Chapter 19: Fallout – Make me your villain

Summary: There is an old Ravkan saying: 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'.

The night passes slowly for Alina and she's still awake as the sky transforms from indigo to periwinkle and the dawn starts to break. The world seems oddly still that morning with even the birds silent and the morning light stilted and grey.

To Alina, lying on her bed, it feels a fitting metaphor for her aching heart. She feels drained, spent, and stretched too thin - as if she's been pushed through one of the terrifying mangles in the laundry room. Her mind is numb and she watches the sun rise with dazed disinterest. Her world feels washed out, as if something has swallowed all the colour and all that's left is this monochrome reality. Every part of her is hurting, her throat feels swollen and like it's been coated in sandpaper and yet she can't muster the energy even to reach over to the jug on her nightstand. She knows she'll have to move eventually, but at the moment it's her dearest wish to never leave this room. The thought of facing everyone, of having to pretend while being followed by whispered comments is too much and another tear trickles down her cheek.

Not for the first time, Alina wishes that she had never come to this place, that her power had never been discovered. Then at least she would be free to live in obscurity and while she may never have had her dreams come true, they also would not now by lying in shattered pieces around her.

It's Genya who finds her some hours later, eyes red and swollen from crying. It must be approaching the breakfast hour, but she has no interest in food and even less in moving. The knock on the door is ignored, as is the Tailor's call to see if she is awake. All Alina wants is to be alone. The thought of another person – even Genya – is too much and she buries her head under a convenient pillow in the hope that the banging with stop and she will be left to her heartbreak in peace.

It's not to be. It could be minutes or seconds later, but there's a click as the door is unlocked and then the sound of footsteps approaching.

"'Lina," Genya's familiar voice calls and then light is suddenly burning her eyelids as the pillow is wrenched from over her head and she is confronted by her friend's less than impressed stare. She looks a mess – she knows she does, even without the aid of a mirror or the horrified gasp that escapes the Tailor before she clamps her mouth shut.

Her hair feels horribly knotted, her face blotchy and eyes swollen. It's a fitting analogy for the mess she feels inside.

Still buried in her mound of cushions, Alina feels the bed dip and then a cool, gentle hand stroking her head. "What's wrong?" Genya asks softly. The question is kindly meant but it only prompts a fresh bout of tears and body wracking sobs. Through it all, the Tailor keeps a soothing litany of words and touches until, slowly, the tears start to ebb.

It takes some time for the Tailor to extract and then understand the events of the previous night, but once she does her eyes flash and her normally pale skin turns an angry red as she vents her fury.

"I'm going to gut him," Genya hisses darkly as she tightens her arms around Alina. "I'll cut that spineless idiot's heart out with a spoon! How dare he, how dare he!". The anger is strangely comforting to Alina, who watches in silence as her friend continues with her ever more creative threats and promises of retribution.

"He's not a coward," Alina says sometime later, once the redhead has calmed enough to stop planning the imminent and public vivisection of their great leader. "He just doesn't love me. That's not his fault."

Genya pauses in her angry pacing, her mouth open in shock. "What?" She demands hoarsely. "Where in all the great saint's names did you get that idea?"

"That's what he said," Alina replied calmly. Now her tears have stopped she feels an unnatural calmness, a distance as if these things and feelings are happening to someone else and she's merely a spectator. In another context such a sensation might have worried her, but at this moment she's too grateful that she can't feel the hurt she knows is burning within her that she doesn't fight the lull.

Genya frowns and crosses her arm. "Well, that's just nonsense. Anyone who's watched you two together can see he has feelings for you." She glares at the mirror which has committed the egregious sin of being the first object she sees. "I mean, he can't look away from you. Every time you're in the same room it's like you're all he sees, like there's no one else. I'd give anything for David to look at me like that."

But Alina just shakes her head and shrugs listlessly. "It's what he said."

Instead of answering, Genya strides decisively to the door and wrenches it open with so much force it bangs on the wall before bouncing back into her hands. Scanning the corridor, the Tailor's gaze fixes on one of her loitering attendants and snaps, "you there! Yulia - go and inform the Second Commander that the Sun Summoner is indisposed with a headache and is not to be disturbed today." There's the sound of scurrying feet as the attendant hurries away, but Genya isn't finished and her attention lands on the luckless Kira with grim determination.

