Every five years, there was a lottery to decide the next bride of the Fold, the Black Heretic's next shot at love - Alina always rolle her eyes at that concept, because the man was still alive, sure.
Every girl between fifteen and twenty-one had their name put in the draw, and it was an entire spectacle, transmitted through the television, pageantry made out of the poor sacrifice for the volcras - which was what the entire thing was about. The Black Herectic was dead: this was about appeasing the fearsome creatures called volcras that hated the light in any way, shape or form that lived inside the sea of darkness that was cutting Ravka, originally, in half.
A bride was an appeasement: a sacrifice to buy their good will, to give them something to gnaw until they got tired again; that was the truth. The lie told was much more romantic. After all, who wouldn't rather live in a fantasy world of love as they were mangled to death?
The Fold didn't even cut the country in half anymore: Sun Summoners popped occasionally and were put to work in the Fold's edges, some spending their entire lives to destroy bits of it, others going out like supernovas and extinguishing several fields' worth of darkness, until now only one third of it survived, persisted, unchanged for the century-long lack of a new Sun Summoner. Therefore, there weren't excuses to not have a united country anymore, now that the crossing of the Fold did not need to invade other countries. The small space, though, made volcras insane, and made them crawl out in the night to attack the closest villages. Thus, the lottery's origins: human blood settled them for a little while, and why not make a spectacle of it? Why not sell a romantic ideal? Why not sacrifice girls for close to two centuries?
No girl was ever safe, rich or poor. Alina grew up watching the draw, fearing it, knowing that, one day, inside the algorithm for the lottery, her name would be coded in, might be drawn in and she'd be killed, but not before everyone in Ravka knew her name, knew her story, knew her face: all brides of the Fold were paraded, made into celebrities, their deaths celebrated and commemorated by the whole country with a holiday.
The bride was an icon, a symbol, a martyr for Ravka, her face always covered with a veil on every show she went and gave an interview to, always stating how excited she was to go where no one, in living memory, had stepped with their own feet before (laughable, really). Her face, outside of past photographs they showed on the first interview, was always placid, only shown in the (televised) day of the sendoff, the girl flanked by two Heartrenders.
Alina always thought they dubbed their lines over in their many interviews. No girl, in her sane mind, would be happy for her own death. Although - knowing that the families of the brides were handsomely rewarded -, maybe they were. Their families would never have to labour again for their sacrifice. One girl for a lifetime of luxury: what a deal.
Of course, no Grisha was ever put into the system; they were too precious a resource to ever be murdered by this. No, this was the privilege of the powerless. Mal liked to rant and rave against this, and Alina would always swat him. He always complained. Alina ignored the power in her veins. If she had made that sacrifice, if she had gone, all those years ago…
Too late, she thought. Too late.
She was nineteen and in the army, doing the first of the mandated three years of service, stationed in Os Alta for the season, when her name was pulled from the computer, displayed on the screen in bright green letters, alongside the last three numbers of her dog tags. Alina froze, and her world spiraled down, as her fellow cartographers went silent. They had put the TV on while they worked for the noise it provided, company amongst charcoal against paper; no one had expected for Alina, orphan Alina, half-Shu Alina in a world of Ravkan beauties being sent to their deaths, to be picked.
That was the fun of a lottery: one never knew the result.
"Maybe we can use the maps…?" Alexei whispered, as if afraid the world would descend on her little platoon, the volcras themselves coming to grab their bride, the Black Heretic in tow.
"They've got trackers just for brides." Chimed in Varvara, shaking her head. She'd know - her family had a bride on it, a distant cousin of hers from a few years back, when they were all children, one of the veiled beauties that Alina remembered because she and Varvara looked exactly alike. "No use in trying to get Alina away. They'll find her anywhere."
"But they have to catch her first." Alexei argued. Alina, not feeling the floor beneath her feet, was glad to be sitting down. "I'm sure that…"
A discussion sparked, voices distant as if Alina had her head underwater, and her mind raced.
Was Mal seeing the lottery too, she wondered, wherever his assignment was? His last letter had been from somewhere near Fjerda, but he said he was on the move, and that he'd send a new one when he settled down again.
Distantly, she realized this could help Mal. Alina was an orphan, and had no family to claim the money. She could send it all to him, set him for life with her death. Wouldn't that be good? Wouldn't that be -
Alina rose to her feet, a clatter of the pencil she had behind her ear as it fell to the floor. Her fellow cartographers went silent as she gave them the weakest smile possible, trying to seem brave. She did not feel brave; she barely felt anything other than despair.
