Chapter Ten: The Gain of A Plan
After a day of searching, Alina Starkov was located. The Grand Palace.
General Kirigan found himself on the Palace threshold at first light. His black boots balanced on the helm of the property, intent on retrieving what was his within.
"I hear you have my sun summoner," he stated.
The trembling royal guard had little more than a whimper in his chest before he managed to point Aleksander in the direction he needed.
The farther he walked, the harder his feet stomped against the ground.
If that bastard prince had a thing to do with it, he'd tear the vocal cord from his throat. See if he'd charm his way into another woman's bed after that.
He went cold with darkness. A strength knitted through his clothing as he walked. Shadows snaked around his flesh like shields. Their whispers growing louder.
"She loves him," they taunted in their forked tongues. "She's going to leave you. He is far more handsome, so good inside. He is light as she is light. Like calls to like."
It fueled his need faster. The beating of his heart bursting inside his chest.
The golden Palace doors opened inward toward the spacious library. A scent of aged paper filled his lungs as he took in a final inhale before release. The release of his anger mounted after all the searching.
She always left him. Without word or warning.
The light of the world failed him, left him in darkness, as it did all those years ago when he became consumed in the allure of shadow. It allowed icy black tendrils to be anchored in his heart as a demon of the world, without the slightest fight for his fate.
A cursed beast in dying lands.
Aleksander heard the soft escape of breaths. It echoed all around the silent room. A stroll through the library in the Grand Palace was not what he had patience for. Time was of essence. He closed his eyes. Shadows called out to her, his equal, through their bond. It called out to him.
The bond led him through the looping aisles up a staircase into an ancient corner that was seldom used by the layers of dust atop their shelves as the breaths grew louder.
The moment came to reveal the two in congress. His tongue laced back, ready to fill the room with his venom and his anger at whatever would stand in his way. Darkness cooled his hand. The palm cloaked by the veil of black as he revealed himself to the party.
There were many there. Spread out across a large table. Their faces sank into books. A large atlas laid center. Ocean drawings done by early cartographers, too, on display.
Aleksander peered through their slumbering faces at the focus of their search.
He stumbled upon the prince. His lips lifted in a snarl as he beheld the whimsical resting face of beauty that had everyone fooled. Men of violence recognized their kind. For all his good-natured humor, dark depths rested below his surface. Of that, the General had no doubt. The man was not to be trusted.
A chair pulled away from the table held another sleeping being. The black kefta was pulled up to her neck as she slept, face pushed against the edge of a bookshelf for support. Her legs crossed beneath her. Arms knitted together for warmth.
Aleksander knelt down in front of her. A smile twisted the corners of his mouth.
Bewitched by the sun he was. Always aghast in the beauty that radiated from her warmth. Coldness dropped away when he came nearer, the pulse finally thawed that frigid thump in his body.
He ran his fingers down the length of her throat. It grew hot against his skin.
Alina stole another breath. It resulted in an echoing snore from her nose.
Aleksander blinked in shock.
Such a loud noise from a small woman.
Her eyes raced behind her lids as she slept. A soft relief dropped the tension of her brows as she turned over and snuggled closer into his touch. The motion dropped the kefta to the floor. Her swollen belly exposed in the taut grip of her blouse.
The shadows dropped away from his palm. He pressed gently against the swell of life inside her.
A short while later, she began to stir. Her eyes gently lifted open. They scanned the face in front of them with deepening curiosity. The knit of her brow emerged as she stared deeper.
"So sad," her lips murmured softly. "Your face is so sad."
"You've been gone for an entire day." He sighed a ragged breath of relief that she was within his grasp still.
"I didn't want you to worry."
Her lids shuttered closed. A smile on her lips as she drifted farther away.
"Still, I did," he revealed. "There was no note. No word from you other than reassurance you'd come back soon. I didn't know where you were or if you were taking care of yourself." He paused. Thoughts turned to their unborn child. "I thought you'd left me."
Half dazed and asleep, Alina raised her hand against his jaw. A dreamy pitch to her voice as she said, "Never. You'll never be rid of me. With my last breath, you'd still have me with you."