"And you," she growls, "go and inform her Majesty's dresser that I have unfortunately come down with a bad cold, and as I wouldn't wish to pass such an affliction on to her Majesty I hope her Majesty will excuse my absence." Kira is too far away for Alina to hear her response, however it can't be positive – or likely polite - as Genya's voice drops to an ominous whisper. "You will pass on my message - and only my message. If there's so much as a sniff about the Sun Summoner I will personally ensure that you spend the next decade in the night laundry dealing with the very shittiest jobs you can imagine. Am I understood!" The maid must answer in the affirmative as Genya replies with a terse "very good," before dismissing her and shutting the door with a firm thud.

At the brunette's look of confusion, Genya smiles. "Well there's no way in the saints green earth you can go out and about looking like this. Not without starting a riot! And anyway, what you need is some time away from that lot," she jerks her head in the direction of the door, "being pampered and spoilt… and planning."

"Planning?" Alina asks weakly, as Genya starts trying to undo the bird's nest that has replaced her hair.

"Yes!" The Tailor nods resolutely. "Planning. We're going to plan."

"Plan what?"

"How to make him suffer, of course."

The knock on the door is unexpected, unwelcome and badly timed as Genya had been in the middle of running a hot bath and trying to convince a resolutely hibernating Sun Summoner that yes, she really should get up, and that, yes, a bath really will help her feel better.

Storming over to the door with the avenging fury of a Valkyrie, the Tailor wrenches it open and glares at the offending individual who has dared to intrude.

Standing in the corridor is a confused Fedyor holding a heavily laden tray full of breakfast food.

"Yes?" The redhead demands crossly.

Fedyor glances down at the tray and shifts it meaningfully. "I've brought Alina some breakfast." Due to the force of the glare being levelled at him this comes out more as a question than a statement, and the Heartrender is visibly sweating under the Tailor's intense scrutiny.

Genya relaxes enough to smile, but not enough to open the door which is what the man clearly wants, and instead takes the tray from his resisting hands - a skirmish she quickly emerges victorious from - and deposits it on the table just inside the door.

The look she gives Fedyor once the tray of goodies is safely stashed is so quelling it could melt an ice block, and it makes Fedyor shuffle uncomfortably as he tries to peek around the ferocious guardian blocking the entrance so he can complete his second task and check on the Sun Summoner.

"The General is concerned," he attempts when it becomes clear that the red head has no intention of either moving or inviting him in, only to pale as Genya's glares ratchets up several notches. He steps back. That was clearly the wrong tactical choice.

"Oh, he is, is he?" The normally friendly Tailor snarls. "Well bully for him."

"He is most out of sorts this morning," the Heartrender tries again. Genya's eyes flash murder. "Good!"

Fedyor frowns. This isn't how his morning was meant to have gone, and Ivan will be most upset at the disorder being caused to both his and the General's diaries. His day had certainly started normally enough but it all came crashing down at breakfast. The first meal that the General had joined since his return from the Caryeva.

Breakfast which the General had attended, and the Sun Summoner had not.

That had sent the hares running and had been the first clue that his day was about to take a sharp nosedive.

Pale, with large dark circles under his eyes speaking of a long night and little sleep, the General had otherwise appeared to be quite his normal self upon entering the room. It had only been as the breakfast hour passed and still there was no sign of their errant Sun Summoner that things started to get odd. To the untrained eye, the General's reaction to Alina's absence might have been thought dismissive, uncaring even, with not so much as a twitch or a blink out of place. Yet for every Heartrender in the room his pulse told a different story, and Fedyor had not been alone in noting the increasing stress and anxiety that was flooding the General's body. The longer breakfast progressed with no sign of Alina the worse it got.

Finally, breakfast was over and Fedyor had made his escape in the hope that things would settle over the course of the morning. This was, of course, when the maid found him and told him Genya's message. If he had been on his own the message would not have been a problem, but the cursed maid picked the moment when the General was passing within earshot to deliver it. Any question over the cause of the Darkling's odd reaction was quickly put to rest. It had definitely been over Alina, and what followed was a bizarre ten minutes in which the General of the Second Army grilled the poor chambermaid to the point of a nervous breakdown, before suddenly rearranging Fedyor's morning by dispatching him to the kitchen to procure every vaguely palatable breakfast food available with instructions take it to the Vezda suite and check on the Sun Summoner.

