[Stands up] Hi, my name is Orlissa, I've been writing fics for more than half of my life, and have been struggling with writer's block for the better part of the last two years. Then Shadow and Bone, and especially Ben Barnes happened, and thus I've been swimming in the Darklina sea recently. Deep enough that it inspired me to go up against my block and my anxieties and try to write something. And so... this happened. Please, welcome my humble addition to this amazing sandbox of a fandom.


He takes her on the table and worships her on the bed, not leaving an inch of skin untouched, unkissed, until pleasure mingles with glorious pain and she feels transcendent.


Mere hours later she is fleeing from the palace.


When she thinks back later, the following weeks blur together: she is running, first alone, from town to town, trying not to draw attention. Then with Mal, breathing easy for a moment. Making hasty, unformed plans. Going north, tracking the Stag, hopeful, so sure of themselves. Tired, freezing, hungry. Convictions trembling, hands shaking. Resignation. They'll come back, they say, they'll try again, they'll find the Stag. They just need more supplies, more energy, more… everything. A journey south, from town to town, trying not to draw attention.

In hindsight, she has no idea what they were thinking.


She is good at denial—she has had a lifetime of practice of it. She finds willfully ignoring what her body is telling her painfully easy.

Of course she is weak and tired—she hasn't been using her Summoning enough, and she has been on the run. Of course her stomach is uneasy, sometimes turning at the mere sight of food—she has gotten way too used to the food at the Little Palace, and whatever they can scavenge is no match to it. Of course her bleeding doesn't come—why would it, when she barely eats, barely sleeps?

It's horrifyingly easy to convince herself that there could be no other explanation.


She is found, because of course she is found.

Deep down she has been expecting it, but her heart still stops for a moment, then starts galloping, beating heavily, painfully in her chest when she spots the familiar red and blue keftas in the busy marketplace in a small town just south-east of Ulensk.

There are two things she knows immediately: one, she has been seen, there is no point in trying to hide; and two, she cannot fight. She is too weakened, there are too many of them, and… The people. The people who pray for her, to her in their modest little churches. She cannot let them get caught in the crossfire.

(And to be honest, a treacherous little voice whispers in her mind, don't you want to go back? Just a little bit? Just to have a mirage of a purpose, instead of just trying to survive day after day, having no means to do anything?)

So she gives in. She lets Ivan—stoic and unreadable as ever—and Fedyor—looking genuinely glad and on the verge of hugging her—lead her away.

She only hopes that Mal manages to slip away.


If the two Heartrenders share a knowing glance above her head, she refuses to care about it.


They lead her to a modest inn, heavily guarded by stern Oprichniki, looking like roughly hewn gargoyles in their charcoal uniform. She is escorted to a room on the second floor—it's utterly unremarkable, but cosy, with time-worn furniture and a hand-quilted bedspread. Not the vezda suite, but unquestionably the best this small town has to offer.

Ivan quickly departs to inform the General, but Fedyor stays there with her, subtly positioning himself between her and the closed door. She is seen as a flight risk still, she realizes, and thus is handled with caution, but, she has to admit, not unkindly. As if she was not a recaptured prisoner, but a puppy who ran away from home, because she didn't know better.

Fedyor is his usual open, friendly self—he offers her food and drink, asks if she wants to take a bath or dress into clean clothes while they wait. He only frowns when she rejects everything but a cup of water.

"You look gaunt," he tells her as he hands her the water, something akin to pity in his voice. "You should take care of yourself, in your condition-"

"And what condition might that be?" she asks sharply, looking up at him from sitting on the edge of the old, moth-eaten mattress. "Being the Darkling's pet?"

His eyes narrow, and his mouth is set in a hard line. "You know very well what I'm talking about."

Of course she knows. Deep down, she knows. (She should have bled twice by now.) But it doesn't mean she is ready to acknowledge it.

So she drops her gaze, falls silent, and accepts the apple when Fedyor tries again.


It takes over an hour for the Darkling to arrive.

She expects him to be angry, and there is rage in his controlled movements as he steps into the room, and fury in his voice as he orders Fedyor and his guards to leave. There is even wrath in the soft click as the door closes behind him and the two of them are left alone. But then with her as his sole witness, her name falls from his lips like a prayer, "Alina."

