Genya asked lightly. The eggshells were also visible on the floor that the Tailor had to dance around. "Such a lovely color against your complexion."
The kefta hanged from the door of the wardrobe in beautiful display. It was a pleasant shade. She rather looked the change from the morose black.
Alina marched up toward the vanity. She took her seat. Both hands placed flat against the top. Her eyes raised slowly, met Genya's in the middle, and urged the Tailor to approach. There was no time to be patient. Her mood was soured at the General's audacity. Anyone in his close company was at risk of her rebuttal.
More and more she missed Marie. That lovely woman knew how to soothe a mind as well as distract.
"I want golden shimmers. What are they called? Glitter? I want gold glitter on my eyelids. Sparkling like the sun."
The Tailor's red brows jumped high. "Really? How much are you wanting?"
Alina did not favor drastic changes to her appearance. She preferred natural. Her features were beautiful, even if the rest of Ravka didn't share her love of 'Shu' eyes, they were hers, born to her, and embraced the lineage of her parents before her. Ravkans looked different. They all did.
If she was to be their Sun Saint, she would not dilute her image for their sensibilities.
"I want it regal and beautiful, gold and shimmering," Alina explained her vision to Genya. "I want to emulate what I am."
"A cartographer?"
She found her own gaze in the mirror. It reflected back the face of a woman that was finally in her own. "No," she said. "The light of the world."
The Tailor went to work. She applied layers upon Alina's face. She brought back the color of her cheeks that had faded in the days of her malnourishment. It awakened the light behind Alina's eyes to see herself so healthy.
The image of her transformed to the sun saint she wanted to be. Who she felt she was on the inside. Ready and capable, fully aware of the power at her hand.
"Like this?" Genya swiped over her eyelid. A line of pale gold glitter glistened in the light.
"More," Alina instructed.
Another swipe.
"Can you make it dark in the corners? I want the gold to pop."
It was only finished just before the knock on the door came. It was the time that the General decreed he'd come fetch her for the Grand Palace.
Genya gave her a last look over. A small smile twisted her lips. "You look confident."
"I am."
She was not in the mood for self-doubt. There was much work to be done before September. It was clear it would be a burden she bared on her own shoulders, so it was best to get the work done as soon as possible.
A spoiled king and ignorant queen would not stop her. If they hadn't the sight to summon their greater selves for the country, it would be a vacant opening at the destruction of the Fold.
Even if she had to do it herself.
Alina sighed. Her thoughts spun and spun. The moment that impended offered a great amount of stress. Although her patience for the throne was thin, it had to hold. Until. Until she was prepared.
The reasoning of her abandonment of Little Palace plagued her. For all his frustrating faults, General Kirigan provided a very good home for her and all the Grisha. He truly cared for all of them. All their needs, mental and physical, were provided for. It was in the Little Palace under the General's control that the rest of the country should have been under the King's reign.
Nothing in her story should reflect poorly on General Kirigan. That was her priority.
He was a better leader than the King, and she believed that she should reflect that despite the current troublings of the man.
"Is she ready?" His voice ruptured her serene.
Alina's eyes went cold. Her spine, straight, with her chin held high.
Genya was at the door, partially opened. "Yes."
His voice dipped lower, perhaps he thought it was inaudible to anyone except Genya. "How does she seem?"
Alina continued to adjust her dress, with her eyes downcast and busy, to pretend she did not eavesdrop on their confidence. It was an intriguing study. She knew they were close. Genya was loyal to the General, but at what level? The line of inquiry was important to peruse.
"Ready," the Tailor confided. "He won't break her."
"You're certain?"
Genya glanced back into the room. Alina felt the eyes travel across her for a tell of attention before she returned to Kirigan's confidence. "She's focused. I've never seen her so resolute."
Alina heard the General grumble, "Wonderful."
"Alina?" The light hopeful tone of Genya rang louder through the room. "General Kirigan is here for you."
