Disclaimer: I don't own the Grisha Trilogy and its characters – it belongs to Leigh Bardugo. I do not own the Shadow & Bone TV series, which was developed by Eric Heisserer for Netflix and based on Leigh Bardugo's books.
For Darklina Week 2022 Day 6: Soulmates
AU where the Darkling created the Fold and then overthrew the Lantsovs.
Warnings for references to political executions; suggestions of a kind of police state; suggestions of possible mild brainwashing in orphanages.
Soulmark
Alina Starkova enters the world on the longest day of the year, when the sun is high in the sky and the heat sweltering.
Her birthplace is a tiny village on the border between Ravka and Shu Han, a place where it isn't unusual to find Ravkan-Shu marriages in spite of the centuries of bad feeling (and occasional war) between the two countries.
Alina is a small and pretty baby, quiet and content and good-tempered. Her parents are enraptured by their little daughter, their hearts overflowing with happiness.
And then they see the soulmark on her hip – a wisp of shadow entwined with a gleaming beam of light – and feel as if they have fallen straight into a nightmare from which they cannot awaken.
Nobody knows what the Black Tsar's soulmark looks like. No living person has ever seen it.
Even in bed, with or without company, he is never fully naked, and those who have tried to sneak a glance in order to gain leverage always meet with a swift and suffocating death.
For over four hundred years he has ruled with an iron fist and yet no soulmate has ever been discovered, despite the checks done in every Ravkan village and town and city (even more stringent than the Grisha testing), and the spies sent abroad looking for any woman, man or child who might bear a soulmark.
They are rare, you see, soulmarks. Found on perhaps 0.01% of the population, if that. Some see them as a gift, guiding them towards the person created just for them. Others consider them a burden, taking away their choice or causing heartbreak if they find their soulmate is dead or already married.
Who the Black Tsar's soulmate could be is a topic of great interest to the majority of Ravka's population, and a good deal of those abroad as well.
Many insist it must be the Sun Summoner that legends say will one day appear, for who else could hope to balance the fearsome Black Tsar and his shadows?
Others, like the renegade Soldat Sol (currently led by a man who styles himself as the Apparat and clings to the old Ravkan religion that is now tightly regulated by the tsar and much reduced in power) vehemently maintain that a man as dark and cruel and heretical as the Black Tsar could never have the Sun Summoner as a soulmate. Instead, they prophesise that the Sun Summoner will bless them all with a holy light that will destroy the Shadow Fold and the Black Tsar in one fell swoop.
As for the Black Tsar himself, well, he never speaks of his soulmark or his soulmate. But he searches obsessively, even as he rules and expands Ravka's borders and makes use of the Fold as a deterrent (although, without a Sun Summoner, he is limited in what he can do in the shadowy darkness of his malevolent creation).
He wants his tsarina, the people whisper. He has never taken a wife, not in all his centuries of ruling. His sexual conquests last a few years at most and never, ever involve feelings. He has been waiting so long and he will wait longer still if he has to.
That is not to say that the absence of his soulmate does not affect the Black Tsar. On the contrary, it seems to eat away at him every day he fails to discover them. Never a particularly merciful man, he is ruthless in his goals, channeling his frustration into making a stronger Ravka, determined that his soulmate will rule side-by-side with him over the most powerful and protected nation in the world.
The world waits for the Black Tsar's soulmate to appear, to discover what kind of person will be matched with someone as powerful and infamous as him.
No matter who they picture, most people believe that some sign will herald the birth of this long-awaited soulmate, an omen of sorts, whether good or bad.
No one ever expects her to be born in a remote village of no consequence, far away from those who watch eagerly for her birth.
And when Anton and Keyen Starkov leave their home in a hurry using the excuse of a sick relative, with their newborn daughter swaddled tightly to avoid any accidental reveal of her soulmark, no one thinks anything at all of it.
For the moment, Alina Starkova lives in blissful ignorance of her destined fate.
