Notes: Warnings for dead bodies and mild sexual situations this chapter.
i.
Alina stared up at the dark canopy that covered her bed, as endless as the shadows that hounded her. The sheets clung to her body, the only thing she had to preserve any shred of modesty she had left. Nightmares again. She was alone, Aleksander's side of the bed cold and empty. Still, her hand reached out to his side, fingers tangling into the sheets as if she could somehow summon his body back to her.
Where had he gone?
She closed her eyes, trying to banish the images imprinted on her lids, as if her mind was broadcasting them still.
She dreamed of blood and shadows, of darkness that snaked in. She had watched with glee as the darkness slithered inside of Zoya and claimed her much as it had claimed Nikolai. Now, though, there was no satisfaction in that dream. A hollowness rang inside of her.
She did not see herself as a traitor, but she was certainly starting to feel the weight of those words. Alina could understand why they would think that way. They didn't understand what she was trying to do.
Her eyes opened again.
Slipping out of bed, Alina grabbed a dressing gown, wrapping it around herself before slipping into her boots. It was summer and warm, and she didn't really care about who saw her. She waved off the oprichniki who had been settled outside of her door. They were not to follow her, even though she could see the hesitation in their faces at the order. The Darkling, after all, was their true master.
Once, it would have been Tamar and Tolya outside of her door.
Once, it would have been Mal.
There was nobody on the grounds as she slipped from the Grand Palace into the Little Palace, from the Little Palace to the small hut near the lake. It was still abandoned, a stale scent hanging in the air from years of neglect. She sat in the chair next to the fireplace, the only light in the room coming from her skin.
Alina wrapped her arms around herself, huddling over. She was waiting, she realized, for Baghra to return and tell her how foolish she was being.
ii.
"We are leaving."
Alina gave Aleksander a sharp look. Her chin tilted, strands of white hair that had escaped the ponytail she fashioned for herself tumbling into her eyes. "We are?"
His hands were behind his back as he stood before her. His eyes were hard, dark. Anger, she realized. He was thrumming with rage barely suppressed, and though the situation must have been severe, she was pleased to see that he was able to keep his darker urges in check.
Genya's words floated back to her, about how she was the only one who was able to control him.
"We've found another camp."
Her mouth went dry even her stomach turned sour. Another rebel camp, he meant. Another place filled with their people, with her people. She couldn't do it, she thought, her fingers brushing over Mal's ribs. She could not go out there with this man and slaughter people who were misguided and afraid.
She could not hear Adrik's screams anymore. Poor, brave, infuriating Adrik.
He sensed her hesitation. The whole world could have sensed her hesitation. His movements were fast, like a viper striking. Cool hands and long fingers gripped her face tightly enough that it hurt. Her immediate reaction was to struggle, even as his grip on her tightened until she thought he might rip her head off.
Aleksander leaned in close until the only thing she could see was him and him alone. His beautiful, horrible, agonizing face. Her husband and equal.
"This is not the time to be weak, Alina," he hissed.
Her hands cover his. "I'm not weak."
"You're afraid to face them. I can see it. I can feel it, worming around inside of your soul."
Alina sucked in a breath, her heart hammering in her chest. What did he know of souls when he destroyed his so long ago?
"You've seen the destruction I will do for Ravka," Alina spat. "Ravka needs to see that its leaders will not bow to those who won't fight for peace. They were friends, Aleksander, but I understand what's at stake here."
He smiled then, sharp and cruel, before it melted into a more gentle look. His hands dropped, but she could still feel the pressure against her nerves, each one on fire.
It would have been fear picking up her adrenaline like this, but she knew her husband too well now in these few short years. It wasn't fear that hammered her heart, but excitement, desire, the need to protect Ravka.
She was still hesitant about fighting those she called friends, but she was not hesitant about keeping her country together.
She rubbed a hand along her face. "Whatever hesitancy I have, Aleksander, isn't for you to question," she snapped.
Aleksander arched one dark eyebrow at her. "Isn't it? When at any moment you might shove a blade between my ribs, too?" His fingers tapped the amplifier against her pulse. "You left me for the tracker multiple times, and you still killed him for power. I'm not going to let my guard down around you."