What Fedyor should have been doing - as Ivan had taken the time to remind him on three separate occasions - was chair the weekly supplies meeting. What he ended up doing was staggering up two flights of stairs with an enormous tray and then being confronted by an irate dragon who appeared to have possessed their resident Tailor. Needless to say, this was not a good morning

"Look," he tries at last, voice embarrassingly close to pleading. "I don't know what's going on, but can I come in? Alina is my friend too."

"Are you a man?" Genya asks, crossing her arms and leaning on the doorframe.

Fedyor shudders at the cold tone but nods, his confusion clear.

"and do you have a penis?" she demands, cold eyes flicking from his face to his belt with ominous intent.

"Err, yes?" The cool displeasure in the Tailor's tone makes him shift in discomfort, and he has the uncomfortable feeling that he's somehow failed a crucial test.

Genya raises a derisive eyebrow. "Then no, you can't come in today," she announces in a tone of voice which heavily suggests the Heartrender should have known better than to ask.

The penny drops with all the force of a sledge hammer to the head and the Heartrender winces.

"Oh," Fedyor says as the pair share a speaking look. "Oh!" Bugger. Fuck. And damn. This is not a mess he wants to be either a part of, or indeed party too. As if there hadn't already been enough drama and excitement over the last few months. Normally, he'd be delighted at the prospect of fresh gossip, but this? He shudders. A falling out between the Darkling and the Sun Summoner. This isn't fodder for the Little Palace gossip mill, this is a situation that had the potential to go very bad very fast, and with Genya very firmly in Alina's camp he'd be willing to lay money on the fact that their General has done something stupid. Fatally so, given the murderous expression his friend is currently sporting.

"Right then. I'll just go," He waves a hand down the corridor, "and let everyone know Alina's not well today and will be taking her meals in her room."

Genya's smile is beatific. "An excellent plan," she says and then shuts the door in his face.

The bath does eventually happen, but only after Genya manages to force a few bites of the delicious treats down her recalcitrant friend's throat, and the rest of the morning passes quietly with the Tailor trying to make Alina laugh by reading out choice sections of Marie's latest penny dreadful romance.

It's a start. Never one to be dragged down by melancholy for long, Alina feels her mood start to lift and she can't help by smile at her friend acting out some of the more ridiculous scenes, complete with atrocious fake accents.

Garin magically appears after lunch with a concerned look on his face and his medicine bag in tow. Having failed with Fedyor, the General is clearly not above pulling rank and dispatching his medical staff to ascertain more about Alina's condition. Genya is not impressed. Nor is she intimidated when the Head Healer squares up to her, his thick eyebrows beetled with displeasure, when she refuses to let him into the room.

It's only Alina's timely – if hoarse – intervention which prevents the moment escalating into a full out altercation between the arguing pair, as Genya reluctantly steps aside to allow the man entrance.

Garin's grin of victory fades, however, and his concern grows once he actually spots the Sun Summoner, but after a glance at the irate redhead he wise shuts his mouth and focuses on assessing his patient. By the end of the examination a deep frown has etched itself on his face. "Exhaustion, dehydration and your blood pressure is worryingly high." He glances at the hovering Tailor in concern, but Genya only shakes her head and crosses her arms.

When it becomes clear that Alina will not tell him what's happened, he clears his throat awkwardly, and gestures for the redhead to follow him into the corridor. "Matters of the heart?" He asks quietly. Genya raises an eyebrow, but doesn't refute it, and Garin shudders. "The poor lass," he murmurs. "I'll have the kitchen send up chocolate and their specialty ices. Best medicine there is for an aching heart… and the company of a good friend of course," he adds hurriedly when he spots the second brow begin on it's journey to join the first. His addendum elicits the first smile he has seen from the Tailor in the entire visit, but Garin leaves feeling his age. Grisha healing can do many things, but it cannot fix a broken heart. He just hopes that the lad who did this to her is in as much pain as their Sun Summoner. Given the dark expression in Genya's eyes he suspects that if the lad isn't now, that he soon will be. Afterall, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…

Time does not stop or slow down for the broken hearted, no matter how much they may wish it, and before Alina knows it two days have passed and its time she emerged from the safety of her room. The time secluded away has done her the world of good. She hadn't realised how worn down she had been feeling, how exhausted the last months have made her until she had this moment to pause. She's never been the most social person – oh, she likes being around her friends well enough, but she's an introvert at heart, and being constantly around so many people is tiring and wearing. These past few days away from it all have helped to restore her usual equilibrium and humour and if her heart is still bruised, she no longer feels that first overwhelming pain of before.