"I guess I should present to our superiors." Her voice sounded distant, far away, and Alina wondered who moved her body, because she could barely feel her legs working, going away without a second thought; perhaps a Saint did it, one of the several Sun Summoner saints that there were.
It was a blur of movement after she knocked on her superior's door, the television on his office still on the lottery - whilst the bride was not yet found after the draw, there were commentators who speculated on the identity of the bride, tried to conjure the image of the next sacrifice -, and she showed her dog tags showing that yeah, she was the television's Alina Starkov.
They'd taken her away, somewhere else, and when Alina finally came into being again, away from dissociation, she was being given a velvet robe and bathing supplies by two girls dressed like old-fashioned servants. Alina looked around: they were in a room that was decorated in white, black and gold.
She recognized it from the television: it was the bride's room during her time in Os Alta, shown in one documentary or another about the matter. It was unchanged from the times it hosted a Saint, and it always would be.
Well, that was how the lore of it went, at least. Sankta Luda was the Black Heretic's bride, a Grisha and a princess, and her death at the hands of Fjerdan soldiers was what made him create the Fold, cloaked in grief. She was a Saint now, the Saint of undying love, and although her death had given the country a black stain, it made a good story, a good motivation. Who didn't want to be the bride of the Fold, on the off chance the Black Heretic was still alive? Who didn't believe in the healing power of love? Of being the destructor of the Fold?
As if he was still alive. The Fold was at least six hundred years old. That man was long dead and gone. The only thing a bride would ever meet was a volcra.
"Uh, what am I…?" she asked, feeling stupid, and they rolled her eyes at her, one of them snapping her fingers in the bathroom's direction. The other muttered something about the Shu that Alina decided to ignore - did they think she did not know Ravkan? "I can hear you two. Can I have some privacy? Just five minutes?"
It was a foolish request, she knew, but Alina could try. Why leave the most important asset in Ravka's morale alone, when she could escape and never be found again?
One of them opened her mouth, and another voice came out, making the two maids with Alina straighten their spines.
"That's enough from you two. Give the bride her privacy. I'll apply the tracker in a second." The two servants nodded and did as told, revealing, on the doorstep, a redhead in white, carrying in her perfectly manicured hands a metallic briefcase.
She crossed the distance with a few steps, the clack clack clack of her heels loud against the polished wooden floor. She stuck a hand out, and Alina, with charcoal under her own nails, stared at the woman, a redhead with a charming smile.
"Hello. I'm Genya, and I'll be your Tailor and manager for this bridal season." She said, and Alina shook her hand. No wonder she looked perfect. "In about fifteen minutes, there'll be the announcement that the bride has been found and is in Os Alta already. In one hour, we'll fit you for your bridal outfit while we decide the angle we'll take for you. In one hour and a half, we'll have your first interview. I need to tailor you at any point between now and, ideally, fifteen minutes from now, because there have been leaks about a bride being sneaked into the palace, so I am sure that, in about thirty minutes, we'll have a barrage of people to deal with, and I'm also sure you don't want to be seen like this."
She spoke like a professional, every syllable smoothed over on her tongue, well practiced and generic. Robotic, mechanical, as if Alina was just another girl being sent to the butcher.
"How long have you been doing this?" Alina asked with a frown, and Genya smiled, placid.
"A while now. Fourteen minutes."
Alina took the cue to shower.
Genya sat her down in front of a mirror with blinding lights, and Alina fought the urge to dim them. No use in showing off; she'd be carted to the Fold, anyway.
"So, let's see…" Genya hummed, going through her briefcase, where little colored papers stood in neat lines. Alina had heard of Tailors, the way they drew color from their surroundings to apply in people, the way they could transform a face for a few hours.
Cold fear settled in her bones.
"Don't touch my eyes. The shape." She blurted, and Genya rose her face, smiled gently, and Alina gained a pat in her hair for it. Genya's other hand, touching gently a patch of black, was what made Alina's hair gain a deeper hue.
"I'd never. I only change what the brides ask of me." She huffed, rolled her eyes in irritation, but it didn't seem directed at Alina. "Some of them ask for full-blown face changes. As if anyone is going to see them under the veil? Please."
Alina laughed, and that made Genya's smile lose its pitiable quality, becoming genuine, as she went back to rummaging through her bag. She took out a pen as thick as two fingers, and put a hand on Alina's shoulder.
