A/N Err.. so a couple of warnings; 1) this story is almost totally AU and plays fast and loose with canon, 2) I really hate Mal in the books and just about put up with him in the series, he's not in this chapter (whoo) but there will be no Mal/Alina, if that's your cup of tea then this fic probably isn't for you 3) Grisha powers in this story are a bit more autonomous and quirky. 4) Enjoy :).

Usual disclaimers apply - I'd love to take credit for the idea and the characters but if they were mine then the ending would have been very different.

Alina was just six months when her power first manifested. Her Papa was dancing around with her, jumping up and down and twirling around as he hummed the melody to a peasant's dance and little Alina glowed like the sun, giggling joyfully. At first her parents discounted the odd experience and dismissed it from their minds. But as Alina grew it happened more and more often until they lived in constant fear of someone seeing what their child could do for fear of her being taken away to live in the Little Palace with all the other Grisha's who were discovered.

Little Alina was their miracle child. It had taken so long for the Starkov's to have a child. So many long, barren years in which the couple consulted any healer or medical official they met. The result of these consultations was always the same – their purse lighter and hope extinguished with the news that Madam Starkov was unable to carry a child. At last, over ten years after they had married and long after all hope was gone, Alina was born.

It was this fear which led to their life on the road, always on the move, lest someone see something they shouldn't. Something that might get back to the Second Army scouts who were always on the lookout for unclaimed Grisha.

It was an odd life, constantly moving around, never staying long enough to make friends or put down roots, but it was one Alina loved. She had her beloved Mama, her adored Papa and the glow that raced under her skin and that was all she needed to be happy. If she sometimes wondered what it would be like to live in a house with doors and windows, to have friends, or to be somewhere for more than a few weeks, then she never mentioned it to her parents.

"Keep it secret, Alinochka. No one must ever know." It was the mantra repeated by her parents every day and more when they are approaching a new town or village. At first Alina doesn't understand what the secret is that must stay hidden or why it is so important to her parents. This changes as she grows older.

By four years old she is beginning to understand – it is her that that is the cause of her parent's fear. The spark in her veins which makes the sun smile and laugh is the reason why they cannot stay anywhere long enough to make friends. She is too young to understand that it is for her and not of her - but it is too late, the lesson is learnt and the first block is placed. Slowly but surely Alina learns to push the glow in her blood further and further away in her mind until it is so deep she can no longer hear its siren call.

For a few months all is good. Alina has no more accidents and her parents start to relax. As more time passes, her parents decide it is safe to settle somewhere and they find a home in one of the many nondescript Ravnkan villages not far from the Shu Han border to make their home. It is a new experience for Alina, she lives in a proper cottage and not their caravan for the first time that she can remember and is allowed to play with the other children who live nearby. Most do not like her. They dislike the Shu features she has inherited from her mama and take to calling her names and trying to play tricks on her. There is still Irina though. Irina who is different too and doesn't care that Alina has Shu heritage. Irina gives her courage and makes her brave enough to respond to the cruel taunts.

Slowly, however, Alina grows weaker.

It starts with a cold that sweeps through the village. While the other children shake it off quickly, Alina does not.

Weeks pass, her fifth birthday comes and goes, and still Alina is ill. She more tired than usual and is easily fatigued. Alina no longer wants to play. Her appetite shrinks until it is almost non-existent and her features grow gaunt. Her mother whispers to her father when she thinks Alina cannot hear that is as if the light has gone out of their Alina and all that is left are shadows.

Her parents take her to the village medicine man who is confounded. His prognosis is poor and he sees recovery as impossible. Two other healers in nearby villages are also consulted with no success.

Finally, in desperation they decide to find a Grisha healer. It is better, they tell each other when Alina is asleep, that their beloved daughter is discovered to be Grisha if it means she will live. The only question is whether to head to Kribirsk in the hope of finding an army healer who will help or to set out for Os Alta and the fabled healers at the Little Palace.


There is an old Ravkan saying – the willing, destiny guides them; the unwilling, destiny drags them, but no one escapes what fate has planned. It was the fate of the Sun Summoner to be born, her fate to meet the Darkling, her fate to save Ravka. How this happens, however, is down to the choices people make.