Aleksander isn't there when she arrives in the Senior Dining room to pick at the pickled herring placed in front of her. Her friends welcome her back though, solicitous over her health and commiserating about how awful it must have been to be so ill she couldn't join games night the evening before. Marie and Nadia are both talking a mile a minute, eager to catch her up on the latest gossip – which has thankfully moved off her and is now fully focussed on the salacious news that one of the Tsarina's ladies in waiting is pregnant and there are no less than three men who might be the father, none of which are her husband, who is a man obsessed with horses and little else.

Alina listens with only half an ear, more out of politeness than any desire to join in, so it almost takes her by surprise when the conversation changes to the Winter Fete and the possible arrival of the Tsar and Tsarina's youngest son, Nikolai. Along with the young and apparently attractive prince, delegations from West Ravka, Shu Han and Ketterdam are expected any day, with the Fjerdan representatives already having arrived while Alina was unwell.

It never ceases to surprise her the duality in politics, where you can be at war with a country and yet you still invite them to your festivals and events and sit down to dinner with them. Following the battle of Caryeva, a temporary peace has been won with their eastern neighbour, and the rumour is that Shu Han have sent three of their eligible princesses with their delegation in the hope of forming a marriage agreement with the House of Lantsov.

It's possibly the only gossip Alina hopes is true. With Taban princesses on the lookout for a husband, surely Vasily as the Crown Prince would be the ideal candidate. Even if nothing comes of the proposed alliance – as happens with so many – surely while they were here it would have a corralling effect on her royal stalker. The thought is enough to bring a smile to Alina's lips. Her mama has told her many tales over the years of the rulers of Shu Han, and it amuses her to think of Vasily meeting his match in the fiercely matriarchal Taban family – a family where being born male is considered a misfortune and any children so afflicted are sent quietly off to join one of the many monasteries.

It's another example though of the contradictory nature of politics that so frustrates Alina. For while Shu Han is ruled by women, few women in the country enjoy the same freedom or rights as the men do. It's one of the many reasons her mother had made the dangerous journey all those years ago. Ravka, for all its many social problems, at least notionally supports some form of equality and independence for women, even if those freedoms are limited and only men are allowed to vote in the local elections or sit on the Tsar's Council.

It's a thought that stays with Alina as she finishes her herring and leaves the Senior Dining Room; and it continues to resonate in her mind and heart throughout the day as she puzzles over the gender disparity of a country that uses women to fight it's wars, that encourages them to work, and yet says that if they are married that their possessions and any money they make belongs to their husband.

To be a woman in Ravka is to grow up knowing that you are secondary, lesser somehow, than men. Parents pray to the saints to have boys, not girls. Men are war heroes, never their female comrades, no matter how heroic the behaviour, how dangerous the mission, or how great the win. Wars are won by men. Women in the First Army are tolerated as useful but rarely respected by the commanding officers. The common troops are better, but even they tend to have a dismissive attitude towards an outspoke woman.

It's a duality, a dichotomy, and it itches at her.

Ravka looks to her to save them, but she can't help but wonder what will happen if she does. Will she be lauded a hero or will she like so many other countless brave women be lost to time and written out of the story she helped write.

Her lessons that day are easy, almost tediously so. 'Basic Field Medicine' passes in the blink of an eye, as does 'Advanced Grisha Theory' and even Botkin's self-defence class seems less challenging than usual. That he is concerned is clear in the deep frown and dark eyes that follow her progress, but fortunately for Alina she can escape before he can ask the questions she can see being kept at bay by the presence of the others.

With the last lesson of the day finished, Alina sets off at a brisk trot into the gardens for a much needed walk. There's two hours until the dinner bell sounds and after a day of being surrounded by her fellow grisha, she desperately needs the solace of being alone for a while.

