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Chapter Text

It begins with Nikolai.

Alina isn’t there when it happens; she is off in Shu Han to negotiate an alliance—to beg for aid against the Fjerdans, in truth—and the news takes days to arrive. So she only hears the reports of the assassination just at the start of the formal banquet one fine summer eve, over whole roasted swordfish and tender dumplings in soup. Still sweating and breathless from the road, the messenger tells her that the guards and the Grisha stationed outside his room overnight heard nothing and the windows were all intact, but in the morning, they opened the door and found broken furniture and floor to ceiling smeared with blood. There were only scraps left to bury. She pushes away her plate untouched and cuts her mission short immediately.

She barely registers the journey home—mile after mile in the saddle, her back slick with sweat, pausing only so the horses can rest. Peasants crowd into the road and wave and call out Sankta Alina! before hurriedly diving to the side to get out of the path of the horses. These simple people of Ravka: first they spurned her, now they worship her. If she had time to ponder, she might wonder how long their newfound devotion will last. Instead, she thunders past without looking back and leaves them all in the dust.

Upon her return to the Little Palace, Genya fills her in on the various theories and rumors of the murder. She had meant for Genya to take charge of the household; instead, she has become her spymistress overnight. (Of course, it is a familiar role for her, as she was Kirigan’s spy before she was Alina’s.) Genya begins with the most obvious suspects: a Fjerdan assassin, as they are at war, and it would not be the first time they have made an attempt on Nikolai’s life. But there are also whispers of dissident Grisha, a handful of remaining followers of Kirigan—Zoya favors this theory. And there are also members of the Lantsov family who resented Nikolai’s rise. Or else…

“What?” she asks.

Genya glances at Zoya and then away. “There is another rumor that he was killed by the Sun Summoner, his betrothed,” she says, embarrassed. “The king was well known for his charm and his handsomeness, and he attracted many women, and so…”

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Alina interrupts, throwing up her hands. “Please tell me they aren’t really saying that. Me, killing Nikolai out of…out of jealousy! I wasn’t even in the country!”

They look at her. “They are saying that; you know how people are,” Zoya says bluntly. Her eyes are red and swollen—she had been especially fond of Nikolai. More than fond. “But it doesn’t really matter. What will you do about it? The king is dead. There must be an answer.”

Zoya is right, of course: someone must pay for this. There will be more armies mobilized, more war. But she needs time to think. Her headache has been building steadily ever since her return to the palace and she has slept for only an hour or two in the past three days. Besides, she stinks of the road. Zoya had wrinkled her nose when she walked in.

She has the servants draw up a bath and asks them to leave her alone, and then she strips down and sinks gratefully into her bathtub. Eyes closed, scrubbing the dirt and sweat from her skin, she thinks about Nikolai and wonders how death came for him—if it was swift, if he saw it coming. If he were here, she would shout at him for having the audacity to die: the only Lantsov she ever met that was worth a damn; a man who actually cared for his people and his county. They were going to rebuild Ravka together, and instead he reigned for less than five weeks. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. It wasn’t—

She wipes away furious tears. She’s always been good at being angry. At breaking things. She wants to break something now.

She imagines what Mal would say. Steady on, Alina, we’ll sort it out. But he’s gone and left her too. She told herself she wouldn’t resent him for it; that he had the right to make his own choices, and he would find his way back to her when he was ready. And yet, at the moment she needs him, he isn’t here.

She pushes that thought away and tries to refocus on the problem at hand and the absurd rumor Genya told her. She is tired of the whispers, the slander, the lies. She thinks of the peasants on the road to the Little Palace: for all of those who wept and called her Sankta, how many others stood off to the side and called her a Shu witch under their breath? After tearing down the Fold, after all that she has sacrificed for Ravka, how is it that there are still those who would believe her capable of murdering Nikolai from thousands of miles away?

But of course—Kirigan—the Darkling—Aleksander—had done it. He had shown her what was possible. He emerged from the Fold alive and wormed his way into her dreams, and she in turn found her way into his. She touched him and found him solid and real before her. An apt pupil, he said. He considered it high praise, but it wasn’t difficult at all. And at any rate, she soon surpassed him. Eclipsed him. She watched his body burn and promised to make a better world out of the ashes. Something beyond the limits of his imagination, something that could endure. And she will do it on her own if necessary: see what a half-Shu orphan from Keramzin is capable of.

She finishes scrubbing the last traces of dirt from her hair and steps out of the tub to towel off. The water has long grown cool and her limbs feel heavy. Suddenly, she wants nothing more than to sleep for a week and forget everything that has happened. In another life, she might have woken up in Noyvi Zem beside Mal, or else on the cold hard ground in a military tent with her maps and tools stashed away neatly in her pack. She knows now that she is meant for more. The Darkling was wrong about many things, but he was right about that.

Somehow she manages to dress and stumble into bed. She falls asleep in minutes. She dreams strange and monstrous dreams, dreams that make her writhe and cry in terror, but in the morning she opens her eyes to the sunlight streaming in through her windows and the soft chatter of servants in the hall and she remembers nothing at all.

Chapter Text

Genya suggests it first—this, Alina remembers long after she and Zoya are gone, as years become decades and decades become centuries. Genya’s idea, not her own. You are the Sun Summoner, she tells her as she braids her hair. The aristocracy and the officials have been flocking in for the funeral—and to vie for the succession, as Nikolai had no children and named no heirs—and she must look her part. You are Sankta Alina, Genya says. And you were betrothed to Nikolai, so you would have become a member of the royal family in due time. Why shouldn’t it be you?

Zoya clicks her tongue from the couch. She has kicked off her shoes and she slouches as she reads the latest dispatch from the front. The war with Fjerda has not been going well, and the Shu have dragged their feet on the promised alliance. “The aristocracy would beg to differ,” she scoffs, glancing up from her reading. “A Grisha on the throne of Ravka would be bad enough, but a commoner? Some nobody from Keramzin? You’d have a revolt brewing in hours.”

“Thank you, Zoya,” she says drily. She tilts her head up so Genya can touch up any blemishes. (Saints forbid that this nobody from Keramzin might appear before the high-and-mighty Lantsov relatives and their assorted hangers-on with a pimple on her nose.)

“They would find it difficult to accept, yes,” Genya replies. “But maybe it’s time for something new for Ravka. The Lantsovs have had four hundred years to rule. What have they done for the people in all that time?”

“Genya,” Zoya says reproachfully. She puts her dispatch down and folds her hands in front of her. “This is dangerous talk; I shouldn’t have to tell you this. And besides—Alina, do you want the throne of Ravka for yourself?”

She blanches. “Of course not.”

“Well, there you have it.”

“Hmm,” Genya says, unperturbed. She turns her attention back to Alina, gently lifting her chin to check her work one last time. Genya has no love for the Lantsovs, and understandably so, but what she has suggested is walking along the edge of treason. In Alina’s old life, the royal family had been an abstraction; akin to the saints, neither here nor there, and yet inseparable from the idea of Ravka. Then she met them and found them largely disappointing, Nikolai excepted. The Lantsovs were a petty and idle lot, arrogant and self-impressed, without the slightest interest in the world outside of the Little Palace. The ones that remain will surely be no better than those they replaced…

She shakes her head. “Genya, has any progress been made on the inquest into Nikolai’s murder?”

Genya drops her hands to her sides and looks away. “We have almost finished interrogating the palace staff and we netted ourselves a few spies, but no significant leads yet. Plenty of conjecture and innuendo, though. We are trying to dampen the rumors about you and Nikolai, but it is hard to control this sort of thing.”

