Reading Time: 97 Minutes
Title: Starry Night
Author: Lalaith Quetzalli
Fandom: Shadow and Bone
Genre: Angst, Fantasy, Pre-Relationship, Romance, Time Travel
Relationship(s): The Darkling | Aleksandr Morozova/Alina Starkov, Background Relationships
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence-Graphic, Racism, Murder, Implied Hate Crimes, Referenced Domestic Abuse, Referenced Child Abuse, Referenced Kidnapping, Minor Character Death, Referenced Slavery, Violence – Canon Level, Religious References, Brief Implied Suicidal Intention/Ideation.
Word Count: 69,261
Summary: Aleksandr was right and Alina’s not even surprised. She once thought that it was cruelty, evil, that made ‘wanting to destroy’ his first choice for everything; now she knows the truth: it was sadness, and defeat, and loneliness. It was losing so much and so many. Alina’s tired of losing. She knows now, she’d do things so differently, if she had another chance. But it’s not like it’s possible to change the past. Time-travel just doesn’t exist… right?
Artist: Librarycat9
Chapter IV. Poison
The King is dead.
Long live the King.
Or something like that…
It’s actually not that simple. Everyone knows (or at least everyone in the Grand and Little Palaces) that Tsar Pyotr Lantsov did not die of natural causes. He was poisoned. With Gu.
Gu is a very particular poison, or rather a mix of poisons. First created in Shu-Han, according to legend it was first created when a woman (some claim it was a princess, seeking to murder her brother so she could take the throne instead; others that it was a mother seeking revenge for the death of her son; a mistress who sought to kill her lover’s wife so she could take her place; and a few others, that it was a wrathful wife, who murdered her husband for being unfaithful) put all manner of poisonous creatures (centipedes, worms, scorpions, snakes) inside a jar, letting them kill and consume each other, until only one creature remained; then she extracted the poison from the surviving creature and used that to poison her chosen victim. Fjerdans have even claimed that rather than just eating one another, what came out of the jar in the end was an unnatural monster, more darkness in magic than anything else.
Of course, while a lot about the legend might be more than a little unreal, the poison does still exist. However, a particularity of Gu, is that there is no one recipe for it. Each individual who’s ever used it has tailored it for their own purposes (depending on if the death was meant to be immediate, or happen later on, happen in a short time, or lengthy, with little or a lot of pain, and many other details). So in truth, Gu is not one, but many different poisons that are characterized by being essentially a mix of poisons found in animals or even in plants. All this put together means that it’s next to impossible to find the culprit.
Despite this, Tsaritsa (now Dowager Tsaritsa) Tatiana gave the order for there to be a full investigation into the death (murder) of her husband and find whoever might be responsible. General Kirigan was even brought back from the Fjerdan border and put in charge of the investigation. He knew the likelihood of finding something wasn’t high, but still got to work.
Of course, because of the known, historical origins of the poison, Shu-Han is the main suspect. The ambassador and various other known Shu citizens are questioned, spies are brought in and interrogated (some less politely than others). It’d strain the relationship with the nation, except there never has been much of a relationship between Ravka and Shu-Han, at least nothing other than either passively or actively at war…
No one discounts the possibility of it being someone else, though. Knowing that the culprit might have chosen such a poison precisely so Ravka would turn their attention to Shu-Han and no one else. Tensions with Fjerda are already so high, there’s practically an undeclared war going on in Tsibeya. And Kerch… everyone knows anything and everything can be sold and bought in Kerch for the right price (anything, like the rarest of poisons… and assassins willing to use it on anyone, even a Ravkan Tsar) and considering how much Ravka already is in debt…
They never do find a culprit, which doesn’t really surprise anyone. Kirigan knew from the beginning that they probably wouldn’t.
In the end the Apparat manages to convince the Royal Family that the assassin must have come from Kerch, hired by an enemy of Ravka in an attempt to destabilize the kingdom. Therefore, he states, it’s of utmost importance that they present a united kingdom, now more than ever, as arrangements are made for the coronation of Tsar Vasily Lantsov. As well as his marriage to the daughter of a loyal Ravkan nobleman (they cannot risk tying the royal family to outsiders, not with what happened to the Tsar).
The coronation takes place before the end of the month, the wedding three months after that. It means a much shorter mourning period, but the Apparat assures the royals that the Saints understand, and it’s all for the good of Ravka…
Alina has to admit (if only to herself) to being surprised that through the whole investigation, she was never once suspected, not even for a moment. Though she supposes it’s like Vigdís told her years ago, nowadays she’s Grisha first and half-Shu second. It’s not that there’s no racism in the Little Palace (though usually the divide is more between otkazat’sya and Grisha, than between nationalities and ethnicities; though like with everything there are exceptions), but rather that it’s not what most would focus on. There’s also the fact that the poison is so rare, so hard to make, who would expect a teenager, especially one who despite any possible looks and heritage, has never actually lived in Shu-Han and therefore there’s no reason to believe she’d even know about it? And of course, most would not imagine Alina of all people having a reason to want the Tsar dead… little do they know…
xXx
A lot changed as they all got older. In ways both good and bad.
The Tsaritsa began making more demands of Genya’s time at some point after they turned sixteen. It was hard to tell whether she truly didn’t know that Grisha’s rules regarding ages and responsibilities weren’t the same as those for otkazat’sya, or if she just didn’t care. And in the end Genya agreed to go along with it. Like Alina knew she would.
Truthfully, Alina wasn’t surprised. She knew Genya attending to the Tsaritsa as her tailor was about more than just pacifying the most powerful woman in Ravka. It might have started as that, but well, the opportunity was right there. Alina wasn’t even against Genya spying on the royal family. A lifetime ago she might have been too… educated (or brainwashed) into seeing such actions as bad, as treasonous; she knew better, understood the world and how it truly worked, better this time around. So she understood Genya’s true purpose. She still didn’t like that Kirigan was leaving her so vulnerable. It wasn’t his fault, his options were limited, obviously. Though in some ways, only because he refused to see other options…
So Alina got working on making sure Genya would have help, backup, were she to ever need it. Alina herself and the other Grisha couldn’t be there of course. Other than the high ranking members of the Second Army when they were called for a meeting, or when there was some event they were explicitly called to, Grisha as a norm weren’t allowed in the Grand Palace… other than Genya, of course. So Alina knew that if she was to have a support network, it would have to be one made of otkazat’sya; also, it would have to be built by the girls themselves, and not anyone else.
It wasn’t actually that hard. At least once Alina managed to convince Genya to stop seeing the rest of the royal servants as otkazat’sya, to focus on what they all had in common as servants, rather than who was Grisha and who wasn’t.
It didn’t take long for the other servants to come to like Genya. They soon realized that she didn’t actually see herself as better than the rest of them, and that the tzaritsa’s treatment of her wasn’t something they should envy. They also came to realize how hard it was on Genya, being a servant to the tzaritsa, trying to keep up with all her whims and changing moods, while at the same time training as a Grisha, and one who one day would join the Second Army.
“Can’t you just… not?” one of the maids asked her at one point. “The army is a terrible place and war is just… terrifying.”
“It is, but I’m Grisha, and all Grisha must serve in the Second Army,” Genya said calmly.
Though perhaps what truly sold the other servants was the time, when Genya was seventeen, when Mishka, the only grandson of Sonya, the widowed head maidservant of the Tsaritsa had an accident. The boy was barely 14 or so, the only remaining family of the old maidservant, who’d lost all four of her sons and the one daughter either in Ravka’s wars or to sickness; he would often be seen around the royal estate working hard doing odd jobs, trying to make some money to help his grandmother and to secure a position for himself. He often talked about how he’d one day make enough money to allow his nana to retire and live the rest of her life comfortably.
Mishka had slipped while in the kitchens, trying to help carry some flour sacks much too heavy for him, it wouldn’t have been so bad except he fell wrong and broke his leg. A compound fracture. It was really serious, and while Sonya had pleaded, the Tsaritsa refused to have the royal doctors see the boy, since he wasn’t noble; and Sonya just didn’t have the kind of money necessary to pay any of the doctors in Os Alta.
While Genya could have easily sealed the skin and even helped push the muscle towards healing with what she’d learned thus far during Alina’s research and experiments, there was nothing she could do regarding the fracture. However, she liked Sonya, so she decided to do something about it. Getting any Grisha healers to help would have required permission from General Kirigan (and an authorization from the Tsar and/or Tsaritsa which was unlikely to be given; also Genya knew it couldn’t be done, as they ran the risk of the Tsar using it as an excuse to make other healers attend to nobles whenever the mood struck them, instead of having them dedicated to the Second Army and Grisha in general), but she also knew that that rule only pertained to official healers.
So Genya talked to Sergei, who agreed to help. Sonya and her son weren’t among the servants who lived in the Grand Palace, but in cottages near the edge of the royal estate, which made it easier for Genya to get Sergei to the boy. It wasn’t perfect, as much as Sergei had learned and continued learning, he was still a heartrender first. Still, he managed to set Mishka’s bone and do some very basic healing which, along with what other servants knew of first aid would allow the boy to recover properly.
At Genya and Sergei’s insistence, neither mother nor son revealed that a Grisha had aided in the boy’s healing (it would have just been too dangerous, for everyone involved), though no one could miss the warmth in their interactions with Genya. With the eldest among the servants, who was so well known and respected by all other servants in the Grand Palace acting like that, Genya was soon treated much better by most otkazat’sya not of the nobility. This in turn brought about a number of benefits, both expected and not.
Genya (and of course Alina) had known that one reason General Kirigan had arranged for her to become the Queen’s tailor (if not the main one) had been so Genya could spy on the royal family. The otkazat’sya servants becoming friendly with Genya helped in ways she could have never expected. Because while she was only in the palace to tailor the Tsaritsa an hour a day (aside from the extra time before special events) there were lots of other servants who were in many other places, at many different times.
With the new friendliness came conversations, and Genya started learning a lot more about what went on in the Grand Palace when she wasn’t around. Which noble was seen going into rooms they shouldn’t have, who’d fought with who most recently, sometimes even a few things about deals being done behind locked doors or in places the nobles believed to be empty (because so many of them never noticed the servants!).
It’d be hard to tell if it was just coincidence that the information reached Genya, that other servants began talking about such things around her (perhaps they always talked about such things, and just hadn’t before with her because they hadn’t seen her as one of them, truly) or if perhaps it was done on purpose (one or more of the other servants being aware that she was in a position to pass certain information on, and that it’d be a good thing). Genya still did his best to pass the information along to Ivan, Fedyor and even the General when possible.
Perhaps the most unexpected side-effect of the new friendship between Genya and the servants was that she hardly ever seemed to be alone while in the Grand Palace. Even when she got to an age where the Tsaritsa insisted that she shouldn’t have an oprichnik following her around all the time anymore, most of the time there was at least one servant around.
In all the years, only twice did Genya end up being on her own long enough for Tsar Pyotr to approach her. The first time nothing really happened, as a loud crash in a nearby room interrupted before the old man could so much as touch her and he chose to walk away. The second time he managed to get his hands on Genya briefly before a clatter, followed by a voice calling for Genya interrupted them.
Alina would later remember seeing Genya in the aftermath of that. She’d been affected enough by the encounter (which happened as she made her way out of the Grand Palace, having been called to attend to the Tsaritsa before an important dinner or something) that Genya did not even try to tailor the bruises on her arms, or the slight tear to her shirt, where the lecherous man had tugged at it in an attempt to reach her breasts.
“I… I don’t know what to do!” the redhead had cried in Alina’s arms afterwards. “He’s the Tsar!”
Alina would have liked nothing more than to tell Genya to tell him no, to run away, to fight… but that wasn’t possible, and they both knew it. Alina also knew that despite any possible suffering, Genya wouldn’t go to the General to get him to put a stop to things, and why. And while there was a part of Alina that really wanted her friend to put herself first… they both knew that if it wasn’t Genya, it’d be someone else, and as much as the redhead hated the thought of the Tsar pawing at her, neither did she want him to go after any of the other young maids. No, the problem in the end wasn’t Genya, or the other girls. It was the Tsar. So the Tsar needed to go.
Alina isn’t sure when she came to the realization, exactly, but at some point she decided that one of her biggest mistakes in the other life was letting others make all the choices for her. And it wasn’t just about her attachment to Mal, or her being in denial for so long regarding her status as Grisha in general and the Sun Summoner in particular but it was just… in so many aspects of her life, she kept letting others decide for her. It was… she was so afraid, so utterly terrified, of her new power, of the enormous expectations people were putting on her, that she kept waiting for others to decide what she ought to do. As if by doing that she could avoid making the wrong choice, as if that would somehow make her free of guilt, if things didn’t go the way people hoped.
Only, it didn’t work, did it? So much went wrong, in more ways than she ever believed possible. And the fault was still on her, because making no choice at all can be just as bad as making the wrong one, and sometimes it can be even worse.
And so, this time the choices will be hers. Just like she chose to be Grisha from the start, to learn all the things she didn’t before, to get to know her people, to fight to make things better for them… All of them, her friends, and other Grisha, and even otkazat’sya.
Alina doesn’t know when exactly Kirigan decided to get rid of the Lantsovs, though she knows it was already the plan by the time she was discovered in the other timeline. She doubts that it was the Tsar’s actions against Genya that prompted that choice. As much as she might be Alina’s own reason to act, the girl is intelligent enough to realize that Genya cannot have been the first girl the Tsar ever went after (she was probably just the first to have someone with enough power who cared about it).
Alina has no doubt that if the General waited as long as he did to move against the Lantsovs in the other timeline there must have been a reason. In fact, she’s half sure that the reason was that he didn’t think he had enough standing/power/whatever to be able to take over once the Lantsovs were gone, without Ravka rebelling. A situation that must have changed when she was discovered as the Sun Summoner (the Tsar died several months later, she remembers).
