Summary: With few friends at the Little Palace, Alina must work to win the favour of her fellow grisha and their commander, who makes her feel light headed every time she sees him.

After training in Os Alta for two years, the king grows tired of waiting and demands the Sun Summoner joins a western post near the Fjerdan border along with the rest of The Second Army to test her abilities.

Something happens. Suddenly, Alina wants blood to run down the rivers and those who stand in her and The Darkling's way will be blinded by her light and swallowed by his shadows.

It won't be pretty.

Chapter 1: Let him go

Sitting on a cold stone bench by the lake, accompanied only by the sounds of the few birds that still roamed the skies of the late autumn, and the sound of laughter and high pitched voices coming from the small grisha students who were practicing nearby, one Alina Starkov stared into nothingness.

She held a pen in one hand and paper in the other, a small flask of ink sitting next to her. Something heavy pressed down on her chest, aching to be released, yet a small string held on, hopelessly wishing for a semblance of care.

Baghra had said she needed to let go of the girl and the boy at Keramzin, that they were no more than images and sounds that just flickered through her mind from time to time, until one day she would remember them not, and for a while, she refused to believe her. She wasn't sure why it was, but she woke up that day to the sun shining down on her face, covering her bed in its dim warmth, and decided that she'd had enough.

There was not only sadness within her heart, but anger, and above all, a betrayal that cut as deep as a knife. Even before moving to the Little Palace, there had been some distance between her and Mal. He always seemed to be off chasing skirts or fooling around with his friends, while she watched hopelessly, waiting for him to notice her and give her a speck of his time. He did spend some time with her; alone, rarely around his friends, but Alina felt like a silly girl with hearts instead of eyes every time and treasured each second.

And now, having spent all those months in Os Alta, having written to him almost every day, hoping for a least one reply for every fifty letters, she realized Baghra was right.

The problem was that she didn't exactly know who she was letting go, or what.

Was it the child who would take her to the edge of the woods to observe the animals and had told Ana Kuya that he'd marry her, puffing out his chest and beaming? Was it the Mal who-in her eyes- only saw her as her little friend from Keramzin? Was it the woman helplessly in love with him?

She shook her head and sunk to her knees, placing the paper on the smooth surface of the bench and dipping the pen into the ink.

Careful not to stain the paper, she began to write, the words pouring out of her all at once, like an overwhelming release of breath after being below water for too long:

Dear Mal,

This is the last time I'll write to you. After this letter -if you ever get it- I promise to leave you behind.

There were things I always wanted to say to you but was too scared to do so. Here goes nothing.

I love you, Mal Oretsev.

I loved you, Malyen Oretsev.

I did for so long I can't even remember how it started. It was like walking, I guess, down a quiet road to town. Everything is so still and suddenly you can hear the voices of the merchants and the habitants, and you realized you've arrived.

I think it was something like that. I always hoped we'd be together forever, even if just as friends, just like we promised when we were children; but we- I should've known better than to hold on so tightly to a promise made when we were seven.

Maybe you have replied to some of my letters and they've been lost. Maybe you haven't. I don't think it matters anymore.

Even before I knew I was grisha, I felt the growing distance between us. It almost felt like I was a stray puppy you sometimes indulged, but I cannot, I will not, let you make me feel like this anymore.

I don't write this to hurt you; I write this because there are things I need to do, and for that I need to let go of my past, which is so infected by you.

I can't let my storm of feelings for you get in the path of destroying The Fold and helping our country.

I write this and yet I still don't want to let go of you. Maybe you'll be laughing with your friends about the oh so mighty Sun Summoner crying in the dark corners for your attention. Maybe you won't care.

But it's me who can't and won't allow herself to care about any of that.

I will always miss the orphans of Keramzin who tried to hide from the grisha testers and held hands while sleeping because you were scared of the dark. But I can do that and let them go as well.

I hope you find happiness and a fulfilling life. Truly.

I let go of you, with my best wishes,

Alina.

"Miss Starkov? What is wrong?"

She looked up to find the dark, imposing figure of The Darkling standing in front of her on the other side of the bench. All in black, from his hair to every item of clothing, he was a stark contrast against the greens and browns of the gardens.

"What?" she managed to find her cracked voice.

Gentler, he took a step forward and extended a gloved hand, running it over her cheek.

"You are crying."

She realized he was right just as he cleaned his cheek, his touch making her nervous; yet, she remained still, eager for more.