Her wish isn't granted for long, as just as she's settled herself on her favourite seat in the sunken garden, footsteps interrupt her solitude, and the Apparat appears flushed and slightly out of breath. He pauses, shrewd eyes assessing.

"You have been unwell, Sankta." It isn't a question, or even a greeting, merely a statement of fact.

Alina shrugs. Her emotional state is not one she really wants to discuss at this moment in time, and certainly not with the Tsar's spiritual advisor, no matter how kind he seems. Her lack of answer seems to throw him as the man falls silent, shifting uneasily on his feet as if uncertain as to what to say next.

"Why did you give me the book?" Alina asks after a moment. Although her chat with Botkin has eased her fears somewhat about the Court of Night and Day, this is a question that still niggles at her. Why was he so determined for her to have the book. She can't make him out. He's an enigma to her, a riddle. On the one hand he is aloof and not known to be a friend to grisha, and yet on the other he tries to befriend her and seems almost fanatical about her safety.

Unbidden, her mind conjures up the memory of the night Vasily tried to take her to the ball and the Apparat's timely intervention. It doesn't make sense. Everything she's heard about him suggests that he's not a naturally kind man, although he is renowned for his compassion to the poor. If he were anyone else maybe she would be less uneasy about his strange overtures of friendship, but the Apparat's position as the Tsar's spiritual advisor and primary minister worries her.

There's a considering expression in the Apparat's dark eyes as he watches her. "Do you not know, Sankta?"

"You wanted me to read the story."

"Yes."

"And see the parallels."

The Apparat nods.

"But why?"

"Because you needed to know. It is the beginning, Sankta - your beginning. Oh, there is much that is wrong with that version, much that has been changed - or lost - with time. But it is the start of your story, or rather your history."

Alina's head is tilted slightly as she watches the priest closely.

"And there are things you need to know – things which will not make sense unless you understand the history of events."

"Such as?" It's more a demand than a question, but Alina is too uncomfortable with the zealous light in the man's expression to worry about politeness. She doesn't like this, this feeling that others know more about her than she does. It's unsettling. Unnerving. Irritating.

"For example," he continues hurriedly, "not all the court followed the rebellion. There were those who stayed loyal to their gods, who fought to defend their King and Queen until their last breathes." He pauses for a moment as if considering his next words carefully. "Tell me, Sankta, did you wonder how mere mortals were able to conquer gods with powers over sun and darkness?"

Alina shakes her head. She hadn't wondered about that, but now that the question's raised she can see how unlikely it is.

"The King and Queen surrendered to save those loyal to them from death. They gave their lives to protect those that loved them… and so that this brotherhood could protect the secret we have kept for over a millennium."

That's a very different take on a tale that made villains out of the gods. Alina is still and silent as the words sink in, but the monk isn't finished.

"Though the books have forgotten, there are those who have not. The Soldat Sol has stood throughout the centuries, waiting for your birth. For the coming of the Sol Koroleva and the Starless Saint." The Apparat smiles with sad resignation.

It's those words again, that name, Botkin had mentioned them too, but before she can ask the questions now whirling through her mind, the Apparat is moving, turning to peer around the hedge. Some distance away she hears the solid thump-thump of booted feet moving in their direction and it's with interest that she watches the priest become skittish and she wonders if he is going to leave now as he has every time others have been near.

As if echoing her thoughts. The Apparat bows low over her hand, not kissing it as Vasily would, but instead in an unmistakable mark of respect.

"I know you have questions, Sankta, but trust in two things. Firstly, that all will be answered in time, and secondly, that we will not fail you now. If you have need of us, you have but to call." And with that hurried speech he flees out of the garden and into the maze that joins the gardens of the Little Palace with that of its Imperial brother.

Seconds later four Oprinichki appear, saluting her. These are not her usual guards but instead one of the regular patrols that routinely checks the outside security of the Little Palace. Their appearance though is a timely reminder all the same. It's near the dinner bell and soon she will be missed. Standing up, she nods at the men and starts walking back towards the Little Palace, the Apparat's words echoing around her head.