History is made by choices. Sometimes, however, it is not the big decisions of kings and the powerful which have the greatest impact, but by the little decisions of the ordinary man that no one remembers or even notices. This is one such moment: in one world the Starkov's turn left and head off to the port by the Unsea. They will make it as far as Keramzin before disaster strikes and Alina is left orphaned in the care of Ana Kuya. She will save the world but only after bringing it to the point of utter desolation.

But that is not this world.

In this world her parents turn right. Kribirsk is judged as too dangerous, the risk too great that no healer will be found in time. So it is to Os Alta that the family set off and the future changes.


The journey is hard and takes weeks. In a rare stroke of luck the Starkov's have the fortune to encounter a group of merchants travelling in convoy to Os Alta. It is slow going moving a group this large and cumbersome, particularly as by consensus they are avoiding the main roads and instead sticking to the less known routes in the hope of avoiding bandits, or worse, but It is a joyful party for the most part.

There is a group of players and acrobats who are hoping to perform for the royal family, a puppet maker, a rare book collector and purveyors of fine silks and perfumes. At night the whole group come together to eat and tell stories around the campfire. Much to Alina's delight, sometimes the younger members dance or take turns reading from plays and stories.

The journey is going smoothly, until suddenly it's not.

The attack comes out of nowhere and takes them all by surprise.

It is brutal and bloody and fast.

The first Alina knows of the raid is the screaming. The noise awakens Alina from where she had been sleeping in the back of her parent's wagon and in her confusion she pokes her head out of the canvas to look around.

Alina is too young to understand the full reality of what is happening.

Too young to understand why their group has been attacked.

Too young to understand why one of the attackers has grabbed her mama and is forcing her to the ground.

Too young to understand why her beloved papa, who has never raised a hand to another, scoops up a rock before hurling himself at the man who has pinned his wife and is pulling at her skirts, and starts beating him around the head.

She is old enough, however, to understand what happens next.

"Run, Alina – RUN!" her mother screams as her father falls face down into the dirt, blood already pooling underneath his body from the wound in his neck.

She is older enough to understand her father's murderer crowing about another killing another stinking witch as he turns towards her mother.

For a long moment Alina stays still, paralysed by fear and shock, and then she is scrambling out of her bed and running and ducking and weaving through the chaos until she can scramble into the shadows under a forgotten wagon, her mother's screams ringing in her ears. There she waits tucked into a ball, her limbs shaking in terror and teeth biting into her fist as she tries to muffle the sobs that want to break free.

She feels the change before she sees him. The air grows heavy and shivers race over her skin as darkness spreads over the grass. It is like all the light has been sucked out of the glade - as if dusk has suddenly and unexpectedly fallen in the middle of the day. Even the birds grow quiet. It is the silence before the storm, the pause before the next wave crashes, and then she hears it. The thunder of hoofbeats pounding through the earth. Through the wheels Alina sees flashes of bright reds and blues as a group of riders storm past her hiding place. It is not the brightly coloured riders, however, who capture her attention but the hazy outline of the man leading the group, the man whose clothing blends seamlessly with the inky darkness that embraces him.

Alina watches entranced as shadows leap from the man, swirling and dancing as they wreak havoc on those who attacked her camp. The beauty of it distracts her and she crawls forward so she can keep him in her eyeline.

It is a distraction that proves disastrous. Alina cries as she feels a hand clamp painfully on her ankle before she is dragged from her hiding place by an unfamiliar man with an axe. The man's breath stinks as he growls something indecipherable and foreign, the hand that had gripped her leg now wrapping around her throat and squeezing so hard black spots dance across her vision. Alina tries to fight, tiny fists beating against her assailant, like her mama showed her. It is to no avail - he is so much bigger and stronger than she is - and the something in her blood that she knows could help will not answer her pleas. Her mind is growing foggy and distant when suddenly the weight and pressure are gone, and sensation rushes black with a roar.

Confused and disorientated, Alina can only stare at the shadows wrapped around her attacker's face and arms, watching as he thrashes before dropping to the ground eyes open and unblinking. It is a child's curiosity, and quite probably oxygen deprivation, which prompts Alina to reach up and touch one of the inky tendrils as it retreats from the man who assaulted her. It is a strange sensation - burbling, rushing, cold - reminiscent of how it felt when she put her hand in the stream they had passed a few days before.

In the space between one breath and the next the shadow moves, wrapping itself around the little girl and engulfing her completely in a cloak of darkness. Twenty feet away, a red robed Grisha watched in horror as an axe flew through the air toward the spot where the child had disappeared, only to shatter into glittering metallic confetti.

