This is a naughty story. It keeps growing and evolving whenever I look away. I grew so much during writing that it won't even fit into two chapter anymore-so you are getting three.
Also, there are gonna be a lot of emotions here. I expect some tears. So I'd prepare some tissues if I were you.
Alina thinks a lot about Keramzin these days.
She thinks about the bad things—about the loneliness, about yearning for love and wanting to belong, about going without, about patched up, hand-me-down clothes, shoes that never fit properly, cold rooms and cold beds.
She thinks about the good things—about laughter and sunshine and the meadow and Mal, about the blessed simplicity of childhood.
And most of all, somehow, she thinks about a book.
The orphanage had a small library consisting mostly of old alphabet books and readers and textbooks, all donated, all on the verge of falling apart. But this one was different—it had somehow found its way to the orphanage from the Duke's private collection, and it was beautiful, worn, but beautiful, with an intricate leather cover and gilded edges. It was a collection of fairytales, gathered from all around the world—their little treasure trove.
There was one particular story in it about a young girl held captive in a grand castle. There was a monster, too, her captor, who would visit her every night and would ask for her hand in marriage until the day she learned to love him and accepted his proposal.
She thinks about that particular story a lot these days.
Despite his plea to talk, she doesn't see the Darkling for a while—he is called away to the northern front two days after their midnight talk, and summer is already in full bloom when he returns weeks later.
(Unscathed, but it's not like she cares, it's not like she was anxious for his return.)
Summer can be a fickle thing in Ravka, but there are still warm days full of sunshine, and she is determined to make the most out of them, therefore she decides to conduct her daily studies in the gardens whenever she can, an idea met with no opposition. She even finds a favorite spot to settle in: a set of cushioned benches and armchairs around a filigreed table, surrounded by beds and beds of blue irises with yellow throats. (She is well aware that this cannot be a coincidence, and that the Darkling's windows look right out to this spot, but fine, she'll take this charmingly offered bait.)
There might be something bold, something downright coquettish in the way she settles there two days after his return, not a book on Grisha theory, but a romance in her lap. Not exactly a summons, but an invitation, a blank calling card, which he is free to interpret as he wishes.
A part of her is surprised how quickly he appears (a part of her wonders what obligation he must have tossed aside). She's barely had time to get lost in the story and he is already there, no kefta in sight, instead dressed only in a simple shirt—still black—, the sleeves pushed to his elbows, puzzlingly casual. There is also a palace maid standing behind him, tray in hand.
"Milaya," he says with a small bow, the endearment, sweet as honey, rolling from his lips, "may I join you?"
She doesn't want to send him away—although she somehow knows that he'd go, if she asked—, but inviting him to sit with her feels wrong, too direct, too intimate, so she just nods as she slowly closes her book, watching him, waiting. He shoots a quick glance at the servant, who then places the tray—laid with tea and fruits and pastries—on the table, curtsies, then hurries off. He only sits when she is gone, settling in the armchair closest to the bench she is lounging on.
And then he just watches her, his gaze thorough, searching.
She tries to imagine what he must see—her skin bronzer than when he left from the sun, her nose peppered with faint freckles; her hair hanging down her back in a haphazard, careless braid; her hands ink-stained; her light blue tunic stretching across her belly.
(She's halfway there, the healer has told her, and she just keeps growing; the kefta still does a decent job at concealing it, but it is impossible to deny it anymore without the flattering folds of the coat.)
A long moment passes, and then the corner of his mouth ticks upwards. "You look… well." The soft pause in the middle of his sentence makes her think he wanted to say something else. She refuses to contemplate what.
"And you look…" she takes him in, so familiar, so foreign, "...you."
This seems to please him, his dark eyes gleaming. "Tea?"