“I see,” she sighs, fiddling idly with one of her earrings—dark blue sapphires studded with tiny pearls, today. Genya picked them out for her for the funeral; she has impeccable taste. She could never have imagined herself wearing something so extravagant until this past year. Then again, many things have happened in the past year that she could never have imagined. “You don’t think this business with jurda parem…this Fjerdan plot…” she begins hesitantly.

“Of course it is possible there is a connection,” Genya says. She exchanges a glance with Zoya. They are all thinking about the assassination attempt at Nikolai’s coronation, and the Heartrender with glazed eyes who nearly killed them all—unfortunately, matters were such that she could not be questioned afterwards. “Still, there is no evidence for it in this case,” Genya continues. “Not unless jurda parem gives Grisha the ability to walk through walls.”

“Which we cannot rule out,” Zoya drawls unhelpfully.

A soft knock on the door—Genya steps away to answer. An argument has broken out over the seating arrangements for the reception following the funeral; something about certain aristocrats balking at being seated too close to Grisha, or else insisting they be placed nearer to the head of the table, as befits their station. Alina has no patience for this sort of thing. If it were up to me, she thinks irritably, there would be none of this nonsense, none of this posturing and preening. Everyone would sit where they were told and that would be the end of it.

She wonders how Nikolai managed to deal with such people without losing his mind. Surely he must have had a breaking point too. Her mind wanders back to the wreckage of the royal quarters: by the time she returned from Shu Han to survey the damage, the servants had already wiped Nikolai’s blood from the floor and the walls and removed the broken furniture, but she had still heard the crunch as she stepped on slivers of broken glass embedded deep in the carpeting. She had closed her eyes and tried to listen for the echoes, for something that would tell her what had taken place in that room. She heard nothing and so she opened her eyes.

“Alina?” Zoya asks, touching her shoulder. Her voice is almost gentle. “It is time to go. We’ll be late for the service.”

She musters up a small smile and lets her friends lead her away. The answer she is seeking is not in this place, she realizes then. It lies elsewhere, coiled up in the darkness, slumbering in shadow. But she is the Sun Summoner, and she will bring it to light. And she is not afraid.

(Far off in the distance, she can hear him say, Little Saint, you should be. But he is dead and she is here; who is he to tell her to be afraid? Who is he to tell her anything?)

Chapter Text

She rides out alone the day after the funeral. Genya has tailored Zoya to take her face and act in her absence, over their strident objections and insistence that they accompany her. She sees that they truly care for her, her friends, and it touches her heart. Not enough to give in, however. This journey she must make on her own. Besides, she tells them, somebody must keep an eye on things at the palace and stay one step ahead of the Lantsovs. She would rather not come back to find a new king crowned while she was away.

It is a familiar path she takes now, through forests and meadows bright with flowers. Spring has come to Ravka and the earth is teeming with life: tender green leaves unfurling, crickets hanging off shoots of tall grass. When she had traveled this way with Mal and Baghra, the ground had just frozen and the leaves were dry and brittle on their branches. Less than half a year has passed since then. A new world has emerged; only so many have not survived to see it. At some point, she stopped counting the losses in her head. She had to put the dead aside.

Once the sun has dropped below the horizon, she stops for the night and feeds and waters her horse. She could generate her own light and continue on if she wished, but there is something comforting about building her small campfire and wrapping herself in a blanket as the stars come out. Some part of her almost expects Mal to walk out of the woods and plop down beside her. Things could go back to the way they were before. They could fix whatever was broken between them. A lump rises in her throat.

But Mal is not there. Her little fire crackles and pops. The embers settle in the soil. She pulls her knees up to her chest. He is not coming back, not this time.

The thought brings a certain amount of clarity. She can imagine what he would say if he were here: Alina, you have to let me go. This is the path I have chosen, as you have chosen yours.

Before, she would have argued. She would have said that they started off together and they should end together. She would say she needed him. Loved him. And she does love him still; she always will, that has never been in doubt. But the Mal in her head is right, and she finds she cannot fight him anymore.

She sits and watches the flames die down slowly. She feels like she ought to weep, but she doesn’t. And when all that is left is a pile of charred sticks and stray embers, she kicks the ashes to smother the last of it before curling up on her side and falling asleep.

She arrives at Morozova’s workshop late in the morning. When they had been there the last time, Mal had cut away the layer of vines covering the entrance, but already they have grown back and she has to claw her way through. The thorns snag on her clothing and her hands come away scratched and torn, but when she runs her hand along the stone door, she forgets all of it. A shudder runs down her spine. For a moment, she considers turning back. She could still run if she chose—she had once hoped to live an anonymous life with Mal in Noyvi Zem; a naïve thought, her face is well known now, but perhaps—

She takes out her knife, slices open her thumb, and presses it against the stone.

Nothing happens. Baghra had told them that only a Morozova could open that door. For a moment, she feels like an utter fool—to have come all this way on a whim, a mere feeling. Then the door swings open with a groan and she takes a few stumbling steps backwards, nearly tripping over the vines. Darkness yawns before her. She can hear Baghra’s voice in her head: Stupid girl, turn back before it is too late. But she has never claimed to be smart.

She summons her light and steps inside. It comes to her effortlessly now; she feels far removed from those early days of her training, when she struggled to bring forth the tiniest pinprick of brightness under Baghra’s unimpressed sneer. Summoning shadow, she finds, is another matter. She made several failed attempts in the days after she had successfully used the Cut. It had come to her in the moment she needed it, but when she focused all her energy again to find it…there was nothing.

There has never been a saint with the power to summon both light and shadow. Even the youngest trainee knows that a Grisha’s abilities are discrete; they may amplify another Grisha’s powers, but one cannot be both an Inferni and a Durast, or a Heartrender and a Squaller. But if it were possible…if there were somebody who could find a way…

The fire should have burned very hot; nothing of Morozova’s workshop should remain. She expects to find heaps of ash, the charred remnants of papers and scrolls, scorch marks on the stone walls. But everything appears as it was when she first stepped foot inside those six months ago: the books sitting askew on their shelves, gently gathering cobwebs; maps and diagrams spread out on the long table; bottles of petrified ink and quills turning to dust.   

She closes her eyes, extinguishes her light, and breathes in slowly.

In her mind, a picture begins to form: a small boy with unruly dark hair, no more than five years old. He is seated at the table, his feet dangling from the edge of the chair. He holds a quill in his chubby fist, scratching away at a piece of paper, deep in concentration. I, too, was a child once.

The image changes. The boy becomes an awkward teenager, standing over a sheaf of papers and frowning intently. On occasion, he picks up his quill and makes a note in a journal. Then, without looking up from his reading, he extends his left hand and summons a small puff of shadow, which he tosses gently in the air. It multiplies itself and soon enough he is effortlessly juggling three balls of shadow in one hand.

Now the teenager becomes a man—this time, pacing about the room with his hands clasped behind his back. He is agitated, restless, unable to stay still. Here is a man who might explode at any moment, who would do anything to anybody. She finds herself tensing up unwillingly: she has been the object of his fury before, his hands wrapped around her throat, snarling in her face. For the first time, she wonders who he learned it from.

He changes once again. Now he sits at the table, writing laboriously with his left hand. At his side is a small vial of bone. He has his right arm propped up on the table, and the stump of his wrist is raw and vivid. Black scars mar his face. She wants to step closer to see what he is writing, but she finds herself frozen in place. He should not be here, she thinks—Baghra severed the link and burned this place so he could never return.

Suddenly, he pauses in the middle of his writing. He raises his head slowly and looks her in the eye. “I see you,” he says without rancor.

“You’re dead,” she snaps back. “I watched you die and I burned your body. You’re not really here.”

He sets down the quill. “Are you sure?”