She cannot not look at him, cannot not see how he is on the verge of falling to his knees in front of her.

It's worse than his rage, so she casts her gaze to the floorboards instead.

He doesn't ask why she ran (he probably knows). She doesn't offer an explanation (what would be the point?).

Silence stretches between them into eternity.

"What happens now?" she asks finally, softly, afraid of his answer, but needing to know.

"Why didn't you come to me?" he asks in return instead of answering. "When my mother sent you away, why didn't you come to me? Why didn't you give me a chance to explain? Why didn't you think that she might be wrong?"

Not that Baghra was lying, she notes grimly, but that she was wrong. That she had all the facts, all the painful truths, and drew the wrong conclusion.

"Would it have mattered?" She, too, rewards his question with a question, raising her head to look into his eyes.

"More than you can imagine."

"Would you have told me the truth? The whole truth? Or kept feeding me half-truths to keep me placated?"

He swallows and his gaze seems to tremble for a second. "I guess we'll never know now."

"No, we won't."

Silence falls over them again, silence so deafening she can almost hear her heart beating, his heart beating.

She keeps looking into his depthless eyes, unwilling to be the first to back down. But then it's him whose eyes wander—to her unwashed face, unkempt hair, chapped lips, then lower, taking in her whole body, her thin, malnourished body covered in peasant's clothes. He is looking for outward signs, she realizes—for a fullness of her breasts and hips, for a hard curve to her stomach, but he finds nothing. (Yet.)

He knows. She knows that he knows, she sees it in his eyes when their gaze meets again. Nothing needs to be said. (Nothing can be said.)

She hugs her shoulders and leans forward, trying to make herself smaller.

Finally, after a moment lasting a thousand years, he clears his throat. "You rest tonight," he says, finally answering her earlier question. "Take a bath. Eat. Sleep. Tomorrow, we travel back to the Little Palace." His tone is final, leaving no room for argument.

He takes one last look at her—full of longing, full of pure want—, then turns around and walks out of the room with brisk steps, leaving her alone.


She has barely gotten back to the Little Palace, when she is already whisked away to be seen by a Healer.

The woman has her stripping down to her undergarments, then holds her hands, her face, then places her palms low on her belly. Alina shudders, but the Healer smiles, no, beams at her and tells her to rest, eat well, and everything will be just fine.

No, she wants to say, nothing will be fine.


Life back at the Little Palace is strange—so much like before in some aspects, and so different in others.

She is instructed to resume her theoretical studies—as if nothing has happened—, but she is excused from Botkin's combat training, and downright barred from Baghra. Instead, an older Inferni is assigned to her to help her with her daily practice (it's good for her to exercise her power, it'll help her to get her strength back).

Genya is often with her—just like before—when Alina has free time, working on her, telling her palace gossips, coaxing her to take long walks in the garden—the fresh air will be good for you, she says, and Alina knows what she means, and who instructed her to do that.

But she barely sees the Darkling beyond him sometimes showing up at her lessons to see how she is doing and ask if she needs anything. She always tells him no, which makes his eyes narrow, and it almost feels like victory.

They don't talk about anything beyond that-that about what has happened, not about what is going to happen.

She takes most of her meals in her rooms, because she just can't abide how the others look at her in the dining room, with contempt and pity and confusion and hope—so like before, yet she can't bear it now—, and no-one says a word a about it. (At least not to her face; she knows they must be whispering behind her back.)

(Everybody handles her like she was some delicate china, even though she doubts they know what happened.)

And she is everywhere, everywhere followed by Oprichniki, a dark uniform is always in sight, with Ivan or Fedyor not far away either.

Life is just like it was before, and yet it is not.

She is a prisoner, and yet she is not.

She is a songbird kept in a golden cage.


"Have you lain with the tracker?" the Darkling asks one morning, coming to her rooms unannounced, his voice distant, colder than the permafrost.

She looks straight into his eyes, defiant, refusing to cower. For a fraction of a moment, she contemplates lying—contemplates telling him, just to spite him, that yes, that insignificant Otkazat'sya he detests so much has graced her bed, many, many times, and he has done such a better job than him. But there is something in his gaze, something sharper than a sword, that makes her tell the truth.