Things will be very different this time around, not just because Alina’s already Grisha, but she has no plans on revealing herself as the Sun Summoner any time soon. And even when she does eventually reveal her power over light, she intends to do so in a much less dramatic manner, hopefully keeping others from trying to make her into a living saint! In any case, the Tsar is still a problem, one that must be handled; and Alina’s not willing to allow Genya, and however many other women and girls to suffer until Kirigan decides he’s good and ready…
Also, she’s aware that just getting rid of Pyotr will not end the Lantsov Dynasty. However, Prince Vasily’s vices are well known (hunting, horses and getting drunk) and they don’t include preying on women and/or children so, as far as Alina’s concerned, he can be the Tsar until Kirigan decides to move forward with his own plan.
So, it was all Alina. She procured the various poisons she then put together to create her own version of Gu. It wasn’t even that hard, in the end. Half the poisons, those that on their own were, while not exactly harmless, not too dangerous, she got from the stores of the Little Palace. Officially they were for use in her research (David, the durast who joined the group, was slowly but surely learning to do some of the things alkemi could; and then there was Ivo, the tidemaker who was learning a few ‘alkemi tricks’ as he insisted on calling them). She did put most of the poisons towards their training, only keeping a little bit of each aside to create Gu.
The other poisons she could ‘harvest’ herself and did while taking walks and rides to the more distant areas of the royal estate, where she knew she wouldn’t be interrupted.
The most interesting part, from a scientific viewpoint, was that, on their own, none of the poisons would have been particularly dangerous (unless the Tsar had been allergic to them) but once put together…
Once she had the poison, came the matter of delivering it. Alina actually considered recruiting someone to handle it. While she didn’t have the means to hire an actual assassin or anything along those lines, she had no doubt there would be more than a few people with enough hate for the Tsar to be willing to do it. However, that would have meant depending on someone else to see things done, and the chance of them failing. It was a risk she couldn’t take. She supposed there was a reason why some people said: “If you want something done right, do it yourself…” So she did.
Between her shadows and her light, it was almost child’s play for Alina to go into the Grand Palace unseen. Granted, unseen didn’t mean unheard, or unfelt; but on the former, Botkin’s training helped ensure that her movements didn’t make a sound, and for the latter she just made sure not to get too close to anyone. After ensuring to leave some of the poison in various different places to ensure that no matter what, the Tsar would get at least a few of the doses, and in different ways (some ingested, others through the skin), Alina left the Grand Palace with the same ease she entered it. She went back to her private nook in the Little Palace Library, with people being none-the-wiser that she ever left.
After that it was just a matter of waiting.
It took several days, and at first all Alina heard were whispers (most of which Genya passed on to her from her friends among the servants): that the Tsar might have overindulged one night and was paying for it the following morning, he wasn’t a young man anymore. Then it was that he had a rash in… unfortunate places. Days later the rumors were about the Tsar being sick, some kind of virus even all the royal medics did not know how to treat. Those lasted long enough for people to realize they had to be more than just rumors, especially when they were joined by whispers of Tsaritsa Tatiana refusing to go to her husband, and even the Tsarevich keeping his distance.
And then the news came: Tsar Pyotr Lantsov was dead.
The King is Dead. Long live the King.
xXx
Genya is dismissed from her position as the Tsaritsa’s tailor a fortnight after the wedding of Tsar Vasily Lantsov to Lady Kalyna Radimov the eldest daughter of Duke Radimov, from Ivets in West Ravka. It’s the happiest she’s been since she was eleven; though she does admit at least to Alina that she’s going to miss some of her friends in the Grand Palace.
Vasily isn’t exactly a better Tsar than his father… but at least he’s not any worse. Women working at the palace certainly are more at ease with him gone, though.
Alina and her friends continue working on her research, getting results by leaps and bounds. Not everyone is truly interested, especially among the older Grisha (those more set in their ways), but enough get brought in for the whole thing to become pretty much an open secret in the Little Palace.
“What do you expect to come of this, long term?” Kirigan asks her one day.
“What do you mean?” Alina doesn’t understand the question.
“You’ve done a great thing here, Alina,” Kirigan explains. “Giving us a chance at overcoming what we believed to be our limitations, at being stronger than we were.”
“It’s a chance not everyone is willing to take,” Alina cannot help but point out.
“That’s not on you,” Kirigan assures her. “But I do wonder, what do you see happening next? What do you expect to happen after all of this? Once everyone’s gone through the new training… or at least everyone who’s able and willing?”
“I… must anything happen?” she asks quietly.
He doesn’t answer her, though truth is, he doesn’t need to. She still chooses to sidestep the matter as neatly as she possibly can, at least for the time being.
“We’re becoming stronger,” she says instead. “That should be a good thing.”
“It is, for some, certainly for us,” Kirigan agrees. “But not everyone might see it that way.”
He doesn’t really need to clarify it, she understands now, in a way she didn’t, really, the first time around. She’ll never know if it was growing up otkazat’sya, or perhaps due to her attachment to Mal, and her few friends in the First Army, but for the longest time she refused to see the way so many saw Grisha. Or no, it’s not that she refused to see it, she was all too aware of it, since even Mal had an obvious dislike for Grisha (though certainly not enough not to tumble whoever showed interest). She refused to see why it was so important, so dangerous…
When the Darkling pushed the Fold to swallow Novokribirsk she put her whole focus on the worst parts of it all. On the civilians, the potential innocent lives lost. Not seeing everything else. She knew of Zlatan, of course, his desire for the independence of West Ravka, even his plans to have her killed, but it was somehow like she managed to convince herself that he was just one man. That he was the problem… like there couldn’t possibly be others as bad, or worse than him, like some (or many) could not possibly be following him willingly. How many people were imprisoned, killed, or worse, sent to Fjerda’s witch-pyres, to Shu-Han’s laboratories or Kerch brothels?
It’s not that Alina has given a 180, she’s not suddenly seeing enemies on every corner, or seeing any non-Grisha as an enemy. Though she does like to believe she’s more cautious nowadays.
It’s a good thing that Grisha are stronger now, or at least, have the potential for it. And she can see now, that there are those who will not be happy about that growing strength. She and her group might have managed to keep it mostly secret for the time being, but that won’t last forever. Sooner or later the truth will out, and they have to be ready for it. Ready for those who, upon the reveal of this newfound strength will bow down to them in fear, those who will step back in anger; but especially those who either out of fear, anger, or both, will choose to fight back, to move against them.
Things aren’t like in the other timeline. This time Alina can put faces and names to all the Grisha who would end up affected if otkazat’sya, whether just in West Ravka, or the East as well, chose to turn on them. They’re her friends, her family, and she won’t lose them. Last time, with Marie… Alina won’t lose them this time!
She’s also aware, probably more than the General might expect, that the secrecy, while useful at this point, could end up being a problem in the long run. And it’s not just because the truth will come out sooner or later, but when it does, there will be those who will see it ever having been a secret as the issue. It might even be the reason more than a few of those ‘undecided’ turn against them. So one of the first steps (one they’re already taking) is to ensure that when the time comes for things to come out, they can claim it was never truly a secret. Just not the kind of thing they talked about because it wasn’t that big a deal, right?
They’ve chosen the keftas for this. It was actually Genya’s idea. As a tailor, as the very first of them all who was seen as straddling the Grisha orders, Genya had the rare opportunity of choosing her own color. She initially chose Corporalki red, with a dark blue embroidery to signal her as a tailor. It was later on, as she expanded on her skills, not just with some healing, but also some durast ‘tricks’ that she got the idea of adding a purple lining to her kefta. She also turned some of her dark blue embroidery to gray, the color of healers.
It wasn’t a particularly noticeable change, at least not outside of the Little Palace proper. Especially since many of the otkazat’sya had already grown used to Genya switching between her original red kefta to the white and gold one that signaled her as a servant, back when she was still the Queen’s tailor. So people not particularly versed on Grisha and their colors wouldn’t have thought much of her latter change.
Though it isn’t just Genya anymore. There are those like Ivor, with his Etherealki blue kefta (for he’s a tidemaker) with Materialki purple lining (for he’s also learning to do some of the things alkemi can do) or Leoni Hilli, who’s in many ways the opposite in a purple kefta with blue lining. David for his part remains solely a Materialki, though the fact that he’s learned to work with liquids almost as well as he does so with solid materials means that his purple kefta nowadays has both gray and red embroidery. Zoya is perhaps their most successful case, her kefta is still solely blue, but she carries embroidery in all three colors of the summoners (though she claims her tidemaker abilities are much weaker than her skill as squaller and inferni).
Alina herself is wearing a different kefta nowadays. It’s not the gold on black that she wore in another life, and as much as a part of her might miss it, might miss the potential it was supposed to have signified (before his lies and her insecurities shattered it, and them), at the same time she doesn’t miss the burden that came with the name of Sun Summoner. In her current life she never hesitated when being handed a black kefta, she is a Shadow Summoner after all, and not just that but… Well, like Genya once said, it’s His color, and Alina is his, isn’t she? Even if the implications might not yet be what they were once (what they might yet be, someday) the fact remains. It was his idea, for her to create a variation, claiming that it was only right, as a reminder that while she might summon shadows, she’s still not the same as him, she’s not a ‘Darkling’…
While she wouldn’t have minded the comparison that much, not anymore, she does and did like the idea of presenting herself as her own person. So she changed the embroidery, not to gold, but to a pale silver, almost like the color of mist, or of stars in the dead of night…
Alina’s mind goes back to Genya, her best-friend, whose life is so much better this time around. And not just because she’s not forced to endure the Tsar’s ‘attentions’ and being treated as an outsider by other Grisha… or because David has sat up and taken notice of her much earlier in this life. But simply… She’s important, and valued and happy… Alina is incredibly happy for her friend.
She still worries though. And not just over Genya, but all of her friends. Vasily might be an improvement over his father, as Tsar, but it’s not like that’s a hard bar to reach. Also, as they’ve since learned, the new Tsaritsa is… a problem.
Turns out that Genya wasn’t dismissed from her old post as royal servant because the old Tsaritsa didn’t want the new one to have her, but rather because Tsaritsa Kalyna refuses to allow Grisha anywhere near her. It goes beyond the usual hate/fear that some (a lot of) otkazat’sya have. Apparently she believes that all Grisha are unnatural, basically heretics and shouldn’t be allowed among the nobility. Thankfully the state Ravka’s in, with the constant conflict, means that the Second Army is very needed, but if that were to ever change…
And to think that the only reason they even know about all of that is because Sonya sent Mishka to find Genya and Alina and tell them. Wanting them to be prepared, in case the Tsaritsa ever managed to convince her husband and his council to turn against them.
“Babya and I, we don’t want that, my ladies,” Mishka told them with a bow of his head. “I know many can be afraid of the things Grisha can do. But you’re good, and you’re kind. You helped me. And even if you hadn’t. You’re Ravkan. You have a right to a life here, as much as anyone else!”
Alina dearly wishes more people had Mishka’s perspective… It does make her wonder, is there anything she could do to achieve that? To change people, otkazat’sya’s minds? Enough so they might, if not exactly like, at least not hate Grisha anymore? She might have to think more about that later…
“What do you think will happen?” she asks Kirigan eventually, in a very quiet voice, and not quite looking at him even as she speaks.
She doesn’t know if she’s more afraid of the question, or the answer…
“When they find out, I mean,” she clarifies after hesitating just for a moment.
“It depends,” Kirigan shrugs, a practiced motion meant to reflect a lack of concern, a gesture she knows to be fake. “A lot could happen, or nothing at all.”
Alina tenses, she knows something’s coming, something big.
“The real question should be, what are we willing to let happen?” he finally asks in return.
For the longest time Alina doesn’t voice an answer. She doesn’t even look at him, eyes fixed straight on her hands, on the shadows dancing over her fingertips (and the light she knows is buried underneath).
The silence goes on for long enough he starts to believe she won’t be giving him an answer at all, won’t commit to anything just yet. It makes him wonder if perhaps he read the situation wrong. Or if perhaps she’s just too young still, not fully ready… And then she opens her mouth and speaks.
That night, for the first time, the two of them talk about the future of Ravka, a future that does not include the Lantsov Dynasty. It ought to be seen as treason, and maybe for some it would be. For them? It’s hope, for themselves, for their people, for the future…
Chapter V. The Ditch
With her research pretty much done and all but the youngest Grisha working on improving themselves as much or as little as they’re each willing to, Alina turns her attention to her next big objective. Finding a way to make otkazat’sya, if not like Grisha, at least be more… sympathetic towards them.
It is this which leads to Alina proposing the tour when she’s nineteen. The initial plan is somewhat basic (which doesn’t mean it’s not well thought-out, but rather that she wants to be flexible, able to add, take or shift things around as needed): Alina wants to take a small group of Grisha and go with them on a tour around Ravka, visiting as many towns, villages and settlements and they possibly can. There are a number of excuses they can use with the Tsar and his council, if necessary, though the easiest would be to have them go as examiners on the lookout for potential Grisha.
The true objective of the trip would be for them to see Ravka, but more importantly, allow Ravka to see them. For otkazat’sya to hopefully not look at them as ‘other’ quite so much. She believes that if they could go around, have the citizens see them as people and not just Grisha… perhaps they could even help a few people here and there, like they did with Mishka and a few others in the Grand Palace.
The proposal gets shot down the first time.
And the second.
Alina fumes. She tried especially hard the second time. Had a full presentation for all the good they could do, not just for Ravka in general, if they could just create some goodwill for Grisha, it could go far in making things much better.
“Are you really going to give up?” Zoya asks her after the second refusal. “Just like that?”