The first the Darkling knows of anything odd occurring is after the bulk of the fight is over. He and a small group of Grisha had been en-route back to the Little Palace following an urgent summons from the Tsar when they heard the unmistakable sounds of battle. Given his irritation over the inconvenient timing and the dubious urgency – most likely relating to yet another architectural monstrosity - which had forced him to leave the Second Army camp at two in the morning, it had been music to his ears.

He had needed a fight, and he had found one.

The first Drüskelle he saw met a sudden and painful end as he was sliced cleanly in two. The same for the second and third Fjerdans. By the fourth, he had to abandon the Cut and get creative as around him his Grisha were rushing around the ruined convoy despatching the enemy and looking for survivors. It wouldn't do, after all, to accidently injure or kill his own soldiers.

Less than 15 minutes after first happening upon the scene and there is not a single Drüskelle alive and the only sounds are from his Grisha, their horses and the pained cries of the survivors. It was while he was standing there surveying the damage the thrice damned Drüskelle had caused that he heard one of the Inferni calling him, voice high and worried. Spinning around he can see exactly what has Corporal Olga Artyomova concerned – there, before her, is a little child ringed in writhing snake like shadows. Whenever the Corporal tries to approach or touch the young girl the swirling shades lash out like whips.

At first, he thinks he has finally found another Shadow Summoner and has one heart stopping moment of wondering if this could be his daughter - or worse an unknown sibling - before reason reasserts itself. Those shadows are his. He can feel them, can control them, although they are strangely reluctant to leave the body they are wrapped around. It takes more effort than it has in years to force his shadows to fade back into the ether.

What is left before him is a young girl. Her Shu features marking her immediately as different from the others he had seen in the convoy.

She is a tiny little thing with a sickly pale face and large dark eyes that flit nervously between him and the other Grisha who came to help after hearing Olga's call.

"What is your name, little one?" he asks gently, drawing on years of experience dealing with young frightened Grisha to make his voice just the right mix of soothing and commanding to get her to answer.

"Alina," she whispers, eyes darting around nervously at her audience.

Kneeling down so that he is no longer towering over her, the Darkling tugs off one glove to take her hand in his. He has to suppress a hiss at the unexpected crackle that races along his skin. The little girl is Grisha, but more than that, he can feel a tug just below his sternum and it takes all his control to keep his shadows from rushing out of him to embrace the child before him.

It unnerves him as much as it intrigues him. He is over 500 years old and nothing like this has ever happened before. Before he has a chance to really consider this new development, however, his attention is wrested back to the little girl who is now shyly tugging on his Kefta.

"Please, shadow man," she whispers to him, "I don't know where my mama is, but she needs help. There was a man… Papa tried… but then another man hurt him and he didn't get up again. Mama told me to run and hide, so I did, but now I don't know where she is…" The Darkling pauses in surprise at the name before instinct kicks in and he lifts a hand to wipe away the tears that are trickling down her cheeks.

"Then let's go look for her, little one." He says as he lifts her up into his arms. "I would be very interested in meeting your Mama." A nod of his head and the three Grisha surrounding them fan out to start corralling the survivors.

It takes much less time that he feared to find Alina's mother. She is alive, thankfully, and is in the middle of arguing hoarsely with the blue robed Grisha trying to help her when Alina spots her and immediately wriggles in his arms to get down shouting "Mama. Mama!" loudly enough to make his ears ring.

It is a touching moment watching mother and daughter reunite, but the absence of the girl from his arms is like a physical ache in his chest the moment her feet hit the floor, and it is only his iron clad self-control honed over centuries which prevents his shadows from following her.

The Drüskelle attack has wrought chaos on the convoy. More than half of those travelling have died and those that remain alive are too injured and weary to carry on travelling today. With the Little Palace still over two days walk away, it is an easy decision to order his soldiers to set up camp around the ruins of the caravans and wagons. Sergeant Gurin, the healer who has accompanied him on this trip, will need time to triage those injured and heal those with the most severe wounds and as a good General he couldn't possibly think of leaving wounded Ravkans unprotected. That this delay also has the side benefit of annoying the Tsar is of course neither here nor there.

There is also the mystery of Alina, the little girl who calls to his shadows. It is a puzzle though that will ned to wait until she and her mother are well enough to be tested.