She was still for a moment, letting anger wash over her. A cruel smile split her lips, tugging them over her teeth. "Good." She wanted to tell him that she would never kill him, the same as she couldn't on the Fold that day, but it was a lie. Whatever Alina had become that day, she was power. She was life itself, and she was death. And she would kill Aleksander if she found that she had no control over the monster that he was anymore.
"We leave in the morning." He leaned in, brushing his lips over her temple. "There will be a war meeting in an hour."
/
David stared back at Alina with even darker circles under his eyes than she ever had before she discovered she was the Sun Summoner. There was something oddly human about the way he looked at her, rubbing a hand over his face tiredly. She was honestly surprised to find him in such a disheveled state, but then again, it seemed like Genya was most interested in changing Alina than she was in changing anyone else. Even if her husband was included in that.
"Are you okay, David?" Alina asked gently.
"Mariya doesn't sleep well," he mumbled through a yawn. "Forgive me, moi tsaritsa-"
"Alina," she corrected.
"-But Genya sleeps like the dead now, so it's either me or Misha who cares for her."
It took Alina a minute before she could even remember Misha, could place his face and his name. And then her heart squeezed. "How is he?"
He did not talk to her anymore, that poor boy. He never forgave her for Mal's death.
"Strong," David said, but that was all she could get out of the man.
There was a wall between them, and while that didn't seem too unusual for a man such as David - so consumed as he was with his own work most of the time that part of Alina was still surprised that Mariya was born - this was different.
He was blocking her out. She was his queen, his leader. She was not his friend, and she could sense that. He wouldn't give her anymore details of his life than he could manage, regardless of where Genya stood. Part of her had to admire that, his loyalty to a movement that was being wiped out slowly.
Alina took a seat next to him at the table in his workshop. It was strangely quiet today, but she supposed he had dismissed his apprentices to help with the weapons he had come up with recently to fight the war.
David stared at the table for a moment before he looked back up at her. So many people these days refused to meet her gaze, so afraid of the queen that they would rather risk seeming impolite. Not David. He met her, gaze for gaze, without backing down.
There was backbone in this quiet, eccentric man.
"I've done more research," he finally said. "That's why you came, isn't it?"
Alina nodded. "The more I know, the better I can-"
"Kill them off?"
Her face twisted. "No!"
"Will you ever help the true king?"
She felt like she had been slapped in the face. Her fingers twisted into her kefta, nearly ripping the fabric. "David," she hissed. "The Darkling is the true king."
"Do you really believe that, Alina? I have stayed because Genya tells me that you have a plan, that the Darkling is necessary. But all I see is a woman who has abandoned her principles."
Her lips thinned out. "Stop-"
"Or you'll let him kill me like you let him kill Adrik?"
David had too much backbone, Alina decided. He had drawn a line, and he had crossed it. Alina schooled her features into a mask of neutrality. He was Genya's husband and her only hope for learning merzost without her husband.
"No," she said. "I wouldn't."
He took a while to say anything in return, and she didn't have much time before she had to leave. This would be a pointless endeavor on her part, and she was sure what she was off to do wouldn't help much in persuading him to help her.
With a sigh, she got to her feet.
And he spoke. "I found a few more books, but I don't know how much insight they will be able to give you." He picked up the items gently from the floor, pushing them across the table to her. They were old and smelled like mildew. If they weren't older than Morozova's journals, they were certainly kept in worse conditions in that case.
Still, she picked them up gingerly, cradling them to herself.
"Thank you, David."
"Eventually, you're going to have to ask him how to do it. I'm sure you can figure out an excuse to get him to."
She bit the inside of her cheek hard. "I didn't want Adrik to die."
He was back to staring at his work. She didn't even wait for him to reply, but as she stepped through the doorway, she could hear him whisper, "I wish I could believe that.
/
Alina wished she could, too.
/
She hid the books beneath Baghra's mattress, knowing that her husband would never come into the hut to search for them.
iii.
They left early the next morning, an army fit for war.
She rode with Aleksander in his carriage, watching the sallow faces of her people watching them leave with wary looks. The king and queen of their nation should not be going off to war, those faces seemed to say. Especially not a civil war that was beginning to brew.