"Last breath?" A storm of emotions erupted from his depths like a tidal wave ready to crash. "Alina, do not talk like that."
"We are the two Zuri, the stars of the day. One too bright, one too dark. Never whole without the other." It was as if she drifted deeper into slumber. Breath hardly a noticeable whisper. Aleksander tensed. "Neither Mal or Luda will break us."
That name. It was eons ago that it was whispered to air. Eons of memory battled out by the strengths of mind.
"What?" How did that name come to pass through her lips? "Alina! Alina, wake up."
Alina's eyes popped open. A voice called her from far away. All at once it hit her like the sudden pull out of a dream scape.
Aleksander kneeled in front of her chair, face perplexed. Disturbed, almost.
She blinked once or twice. "Aleksander?" She peeked upward. Light shined down through the tall windows of the Grand Palace library. "What time is it?"
"Early," he answered, still befuddled.
"Oh, no." She frowned. "Aren't you needed at Little Palace by now?"
His darkness grew thicker in his eye. The clenching hold he had on their bond. She sought her way through it, with hopes that it would soothe him.
She sighed. "I know it's been a while, but we've been working tirelessly here. I didn't want to pull you away from more important things until I had it solved."
"An entire day, Alina. An entire day."
"I know, Alek." She leaned forward; lips pursed together. "But this is important."
They shared a slow kiss. He was hesitant to start. Something rather restrained, possibly from her being so consumed with her project for so long that made him angry.
Whatever it was, she hoped to dissipate it soon.
The black kefta placed back atop her shoulders and buttoned fully. His help to cover her bulging stomach from wayward eyes until she was presentable once more.
"Wake up." She banged her fist against the table. Her palms created a burst of bright light at the center of the table. Its rays shocked the group around her to groan in response. "We fell asleep. Come on then."
Nikolai groaned as he stretched. His golden shaggy hair was in disarray.
He was struck, as was the entire crew, when they caught sight of the Darkling in the flesh. Their bodies tensed despite the haze of dreams still upon them.
Their distrust of Aleksander, especially the sharpening in their eyes, filled Alina with waves of emotion. The strongest being protective. He was one of them. His help to destroy the Fold was monumental.
Alina smiled as she gestured toward him. "You all know General Kirigan."
She stood on tiptoe to place a kiss against his cheek. A move that did wonders throughout Nikolai's team of privateers. It gained their confidence enough to settle their shoulders down again.
"What's all this, Miss Starkov?" Nikolai asked. His loquacious tongue was rather dull that morning. It came as a shock as he was under the assumption that Alina and the General were not under good confidence. "I thought the General didn't order this job."
"Job?" The General murmured, as if to himself.
"He didn't," Alina answered. "I did."
"Then it is under my order as well," he added.
She smiled. Despite the weary nights and lack of food, she was thrilled to see him. It brought a calm throughout the panic she felt in urgency. If Aleksander was there, he'd make things right.
It was the part of him that she adored. He knew. He knew things that were endless and supportive.
"I didn't want to disturb you until we had something solid," Alina explained.
"You should never hesitate to disturb me." His eyes flashed to the prince.
Nikolai scoffed lightly.
"It would seem expertise warrants first call," Nikolai said. "Unless your shadows can hunt sea dragons."
Aleksander's mind worked fast. Gears caught and in a matter of milliseconds, he knew the reason of their research.
"Ah, and you've dealt with a number of them, have you?" There was a twinge of arrogance in his tone that read too strongly of confidence. "You forget that sea dragons are ancient creatures of lore, of which I happen to be well educated in. These, right here." His knuckle knocked against the swimming paths of fish throughout the year. "Will do you no good. Rusalye don't feast on fish."
"What does it feast on then?" Tolya Yul-Bataar, one of Nikolai's closest allies, asked. "Every beast of the sea follows those patterns. We've hunted them many times."
"All man-eating beasts need to eat. It is the law of the ocean."
"Not all motivations are of nature," Aleksander stated.
Alina felt rising tensions. It was not what she had time for. She placed the Saint Ilya book down.
"What motivates a Rusalye, moi soverennyi?"