The room reels under her feet. There had once been an earthquake when she was a young girl at the orphanage at Keramzin—this was before she knew Mal—and she had crawled beneath her bed and curled up in a ball as the floor rattled beneath her. She was told later that the shaking had lasted for less than a minute, but it had felt like hours. Did she pray to the saints? She doesn’t remember now.

She opens her eyes to an empty room. The Darkling is not there. The bookshelves, the maps and diagrams, the apparatus for experiments—all traces of Morozova’s workshop are gone. Her gaze falls on the long stone table, bare except for one small object. She steps closer to see what it is.

A journal, bound in black leather. After a moment of hesitation, she runs her fingers along the cover and a shiver runs up her spine. She tucks it under her arm and returns the way she came, heading towards the light. Her footsteps echo down the hall. She does not look back.  

Chapter Text

“There has been a development,” Zoya tells her upon her return to the palace—she has her own face again, and her expression is distinctly conspiratorial. She shuts the door firmly behind Alina and guides her to the sofa. “This could change everything about the succession.”

“What now?” Alina groans. If all goes according to plan, then the Assembly will elect a new tsar in the next three weeks among an assortment of Lantsov cousins with limited talents and members of other aristocratic families drawing dubious genealogies to advance their claim. None of the candidates seem terribly promising. (That is to say, she wouldn’t trust a single one of them to guard a chicken coop, let alone rule the country.)

Genya presses a mug of tea into her hands. They had just about finished questioning all the palace staff who were present the night of Nikolai’s murder, she explains, when they caught wind of a rumor: that a former palace washerwoman had a three-year-old boy who had been fathered by none other than the late Crown Prince Vasily Lantsov.

“Prince Vasily had no shortage of women around him,” Genya explains. “He paid them off when he grew tired of them—well, his mother did, precisely so they would cause no trouble like this later on. It was an open secret.”

“His name is Dmitry,” Zoya adds. “We tracked down the child and his mother. She tried to deny it at first, but the boy does resemble Vasily…unfortunately for him.”

She shakes her head. “And the Lantsovs? What are they saying about this?”

“The Lantsovs are in an uproar, of course,” Zoya answers cheerfully. “In their telling, Vasily was perfectly chaste and innocent and never so much looked at a woman, which in my view lends credence to the possibility that this is indeed his son. Besides, we had a Heartrender question the woman and she found no signs that she was lying.”

Alina mulls it over. “If a child succeeds to the throne, it would be a long regency. There are those who would try to take advantage. Still, it would be an opportunity to bring about change…”

Genya and Zoya exchange a look. “Shall I arrange the meeting?” Genya asks. “It must be soon, before the Assembly gathers.”

“Please do.” Alina sets aside her cup and stands up.

“Where are you going?” Zoya asks. “You still haven’t told us where you’ve been these past three days or what you were looking for.”

Later, she promises them. To her dismay, she now has more questions than she started out with, and only one person who might know some of the answers. Time to seek him out. 

She finds him in the same place he first found her: in the library, wandering the stacks. When the Apparat sees her, he favors her with a warm smile, as though he has been expecting her the entire time. He sets the book he is reading back on the shelf and says, “I told you at the beginning that it was important for the two of us to be friends. Do you remember?”

“Why?” she asks coolly, leaning up against the shelf. She had only just discovered her powers when they had met during those early days in the Little Palace, and she had been overwhelmed and naïve. Easily used—she hasn’t forgotten the shame that came with the realization of how effortlessly she had been manipulated. But now she knows better.

“Because you have power, Sankta Alina, but you are young and lack knowledge,” he replies with cheer. “I am happy to impart my knowledge, of course. Such was my role as the king’s spiritual adviser.”

She raises an eyebrow. “And in return?”

“I ask only for your friendship,” he says. “That will suffice for me.”

“I have friends already.”

The Apparat shrugs. “Of course. You have Miss Safin and Miss Nazyalensky. Such loyal friends! But they don’t know all that you know, do they? They are Grisha, but that doesn’t mean they understand. It doesn’t mean they have the answers you are looking for. That is why you are here, is it not?”

She hesitates for a moment too long. He shakes his head. “What did you find in Morozova’s workshop?” he asks.

“You spied on me?”

He almost looks offended. “If I knew what you had found, why would I ask?” he says with a frown. “No—Miss Safin does excellent work, flawless to the untrained eye. She is without a doubt the best Tailor of her generation. But I have a trained eye, and so I know when the Sun Summoner has disappeared and another has been given her face for a few days. So I ask myself, where might she have gone?”

She has never liked this man; even in their first few encounters, he left her unsettled. But it is perhaps better this way, she thinks—she knows she will never be tempted to trust him, and therefore let him take advantage of her. He says he wants only her friendship; very well, let him earn it. Let him make himself useful.

“The Darkling,” she says slowly. “The connection between us was severed. Baghra cut it out of him, and now he is dead. Is that correct?”

Now it is his turn to raise his eyebrows. “Do you have reason to believe otherwise?”

She folds her arms and waits.

He lets out a small sigh and then gestures for her to follow him down the stacks, pulling a couple books along the way and handing them off to her. “Do you recall the texts I showed you the first time you visited the library? About the creation of amplifiers?” He doesn’t give her a chance to respond. “Then you should recall that death does not break the power of an amplifier. Death multiplies the connection a hundredfold. In the case of Ilya Morozova’s creations, the death of the creature was a necessary condition for a Grisha to access its power. It is a mistake to ever believe that death is truly the end.”

A shudder runs down her spine. She finds herself clutching the books tighter against her chest. “The Darkling was able to use my power by fusing bone fragments of the Stag to each of us,” she says. “I had thought that if the fragments were removed, the connection between us would be destroyed.”

The Apparat rubs his temples and sighs. “Think, child. The bone is the vehicle, yes. But think of how a blacksmith in the forge fuses together two pieces of metal into a tool. You can break the tool, but can you ever return the metal to the original components?”

She swallows. She had not thought of it that way; why had Baghra not told her? Surely she must have known.

The Apparat takes a step closer. “You obtained the strength of three legendary amplifiers through death; one of them, the Firebird, took a human form,” he says. There is a glint in his eyes that Alina doesn’t like. “And then you took the life of the Darkling,” he continues. “Did you believe you could do so without consequence? The Darkling was much the same—confident in his power and his own intelligence, he made choices on impulse and failed to reckon with what came afterwards. He lived in fear, always, and every action was driven by it. It was his great weakness.”

She steps back. “I am not like him,” she retorts. “I never slaughtered innocents; I never used others for my personal gain. And I am not afraid. Mark my words, I will not make the same mistakes.” She turns to leave. She has already wasted too much time here.

He looks at her with pity. “No, your mistakes are your own. Do you know your great weakness, Sun Summoner?”

She starts walking, heels clicking briskly against the marble floor. She is sick of the dire warnings and lectures; saints know she had enough of them from Baghra. True, she came into her powers later than most Grisha, but she is not a wayward child and she will learn on her own if she must. She doesn't need to listen to this old man expound on her faults and weaknesses. She has work to do.

Chapter Text

First: the journal. She waits until late in the evening to deal with it, after Genya and Zoya have been dismissed for the night. She knows she ought to confide in them—they are her friends, and she trusts them far more than anybody else in this place—but she reluctantly concludes that the Apparat is right. They will not understand her connection to the Darkling. She knows now that even Baghra did not quite understand it.

She runs her fingers down the worn leather cover. This is the only piece of Aleksander that remains. When he was bleeding out in the sand, he told her to make sure there was nothing left of him, and she had done just that: burned his corpse, destroyed his Fold and his volcra and his shadow creatures, and razed his camp to the ground. She would erase him from history if she could. Best to let the world start anew.