The next morning two notes arrives along with her breakfast. One from Vasily inviting her on a horse ride, which she cheerfully ignores after a quick look at the window shows just how inclement the Ravkan winter can be, but the second one is not so easily put aside. It's a summons from Baghra. It's been five days since her last lesson and her tutor is not impressed. At this moment in time, it's a tossup as to which appointment Alina dreads most. An hour with the Crown Prince or training with Aleksander's mother.

While time and distance have started to restore her natural cheerfulness and she no longer feels that first piercing hurt that seemed so unconquerable, the thought of a morning with Baghra is not a pleasant prospect. The old lady is not known for her compassion or understanding nature and Alina has no doubt that while the note said 'visit' what the writer actually meant is an interrogation the Tsar's secret police would be proud of.

The sleeting rain mixed with hail doesn't help either, and Alina has a moment wishing that Baghra would stir herself and come to the Little Palace for a change rather than making her students always undertake the trek to her tiny cottage.

Still, it cannot be put off forever, and so Alina resigns herself to trudging over the wet grounds. At least she'll have a chance to dry off in the sweltering heat of the place. She has no idea how Tidemakers or Squallers manage in the airless furnace the old woman calls her cottage. It's a good thing she has the sun burning in her veins or else she might have ended up a desiccated crisp from how hot Baghra keeps her home.

Baghra's greeting is as abrupt and to the point as always. "They said you've been ill, girl," the old woman says before she's even had a chance to take off her sodden cloak and sit down.

Alina nods as she wrings out the water, carefully hanging the garment so that it won't get any of her tutor's belongings wet.

"Well?" The old woman demands. "Let me look at you!" Standing before the fire, Alina submits to Baghra's shrewd perusal. "Hmm," she mutters as her eyes track the changes she can see.

"What happened?" she barks as she gestures angrily for Alina to sit.

"Sorry?" the girl replies, "I've been ill."

"And I'm a goat," Baghra replies, punctuating her response with a sharp thwack of her stick.

"You've lost your spark," she accuses. "You don't lose that from a cold. No. Something has happened. Something that is making you grieve."

There are times Alina curses Baghra's perspicacity, and this is just such a time, as on this occasion her astuteness hits far too close to home. Her tutor will know if she lies or prevaricates, and yet how can she tell the truth when it involves her own son.

Talk about the devil or the deep blue sea.

It's an invidious choice and not one she relishes making and so stays silent in the hope that the old woman will move on. But Baghra is a like a bloodhound who has scented blood and is hot on its trail. She won't stop until she gets what she asked for.

Slowly, and with halting words, Alina explains that dreadful night.

"He did what?" Baghra splutters, and Alina is treated to the novel sight of seeing the older woman overcome with speechless surprise.

It doesn't last for long.

"Oh, for the love of… that mutton headed moron," Bagrha seethes, shadows roiling around her. "That ninny-headed nincompoop. Far too much of his father in him. Thought I'd beaten such foolishness out of him centuries ago." Any other time, Alina would have laughed at such comments, but it's still too close for her to feel the amusement she would ordinarily feel at seeing Aleksander's mother hollering her ire to the world.

"That stupid boy!" Baghra exclaims with enough force to rattle the window. "That stupid, stupid, boy!" What is he thinking?!"

"Awkward that he doesn't feel for me what I feel for him," Alina responds dryly.

"Of course he's in love with you, girl." Baghra snaps. "He's been in love with you for years. What do you think that whole misguides episode with the Squaller was about? And come to that, why do you think he ran away four years ago. It was because he finally realised what should have been obvious to him from the start, and he fled to Kribirsk to spare you what he thought would be the horror of his feelings for you."

"What?" Alina exclaims in surprise, "No, you can't be right. "Why would he push me away if he-?"

"Because he's an idiot," Baghra interrupts, visibly annoyed. "All men are idiots, my girl, and they are never more idiotic than when they fancy themselves in love. Best you learn that now, seeing as its going to be your job to manage his idiocy going forwards. I'm far too old for all this nonsense."

A hiccoughing laugh escapes the Sun Summoner, "be that as it may, that still doesn't explain why…"

"He was being noble," the old woman interjects before Alina can finish. She knows what the girl is going to ask, just as she knows that the answer is not as her future-daughter-in-law thinks.