Alina knows it’s meant to be a challenge, and she really wasn’t going to just give up anyway. There’s a limit to how much they can do, and she’s not going to put her friends at risk of course, but that still leaves a few options open…
It’s not even that hard, getting out of the Little Palace and into Os Alta proper, without being noticed. And while, granted, it’s not like the Little Palace is meant to be a prison or anything, Alina cannot help the worry that the lack of attention from the guards at the entrance might apply to those going in, as much as it does to those going out.
So Alina, Genya and Zoya (who insisted on accompanying them, to help them out, just in case) get out of the Little Palace with their elders and the oprichniki being none-the-wiser. With plain tanned cloaks covering their keftas and tailored to look as nondescript as possible (also, as people who don’t actually exist, rather than someone specific, just in case). They make it past the inner city, carefully crossing the ditch to the outer ring, where the peasants live.
They have some semblance of a plan too, having talked to Sonya and a couple of other friendly servants about where the need might be greatest. They find a few people with injuries that while serious enough for them to not be healing well on their own, they’re not quite so bad for them to need an actual healer, Genya being enough to handle them. Alina’s shadows aren’t that much use, really, aside from serving to entertain children while Genya, and eventually even Zoya, help their parents (she claims it’s just that she got bored doing nothing, but Alina knows Zoya is good, and she likes helping, likes seeing the faces of the people who look at her like she’s wonderful).
“The children love you, you realize that, don’t you?” Genya comments when the hour grows late enough for them to start making their way back.
Alina shrugs.
“Don’t be stupid,” Zoya tells her bluntly.
“Zoya!” Genya exclaims.
“What?” Zoya scoffs, her attention on Alina. “I know you feel a bit useless, because you couldn’t use your shadows to ‘save’ anyone. But you have no idea how grateful the adults were that they didn’t have to worry about their kids for a few hours. Especially when they were people Genya was healing, you know most of those kids would have been terrified to see their parents and siblings in pain as they were healed.” she shakes her head. “Also, don’t think I didn’t notice that you were actually teaching things to those kids, disguised as simple stories.”
It’s the truth. Though that part wasn’t planned. When Genya started helping heal someone… Alina knows healing can be painful, and after seeing the two little kids… so she took them out of the house to distract them and… Well, it’s not like she knows a lot of stories, does she? So she started telling them about some of the many Grisha she read about during her research. She didn’t go into a lot of detail; they’re little kids, they don’t care about the hows, or the whys, or anything like that, just about the man who created a gust of wind that deviated a huge wave and saved a little town that would have been swallowed whole by it otherwise, or the girl who grew an entire field of thorny roses in one night to surround a small village and keep the inhabitants safe from the outlaws that would have ransacked the place. And on and on, one story after another. And when she ran out of ‘official stories’ she started telling abridged, simplified versions of her friends’ achievements in the other time. It at least kept them entertained.
That’s the first, though certainly not the last time the girls go on these ‘little excursions’. And soon it’s not just them. David and Sergei become a fixture soon enough, and some others like Marie, Nadia, Adrik, Ivor, Leoni, join them a number of times as well.
They don’t do it all the time, every other week at most, never to the same place twice in a row, and never arriving at exactly the same time; not wanting to become predictable and allow for someone to come after them.
They’re doing a pretty good job, and slowly but surely the otkazat’sya in Os Alta are beginning to trust them, to accept them, as Grisha, as Ravkans. It’s gotten to the point where they’ve helped even a few low-level nobles, usually people they happen to meet on their way back to the Little Palace (most who purposefully seek them out after hearing they’re helping peasants again). It’s… nice. Nice for people to accept them, to like them. The children in particular, no one misses when they start coming across children playing at being Grisha…
They manage to go an entire year like that, when something totally unexpected happens…
While for the most part the ditch separating the inner (the rich) section of Os Alta and the outer (peasant) region is little more than a shallow depression that never holds that much water. There is one section, on the eastern side of Os Alta where the ditch briefly connects to a small river (which is less river and more of a stream that is created by melted snow from the tops of the mountains coming down, year after year, always following the same path), before being deviated into channels that serve to keep a number of fields (mostly of grains) on the Southeast corner of the capital, watered.
The problem comes one particular summer, when the temperatures run higher than any previous year, high enough for more snow to melt than any year before. More than the ditch can take…
It’s an absolute disaster.
Nobles aren’t quite as affected. If only because a good number of the noble estates in Os Alta are actually ‘winter homes’ for those families. And since it’s summer…
The peasants on the other hand…
A little girl (the young daughter of one of the maids Genya befriended at the Grand Palace) rushes to them. Running through the Little Palace’s gardens calling for help before stopping in front of Alina and practically dropping to her knees as she babbles apologies and pleas for her and her friends’ help. She doesn’t even seem to notice just who is standing by Alina at that moment (not just General Kirigan, but also his second and third in command!).
“What’s happened?” Kirigan demands authoritatively.
It’s in that very moment that the child finally notices the Darkling, blue eyes going wide, sun-kissed skin going abruptly pale.
“General, sir!” the girl babbles in fright. “I apologize…”
Kirigan exhales, he wants to repeat his demand, but knows that it might just make the child even more frightened; which won’t help, if the situation is as dire as her loud approach made it seem.
“Malen’kiy…” Alina calls to her softly, going down on her knees in front of her. “Little one, listen to me, listen, please…”
“I’m so sorry Ali… Miss Starkova…” The girl babbles. “I didn’t mean to… to ruin…”
“You have not ruined anything,” Alina cuts her off. “You think the General doesn’t know what goes on at the Little Palace at all times?”
That seems to make the child relax… or at the very least she seems to deflate somewhat.
“Now tell us, what happened?” Alina repeats the request.
“The South and South-east sections of the outer-rings are flooded,” the girl reveals. “And things aren’t much better beyond.” She swallows. “It… it’s bad Miss Alina…”
She has no doubt it must be. However, the kind of help that will be needed for a disaster that big… she cannot command that many…
Kirigan turns to look at Ivan, who nods once before whistling, loud enough to make Alina and even Fedyor wince a little bit. It’s enough to call every single Grisha to attention (the few who might not have been drawn to them by the little one’s approach).
“All Etherealki and Corporalki who’ve passed the tests to be full-fledged Grisha are to form teams, two of each specialty in every team, get whatever supplies and horses you need and prepare for departure as soon as possible.” General Kirigan orders.
“We leave in ten minutes!” Ivan adds for good measure.
Sometimes it’s easier when people have a specific timeline to follow.
“Durasts and alkemi, gather your own supplies, then your wagons, and follow the teams as fast as you can.” The General adds. “Oprichniki, you will accompany them to ensure that thieves and rioters will not take advantage of this disaster.”
“You will of course have more than ten minutes, but try to be ready as soon as you possibly can,” Ivan adds. “Remember that these people might not have a lot of time.”
That’s certainly motivation to get everyone to move.
“Yes General!” All Grisha call in unison.
And then it’s what could be defined as controlled chaos.
“Alina…” Fedyor says quietly, approaching her right as she’s about to rush as well.
“Yes…?” she asks, a bit hesitantly.
“The General wants you, Genya, Sergei and Zoya with him,” he elaborates.
She swallows. She just knows he’s going to have something to say about what just happened with the otkazat’sya child. Still, she knew it’d have happened eventually, so she just nods before rushing to her room. She’s already wearing the summer silk kefta, but she changes the simple shoes she wears everyday for thick-soled boots that should work better in wet and muddy ground. She also makes sure to braid her long dark hair before pinning said braid in a sort-of bun at the nape of her neck. Finally she slips the Grisha-steel blade she just earned into the inner pocket of her kefta, just in case.
She has to run to make it back to the courtyard before the ten minutes come to an end, barely managing to get there and jump onto the horse one of the stable-hands is holding for her, at the right of General Kirigan, before he’s giving the order for them to move out.
Groups start splitting off soon enough. Ivan, Fedyor, Vigdís and several other high-ranking Grisha leading each their own teams. Unsurprisingly the General orders the girl (sharing a horse with an oprichnik) to lead their group to the area that is the worst off.
No one says a word as they all ride hard all the way to the ditch… or at least, as close as they can possibly get, which isn’t as close as they might have preferred, what with them going precisely to the area that’s been most affected by the disaster.
Zoya’s the first to act. Her hands twisting into signs even before she manages to jump off the horse. Tidemaker is really not her strongest specialty, but it’s the one most needed, and Zoya’s never been anything if not resourceful, and stubborn almost to the point of insanity, so she makes do.
Genya uses some of her durast skill to reinforce what’s left of the bridge (since they’re in a zone where the ditch is deep enough for a bridge to be necessary to cross it, even at the best of times), as well as a few other things like fences and stone walls, at times wading into water that reaches up to her waist, seeking to give the survivors of the worst of the flooding things for them to hold onto.
Sergei turns his attention to healing those who make it out of the water. Every once in a while turning his attention (and his heartrending skills) to the other peasants working to help those still fighting to make it out of the water, and those already out who, while uninjured, are so affected by everything happening they run the risk of hurting themselves.
Kirigan and Alina too wade into the muddy waters, with him taking a few minutes to teach her how to make her shadows as solid as possible (an exercise that actually serves as basis for the Cut) so they can then use them to pull people out of the water. It’s not easy, especially those who might have become trapped either in the mud, or by plants and weeds, but that doesn’t stop them from trying as hard as they can. Alina in particular keeps close to where Zoya is fighting to keep the water under control, as it allows her to go a bit further in (she’s almost a full foot shorter than the General, as well as much lighter which can be dangerous in their situation).
It’s hours before, between Sergei’s ability to sense heartbeats, Zoya’s to sense breathing, and Kirigan’s own shadows, the group is relatively certain there’s no one else alive for them to rescue. By that point the Materialki have already done their best to rebuild and reinforce the bridge, allowing the peasants to get on the other side (since they cannot stay on the ‘noble circle’ of Os Alta). Other peasants are already on the other side, ready to receive the survivors, to help them in ways the Grisha cannot.
“Thank you, moi soverenyi, thank you,” the child (Vita, is her name) is very careful when pronouncing the title she’s heard others use for the Grisha General.
It prompts many of the other peasants to echo the sentiment, some even trying to use the title as well (with varying levels of success). Alina and the others smile brightly, so proud of all they’ve achieved (and exhausted), Kirigan just blinks, clearly not having expected such words from otkazat’sya.
Having done all they can, the group start making their way back to the Little Palace. Horses going much slower than on the trip out. Necessary considering the late hour and their exhaustion.
“So, I know what goes on at the Little Palace at all times?”
Alina almost falls off her horse as she flinches, not having noticed when Kirigan got that close. It’s quite probable that the only reason she doesn’t fall is Kirigan’s own shadows keeping her on the saddle.
“Are you alright?” he asks her quietly.
“Yeah, just exhausted,” she nods. “And a bit sleepy.”
They all are, actually. She can see Zoya swaying a bit on her saddle. And Genya would have fallen already if David hadn’t insisted that she ride with him so he could hold her up.
The next few minutes are spent with them just riding, without saying a word. In the end it’s Alina who speaks up first. Going back to their topic of conversation, if indirectly.
“It was just a bit of fun, you know?” she comments, apropos of nothing.
“Fun…?” Kirigan echoes.
“Yeah,” Alina nods. “Leaving the Little Palace every other week, playing at subterfuge.” She chuckles. “I mean, I suppose it is possible that we might have gotten away with it the first time, but after that? Nah! Especially not when we went on doing it for an entire year!” She thinks something over before adding: “Also, Fedyor.”
Yeah, Fedyor, who joined her little group on one memorable occasion when an old couple with a farm near the eastern outskirts of Os Alta requested their help after their grandchildren got lost in the woods by the edge of their property. While Sergei is a heartrender too, he’s young still, his abilities not yet fully mature; Fedyor’s assistance had been invaluable, and the only reason they found the two children before the lack of food, water, or some wild animal got them killed.
“Why not come to me about it then?” Kirigan asks, curious.
“Plausible deniability,” Alina deadpans.
“It wasn’t me you were hiding your excursions from, it was the Royal Family,” Kirigan realizes.
He’s right, of course. As long as Alina didn’t tell Kirigan what they were doing he could honestly tell the Tsar, and anyone else who might happen to find out, that he didn’t order any of it, nor was he informed or asked permission…
“You must know, your actions today will not go unnoticed,” Kirigan warns her. “You helped… too many people, saved too many lives. The Tsar won’t thank you for it,”
“Good thing I wasn’t asking for his permission.”
“Careful, milaya, Tsar Vasily is still the one who rules Ravka,”
Alina listens to what he’s saying, as well as what he isn’t (like the fact that they’re not yet ready to take him out of the picture) and nods wordlessly in acceptance of the warning.
“I won’t expect him to thank me for saving his people,” She states proudly. “But neither will I apologize for the choices I’ve made, for being who I am.”
“You shouldn’t,” Kirigan agrees. “Never apologize to the world for who you are, lapushka, the world won’t care to forgive you for it.”
It’s sage advice, and Alina’s more than willing enough to take it.
xXx
The afternoon before a big council meeting at the Grand Palace, Genya receives a message from one of her servant friends that she immediately takes to General Kirigan. It’s a warning that Baron Zelenko is planning to bring up the Grisha’s actions regarding the flooding of the ditch during the council meeting.
Baron Zelenko is… a polarizing figure among Ravkan nobility. His rank is not exactly a high one, in fact, being the lowest noble title. At the same time, the man is connected to the Lantsovs, his great-grandmother having been the youngest daughter of a previous Tsar (the youngest of five children, three of them daughters, which was probably why she was allowed to marry so far below her station). Most of the Zelenko estate was, in fact, her dowry. The manor itself isn’t particularly big, just enough for a decent sized family and a few servants. Most of the land consists of orchards, as well as a number of warehouses where the fruit of those orchards is turned into wine.