While most of the merchants are otkazat'sya, and barely worth his attention, it is only right that the dead are buried with respect and what funeral rights can be managed. Well, those who are Ravkan, anyway. No one minds dragging the dead Drüskelle away from the camp and leaving them for nature to take its course. It is the least they deserve.

Grisha and otkazat'sya alike work together digging graves and paying the final respects due to the dead. Alina watches as his men lower her father's body into his final resting place with large solemn eyes, a tight grip on the Darkling's hand and his shadows wrapped around her like shawl. From that moment on he gains another shadow.

With her mother healing and often asleep, the younger Starkov takes to following the General, peppering him with questions about everything from the small sciences to what his horse is called. The sight of Alina with the tall, dark, fearsome Black General becomes so common that Gurin starts referring to her as his little ghost. It is an apt moniker and one which brings a reluctant smile to the normally dour General as he makes his rounds, Alina never far from his side.

It takes less than a day to bury all those who died, but Gurin refuses to break camp until those with the worst injuries are stable. Even after that progress is slow and it takes the party nearly a week to cover a distance that should have taken half that time.

At last, nearly a week after the attack, and on the day before they are due to arrive in Os Alta, Gurin declares the Starkov's sufficiently recovered for testing. It is a day the General has been eagerly, impatiently, awaiting. It is the day he would get answers. The day he would solve the puzzle that is Alina Starkov.

Moving his ring, the Darkling prepared to test both mother and daughter. A short cut to the mother's arm confirms what he already suspects that the older woman is an inferni, but it is the daughter who astonishes the watching Grisha and silence their cries of welcome.

He knows she is a Grisha. He felt the wellspring of power humming through her skin every time their skin has come into contact, yet when he creates the cut and calls for it to appear nothing happens. Absolutely nothing.

For a moment, the General wonders if battle fatigue and stress are to blame; that maybe he imagined the crackle of power when she held his un-gloved hand. Confused, he wraps his hand around Alina's tiny wrist and nearly sighs when he feels the same sensation. Not in his head then. It was there – he could feel it, humming against his senses, but now he's looking for it he can see the block that keeps the girl's power from him. It's like a pane of glass between them – he can see it but he cannot touch it or get to it, and neither can Alina. Nor can he even get a sense for what type of power it is, no matter how hard he strains his senses, or why it is causing his own powers to behave so erratically.

This is a problem.

It is unusual, but not unheard of, for a Grisha as old as Madam Starkov to be trained, but to do so she would have to give up Alina. In ordinary circumstances this would not be a problem as the little girl would simply join her Grisha agemates. Mother and daughter would be separated, but ultimately both would be safe and trained. Unfortunately, such an approach would not work here. He can tell already from the stubborn set of her jaw that Madam Starkov will not leave her daughter and with Alina's power blocked it is impossible for her to come to the Little Palace.

The following argument is loud and passionate and makes him regret allowing the Grisha who accompanied him to watch the testing.

Artyomova, Mikhailov and Rybakov are vociferous as they make their case to the older woman.

It is the law.

It is what is right.

Grisha should be with Grisha.

It is sad but the child would be better off in an orphanage where she will be safe with the other Otkazat'sya children.

Their clamouring serves no purpose other than to give their General a headache and to scare the child who is now clinging to her sole surviving parent with increasing desperation. Gurin alone remains quiet, ignoring the nonsense his fellow officers are spouting, a sad expression in his eyes and the General knows that, like himself, Gurin is aware that Alina is one of them and the travesty it would be to send a Grisha child into the care of the Otkazat'sya.

Despite the furore, Madam Starkov remains unmoved, a quiet bastion of strength in the middle of a verbal squall. She will not leave her daughter, will not even entertain the idea of it, as she serenely cuddles the tearful child and strokes her hair. With an annoyed sigh and a dark glare he dismisses the other Grisha in the tent. No good will come of their continued presence in this discussion, and he could do without the pain already pounding in his temples getting worse.

Regardless of the irritation that this morning has brought he is impressed with the Shu woman. He had mistaken her lowered eyes and carefully demure behaviour - so typical of Shu Han women - for meekness and servility.

He was wrong. Her quiet dignity hides a core of steel and iron self-control that make his highly trained Grisha look like rowdy misbehaving youths in comparison, and the General cannot help but wonder what Alina would be like as an adult growing up with such an influence. It is an idle thought, but one that takes root, and presents a possible solution.