"The stupid boy has it in his head that he isn't worthy of you," She scoffs. "As if worthiness has anything to do with relationships and love. If worthiness dictated marriage the world would be a very different place… well, except for that stuffed pig up at the palace. I can't think of a more perfect match than that pompous philandering idiot and his primping ninny of a wife. But that's beside the point." She shakes her head in disgust. "The point is that my son has got it into his brilliant mind that he isn't worthy of you, and like every man I've ever met he's got fixated on that point and stopped actually thinking."

Alina is silent for a long moment, digesting Baghra's points. It's almost too much for bruised heart and her battered confidence to take. She couldn't bare it if she allowed herself to hope only for it to be snatched away again and yet… and yet something in the old woman's words ring true. It's time for her to stop reacting with her heart and start using her head.

"Think, girl." Baghra entreats her. "There isn't room for two stupid people in a relationship as it is, let alone one as powerful as yours. Think about what he said – and more importantly what he didn't say."

It's a fair point and Alina feels her heart start to pound, filled with traitorous hope, as she remembers the painful words from that evening, words she's taken pains to blot out of her mind.

"He didn't want to talk about it, just wanted me to go to bed and forget that I kissed him," she murmurs, eyes closed as that whole dreadful scenes replays itself. "He said he wasn't a good man, that this was a sin he wouldn't commit."

"Hmm," Baghra hums, sounding pleased. "Not the words a man who felt nothing would use."

"No," Alina agrees. "No. He never denied he felt the same way. I thought that's what he meant, but it isn't, is it?"

"No, I think not," Aleksander's mother confirms.

"He said I'd thank him one day." Alina's eyes open, glassy and overbright. The old woman meets her gaze and nods. "And what does that tell you?"

"That he believes he's doing the right thing."

"He's trying to protect you, just as he did when he chose to keep you out of the war with Shu Han. Only difference this time is it's from himself." Baghra shakes her head, her white hair a stark contrast against the darkness of the shadows swirling around her like a shawl. "I raised that boy to be proud, to think himself second to none – and to need no one. I thought at the time I was doing the right thing and helping Aleksander become strong. I was wrong. What I did helped to create a monster."

She reaches over to grasp Alina's hands, her grip firm and strong despite the marks of age on her skin. "He is not a good man, girl. He is not one of those romantic heroes in those books that the stupid girls up at the Little Palace giggle about at night. He is darkness. Deadly and old, and with years of practice at how to manipulate people – especially stupid girls who fancy themselves in love with him."

"I know," Alina snaps, bristling at the old woman's words. "I know who he is, and who you are Baghra Morozova, daughter of the Bone-Smith Ilya Morozova. I know who Aleksander is, and what he's done. I've seen it. But that doesn't mean he can't be a good man. Because you know what I see – I see a man who's been pushed to brink, a man who's had to endure terrible hardship. A man who set out to do right – to protect his people, to build somewhere safe for them – and was betrayed. I see a man who has done terrible things, but never because he wished to cause harm. You say he isn't a good man but show me a leader who is." Alina's eyes glow gold with each impassioned word she utters.

"I think being good is something you're judged for afterwards and that being good doesn't keep you alive. Is that fat pig in the Great Palace a good man? Or what about his creepy son? Tom the Head Ostler beats his wife and the less said about the men in the First Army the better. My Papa was a good man. He was honest and believed in justice and he loved Mama and me. It didn't stop the Fjerdans from murdering him. Aleksander may not be a good man, but he tries to be one – and that counts for something."

"Good!" Baghra says, an approving smile stretching her thin lips for a fleeting moment before her expression turns grim. "You'll need that fire whether you choose to fight for Aleksander or not – and it will be a fight, make no mistake about it". Her dark eyes are solemn and grave as she warns. "This won't be an easy path, girl. If you want a future with Aleksander you're going to have to be the one who makes the first move – and that will mean forcing him to face his fears."

"His fears?" Alina questions with a frown. Such a concept seems an almost unthinkable to her. Aleksander has always seemed to her so composed, so unafraid – as far as she knew he didn't fear anything - but perhaps that's the perspective of a child to whom fear is a simple concept. Some fears, like being scared of spiders are simple, but most adult fears, as she well knows, are a complicated and often contradictory mess that are not easily understood.

"His life has been one of loss. I thought that by raising him to think he needs no-one that I would spare him the pain I have felt, but all I did was to teach him to be afraid, and now that fear is controlling him."