She nods silently, then watches as the Darkling, the fearless general of the Second Army, the stuff of nightmares, prepares her tea, holding the china cup with long, strong, elegant fingers. (Those hands were not made for a soldier, she thinks for a moment, but for an artist—but what is Summoning, what is war, if not art in its bloodiest form?) When it is finished, he hands it to her, leaning towards her, maybe further than absolutely necessary, and she takes it without a word. And then she just watches, studies the way the amber liquid ripples, as if she could read the future from the cup.
"We had a successful campaign," he says suddenly, his voice confident, almost proud.
She looks up at him. "Oh?" is all she says.
"A regiment of the Fjerdan army was trying to gain territory south of Halmhend, razing villages on our side of the border. It wasn't as easy to push them back as I had expected, and we had some losses, but finally we managed to covertly send some Heartrenders to their camp, who managed to… liquidate their commanding officers." So assassinate them. "Without leadership, the regiment was easy to take. Now we have nearly eight hundred Fjerdan soldiers in captivity, and are ready to begin negotiations about their release. This is a considerable leverage, and we are set to gain a lot—territory, supplies, reparations, maybe even the release of some Grisha who are… awaiting trial in Fjerda."
Her eyebrows knit together. "Why are you telling me this?"
His eyes widen slightly in surprise as he leans back. "You have accused me, on several occasions, of being less than truthful and keeping my dealings from you. 'Feeding people lies,' I believe those were your exact words. I thought I could remedy the situation by being a little more… open."
A strange storm of feelings is raging inside of Alina. A part of her wants to laugh, bitterly, loudly; another part of her is so infuriated, it wants to rage—to hurt him, to toss the tea in his face, for not getting it, for still not understanding it; and maybe a part, just a miniscule part, wants to… help him.
"What do you want from me?" she asks after a long pause, her voice hollow. "My… cooperation? My assistance? You want me to side with you, to speak on your behalf, to stand with you in front of the people, a united front?"
He blinks, considering his answer. "I want whatever you are willing to give me," he says at last. (I want your forgiveness, I want your love remains unsaid, but it lingers in the air between them.)
She puts the cup on the table with more force than necessary, the tea sloshing over the rim. "You're doing it wrong," she says, looking straight into his eyes. "You think you are reaching out, but you are not." A bitter chuckle escapes her mouth. "You just keep doing whatever you did before, deciding alone, acting alone, not considering the people, just your armies—your figurines on a map—, and then you expect me to… swoon when you tell me what's already been done. Why should I be impressed by a bloody victory?"
He looks at her as if she struck him across the face. "Alina, I—"
"No," she cuts in, standing up. "I just… I can't take anymore now." She turns her back on him, and, her book forgotten, leaves him without another word.
The book makes its way to her rooms by sunset, a single iris laid on the cover like an olive branch.
She ignores it.
He doesn't seek her out again until days later, when he barges into her bedchamber well after nightfall, without even knocking.
She is already in bed, unbound hair spread over the pillows, only one bedside lamp providing meagre light, but she starts to get up—either in fear or in indignation at his intrusion, she cannot tell—the moment she sees him march towards her.
"No, stay," he tells her with a soothing gesture of his hand, then drops to his knees by her bedside, so he can look into her eyes. There is an almost frantic look on his face. "We have reached an agreement with the Fjerdans."
"Yes?" she prompts. She draws up her knees, ready to wrap her arms around them, but she can't do it anymore, not comfortably, so then she just lets her legs awkwardly drop under the covers.
"And it's good," his voice almost trembles, almost like forever ago in the war room, when he told her how long he had been fighting this war alone, but now there is a note of hope in his tone. "Fjerda is willing to pay a nice ransom for their soldiers. And I thought…" His hand falls on her knee in a gentle, unconscious move, seeking comfort, and she half-wants to flinch away, but she doesn't. "And I thought… The tsar will claim some of it for himself, of course, and some of it will have to go back to the army, but some of it could be spent to help the people in the area. We could use it to buy food or other supplies, and there is still a First Army regiment and some Grisha in the area, they could handle the distribution. If you agree, that's it, of course," he adds the last part after a breath of a pause, looking into her eyes.