The Zelenko fortune comes from the selling of their wines (as a matter of fact, a good percentage of the coin in the royal treasury comes from the taxes the winery pays the crown yearly as part of the deal that allows them to sell their product not just to Ravka but to other countries). There’s also the detail that, unlike most nobles whose mansions in Os Atla are but ‘winter residences’, the estate is the Baron’s only property, where he lives year ‘round.
Baron Maksim Zelenko is a very polite, soft-spoken man. He served in the First Army in his youth, choosing to serve on the front-lines despite being noble, and staying in the army longer than the required five years, making it all the way to Colonel before an injury on the border to Fjerda ended his career and left him with a permanent limp. He’s a widower, has three daughters, and is said to be so overprotective he’s never allowed them at court (of course there are those mean-spirited who claim it’s because his daughters are just ugly…).
“It’s because they’re half-Shu,” Genya tells her quietly as they’re all discussing what is known.
“Baroness Xinyi Zelenko was a Shu refugee,” Ivan offers. “The elder sister of Ruoxi Kir-Chen, one of our alkemi.”
Kirigan is the one to give more details on the story. Apparently Xinyi Kir-Chen decided to take her younger sister and flee their home when people started paying a bit too much attention to the younger girl, not wanting to risk her being found out as Grisha. The two of them somehow managed to make it all the way to the border on foot, and then across it, eventually coming across a team of Second Army… a unit that was in fact led by then Kapitan Maksim Zelenko…
“Are any of the daughters Grisha?” Alina asks, curious.
“No,” Fedyor shakes his head. “But the Baron is still our staunchest supporter in that… crowd.”
“You think he intends to reveal what we did, in the middle of the council meeting, in an attempt to get us some good will from the nobles,” Genya guesses.
“It’s not gonna work,” Ivan drawls, cynic as ever.
“Maybe it’s just…” Alina pauses, trying to find the right words to explain her line of thought. “We knew we wouldn’t be able to hide our actions. Not with… this was too big. We did so much, saved countless lives. Even if we had thought to try and keep it contained, to ask the people not to say a thing about us…”
“It wouldn’t have worked,” Kirigan shakes his head. “This had to happen eventually. Better it be on our own terms. And we be ready for it.”
“Yes, that’s exactly my point,” Alina nods. “And if Baron Zelenko is an otkazat’sya noble who’s willing to support Grisha… then perhaps he’s the right person to do this.”
The rest have to agree with her assessment.
In the end it’s not Baron Zelenko who brings the matter up during the council meeting, but Lord Anatoli Orlov (the eldest son of a second son of one of the Lantsov cadet branches… the man’s barely a lord at all, but he often uses his connection to the Lantsovs as an excuse to make himself seem as more important than he actually is). Kirigan has never liked him as it’s clear the man sees Grisha as second-class citizens, he even knows that he once attempted to have the council pass a law that would allow Grisha to be treated as indentures, much like they are in Kerch, instead of full Ravkan citizens.
Which is why it’s so surprising that Orlov is the one to bring the matter up. And not just that, but he goes into a long tirade about the ‘great service’ the Grisha have provided for the ‘good people of Ravka’. It’s hard to tell whether it’s more surprising that he’s congratulating Grisha, or referring to peasants as ‘good people’ and not as… something else. He doesn’t even seem to notice how what he’s saying in that moment contradicts many of the things he’s said in other council meetings throughout the years (or he doesn’t care).
Once he’s spoken, others are quick to follow suit. The Apparat in particular puts a lot of effort into making it seem like it was all Vasily’s idea in the first place (not that many people seem to believe it, but still). Baron Zelenko ends up being but one among many voices to speak up during the meeting, though he’s perhaps the only one to address General Kirigan directly at one point, asking him to extend his personal thanks to his Grisha, for everything they did on that day and expressing his hope that they’ll continue to aid those who need them most.
Tsar Vasily himself doesn’t really get the chance to say much of anything, but perhaps that’s for the best, all things considered.
xXx
There’s an aborted attempt in the weeks that follow the natural disaster, from some of the peasants, to acknowledge at least some of the Grisha who saved them, as Saints. Especially Zoya, who’s work on controlling the violent currents slowed down the flood considerably. Or a number of healers who saved so many lives… even Kirigan and Alina who used their shadows to pull people straight out of the muddy waters over and over.
“But we’re not Saints,” Alina blurts out when she finds out what’s going on, during one of their now formally organized visits to the outer rings of Os Alta.
She cannot help the sudden flashback she gets. The memory of all the people who referred to her as Sankta. It’s… it should have been an honor, and yet for her it was nothing but impossible expectations, being put on a pedestal only so they could watch her fall… She really doesn’t want to go through that again, and she especially doesn’t want her friends to be subjected to it.
“Saints… they’re beyond this world, beyond our reach,” she tries really hard to put her thoughts into words in a way that won’t offend anyone (or make it seem like she’s against the Church in some way). “We’re human, yes, we’re Grisha, but we’re still very much human, just like you.”
“The Saints sent you to save us!” one of the peasants insists.
“Maybe,” Alina thinks she can give them that much. “In which case, both you, and us, should be grateful to the Saints that saw fit to do that. But that doesn’t make us Saints.”
Eventually the people seem to get it. They are very grateful to all the Grisha, but at the same time they take to praying to actual Saints once again. Especially Saint Grigori who, from all those recognized by the Church, is perhaps the only Saint that is acknowledged as having been Grisha.
Of course it doesn’t take long for the Apparat to find out about what happened with the peasants. Alina can barely hold back a full body shiver when he directs his dark eyes at her (whenever he looks at her she cannot help but feel dirty; the man’s so slimy and Alina feels like just his stare is enough to stain her, somehow). But in the end he seems to agree with her (either that or he decides there’s no reason to fight her, at least for now), and takes to talking at the Temple about the importance of the ‘True Saints’, of knowing them, praying to them and not making the mistake of worshiping ‘impostors’…
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Genya comments at one point when it’s just the two of them. “Why are you so against being called a Saint?”
“Because I’m not one?” Alina asks, as if it should be obvious.
Genya just stares at her, making it obvious why she’s the other girl’s best friend; of course she knows there’s something more…
“Someone I know told me once, ‘Saints become martyrs before they get to be heroes’.” Alina murmurs in a very sober tone.
“That sounds depressing,” Genya says in a drawl.
“Haven’t you noticed that in most of his speeches the Apparat focuses more on the suffering this or that Saint went through, on the tragedy of their death, than on their works, their achievements?” Alina asks her best friend quietly.
Genya stops smiling as she actually takes a moment to consider what Alina just said. She’d never before thought about that. It’s not… she’s not the most devout Ravkan. Back when she was the Tsaritsa’s tailor she was at service every week, yes, but it was always because it was expected of her, rather than because she chose to attend. Nowadays she attends sporadically, like most Grisha. None of them have perfect attendance, but show up just enough not to be seen as dismissing the Church entirely (that would be very dangerous indeed).
Truth be told, one of main reasons she’s never been much of a fan of church service, is precisely because of how much emphasis the Apparat puts on the Saints’ deaths. If she’s going to ask for a favor from the Saints she’d want to know what she can ask of them, and perhaps how to entreat them, what kind of offerings might please one or another. What does she care how they died? It was a terrible thing, in each and every case, and very tragic, especially considering that they all either died when over-extending themselves, trying to save more people than they humanly could, or killed by those who didn’t truly value them…
Once she’s stopped to consider things under that particular light…
“Good thing I never wanted to be a Saint anyway,” she decides.
A very good thing indeed.
Chapter VI. Travels
It’s several months after the disaster at Os Alta’s ditch that Alina’s informed of her new orders. Her original proposal of the tour as she made it will never happen, the trip too long to properly manage, but plans have been made to allow her and ‘her team’ (as Genya, Sergei, Zoya and sometimes David are called at times) to take shorter trips to the various provinces.
As planned, the official reason that will be given for the province nobles regarding their trip will be the testing of children in search of Grisha. Also, as a way of allowing them to learn more about Ravka and its people. Those on the council are aware that a secondary purpose of their trip is them truly seeing different parts of Ravka, the people, seeing what they have, and what they need. It’s all been cushioned on the Tsar sending ‘his Grisha’, those just shy of joining the Second Army, (people conveniently forgetting, or just unknowing that they’re not all, in fact, twenty) to aid his people; though it’s a well-known fact (if never spoken of) that the Tsar has never cared for either Grisha or the peasants, and would certainly never care to send the former to help the latter.
The funny part perhaps is finding out that Kirigan managed to run circles around the Tsar, the Apparat and most of his council (with some judicious help from Baron Zelenko) enough that by the end of it the highest ranking men in Ravka are convinced the whole thing was their idea!
The not-so-funny part, at least for Alina, is learning that she’s officially team leader!
“But… butbut… Zoya! Or… or Sergei!” she babbles, shocked enough she cannot even put her thoughts to words properly.
Really, Zoya’s so powerful, and Sergei too, even if in different specialties. They both are strong and have an ease when commanding, why would they choose her?!
“They chose you as their leader,” Kirigan informs her.
Ivan is the one who goes into a bit more detail. Explaining how Zoya and Sergei are good leaders for combat and incursions, but none of them feel like they’d be the right fit for the kind of mission they’re being sent on. And in the end, the kind of thing they’ll be doing was Alina’s idea from the start, so it seems fitting to have her lead.
They talk a bit more about the team she’ll be leading. The fact that aside from the four Grisha that’ll be with her, they’ll also be accompanied by two oprichniki, as is traditional for examiners. The first trip will be to Balakirev and its surroundings. If all goes well, they’ll make plans for future trips to Ryevost, Adena and other smaller villages on both sides of the Sokol River. And later on for Poliznaya and the other settlements at the foot of the Sikurzoi mountains (at least the part of the range that is on Ravka’s eastern border). They’ll go from there.
Eventually Ivan and Fedyor depart, leaving Kirigan and Alina alone in the War Room.
“Thank you,” Alina says, so very quietly, as she walks around the map-table.
“Milaya…” Kirigan begins.
“I know… I know it’s not easy for you, making this choice,” Alina explains. “So thank you, for letting me try anyways.”
“I do not believe that what you wish can be done, not really,” Kirigan admits with no hesitation. “Otkazat’sya will never see us as their own, as equals to them.”
“Maybe not,” Alina’s an optimist, but she’s not delusional (contrary to what some might believe). “But I’m hoping that at least if they can see us as good people, as people willing to help them, they’ll be willing to help us as well.”
It’s clear still that Kirigan doesn’t believe it, but he doesn’t really fight her on it, at least not directly.
For a moment he seems to sway, and there’s a look in his dark eyes that spears Alina into place. He thinks that he’s going to approach her, but in the end he doesn’t, instead moving closer to the map-table, contemplating it pensively.
“Ever we stand surrounded by enemies,” he states, thoughtfully. “And it’s not just Fjerda with its soldiers and drüskelle, Shu-Han with its own invading forces, and those who keep coming into Ravka and kidnapping our Grisha to sell as slaves and worse across the True Sea. Even within the borders of our own country, a few days ago some of my spies in Novokribirsk brought back word about the beginnings of what they believe will soon become an uprising in the West, led by none other than General Zlatan, from the First Army.”
Alina can hear quite clearly what he’s not saying, that the man is otkazat’sya, just like most if not all of the other ‘enemies’.
“We have our own people, the people of Ravka, turning their backs on us.” Kirigan snaps.
Alina opens her mouth, then closes it again, biting her lip, because that’s not General Kirigan speaking, that’s Aleksandr, and she came so close to saying his name out-loud, a name he hasn’t actually given her just yet.
“You’re such an optimist, milaya, and while that can be nice, I just… I cannot.” Aleksandr shakes his head, closing his eyes briefly. “I have been fighting this fucking war… utterly alone, for so, so long. And I know, I know what you might say. There’s Ivan, and Fedyor, and that’s true but… They’re not the first, and they won’t be the last. And one day I’ll lose them, like I’ve lost everyone else.” He lets out a very long sigh. “I’ve lived… a very long life, lapushka, more than you’ll ever know. I have buried so many good soldiers… Friends, the closest I’ve had to family…”
Alina freezes, swallows, she remembers this speech. It might not be all word for word, and there are some interesting additions too, but still. It almost makes her tremble.
“The coffers are running dry, the noose tightens…” Aleksandr continues, seemingly not noticing anything off about Alina. “And I have this feeling… I cannot help but believe that people, our own people, Ravkans, are turning against Grisha, just as their kin once did. Because how else could we be losing so many of our own, all over the country and not just the borders!”
The worst part of all is, he’s probably right (well, no ‘probably’ about it). Alina knows he’s right. There are those like Zlatan, possibly Vassily, his wife, and even the former Tsaritsa. There will always be those who’ll hate Grisha enough to act against them, to go as far as working with those they know to be willing to kill them, or worse. That doesn’t mean everyone in Ravka, every otkazat’sya, is to blame.
“We cannot blame an entire nation for the crimes of a few,” Alina tells him quietly. “There are those who fear us, hate us or both. There are, and always will be those who’ll work against us… but we cannot act against all who are not Grisha just because they might go against us. Best case scenario? This will make people fear us, make it harder for them to understand us, to accept us. Worst case scenario? This will make even more people turn against us.”
“That’s why I decided to support your plan, or a variation of it,” he admits. “I might be too much of a cynic, too skeptic, to believe what you’re aiming for can be done, that doesn’t mean I don’t hope it to be possible.” He finally turns to look straight at Alina. “And I believe in you Alina, truly, I do.”
“Thank you… General…” Alina trips over not saying his name.
“Aleksandr,” he cuts her off. “Please, call me Aleksandr.”