Black kefta, black boots, indifferent yet stunning face, freshly trimmed and oiled hair.
Someone made themselves pretty.
She appraised his appearance with a long traveling look up and down his attire, as if she was unimpressed, and not visibly pleased with the way he cut a silhouette.
Saints, the man was a bastard for looking that good at a time when she loathed him in every way.
He stood, silent. His eyes the only animated thing about him as they took her in full glow. It eased the burning of her heart to know how good she looked to him, and how it must have ate him up inside to see her look that way without a thing to be done about it.
Confidence filled her once more. The slight lift of her shoulder to their elated height drew his gaze.
Alina allowed herself to take the lead and approach. Her eyes firm and proud.
"Follow me," was all that was said within the room.
Utter silence followed as the wealth of eyes, Ivan and Genya and a few white kefta servants, watched ever closely at the two. None- except Ivan – knew of the truth. It was his eyes that she found the most ease. The hardness of his glare was gone as was the curl of his sneer whenever he looked at her.
All that showed was an empty expression and eyes filled with emotion, of some kind.
She walked alongside the Darkling in silent frustration, peeved at how calm he was, as she bottled back rage at his indifference. Days of utter disregard, complete with his ignorance in her welfare, like a pouting child.
She was not a child. And procession as such would put her child at a loss. It was not a thing she could afford.
Alina allowed a wave of calm to wash through her muscles. Release of their taut hold was a relief, enough to make her sigh in contentment to have it dissipate through her already sore muscles.
The allure of her would erode his childish behavior to naught. It only needed time to set. Like a hook in a fish's mouth. The bait had to be swallowed for it to be reeled in.
The day was cool. Air calmly ghosted across their faces as they walked in its tepid atmosphere. Sunlight splashed happily down on the manicured lawns of the opposite Palaces despite the setting chill of the air. Their breaths were barely visible, the faint line of billowing smoke from their mouths the only tell of their exhale.
A faint line of white edged each blade of grass, every needle of pine tree, the stones near the walkway. The playful growth of frost from the frigid night had yet to disappear under the warmth of the sun. It made the gardens a winter wonderland. Beautiful and sparkling.
"Have you prepared?" Aleksander finally questioned.
"I have."
The Palace in view loomed like a threat. She hadn't the time for threats.
"What of Mal?" She asked. "You've not hurt him, have you?"
A restrained growl rumbled at the back of his throat with the Palace guards so near. "No. Your precious tracker has been cared for just as I promised."
"What of Zoya? Has she been cared for, too?"
His eyes casted a piercing glare down at her. She felt it try to prickle her flesh with his power.
The Palace doors were in sight. The guards were close enough to observe them with the eyes that reported to the King. It was not safe to reveal anything, the General had once told her. Anything between Grisha should be kept in the safety of Little Palace.
One mistake could put them all in danger.
The General kept his head high as they approached the closed double doors. Two guards on either side held them open like a mouth intent to swallow them whole.
Grand Palace was exquisite. As was every palace, she assumed. It held the finest things in Ravka, and some of other countries, too.
What a waste. The country deserved some of the wealth that went to decorate the walls.
Aleksander kept his voice low as they traversed through to the Throne Room.
"My dedication to you have never waivered."
"And yet you never mentioned her." She, too, kept herself unbothered in the wake of royal views. "Suspicious to not reveal a history unless you have reason to keep it secret."
"My past is endless," he said. "There is much that I have not revealed."
"Then it will be the divide that keeps us apart."
That pierced through that revere of his. All at once, they bond they shared was overcome with probing. He was unable to act, but his strength through their connection was unstoppable. It broke through the door that she kept at the middle.
But, he did not know of her new power, a power that she learned so graciously from him.
All emotion that he sought to explore through their bond was dropped to nothing. All emotion, feeling, sensations, memory. It was all erased. She, a sheet of glass to merely resemble a person, but none of substance. Out of his touch.
Another gaze was passed her way as they approached the throne.