While the test showed that Madam Starkov is Grisha, and technically should now be part of the Second Army, she isn't a strong one. With her age against her, it is unlikely the older woman will be of great importance or use in the ranks of his army. He no desire to tear this family apart and effectively orphan the mysterious child yet something inside bulks at the thought of the pair leaving, never to be seen again.

So instead, he offers a bargain. A devil's choice.

The Shu woman will not be conscripted. He will find a suitable residence for the Starkov's in Os Alta, somewhere safe and anonymous where they can hide. He will help Madam Starkov find employment and pay for Alina to have a good education. In return he will visit regularly to check on Alina and teach both mother and daughter about the Grisha. He can see it in her eyes, though her face remains calmly impassive, that Madam Starkov is reluctant to accept his offer. She is distrustful of the infamous Darling and concerned about what price he will extract from them later. He can see her weighing up her next move and can see the moment the realisation sinks in that there no choice in the way she grips her daughter just that little bit tighter. With a shallow nod the deal is struck.

Once back in the Little Palace it takes only a few days to find a property that will do and to install mother and daughter in the residence. Gurin has given both mother and daughter a clean bill of health, although he remains concerned about the girl and the long-term impact suppressing her Grisha side will have on her health. Alina's face is still gaunt and her body scrawny and frail, but as the days pass it seems as if at long last she is starting to recover, much to the surprise of Gurin and the Darkling. She is still a solemn child, traumatised by what she witnessed, but her body is growing stronger and a healthy bloom is returning to her cheeks.

It is inexplicable. A Grisha's health is so intertwined with using their powers that in all his long years he has never seen a Grisha recover from the effects of suppression without using their gifts. The girl's sudden recovery is another puzzle to add to the riddle that is Alina Starkov. She is a mystery the Darkling means to solve. A mystery he needs to solve.

Exactly a week after the Starkov's moved into their new home, the General knocks on the front door for the first of many lessons.


Time passes

Weeks become months. Months become years and before Aleksander knows it four years have passed.

Four years. Such a short measure of time compared to the centuries he has lived.

Four years that have changed everything.

For the first time in decades he has a home outside the Little Palace. The tiny cottage where the Starkov's live in the back streets of Os Alta has become home to him. A refuge. Somewhere, perhaps the only place, where he can truly let his guard down and be Aleksander Morozova rather than Moi General Kirigan, the Darkling, the most feared man in Ravka.

Here, in this little house, he is only Alina's friend Alek. Her best friend. Her confidant. Her teacher.

He plays hide and seek with Alina and reassures her after her nightmares. He entertains her with his shadows and relishes her delight in the power that makes others fear him. His gift has always kept him separate from others - even to other Grisha he is an oddity - his uniqueness a cause for disquiet and distrust even as they cleave to the protection he provides. Everyone is wary, but not his little Alina – she is fearless in her curiosity and delight – and, to his surprise, his shadows reciprocate. For the first time in his life, someone other than him can interact with his shadows, and they love her. Whenever he is near her he feels the pull of the darkness within him trying to get to her, to surround her, to protect her. It intrigues him as much as it unsettles him.

Every week that he is resident in the Little Palace he visits Madam Starkov's house. It is his little secret.

It starts innocently as a nebulous desire to ensure that both Alina and her mother are safe and healing after the trauma they have suffered. Alina is hardly the first Grisha he has met over the course of his long life who has subconsciously blocked her power due to a harrowing experience. It is, in fact, why his officers go and test all children. Traumatic childhoods have been only too common for Grisha over the centuries and such pain often has long lasting consequences. It is why he is so fiercely protective of his people. His Grisha.

And yet…

These visits serve no purpose, no reason he can easily articulate, but still he continues them. Week after week. Year after year. And with each visit the bond between himself and the little girl gets stronger and stronger and it gets harder to stay away for any length of time.

She calls him her Alek and he is terrified that she is right.

He tells her his name when she's seven. His true name. The name he has all but forgotten through disuse. For the life of him, he can't work out why, only that she asked in that curious way she has and his name just fell out of his mouth without any conscious thought on his part. It is not the last time this happens either. With her talent blocked it remains a mystery what gift Alina might have but with the ease she has of extracting private information from him he can't help but wonder if she should consider a career in interrogation.