At the moment of Alina Starkova's birth, the Black Tsar feels a tugging on his soul, something that shocks him enough that his heartbeat catches the attention of the Heartrender in the room with him.
"Ivan."
The young man, almost eighteen – young but certainly the most talented Heartrender the Black Tsar has seen in decades, and an excellent administrator to boot – hurries over, "yes, moi tsar."
Ivan's face is a blank mask. He knows what he sensed, but he isn't foolish enough to speak of it without permission.
"We're looking for a baby, newly born."
Ivan nods. There is no need to ask for more details – everyone knows the search that most consumes the Black Tsar's attention.
"Discretion will be key," the tsar says, "if parents catch wind of this then they might become … alarmed."
An understatement to say the least. While there are some who would gladly offer up a child in the hopes of being rewarded for bringing the Black Tsar's soulmate to him, there are many others who might flee with their baby or, even worse, try to kill the child out of a misguided belief that they are somehow tainted. Most of all, the tsar does not wish for the Apparat to get his grubby little hands on the baby.
"And Ivan," the tsar adds, dark eyes cold, "if the parents resist and refuse to comply with a perfectly reasonable request to have their child checked for a soulmark, then feel free to dispose of them – I daresay their children will have a better start in one of our orphanages than with traitorous parents."
Ivan nods. He is a product of one such orphanage. The Black Tsar – so much more efficient and effective than the Lantsov Dynasty had been centuries previously – is a terrifying enough opponent that Ravka does not require conscription most of the time. The orphanages – state-run, clean, well-provisioned and offering an excellent education – are filled less with war orphans and more with children who have lost their parents in other ways.
Ivan is thankful every day that he and his brothers were placed in the orphanage as young children, their parents having been sentenced to a work camp in Tsibeya for dangerous anti-Grisha sentiments – after all, what kind of confused self-hatred might he have struggled with on discovery of his Grisha power if he had been surrounded by their disgusting beliefs rather than receiving a thorough and correct education at the orphanage?
It really does baffle him, the idea of someone wishing to deny their own child a soulmate. Ivan can't imagine a life without Fedyor, and the two of them complement each other so well, a pair chosen by the Making itself.
"I will make all the arrangements, moi tsar," Ivan promises, loyal and eager.
After all, logic suggests that the Black Tsar's soulmate will be the legendary Sun Summoner, whose power will enable the tsar to fully control the Shadow Fold and hopefully subdue their enemies once and for all.
And there is very little that Ivan will not do to ensure the safety and prosperity of the Grisha and Ravka.
"Where do we go?" Keyen asks her husband as they walk through the woods, eager to avoid the patrols that they are sure have recently increased two or three-fold.
(is it their new-found paranoia, or are the patrols really more aggressive now? They can't be sure).
"It will be too dangerous in Shu Han or Fjerda," Anton says, "you know what they do to Grisha there, even if they have to be secretive about it."
"We don't know that she's –"
"We know, milaya," Anton sighs, "how can she be anything but Grisha, with a soulmark like this?"
"Sun Summoner," his wife whispers fearfully.
Keyen has no quarrel with Grisha, despite growing up in Shu Han, but she is scared for her daughter.
Any normal Grisha would be welcomed into Os Alta, likely live a long and prosperous life. The Sun Summoner, though, might be a symbol or a weapon. Most of all, they will be coveted by the Black Tsar, an eternal man of terrifying power and vicious reputation.
Their daughter deserves the chance to have a normal life, away from politics and war and the country's most dangerous man.
"We'll move around," she says, "never give them a chance to find us. And then, once we can get around or through the Fold, then we can take a boat to Novyi Zem, let Alina grow up without all of the rumours and legends and mythology that surrounds the Black Tsar's soulmate."
Anton nods in agreement. Whatever it takes, they will keep their daughter safe and far away from Os Alta.
Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it.
You can find me on Twitter under the username Keira_63. At the moment I pretty much just post mini prompt fics.