She takes her candle, starts a fire in the fireplace, and waits for the flames to spread. One last thing she has to do, one final act of destruction. She will do it without even opening the journal. What does it matter what words a dead man wrote? Perhaps he poured his heart and soul into these pages, perhaps he was writing his grocery list, what is it to her? Everything he did was tainted.

The fire now burns cheerily in the hearth. She picks up the journal and then hesitates—do it, you stupid girl, Baghra is telling her. What are you waiting for?

She opens it instead. Aleksander’s handwriting is hasty and jagged, the letters running up against each other and all the way out to the edge of the page. It is written entirely in cipher. She almost laughs.

“Of course,” she says softly, thumbing through the pages. He’s drawn diagrams here and there. Equations and graphs. She can’t make sense of any of it. “Keep your secrets.”

She puts the journal back in its hiding place and gets herself ready for bed. Ever since she first came to Os Alta, she has had a plethora of servants waiting on her, and she has never liked it. She learned self-sufficiency at a very young age; she has no need for somebody else to help her into her nightgown or blow out the candles for her. Besides—Genya warned her of this—servants are perfectly placed to be spies. They can be familiar, but they are not your friends.

Still, her newfound status brings some advantages: hot baths, feather mattresses, satin and silk robes. She doesn’t miss sleeping on the hard ground in a military-issue tent. No tossing and turning in the comfort of her own room. She falls asleep in minutes.

She dreams of a cabin deep in the woods. A moonless night; the branches and leaves overhead blocking out even the dim light of the stars. The forest is silent and still around her, without even a breeze to rustle her hair. She cradles a dying woman in her arms: brown hair, blue eyes, a sweetly rounded face—not a face that she recognizes. A trickle of blood leaks from the corner of her mouth and her eyes flutter open and then close. Alina has seen this before; the look of those wandering the space between the living and the dead. Mal had told her it was a peaceful place. He felt no pain and no fear, and though he did not say as much, he resented her for taking it away from him.

The woman is struggling to breathe. She is trying to tell Alina something, but the words seem to be stuck in her throat. Alina smooths the damp hair from the woman’s forehead and tucks it behind her ear before realizing her hands are covered in blood.

Something makes her look up: all around them are corpses, perhaps a dozen in all, the flesh not yet gone cold and stiff. Decapitated soldiers in their blue keftas, with their bows and arrows scattered about them and a look of shock on their faces. It feels horribly familiar. She fights down a wave of revulsion.

“Did the Darkling do this?” she asks the dying woman. “Where did he go?”

The woman’s head tilts backward and she lets out a gurgling moan. Wherever she is now, she cannot hear Alina anymore. She shakes her uselessly by the shoulders. “Where is the Darkling?”

She jolts awake all at once, with her hands gripping the blankets and sweat dripping down her neck. She forces herself to breathe and waits for her heartbeat to slow. He is dead, and it was only a dream, she tells herself. She settles back in under the covers and closes her eyes. She doesn’t fall asleep again until dawn.

Mila Antonova does not quite walk into the room: rather, she slides uneasily around the door with her toddler in tow after some prompting from Genya. She looks about the same age as Alina, perhaps a little younger. She drops into an awkward curtsy without raising her eyes and tugs at her son’s arm in a fruitless effort to make him stay still.

Alina offers a smile so as not to frighten her. “Thank you for meeting with me,” she says.

The former palace washerwoman has her gaze fixed firmly on the floor. When she speaks, her voice is soft and uncertain. “Yes, Sankta Alina.”

“Do you know why I asked to see you?”

“Because of Dmitry,” Mila says. Her lip quivers slightly. “My son.”

“And his father?”

Mila keeps her head bowed. She doesn’t answer.

From the corner, Genya says, “Mila was born in Os Alta; her parents came here after their village was raided by Fjerdans. She worked in the palace for about two years, starting when she was fifteen.”

“How did you meet Crown Prince Vasily?” Alina asks. No answer. After a beat, she adds, “Don’t worry; you can speak freely. I only met the tsarevich on a few occasions and I loathed him.”

For the first time, Mila raises her head and looks at her with searching eyes. “The prince often liked to leave the palace and go into the city without being noticed,” she says quietly. “The passageway went by the laundry and my shift was at night. Sometimes I would be working there alone. And sometimes he would come back drunk…”

Alina’s gaze falls on Dmitry. The child has plopped down on the floor and seems entranced by the pattern of the wood. Zoya was right; he takes after Vasily. He certainly does not look much his mother, who is wispy and blond. “Did the prince ever know?”

Mila drops her eyes and shakes her head. Alina trades a glance with Genya, who looks as though she would happily kill Vasily, if only the nichevo’ya hadn’t gotten to him first. “The prince is dead and you have nothing to fear from him,” Alina says. “His brother the king is also dead; he left no heirs. Fjerda attacks us from the north. East and West Ravka have only just begun the process of reunification. Your son represents a new beginning for this country.”

Mila shifts her weight from one foot to the other. She is watching Dmitry, now rolling around on the floor and happily ignorant of any adult conversation.

“I know this must be difficult for you,” she continues. She tries to make her tone softer, gentler. “It will be a great sacrifice for Ravka, for the people. I had to leave my old life behind to become the Sun Summoner and tear down the Fold. It took a long time for me to accept that.

“You see, I grew up in an orphanage in Keramzin,” she says. For some reason, she needs this woman to understand where she is coming from; that they are not so different after all. That she too knows what it is like to have your entire life uprooted in an instant. “My parents died trying to cross the Fold when I was very young,” she continues. “I trained as a mapmaker and joined the army, and that was where I thought I would be for the rest of my life. I did not even know I was Grisha until I was already grown. My world changed overnight.”

Mila frowns. “Yes, Sankta Alina,” she says hesitantly.

An awkward silence settles between them. The boy has finished rolling around on the floor and now he toddles about the room, suddenly interested by the gold trim lining the curtains. Mila reaches out and swiftly grabs him by the arm before he can put his hands on them.

“Your child will be protected here,” Genya finally adds. “He will have the best education and will never want for anything, and you and your family will be provided for as well. I will see to it personally that you remain in contact with each other.”

Mila’s voice shrinks down to almost a whisper. “Yes, my lady. Thank you, my lady.”

With the interview over, Genya escorts Mila and the child out. Alina sits back in her chair and nibbles thoughtfully on a pastry—buttery and rich, with a dollop of black currant jam. She realizes belatedly that she should have offered some to her guests.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Zoya finally says from her usual spot on the couch. She hadn’t said a word throughout the meeting with Mila. Now she idly winds and unwinds the strip of leather around the most recent dispatch from the Fjerdan border. “This is a risky game, Alina. Putting a child on the throne.”

She shrugs. “We both want what is best for Ravka and for the Grisha,” she assures Zoya. “All of this has been risky from the beginning, and we gain nothing from timidity. This is an opportunity to steer our country in the right direction. Why shouldn’t we take it? You told me the Sun Summoner could not afford to be weak.”

“I also told you that you needed allies,” Zoya replies tartly. “And I will stand by your side, but as your ally, I’ll tell you this as well: once you start down a certain path, eventually you will arrive at a point where you can no longer turn back. If you aren’t careful, you may not recognize it until it’s already too late. When you get there, don’t say nobody warned you. Don't tell me you never saw it coming.”

Chapter Text

Alina begs off after another unproductive dinner with the ambassador from Shu Han, though Zoya wants to discuss troop movements and strategies to push the Fjerdans back across the border. “In the morning,” she promises, taking the latest missive from her hands. “Let me read it over first. I need time to think.”