That surge of power that ascended her legs was of pure desire. The look hidden in intimating indifference, the recognition of his position above her and the respect laced in her tone. It drove him wild.
Had they been alone, it would have led to some intensity against a wall somewhere.
"Beautiful women," he said coyily. A corner of his mouth lifted to a smirk. "Surely, Sturmhond knows all about that motivation."
"He does," the prince said stiffly.
Tamar, Toyla's twin sister, was not impressed. She placed her hands on her hips against the gleaming blades of axes in their black leather straps. "Beasts do not seek women. It is food and mating. Mating is where the food is."
"Then you've forgotten the ancient origin of the creature," Aleksander clarified. "He was not born a Sea Whip, but a man. A prince." Black eyes casted a threatening glance at the prince in their midst. "A cursed prince forced to guard the icy waters of the Bone Road."
"Why a beautiful woman?"
Aleksander looked back. His fingers ghosted the length of Alina's arm. It turned all eyes on her face as he openly admired her like a work of art.
Her cheeks flushed ten shades of red under their watch.
"It is said he caused an accident that claimed the life of his beautiful wife," his lips recited. Alina watched the way his face changed, lost in a trance as the words of the story filled his mind with darkness. The clouds of shadow drowned out all ounce of color to his iris. "She endured an icy death from his oversight, and thus, was cursed to endure an icy eternity to repent for his mistake."
"The Bone Road?" Nikolai's men searched through the books on the table. "I read about that somewhere. Where is it?"
They all recognized the name. Excitement in their hands as they flipped through numerous pages.
Alina felt a change in Aleksander. His eyes, too dark, voice too low.
Her hand took hold of his and squeezed until her palm was red hot with light.
It chased away the deepening shadows of his eyes. Suddenly, he blinked back to life.
She kept herself anchored to him, unable to shake the frigid temperature around them all. Something about Aleksander was off. His shadows were cool, not cold. They never overtook his mind. Grisha power was an extension of themselves, their will, their own body.
But this...it was something else.
"He steals their bodies to replace her. As if she can be replaced."
Images of a Heartrender flashed into mind. Her body in his arms. Blood. Bleeding.
Luda.
He finally turned back to the table. "They drown and he weeps over their bodies and goes to find another one hoping the next one will survive. You'll find him where those women have gone missing. Small villages where women refuse to go outside. Fishermen won't bring a woman aboard. That's where the Sea Whip will be."
Aleksander recovered strangely. He dropped his hand from Alina's hold as he supported himself to look across the maps spread over the table.
Nikolai did the same. "What are you looking for?"
"We need a map with the small villages. Ancient names that have been there forever." He brushed his fingers through the papers. "I thought I saw it."
"Here." The prince handed it over.
"Are there more?" Aleksander asked.
"I think. Somewhere."
"We need to study these maps. The small ones with the names of all the villages on them."
They all scoured for a section of a map that bordered the sea. Alina remembered where she saw one late that night when they learned about the trout migration patterns.
"What exactly are we looking for?"
"The names. Look at the names," Aleksander instructed. "The older towns will have ancient sounding names. The spelling. The Bone Road is an ancient road no longer there, but the towns remain intact. Those towns will have history, have legends, deep rooted superstitions. All that we'll need if you are to find the beast."
Hours. It took hours of dead silence. Reading and searching for more maps before even a word was uttered.
The prince sent for a tea tray and assortment of cakes were brought. Aleksander forced Alina to stop and eat.
"You must eat," he urged quietly.
"We need to find the Sea Whip." Her eyes refused to leave the page. She felt that it was there. Somewhere in front of her.
"You are the mother of my child, and I will not sit by to watch you forget your own needs." His hands gently grasped the book in her hand.
"The country," Alina answered in a soft whimper. "It depends on this. And if this country does not survive, neither does our family."
His eyes glanced around the room. The distrust of those around him so clear, he leaned in closer to avoid a slip in their confidence. "We will always survive. Always."
"You can't promise that."
"Yes." His tone was firm and intense. "I can. And I will. You will never come to harm."
"One day I might," she reasoned.
A tightening rippled along his jaw. "Whatever makes you say these things should surely be frightened. Because my patience only withstands so much before it bursts."