From that moment on though he is always Aleksander, or Alek, to her. Not even his mother calls him by that name anymore. It is a name reserved for Alina alone but the smile she gives him whenever she says it is blinding and soothes the ache he doesn't understand that has taken up permanent residence deep inside his chest.

He reads Alina poetry and history. They discuss mathematics, philosophy and small science round the dinner table and far past Alina's usual bedtime. He is her friend and partner in trouble who spins elaborate stories out of the shadows that cluster around him for Alina's entertainment. Aleksander is Alina's first model as clumsy, inexperienced fingers learn how to draw. She sketches his likeness a hundred times until Aleksander laughs that she must have had him memorised by now. There is no one alive who can make him smile and laugh like Alina. He told Madam Starkov once that Alina was joy incarnate. Alina's mother had just smiled knowingly at him and said "No, General, she is our guiding star. I think we would both be lost in the darkness without her light."

Slowly but surely he carves a life out for himself in this tiny house and for the first time in years he feels something approaching happiness.

Alina's trust is a benediction. An absolution he doesn't deserve but selfishly clings to and hoards.

He should have remembered that nothing lasts forever.


Later Aleksander would blame the events of that evening on complacency born of a hundred unremarkable visits and a secret successfully kept for four years without anyone - including lovers, the Tsar and his Oprichniki - knowing where he disappeared to on a regular basis.

Of course, he really ought to have remembered that there was no possibility of keeping something concealed from his mother. She had an unerring talent for sensing secrets and a horrible habit of appearing when least wanted – usually when most inconvenient just to make matters worse. Given this, it was a considerable achievement that it had taken his mother this long to find out.

Even so, it was an unpleasant shock when Baghra burst into the main room of the Starkov's cottage. Her fury a living, breathing beast as shadows spread from her to smother all the light in the little room where Alina had been quietly reading.

It was Alina's terrified scream that first alerted him to the danger and brought him hurtling from the kitchen where he had been standing with Madam Starkov discussing a point on Shu-Hanese politics. In the shock of seeing his mother here, in this place that only he has been, Aleksander is torn between fury at her for scaring Alina and elation as the young girl turns to him in her fear, running to hide in the shadows that have risen around him like a vengeful cloak.

Like meets like as their shadows test each-other, and a stalemate is quickly established. While he has long been the stronger of the two, and could overpower his mother, residual sentiment towards her and his fierce desire that Alina is not scared further stays his hand. At his back he can feel his shadows lick and curl protectively around the young girl like a loving caress, calming and soothing her until she settles.

Into this standoff Madam Starkov finally ventures from the kitchen where she has been hiding, trusting him to protect the one most precious to them both. Aleksander is impressed again by how serene Alina's mother is when confronted by a situation that would terrify most people. It is Madam Starkov that de-escalates the situation further by offering his mother tea while she sooths Alina and tries to settle the girl for sleep.

Her plan is only half successful. His mother accepts the tea, but Alina is too scared to sleep. Terrified to go upstairs with the unfamiliar shadows still in the house and uncomfortable with the thick tension in the air the young girl refuses to leave the room or to relinquish the grip she has on Aleksander's hand. Finally, a compromise is reached and his precious girl settles against him on his lap, her eyes already closing, as her mother sings her a familiar lullaby. At almost 10 years of age, Alina is no longer a small child, and it is not the easiest or the most comfortable thing to cradle her to him as she drifts off to sleep; one hand curled tightly around the sleeve of his black kefta, the other around his shadow holding it like a doll, and yet he would not move for the world. Through it all his mother watches silently, her sharp, perceptive gaze taking in every detail and Aleksander knows that this brief reprieve will be over as soon as his mother could be certain of privacy.


It is telling that the first question Baghra asks is whether Alina is his daughter. It makes Madam Starkov laugh for reasons he still can't understand. Slowly, over their cooling tea, The older Starkov explains their history to his mother and tells of how they met. He can see the surprise in his mother's eyes and smothers the stab of annoyance he feels with practiced ease at the familiar cynical disbelief. It has been many years since his mother looked at him with parental approval. He really should be inured to it now.

