Alina knew life with Nikolai would be nice and peaceful and she had even started to feel like home at the Grand Palace. The people of the court and even Nikolai's mother Tatiana no longer scowled at her, nobody tried to insult her or demean her in any way, and Alina was grateful for small mercies. Nikolai might have been the only one at court who truly loved her, but she was queen now and everybody, whether they were merely a servant or a Grisha of the highest order, had to respect her; and that was enough.
Nikolai gave her the admiration and devotion she needed, and the space to call home, to be truthfully herself that she longed for. It had been a week since they got back from their post-wedding getaway and Alina was beginning to feel that inner calm she's been craving all her life. She read books, walked around the gardens, wrote letters to her friends from the orphanage, and enjoyed her Alpha's presence when he was free from king's duties. She finally could summon the sun not because she had to but because she wanted to appreciate the way it shines and beams. Life was nice. Life was what it was supposed to be.
But then he showed up. He appeared in her life unexpectedly, irrevocably, like a deadly poison, like a sickness eating away at her bones, like a nectar of demons she couldn't resist. He wore black, he was black, so black it threatened to consume her all.
Alina's first reaction to him was horror; all the uneasy feelings of the past came back to play. General Kirigan entered their castle together with his army as if it all belonged to him, as if he was the king and not only the leader of the Second Army.
She watched the Grishas out of their dining room window, an impressive number of them going into the castle seemingly without any resistance.
"What is happening?" Alina asked, her voice quiet with fear.
Nikolai's usually cheerful face grew serious as he came from behind her to look out the window. She turned to him. Their eyes met.
"I'll go and see. You stay here," he said curtly as he turned to go.
"Wait, I'm coming with you!" Alina intervened.
Nikolai raised his hand, warning, "No, stay here. I'll deal with it."
He was scared, she realized. He didn't know she was scared, too.
She followed him.
It was the first time she ever saw Kirigan, and the mere sight of him made the Omega in her lose her mind a little. She had heard many things of him – that he was just, that he was powerful, that if he wanted to, he could easily rule everyone and everything, so the fact he doesn't must mean something stops him. She had heard he was the best leader there ever was—but all she saw in front of her whilst hiding behind the beige columns was a dominating Alpha, his scent and stance exactly what one might expect from a man like him. And of course, he made Alina feel just as an Alpha like him makes all Omegas feel – hot, bothered, submissive, ready to be taken. She tried to contain a moan that threatened to escape her lips. She couldn't be acting like this, not in front of everyone.
Yet still she wondered if he could smell the only Omega in the Grand Palace, secretly hoping he could and dreading that as well.
There was something else about him, too. Something sinister and dangerous, something that made bells of warning go off in her head. Kirigan stood there, dark and proud and impending, and it felt as if a black stormy cloud had set upon the castle; Alina's knees wobbled just by looking at him. Half of the Grand Palace was already there, and the Grishas of the Second Army seemed to be enjoying the attention. The closer Nikolai got to Kirigan, the worse Alina's anxiety grew – she still hadn't forgotten that Kirigan was loyal to Nikolai's father and that he might not share the same sentiments with the late king's illegitimate son. She was hiding in the corners while trying to get closer to hear them speak. Nikolai stood strong and tall.
"What is the meaning of this?" Nikolai asked.
Kirigan's dark eyes gleamed in the sunlight. "My king, I come here bearing disheartening news."
Through the bond Alina felt Nikolai's anxiety rise. She shivered.
"Well, what is it?" Nikolai asked once more, his tone growing impatient with a mix of both Alina's and his own agitation.
Kirigan looked around at the people gathered in the lobby of the palace, but his attention remained on Nikolai.
"I appreciate your trust in your household, but I believe here is not the best place to break it to you."
Nikolai thought for a moment. Then he gestured Kirigan to follow him to one of the rooms where council meetings were held, before telling the servants to show the Grishas to their rooms. The Second Army now flooded not only the lobby, but the staircase, the corridors, the chambers, Alina barely had the time to hide. When the wave of Grishas eased, she to get to Nikolai to hear what they were talking about but there was no way to do it unnoticed, so she was forced to get back to the dining room Nikolai and she were having lunch at before Kirigan's outbreak.
She waited, quietly, peacefully, but there was no quiet nor peace in her heart. Awful scenarios of death and war came to her mind, and she tried to keep it away. By the time Nikolai opened the door, all grim and serious, his usual upbeat demeanor long gone, Alina was ready to attack him, believing he was someone else.
She breathed out, "Saints, it's you."
Nikolai smiled, but his gaze remained set. "Of course it's me, who else?"
"What did you talk about?"
"How do you know we talked?" He sat back at the table where their cold lunch lay. Alina stood still, saying nothing. "Ah, you followed me. Of course you did."
"Why is he here? What did he tell you?"
