Notes:

New Chapter today! Now that I wrote, in broad terms, the plot, I think I'll be faster with updates.

Enjoy!

-Flora

Genya was waiting outside the Darkling's quarters.

While waiting she thought about how to broach her point: Alina was becoming accustomed to the Little Palace. She was quite smitten with the Darkling, and Genya was the nearest friend she had at the little palace. If she found out that the two nearest people to her were lying to her she would have never trusted them anymore.

She didn't want to lose Alina's friendship.

"Tell me Genya, has she told you about that tracker again?"

He was at his desk, writing something, then checking something else on another paper.

"No, in fact, she even stopped writing to him. It all happened some days ago, she called for me, asking to erase the scar I told you she had on her hand. I think it was a physical reminder of him but by erasing it... she wants to forget him completely."

He nodded with no visible expression on his face.

"That's good, but do you know if she perhaps met him here, in the Little Palace?"

"Was he here?" Genya felt sick. The boy Alina was in love with was there and had probably written her letters without receiving an answer. If he were really as Alina had described, he would have contacted her somehow.

"He was doing his job, tracking a thing for me but this morning he was nowhere to be found."

"Do you know something, Genya?"

"No. No, I don't, she would have told me."

"That's what I thought." He looked up at her and she knew that that was her farewell.

"If I can say, I'm quite preoccupied with Alina."

"How so?"

"At the little Palace the closest people to her are you and me... and we are both lying to her and... controlling her. If she were going to find out about it, she would never trust us again."

"I figured so, but you know Genya, that everything I do at this moment is for her, and only for her. I know what's best for her and though the possibility she finds out about my plan have now doubled, the best thing is to be discrete.

"Yes, moi soverennyi."

Genya left the room more confused than how she had arrived.

He met the Tsar later that day to confer about the attempt on Alina's life, the fact that another Grisha died and her heroic act. He left the Tsar's room with his usual hidden disdain. He had to meet Alina to discuss Mary's funeral. Another way to ruin one of their encounters.

When Alina entered the room passing in front of Ivan, she was promptly greeted "Miss Starkov."

Not Alina.

Her lips lightly turned into a smile, she didn't know why. Maybe because the thought of him addressing her so formally gave him even more authority. Maybe it made their moment together were even more intimate. Maybe his mere presence made her smile: a little light in the dark chaos of life she was in at that moment. How poetic. Behave yourself, and think of Marie.

He wasn't alone, there was a short crooked man behind him, he was overlooking a stack of sheets.

"I'm sorry to say that we have to discuss some unpleasant issues," he moved his arm to invite her near them.

"It's not your fault," she shook her head.

The short man didn't even introduce himself and started immediately to talk about where the funeral would be held. Her body would have been burnt to ashes by her fellows inferni and then released in the wind of tidemakers.

"I don't really understand what you want me to say, you've already done everything, there's nothing more to do." Alina was quite shaken and amazed at the same time by this funeral. It was the first Grisha funeral she attended. Did they always make funerals like this one?

"Isn't there something you want to add?" Said the man looking at her with raised eyebrows, "After all she died for you, isn't there something you want to say or show at her funeral?"

He felt it: hurt, discomfort and anger. All at once. He had to grip hard the table to not choke him.

"I think there's nothing she might want to add. You can see yourself out of the room now."

The man widened his eyes and promptly took all of his paperwork and fled.

They were alone, still near each other.

"If I had known the man was so insensitive..."

"It's not your fault," she said same as before. And now he understood what she meant. He turned to watch her intensely.

"Nor is it yours," he slowly made his fingers touch hers and then traced a pattern caressing her hand till he was holding her wrist.

If she really thought it was her fault, it sure was a problem. She was too soft, it would have been a problem in the future if he didn't teach her when she still was young.

They both took a deep breath. And she did the same he had done with her other hand.

"What is this thing... between us?"

She didn't know where the courage to say came from.

"What about this thing between us?" his eyes roamed on hers.

You know what thing. She thought to herself but obviously, it reached him.

His fingers had a jolt on her wrists.

"I've waited for you a long time, Alina, and I thought that when I would have met you there would have been something about us that... It's difficult to explain, I didn't know what we would have been, what you would have been. There has been no one like us, Alina. Never. And I hate to say I'm confused too and don't know what this thing between us is."

He felt weak, her big eyes were looking into his like she was in awe, and he was mesmerized. He couldn't watch away, couldn't focus to make up something clearer, so he told the truth, and he hated it again.

"We can find out together," she said simply.

They had to find out together. There was no other way.

"It doesn't seem to bother you," he tried to change the topic.

"It bothers you," she said curiously and didn't even know if she meant what she said.

"It's strange, to have someone in my mind," meanwhile his hands roamed up on her arms, his gaze following the path of his fingers. "It's like I can't trust myself anymore."

"It's like you can't trust me."

"I'm not used to people who retort things I say back to me," his hands were now on her waist and were pulling her closer to him, forcing her to tilt her head up.

"Oh, you probably needed it," she giggled placing her hands on his kefta.

"Who knows..."

The day went by with Alina's lessons in Baghra's hut and that night (after the same nasty plate of herring) they talked again. She went to his room though still dressed this time.

They really talked and tried to comprehend their connection. It was experimentation, they started taking turns speaking in each other's mind and making the other feel different emotions.

They both concluded that their connection was only theirs and that they wouldn't speak of it whit others. This made Alina think: she knew he was older than he made it seem. He was a General, an accomplished man and the most powerful Grisha in the world for what they knew.

He must have had a lot of secrets. Who was she in that intricate mind? Was she just a girl to control?

She would have thought again about this another time.

He was almost at the end of the corridor, "Aleksander," he heard her call in a low voice.

He turned around to watch her. She was leaning out of the open door.

"No one brought me hot stones tonight..." she gulped and used the door as a barrier from her awkwardness.

"Would you like to stay here, just to sleep?" She was extremely embarrassed, but when she felt his relief she bit her lower lip not to smile.

"Of course," he said with a grin that was starting to show on his lips.

In the end, even that night Alina fell asleep between his warm arms. She could get used to it.

Notes:

That's it for today. Hope you enjoyed it! Please leave comments to let me know what you think! (Or if I made some mistake...)

-Flora