At eight years old, Alina was taken from Keramzin because she was different. They had called her the Sun Summoner, a Saint, a Savior. Along with those titles came more that she understood, but only in stories and whispers. She knew who had taken her and where they were taking her, the Grisha , all a part of the second army. It was what she was now, or at least, what they all seemed to believe she was.
She was wrapped in a large kefta, one from the Grisha traveling with her. They had told her it was imperative to keep her face hidden and that she listened well. So that's what she did, kept her mouth shut and head down, because maybe they'd realize what a mistake they'd made and send her back to the orphanage, to Mal.
By the Saints, she missed him, remembered his little hand clutching hers as they were ripped apart. She just needed to bid her time until she could go home. They would realize it was a mistake soon and send her home, afterall she was just a child, they wouldn't punish her too harshly. At least she hoped so.
They traveled for a long time, and the two Grisha riding with her were silent for most of it. One was a woman, tall, beautiful, and fair skinned. The other was a man, his face made of jagged features and a blank stare. They mostly just glanced at her and asked if she needed anything. Alina shook her head every time.
She wasn't sure how long they'd been traveling when they finally reached Os Alta and the gates of the Little Palace, but by the time they did, Alina was beginning to fear there wasn't a way back to Keramzin. Nonetheless, she still obeyed the orders, because this was an unfamiliar environment and she needed the time to find a way out. One of the Grisha picked her up and kept her hidden underneath the too large kefta, she wasn't sure where they'd taken her until she was set down on the floor and a man was standing before her.
She studied him and the room, all of it was black. The walls, the ceiling, the furniture. She knew he was important just by the way Grisha reacted to him, by the way he carried himself. He was dressed in all black as well, and he looked at her questioningly. Alina faltered under his gaze.
"Hello." He said softly, kneeling down to her height. The sound of his smooth voice sent a reassuring tingle down her spine. It almost made her believe things might be okay, but she was an orphan. She was young, not naive.
"Hello." Alina squeaked back, remembering her manners. Ana Kuya would've boxed her ears for being rude to someone clearly important.
"Do you know who I am?" He asked, his steely grey eyes boring into her own.
Alina shook her head, looking at her hands, but they were covered by the kefta . Would she have to wear one as well? "No."
"I'm General Kirgian." He answered her softly, like if he'd spoken any louder she would run. "I'm the leader of the second army." Army, Alina noted. So she had been right, he was important. Which only made her falter more. "What's your name?"
"Alina Starkov." She said confidently, that one she could answer and it didn't sound like a trick question.
"It's nice to meet you, Alina. I've been waiting for you for a long time." He said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Her skin prickled where he'd touched her. "You and I are going to change the world."
It didn't take long before Alina realized she was different. She'd been at the Little Palace for two days and in those two days she had gathered enough information to conclude she was different. She was still holding out that everyone would see she wasn't who they said she was, but that seemed to lessen day after day. Alina's life had changed so drastically she wasn't sure if she really wanted to be a mistake anymore.
It started with her room. They had taken her to one just down the hallway from the General's and it was the most lavish thing she'd ever seen. Pretty light blues and shimmering curtains, a large canopy bed, and her own little sitting room. As an orphan, she knew people weren't just given things as lavish as this, even in the Little Palace. Everytime she stared at the beautiful furniture and palace view, it was almost suffocating because it just felt like waiting for some kind of retribution.
"This is your room, Alina." The General had said when he showed it to her. "You can go in."
Alina had toed her way past the entrance and looked at everything far too closely. "Where are the others?"
"Others?" The General asked her softly. "Do you mean the Grisha that brought you here?"
Alina shook her head with a light blush. "The other girls. Back at the orphanage, all the girls stayed in one room."
The painfully attractive general leaned down to her height and picked her up unexpectedly. Funnily enough, Alina found herself leaning into his grip, relishing in the warm. That reassuring feeling came back and her old life was pushed a little farther back into her memories.
"Solnyshko, this is your room and yours alone." He told her, carrying her small frame all the way over to the window sill and letting her look upon the entire palace. "I built this place for Grisha , to keep them safe, but you are the only one who truly deserves it."
"I haven't done anything." Alina said, the words tumbling from her lips. When she'd first been brought in, she was determined not to break her resolve so she could return to the orphanage. Yet, with the General's warm palm on the back of her neck, she felt something akin to trust flicker beneath her skin.
"Don't worry about that for now, Solnyshko." The General assured her, then carried her to the large canopy bed, helped her take off her shoes and laid the too large kefta on the end of the bed.
The soft comforter and plushness of the bed washed over her and Alina hadn't realized how tired she'd been until her head was delicately pushed onto a pillow. "I like it here."
"I'm glad." The General said, kissing her forehead lightly. "Sleep for now, Alina. I will see you when the sun rises."
The next thing she found odd were the four permanent guards following her at all times. The General introduced them to her and called them her personal oprichniki. Their names were Gigori, Erik, Dmitry, and Lehya, and they would stay outside her doors at all times and follow her everywhere. Then there was Katerina and Natalia. Katerina was her personal maid, while Natalia was the equivalent of her governess. Alina had asked why she needed them, and the General had simply told her it was because she was special. That was his answer to a lot of her questions. At the time, Alina hadn't truly understood what that meant, but when the words sounded so pretty, she didn't think much of it.
Honestly, Alina didn't think her guards were an odd occurrence at all until she'd overheard the maids assigned to her personal care whispering about it when they thought she was asleep.