They should not be fighting each other.
She gave Aleksander a side long glance, drinking in his profile. He stared ahead, deep in thought. The corner of his mouth twitched as his jaw clenched. Without thinking about it, she reached out, letting her fingers brush against the twitch.
Finally, as if remembering she was there with him, he blinked and turned toward her. "I'm unhappy."
"I can see that," she breathed softly.
"I should apologize."
Both snowy white brows rose high on her head. She should have been pleased at him even wanting to apologize - Saints knew that Aleksander did no such thing. But that was exactly why she couldn't wrap her head around such a concept. "What for?"
"Doubting you." He kissed the back of her hand briefly before holding it. "You are mine, and I am yours. My will is yours."
She gave him a faint smile. "For Ravka."
"For us."
iv.
The stench of blood hung heavy in her nostrils, but no longer did she feel the need to heave with each soldier she brought down with the Cut. Zoya had been busy, it would seem, since Alina had grown used to the politics of Os Alta.
Before her lay the broken corpse of a broken priest, the Apparat who had tried so hard to make her into a pretty figurehead. A cold calm settled through her bones at the site of his insides, the way his blood painted the stone floor, at his sightless dark eyes staring in horror at her.
She had watched those eyes drain of life, finally. Perhaps she should feel bad, but she felt nothing but relief. Zoya was desperate, even if she was busy, to have recruited such scum to her cause.
"Tsaritsa," one of the soldiers said.
Alina glanced up at the sound of her title, zeroing in on the boy. "Yes?"
"We must keep moving if we are to meet up with the Darkling."
She nodded sharply. He was right, and Aleksander would be waiting for her. Still, she couldn't seem to move. She couldn't really keep her dark gaze from finding the absent Apparat's one. A giddiness hummed in her body. She was a goddess.
"Let's go," she told the Squaller. He smiled and followed her out of the ruins.
/
That day ended in their victory, but the campaign moved on.
The extermination, Alina thought. Because that was exactly how it was.
Perhaps she was still riding the high of the Apparat's death, because she went into the next battle more settled than the first, whipping light around her with deadly force. She killed some of her own that got in the way, but even their deaths never bothered her.
From the shadows, she could see Aleksander's grim smile, the eagerness in his quartz eyes. He was pleased with her willingness, and she was pleased with her lack of hesitancy.
After all, in the end, even her own soldiers were dust. That was the look that her husband was giving her. They could be easily replaced.
v.
She wasn't sure how she got here, not at first. Not until she spotted a familiar silhouette, the giant of a man standing in the distance. Alina had known better than to let herself separate from her guard, to allow herself to be cornered. But she also knew that she could handle herself.
Nobody could threaten her life, except perhaps Aleksander.
Seeing the man, though, brought a rush of memories to her.
"Tolya," she whispered into the darkness of night.
He inclined his head at her, slanted eyes watching her carefully. The Heartrender didn't trust her, and though she knew that was the smart thing, it hurt. He and his sister had followed her, had believed her to be a real saint.
Some saint, she thought bitterly as she took another step closer. Her glow was soft, easily swallowed by the night. He took her in for a moment when she finally reached him. They hadn't seen each other in some years. Five. It had been five years.
"You're alive," Alina breathed, trying to stop the flood of emotions threatening to overwhelm her. Queens did not cry, and goddesses sure didn't show favor.
"For now," Tolya agreed. Reality set in roughly. They were at war against each other. This was her enemy. He should die. "Come with me."
She wanted to ask where to, but then she realized that he didn't mean to just lead her somewhere. He was asking her to abandon her soldiers and her country and her husband. The fact that the rebellion would still even want to accept her, after all that she had done… They were stupid.
Or desperate.
Alina shook her head. "I can't."
"Then kil me now. I will not be caught by your men to suffer the same fate as Adrik."
To her credit, she didn't wince. But she did fall silent in the midst of his words. Tolya was not one to talk much, but now he was. She took a deep breath. "I can't."