"It's nothing." She said, raising to her feet, careful with the letter.

His eyes slid down briefly.

"Is it bad news?"

Alina wasn't quite sure what to say. She looked away, into the expanse of the lake, the little road leading to Botkin's training rooms, and as far as her eye could see.

"I was saying goodbye to a friend."

"Oh." He said nothing more, elegantly moving until he was sitting on the bench. "I have been told you have not been able to summon yet."

The nervousness was there yet again, but this one wasn't of the pleasant kind. It was like a big rock appearing in her stomach out of the blue and making it hurt. Her hands began to sweat.

"I'm almost there. I promise!" she hurried to stumble through the words, and anxiously pointing at the letter. "See?"

He raised a thick eyebrow.

"A letter will help you destroy The Fold?"

She sighed dejectedly, head down, and sat beside him.

"I think I rejected my power so long, that I made it resent me."

"I do not think so. It is simply buried beneath something."

She looked into his grey eyes, they gave nothing away but she was sure the wheels of his brain were turning; probably ten steps ahead of everyone else as usual.

"We were supposed to be always together." She whispered lamely.

"Whom?"

"Me and Mal." She looked back at the letter; it seemed as if the ink had finally dried, so she folded it. "We grew up together at Keramzin. We were best friends. When we became of age, we enlisted in The First Army together a—" she shifted her dark eyes to The Darkling, huffing, feeling silly. "Sorry; I'm rambling about stupid things."

"Not at all, miss Starkov;" his deep voice, cool and unyielding to anything he might feel, made her feel something, as usual. "please, tell me about him."

Alina took a deep breath.

"We just, I don't know. He's a tracker, I was a cartographer,"

"Not a very good one, allegedly." He smirked.

He managed to cheer her up a little, and she gave him a small smile.

"No, not really." She looked down at his dark kefta, wondering just how more of a ridicule show she'd be putting on if she had taken the same colour as his. "I guess, we began to drift apart. I tried not to, to always make time for him, even if it meant I got behind on my duties, but he was mostly busy with other women."

"You are in love with him." He said, and for a moment, she thought there was an edge to it.

Alina frowned, finding a small truth in there.

"I was." It wasn't a lie. "But then we went into The Fold, and well, you know what happened." She sighed. "And now I'm here. I know he's still alive out there, and for months I've written to him so many times and he's never replied so I thought…"

"You thought; what, miss Starkov?" his voice was gentle, encouraging almost.

"It's time to say goodbye." She looked him in the eyes again. "He's the reason why I hid my powers and the reason why it unleashed that day on the skiff."

"So you believe your little friend is the one guarding the door to your power."

She nodded, cleaning her face from the new tears. It still stung. A lifetime of experiences, happy moments and sad ones, shared together. She had never imagined it would end like this.

But she had to be strong. She had run after him long enough. It was time to accept reality and focus on her powers.

"Well, miss Starkov," The Darkling spoke, "I believe it is time you kick him out."

She smiled as best as she could, placing the letter on the bench beside her to later give it to Genya.

Turning her back to The Darkling, she stood up and walked over to the edge of the lake. She could barely see her reflection in it.

Closing her eyes, the young woman took a deep breath. Her mind seemed to have opened into a white corridor full of bland doors of various colours. Inside each one, she could hear voices of diversified degrees. Some were younger, some cracked, others were steadier and older. But those voices belonged to the same people: Mal and her.

Alina felt her heartbeat fasten in anticipation as she fought the urge to open up one of those doors and take a peek. Instead, she kept her eyes ahead, at the end of the corridor.

There was one big golden door, guarded by a tall figure.

She began to feel a twinkle on the tips of her fingers, rising up her arms until it seemed to itch all over.

She looked at Mal straight in the eye. He wasn't as she remembered. Or maybe he was, but it had been too long.

The longer she stared, the more of a stranger he became.

"Go."

He tilted his head, opened his mouth, and moved his lips, but no words came out.

Alina smirked.

"You don't have any power anymore. Go." She repeated, firm, steady.

He took a step towards her and she rose her arm without thinking, bringing it down again in an elegant arch. Mal's figure was illuminated by her dim light and he vanished into smoke.

Trembling, she took a second and then a step forward, then another.

She felt warmer and warmer.

When her hand came to rest on the handle of the door, she felt a jolt of excitement. The voices were now inaudible to her, as was the rest of the world.

She flung the door open and entered into the precious, consuming, endless light with her eyes wide open.