It now sits unopened and unread on the corner of her desk. She will read it, of course; she is still technically leader of the Second Army and it is her duty to be informed of developments at the front, even though Zoya now sees to the day-to-day management. Instead, she takes the journal from its hiding place, unwraps it, and takes out a blank piece of paper and her quill and inkpot. She has borrowed a couple of books on encryption from the library—she had once again failed to avoid the Apparat, who ambushed her in the stacks and practically quivered with excitement when she told him with no small amount of reluctance what she was looking for, though not why—and now she opens the first book and reads carefully through the first chapter.

She then turns her attention back to the journal, flipping through the first few pages and looking for patterns, writing down recurring symbols as she sees them. It takes about half an hour for her confidence to begin to wane. She crumples up the paper and pushes the books away with an irritated sigh. She was trained in cartography—a perfectly good field of study for an orphan from Keramzin with few prospects—but altogether useless in her current position. Too bad old Ana Kuya hadn’t taught cryptography instead.

Alina briefly contemplates how satisfying it would feel to rip pages from the journal and burn them one by one. She can almost hear him ask, then why don’t you do it?

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” she mutters as she idly turns the pages. She isn’t sure what she is looking for. The symbols run together; the diagrams are meaningless. She could spend weeks—months—years trying to crack the code, and she doesn’t have time for that.

She is about to give up for the night and put the journal away when her eyes fall to the very bottom of the final page, all but hidden beneath line after line of cipher. A shiver runs down her spine. Written in Aleksander’s now-familiar scrawl, there is a single sentence in Ravkan:

YOU KNOW WHERE TO FIND ME, LITTLE SAINT.

She closes the journal and puts it away.

“You have a visitor,” Zoya warns her, stepping out smoothly into the hallway just before she reaches the door to her room after breakfast. “The former queen mother. She’s been waiting for you for some time.”

Alina groans. Among the surviving members of the royal family, ex-Queen Tatiana Lantsov is the one she least wants to deal with. “Where is Genya?”

“Out,” Zoya says. “The lady tried to take us by surprise, but we were warned by one of our spies just in time, luckily.” She leans in closer. “She’s spoiling for a fight. The convent hasn’t mellowed her out at all. Try not to sock her in the jaw and start a domestic incident.”

“I’ll do what I can, but no promises,” she sighs, rubbing her eyes tiredly. She realizes belatedly that she forgot to read the dispatch from the front that Zoya had given her the night before. She will have to find time for it later, after she deals with this most recent annoyance.

The former queen has taken up in Alina’s favorite chair and made herself quite comfortable. It seems she has just finished breakfast, and the servants weave between her and Alina with trays and plates of half-finished food. She is still dressed in the deepest mourning attire, with only a pair of massive diamond earrings instead of her usual array of frippery and gold and gems. If it were anyone else, Alina would feel sorry for her for losing two children in less than a year. But Tatiana Lantsov is not anyone else.

“Madam,” Alina begins—she is no longer moya tsaritsa—“I did not expect you. With the funeral over, I thought you would have returned to new home at Poliznaya to mourn in private. It would be in accordance with Nikolai’s wishes.”

Tatiana gives her a scathing look. “I was queen for over thirty years. My place has always been here. Yours, on the other hand…”

So much for politeness. She pulls up a chair so she does not have to keep standing in front of this woman like a child before the schoolmistress. Or a subject before her superior. She puts her feet up on the table for good measure and is rewarded with the former queen’s grimace. She acts as though Alina grew up feral in the mountain ranges north of Shu Han; very well, let her at least have some entertainment and play the part.

“What do you want?” she asks.

Tatiana shakes her head. “The Assembly meets in less than two weeks,” she says. “If you’re smart, you’ll make terms with the royal family before then.”

“Terms,” she repeats flatly. “What terms are those?”

Tatiana flicks a stray crumb from the table. “First, you will send away that grubby child and his servant mother," she says. "You can pack them off to Kerch, to Shu Han, to the moon, for all I care, so long as they are out of Ravka. Vasily never acknowledged this boy or any other; he is no Lantsov. A passing resemblance means nothing. The Assembly will see this for what it is.”

She stares at her contemptuously. “How many children did Vasily have? That you know of, I mean. You know what he was.”

For a moment, she thinks the former queen might storm out of the room in a huff. (That would suit Alina just fine.) But Tatiana instead settles back in her seat, eyes glittering. “You really are common, Sun Summoner or not,” she remarks. “They can dress you up in fine clothes and jewels, and scrub the dirt from under your nails, and fix your hair and your face, and underneath it all you will always be coarse and common.”

Alina rolls her eyes. A fine mother-in-law this woman would have been. “Did you want to tell me the other terms?”

“The royal family will support King Pyotr’s nephew Danila Lantsov to succeed to the throne,” Tatiana says. “We expect your support as well at the Assembly.”

She has barely been able to keep track of all the Lantsov nephews and second cousins and cousins five times removed—she should have asked Nikolai to make a chart for her, perhaps—but she does remember Danila. Barely eighteen, he drank too much at the reception after Nikolai’s funeral and practically had to get carried out of the hall. But for all that, he is malleable and has a good claim by blood, and that is what matters to these people.

“You expect my support,” she says flatly. “What do I get in return? What do the Grisha get in return?”

“Your place will be guaranteed on the tsar’s council,” Tatiana says, though she grimaces as though she swallowed a lemon. “You will be well-positioned to advocate for the Grisha. The new tsar is also prepared to offer clemency to Grisha who will swear their loyalty, even those who joined the Darkling’s rebellion. Apart from the principals, of course.”

Alina gazes at her for a moment. This is Nikolai’s mother, but she sees nothing of him in her. Blond hair, blue eyes—that is all. None of his spirit, his resolve, his determination to make this country whole. How extraordinary that he taught himself all on his own. How extraordinary what Ravka—what all of them—have lost. A wave of grief bubbles up dangerously close to the surface.

“You misunderstand me,” Alina says slowly. “You think I will accept a Ravka that is the same as it always was in exchange for a seat at the table for myself and tokens for the Grisha. I allied with Nikolai because he wanted better and I wanted that too. I will make no deals with you; I will not sell my soul for so very little.”

Tatiana nods. “I am not surprised this is your answer,” she says. “Still, I pity you because for all your power and all your gifts, you still know so very little about how the world works, and you don’t even realize it.”

She scoffs. “Enlighten me, then.”

“The Assembly meets in less than two weeks,” the former queen answers. “You have had two months to gather your allies and shore up your position. Where are your allies, other than the Grisha, who have no place in the Assembly? When the votes are cast, do you really believe they will be for this commoner, this boy who you conjured out of nowhere in the last week? Do you think the nobles of Ravka will take kindly to the thought of a Grisha regency?”

“I am the Sun Summoner,” she says. “I destroyed the Fold. The people know it, even if you don’t.”

Tatiana Lantsov shakes her head. “And how many votes do the peasants of Ravka have at the Assembly?” she asks. Her tone shifts from condescending to calculating. “At any rate, have you heard what your beloved commoners have been saying about you? I have servants; I know what they think. For each one that worships the ground you walk on, there is another muttering about how you bewitched my poor Nikolai, and now you seek to profit from his death.”

“Enough,” Alina says sharply. “I wish you a good day, Madam. The door is over there.”

She thinks she sees the faintest smirk on Tatiana’s lips. The former queen gathers her skirts and stands up. She makes it to the doorway, pauses, and turns around. “Where are you hiding the Tailor girl?” she asks almost offhandedly. “Your little murderess?”

Alina stands up slowly, fists clenched. To Tatiana’s credit, she doesn’t flinch or let her lips quiver, but her face turns pale. “You have made a mistake, Madam,” she says quietly. “You may say whatever you like about me, but you will never threaten my friends. You should be making terms with me.”