"I need to put the tracker on you." Genya said, and Alina reminded herself that this woman was not her friend: she was an agent of the state, a handler, to make sure Alina looked her best to her death. "Can you shake off the robe a little? Just to your waist."
Alina obeyed, leaning forward, and Genya pushed away Alina's hair. There was a cold touch of metal to the space between her shoulder blades, and then, a harsh pressure of something being inserted intramuscularly. Alina yelped, and Genya gave her a pat on the shoulder, murmuring an apology.
She could guess why that was the specific location they put the tracker on: it was a hard spot to reach without help. Alina pulled on the robe again with trembling hands, and pretended to not feel the pain when she rested her back on the chair.
They put a dark veil over her face, gave her a white kefta to wear, and a woman gently asked questions about her life, taking notes in a notebook until she, satisfied with the results, left. Alina guessed that this woman was the one who decided the angle of her story, the way she'd be promoted through media.
Alina stood by as a seamstress expertly adjusted the kefta, dictating measurements to an assistant with the practiced ease of a professional. There was another woman, smartly dressed, tapping on her cellphone screen, and Alina felt ancient in her kefta, with no technology on her but the tracker in her body.
It wasn't even the modern keftas Grishas wore, light and practical: it was an old coat, pristinely conserved and heavy, but at least a century and a half old. The fabric, though, felt new; did they do these recently and just had them look old?
"We'll have a new kefta for you to wear ready for your next interview, but this one is close enough that no one will notice the difference." The woman said, and Alina nodded. Genya hovered in the background, talking with a man she suspected was the organizer of the lottery.
"Why a kefta?" Alina asked, and the woman rose her eyes.
"It's tradition, because some families were angry enough about this that they tried to kill the brides. Keftas are bulletproof, and you'll have your own poison tester for the period you're with us." The woman shrugged with the normalcy of it, and Alina thanked the veil for hiding the widening of her eyes. "Don't worry, though, you'll be kept mostly inside, and we have a bulletproof car for your transport. Grisha steel and all. Only the best for our bride."
The man ceased talking with Genya, and approached Alina with quick steps, Genya a half step behind him. He stuck out his hand to her, and Alina shook it.
"Vasily Lantsov, a pleasure to meet you." He said, and Alina couldn't help but notice he was absolutely unremarkable: he looked like he'd been through one too many washes,all features faded away from him. "We have located your files in the military system, and it says you have no close relations. Is that true?"
Alina nodded, realized that the veil was too heavy to bob, and then cleared her throat.
"Yes, it's true. I assume this is about the reward money?" Alina asked, and the man sighed heavily. "Look, everyone knows there's reward money. You can't just come here and ask me about my family and be mad I assumed what it was about."
The man rolled his eyes, certainly assuming Alina wouldn't see it, and she wanted to attack him. She did not, though a brief flicker of her wrist could blind him. Alina had a lot of self-control. Most of the time, anyway.
"Yes, it is about the money. We need a recipient, unless, of course, you wish to be generous and not take it. There's a few charities we could donate it to." A pointed look that called Alina an orphan. She smiled, even though she knew the man couldn't see it.
She knew what she wanted to do with the money.
"Sorry, no, no charity work for me. Please give it all to Malyen Oretsev. I can give his dog tag number if you'd like, to make it easier on you." Alina cooed, and saw, behind the man, Genya swallow a laughter. The woman by her side was not as discrete, and Vasily gave her an ugly look. "His number is…"
"No need, the military system will have it." He waved her away, and then stared up and down at Alina, before looking at the woman by her side. "Let me see her face."
The woman obeyed the order and lifted the veil. The seamstress at her feet moved away with an annoyed noise, and Genya gave her a sympathizing look as Vasily, for one second, was shocked.
"She is Shu?" He asked, a tinge of horror in his voice, and whirled to face Genya. "You should've modified her eyes, made her -"
Alina's self-control crumbled into nothing.
"If anyone tries to make me look different, I am slitting my throat in the middle of the night." She said, and the woman was so shocked she dropped the veil back in place. Vasily turned again. "I am Ravkan like you, sir. I'm very sure my files say that."
A setting of the jaw. Alina's eyes drifted to the lights, to the watch he wore, shiny and silver.
"Fine. It doesn't matter. You're dead already." He handwaved it away, and turned his back. "You have ten minutes until the interview."
"Thank you for letting me know." Alina replied dryly, and the man marched away. Alina waited until he was at the door, checking the clock, to make the shine of his watch blind his eyes. He yelped pathetically and stumbled, and Alina smiled. It was the little things that mattered.
