Genya leaves me and I walk to the little hut and knock. There's no answer so I open the door and walk in and I'm greeted by a wall of heat.
"Hurry up, you're late. Close the door you'll let the heat out," a voice says from in the hut.
As I shut the door I barely make out that there's anyone else in the hut. "Sorry."
"Come closer," the voice who I assume is Baghra, says from a corner of the room.
As I walk closer, I realize that it's an old lady. She grabs my wrist and my powers come rising.
"You're an amplifier."
"Yes, and you're a sun summoner. Now summon on your own."
"How much?"
"As much as you can."
I close my eyes and gather all the light, from the Palace to the lake to the hut, and let it all go, lighting the hut up and the heat increasing.
"Bravo! You already know how to summon."
"Yeah, I've known since the examiners came."
"Then why'd you hide it?"
"I didn't want to be separated and at the time it felt dangerous."
"Can you do anything else, other than summon?"
"No," I lie. I'm not ready to share all my secrets.
"I'll teach you to become invisible. You have to bend the light around you."
I partially bend the light but not enough even though I know how to.
"Like this?"
"I can still see you. You need to work more on it. Also, the Winter Fete is coming up in the next couple of months. Since you can already summon, you should work out what you plan to do as your demonstration."
"Okay."
"Now go, you have training with Botkin."
I start to head over to the general area where I think the training rooms are since I forgot. As I'm walking, I run into a group of Etherealki and I'm called over to them.
As I join the group, Nadia asks me, "Are you heading to the training rooms, Alina?"
"Yeah. Though I forget where they are."
"That's fine, just stick with us," Marie tells me.
We walk towards the training rooms and the Etherealki try to make small talk with me and I just nod my head.
When we get to the training rooms Botkin starts to instruct me on hand-to-hand combat, which turns out, I suck at it.
•••
After a week, a squaller named Zoya comes to the Little Palace. Everyone is all excited but I don't understand why. Sure she's pretty and all, but she always has this cold look on her face and she seems to have a vendetta against me. I've also finally gotten the hang of hand-to-hand combat and decided to show that I can master bending the light.
Today when I get to the training rooms, I'm paired up with Zoya. Ugh. What are the chances?
Botkin comes up to Zoya and me reminding us, "Powers aren't allowed in the training rooms."
We get into a fighting stance and everyone creates a circle around us. Zoya tries a punch at me and I dodge it, twisting my body so I'm parallel to her. As she is in the motion of the punch, unbalanced on her left foot, I slick my leg out and trip her. She falls to the ground and turns to face me.
"Guess I won."
Out of nowhere a strong gust of wind pushes me into the wall. I hear something crack and a sharp pain hits me. I probably broke a rib and I'm sure everyone heard the crack.
I take a deep breath and focus. I feel where the bone is broken and start to heal it. People start to rush over and I finish healing myself. I stand up and everyone's asking me if I'm okay.
"I'm fine," I say. "See."
"We heard something crack. You should see a healer," Marie says to me.
"No. I'm fine. Where's Zoya?"
"She was sent to the Darkling since she hurt you."
"Well bye."
"You're going to the healers, right?"
"Yes," I lie and walk out of the training room.
I bend the light around myself becoming invisible. I head off towards the dining hall. Once I get there I head to the large mahogany doors and enter through the smaller door.
I hear the Darkling's voice and it sounds as if he's reprimanding someone. I rush towards his voice letting the light drop and knock on the door.
"What?" the Darkling says and he looks up. "Oh, it's you?"
"Can I come in?" I ask as I notice Zoya with her head down like a child being reprimanded by a teacher.
"Yes."
As I walk in I say, "You don't need to reprimand her. I'm fine."
"Botkin said everyone heard something crack."
"Well, nothing did. I'm fine, if anything, the thing that's broken is her fragile ego."
I look up at the Darkling's face and see a hint of a smile. "Zoya, you can go now."
As Zoya leaves the room I see that she was crying. I walk towards the Darkling. "Really, you didn't even get my side of the story before you started to reprimand her."
"Are you sure you're fine?"
"Yes."
"Ivan!"