The tea cake on his palm awaited her. It pushed closer and closer.
"Fine," she groaned as she took it. There was no denying the exhaustion in her bones was due to the lack of food, but even as she chewed, she felt guilt seep. People died in the Shadow Fold. Everyday. The country suffered from blood shed from their enemies as well as their own people. How could she eat when there were those who could not? "What is the point of being immortal if I have to do mortal things?"
Aleksander settled back into his seat. The black trousers were ridded of wrinkles as he reclined, all too regal like in his chair, the map in his hand.
He said nothing but watched her eat until it was done.
It was long into the night as they worked. Nikolai tore through royal atlas after atlas. He found older maps. The librarian scowled at the barked orders from his impatient mouth. He did not like the inactivity. The man paced the floors as he read. Papers flipped and fluttered noisily the longer they withheld the information he sought.
Aleksander was quite different. He remained motionless and silent as he worked. His eyes, animated against the pages, moved with gusto whereas his body remained poised as a statue. More than once, Alina squinted to watch the buttons of his kefta, any sign of breath within him, but saw none.
She preferred to remain still as she read. It allowed her to focus more intensely on the words she needed to remember.
However, the aching in the lower of her back forced her to her feet. They moved around in circles around her seat. Her belly felt the outer most point of her body as she moved.
More than once, she caught Alek's stare down at her expanding womb. Her cheeks caught fire and she turned away to hide herself.
So much research after so many hours left them bored to tears. The twins laid sideways in their seats, limbs hanged over like tree branches too heavy to hold. Nikolai sat, but tapped his heel against the floor in constant thrumming that made her want to scream. Aleksander was hardly noticeable at all. Privyet held his head in his hands as he stared down at the table. His eyes refused to blink above the large spread of a hand drawn map.
They were all rundown and exhausted. Moral was on the verge of defeat.
That was when the silence was finally broken by the rambling of the male twin whose mouth proved to be endless in words like his captain.
"Aye. Look at this. 'Skelet' odd name for a town, isn't it?" Tolya said. "Oh, look. Another one. 'Kostyak'. Bet that place is grim."
It barely caught anyone's notice at his rambling seeing as the last hour had been filled with his commentary.
Alina kept her focus at the tea-colored pages in hand.
"'Telo'. Yuck. Imagine a name like that. Guts and flesh, it means, doesn't it?"
Tamar groaned. "Will you shut up, Tol?"
She shoved him with her elbow. A stack of discarded books toppled over in between their two chairs with a rolling thunder.
Tolya did not acknowledge it at all. His voice continued to carry.
"'Ostanki'".
The name perked Aleksander's ears. The map in his hand lowered, forgotten seemingly. His eyes narrowed as he searched through his thoughts. It caught his attention which caught Alina's.
She lowered her map. "What is it?"
"That name," he said. "I know I've heard of it."
"Wait," Alina said louder. "Tolya. Say again."
"What? 'Ostanki'?"
"Relic and remains," Nikolai translated from the old language.
"Bones," Alina said as she finally realized. "The Bone Road. It had to do with ancient burials right? Led to the graveyards of the ancients. Mausoleums and such? What if, 'Ostanki' was along that road? A resting place for the dead. Relic. Bones."
"That's right." His lips murmured. "Mausoleums. I think there's a place there. A place that is the resting place of Ilya."
"Saint Ilya?" Alina whispered back.
"Some of these villages are under water." Nikolai observed the map. "Waters have risen since these maps were made. They are nothing more than coastline now."
"What of Ostanki?" Aleksander asked.
The prince looked to the map splayed across the table. His fingers tracked the location down to the very edge of the True Sea. His lips pressed in a firm line. "It'll be close, but it should still be there."
Alina breathed. The light in her chest grew lighter than air.
She grinned. "We found it."
"Well hold on, now. It might not be there."
Aleksander shook his head. "Not precisely there. But you'll be close. I'll bet it won't take long."
"It still could take days to track it once we get there," Nikolai explained. "It won't be easy."