"No," she tells him, voice untrembling. She doesn't add that there hasn't been others either, neither before or after him. She won't give him that satisfaction.

The breath leaves the Darkling almost like a relieved sigh. His shoulders drop barely noticeably.

Both of them know what her admission means, even if they are reluctant to voice it.

When he takes his next breath, she knows whatever decision he needed to make, has been made.

"Your friend has been found," he says, his voice strained, head held high, his face betraying no emotion, giving her no other information. Alina holds her breath, nails biting into her palm, bracing herself for the worst. His eyes flutter closed for a moment. "He will be shortly returned to his unit—I will make it clear to his superiors that he was away on my command. He will face no repercussions, neither from me, nor the First Army, as long as he knows his place." She blinks, her fist unclenching; she did not expect him to be merciful. "You are allowed to write to him, and receive his letters, if you wish so."

A bitter laugh almost bubbles from her lips. "If I do, will you read my letters?"

His gaze is almost gentle as he looks at her. "Of course. But I give you my word that they will reach him."

He doesn't say another word, just turns around and goes to the door with brisk steps. Alina drops her gaze to her lap, staring at the old scar in her palm, lined with angry, red half-moons made by her own nails. He could have easily had Mal killed—out of spite, out of pettiness, out of convenience. He could have ordered his men to kill him on sight, or could have made him stand trial for deserting the army. He could have made him a scapegoat, a martyr, or a nameless corpse buried by the road in an unmarked grave. And yet he didn't—he let Mal live, just to please her.

"Aleksander," she calls after him, and she sees his body almost tremble with pleasure at the sound of his name, this darling secret the two of them share, on her lips. He stops and turns toward her again, his gaze searching, waiting. "Thank you."

He doesn't say a word, just inclines his head in a silent bow, and leaves.


She writes Mal that night—tells him that she is okay, unhurt, well taken care of. Begs him not to be stupid, not to come for her, not to play the hero. To stay put and take care of himself. She will be alright.

She doesn't tell him about anything else, especially not about how her belly is starting to round.


She has been back to the Little Palace for a little over a month when one morning she finds she cannot button up her kefta anymore.

Genya is completely unfazed. "You were due to a new one, anyway," she says lightly, tossing the offending garment into a chair. "I'll make sure they rush it for you."


The new kefta is finished two days later, and it's even more exquisite than the previous one. It has a different cut, with a high waistline just under her breasts, the material flaring out underneath it (to keep fitting her as she continues to grow). The material is lighter, lined with silk instead of fur, made for the summer months. The embroidery is impossibly delicate, with swirling sunrays done in golden thread covering the better part of it.

It's also black.

He is laying his very visible claim to her and what is growing inside of her, and this time she cannot even protest.


Sleep evades her that night. She just lies awake in her bed, fisting the sheets and with flutters in her belly, eyes fixed on the dark shadow of her new kefta hanging from the dresser, as her mind is trying to make sense of everything that is happening.

She cannot take it anymore—she decides to seek him out.

She swings out of the bed, hastily puts on her robe, and marches out of her suite, down the darkened corridor, not even bothering with summoning a small ball of sunshine to guide her. She knows the way well enough she could get there blindfolded.

Light is spilling out from under his door, showing that he is still awake despite the hour. She doesn't even bother with knocking, just pushes down the handle with her heart hammering in her throat, and steps into his rooms.

He is standing over his great war table, a frown on his unfairly beautiful face as he pores over official-looking documents, dressed in that black robe with the wide sleeves, and the whole sight is so familiar, it gives her such a sense of painful déja vu, that her breath catches. But then he turns towards her and the memory breaks into a million pieces, swept away by the wind.

"Alina," he says in a strained voice, pure panic flashing in his eyes for a fraction of a second, "are you alright?" He takes a step towards her; she instinctively takes a step backwards. He stops.

"Yes. I…" Suddenly, she doesn't know what to say. She opens her mouth, then closes it again, and he watches her, waiting, unmoving. "No-one seems to find it strange that I was gone for over two months," she says at last, voicing thoughts that have been lingering in the back of her mind, unsaid, for the better part of the month. "Why? What lie did you feed them?"

He takes a moment to answer, his eyes scanning her face, trying to read her in the dim light.

