Alina goes back to Os Alta. The palace stills seems cold and unforgiving.
She cannot sleep. Her mind goes back and back and back to Mal and (Aleksander) the Darkling's burning bodies, the light burned in her eyelids. Sleep doesn't come if she's not so utterly exhausted her dreams can't reach her, so she haunts the empty halls with small balls of light illuminating her path.
Somehow, she finds her to the king's chamber. Alina stops, noticing the only guard there is asleep, takes a deep breath, and knocks.
Nikolai calls out. Alina double takes, frowning, and entering the messy, well-lit room Nikolai calls his, finding him hunched over a series of projects.
"I always thought people slept at night,", she jokes, and sees the dark bags under his eyes. "Seems like I was wrong."
He laughs. It's dry, and Alina slips near, half-regretting her words.
"Can't sleep,", he mumbles, clearly half-asleep. "It's too dark."
"It's night,", Alina replies, nudging Nikolai so he can rise up - and he does. His scarred hands look for her to support, and she obliges. "It's supposed to be dark."
"If the lights go out, I wake up, and… I forget,", Nikolai mumbles, steps uneasy on the floor. "I forget I'm not…"
Ah.
"I see.", she says, and he snorts, Alina putting him to bed like a child, sitting by his side (over the covers). She makes a small ball of light, and Nikolai closes his eyes, exhaustion showing on his angular face. Alina may be staring - he looks vulnerable. That is new on him. "How have you been sleeping, then?"
"You'd be surprised at how much shuteye a king can get away with during boring meetings,", Nikolai yawns, quietly, and she passes a hand through his golden hair. It felt soft. "That's sort of nice."
"Sleep, Nikolai. It'll be dark when I decide it's dark,", Alina says, keeping her light, and Nikolai nods off almost immediately.
Alina closes her eyes, and Mal and (Aleksander) the Darkling greet her, burning. It's familiar. It's a terrible sight.
Mal smiles in death before turning to ashes. Alina curls into herself, and does not fall asleep. It does make things awkward when sun breaks and Alina decides to leave, and meets with the changing guards outside.
It's Tamar. She raises an eyebrow at her, and Alina, feeling her face burn, avoids running away for three seconds, enough to smile and wave, and only then runs.
She stays in her room all day, under the covers, sleeping in bouts when Mal doesn't wake her up by dying, or when Morozova comes from the sky and makes little girls start breathing again, or when (Aleksander) the Darkling makes the Not-Sea bigger, stronger, with more volcras.
Nikolai knocks. Alina peeks from under the covers, and balances letting him in versus letting him out.
One outcome may result in poetry. Alina rises up from her warm alcove and quietly treads to the door, opening it to find Nikolai dressed for dinner. Alina was still in her pajamas.
"Tamar told me some interesting things, today,", he grinned, incredibly childlike, and she scoffed. "Something about…"
"All lies, I am sure,", Alina interrupted, inviting him in silently. Nikolai obliges, and Alina closes the door just in time to see Tolya block her vision from some ladies of the court looking on. "So, moi tsarevich, not worried about rumors?"
"What's a few more?", he replies, smiling cockily. Alina offers a stifled laugh. "Come on, have dinner with me."
"Sure.", she replies. Nikolai offers her an arm to hold, and Alina accepts it.
"Your arm feels so nice against mine,", he hums, and Alina looks curiously at him. "We should get married."
Alina laughs, and Nikolai joins her.
"No, really."
"Maybe next time,", Alina replies. Nikolai sighs, resigned, and they keep moving forward.
It's a beginning. Alina can do beginnings. And if a beginning contains Nikolai, well, Alina won't mind as much.