It was King Pyotr absent of his queen, Tatiana. There were two others present in her absence. One was Prince Vasily. She recognized him from the Winter Fete. Unfortunately. The other was a handsome younger man, closer to her age, dressed in less regal, high-collared-vest-of-a-thousand-buttons type fashion than the Prince.
He stood easily. His spine straight and shoulders relaxed. A natural in the realm of royalty.
Alina's mind couldn't help but draw similarities to fairy tales where a hero as handsome as the day would be as noble and honorable and loving. Her eyes blinked multiple time as she observed him.
Unlike the dark, brooding beauty of the Darkling, this man was warm, and sunny. She saw the charisma within his features. Animated eyes danced around her face when they came into view. A softening, genuine, took hold of his face when the other two were rather stiff in comparison.
Vasily, though, was not rigid with her. His eyes. It was as if they were in pain. He squinted and rubbed his temple, rather distracted of her presence.
General Kirigan went down on one knee. Alina bowed her head in respect while the General kept his eyes ahead.
He never bowed to anyone. Except her.
She smirked. Even the King hadn't earned that respect of the Darkling.
"You've returned, Sun Summoner," the King said.
Returned. It practically made Aleksander hiss in displeasure. Return was not the word that was honest. Dragged back fit the situation more.
"I have, Your Majesty."
"The General informed me that you left after the Winter Fete?"
She nodded. "Yes."
On holiday. It was the perfect time.
"And you're back now?"
Only to pop in for a visit.
"I am, sir."
King Pyotr turned to his Second Army General. "What say you, Kirigan?"
Aleksander boiled. He did not like being referred to so plainly, even by the King. The pride in his ego surpassed the elevation to king up to God. Only a God could bend the Darkling to their will, and it would be only after he'd lost in battle.
A ripple of pleasure traveled up her spine. She was a Goddess. He bent to her will once.
"Miss Starkov has been settled back into her training in Little Palace," Aleksander said stiffly.
Lie. She hadn't trained once since her return.
"Excellent," the King said. It surprised her. There were layers and layers of explanations she prepared for the moment. "I see you have things under control, General Kirigan. Carry on."
A wave of relief surged through their bond, and it was not from her. The Darkling was excited to have danced below the King's interest to be held accountable.
It was the exact reason why Alina disapproved of the throne so heavily. Vasily was hungover. He could barely stand and winced with every word said. Pyotr sipped wine from a solid gold goblet, a fact she could smell from her place, during the late morning when spring was near, and the country would be in dire need of wood and food from the long winter.
The pair from Little Palace stepped down, intent to return to the place they came, when a voice of golden honey slipped through the air.
"Father," the handsome man said. His golden locks bounced as it stepped down from his platform to the floor. "It was under this General's care that Miss Starkov left."
A dark look overtook Aleksander's eye when he glanced at the man. A prince.
"Prince Nikolai," he pronounced ever so clearly, like a viable insult laced in his name. "Or is it Sturmhond? I forget which the court recognizes."
Sturmhond? "The pirate?" She felt her lips mutter.
"Privateer, actually," he corrected. "And Prince Nikolai suits in Os Alta. I'll warn you though, Sturmhond is a name spoken in respect and fear. Should you address me as such, I'll behave in the way that fits the meeting."
The edge of his face caught the light as he glanced back and upward at his father, King Pyotr. "There must be an explanation for Miss Starkov's disappearance. As much as you respect the General, a position of power over a beautiful woman can tempt demons. The General, I'm sure, is well acquainted with them. I purpose a private audience with the young woman herself. Ensure there is no abuse of power."
Aleksander boiled in fury. She felt the tension build within the air she breathed. Shadows deepened in black. A fact the King largely ignored. His eyes rolled. It appeared to be a hassle to spend the mental capacity on entertaining the idea further.
"Oh, alright. Let's move this along. General, leave us."