Tatiana walks away without a word. Alina sits and waits until she can no longer hear her footsteps echoing down the hallway. Mal would urge her to not do anything she would come to regret, Nikolai would advise her to be strategic, Baghra would tell her to not be stupid. Of the three, two are dead, and the other might as well be. She is tired of listening to them. Let the dead be the dead; she will take charge of the living.

She makes her choice. She calls Zoya back in.

Chapter Text

“What did I tell you?” Zoya groans. “Don’t start a domestic incident. Saints, Alina!”

Never mind that. Alina unrolls the dispatch from the army and finally reads it through. Scouts report mobilization of a large Fjerdan force north of Halmhend…the 3^rd, 7^th, and 18^th battalions struck hard by illness…raids over the border have devastated the villages of Dona and Utkosk…urgent request for food, medical supplies, and any Healers that can be spared…

She folds the paper and hands it back to Zoya. “How many soldiers can we divert to Os Alta and still hold the border?”

Zoya stares at her. “Divert to Os Alta…Alina, what are you talking about?”

“If they receive orders to march immediately and there are no unexpected delays, then they should be able to arrive in ten days. Is that right?”

Zoya frowns. She doesn’t answer.

“Ten days,” she repeats. “What do you think?”

“Make it twelve, perhaps thirteen,” Zoya says at last. “Armies always have delays. But Alina, you saw the dispatch; they need more reinforcements up there, not less. Moving battalions away from the border will only appear as a retreat. We will leave ourselves open to the Fjerdans.”

“I know.” She paces around the room a few times and finally pauses to look out the window. The clouds have come in and it is starting to drizzle outside. “We are taking a risk, but it is also a risk to allow the Lantsovs to have free reign in the capital, which is what I fear will happen if we do nothing. We have a chance to change Ravka’s course and lead the country we love into a better future. Isn’t that why we’re here?”

Zoya sits down on the couch, folding and unfolding the paper in her hands. “There are obstacles to consider,” she says cautiously. “Not just the Lantsovs and the other noble families. There is also the Imperial Guard, though it is greatly diminished,” she says. “It used to be about 800 in the old king’s day. Now it is 350 at most, many of them newer and inexperienced.”

“I can handle the nobles,” Alina says. “As for the Guard, they are tasked with protecting the king. But as it stands, Ravka has no king until the Assembly makes its decision, so there is nothing to protect. What of their captain?”

Zoya closes her eyes. “From what I know of him, he is a reasonable man and not one for unnecessary heroics,” she says. “Genya has known him since she was a girl. She can speak to him.”

“Good.” She absently holds out her hand and a small sphere of light forms effortlessly. Not shadow. She tilts her hand and examines it. “You’ll travel north to the Second Army with all possible speed. I want as many battalions as can be spared. Whatever you need for the journey, you’ll have it. I’ll write the letter for you to carry. You’re the only one I trust with this task.”

Zoya stands up. She puts the dispatch in her pocket, and for a moment she simply gazes at Alina. Her expression is unreadable. “I remember watching you, after the first wave of shock wore off,” she finally says. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Saints, she’s never going to make it.’ You had this incredible power, so much untapped potential, and all you wanted was to go back to your tracker and live your anonymous little life. I couldn’t make sense of that. For all the attention and praise that was showered on you, I was certain you didn’t have what it would take.”

“And now?” she asks.

Zoya looks her up and down. “You thought you didn’t want to be Sun Summoner, but that was before you understood your powers. You wanted what was familiar and safe. But suppose Mal came back to Os Alta tomorrow and asked you to leave it all behind and run off with him. Suppose you could give up your powers and have your anonymous little life after all. Would you?”

With no time left to spare, Zoya leaves her to make preparations for her journey north. Alina sinks down onto the window seat and watches the rain. After some time has passed, she takes out the journal again and thumbs idly through the pages. Would you, she asks herself. Would I?

Back to the Fold: to the endless rolling darkness, and the perpetual storm. It is almost familiar to her now, and she trudges through the sand without fear—a far cry from her first journey through the Fold, cowering against the side of the skiff as the volcra screamed overhead, thinking I will die as my parents died.

It is not hard to find him; she has been here before in her dreams, or else in his. As before, he is waiting for her in his tent, metal fingers tapping impatiently on the table. The candles flare up and burn brighter when she steps inside. She knows what he will say even before he opens his mouth: “Little Saint, you’ve kept me waiting long enough.”

“Oh, are you busy?”

She thinks she sees the faintest trace of a smile on his lips. “I have plenty of time on my hands these days. Not many visitors. But I was certain you would find your way back to me eventually.”

“The tether,” she says. “You knew all along that it could not be severed, even in death.”

He shrugs. “I suspected as much,” he answers. “I don’t know everything, Alina. Just more than you do.”

She rolls her eyes. “Spare me the lectures about my youthful ignorance. I’ve had plenty of those lately.”

“So why are you here?” he asks. “You’ve come to me this time, not the other way around. I seem to recall you saying you never needed me.”

“I don’t need you,” she snaps back. “You aren’t interesting to me. Only your power.”

Now walks around the table in a few long strides, coming to a stop just inches from her face. It takes all her willpower to not step backwards. “Only my power,” he repeats in a voice filled with amusement. “My poor little saint. My mother trained you to summon your light, but now she is gone—and if she weren’t, and you find my lectures tiresome, hers would be doubly so. Who, then, will teach you to summon shadow?” When she doesn’t answer, he shakes his head. “You could start by asking me nicely.”

She glares at him. He smiles.

Chapter Text

“I never did meet him,” the Darkling says. His strides are long and Alina has to hurry to keep up with him as they make their way through the forest, crunching dead leaves underfoot. “Ilya Morozova, my grandfather. I only knew what my mother told me of him, and of course, I knew his work.”

“How did he die?” she asks.

He slows his pace, though not by much. “My mother said it was merzost poisoning,” he replies. The scars are vivid on his face. “I never had the full story from her, but I am sure there is truth to it; the human body can only take so much. The small science of the Grisha draws on a very dilute form of merzost and so the effects on the body are not readily apparent. Ilya Morozova pushed the limits with the development of amplifiers. Still, in hundreds of years, we have barely scratched the surface of how to harness this power.”

“I had asked Baghra,” she recalls. “She made me promise to never use merzost. She said the cost was too high.”

“Hmm.” He comes to a sudden stop in a small clearing and she nearly collides with him. The Fold towers high above their heads, crackling with thunder and lightning. He tilts his head up to look at it and she follows his gaze. “How long did it take for you to break that promise?”

She snaps, “Mal was dying. Was I supposed to just let it happen?”

He shrugs and continues on, trampling through the clearing until they reach the edge of the Fold. No grass grows here, and her heels sink into the sand. She can hear the distant growl of volcra and she fights back a shudder. She remembers the massive claws closing around her body; the fear on Mal’s half-conscious face; the light…

“Hold out your hand,” Aleksander says. When she shoots him a suspicious look, he shakes his head and sighs. “You say you want to master shadow summoning, but we won’t get very far at this rate.”

“I have very good reasons to not take you at your word,” she shoots back. She grudgingly holds out her hand anyway.

“Suit yourself.” He reaches out into the Fold with his left hand, palm facing up, and a tendril of shadow wraps itself around his fingers. He drops it into her outstretched hand and she gasps.

“It has weight,” she observes, pouring it from one hand to the other. “Almost like quicksand. Not like my light at all.”

“Shadow has its own properties,” he explains. “It is not the mere absence of light and you cannot summon it in the same way. You have to understand it first—and understand, as well, that your control over it is an illusion. It took me a very, very long time to learn that, but you are a faster pupil than I was.”