"There was an attempt on your life," he tells her in an even voice, looking straight into her eyes, his fist clenching by his side, as if the mere memory of it is filling him with rage. "Right there, in the palace, my palace. It was only natural that I had you moved to a safe location until the breach was investigated and the threat neutralized." His words ring so true, they could be true. It's a shame it's a lie.

"And what about this?" she asks, vaguely drawing circles in the air in front of her belly, unwilling to touch it, especially in front of him. (She doesn't miss the way his eyes flicker down to her abdomen, or the way pain and longing wash over his face for a blink of an eye, or how his gaze settles on her lips for a second.) "No-one seems to talk about this either. Shouldn't they? Shouldn't they go on and on, whispering behind my back or spitting into my face, about how their precious Sun Summoner has been sullied?"

(Damaged goods, Ana Kuya called it, when one of the older girls fell pregnant in the orphanage when Alina was eleven. A fallen woman, she called the girl, asking her, loud enough that the whole house could hear, what she was going to do, how was she going to find employment, how was she going to find a husband with a bastard in tow?)

For the first time since she has come into his rooms, the Darkling turns his gaze away from her, as if he was unable to look at her as he answered.

"As far as anyone is concerned," he says softly as he starts gathering all the papers scattered over his table into a neat pile, "you and I are husband and wife. Married the day after the fete, on our way to the country estate you had been staying at during your absence from the Little Palace. The ceremony took place in a lovely old church in Baia, with Ivan and Fedyor standing witness. If anyone was to look deeper, they would find our names in the parish's record book, and the local priest, who would be more than happy to recall the most minute details of the ceremony."

Alina's breath catches in her throat; she cannot decide whether to be furious at him for doing this to her, for robbing her of this, or to be amazed and somewhat relieved because of his attention to detail and how he saved her, saved them from a scandal.

"And what about the tsar?" she asks quietly, because no matter of how legitimate their… situation appears to be, the tsar is still the tsar.

The Darkling taps the edge of his stack of papers against the table with more force than necessary. "The tsar is an idiot," he scoffs. "And I'm not some mindless court drone whom he could tell who to love or who to marry." He finally turns towards her, shifting on his feet, as if he was contemplating whether he should try to step closer to her, whether she'd let him. "And he might not be happy about it, about the timing, or how it all happened behind his back, but even he sees the value in the bond between the Darkling and Sankta Alina, in a united front."

It's her turn to scoff. "How strong that bond must be, if the Darkling hasn't even shared the Sankta's bed ever since she's been back?" The biting remark is out before she could fully comprehend what has just slipped from her mouth.

His eyes narrow, but the corner of his mouth twitches. "The tsar didn't share the tsaritsa's bed when she was with child, either. It's not that uncommon in the nobility to give the wife respite from her marital duties during this time."

She can feel her blood draining from her face. She expected him to bite back, maybe to offer her to share her bed, if that was her problem, like a rake, but not this. Not this directness. (Not him saying outright what she's been denying and ignoring and avoiding for months.)

"Well then," she starts, voice trembling. She wants to lash back, wants to hurt him with her words, but she just can't think of anything. "Well then, I'll be going back to bed, husband," she spats the last word, then turns her back on him without waiting for his reaction.

"Alina," he calls after her, his voice pleading. She stops. "Are you alright?" he echoes his earlier question, but this time his voice rings not with panic, but with care and longing.

She stills and considers it for a moment. The daily nausea has finally eased, she has been having more energy, and the healer who sees her weekly seems to be happy about her condition. "Yes," she says finally, without looking at him. "I'm… well."

"I'm glad to hear it," his voice is so soft, it almost blends into the shadows. "Alina," he says again, maybe just to hear her name slipping from his lips, "sweet dreams."

She nods to acknowledge that she's heard him, then leaves his rooms without saying goodbye.


The next morning a stern-faced Oprichnik delivers her a box of chocolates and a hand-written note from the Darkling.

Most merciful Sankta, he writes to her,

I apologize if I came across as callous the last night. That was not my intention. I truly wish to do the best by you and our people, and I hope you will allow me to see you again soon, so I can prove that to you. We have so much to talk about.

She takes the sweets and reads the note three times before tossing it into the fireplace.