Not that she was insecure in the face of royalty, or craved his presence, Alina felt apart of herself deflate at the idea. She looked to Aleksander, though she knew to keep the desperation from her eyes.
Aleksander despised the idea. There was resistance throughout his body. His jaw taut and teeth clenched together, that strong jawline grew ever sharper.
"She is of Second Army, Your Majesty. All of the Grisha - ."
The Prince narrowed his eyes. Something in his face did not hide the suspicions he felt. "Is it possible you do not wish to leave her here because she might tell us a story you don't want told?"
"I report to the King," Aleksander stated clearly. The power of his eye turned on the young prince nearing closer, ever so close to the darkness' edge. "My answers are to him. And only, him."
The King demanded his son to stand down in the assault of questions. He apologized for the forward behavior. "We will only be a minute with the Sun Summoner."
There was no choice. Aleksander had to leave.
It was lonesome in a throne room as the only subject below three men. Three powerful men. Only, she was confident that she was strong than Vasily, who now sat down and tried to fight the urge to vomit over himself, and the large king was not agile enough to outrun her if he tried.
Nikolai was the one she feared. His power came from within. That was stronger than the inflated spots that the king and prince stood on.
He was a worthy opponent. Not one to engage rashly.
"Go on, then. Tell us your story," the King urged. "I'd like to satisfy my son's curiosity so that I might return to my chambers."
It was known that the King did perverse activities in his chambers. The very mention of them paled her confidence. She was stunned by their very mention.
In front of his sons, no less!
Alina leveled her chin with the floor once more. The pig king would not intimidate her to a lower station.
"It was done out of concern for the others," she revealed. "I left the Palace to keep them safe."
The prince was intrigued, proud to have been proven right. "From the General?"
"No," she answered quickly. It paused his building inflation. "Not from the General. From what would come if I stayed longer." She swallowed as images of Marie leapt to mind. And Genya. The blood on the carpets as it seeped from warmth to cold floor. "My friend died. I trusted more to be slain in the pursuit of me."
Prince Nikolai stepped closer. "General Kirigan is in charge of security of the Palace. It is by his fault that it was executed."
"It is not one man's power to resist the power of countries," Alina retorted with irritation. Her eyes then addressed the King, as much as she despised the show of respect to a man comprised of devious delights in a comfortable Palace of the bleeding of his own peoples. "It was done with the best intention, however misguided they were."
The King listened. "And what of this Malyen Oretsev. He was found in possession of you."
Alina licked her lips. Her hearts raced in response. His fate rested at the end of her tongue.
"That was a misunderstanding on the General's part. Comrade Oretsev is a friend of mine. I told him of my plans, and he chose to accompany to aid me. The only coercion done was done by me, not him."
"Hm," King Pyotar grunted as her words sank through his head.
"He is the best tracker of the First Army, Your Majesty." Bits of desperation leeched through her tone. "Please. Our-." The slip of her tongue went unnoticed by all, except the intrigued blonde prince. "His unit is greatly disadvantaged without him. The General holds him under suspicion of my flee, but it is a charge that rests on my shoulders. Not Malyen's."
His palms hit the arm rests with a thundering boom. "Very well. I order the tracker released."
"Thank you, sir." Alina blinked back her tears. "Thank you."
King Pyotar rose from his throne seat. His knees struggled to rise, but once he did, the man stood tall. He declared himself resigned of the matter. The evacuation of the room was done not only by the king, but his eldest son, too, without much word or circumstance.
Alina was left in silence without dismissal or slightest acknowledgement.
All at once, the room was sparse of guard and all. Only one other remained.
Prince Nikolai. And his gaze. He did not hide his study of her.
"You are of the First Army, you say?" He suddenly asked.
"Was," she corrected. "And yes, I was."
"I'm of First Army, as well. A Major, actually. Major Lantsov. Though I was once an infantry man, more dirt than man." It earned him a look of doubt from her brown eyes. "I only did it to get the shiny medals. They are quite fetching on a uniform."