Throughout the tale his mother sits rigidly in her chair, her cane occasionally tapping the floor, but is otherwise silent. She lets out an annoyed harrumph when Madam Starkov describes Alina's mystery illness as a child and how, although she is Grisha Alina cannot access her power, but refuses to comment when he quirks an eyebrow at her in silent question. That his mother knows something, or suspects something, is clear. Equally clear is that she will not discuss it while Madam Starkov is present.

The true interrogation starts not two minutes after Madam Starkov is called away by a neighbour who needs her help with her daughter's labour.

"What is she to you?" Baghra barks as Madam Starkov's footsteps gradually fade into the night.

"Everything," Aleksander answers honestly, surprising himself with his unusual candour. "She's my guiding light in the darkness. A reminder of what I need to do and why." His mother's disbelief would have hurt once, but he is used to it now.

"A traumatised child who has buried her gifts so deep she cannot call them?" Baghra snorted derisively, "don't try your tricks with me boy! There's always an angle with you, always a plan. I doubt you've ever cared about anyone or anything in your life."

Aleksander shook his head as he stared down at the little girl curled safely in his arms and still fast asleep despite the increasingly heated discussion around her.

"Then perhaps you don't know me as well as you think," he replies quietly, running a gentle finger down Alina's brow. "I've never felt like this before," he confides in an awe filled voice. "In all my long years I've never felt this. You believe I'm a monster beyond redemption, and perhaps I am. All I know is that I would move heaven and hell just to see her smile." Aleksander let out a frustrated sigh, his habitual frown returning as he mulled over his mother's comment.

"You're right, it makes no sense. A poor little girl who is barely a Grisha – what is she to me? She isn't powerful, or useful. She won't win my wars or further my plans. She's stubborn and persistent and far too compassionate for her own good. I devote time to training her and her mother that could be much better spent on other things. And yet… and yet I would let the Little Palace burn if it meant keeping her safe. I would walk away from everything – from all my plans – if she asked me too." Aleksander tore his eyes away from the girl in his arms to look at his mother in desperation as words and deeply buried truths continued to tumble out of his mouth. "I have protected her, sheltered her, taught her for five years. Why, mother? Why when she serves no purpose. When all she can ever be to me is a weakness for others to exploit…?"

"Like calls to like," Baghra murmurs thoughtfully, looking at her son.

"We are not alike… we are opposites! How can you say we are alike when she is so… so very pure and good," Aleksander demands furiously, his voice low and anguished, as his hand gestures to the sleeping girl still curled around him. "She is everything that I am not. Everything you have wished for centuries that I was!".

Baghra sat down with a thump, her legs giving way in shock at her son's uncharacteristic outburst. Aleksander was always calm and collected, on the surface at least. Even as a child he was a thinker and not prone to the emotional turbulence she saw in others his age. To show your emotions was to show weakness, and it was a lesson they had both learnt well a very long time ago. To see her son so close to losing control reminded her of that night when everything had fallen apart, when his grief and anger had led him to commit the ultimate sin.

She had thought when she had followed her son that she would find him up to his usual tricks, elbow deep in some Machiavellian conspiracy. When she had realised that he was visiting a family and had been for months, she had feared he had found the Sun Summoner after all these years and that she would have to save the girl from him. Baghra had never considered even in her most fanciful imaginings that she would find this. It couldn't be – not after all this time. Not now when she had long ago given up hope. And yet…

"That's love, boy," She said after a pause to collect her scattered wits, eyes carefully cataloguing the tableau before her. Tonight was shaping up to be a very surprising evening and for a woman who had lived as long as her few things had the power to surprise now. She stared at the girl thoughtfully. If her son could love someone, truly love someone, he might yet find his way back from the dark path he had been walking and Baghra might yet be spared the choice she had long foreseen and resigned herself to.

With a nod she decided. She would keep her son's secret. She would help to keep this child safe. "Bring the girl to me once a month," she commanded as she got to her feet. "Her power might be locked but there is much that girl will need to learn." Without waiting for a response, Baghra left the small cottage as silently as she had entered, the shadows consuming her.

It was too soon to know how this would play out. Far too soon. So many things could yet go wrong. The child could die or her son lose interest. But this she knew deep in her bones – that girl would either be his salvation or his damnation.

Likes always calls to like. In time they would understand what that kindred was and what it would mean for the world.

In the darkness Baghra smiled. Only time would tell and fortunately time was something Baghra had in abundance. For the first time in centuries something blossomed in her ribcage making her heart skip and dance.

It felt a lot like hope.