The interview was barely that: it was the commentators from before, asking questions Alina had answered before, and hearing as they speculated about her life, made her sound like a poor orphan whose best friend was her life. Alina sat there, decoration like one of the throw pillows on the couch she was, and watched, dispassionately, wondering if all brides felt like this before: like a prop, rather than a person, an object of discussion. She understood the need for some brides to be sedated: surely, this must be easier when there was someone puppeteering you.
Was Mal watching the interview, wondering if Alina was being controlled, if the smooth replies were from a Heartrender's fingers in her brain? Alina gave answers, as if she was someone else talking about Alina Starkov, the bride of the Fold, another commentator on a fancy couch calling her so brave for surviving until now, calling her a patriotic hero for serving in the military. They even dug photos of her from basic, Alina with a rifle resting on her left shoukder and Mal high-fiving her, the two laughing at something she couldn't remember.
"Is that your best friend?" Asked a woman that had been tailored to have no smile lines five minutes before they went live. She recognized her: she was a popular afternoon television presenter for gossip shows, and sometimes the caregivers at the orphanage had watched her on the little dining room television. Alina blinked.
"Yes, that's Mal." Murmurs swept the studio. The woman smiled, leaned in conspiratorially, as if she and Alina were friends.
"And should the Black Heretic expect a swooping rescue of his bride?" She asked, too loud for it to be a private question, and Alina groaned internally. Were they going to make her a tragic figure, devoted to a love she couldn't have? Please, Saints, no. She had kissed Mal once, as an experiment, and both realized they'd be better off as friends.
"Mal's stationed near Fjerda, I think. No, no swooping rescues for me." She put her hands in her lap, the picture of innocence. "Just the volcras."
The woman's smile faltered. Someone called in for ads, and the woman leaned in further.
"Don't mention these monsters. We are trying to sell a fantasy here." She hissed, grabbing Alina's arm, and if it weren't for the thick kefta, Alina was sure she'd feel nails digging in her arm. Alina huffed. "The country depends on it."
If the country depended on a mere girl, then they were absolutely fucked.
"It's true, though. The Black Heretic is dead. I'm going to die."
"And we are all aware of that, but that's not the angle we are going for. You're a tragic figure now, so put on a cheery tune." There was a ten second warning for returning from the ad break, and the woman let go of Alina, smiling like nothing had ever happened.
"Trying to get on Tatiana's bad side is quite a lot for your first day." Genya said, as soon as the interview was over and Alina was to be sent to her little fancily decorated prison cell. Alina shrugged as she fell in lockstep with her. Was Genya genuine, Alina wondered? Alina knew she had handlers; one was the smartly dressed woman - Marie, as she learned a few seconds after Vasily had left -, and she could guess the purpose of the two Heartrenders she had seen lurking in the background the entire day. But what about Genya?
She was still veiled and in her kefta; everything to keep up the pretense. Would Alina have to sleep like that, too, so that no one would try to get to her? She didn't understand. Everyone knew what she looked like already.
"Mal isn't interested in me. No use in playing it up." She replied, and Genya nodded.
"Still, very brave to piss off everyone. Just the volcras… You are still trending." Alina cringed, and Genya laughed. "Oh, it's positive! It really is! Everyone thinks you'll be the best bride we've had since - what's her name… Oh, Elizaveta!"
"Which of them? The one before Ksenia, or the one who'll come next?" Alina asked back, and Genya's smile did not falter.
"All of them blur a bit, Alina, after a while." Genya waved her off, and Alina did not reply for a long while.
Brides were Vasilisas, Elizavetas, Maryas. Never Alinas. Never a Grisha.
But Alina wasn't a Grisha: on the day of the testing, she'd made sure of it, made sure they wouldn't separate her from Mal. For what? For what purpose? She was now forever gone, torn apart by monsters.
She wrote Mal a letter, insomniac, and then laughed herself hoarse at the thought of asking if Genya would make sure it got delivered. Right, because they'd let a bride express a thought that wasn't approved.
She burned the letter herself, and when Marie asked, in the morning, if Alina had done something in the night, Alina lied with a brilliant smile.
Three weeks passed by without Alina realizing, being dragged by either Marie or Genya to do a commentary on morning programs, or partake on a cooking show (where, of course, she was not allowed to eat), or a night talkshow about celebrities, and so many things that filled a television schedule that it made Alina's head spin. What for, she did not know, but she was sure it was to bring the ratings up. After all, who didn't want to see a dead woman talk?