"How do you plan to trap it?" The General asked. His brow flexed in question and in doubt as to how a group of privateers, more skilled in death than capture, would take prisoner a mystical sea beast and bring it ashore.
Tamar down sloped her lips. "No traps. It's too big. It'll pull the ship down if we try."
"Can't anchor to the seat floor either. It's too deep," her twin added.
"Miss Starkov will have to kill it herself." Nikolai shrugged. "That is what she's there for, isn't it? Might as well put to use a sun summoner when you have one. Saints, it might be so entranced with a beautiful woman, it might allow her to kill it without a fuss."
Oh right.
The look in his eye when it found way to hers spoke of his displeasure in the plan. Betrayal laced through every word. The utter control it took to keep his hands off of her as they regrouped with Nikolai and his team.
But he was given his chance.
"You're taking a trip, I see." He fumed as they walked down the outer steps of the Grand Palace.
It'd been pure silence between them inside the golden walls. Nothing said. Not a breath.
Research was called off for a few days. They were run ragged and in need of rest. They'd regroup the day after the next to discuss further action to be taken. It left much to be considered.
Price, on the prince's part. Whether to chain her to the cellars, on the Generals.
"I meant to tell you," she said. The wind surged up around the building and whipped her hair all around her face. Edges teased at her eyeballs. She flipped the length over her shoulder. "It just slipped my mind."
"Slipped? It slipped your mind, Alina? A cross country journey as the world's most wanted person just slipped your notice?" His tone was furious. The grip on her bicep clenched tighter. "You greatly overestimate me, Li. Greatly."
She pulled from his grip. It took a great amount of force, but she did manage to.
Her palm pressed against his chest. The storms gathered in his eye were of his own shadows, the grey depths of his insecurities risen up with vengeance.
"Time is running out," her throat barked. "I have no choice. I'm not strong enough to destroy it on my own."
"You swore." A large breath puffed from his nostrils. The pressure of his chest against her fingers bent them back slowly. "You swore you wouldn't leave."
Alina blinked. "Do you think I want to?" Her voice trembled. "Do you think I want to leave you? Little Palace is my home. You. You are…you are so much more than that."
A trembling came to her breath as she struggled to find the strength to stand by the convictions she knew were right.
Why was right so difficult? It was never everything she needed. In fact, to do what was right by the world, it went against everything she yearned for.
"But I have to go to get the amplifier. I have to destroy the Fold and time is running out for us. All of us."
Aleksander pushed harder against her open palm. The only obstruction between them.
"Why don't you ever come to me? If I am all that you say to you, I should be the first one you run to when you need help. Not Mal. Not Nikolai. Me."
"You have responsibilities. You are a General of the Second Army. People depend on you."
"There isn't a soul who matters more to me than yours."
She shook her head. She knew what he was trying to do. It wouldn't work.
"You can't come, Aleksander. You can't. There are too many who need you here."
"I can't let you go," he breathed. He shook his head. "I won't do it."
Her arms crossed against her chest close to her heart. "So, what? You'll just leave Little Palace. You'll abandon your duty and all of the Grisha because you don't trust me?"
"No," he said firmly. The loss of his words suddenly found and strength on his tongue. There was no doubt in his eye. "It is the world I don't trust with you."
Bitterness of cooler winds of Ravka seeped in through their keftas, impenetrable to most every damage there was except environmental. A chill overtook her spine. Her lips turned blue as she stood in front of Aleksander and shivered.
His lips sloped to a frown. Physical pain at the sight of her suffering.
"You need a warm meal and a warm bath, lapushka."
"I'm not hungry."
"Our child is," he retorted gently. "And I'll venture their mother is, too, even if she's too conflicted to admit it."
Alina scowled off into the distance with a sharp pleading inside herself to oblige him. She hated when he was right. About everything.
Of course, she adored the way he looked after her. He anticipated everything. She was left to want for nothing in the world.
She allowed his remedy of the night as he slowly washed her in the bubbling waters of the bath as she tried to put the resistance out of her mind. The will of him, once it set in place, was near permanent. The protection of her, of them, of their child was foremost and the way he held it at the front of his mind, despite the crumbling world, it only spoke to the depths he'd descend for her.