The thing is, she knows that his name in his ‘current life’ is supposed to be Pyotr. And he knows she knows it. The fact that he’s telling her to call him by his real name… It’s huge! It’s such a big deal, enough to make her mind spin, enough for her to lose control of her brain-to-mouth filter… just a little bit, just for a moment:
“Aleksandr…” she breathes out. “You are not alone. You’ll never be alone again.”
For a moment Alina wonders if he’s going to respond like he did back in the other life: I have been waiting a long time for you.
A second later she thinks he might kiss her.
In the end he does neither. Which is probably a good thing, she honestly doesn’t know how she might react if he were to kiss her. Already there’s a tension between them that wasn’t there just the day before, that she didn’t think would exist between them. Because she’s not the Alina Starkov he knew and was so drawn to in another life. She’s not the Sun Summoner. And yet… and yet he seems to be just as attracted to her. And that… that’s more than she can honestly handle at this time.
It’s not that she doesn’t love him. She does. With her whole heart. It’s that she didn’t think he would come to love her so soon. A part of her might have even believed he wouldn’t truly love her until her light was revealed; the part that’s always feared that he was ever more in love with the sun within her than with Alina herself… though she supposes that’s the part of her that insisted, almost to the very end of her first life, on seeing herself and the light she could summon, as separate. But they’re not, are they? In the end Alina is who she is, and it’s high time she accepts that.
She’s Alina Starkova, she’s Ravkan, she’s Grisha: Shadow Summoner, and Sun Summoner (though the latter hasn’t been revealed just yet). She’s absolutely in love with Aleksandr Morozova, Pyotr Kirigan, the Shadow Summoner, General of the Second Army, the Darkling, the Starless Saint, the Black Heretic. And one day she’s gonna have to tell him all she knows already about him, and how exactly it is she knows as much as she does… she can only hope he’ll still love her when that day comes…
xXx
They leave for Balakirev a fortnight later. Or rather, a small village a couple of days away from that city, but still. It shall be the first stop on their trip.
They have a good, sturdy, durast-made carriage and the team takes turns traveling in the carriage and riding the horses. The oprichniki for the most part keep to the horses, except for the times when they choose to sit with the carriage driver, mostly just for a change. They have enough food and clothes to be comfortable on the trip, without weighing themselves down too much, or calling the wrong kind of attention. Also, at the General’s insistence, they’re all wearing battle kefta, made of corecloth, instead of the more traditional summer one.
They leave the Little Palace after a big lunch in the dinning-hall, a meal even Kirigan is present for. Their friends (like Marie, Nadia, Adrik and a few others) wish them the best before they depart. Even the Apparat is there, making a huge deal of delivering the ‘blessings of the Saints’ for them and their ‘holy mission’…
The first night they stay in the loft of a warehouse, on the far end of one of the last farms in the outskirts of Os Alta (the actual farmhouse being on the other end of the farm itself, and too out-of-the-way, despite the farmers offering them room for the night). It’s not a bad place to spend the night really, the farm is big, and dedicated to growing grains, rather than animals, so it smells of wheat and hay and nothing more (the latter which turns out to be fairly decent bedding; certainly better than a pallet on bare ground would have been).
That night the dreams begin…
It feels like somewhere between a dream and a memory, as she walks out of the Little Palace to find General Kirigan… Aleksandr, waiting for her with a couple of horses. Unlike the time when this scene actually took place, she’s in her black kefta with silver-gray embroidery instead of the Etherealki blue one with golden embroidery, so there are no mentions of her choice of clothing, or any desire for her to be like anyone else.
Instead the two of them jump straight to the next part, with them climbing on the horses, the shadow summoner turning to look at her over his shoulder before they leave the courtyard:
“Please, call me Aleksandr.”
And off they go.
It seems to take them forever and no time at all at the same time for the horses to get them to the old fountain. As expected, Aleksandr heads to the fountain first, pulling out a coin, kissing it and then throwing it into the fountain with a twist of his wrist. Alina takes a moment before going to stand beside him, hesitating for an eternal handful of seconds before turning to look at her reflection in the water; where her image seems to flicker, somehow, shifting between her current self (healthy, tanned skin, shiny long hair in her shadow-black kefta), and her old self (dressed in Etherealki blue and with her skin and hair still bearing the marks of the long years spent suffering from the wasting sickness, even with Genya’s tailoring). Somehow Aleksandr, despite standing right beside her and looking at the watery reflection, doesn’t seem to notice her hesitation, or her changing image, though she supposes that’s the way of dreams.
“What do you see?” he eventually asks her.
For a moment Alina actually considers saying what she did last time but… it doesn’t feel right. Not when it’d be a lie. Also, it’s a dream, so what does it matter what she says?
“Different versions of me,” she admits, finally.
“And which is the real one?” he asks in turn.
“I… I’m not sure,” she truly isn’t.
She’s not the person she was in another life. Who grew so used to being otkazat’sya she didn’t know how to be Grisha instead, who was in denial for so long. Who was so blind and ruined so many things, so many lives, out of her own fear and insecurities. At the same time, Alina has to admit that she would not be the person she is now, the strong, powerful, confident woman, if it weren’t for who she was then. She’s had a chance to not just learn from past mistakes, but to ensure she will never actually be making them. That others won’t be made to pay for her faults.
“Maybe they’re both you,” Aleksandr suggests.
For a wild moment she wonders if he truly saw it, the other her. But no, that’s not possible… Then again, this is her dream, he’s not truly real anyway. Nothing more than a figment of her own mind…
“Perhaps the real you can be found in the mix of both,” he adds for good measure. “You just need to let her emerge.”
“Perhaps,” she concedes.
She’s not entirely sure how they end up changing the topic the way they do, since they never truly talk about her training, or the Vezda Suite. Then again, he’s more than well aware of her training, what with their somewhat regular meetings; and especially all the talks they had in the War Room the last couple of weeks, as they finalized preparations for her and her team’s trip to Balakirev. Also, she doesn’t have a private room, instead sharing with Genya who, despite not being of the same Order as her, her own status of being so different, before Alina’s own research changed things so much for so many, made them ideal roommates.
“I do know how you feel, Miss Starkov,” he tells her quietly. “Never being sure of your own reflection. Or more than that, who it is that others truly see when they look at you. When I was a boy, I used to run away and hide here. Once I realized that I was a descendant of the most hated Grisha in Ravka, I’d come here, throw a coin. Make a wish in the fountain. Same wish, over and over again. That I could be anyone else.”
That is… so incredibly similar to what he said before, yet at the same time, not exactly. And she once again has to remind herself that this is a dream! Still, she allows it to go on, because a part of her is actually enjoying the rehashing of this interaction, seeing how it’d go if they were to have such a conversation in the current timeline.
“This is his story, isn’t it?” she asks promptly, stepping back to look at the carvings decorating the stone fountain all around.
“You know it just from these old pictures?” he inquires.
“Of course,” It’s obvious, isn’t it? “Every child learns the history, not just Grisha. Hundreds of years ago, Anastas, the King, hired a Grisha as his military adviser. A Shadow Summoner.”
“You can say it,” he intervenes. “The Black Heretic.”
“The Heretic grew hungry for more power, and the King, fearing a coup, put a bounty on his head, and any Grisha that stood by him,” she goes on. “The Heretic knew he was outnumbered, so he attempted to create an army of his own using the same forbidden science Morozova once used to create his amplifiers. But he failed. He created the Fold instead. And was killed by it. Along with countless others.” she pauses for a moment, letting the heaviness of the moment pass, before asking, in a tone she hopes is a bit brighter: “Was I properly schooled?”
“It wasn’t actually that simple, you know?” he says, unexpectedly. “I mean, yes, that’s how the story is told everywhere. But things were actually more complicated than that.”
“I suspected,” she admits, quietly.
She did, even before she got to read all those stories about the Saints, not the versions the Church made public, but the records the Grisha keep. Once she understood how easily events can be manipulated, or at least, what’s known of them. Sometimes one doesn’t even need to tell any lies to make people assume something diametrically opposite to reality. She might not know what happened, exactly, back then, but she doesn’t doubt that it was much more complex than the story that the Lantsov Dynasty has preserved, made into history…
“I don’t imagine that the Tsar from back then was much better than the one we have now,” she says with a small shrug.
“The same in some ways, worse in others,” he tells her. “Grisha were only good and accepted as long as they were serving his purposes. And it was so easy for him to be convinced that they’d turn against him. That… ah… he… they already had.”
A part of Alina wonders if he realizes how things sound. Like he’s talking from experience and not just something he read in a book, or a story preserved, shared from parent to child. At the same time, she has to wonder if this is something she’d actually notice if she didn’t know the truth about his identity already. Then again, does it matter? Things are what they are.
“I’ve only ever wanted to protect my people,” he begins.
“Our people,” she pipes in, because she just cannot help herself.
“Our people,” he echoes, the ghost of a smile on his face. “I have devoted my life to… to trying to right old wrongs, but I am never seen as the solution. Only as a reminder of the problem. And they always need someone to blame.”
She remembers how the rest of that conversation went, on the original timeline. Her comment about being his solution, all the way to the potential consequences of her possibly failing. Only, she’s not known as the Sun Summoner this time around, and even in the other time, she did not fail, but people turned against her anyway!
She remembers his assurances that he wouldn’t allow people to turn against her, and she knows it’s a promise he’d have kept, if he could. If things hadn’t gone so horribly wrong. She pushes that thought away, instead focusing on something else.
“If you believe anything, believe that I shall be right by your side,” she murmurs, looking straight at him, unable to help herself as she mixes up part of her own words and his, from back then. “You’re not alone Aleksandr…”
“No, I’m not,” he agrees.
And when he smiles at her, Alina comes so close to lighting up… literally.
Things go well enough in Karost, and then in Balakirev. Not everyone is welcoming of them, but then again, they weren’t expecting them to be. They know they’re not in Os Alta anymore, the people don’t know them, don’t know the Grisha are there to help… they learn, though.
By the time they finish their short circuit, while not exactly welcoming, people are not quite as against their presence at least. And some are honestly grateful they visited.
Also, they manage to find a couple of young Grisha, one a healer and the other an inferni, as well as an older one; a young woman working at an apothecary, earning barely enough to scrap by. Alina sees her and she realizes that the reason the girl looks so sickly isn’t just her malnutrition, but that she has the wasting sickness, much like Alina herself did, in another life. Alina manages to earn enough of the woman’s trust, in the relatively short time they spend in the city, for her to reveal her status as alkemi. Her name is Darinka, she has brown eyes, dark blonde hair and sharp features that remind Alina a bit of Vigdís, making her believe the young woman (she cannot be older than Alina herself, most likely younger, little more than a girl) might be half-Fjerdan.
“You cannot tell my boss!” Darinka exclaims at one point.
“I’m not telling anyone, especially not without your consent,” Alina points out calmly. “But why are you so terrified at the prospect?”
“He’ll fire me!” Darinka replies. “He’ll say that I’ve been using dark magic and I haven’t! Really, my lady, I haven’t! I try really hard to never use it, though sometimes it slips… usually when the weather’s been bad and the well gets contaminated.”
Meaning her ability just came out when it was absolutely necessary for her to survive. Which explains how she could have survived so long, not having yet been found out as an alkemi, and yet it’s clear she has the wasting sickness (not quite as bad as Alina’s was in the other life; but then again, Alina hadn’t summoned at all in that timeline, and it was only her potential being so great that allowed her to survive as long as she did; she probably wouldn’t have lived beyond a year or two more, had she not been found when she was).
“I’m not saying you have,” Alina assures her. “Though you must know, the Small Science, what allows us Grisha to do what we do, it’s not magic.”
“But… but…” she seems at a loss at that.
“You must also know that, your sickness?” Alina continues. “It’s called wasting sickness, and it happens when Grisha do not summon regularly.”
Darinka’s eyes go wide, she clearly wasn’t expecting that.
“My sickness…?” she asks, voice small.
“Yes,” Alina nods. “You feel weak often, get tired easily, feel hunger yet no desire to eat because most foods taste like ash in your mouth, you have trouble falling asleep and in the end no matter how much you do manage to sleep you always wake up feeling like you haven’t rested at all.”
“How do you…?” Darinka is in shock. “How do you know…?”
“I know,” Alina answers, somewhat vaguely.
In the end Alina manages to convince Darinka to go with them when the group leaves Balakirev. Those at the Little Palace are more than a little surprised when seeing one of the newly found Grisha is twenty (Genya having eventually learned the young woman’s actual age) but they’re all equally welcoming of her and the two children.
With that trip having been a success, more are planned. First to a number of villages east of Balakirev, and then one to a number of towns and villages in between Os Alta and the Sokol River.
While the team have their own maps, it doesn’t take long for Alina to notice that most of the maps are wrong in some way or another. Sometimes it’s small, understandable mistakes, like the distance between two places having been miscalculated, or some settlements being mislabeled, a handful not being in the maps at all; and while with the small ones, the ones that cannot even be considered as villages that’s to be expected, there are others that are clearly neither small enough or new enough to have gone unnoticed by the cartographers in the First Army (they probably just didn’t care enough about them). At that point it’s not a small mistake anymore! And so Alina starts carrying around paper and ink herself, she makes annotations as she finds mistakes and then, when she happens to have free time (sometimes while the others are busy in whatever place they’re working in at the time; sometimes not until they’re back at the Little Palace), she works on drawing new maps.
“This is some pretty remarkable work,” Sergei comments after David’s appreciative whistle.
“I’m not that good an artist but…” Alina begins.
“Just take the compliment Alina,” Zoya cuts her off. “Didn’t know you could do something like this.”
“Maybe I was a mapmaker in another life,” Alina jests.