“That’s true enough,” she murmurs, still entranced by the movement of the shadow between her hands. She focuses and tries to make it move in a particular direction, but it slips between her fingers and disappears back into the Fold.

She can tell he’s holding back a smile. “The first lesson in shadow summoning is humility, Miss Starkov,” he says. “It is also the most difficult.”

“Well, Baghra’s first lesson entailed smacking me with a stick until I summoned light,” she admits. “So I suppose this is a little less painful.”

He unconsciously rubs at the seam between his wrist and the hand his Alkemi made for him. “It was her oldest trick,” he says slowly. “It was how I learned too. I never did ask, but I wonder if it was how her father taught her.”

She recalls the boy she had seen in her vision, back in Morozova’s workshop. At what age had the lessons started for him? She almost starts to ask, but then she thinks better of it—this is the Darkling, her enemy, dead or not, dreaming or not. He has lied to her many times over without compunction. Even now, he must have his own agenda, even if she can’t yet tell what it is. She is here for a single purpose, and once she has learned all she can from him, that will be the end of this.

Without waiting for his instruction, she reaches back into the looming darkness before her and feels the shadow wrap around her palm. It feels almost like a caress.

She goes to visit Genya, who has been sequestered with Mila and her son for the past few days. She finds her friend reading a book in the corner of the room while the next king of Ravka keeps himself occupied with a small mountain of wooden blocks under the watchful eye of his mother. When Mila sees her, she quickly sets aside her sewing and stands up and curtsies. Alina waves for her to sit and continue her work. She takes up a spot on the couch next to Genya, who sets aside her book and smiles at her.

“How have things been here?” she asks Genya, keeping her voice down to avoid bothering their guests.

“Quiet, for the most part,” Genya says. “There were some tears on the first night from Dmitry, but I think he was just confused. We’ve been able to find ways to keep him entertained.”

“Good. And yourself? How are you?”

Genya blinks and looks away. She toys with the book in her hands. “I suppose I have finally had time to think these past few days,” she says hesitantly. Alina gives her an encouraging nod and Genya takes a deep breath before continuing. “You know, I had never really imagined what the world would look like after the Fold. So much of my life—our lives—was tied to it, and to the general—to the Darkling, I mean. I still can’t quite bring myself to believe they are gone now.”

“Do you feel different?” she asks.

“I feel…” she trails off. Alina can see the glimmer of a tear forming in the corner of her eye. “I wake up in the morning, alone in my bed, and I wish David were here. I had always believed that he would be part of my future. We had known each other since we were children.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. She reaches out and takes Genya’s hand. “He would be proud of everything you have done. You have had to be so brave.”

Genya sniffles and wipes her nose with her handkerchief. “So many lives lost,” she says quietly. “At some point, you lose track of all the dead. I have sometimes wondered how any country can be worth it. But then I look at him…” she nods at Dmitry, oblivious to their entire conversation “…and I realize that when he grows older, he will have no memory of the Fold. He will read about it in books and hear the stories, but it will never define his life in the way it has defined ours. Generations from now, Ravkans may come to think of it as nothing more than a myth. None of this would have been possible if not for you.”

Alina squeezes her hand. “None of this would have been possible for me on my own,” she says. “I have you and Zoya and many others to thank.”

“We cannot go back to the way things were before,” Genya says. “To allow the Lantsovs to rule again…the Fold may be gone, but I fear they will undo all the progress that has been made, and all the reforms that Nikolai had planned. Ravka must move forward. If the Lantsovs will not move forward with the rest of the country…”

“I will not let it happen,” she promises. She stands up to leave. “I am not afraid of Tatiana Lantsov and her ilk, believe me. The future is here in this room. If the Lantsovs cannot see that, then it is too bad for them.”

Genya follows her to the door and favors her with a smile. “I wouldn’t bet against you,” she says. “They have no idea what they’re up against.”

She smiles back. It seems so long ago now since they first met—herself, shellshocked and filthy after nearly dying at the hands of the Fjerdans, and Genya, so polished and put together. Her first friend among the Grisha; one of the few who truly made her feel welcome at the Little Palace. Now, one of the only friends left she can count on.

“I’ll do what I can,” she says. She nods at Mila and Dmitry. “In the meantime, keep them safe. The fate of the country is in your hands.”

It is the third of May: ten days until the Assembly gathers.

Chapter Text

In the morning, she makes her excuses to get out of a breakfast with representatives from the guilds and goes to the chapel. Back in the days when she had decided—for better or worse—to ally with Nikolai as his betrothed, she had not fully realized just how many interminable meetings and dull ceremonial events she would be expected to attend. Since his death, the meetings and demands on her time have only become longer. She needs some respite.

She settles in on the pew and gazes up at the stained-glass windows. She never had much interest in religion when she was growing up, but she finds that being regarded as a living saint makes her see things somewhat differently. The other saints look down on her placidly from above; the colored light bounces off the walls: deep indigos, and yellowish ochre, and ruby reds. Nikolai had told her he was commissioning a new window to replace one that had cracked. It was to be of Sankta Alina tearing down the Fold. Somewhere in a workshop in Os Alta, there must be a master and a small army of apprentices toiling before the great kiln, transforming sand into the colored glass of her kefta, her hair, her eyes.

Nikolai. She imagines him coming to sit beside her in the pew, hands folded before him. He would give her half a smile and ask, Who do the saints pray to? She doesn’t know.

Some part of her wishes she could apologize to him—for not being there when he needed her, for not finding his killer. When the new histories are written, the story of his rule will occupy only a few short lines. Those future readers will know nothing of his determination, his ingenuity, his hopes for Ravka. She will be the only one left to remember. When I have time again, she thinks, I will write something about him. A true history of Ravka after the old king’s death. It is only right.

She hears the creak of the chapel door behind her and footsteps on the stone floor, and she sighs inwardly. It was too much to hope that she might be left alone for an hour. She keeps her gaze focused on the saints, the glass, the light. Perhaps this visitor has also come for quiet prayer.

Or not. The Apparat takes a seat beside her and clears his throat. She glares at him from the corner of her eye. “I asked for peace and solitude, you know.”

“Of course,” he answers smoothly. “In these troubled times, we are all in need of such comforts of the spirit. Who better to guide you in such matters than myself? I served the king in this capacity for many years.”

She scoffs. “And the Darkling had you rule in his stead from the Little Palace after he had the old king killed,” she reminds him. “Why? Whatever you say, I know you are far more than a spiritual advisor.”

He turns and looks at her. His eyes are dark and oddly familiar. She cannot read his expression at all. “That is true,” he says. “First and foremost, I consider myself a librarian.”

“Enough,” she snaps. Why must everyone insist on playing these games with her? She gets up to leave. Not for the first time, she finds herself almost longing for the days when she and Mal were on the run, and it was just the two of them in the forest. The meals and accommodations had been less comfortable, to be sure, but at least she had no meetings to attend to, and none of these silly riddles to parse.

She almost makes it to the door of the chapel when the Apparat calls out, “The answer to your question is in this very room, Sankta Alina.”

She pauses and turns around. The Apparat is bathed in the light of the saints, practically glowing. All else seems to melt away into shadow. And the look in his eyes…there is something she has seen before; something very old. Her heart beats faster. “You are no ordinary Grisha,” she says. “How many kings have you served?”

“I served the first Lantsov king,” her fellow saint replies. “From the day he took the throne until the day he died, I was there. And I served his children, and his children after him, and his children after him. I have had many names and lived many lives. And I will faithfully serve the next tsar of Ravka, whoever that may be.”

She leans back against the door. “The Darkling knew.”

He gives her a look of mild surprise. “Of course he did. After a hundred or so years, he would have been very dense to not notice. We had an understanding.”