That was enough to earn a bemused grin. Saints, it was ridiculous.
"No one can stand the food that long to get their medals," she snickered.
His smile was all too infectious. Once it spread, it mirrored on her own face. "I was ill the day I was given those gray Vareniki." She wrinkled her nose in memory of the first time she had to eat them mal colored dumplings. "Took ages to keep them down. Had to coat them in a layer of sour cream to have them settle."
Both shared a laugh. A genuine laugh. The recall of a past, without Mal, without Aleksander, without the question of the Sun Saint or the Fold. It was so rare; she relished the feeling.
All too soon, it ended. Reality set back.
"First Army is nothing like the high officers of the court," Alina observed. "Nobles take the higher positions right away."
Their feet neared closer to the other, an unsteady, strange dance of uncertainty. Did they linger? Should they part?
Nikolai was rather lively for a man of royalty. It was in his eyes she saw the life, and the love of the pursuit of it, in there. Court hadn't burned it out of him with boring, flamboyant parties of nothing but drama, while the blood and filth of First Army hadn't drained the will of continue from his soul.
A seasoned solider and privateer with an inclination for adventure and court. He was a mountain in the oceans of these withering atmospheres.
"I prefer to climb on my own claws. It sharpens them." He winked.
Alina chuckled. "You prefer them weapons, I take it."
"In my line of work, they are needed."
Piracy was a dangerous career. It was astonishing that he managed to possess enough of anonymity to be a large enough name as Sturmhond. His stories were all the rage in the First Army during her time in the ranks. More notably his appearance – a deformed nose and firey red hair – differed from Sturmhond's.
She flashed another doubtful look of observation. It caught his notice.
"It take it complimentary that you are unable to look away," he said with a cheeky grin, "but a beautiful young woman like yourself is no stranger to handsome men. I venture there is another reason you stare."
A strong blush consumed her cheeks. "Yes, well, I recall you differently."
"I've not met many sun saints in my day."
As if he'd met any before.
"Strumhond, I mean. He's…a strange looking character as stories say."
"Stories say I'm a bastard," Nikolai replied without a shred of hesitation. It caught Alina off guard. Her mouth dropped open. He shrugged. "That's the thing about stories. They can say whatever someone wants them to say, doesn't have to be true. Not even one ounce." His finger gestured toward the pair of grand doors that enclosed the throne room. "Stories of the Darkling say he's a fine soldier and a good man. I just don't believe it. The look in a man's eyes says a lot. And I see nothing but darkness."
That strong protective flutter rose up inside her. Aleksander was her equal, the darkness to her light. Too much of one was devastating to a world as much as people hated to admit that there was a thing as too much light, dark had to creep in to give refuge from the bitterness of light.
"And if you look in my eyes there is the unending brightness of the sun, unyielded and blinding," Alina said. "I much prefer his darkness."
The Prince appraised her with lifted brow. "Funny, I wouldn't have thought a sun summoner to have a grim disposition."
"It is not grim to recognize the need for my opposite."
"I'd counter with the idea that it is grim to believe that darkness is needed when light does a hell of a load of good, whereas night festers secrets and deception through the lack of focus." A single finger of his agile hand tapped against his nose. "Imagine what it'd be like if darkness ruled over this castle. Why, I'd say it would look a bit like it does now."
Prince Nikolai gave a short parting bow before he turned on toe and walked away. The farewell he sang on his voice was filled with charm and warmth, "Good day, sun summoner. Pray we need again, under sunnier skies and pleasant conversations."
A faint smile twisted her lips. It stayed on them as she exited the throne room doors.
Row after row of windows in the three-story high foyer filtered in yellow daylight. Without the creeping cold of the wind, it warmed the air like summer. Her cheeks were greeted with a burst. All at once, her kefta was stifling hot with its dense fur liner. She wiped the little beads of sweat from her neck before they turned to raindrops down her skin.
"Miss Starkov." The voice startled her.