The joke falls a little flat, even to her own ears, but no one comments on it, then again, her team doesn’t really know what’s actually going through Alina’s mind as she says those words, the true history behind them…
The maps are good, is the thing. It still takes Alina entirely by surprise when Aleksandr asks to keep them. A part of her wants to ask (to demand!) who exactly snitched out on her, but in the end she doesn’t, she knows her team means well; she also knows it’s a compliment, Aleksandr wanting her maps even without having seen them (a compliment that only grows when he actually sees them and comments they’re definitely better than the ones he’s been working with in recent years).
And through it all, Alina’s dreams continue. At least half the nights they’re normal dreams, simple, uncomplicated, whimsical, at times even senseless, like dreams tend to be. The rest of the time the dreams involve Aleksandr. A few replay old memories, some changed as if to better fit the current timeline, others seem to require no change at all, and others… others are more fantasy than memories. Alina cannot help but enjoy them all. Even as she keeps wishing that some (or perhaps all) of them were more than mere dreams…
The trip to the region of Ryevost and Adena is particularly interesting. It’s a bigger area than they’ve covered in any of their earlier trips, so from the start they plan on the trip being longer (taking more clothes and food with them), and not just that. Being aware that they’ll be doing the trip just before the rain season (and the flooding season) there are some who seem hopeful that the Grisha will do something that might help the towns better endure when the time comes.
The basic plans include better levees on both embankments, some ditches to help channel at least some of the water towards fields and orchards; and the biggest objective of all, renovating the big bridge that connects Ryevost and Adena to be stronger and hopefully ensure that no matter how bad the weather it won’t fall (it’s apparently happened at least twice, though not too recently).
Knowing that such a plan will require more in the way of both people and materials, Baron Zelenko gets to work convincing a number of nobles (especially those with estates in the region) to provide the Grisha with the resources they will need to get the job done, as well as actually arranging for a place for them to stay for however long in takes them. Kirigan is honestly surprised when learning that the otkazat’sya aren’t expecting his Grisha to pull the materials out of nowhere, or worse. Of course it’s not like his people are getting paid, he isn’t even sure if they will be thanked, but it’s not as bad as it could have been (as the more pessimistic part of him expected it to be).
The team aren’t the only ones traveling either, Aside from them there’s a team of fabrikators following. For perhaps the first time ever David understands exactly how Alina feels since, despite being among the youngest of the durasts sent on the mission, he’s considered the leader of their group, since he’s part of Alina’s team, and they’ve become more than a little famous with what they’ve achieved since their trips began.
It’s not just what they’re doing for otkazat’sya. Of course a lot of people in Ravka are talking about that, and even those among the Grisha who still have family (family they love and who love them) beyond the walls of the Little Palace. But there’s also the fact that the team have returned from every trip they’ve taken with at least a couple of Grisha. Usually children, though Darinka isn’t the only older one they find (they find a couple of teenagers, and even a young man around Darinka’s age).
“I don’t know if I’m more surprised that you’ve been able to find several older Grisha, angry that my examiners missed them for so long, or sad that we couldn’t help them before…” Aleksandr tells Alina honestly during their meeting before the trip to Ryevost.
“You know it’s not necessarily your testers that are to blame, right?” Alina points out.
“They should have known…” he begins.
“You know there are ways to hide… right?” she’s hesitant as she points that out. “Like, causing yourself pain before the test…”
“Yes, I know, and so do the examiners. They should be capable of seeing it if someone is doing that. There’s a reason why there is always a healer and a heartrender in the Test Team! And they’re examining children, my Grisha should definitely be able to see through a child’s lies and tricks!”
Alina’s not exactly certain if he’s more angry that his examiners could fail in such a way, or just in denial that a child could be clever enough to hide from them. Not like she can point out that she did it herself… but still, there are enough cases to prove it is possible. And that’s just the ones they’ve been able to find. Who knows how many more might still be hiding or… or have passed away already, either due to the wasting sickness or the prejudice of some people.
The trip to Ryevost and Adena goes well in the end, better than expected even. David and the durasts work on building the levees on both embankments of the river, and afterwards on renovating the bridge to be sturdier and stand a better chance against the inclement weather. Meanwhile the rest of them do as they’ve done before, going around the cities and villages, helping all they can, as much as they can with their respective abilities.
There’s a moment in particular, during the work on the bridge, when David requests Alina’s aid. He remembers seeing her and the General pulling objects and people from the flooded ditch. The bridge requires new supports at the halfway point if it is to stand up for any significant amount of time without running the risk of it splitting or the middle section just dropping off at some point. The durasts can build those supports with the materials they have, the issue is getting them to the right spot, especially considering the Sokol River is particularly deep in that area, and the current makes the maneuvering of a ship in the direction required (keeping it from going down river) next to impossible.
“So you need me to get the supports to the middle of the river, and hold them in place while you and the other durasts secure it?” Alina summarizes after the very long, very complex explanation (half of which she cannot actually follow, as David gets technical at points) is finished.
“Basically, yes,” David blinks at the summary.
Alina looks at the river, is she strong enough to hold such a strong object, and against the current? What will happen if she fails?!
“I can help,” Zoya offers.
That’s certainly a relief.
As it happens, Zoya cannot actually stop the current or anything like that, not in the whole river, but she does manage to redirect it at the very center of the river, so once Alina manages to get the supports past the edges she doesn’t need to keep fighting against the water, just to make sure to hold it in place as the durasts do their part.
It’s funny in some ways, considering how when their trips began Zoya declared her tidemaker ability to be the weakest of all the Etherealki specialties. And yet it’s the one she’s had to work on most, and she’s managed to improve greatly. Her skills as a squaller are still the best, but tidemaking might have actually surpassed the inferni part of her at this point.
The plan works. Though Alina does end up so exhausted after doing her part that she’s falling asleep almost before her head hits the pillow that night.
That night, yet again, she dreams…
She’s standing in the War Room, with… is that one of her maps extended on the table, over the one that is actually part of the table (that’s not part of the original memory, because in the other timeline Kirigan didn’t have any of her maps… she doesn’t think)? Their conversation is once again a mix of the memory of an old one, and things a little bit new.
“I always felt like an outsider,” she murmurs at one point. “When I was little, I mean. And even when I first got here. Before meeting Genya, before Sergei became my friend, there was a time when I just didn’t know…” she trails off.
For a moment it looks like Aleksandr might say something, but in the end he doesn’t, he just… he places his hand, almost pointedly, on the edge of the table, close to where she herself is standing. Almost but not quite touching her. She doesn’t actually touch him, but she can feel him just as acutely as if she had. It’s… it’s almost as if a part of him were calling to her. Like back at the beginning (the other beginning) when his amplifier-power would pull her light to the surface even at their slightest touch or… there’s something more, but she cannot put her finger on it.
“But now I finally feel like I belong,” she continues, eventually. “And not just that I belong here, but to something greater. That we can offer Grisha and Ravkans hope for the future.”
It is almost funny, having this conversation, in a reality where she’s not actually the Sun Summoner, not yet, where she might never be. Then again, it’s a dream, so she supposes things don’t have to be exactly logical, or have any sort of explanation in dreams.
“That means a lot to me, Alina.” Aleksandr admits quietly, his eyes shining with the wealth of feeling his control won’t allow in any other part of his body, or even his voice. “You mean a lot… to everyone… to me.”
Ha! That’s new, she cannot help but think.
She doesn’t kiss him though. She knows that’s how things went, the first time around, and while there’s a part of her that really wants to kiss him; that’s sure that it’ll be as good as it was back then (perhaps even better, somehow). The greater part of her cannot help but feel that it wouldn’t be right, for some reason. It’s… she wants the first time she kisses him, in this life, to be real. To be in the real world, with the real Aleksandr. So she just smiles at him and enjoys the rest of the dream.
Chapter VII. Winter.
Alina wakes on the last day of travel back to Os Alta, after her team’s latest trip, this time to Poliznaya, after a curious dream which started as the memory of Aleksandr bringing her flowers, blue irises, on the day of the Winter Fete, only for the memory to derail entirely as she comes to the realization that blue irises are no longer her favorite flowers.
She knows why they used to be. The old meadow where she and Mal would often slip to, whenever they could escape the orphanage, was full of blue irises at the height of spring, making the sight quite beautiful and the air fragrant. Mal would often tell her that when he had the farm, when they lived there, he’d be able to grow enough food for them to survive, and she would be able to plant a garden full of blue irises… it was a nice enough picture, even if she was never a fan of the whole ‘living in a farm’ plan in the first place.
Bottom line is, in her mind the blue irises had ever been one more connection to Mal, to the afternoons spent just the two of them together, simpler times. Times she kept telling herself were the ideal she should be aspiring for the return of…
Nowadays her favorite flower is the tiger lily. A flower native to Shu-Han, though long since ‘imported’ to Ravka. She first saw a patch of them, as a child newly come to the Little Palace (somehow never having noticed them in the other life, not really), growing in a corner of one of the gardens. It was Botkin who told her the history of the flower, and why he loved them so dearly:
“It feels like they’re a tiny piece of Shu-Han that has grown roots, has learned to bloom, in Ravka,” the trainer and former mercenary explained to her. “Much like myself… and you…”
And granted, Alina is only half-Shu, she’s never even been to the other nation, never felt like she’s truly Shu… but she still likes the sentiment. And so she came to love the flower. With it becoming her favorite eventually.
The team pressed on during that last day, eager to be back home. They were almost at the palaces’ gates when they noticed something happening…
There was arguing. Or more precisely, the royal guards posted at the gate were arguing with someone, a woman, judging by the voice. She was of a decent height, covered in an old, slightly threadbare cloak (one that looked like it had been very fine, once, many years prior) with the hood pushed back, revealing a head full of wavy, short, matted, chestnut brown hair. Behind her was another woman, shorter, with long, wavy, dark blonde hair, her body slightly bent, either in exhaustion or… or the child she had her arms around. The boy was small, two, maybe three years old at most, nearly invisible under his mother’s cloak.
“What seems to be the problem?” Sergei asks, from his spot on one of the horses.
Alina, presses her knees to the sides of her own horse to get closer. She can see Zoya and Genya peering out through the carriage’s windows, where it was their turn to travel, keeping the two newest Grishenka company. The shadow summoner signals at them to stay with the kids, and then at David to get closer to them. If something goes wrong, they need to be able to protect those most vulnerable. And she can look after herself just fine.
“We’re just telling the… lady, that she cannot be here,” one of the guards answers Sergei’s question.
“We don’t want her kind here,” the other states with a sneer.
“Her kind?” Sergei repeats, clearly not liking the sound of that.
“Yeah,” the second guard says, still with the same tone. “This is a palace, not a brothel! We don’t need no fucking whores!”
Alina cannot help but think that if it were still Tsar Pyotr on the throne, he probably wouldn’t have minded the whores… then again, he doubts the man ever paid for his pleasure… No, he was the kind to just take, whether the girls wanted it or not.
Sergei practically throws himself off the horse, rushing to the soldiers. It’s clear he doesn’t like that, and Alina knows why. In their travels they’ve come across people, women, from all walks in life. More often than not those living as prostitutes are only such because they had no other choice. It was the only way they could get food on their tables, clothes on their backs, and sometimes not even just for themselves, but their families as well. And of course, there were the Grisha they all knew were taken from Ravka and sold to brothels in Kerch.
“Sergei!” Alina calls his name, sharply.
Surprisingly enough, Sergei’s not the only one to react to that. Matter of fact, he’s the one who reacts the least, barely stopping in his tracks, though he doesn’t actually turn his attention to his team-leader, eyes still on the royal guards. The chestnut haired woman, on the other hand, spins around sharply, dark eyes going first to Alina, then to Sergei, she’s clearly shocked for some reason. And she’s not the only one, the other woman turns too, hazel eyes looking just as shocked. The move also allows the child in her arms to become clearly visible, he clearly cannot be more than two or three years old, and even then, he’s quite small, with blonde hair at least a couple of shades lighter than the woman’s, and the same hazel-green eyes as her.
Something else Alina cannot help but notice is that their clothes and even the cloak look of much better make than the one being worn by the other woman. It makes it curious, the three being together.
“Sergei…?” It’s the younger woman who asks the question. “Sergei Beznikov…?”
That truly throws all of them for a loop.
“Who are you, ma’am?” Alina is the one who asks, as she reaches them all.
“Yanina Derbent, my lady,” the blonde introduces herself, bowing her head. “But… but I was born Yanina Beznikov…”
Well that, that’s interesting indeed. Alina did not see that one coming.
xXx
They take Sergei’s family to one of the smaller public parlors in the Little Palace, someone from the kitchens being kind enough to send them a tray. It’s soon made obvious that all three of them have had very little to eat in days, and in fact, Agata looks like she might not have eaten at all for the longest. Alina wants to insist on them eating and resting, and if they wish, wash up before they talk about what’s brought them to the Little Palace. Especially because it’s unclear if it was Sergei or not… However, the women insist that explanations need to be given first of all.
“You might not wish for us to stay, after you’ve heard what brings us here exactly,” Yanina admits.
Sergei blanches at the mere thought and Alina can only imagine how bad things might be.
It’s… worse in some ways, better in others.
It’s Yanina who tells their story. Starting with the escape from the Beznikov farm that night, so long ago. As planned, the sisters had avoided Balakirev; in the dead of night they managed to avoid the path to Karost as well and after days on the road, getting dangerously close of dying either of starvation or having to drink impure water, they were found by some traveling merchants: Suli, who took pity on the girls and took them all the way to the closest town: Mologa.
Mologa was close to the Sokol, at a point where the river formed a natural curve, which allowed it to half-circle the settlement; on terrain high enough they didn’t have to worry about flooding, even at the height of the rain season, and a forest to the east, leaving only two easily defensively accesses to the town, one at the northeastern point and the other at the southern part, the town was relatively easily defensible, which means it was a very prosperous one as well.
