A little piece I wrote last night, immediately after finishing Ruin and Rising. It's a Hades/Persephone-influenced, very vague take on Alina failing to survive in the last battle. I might do one or two more chapters if anyone is intrigued, I guess?
you're nothing now
He doesn't mean for his words to come out the way they do; his Alina could never be nothing, but his shadows and her light were both lost to her , everything that bound him together lost. Lost his mother, lost his sanity, lost himself, and now he'd lost his Alina, and he would not – he simply would not allow a loss of victory – though what victory he would have without Alina, he didn't know.
the hate and pain and grief overwhelmed me
He summons up every single ounce of negativity he has gathered through his existence, letting it take over him, his eyes hardening to stone, and he's ready to unleash the darkness and then it is in him, protruding his heart, flowing through his veins, his blood thick with it, but this darkness – it is not the power he is used to, no, it is entirely different.
His mouth moves, his throat works, but he does not know, he does not know anything except his Alina, her fingers entwined with his, his name on her lips, and that is all.
blessed with too much power, burdened by eternity
He knows nothing at all, until the Darkness comes surging into him, shadows creeping down the lengths of his arms, twining around his fingers, into his palms.
The magnitude of his own power is potent, and spins his head around as he stumbles in the shadows. The irony isn't lost on him – the Darkness is in him and around him, his own power making him weak, at least until she arrives, his Alina in all her fiery glory, light spilling from her heart, the same point on his chest where his Darkness pours.
She staggers through the gloom toward him, dropping the metal she's been clutching to grasp his hands, his name a prayer on her lips.
The moment they touch, he releases a giddy laugh; he'd been such a fool, such a fool, he never should have forced the collar on her – all he'd needed was her acceptance, and he had that and had her now – she'd followed him here, hadn't she?
The merzost flows through them, an endless circle looping through their connected arms, magic, abomination. The dark and the light mixes, swirling, rejoicing, as she brushes her lips to his, once, twice, before he wraps his arms around her, holding her flush to him as she reaches up, her fingers weaving into his hair, and kisses him with all she has.
Aleksander pulls away, gasping her name.
The shadows clear, revealing glorious forms of gold and black, black and gold, their power infinitely apparent in the pillars, the arches and the thrones on the dais that awaited them.
"We start from here, love," she tells him.
what is infinite?
They held a wondrous court for many, many years, sickly sweet sunlight peeking through whirling forms of darkness; the Sun Summoner and the Darkling ruling over the shadows, the ghosts, ghosts like their queen of gold had once been, along with her mortal boy.
But their little 'Underworld,'if you will, was not enough – is anything really?
They dream of the mortals, visions of the Sobachka (him too haunted by the remnants of the Darkness) ruling over Ravka, Ravka that was rightfully theirs, the destroyed Unsea, the reconstructed Little Palace with their room now a nursery, the people who had once been her friends aged and grey, her allies – would any of them understand her ever, her darkness, the power? Would Mal?
What is infinite?
The universe, and the power I hold is her answer now.
So when she wakes with visions of their Ravka and premonitions of its downfall, her face still radiant in apparent youth, her eyes shining, clad in a dressing robe that was a mockery of the kefta she'd worn the night she'd run away from the boy next to her, and tells him, "Soon, my love."
They would rise again, a different Sun Summoner to join the ranks of the Grisha, to slowly snake her way to the top, a different grey-eyed boy by her side to aid her to overthrow a different Vasily - her dear friend's grandson, this time, not brother, a different couple to stare at the statues of Sankt Alina and the Black Heretic.
They will rise.
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