She wants to smile, and then she does feel her lips pull into a smile without her consent, because he gets it now.
"That's actually a good idea," she tells him, and her breath almost hitches as he smiles. "But before you do anything, ask the people what they need."
He nods. "As you wish. And maybe," he adds in a careful tone, "once we have word, would you like to discuss the details? Over dinner?"
She doesn't answer right away, even though, against her better judgement, her heart has already decided. "Yes, I'd like that, Aleksander," she says, his given name a praise, a reward, because he has done well, he has showed her that with time he can learn to treat her like a real ally, maybe like an equal. That he can be more than a ruthless general.
He beams at her. "You honor me. Sleep now, milaya," he says, starting to stand up, but then he freezes mid-movement. She watches him, waiting, and he gazes at her in the weak light, looking for signs of rejection, of repulsion, and when he finds none (although a part of her does want to bolt), he carefully leans towards her, hands braced on the edge of the mattress, and he presses a soft kiss to the top of her head. She doesn't flinch away. "Sweet dreams."
Then he stands and walks to the door, his steps slower, more measured than when he came in. But then he stops at the door, hand on the handle, and turns back towards her.
"Alina?" She raises her head from the pillow to show him that she is listening. "Once I told you that the tsar didn't share the tsarista's bed while she was with child." Her throat clenches and her heart gives a painful thud. "The whole truth is that he did visit the beds of other women during that time instead." He casts his gaze down. "And I just want you to know—I don't."
And with that, he is gone.
So three days later she dines with him in his rooms, sharing fine foods in candlelight as they pore over maps and statements from village officials and ledgers, figuring out where to send grains and potatoes and people to help rebuild what the Fjerdan soldiers destroyed, and how to organize the distribution. He even points out that there is an orphanage in the area, not so much unlike Keramzin, and asks her what they should send there, what would help the most in her opinion?
And when she returns to her rooms at the end of the evening—after he bid her good night and kissed her hand—she realizes that this is the first time she has felt useful, even content in months.
Ever since the night of the fete.
When she receives a note from him during breakfast the next day, asking her if she would dine with him again soon, she agrees with a lighter heart.
Their dinners soon become a weekly occurrence, and she sees him more often between them too, Aleksander visiting her classes more frequently and seeking her out to accompany her on her walks in the garden, and she finds that she doesn't mind his presence, and starts to think that their relationship must begin to look like a real marriage to the people around them.
And sometimes she almost feels like that, too, or at least as if it was a real courtship, if not for the wall stretching between them, erected by his old lies, but even that is slowly crumbling with every conversation.
"Your friend has written to me," he tells her as they are walking in the garden one day, passing by rose bushes in full bloom, white and red and pink. "He is dismayed that you haven't been returning his letters." He sounds more amused than annoyed, and when she looks up at him, a shadow of a smile is playing on his lips. "So now he has convinced himself that I must be keeping you locked in a dudgeon."
Just as he promised, Mal's letters made their way to her, one almost every week, and now they are sitting in a neat pile on her desk, collecting dust—obviously opened, but unquestionably there, nonetheless. She hasn't even read them.
"Really?" she breathes, just to fill the silence with something. "I'll write to him tonight."
"Thank you" he says, then stoops to pick a single flower, blood red, carefully divesting it of its thorns before sliding the stem into her bun. "As entertaining as it would be, I'd hate it if he and his foolish friends decided to storm the palace to rescue the fair maiden," he smirks. She knows he is mostly jesting, but the slight edge of a threat is unmistakable in his tone.
She reads Mal's letters in bed that night-they get progressively shorter and more frantic, more desperate. In the first one, he tells her about how he was welcomed back into his unit, how he expected punishment, and yet there was none (once again, just as Aleksander promised), then asks her if she is alright, if she is really alright. In the second one, he tells her a little bit about the day to day life of his unit, about where they are being stationed, about what they are doing, then pleads her to write, to soothe his worries. After that it's mostly just him asking, begging her to write. The latest letter—the eight one, arrived five days ago—is barely three lines long, just a plea for her to write and a threat that he will come for her if she doesn't.