She spun around in confusion. It was a sound she knew, but not in that tone.
The Heartrender read her shock. "General Kirigan requested I accompany you back to Little Palace."
Ivan, the man with the permanent frown, did not snap at her with impatience. It was said simply. The lightest of suggestions, the least bothersome of tasks to have been given to him.
Even the lines on his face were not from a scowl, but the lack of one after years of placement.
Alina shifted. "Oh. Um…"
"Business called him away," Ivan explained, in anticipation of her next question.
"I see." She swallowed.
The walk back to Little Palace was far in dead silence. Her eyes jumped back to Ivan every so often to inspect him. She doubted he was so easily mimicked, but it was not the Ivan she knew.
The disgust in his eyes was gone. That was a noted difference. His tone, too. It was too casual. Ivan's voice barked out of his mouth like orders from an officer.
He caught her eye once.
"Are you feeling well today, Miss Starkov?"
The top of her boot caught on the edge of a path stone and sent her to the ground. She winced as the ground neared. Her two hands shot out in front of her and caught her. An additional pair of hands gripped her shoulders to aid her back to standing.
"Are you alright?" He asked after her. AGAIN.
"I appreciate the General's interest in my wellbeing, but he can ask the Healer for information," she grumbled as she tried to overcome the humiliation of the moment.
It always happened in front of someone she hated or hated her in return.
Ivan's hands stayed locked on her shoulders. "Your pulse is quite high."
She revoked her shoulders from his grasp. Something about it angered her further. Her feet stomped away. Their echo a slap in the ear as they were the only two out in the magnificent gardens.
"I was merely curious to your health, Miss Starkov. A pregnancy is rare within Little Palace."
She snorted. "I find that hard to believe. With all the fucking that goes on around here."
There was just as much hooking up in the Little Palace as there was in the dingy camps of First Army. Back then, she thought it was about chasing away the demons. At least their bodies could give them something to feel good about. But a palace? They wore embroidered beautiful clothes behind safe walls. The thought of death did not enter their heads every day.
"Most of us didn't get to have families…siblings."
Alina stopped in her tracks. Her forehead wrinkled in question.
"We were sold away before we could remember what we would be missing," Ivan explained. "Or left. Lots were left to die."
She gulped back a snarky reminder of her own upbringing. An orphan with a family killed in the Fold. All of what she was supposed to know of family and love torn away from the mortal plane without the chance to cherish them for what they were.
"This will answer many longings of all our hearts. Your child will be a part of our family, our kin, cherished and loved in every way. Protected." He said that word so purposefully. "At all costs."
Her eyes glanced up at the Palace in their view. Little Palace. The home of the king of the Grisha. Darkling. The man of darkness, the man of her heart.
She sighed. A man of darkness had many paths to choose before the right one. This century he did well. He became strong enough to protect their kind. He built walls. Thick, beautiful walls, to protect them under the shadow of a king's court. What Grisha could hope for more safety?
Little Palace was a perfect place to raise a child. The adoration of so many protected within its wall. Love. So much love. And a pair of parents there, all the time. The outside world completely blocked from tarnishing the child's soul.
Ivan was right. Her mind found ease in the idea of their faces being so twisted with smiles at the sight of an infant. Literal hope in their embrace. The future. It brightened with the chubby sleeping face of an infant.
"We find ourselves hoping for what will come," he said. "As much as we have our hopes placed in you."
So…just like that, he added loads of pressure onto her already wearied body.
Hope. It was a most intoxicating thing. A drug that soothed souls in times of desperation and strive. The hope that she would save the country, perhaps the world, ate up the Grisha as much as it did those who were separated by the Fold. It was their last hope at salvation. The war on Grisha, it never stopped. The distrust of them, their powers, the ability to become something more, and the fears that it instilled in lesser men's hearts, fueled the divide between humans and Grisha.
She was hope for the country. Her child, hope for the Grisha. Two with great importance. Neither could be taken lightly.