Lord Derbent wasn’t a noble exactly, but he was a businessman, with enough riches and who owned enough of the businesses and land in Mologa to be considered as such. Perhaps his most successful business of all, was the local brothel.
The town had no real orphanage and while the Church was willing to take in the orphans, they were sent away once they reached double digits unless they showed interest in joining the Church, for real. Agata had no interest in being a nun, so she was forced to look for a job. She did odd jobs here and there, everywhere she could until, perhaps unsurprisingly, she ended working at the brothel. It was only as a maid at first. But once Yanina too aged out of Church-care… Agata decided she was going to look after her sister, and wouldn’t allow her to sell herself. So Agata became a prostitute.
Her beauty and poise allowed her to make good money, enough to pay for a room, get clothes and food for both herself and her sister; enough also to ensure her little sister would never have to go down the same path as her. Yanina instead ended working as a serving-girl, both at the brothel, and at the nearby club. It was there that she eventually called the attention of Lord Derbent, who began pursuing her most ardently not even a month after first meeting her. He’d send her all sorts of gifts, requesting she be the one to attend him whenever he visited either of her places of work.
There’s a part of Alina, the part of her that remains a cynic, that wonders what it was that truly interested the lord. Yanina isn’t ugly, she’s a very pretty girl, actually, but if the shadow summoner were to be asked, she’d say that her sister was prettier. Then again, with Agata being a prostitute she probably wasn’t ‘the right kind of girl’ to be a lord’s wife… Yanina on the other hand, working as a serving-girl, yet known to not have sold her virtue… She supposes not few men would find that enticing.
According to Yanina, what eventually convinced her to accept the man’s suit was when he promised Agata could go with them. She could work at his mansion as a maid, or perhaps a nanny for their children, once they had them. And so they married.
Alina is completely unsurprised when hearing that the man also intended to continue seeking Agata’s ‘services’ once she came to live at their home. Sometimes seeking her out, but most of the time actually summoning her to his rooms, at least once a week. Agata never told her sister about this (or about the other woman Derbent started bringing to the manor once he lost interest in Agata in recent years) not wanting Yanina to lose what looked like her best chance at making a good life. It even seemed to be worth it. Truly, a man seeking his pleasure in women other than his wife isn’t exactly an uncommon vice, and one easy to live with.
Years passed, and while Yanina was a bit on the young side when she married, and when she gave birth to her only son, Serge (Sergei blushes to the roots of his hair, understanding the little boy was named after him), their life was good enough (a place to live, good water, food and access to midwives and doctors whenever necessary) that she didn’t have as hard a time as some women both older and younger than her.
Things might have continued in the same vein, but then Serge turned out to be Grisha. And the way it was revealed…
“Someone was trying to murder you?!” Sergei practically yells, furious.
It’s probably a good thing he has such perfect control over both his healer and heartrender abilities, otherwise things might have gone very wrong.
“Yelena,” it’s Agata who explains that part. “She was Bosko’s new favorite. The most expensive whore at the brothel too. Though the last at least she’s going to be losing soon. Happens all the time. Some last a few weeks to months if they take care of themselves, a year if they’re especially lucky. I’m sure she must have known her time was running out and thought to secure a good place for herself before she started losing it all. Would even respect her thinking ahead like that, if she hadn’t decided that the place she wanted was my sister’s.”
And when Bosko showed no interest in setting Yanina aside, Yelena decided to ‘be proactive’ and get rid of the girl herself. Might have even succeeded, if Serge’s alkemi abilities hadn’t abruptly manifested as he came in contact with the poisoned juice, pulling the poison out of it without even realizing what he was doing.
It wouldn’t have even been a problem, if Bosko Derbent weren’t one of those who saw Grisha as less. He didn’t fear them, didn’t even hate them, not really. But he saw them as second-class citizens. Then again, should perhaps come as no surprise, the man was originally from Kerch.
“I saw it, in his eyes,” Yanina says softly. “He looked at our son and he no longer saw a little boy, an heir. No, he saw… he saw a servant, a slave. He looked at him in a way that was even worse than how so many men would look at me when I was a serving girl… I knew I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t risk him doing something to my boy. Selling him to someone in Ketterdam, or worse!”
“So you ran,” Alina guesses.
“We ran,” Yanina agrees. “We did not expect him to come after us.”
To be honest, neither did Alina.
What follows is a harrowing tale of two sisters and a little boy fleeing, while an insane man with more gold than sense sends hunters after them. They’ve spent months on the run, they don’t even know how long anymore, exactly. Their aim, from the start, was the Little Palace. Hoping the Grisha would be willing to at least take little Serge in, that he would be safe there, like he wouldn’t be with his mother and aunt. And that, at least, is easy enough to promise.
Alina promises herself that she’ll find a way to help the two women as well. While it’s clear enough that Derbent is after the child and not his mother and aunt, the shadow summoner believes there’s a good chance the lord will turn against them once he realizes the boy is out of his reach (at least she doesn’t believe him stupid enough, or to have the kind of power necessary for him to think he can move after Grisha in general).
There has always been a need for nursemaids and the like to watch over Grishenka when they’re not in class. And while sometimes these nannies have been Grisha themselves (either those pregnant, or disabled in some way) there isn’t always someone that can fill the position, since Grisha are expected to serve in the Second Army for life unless it’s proven they just aren’t able, or they’re pregnant (though in the latter case they’re expected to be back in service as soon as their child turns one).
It requires several talks with Aleksandr, Ivan, Fedyor, the heads of the various Grisha Orders and the few Grisha parents living at the Little Palace. It takes all of them talking to the Beznikov sisters (Yanina was ready and willing to drop the Derbent name for both herself and her child the moment they were granted the initial sanctuary), but in the end there is agreement. And thus Agata and Yanina Beznikov become the new women in charge of the Grishenka dorms.
There’s a bit of a learning curve, of course, as with everything. Except for the (depressingly few) Grishenka who remain on good terms with their birth families, most have never met an otkazat’sya who was kind to Grishenka. And with the exception of the very few born to Grisha parents, none of them have parents around. Even the few children who are truly loved by their non-Grisha parents, who have been able to visit with them, or have them visit at some point since their arrival to the Little Palace, it’s not the same as their parents being around all the time. And truly, even those who have Grisha parents, with them having to serve in the Second Army for life, the likelihood of said parents being around for more than one or two months every year isn’t very high.
So yes, the sisters’ addition to the staff is a change. But perhaps the greatest boon is how truly maternal both women are. Even Agata who has no children of her own (and never will). The young women (they’re truly young, especially Yanina, who’s not even out of her teens yet and would be at the First Army if her marriage to Derbent hadn’t kept her from joining at all; he also ‘bought’ Agata’s contract as a gift to his wife) seem to take their new position as permission and make an effort to be maternal not just to Serge, but to every single child in the nursery. Even those too old for those dorms, when they happen to approach them, they never turn them away. So it’s perhaps unsurprising when they come to be known as ‘Nyanya A’ and ‘Nyanya Ya’.
And Sergei of course is beyond delighted to have his sisters back, and with a nephew too! Also, since they’re getting to the hardest part of winter, there will be no more trips for the team; the General having decreed even before they left on the most recent one that with how bad the weather can be in Ravka, it’s better if none of them are on the road barring emergencies. The trips will resume after the thaw, so until then Sergei can spend all of his free time with his family.
It’s quite the change of pace for everyone, as it’s decided that instead of returning to the usual classes and training, all the members of Alina’s team are tasked with teaching special classes to the most gifted Grisha, their age and younger.
“This is crazy!” Zoya snaps at one point. “I did not sign up to be anyone’s trainer!”
“No, you signed up, so to speak, to be the best,” Genya points out. “This is the cost of being the best.”
That seems to actually give Zoya pause. Because obviously she would never try to claim she’s anything but the best of her order (she’s too proud for that)… So in the end all she can do is accept her lot in life and move on.
xXx
On the morning of the Winter Fete, Fedyor drops by Alina and Genya’s room with a gift for the former: a potted tiger lily. Alina can only blink as she looks at the plant.
It’s… strange, for a myriad of reasons. First there are the dreams she had for almost a week straight, shortly after her team’s return to the Little Palace, weeks earlier; before the General’s return and them being able to fully settle the matter of Sergei’s sisters’ staying at the Little Palace. While it wasn’t rare for her dreams to mix fragments of memories from the other timeline, with fantasies her mind spun of how things might turn out in the current one, never before had she dreamed variations of the exact same encounter time after night:
It was the dream-memory that had Aleksandr gifting her flowers, on the day of the (other) Winter Fete. The thing was, while the first night he’d given her blue irises, prompting a comment from her about how those flowers weren’t her favorites. Somehow this led to a repeat of the dream the following night, this time with him offering her a bouquet of fern leaf peonies (the traditional Ravkan flower), which brought bad memories to Alina (memories of attacks, and death and so much blood…). Then the next night it was winter roses, which while very beautiful seemed to remind both her and Aleksandr of Fjerda a bit too much so… The funniest was perhaps when Aleksandr tried gifting her royal azaleas, only to learn that Alina was allergic to them! This at least finally prompted Alina to reveal her preference for tiger lilies. Though when on the next dream he offered her one such flower Alina couldn’t help but look at it sadly.
“Lapushka…?” Aleksandr asked, clearly not expecting that reaction.
“It’s beautiful…” Alina murmurs, but while there’s a smile on her face, her eyes aren’t smiling.
“But…?” Aleksandr prods a bit.
“Why must it be killed?” Alina finally asks, a hint of sadness in her voice. “I’ll never understand, why make a gift of dying flowers?”
Why make a gift of dying flowers…? It’s the kind of question, of comment, she’s never made out-loud, not in the real world. She’s always thought it. She knows, flowers die, it’s normal. And yet, she’s always thought that plants that are still alive, that may bloom again in another season, or another year, if cared for, are somehow better, more beautiful even than flowers that have been cut, that will just die and become… nothing.
That doesn’t explain why Aleksandr has chosen to send her a potted tiger lily as a gift! It’s not the fact that it’s in bloom, despite it being late winter that surprises her (she knows that several Grisha working together can make plants bloom and give fruit out of season), it’s the fact that he thought to send her such a gift. Makes her wonder…
xXx
There are no dreams during the latter part of winter, though Alina doesn’t have much opportunity to ponder on why this might be, busy as she is with the preparations for the Winter Fete. Particularly as she’s informed that she’s expected to ‘put on a show’.
“Why me?” she asked Fedyor, who was the one to inform her of the development. “I’m not the only shadow summoner, nor the strongest.”
“Why not?” he asked in return, then elaborated. “I don’t think you realize Alina, but you’ve very much become a leader in your own right. It doesn’t matter that you and your team have never set foot on a battlefield, what you’ve done, your actions in all those towns… you’ve probably saved just as many people as the Second Army has, and improved the lives of even more.”
Alina blushed, unable to help herself.
“As to your power…” Fedyor continued. “Yes, the General is more powerful. Which should be no surprise since he’s also considerably older than you. Has more training and experience. But you shouldn’t dismiss your own skill. You’re strong Alina, more so than even you know, I think.”
It took her days to decide what she was going to do exactly, and once she did… she couldn’t help but be terrified as she wondered if she was strong enough to pull it off. And yet once she got the idea into her head she couldn’t not at least attempt it…
Zoya puts on a hell of a show in the late evening. Having waited until the sky is dark enough for the flames she can command as an inferni to be flashy, yet there’s still enough light between the moon and stars high in the sky, as well as the torches in both palaces, for the water she moves as a tidemaker and the snow she moves and spins around with her squaller (not like the wind alone would have been visible) skill to be visible still.
Alina’s own show is the last of the night, and the only one to take place in the ballroom itself. At her request, there were enough lights on in the room to leave very little space for shadows. Also, people were moved to one side of the ballroom, leaving plenty of space empty, as well as one of the walls (the one with the least adornments), bare.
“I give you Alina Starkova, Shadow Summoner!” Aleksandr presents her.
She steps forth then. She’s wearing pale gray trousers under a kefta that aside from being her usual black with silver-gray embroidery also has a pale-gray (almost white) lining. Her hair is tailored to look as if it were fully loose, though in truth she’s wearing a net made of durast steel polished till it shone, almost like silver, with strands falling along with her own dark tresses, it looks almost as if there were silver in her own hair as well. It’s her nod to her full truth (to all of her power), even if people might not know it yet.
She moves past where the guests have gathered, though just a few steps, just enough for everyone to be able to see her. At a signal from her the musicians, gathered in a corner of the room, start playing. Music starts soft, low and slowly growing in both volume and tempo. As the music grows Alina starts moving her hands, low, at her sides first.
It takes several seconds, but eventually people start noticing what’s going on, that she’s pulling at the few shadows in the room, gathering them together, first to her and then… as she raises her arms, slowly, purposefully, the coalesced shadow pulls away from her and all the way to the wall. At first it looks like a blob. Alina takes a slow breath and gives a few gestures, and slowly but surely that blob pulls this way and that, until it takes shape, a feminine shape.
It’s almost like a twisted reflection of Alina. Or as if her shadow had separated from her… then it shifts again, the figure looking as if it were a woman wearing a long, elegant dress, instead of a kefta.
Alina takes a deep breath and as the music reaches a particularly intense note she waves her arms sharply and the shadow splits into two. One the female in the dress, the other a male in a kefta and trousers and boots.
For a fraction of a second there’s no music at all. Some people seem to not even be breathing… And then the music picks back up again and the two shadows start to dance on the wall.