"Yes sir," Ivan says coming into the room.
"Check over Alina. Make sure she's okay."
"I'm fine."
"She is. Though it does look like she recently had a broken rib but it healed."
"How is that Ivan?"
"It seems as if a healer fixed it."
"Has a healer looked at you?"
"Nope. As I told you, I'm fine."
"Ivan, leave."
When Ivan left I turn back to the Darkling. "See I told you everything's fine."
"How did you get in here?"
"Oh, I bent the light around me and entered through the door."
"So Baghra has taught you how to become invisible?"
"Yes."
"Who healed you? You were hurt."
"Fine, I healed myself."
The Darkling turns back to face me from looking at the papers on the table. "You what?"
"I healed myself. What's wrong with that?"
"Only healers should be able to do that."
"Oh, I thought all Grisha could heal themselves a little bit."
"They can't. I can't even do that."
"Oh."
"Were you healing the Grisha in the forest?"
"Um, yeah."
"How?"
"You just focus on the wound and tell the cells to multiply. It's pretty easy. I need to get going now though."
"Okay. By the way, that kefta looks nice on you."
"Thanks," I say feeling a blush creep into my cheeks as I walk out.
I head to my room and sit down at my desk and pull out one of the books on Grisha theory and start studying.
As I'm reading there's s a knock at my door.
"Come in."
As the person walks in the first thing I notice is their scent. They smelled like dirt and mildew. I push my chair back and summon a solid spear of light standing up.
"What do you want? Who are you?"
"I'm the Apparat. I've come to tell you that people are already making alters to you. They believe that you're their hope."
"Oh. Why?"
"You're like a saint to them. They're even calling you Sankta Alina."
"Okay. That's a lot of pressure to put on one person."
"Well in congratulations, here," the Apparat says to me, pushing a book into my hands.
"Um, thanks, can you leave now?"
"Yes," the Apparat says leaving my room.
I'm relieved when he leaves. He gave a weird sense of unease. I look down at the book and see that it's titled, Istorii Sankt'ya. The lives of Saints, I translate and look at the pages in the book.
One of the pages is a drawing of Sankt Ilya. He's in chains, as he's normally depicted, but he has three creatures in the background. A stag, a sea whip, and a firebird.
My mind immediately comes up with an I sea for the Winter Feat and I prepare to practice tonight.
•••
When it was dark out and everyone was asleep, I exit my room bending the light around me as a precaution. I head out onto the grounds into the trees. There's a clearing that I found when I had time to myself earlier this week.
This is the perfect place to practice so I summon a large orb of light and split it into three smaller orbs. I focus on one and try to shape it into a stag.
I successfully shape it into a small stag. I add more light to it and it becomes normal-sized. I bend the light, changing the color to a pale blue.
I focus on the stag and make it seem to walk. Then I shape the sea whip and change the color to green. I focus on having the sea whip circle in the air, circling my head.
Lastly, I focus on the firebird and change the coloring to orange. I have the firebird fly above the stag. Once I'm done with the shaping and movements I keep them moving for a couple of minutes, then form them back into spheres.
Now there are three spheres. One blue, one green, and the other orange. I bring the spheres together in the middle of the clearing. I have the giant sphere rise up and explode into thousands of colors. It was as if the stars were falling from the sky, the bits of light changing color as they fell to the ground. Every night I'm going to come out here and practice till I can make all the creatures at once, I vow to myself.
As I'm heading back in I'm so tired that I don't even realize anyone's in front of me till I run into them. I realize that I was so tired that I even forgot to bend the light to make myself invisible.
"Alina, what are you doing?" a dark calm voice asks.
I rub my eyes. "I was just practicing for the Winter Fete."
"I saw your light from the window. Whatever you were doing was good."
"Thanks," I say tiredly.
"You look like you're going to pass out on the stairs and sleep there."
"Thanks for the compliment," I say leaning on the windowsill, eyes half-closed.
"Come sleep in the room next to mine."
"Okay."
We walk to his hall and he shows me to a room to the right of his room.
"Ther's a door if you need anything," he says pointing to a door on the left wall.
"Thanks, good night."
"Good night."