She pats the Sun Summoners hands gently. "I am glad, my girl, that Aleksander has you. He's been walking a dark path since the creation of the Fold, one that seemed to get darker and more tangled with each passing year." For the first time, Alina realises that Baghra looks her age. She looks old. Old and tired and worn down by life.

"I feared that I would lose him because of it. That either he would finally go too far and end up killing himself, or that I would have to do the dreadful deed in order to save the world from him. It's a pain I hope you never have to know." The hand grips Alina's again with astonishing force as Baghra looks her straight in the eye. "I thought there was no hope for my precious boy, that there could be no redemption, and then he found you and everything changed. I have watched the ice around his heart thaw, and my beautiful, sweet Sasha return to me."

Alina leaves Baghra's cottage calmer and surer than she had been when she entered only an hour before. Her heart still hurts, but it's been tempered now with a stronger emotion. Hope.

Just because she understands though doesn't mean she isn't angry – because she is. Furious in fact. Before, all she had been able to focus on was her pain, but her eyes have been opened - and it makes her blood fizz with anger, because it's another example of Aleks making decisions for her. Oh, you can dress it up as wanting to protect her, as the actions of a man trying to keep someone he loves from harm, of someone who is afraid, but at the end of the day what it really shows is that he doesn't trust her.

Aleksander doesn't trust her. He doesn't trust himself with her – that's why he's not told her who he is, he fears she won't love him if she knows the truth.

He doesn't trust her to know her own limits, or to know when it's better she stay out of something.

He doesn't trust her to be his equal. He doesn't trust her to make what he thinks are the right decisions on her own – and so he makes them for her.

She thinks back to that conversation in the War Room before it all went wrong, when he told her he respects her. She thinks of Baghra's conviction and certainty that he loves her. But respect without trust is meaningless, and love without respect is a dangerous road that leads only to ruin. She thinks of her dreams, of the twin thrones and the broken crowns. She thinks of the man in the Fold, driven to the brink of madness by grief. Her heart says that her future is with him – that he is her past and her future – but her mind is firm: No. Not without change.

Conversations with Baghra were always enlightening, but this one has been more illuminating than most. Alongside the pity wiggling its way into her stomach for the damaging way Aleksander had been raised is another realisation, albeit one that her hormones vehemently disagree with. This is a choice. What she does now is a choice. She can choose to fight for Aleksander, to see what could become of them together, or she could walk away.

It's a strange and empowering realisation, and one that would almost have been unthinkable before he rejected her and she'd been forced to see the cracks in the relationship that she had always thought of being so strong, so solid, so immutable.

Because the truth is she can live without him. She could walk away now and she would live. Oh, she'd mourn and grieve for a time, but grief is a part of life and this loss, while profound, wouldn't destroy her. What she wants is a life with Aleksander, but it can't come at any cost, and it has to be right. If life in the First Army has taught her anything, it's that she can have a successful and fulfilling life without him.

Would it hurt her to walk away? Undoubtedly.

Would she grieve and mourn over the loss? Yes. But it wouldn't kill her. She might never love another the way she loves Aleksander, but that doesn't mean she can't be happy - just look at her mother and the life Mei-Xing has made for herself. Unlike the sad, spiritless heroines in those books Marie loves so much, she won't be a martyr to love.

The reality is, having grown up in the midst of a loving, happy, stable and respectful marriage, Alina will not settle for anything less herself. To do so would be a betrayal of the girl her mother raised.

Aleksander has lived a long and lonely life, one that has taught him to shut others out, to rely on no-one and to trust only himself. His intentions may have been laudable and even understandable, but the execution left a lot to be desired.

Their lives may be irrevocably bound together by eldritch forces she doesn't understand, but she knows this – she must be his balance and his equal, and that means things must change. They are each other's check and balance, the shield to the other's sword. They are a matched set and either they will fight together, or they will end up fighting each other, this she knows with a certainty that makes her head pound and her stomach tie itself in knots. Two beings with godlike powers – what harm they could cause, what disaster they could wreak if left without a partner to anchor the other and provide that counterbalance.

For the sake of Ravka, for the cause she believes in whole heartedly, Aleksander must learn to trust.