His large hand rested heavily on her shoulder. He could, right now, attempt to kill her. He could crush her heart, stop her breathing, like he did to Ivan. Alina knew he wouldn't. Tolya was still her man, and she had a feeling that he would be, even when he fought against her.
Madness crashed in around them. A sharp voice rang out in the darkness.
Aleksander was searching for her. There was no yelling her name, but she could feel him tugging on their tether.
She placed a hand on Tolya's chest, above his heart. "Run," she told him. "Run and do not come back. Run and do not fight."
"I will fight," he told her.
"You will die."
He gave her a wry smile that stabbed at her. "Maybe then you will wake up from the spell power has cast on you."
Tolya did run, however, while Alina went to meet her husband and stall him for as long as she could. Her friend would die, but it wouldn't be tonight.
vi.
"We have to return home," Alina told Aleksander a few months after they had begun this war. His face was pressed into her bare stomach, mouth tracing lazy lines into her skin. She wanted to have a serious discussion about their plans, but already she was feeling herself tumble headfirst into the desire that gripped her whenever he was near.
His mouth found her hipbone, kissing it. "So you said earlier," he breathed against her.
She didn't bother to stifle the moan or the way her body moved beneath him. "Just because you're trying to distract me with sex doesn't mean you're going to succeed."
"I did for some time, didn't I?" He moved down her body to leave a trail of kisses along her inner thigh. "I can again."
Her fingers threaded into his loose, dark hair, tugging his head up sharply. Saints, she wanted it. His distractions again and again, but she was meant to be his equal. She was the Sun Summoner, and he would listen to her when she wished to speak.
"You have my attention, Alina," he said with a breathy laugh.
"Ravka needs us."
"Which is why we are out here, for Ravka. You agreed that the resistance must be stopped."
He thought she was going back on her word, and why shouldn't he? She had gone back on so many words in their few short years together. Would this be their many lifetimes as well?
"You wanted to rule this country, Aleksander, and I helped you achieve that. You might think you did it on your own, but you and I both know that without me, you would have nothing but ashes."
His lips thinned out but he got to his knees, pulling away from her. She let his hair go, sitting up as well. "So we let the rebels win."
"No, you idiot," she growled. "You let me handle it."
That gave him pause, and he watched her carefully. "Like you handled that Shu Han man before?"
Now she was the one growing uncomfortably still, her heart beating frantically. How had he known about that? Why hadn't he said anything until now?
Because he was testing her, she thought bitterly. Everything she did was a test.
"I know what has to be done. I gave him a choice, and he made the wrong one. What happens now will be on him," Alina told her husband, and he seemed to be contemplating her words. "You have to go back to Os Alta and take care of our country. Politics are not my thing."
He smiled, curling a strand of her white hair around his finger. "That, I'm afraid, is very true."
She smiled back, ignoring the pit of fear in her stomach. "I will lead our army. Do you trust me with that?"
His smile turned more bitter. "We will see."
vii.
Despite his misgivings, the Darkling did return home to Os Alta with part of their army.
viii.
History would speak of the ruthlessness with which Sol Koroleva treated her enemies.
But it would also speak of the mercies she gave to those who surrendered, and to those who were innocent.
ix.
As Alina marched her army closer to the boundary of the Shadow Fold, she received a messenger. Nadia rode into the camp, straight-backed, her face a mask. If she held any hate for Alina, she hid it well.
"I come with a message from my queen," Nadia said as she dismounted.
"I am your queen," Alina replied calmly, but inside a storm raged. Of course, Zoya would call herself a queen.
"You are a traitor," Nadia said. Her words were soft, but Alina could feel the devastation that was behind them. If she had the chance, Alina was sure that Nadia would kill her.
"Just tell me the message."
"She would like to meet with you, in the remains of Novokribirsk." Even as she said it, the Squaller shuddered, as if she wasn't pleased with the idea.
Neither was Alina. "She would dare to venture into the Fold?"
Nadia cocked her head. "The Veterok Koroleva dares to do much more than become the lapdog of the Darkling."
Alina only barely adjusted her Cut so that swiped past Nadia with blinding light, enough to destroy her own tent and kill the horse the Grisha rebel had rode in on.
If Zoya wanted to meet in her own domain, then so be it.