When she realized, it was the day of her state-sponsored live execution: they woke her up at three in the morning, and Genya did her hair quickly - a braid, elaborately done, pinned to the top of her head - as Alina yawned, feeling the by now familiar feeling of tailoring soon after. Alina fell asleep during it, and was gently woken up by Genya so that they could move to the armored car. In her hands, a black kefta in its ancient style, decorated with gold to "light her way" to the Black Heretic.
The vehicle transporting her was a military transport, and a military convoy, as if she was really the soldier the media had been trying to paint her as. Alina was a cartographer! She wouldn't know combat if it kicked her in the face! She had almost failed basic! They'd only kept her in the military because they saw she could draw, and stuck her in the first cartographer squad that had an opening! She was anything but a war goddess!
But Alina voiced no such things, eyes heavy with sleep. She went inside the armored car, curled into herself, and fell asleep again, missing most of the trip to the Fold. She woke up around six hours later, the sun high in the sky, and the Fold in plain sight.
She'd seen the Fold in the television, and once, her squad had passed by it while they moved to Os Kervo for a river survey. They'd passed by it at a distance, and it had looked like a black cloud of tempest. Alina hadn't thought much of it, had barely made note of it in her mind.
Now, it loomed in, a large swathe of darkness that became bigger and bigger with every second, a clacking noise becoming louder, sending chills down Alina's spine, waking her up. Genya leaned in, taking her eyes off her phone.
"That's the volcras." She said, and went back to scrolling through her feed. "They're loud today. Weird."
Alina, whose biggest exposure to these send offs through television, did not remember such noises. The Fold always had seemed silent, a horror story in quietness, the darkness swallowing not only light, but noise too.
"But I thought they were silent?" Alina asked, in horror, and looked at the distance. There was a good five kilometers to what was a raised stage, and a crowd was already around it.
"Oh, no, not silent. They're always loud, and we have sound editing to take them out of the livestream." Genya shrugged with the normalcy of it all. "But not this loud. I hope they're able to make the acoustics sound good…"
Her words trailed off, captured by something in her feed, and Alina stared at the Fold. Genya tapped her back, and Alina looked at her. The girl gestured for Alina to lean forward, and she did; there was the feeling of something passing by the region of the tracker, and Alina, when Genya pushed her against the seat, saw it was a magnet, one of those heavy duty ones that needed genuine strenght to be taken away from a surface.
She knew the meaning of it.
"You deactivated it?" Alina asked, baffled, and Genya offered her a quiet smile.
"Some brides escape, after, sometimes. No use in letting them be dragged back." She replied. Alina nodded in silence, and held Genya's hand tightly against her own.
Near it, it seemed bigger than life. Alina was on the stage, hearing people say eulogies to a girl they barely knew, flanked by the two Heartrenders that had accompanied her so far. Wind whipped around her, and she knew now why her hair had been braided and pinned, and why the veil was so heavy: it'd be going wild, if it weren't. The Fold had its own wind center, seemingly, as if a squaller had also made something to make it absolutely inhospitable.
This never seemed to be the case on television. Alina stood, placid, and when they dramatically announced she'd now go meet the Fold, Alina did not need to be made to do so. The veil was lifted from her face, and Alina smiled prettily at the cameras, hoping Mal wasn't watching, praying so hard for any Saints to feel pity for her.
She turned her back and descended the steps, boot-clad feet sinking in the sand, and walked. It was a short walk, with no crowd around her for a good twenty meters in either direction - Saints forbid anyone with a saviour complex tried to save her.
Alina was a step away from the Fold, darkness already at the tip of her shoes, the volcras louder than ever, when Mal's voice reached her ears. She stopped, looked towards it, and there Mal was, being held back by a security guard, struggling against it, saying her name like a prayer no Saint would ever deign to answer.
Of course he would be there. No mercy for Alina, no pity. She smiled at him, waved, and then sunk herself in the darkness of the Fold, holding her breath and closing her eyes.
When she opened them again, breath gone from her lungs, darkness greeted them together with the deafening noise of the volcra's screeches. She gave a few tentative steps, and used a flicker of her wrist to produce light. That made them screech more, all flying somewhere her sight couldn't find.
She was a Sun Summoner: had always been. Her mother, though, advised she never reveal this, and later Alina knew why; to die for a country that hated her was no death at all. Was her mother weeping beyond the grave, if she knew Alina was chosen to be a bride?
She erased the thoughts from her head, focused again on the volcras. If they were flying somewhere, it was probably somewhere nice to die at. She would just turn off the light and let them have a go at her.
Alina followed.