With a heavy heart, she sits at her desk and composes him a long letter—she reassures him that she is alright, then tells him about Genya and all the gossip they share, and Katya, her Inferni instructor, and the delicacies from Kerch and Novyi Zem she is being spoiled with, and the palace gardens, and the relief they have sent to the border villages in the North.
She doesn't tell him about Aleksander or the new kefta or the reason for the new kefta, because he wouldn't understand, and she doesn't know how to tell him about them anyway.
She signs the letter as Your faithful friend, seals it with wax, and then hands it to an Oprichnik passing in front of her door on his patrol, to be sent to Mal right away.
She wonders, as her head hits the pillow, what Aleksander will think when he reads it.
"What about the Stag?" she asks bluntly one evening, the balcony bathed in the golden late July sunset.
Aleksander freezes mid-movement as he is cutting the meat on his plate. "What about it?"
"You were so eager to find it before," she says, looking at him with searching eyes, trying to read his face. "You haven't even mentioned since… well, since."
He puts down his cutlery and leans back in his chair, contemplating. "It's not a priority right now." He doesn't have to say what is a priority; his gaze wandering to her midsection does it for him.
"What about the Fold?"
"The Fold can wait. It has been there for four hundred years, and it'll be there next year."
"So you are still planning on slaughtering the Stag?"
"If that's what you wish."
"And would you still use the antlers to control me?" The heavy question slips from her lips easier than she would have expected.
For a moment, he looks completely shocked, almost as if he was in pain. "Of course not."
"But that's what you originally planned, isn't it?"
He swallows, and she can see it on his face that it takes all of his willpower to keep looking into her eyes. "Maybe. Once upon a time. Before. Before you." His hand moves, reaching across the table, as if he wanted to grab hers, but then the movement halts, and he drops it back on the white tablecloth. "I would never violate you like that now."
But he would have, once upon a time. Still, the past is the past, and this is the now, and she appreciates his honesty.
"Do we even need the Stag to conquer the Fold?" She deliberately uses the word conquer, not destroy. What to do with the Fold is an impossibly delicate issue—destroy it or use it as a weapon or something in between—, something about which she knows they will have to reach some kind of a compromise, but something that she is not yet ready to bring up.
"I don't know, milaya," he answers, and this time he does reach for her hand, "but sometimes I feel like there is nothing you and I could not accomplish together."
It's good enough for now.
"I'll kill him," he rages, shadows swirling around him. "That overstuffed, lazy, incompetent orangutan, that insufferable vile idiot, how would the volcra feast on his liver..."
It's starting to become a thing, him barging into her rooms, uninvited, unannounced. She finds she doesn't mind it as much anymore. She puts down her reading and just watches him, waiting for his wrath to subside. She doesn't need to ask who he is talking about—he was summoned by the tsar for an audience earlier that afternoon. And although she doesn't know what might have been the exact reason that made him so angry—but she'll make sure to ask, later, when he has calmed down—, it is clear as the day he is mad at the tsar.
"You will not kill him," she says calmly when he takes a breath. "He is the tsar."
He stops his pacing and looks at her. "And?"
"No and. He's the tsar, that's it," she shrugs.
His eyes widen and his shoulders drop. "Oh, Alinoschka," he says, the endearment patronizing. "Sometimes I forget how young you are."
It is true—she is young. But then again, compared to him, everybody is young. However, she is young and she was raised with the conviction that the tsar had a divine right to rule, while he has lived for centuries, served countless monarchs, and seen how petty, how uncultured, how small, how undeserving they can be. How there was nothing divine about them.
He might have even murdered a few.