It was the second night Alina was spending in her new room, and Natalia had just put her to bed. She didn't think much of the woman yet, but she had noted things about their personality. Katerina was very pretty with a sharp attitude, which led Alina to think she was much more capable than just being a maid. Natalia was a little neurotic, but kind hearted and often gave into Alina's whims.
Alina was on her side, eyes closed in an attempt to feign sleep when she'd heard Katerina's voice.
"Did you see how many guards he'd given her? Not to mention us as well?" Katerina had said in her brash tone, she wasn't necessarily mean though.
"She's his sun summoner." Natalia had answered simply, tucking Alina's sheets tighter around her.
"She's still Grisha ." Katerina responded. She didn't seem to mean it in the way that all Grisha were nothing but abominations, but more in the way that conveyed Alina was no different than the others.
"She's not just Grisha , Katerina." Natalia said, curling Alina's dark hair away from her face. "She's our Sankta. She's his Sankta."
The third piece of information Alina had noted when she'd really begun to see the difference in the way she was treated, was her clothes. Ever since she'd stepped into the Little Palace, she wore no other color than black. It didn't strike her as odd though, because the General wore all black, and his guards wore a little black in their uniforms. She hadn't seen anyone else, so it wasn't odd. Until she'd accidentally met some of the older Grisha in the library.
For her first week in the Little Palace, the General had told her she was free to go anywhere as long as she didn't leave the grounds and she went between a specific time window. It hadn't made sense to Alina at eight years old, but later on she figured out it was because the General didn't want her existence to be widely known yet. So he would let her explore when everyone else was supposed to be in lessons.
Alina had pushed open the library doors, peeking her head inside. It was one of the things she'd noticed when she'd first been brought into the Little Palace and it intrigued her. The oprichniki were following her at a distance as usual, while Katerina and Natalia were eating lunch.
She had run small fingers along the spines of a few books, taking one out everyone now and then to look inside. Most of them were about theory and stories she couldn't fully understand yet, but as luck would have it, she spotted a book of Ravkan fairytales on a shelf just a bit too high for her. She thought about asking the oprichniki to help her, but Gigori and Lehya were guarding the doors outside, while Dmitry and Erik were her less talkative guards. Besides, they frightened her a bit with their hard features and rifles.
"Do you need some help?" Alina jumped at the sound of the unfamiliar voice and on instinct pressed herself hard into the bookcase like it would hide her, like she would've done had she been back at the orphanage. Although, Alina did take a peek at the person.
Well, it happened to be two people. One was a girl with pretty blond hair in a deep red kefta, while the other was a man in a deep red kefta. He was the one that had spoken and was smiling softly at her. Alina loosened her grip on the edge of the bookcase, but she didn't move because of the way they both eyes her black kefta.
"No, I'm alright." Alina said softly. She did begin to wonder if General Kirigan would be upset with her since she'd been spotted.
"Are you sure?" The girl asked this time, taking a slow step towards Alina. "We don't mind helping."
Alina looked between the door and the bookcase. "Alright."
The girl walked over and easily pulled the small book from the shelf and handed it off to Alina. "Here you go, honey."
"Thank you." Alina said, tucking it close to her chest.
"I'm Laura," she introduced herself. "And this is Alex. What's your name?"
"Alina." She responded, tucking her dark hair behind her ear.
"Alina, hmm?" Alex repeated. "Do you like to read?"
"I do." Alina responded, relaxing as she realized they didn't mean to punish her. She was so used to getting in trouble at the orphanage. Alina studied them a little closer, scanning their keftas. The blue and red were vivid, but the girl had black woven into hers, while the man had a red embroidered into his. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Go ahead." Laura encouraged her kindly.
"Why are you kefta different colors?" Alina asked bluntly, although she did blush a little.
"They tell you what kind of Grisha we are." Alex explained, his tone watered down in a condescending way people used to talk to children. "The different colors tell you the order, and the embroidery tells you the science. Laura is red for corporalki and mind is blue for etheralki . Her embroidery is black for heartrenders, and mine is red because I'm an Inferni. The materialki are purple, for the fabritkators."
"Oh." Alina answered numbly. She wasn't about to admit that she hadn't committed it to memory, but she had picked up that black wasn't included. A second later, a bell of some kind sounded above them and the two older Grisha exchanged a look before bidding a quick goodbye to Alina and disappearing faster than they'd arrived.
Later that night, Alina stared out her window, trying to catch a glimpse of all the Grisha coming and going through the palace. That's when it struck her that no one else was wearing black. Just deep reds, blues, and purples. After dinner Alina had bounced into the General's war room, shyly peeking her head around the doorframe and had asked why they were the only ones who wore black. Once again, the General told her it was because she was special and there was no one else like her. That's why her black kefta was also gold.
So Alina grew accustomed to the Little Palace. Spending her time avoiding the rest of the children who'd she quickly realized only wanted something from her and not to be her friend. She sat in The Darkling's war room, sometimes with him there, sometimes without. If he wasn't there chatting with her and keeping her entertained, she would sit at his desk and do homework, or in the middle of the war table and sketch the maps. Her drawings were better than the average eight year old, but too mediocre to mean anything.
When she wasn't in lessons, she liked to run around Little Palace, a game to escape her guards. She never won, but she didn't mind though, she'd grown used to her extra shadows. Another one of her favorite past times was talking to the older Grisha, listening to their stories and hearing about their powers. Sometimes she got in trouble for occupying their time, but no one ever really cared. They'd grown used to the little girl who lived at the Little Palace underneath The Darkling's watchful eye.