Depths, she herself, would descend for him, too.
"You've been quiet, Alina." He said over another candlelit, private supper between to the of him, in his chambers. "Quiet in thought."
She slipped a mouthful of roasted garlic mashed potatoes atop her tongue. Its blissful warmth settled at the base of her stomach. Finally, something of substance. Finally, hunger satisfied.
"Genya has not said anything about my pregnancy," she commented. Her eyes examined him for reaction, a tell in his exterior to what it meant.
"Ah." He said as he wiped the corner of his mouth with his napkin. "Well, she is only being polite. I assumed you've not mentioned anything to the contrary."
"No. I'd thought it common knowledge after the cellar and Zoya." The name flared her fires once more. "That the entire palace might know by now."
The faraway shake of his head as he placed down his utensil. "My staff are discreet, Alina. They will not share anything I do not permit them to."
Something…off again.
She used her magic through their bond to find some hint of deception. Her emotions tangled too high. He noticed and coyly twisted his chin at her in question.
What is it you're searching for, Li?
"You shielded me, in front of Nikolai. In front of all of them. You didn't want them to see me."
The accusation rippled up through his spine.
He did his best to calm the tension through his limbs. His eyes, plotting, at their center.
"You think I hide you to hide my shame?" His brows lifted, somehow as she'd gone through the bond to search him, he'd done the same to her. The darkness of his shadows tingled inside her mind. "I tore the country apart looking for you. I've spent endless nights in your chambers. My personal guard protect you." Her lips remained in a taut line. "I am not ashamed of you."
"Why is it secret? Why do we dine in your chambers away from everyone else? I don't train. I don't dine with the others. Your eyes nearly doubled when you saw the swell under my shirt."
"I am protective," he snipped quickly, "and I do not share well." His tone was biting and cool. It could have rivaled the wintery wind outside their palace walls. "The thought of an ounce of danger befalling you, in your condition, under my care…You are my everything. My future. You carry our future. I will ensure it remains safe, at all costs."
Alina could not fault him for that. She, too, yearned for a future with some hope.
"No one here would harm me."
"The world hunts you, Alina. They want you for themselves or they want you dead. Do not ask me to drop my guard when the threat has never been greater."
She frowned. The world that awaited outside those pristine royal walls. It was dark and heavy and hard.
Ever since she became a sun summoner, the target on her grew with each sweeping day becoming more a blessing than a given. Assassins had almost slaughtered her. A night that Aleksander had obsessed about for weeks.
If it was possible for them to enter Little Palace under his protection, then anything was possible.
"Can I tell Genya?" She quietly asked. Her eyes bled the need for relief. Someone, anyone.
His lips offered a sad smile. "Tell the Grisha if you wish. Anyone you like…" his breath paused, "but your pregnancy remains out of the eyes of everyone else. Including that damned prince."
There were two, but she knew which one he meant.
"He is an ally."
"Don't." He breathed. "Just don't.
In the end, she was able to tell her friends. Genya, importantly. She was thrilled to share the news with a friend if only to fill in some long-held questions that never seemed to be asked but still lurked in their minds.
It pained her that there was no true happiness from people except friends. No family to revel the news. No mother to turn to when fears of a baby ripping her body apart plagued her worries and the night time game of what if this happened. No father to spoil a child with endless sweets and bear hugs. There was no sister to fawn over the growing belly, green with envy about the adventure started without her. A brother to remain indifferent yet fall in love at the sight of the newborn.
She had none of that. Not a single soul to bond to her child.
But Alek. He had family. One.
He'd retreated to his desk, rifling through the endless stacks of papers there. She pulled the black kefta from her shoulders and tossed it atop his bed.
"Alek?" Her voice whispered out into that large emptiness of the war room.
"Sorry. I've only just remembered a correspondence that needs response. It'll only be a minute."
She watched his fingers run along dark written lines of script. A short pen touched to a blank sheet of paper. His hands moved elegantly. Each letter was crafted gently and precisely.
Eyes remained locked at the letter. They scanned the contents over and over.
"Will you tell Baghra?"
The sounds of his writing stopped. Silence crept through darkness.