Ivan delivered her back to her bedchamber as he was expected to and Alina's task to remove the layers of sainthood from her body began. She took her time. There was no rush to end up alone and bored.
Without Marie, the days were droll. All her conversations were about Mal, or running away, or how she was a sun summoner, or her feelings about the General. It made each day a repeated song that made her jaded to the point of anger.
It was the walls of Little Palace that closed her in. She was lonely and in need of stimulation. A new friend, a book, anything.
She'd just decided on the library when a knock – an intrusive, arrogant knock – pounded against her door.
She opened it inches to view through the crack in the space. It was a man. He had dark spiky hair. A Fabrickator kefta covered his body. She recognized him from the war room. David was his name, a close ally to the General. He was the only man she recognized to bring out a softer tone in the General's authority.
Alina held the door. "Yes?"
"The General requested you this evening," David said. The explanation, an order to follow him.
It was not David's fault for Aleksander's callousness.
She obliged him without fuss to escort her to the war room. She stopped short when she entered. Grisha. High ranking Grisha were everywhere. The General spoke, instructed his inferiors to their orders, discussed strategy with Zoya, moved figurines across his table.
Alina felt out of place in the wake of their business. She was not qualified to offer insight at all.
David cleared his throat to attract attention to their presence. Eyes of the entire room turned to her. Like always.
Except. A noted absence rippled through her core.
Aleksander refused to look at her. He back stepped to his desk. Many papers were atop the top. Through the spread he found a single thing and handed it toward her, eyes focused back to his war table.
"I imagine you'd like to present these," he said.
There was an official seal of the royal court on the envelope. A slit went through the middle of the wax.
"Come now," David said. His arm swung around to usher her back out the door.
She blinked, unable to think. What should she do? She didn't belong in the war room with their discussion, but she expected respect. Respect from him, of all.
"General Kirigan." Her voice found strength in light of the audience.
It captured his notice. His gaze found way to hers. Finally.
"I'd like to know what it is before I agree."
The fact that it was not a question did not escape her notice, but it was what she took it as. Freewill was still in her grasp. She, the sun summoner. No matter his distaste for her state, it did not make her status any less important.
"It is open," he stated calmly.
"Recite them for me," she challenged. She was not in the mood for his games.
The dark of his eye split. Wishes of fondness filled the room. She felt the tendrils of shadows pull at her, grasping at the edges, as if yearning to touch her in ways they had before. Her heartbeart burned with each throb away from him.
The memory of their bodies, hot and raw in their grasp, glimmered through their vision. A stark difference to the coldness between them now.
How easy it'd been to earn a smile from him that night of the Winter Fete, a day he worshipped her, and she believed it.
That night. It was a blinding memory filled with the highest pleasure and the lowest of despair, a night she allowed rash impulses of the past to dictate her future, possibly securing a fate without the one person she loved in it. Baghra had offered her a chance. But. But, it was her fault for taking it.
Try as she might, Baghra and Mal were not to blame for her betrayal of Aleksander's loving trust.
She was.
A weight that she burdened atop her womb – the pressure on which her child now grew.
Alina looked down at the envelope in hand. Her fingers pulled the paper's edge from the pocket.
"You'll find…" Aleksander's voice was soft against her ear. His breath warmed the side of her face. "Release of custody of the tracker, back to the First Army."
Her eyes widened. The King followed through with his order?
She scanned down the length of the script with vigor. Only. The signature line held one that was not of King Pyotar.
"Prince Nikolai," her lips murmured as they read his bold, fluid signature on the line.
"It seems your charms have won over another heart." The spite was bitter but subtle. A room full of witnesses did hinder his urge to do what he wanted, she assumed. The attentions of another man made him wild with irrational protection.
The thought was ridiculous. If he knew the depth of her loyalty to him, he would not bat an eyelash at the attentions of lesser men.
Alina swallowed. "I'll see to it that these orders are obliged."
"I thought you might," he said.