"Think of it this way," he continues, sitting down on the other end of the settee. "If a maid, or a cook, or an apprentice doesn't do their job right, if they are so incompetent that they hurt the people around them, they hurt the business—what do you do?"
She takes a deep breath. "You fire them."
"Exactly," he nods. "But you cannot just fire a tsar,"
"So you kill him."
"So you kill him," he echoes. "Think of it not as treason, but as service to the country."
"And will you?"
"Not yet," he says without missing a beat. "There are still so many things to arrange."
"But you will."
A dark cloud hangs in his gaze, threatening a storm. "Today has proved that it is inevitable."
She'll really need to ask what happened.
"And what do you intend to do when it's done?"
His eyes soften as he reaches out and takes her face in both hands, his thumb caressing her cheekbone. "Do you even need to ask, moya tsaritsa?"
First September, then October comes, burnishing the leaves and bringing rain and chill in the air, forcing them to end their walks and meals in the gardens. Instead they settle in front of his fireplace in the evenings for a cup of tea.
That's where she is now, settled in his enormous velvet brocade armchair, so dark green it's almost black, watching him as he paces in front of the fire.
He is telling her about what is going on in West Ravka, because nowadays he is telling her everything, every bit of new intelligence and strategy, sometimes just to make sense of it himself, sometimes to hear her opinion. However, today she can barely listen to him as she fidgets, trying to find a comfortable position to settle, but never succeeding.
It takes him hear her hiss to notice that something is amiss, but then he freezes, looking at her with wide eyes. "Something is wrong," he says, already half-starting towards the door to call for a healer.
"No, it's just…" she starts, the sentence ending in a defeated, exasperated sigh. She knows it's completely normal, and that she shouldn't feel embarrassed, but she just can't help it. "It's just… It is moving. A lot."
The tension leaves his body, while curiosity and sympathy sparks in his dark gaze. "Is it painful?"
"Not really. Sometimes, a bit. But mostly it's just strange." She closes her eyes. The Healer estimates that she has a little over a month to go, but her body already feels impossibly overcrowded, and she just can't wait for it to be over. "It's like I swallowed a cat, and now it's doing cartwheels in my belly."
He laughs, a happy, delighted sound. "That doesn't sound too comfortable."
"It is not."
She opens her eyes and looks at him, just in time to see something shift in him.
"May I?" he asks carefully, taking half a step towards her. She hesitates just for a moment, then gives him a tentative nod. He hasn't been pushing her to talk about this thing that now connects the two of them forever, respecting her boundaries, so this is the least she can give him.
He comes to her slowly, then, placing his hands on the armrests of the chair, he lowers himself to his knees in front of her. There, he reaches for the knot that keeps her dressing gown closed, unties it, and gingerly pushes the fabric aside. She expects him to put his hands on her now, but instead he reaches down, takes the hem of her nightgown, and, her breath hitching, pushes the fabric up, until it is bunched up under her breasts, her belly exposed. She can feel her blood rushing to her face, thundering in her ears, but he doesn't even notice, his gaze fixed on the round swell of her.
He does put his hands on her then, his skin surprisingly, comfortably warm—and the little creature inside of her reacts right away, surely feeling the same pull of his powers she did forever ago in that tent, when he first touched her, because it turns and pushes against his palms as soft, ethereal light erupts from her skin.
Aleksander, unshed tears in his eyes, beams. "He is strong," he says in awe, his voice trembling. "So strong, so alive." He looks up and gives her a joyful, unbridled smile, one she has never seen on his face before (maybe once, in the war room, when she took him by surprise by kissing him). "Thank you."
And then he does something he hasn't done in months: he kisses her, chastely and gently, his lips warm and careful and loving against hers.
Later that night, lying in her bed, she does something she has been avoiding all along: she rests her hand on her belly.
There is a reassuring kick against her palm.
She falls asleep humming half-forgotten lullaby, feeling that maybe, just maybe, everything will be alright.