The pen set against the desk; he turned with a perplexed brow. "Baghra."
"She's your mother," Alina said softly. "Another in her line will be born."
Aleksander's eyes flickered with emotion, too quick for her to decipher before it fell back behind his guard. "I don't want that woman anywhere near our child."
"Oh."
It was the only response that she could think of. She imagined a slight give in his anger, perhaps a shred of shame that he hadn't told her she'd become a grandmother.
Why get her this job at Little Palace? Why bother keeping her locked up, but safe, here if he did not care for her in some regard?
He watched her for many moments as she sorted through her thoughts, eyes becoming heavier as the more of them piled on. It was endless burdens as she thought of more to concern herself with. Aleksander rose up from the desk and placed a hand on each shoulder without her notice.
"Get some rest," he instructed softly. His hands guided her to his own bed. "I'll be done in a minute."
"Promise?" She murmured.
Sleep. How long had she gone without sleep?
His lips greeted hers in a soft promise of return. It was enough for her. She slid in between the sheets of his bed, happy to be surrounded by his scent and darkness, comforted to be so safe with him in the next room, that it was all too easy to find a pathway to slumber that was only interrupted when his head pressed up against her as he coiled into bed beside her.
That next day, when the duties of being a general finally found him, Alina found herself wandering down a familiar path in the castle. It led downward, to dusty and dirty cellars. Old. Where a certain woman remained locked in iron bars at her own son's request.
Alina was to be a mother. Being trapped in a cage of her child's design was a bitterness that she tried to withstand but couldn't. It was wrong. Aleksander was wrong.
The pathway held a strong scent that led her through the darkness, unafraid.
Only in the darkness, she stumbled into a roadblock. Literally, stumbled.
Her forehead knocked against someone's with a vibrating crack. It rattled her head. Pain shot down her temples. Anger, too, as she rubbed her fingers against her face.
Dust coated her fingers. The sharp haze of filth in the air filled her breath and coated her pretty lungs.
"Saints!" A voice swore.
Alina used her power to alight the passageway. There she met a fiery pair of dark eyes.
"You." She gritted her teeth.
The Squaller peered up from their fallen position on the floor. The blue of her kefta tinged with thick layers of dust and cobwebs.
"What are you doing down here?" Zoya asked. The center of her forehead held her two strongest fingers as she pressed into the flesh with a wince. The connection of their heads had smacked her right off her feet.
"A stroll," Alina snapped. "Walking is good for expecting mothers."
It was meant to be a snarl, like a hiss of dominance over the Grisha woman who stood in her way of everything in her life, trumping Alina's own importance by her wicked wiles and spread legs.
However, the reaction it got came off docile. Zoya said, "Oh! Right" before her powerful legs pushed her to standing. Her eyes glanced at the center of Alina's body. The pride of the Grisha, the blessing for her and redemption for Aleksander all contained in that one place.
That moment, she felt a twinge of something. Guilt.
The last time she saw Zoya, she was gutted by words out of a furious General Kirigan. His sharply toned words struck right where he knew they would, precise and crippling. It was clear by the look on her face, in that moment before his shadows, that he'd crossed a line drawn around the Squaller. A personal one, they'd drawn together, and Aleksander stepped over it without care. He thought, believed Zoya involved in Mal and Alina's 'romance'.
It dropped Alina's arms to her sides, gently grasping the fabric of her trousers near her stomach. "He didn't mean what he said that night."
A flare surged through that dark gaze as it raised to meet her own. "Do not speak for the General. You do not know what he means."
"It was anger that was directed at me, and Mal. Not you."
A hiss of steam released from Zoya's shoulders. The deflation of all that held the woman high and primed at all times. A break in the fixed snarl that she naturally held.
Alina looked away, a brief reprieve from the pity she felt for the woman, a woman she despised so much.
"A child is a blessing," a weak voice said through that darkness, only split through the light of a faint glow of Alina's creation. "Congratulations."
It disarmed that tongue from place. Alina scrambled to find something to replace it with.
Zoya was not soft or positive. What the hell was wrong with these Grisha? Did they all soften when a pregnant mother came into the room?