It goes on for a minute or two, before there’s yet another shift in the music. An extended note has Alina doing yet another motion this time it’s almost as if she were extending her hands to the figures on the wall, almost if she were offering them her hands…
The guests gasp as the shadows separate from the wall, becoming tridimensional figures as they do. They never do touch Alina, but instead, as the music changes again as they turn to each other and start dancing once again, this time in the empty space of the ballroom.
Alina’s moves have become more elaborate and more evident. Guests start whispering around her, about what she’s doing, how she looks as if she were controlling puppets or… or directing an orchestra. It’s beautiful…
For many otkazat’sya it has been one thing to hear about the shadow summoners using their shadows to get people out of a ditch, or hold columns up as others work to secure a bridge. Even having seen what Gral. Kirigan could do, nothing quite compares. Never would they have imagined actual figures made out of shadows moving like that…
Alina’s starting to sweat but she forces herself to keep calm, to keep control… the song reaches its final crescendo as the male figure dips the female one after a very fancy twirl. Then the melody finally comes to an end, the guests watch as the two figures pull apart slightly, curtsying and bowing at each other, like real people would after a noble dance; and then it’s like they start to dissolve, the edges becoming blurry and then slowly pulling apart, the shadows seemingly falling to the floor before returning to where they belong.
Alina takes a very deep breath, forcing herself to lower her arms slowly (as opposed to letting them fall, letting herself sag, the way a part of her really wants to, she’s beyond exhausted!).
The clapping and cheers that follow are deafening. They’re in fact so loud that the stained windows of the ballroom seem to vibrate, just for a moment. Alina herself sways, just a bit (though it’s hard to tell if that’s due to shock over the reaction, or just sheer exhaustion).
She takes another deep breath before turning around to face the crowd, managing to make herself smile. Though when she goes to curtsy, as is expected of her, she trembles and has a hard time straightening once again. It’s probably a good thing that that’s when Aleksandr chooses to approach her, touching her arm and very discreetly using his own shadows to help hold her up.
“You’re extraordinary, milaya,” he whispers under his breath.
xXx
Alina’s so exhausted she doesn’t even complain when Aleksandr pulls her away from the nobles instead of leading her straight to the formal dining hall for the dinner. Of course they won’t be able to miss it. Neither of them have a double this time, and their absences would certainly be noticed, especially after she just put on such a show.
They don’t end up in his war room, they don’t even leave the Grand Palace, in fact. Just a small room, an office of some kind.
Alina ends up with her back against the wall so fast her brain cannot quite process when or how it happened. Then… nothing. Aleksandr is staring at her with such heat in his eyes she’s surprised he isn’t summoning light. And the hunger… it’s enough to make her weak in the knees in a way even her recent show in the ballroom didn’t manage. And yet he still won’t kiss her!
So she does it instead.
She doesn’t even need to move that much, there’s less than two inches of space between them as is! And while she starts the kiss, it takes him but a moment to take it over. She doesn’t even try to fight him on it, surrendering to it, to his passion, to him, entirely…
The kiss goes on for a while, enough that neither of them notice when the knocking first comes, not until it’s practically a pounding on the door.
“General, dinner’s about to begin,” the voice comes from the other side of the door.
It’s Ivan! Alina goes so red she almost starts glowing! She has no doubt the heartrender must know Aleksandr isn’t alone, and the chances of him not knowing she’s the one there are slim to none. She’s absolutely mortified!
Also, it’s until they pull apart, Alina not quite hearing as Aleksandr replies to his second in command, that she realizes just how breathless she is. How breathless they both are. When he turns to look at her again, Alina cannot help but look down, blushing.
“Don’t,” Aleksandr murmurs, fingers under his chin, pulling her face up. “Don’t be ashamed. Remember what I told you, lapushka, never apologize for who you are…”
“… the world won’t care to forgive you for it,” she finishes for him.
Then she takes a deep breath and straightens up to her full height.
Aleksandr goes to open the door so they can leave the office and head to dinner when Alina smiles and throws herself at him, planting a kiss on his mouth. It’s brief, but no less passionate for it. It also has Aleksandr staring at her, blinking.
“You surprise me, Alina,” he murmurs thoughtfully, looking down at her lips then into her eyes. “I think I like it.”
She blushes yet again, though this time she doesn’t look down. She’s done being ashamed or self-conscious of who she is.
xXx
The rest of the Winter Fete is pretty boring.
The dinner seems to go on forever. A full twelve course feast (Alina didn’t even know there was such a thing as a twelve-course meal! Though apparently only the Lantsovs have made a habit of it; even the other nobles never do more than six to eight courses), none of which is particularly savory, or filling. The most disappointing of all perhaps being the dessert: a slice of Medovik; it’s so bad even Alina can’t do more than try a single bite (and she can’t even imagine, what Aleksandr must feel, as with his sweet-tooth he’ll consider someone making a honeycake taste awful a crime… which would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad).
After the feast, the guests make their way to a variety of parlors and different groups mingle: nobles trying to either create or improve on connections, ladies either seeking gossip or spreading some of their own. Some are even talking about the most recent news regarding the various war fronts (the recent kidnappings from the drüskelle, mostly in the north though as far south as Kribirsk; the Shu incursions in the south, and the tensions that kept growing in West Ravka).
“May I?” Aleksandr asks softly, offering Alina his arm.
She smiles as she takes his arm, allowing him to lead her around. They know they must mingle. Much as she might not enjoy the politicking, and she knows how much Aleksandr hates it himself; but it’s needed, for the Grisha. They overhear several conversations that make several things very clear: Grisha are becoming more popular, more than even Alina ever thought possible. Aleksandr’s honestly baffled, as he never held much hope, for all he chose to let Alina give her plan a try. Oh, and Zlatan is still intent on getting West Ravka to secede, and he has foreign backers too!
He’s also heard other rumors, which apparently haven’t reached noble ears yet (or if they have, the nobles have the good sense not to mention it around the Tsar and Tsaritsa… which is quite surprising in and of itself): and it is that while Alina apparently managed to keep the people from seeing her and anyone else from her team as saints, she either didn’t expect, or perhaps didn’t even know yet, what the people have been calling her instead: narodnaya printsessa, the princess of the people… The Lantsovs really aren’t going to like that once they find out…
Something else everyone seems to be talking about are the Grisha who showed off their skills tonight. Alina, of course, being the one most talked about. Aleksandr’s pretty sure people are talking more about Alina than they are about Tsar Vasily and Tsaritsa Kalyna. So it’s no surprise when, once all people gather once again in the ballroom, for the ball-portion of the evening, an attempt is made to pull the attention back onto the royals: with them announcing the Tsaritsa’s pregnancy.
The woman is early enough in her pregnancy not to be showing yet. In fact, she’s at a point where most women would not choose to reveal their pregnancy. It’s clear the only reason they have, is in an attempt to have their guests’ attention turn in their direction. Because it’s their Winter Fete, their noble guests should be focusing on them, and not a Grisha girl!
Eventually the hour is late enough that the guests take their leave. Aleksandr and Alina are the last of the Grisha to make their way back to the Little Palace, with him walking her all the way to the door of her dorm, where he leaves her with a single, very heartfelt kiss to the back of her hand, and a promise that they’ll share a private lunch the next day.
Alina’s just slipped into her room, quietly, not wanting to wake up Genya if she’s already gone to sleep. Though of course she hasn’t. She’s in fact sitting up in bed, looking at Alina eagerly.
“I saw you!” she hisses-squeals. “With General Kirigan! Tell me everything!”
Alina can only laugh.
xXx
The following week is almost like a dream to Alina. The best kind of dream.
Every day she’ll spend time with Aleksandr, sharing at least one private meal, going on walks with him around the gardens, or even horse rides across the snow-covered fields, and of course, training their shadows together.
“Have I told you, you were absolutely magnificent the night of the Winter Fete, milaya?” he asks her at one point.
They’re in his private parlor, a room a tad more private, and certainly more comfortable, than the War Room. The oprichniki usually posted at the entrance to his quarters aware enough of things (and of her presence) to know not to interrupt them unless it’s absolutely necessary.
“You have, though I don’t mind hearing it again,” she says with an impish smile.
“You were totally marvelous, lapushka,” he reiterates. “A goddess given shape.”
Alina flushes but smiles at him nonetheless, getting close enough to place a kiss on the corner of his mouth. To which Aleksandr replies by winding an arm around the back of her head and pulling her to him, claiming her lips in an open-mouthed kiss that goes on long enough to make them both breathless.
“You could have shared the moment with me,” she points out after a few seconds to calm down. “I wouldn’t have minded it. In fact, I’d have enjoyed it, even.”
“Perhaps, but it was for the best that we do it this way,” he tells her gently.
“Why?” Alina still doesn’t understand. “I mean, if it’s about possible implications. We’re both shadow summoners? What difference does it make?”
“The difference is that when people look at me, they see the Black Heretic, they see the creator of the Fold,” Aleksandr explains. “They connect me, my shadows, with the Fold. With horror and tragedy and loss. And you? Your shadows on the other hand are a symbol of hope, of aid given to all who ask for it, and even to those who might not know to ask for it. You’re good, Alina, and the people know it.”
“You’re good too Aleksandr. And one day the people will see it too.”
Aleksandr’s not entirely convinced such a thing is possible. But then again, neither did he believe she’d manage to do much with her idea for those trips, and the results thus far have been beyond anything he thought would ever be possible so…
Eventually the two give up on talking, focusing on the kissing.
One moment Alina’s sitting on his lap, the two of them devouring each other with their kisses as his hands hold her tightly against him and hers play with the small hairs in the back of his head. The next… she’s not entirely sure how it happens, but she finds herself practically in the air for a few seconds and then she’s the one against the cushions and Aleksandr is above her, pressing pretty much the whole length of his body against hers. She shudders.
Alina realizes Aleksandr had to stand up at one point, with her still in his arms, before placing her on the daybed by the window and climbing atop her. He’s bigger than her, and with his kefta unbuttoned (she did that, didn’t she?), it’s almost like he’s enveloping her, to a point, his hands on the cushions, holding him up just enough so he won’t crush her. Alina arches her body, almost instinctively, seeking more of that heat, that pressure, of his body against hers.
Then there’s a hand running up her leg, getting closer and closer to the point where she feels heat and wetness pooling.
“Are you sure?” Aleksandr asks her, half-pant.
His face is still close enough to her for them to be sharing breath, and she can practically feel the ghost of his beard against her cheeks.
“Yes,” she can only gasp in response.
He buries his face in her neck, prompting her to tilt her head to the other side, baring her neck to him in an almost submissive gesture. She can feel the scratch of his beard, but more than that, she can feel his teeth nip almost sharply at the delicate skin there, followed by a touch of his tongue, and then his mouth is sucking…
An involuntary moan abandons Alina’s lips, loud enough there’s a corner of her mind that wonders if the oprichniki can hear… the greater part of her just doesn’t care.
He pays enough attention to that one spot, right where her neck and shoulder meet, that Alina has no doubt he will be leaving a mark. Dark and unmistakable to all who might see it. She doesn’t care about that either. The Apparat and the nobles and the fucking Lantsovs can say whatever the fuck they care, Aleksandr is hers!
That… that brings another thought to the front of her mind, though. The talk they need to have. As much as she may want for him to just pick her up again and take her to bed… they really need to talk some things out. As angry as she was the first time around, when she learned about the secrets he kept, she doesn’t want to imagine what his reaction will be, if she goes much farther with him, without being completely honest first.
She doesn’t know quite how to do it. How to get him to stop, how to tell him they need to talk, without him misunderstanding things entirely. And then… the choice is taken out of her hands, by a loud knocking on the parlor’s door. It’s something so sudden, so unexpected, that Alina freezes immobile, at the same time she cannot help but feel like someone’s thrown a bucket of iced water at her, effectively killing her libido.
Aleksandr curses under his breath, face still pressed against her neck.
“What…?!” he demands after taking a couple of deep breaths (probably to calm himself).
It’s the oprichniki, of course, with an urgent message for the general. There’s been an incident in Kribirsk. Nobody knows what happened exactly. There was apparently an explosion of some kind, all kinds of rumors are circulating as to the cause: from a faulty blue lantern, to an inferni having an accident, an experiment from someone going wrong… all the way to some suspecting an attempted attack from General Zlatan.
Whichever the cause for the explosion, the Tsar has ordered General Kirigan head to Kribirsk with all due haste, find out whatever it is that happened, and solve the problem, immediately.
“Go,” Alina whispers to him after straightening up her clothes and sitting up on the daybed. “Go, do what you need to do, and then come back to me.”
“Is it really that simple to you?” he asks, disbelieving.
“Why make it any more complicated than it has to be?” she asks with a shrug of her shoulders. “You have a duty to Ravka, to our Grisha. I knew that from the start. I knew that and I accepted it from the start. I fell in love with all of you, Aleksandr, not just the part I might find more convenient.”
“You fell in love…” he clearly isn’t expecting that.
To be fair, Alina wasn’t planning on saying it just yet; but truth be told, she doesn’t regret it.
“I love you Aleksandr,” she states, low yet confident. “All of you, always.”
He hesitates, and she can guess why.
“You don’t need to say it back,” she assures him. “If you’re not ready yet. It doesn’t matter how long it might take you. My feelings won’t change.”
It’s clear he doesn’t entirely believe it. If it were anyone else Alina would be offended, but she has a fairly good idea what makes him doubt. He believes that if/when she finds out the truth about him, about his identity, his past, she won’t want him anymore. That’s okay, he’ll learn…
And it’s probably a good idea for the both of them to talk about things before they fall into bed. Everything will be okay in the end. They have time. Even if they must delay things, with his duties, and even hers, they still have time. It’s not like she’s going to listen to Baghra and let her use Alina’s own insecurities to get her to run away from the Little Palace and ruin everything with Aleksandr.
Everything will be alright. They have time.