Nikolai didn't look at her, he found the tablecloth patterns a lot more interesting.
"Have you met General Kirigan before?" he asked, ignoring all her questions.
Alina frowned, "No, I haven't."
"Not even when you were tested positive?"
She shook her head, "No, I remained at the orphanage. They let me." Alina never questioned that. She was a Sun Summoner, she was never treated the same as everybody else.
An agonizingly slow second passed. Nikolai finally looked at her. He tried to seem nonchalant, but Alina knew what he was truly feeling.
"General Kirigan and the Second Army are going to stay here for an indefinite amount of time for mine and yours, and the whole court's safety."
"Why?"
"He came here to warn me that my brother is planning something."
"Vasily? What does he want?" Alina asked.
"I don't know, but it's best to be safe."
"Is this about your inheritance? If so, you and I are married, we are the rightful king and queen of Ravka, no one should have any say—"
"Alina, I don't know. I thought Vasily was dead. Apparently, he is not. And many Ravkans, including the people at the Grand Palace, including my mother would rather see him on the throne alone than me and you. Having an army of Grishas in the room next to mine will only help me sleep better." Noticing that Alina was still unconvinced, he added, "It'll be good to have Grishas to protect us, love."
The way Nikolai spoke of the Grishas as those made to serve and to protect but never for once considered Alina as one of them, seemed a strange paradox to Alina when she first got to know him. She knew that he loved her and he wanted to protect her, that's why the thought of her protecting him never occurred to Nikolai.
Alina wanted to say, But I can protect you just as well. Instead, she kept quiet, averted her eyes, and nodded.
"As for General Kirigan, you will finally have a chance to meet him. We're having dinner."
Alina had never felt such a pull toward another being as she felt toward Kirigan. When she and Nikolai entered the main hall which was already crowded with Grishas and ravkans alike, she felt a heavy haze settle upon her before she even saw the owner of it. Kirigan had already occupied the seat at the far end of the table, at Nikolai's right, which meant that when she sat down to her rightful place at his left, she was facing the dark man.
Kirigan's black robes were crisp and clean, not a single line of wrinkle, not a hair out of place. His black eyes tore through Alina's body as a sharpened blade, making her thoughts scatter and her insides turn to mush. There was something so horrifying, yet so captivating about him. Was it the way he looked at her? As if he knew her soul, as if he'd seen her at her worst, as if he already owned her even if she didn't know it yet. Or was it the way he held himself, like he knew he was the most powerful being of all of them and felt no need to pretend otherwise? Whatever the reason, it scared Alina as much as it enthralled her. She wanted to escape the hall, wanted to run away from Kirigan's darkness as much as she wanted to be consumed by it.
The worst was she had no idea where any of these thoughts came from.
"General Kirigan, I'm greatly honored to present you my wife and my Omega, Alina Starkov, the Sun Summoner," she heard Nikolai say.
The proper thing for her would've been to look at Kirigan only now that she was introduced; the proper thing for Kirigan would've been to do the same. Instead, they had already been watching each other intensely for a few minutes, hours, decades, centuries. Alina felt unable to look away, no matter how hard she wished to.
"I've been looking for a Sun Summoner my whole life," Kirigan spoke. His voice awoke something dark within her she had no knowledge of existing. His expression barely changed but she could see the fire in his black eyes flicker with more power. Alina noticed she was the only one to find his words strange. "It is great pleasure to finally meet you again, my queen."
And he kept on looking at her, waiting for her answer. But she didn't know what to say to that. Oh, if only he looked somewhere else… Alina believed that if he averted his gaze, she'd be freed from his suffocating clutches. She felt hot underneath her skin, that type of heat she knew would not be relieved even if she tore off her golden kefta and dove deep into a frozen lake. She was a mated Omega, a married woman, a Saint Grisha, and a Queen of Ravka, she could not be thinking these thoughts about a man who was not her husband and who filled her with dread as much as General Kirigan did.
Alina's jaw tensed as she tried to find the words to speak; finally, she managed to say something barely polite.
Kirigan finally looked away from her but even then, he was there, even when his gaze was not upon her, she could feel him, looming, threatening, invading her thoughts and feelings without her being able to stop it; she had never felt so powerless.
Unexplained hatred for this man filled her heart. His domineering presence made her anxious. The fact that she was the only one feeling this way while everyone else, including Nikolai, her brightest sunshine, seemed to get along with General and his army, some even overly joyous he was here made her uneasy.
Nobody paid Alina any mind, and she was grateful for it. Only Nikolai threw worried glances her way from time to time, to which she answered with half-hearted smiles and a nervous grasp of his fingers underneath the table.
Alina couldn't wait to be alone with Nikolai, just the two of them, so she could feel her Alpha's calming presence envelope her. She had so many questions, but none of them had any answers.