"Thank you," managed to croak through the surprise. "I thought you hated children."
It earned her a sharp glare. "The General does not attack things that are armored and resolute." Her voice lessened in strength as she broke away from Alina's probing stare. "He slips in between the cracks."
"Did you want a child…with him?"
The horror must have read on her face. Her lips parted, ever so slight, to prevent her jaw from dropping to the floor altogether.
Aleksander with another woman's child. It was a thought too difficult to bear. She blinked away the images before they rooted inside her own fears.
"Saints no." Zoya chuckled a hearty chuckle that did little to ease the discomfort of the passageway. "I am not mother material." She waved her hands through the air over and over. "I was so careful. So so careful when it came to that. He noticed and was curious. I was stupid enough to admit to him that having a child," she gulped, "was a fear of mine. I know how I am. Too harsh, too spiteful, too quick to irritation. That is no way to raise a child. How could I live with myself if I lashed out, at my own blood?"
Parenting. Alina hadn't considered that far in the future. She thought of Alek, and her body, and what the world required of them. It mortified her that she hadn't considered the truly difficult task of being a role model to a young person.
There was little perfection in herself. She only just learned who she was a few months prior to conception. Then a mess of things happened after that, doubt and self-loathing, cross country chase, losing a best friend, learning how to love someone, fighting for a country against a corrupt reign. There was little time to consider how she might be as a parent. A child, in need of guidance, when she often searched for that same guidance.
It was luck that Aleksander was a talented person. He guided many souls to their calling, to their safety, to their confidence. Perhaps, he would guide their family to one that made sense.
"There is no time for children as a soldier," Zoya further explained. "I don't have time to slow down."
An awkward quiet fell over them as the question of how Alina, sun saint of Ravka, was to have a child when her responsibilities were heavier, more important than what Zoya did.
A hot blush consumed Alina's cheeks as she looked around for something, anything to relieve the tension.
Darkness. Dust. Earthen smell, dead earthen smell. It was all around them. Not in release.
"What, um, what were you doing down here?"
"Tending to business," Zoya replied flatly.
"What kind of business?"
"The General's business."
Alina's head bobbed. "So, Baghra then?"
It was a swift blink in Zoya's eye that told of her disbelief. "Is that why you've come down here?"
It seemed the silence was all the confirmation the Squaller needed to take Alina by the arm and pull her back through the passageway.
"Listen," her voice dipped low as they retreated from the earshot of the cell. "There is a reason why the General keeps her locked up. There is a reason she is hidden from you."
"Because she convinced me to run away, that's all. A fact that you were most pleased with."
Zoya's grip turned tense on the sun summoners arm. "I was pleased because I don't like you. What she did was for a whole other reason. If the General does not trust her, neither should you. He knows the woman better than anyone else and he's deemed her unsafe. Unsafe without the inclusion of your condition."
Alina tried to pull from Zoya's hold on her. When she couldn't, she met her stare with a horrified gaze. "Since when do you care what I do?"
"Since you decided to fall for the General," the woman said. "Our entire world rests with him. And you are the thing he depends on. I won't let you do something foolish because you're too stubborn to listen."
Alina opened her mouth to voice opposition, but Zoya was stronger than she looked. She led them through the darkened paths, under the palace, back around to the door that Alina knew. It opened up right into the war room.
A way of Zoya's air forced up the heavy, large weight at the top of the frame. It prevented it from being opened by anyone without power. Strong power.
The blue kefta pulled her in first, before hauling up the stairs behind her and forcing them both into the room.
It was empty. For once.
The candles flickered as the door was closed and sealed into the wall. The suction of air, tight once more.
Zoya bared her open hands at Alina. Too late for Alina to react, a gust of air blew against her body. Her loose trousers snapped back at the surge of wind. The frantic motion of her hair as it slapped and dragged across her face, caught on her eyelashes and lips, tousled back behind her head.
A moment later, and the air stopped.
Alina snarled in distaste, but the Squaller did not apologize.
"To get rid of the evidence," she said. "And once, just once, I'll keep it from the General."
The floor went unsteady. She was uncertain if she'd lost touch with all reality.
Zoya, was going to cover for her?