“Well,” she says evenly. “I hope you and I can come to an understanding too. I am content to leave you be. But do not interfere with my plans or my friends. The Darkling made an enemy out of me; I need not remind you how that turned out for him.”

The Apparat merely smiles. “It is as I told you before. I wish only for your friendship.”

She gives him the tiniest nod before she leaves. She can feel his eyes on her back, following her.

It is the sixth of May: seven days until the Assembly gathers.

Another dream. A different forest. It is snowing and the sun has already dipped below the horizon. She has been in this place before with Mal, but this time he is not here, and the rifle is heavy in her hands. She finds herself unconsciously holding her breath as the stag steps out into the clearing. It is still the most magnificent creature she has ever seen.

“This is Ilya Morozova’s true innovation,” the Darkling says from behind her, and she wheels around without thinking and smacks him with the butt of the rifle. He dodges but she still manages to get him in the shoulder.

“Don’t sneak up on me,” she warns him. “Next time, I’ll hit you in the face. I won’t feel bad about it.”

He winces and rubs his shoulder. “Saints,” he mutters. The stag turns its head and watches them with wide, placid eyes.

She sighs and forces herself to relax her grip on the rifle. Slightly. “Ilya Morozova’s innovation. You were saying?”

He clears his throat. “The Grisha rely on their own energy source whenever they use the small science,” he continues. “As a consequence, they can use their power only in relatively short bursts. Those times you used your light to travel through the Fold, even you could only sustain it for so long.”

“No thanks to you,” she shoots back. “But I take your point.”

He raises his eyebrows in acknowledgment. “What my grandfather did that was different…he discovered a way to sustain that energy, separate from himself, and how to replicate it. The stag and his other creations outlived him.”

“And the Fold was your innovation,” she says slowly. A living being, in its own way. She had never thought of it like that.

He shakes his head. “After a fashion,” he says. “I did not know what I was creating at the time and I could not have predicted the outcome. It was…more spontaneous. Not an experiment in the way the Bonesmith’s amplifiers were an experiment. Or so I assume.”

They both fall silent for a time, watching Morozova’s experiment watching them from across the snowy field. Alina finds herself holding her breath for some reason. For centuries, the stag wandered the woods and waited for her from one winter to the next. Now she carries it with her everywhere she goes.

“The Apparat,” she says after a little while. “You should have told me he was a saint. Who is he, really?”

He shrugs. “Why should I have told you that?” he asks. He rubs his beard. “I know he is an Alkemi, and much older than I am. We worked together when our interests aligned.”

“Did he ask for your friendship?”

“I don’t believe so,” he says with a frown. “Why, what did you tell him?”

“I told him to stay out of my way.”

He actually laughs, and the sound of it catches her off guard. She cannot recall ever hearing him laugh before. “Ever the diplomat,” he says almost fondly, and she bristles. Here they are, days from the vote that will determine the direction of the country, and he’s teasing her…

She wakes all of a sudden, grabbing at the corners of her satin sheets, panting in the dark. It takes a moment for her to remember where she is. She closes her eyes and listens to the building creak and settle, the soft footsteps of servants in the hall, the patter of rain on the windows. A few minutes pass. She gets up with a sigh, shrugs on her robe, and trudges over to the window seat to look outside.

He is dead, she reminds herself. Her power is her own and he has no hold over her anymore. Back in those early days, she had made the mistake of letting her guard down; letting him get close. She learned her lesson the hard way. She has no intention of forgetting it.

She squeezes her eyes shut, slows her breathing, and forces herself to focus: to feel the shadow wrap lovingly around her hand as it did in her dream, heavy and limpid. She summoned shadow when she used the cut; she knows the ability is there, if only she can find the piece that is missing. Once she can do it on her own, she will have no further need for the Darkling.

She opens her eyes. Her light softly illuminates the room and casts her shadow up against the wall. She bites back a frustrated groan and extinguishes it.

She can still hear the faint echo of his laugh in the darkness.

Chapter Text

“Take this back; I don’t want it anymore,” she tells him without preamble the next time they meet. She casts the journal down by his feet. It is a cold and crisp fall morning, and he sits on the stone steps of a crumbling sanctuary. Vines wind their way around the pillars and most of the ceiling has long since caved in. “We have been playing this game long enough.”

He looks up at her, eyebrows raised, but makes no move to pick up the journal. “You are mistaken,” he says. “This has never been a game, Alina. Not for me.”

“Why should I believe you? You’ve lied many times over,” she sneers. “You’ve used me when it was convenient. Don’t deny it.”

He glares. “And now you use me at your convenience, so I don’t see what the problem is. You’ve come to me, not the other way around; you put a sword through my gut and burned my body and still you seek me out. What do you want?”

She tightens her hands into fists. “I want to be far away from this place in a comfortable flat in Noyvi Zem, reading a book and drinking my tea without a care in the world about the stupid Ravkan succession. I want the normal, boring life you deprived me of!”

He laughs, but this time there is a note of malevolence underneath. She almost flinches at the sound. “Who’s a liar now?” he asks silkily. “If that is what you really wanted, Little Saint, then you wouldn’t be here. No, you are here because you find your own power is no longer enough to satisfy; you must have mine as well. You are here because you see what misery these useless Lantsov scions have put your people through and you despise them. Who better to rule Ravka, if not you? I know this because I was once in your place.”

“I have no interest in being queen,” she bristles. “I have no interest in my own self-aggrandizement.”

“I saw you,” he says. “The look on your face when you first mastered your light and showed it to the king and all his guests. You delighted in it. You cannot tell me that in that moment, you would have rather been drawing maps in a military tent on the front.”

“You don’t know me at all.” Why must he continually insist he knows her better than she knows herself? No, it is not enough for him to use her and try to take her power; he must claim he understands her. Somehow, she almost prefers the old threats.

“It’s easy to lie to yourself, isn’t it?” he asks, leaning back. “You can do it for centuries, I’ve found.”

“I wish Baghra had killed you long ago,” she snaps. Her voice is becoming loud and shrill and she doesn’t care. “She could have spared Ravka so much pain and suffering. It is too bad that she loved a monster like you; I wonder how anyone could.”

He stands up abruptly, his hands flexing at his sides as he steps toward her. She doesn’t move, though every cell in her body screams at her to flee—that part of her remembers well enough his fingers around her throat, squeezing her windpipe. But this time he pauses just inches from her face. “Don’t talk about my mother,” he says softly. “You’ve said enough.”

She finds herself frozen for a moment, unable to tear her gaze away from him. For some reason, her mind goes back to that first time, before she had truly understood what she was—surrounded by Grisha in the general’s tent on the other side of the Fold, her sleeve pushed up to her shoulder, the prick of metal in her flesh, the light, the look in his eyes…

Now his gaze moves to the yard behind her. “They’ve come for you.”

Alina hears the click of a rifle and glances over her shoulder with a frown. She turns around slowly to face the dozens of soldiers arrayed on the grass with their weapons trained on her. For a moment, everything is still; somewhere in the distance, she can hear a bell tolling. The soldiers’ faces seem to shift in the harsh sunlight, twisting into something half-human and half-volcra before turning human again. She knows this should frighten her. It doesn’t.

“Sun Summoner,” their leader says, stepping forward with one hand on the hilt of his sword. “We have you surrounded. You are to surrender peacefully and return to the Little Palace to stand trial for your crimes against the nation.”

She snorts in disbelief. “You are mistaken,” she says. “It is the Darkling you want, not I. He is the one who should be tried.” Even as she says it, she turns her head slightly and realizes he has vanished. She stands alone on the vine-choked steps, no shadow behind her.

“King Vasily has personally ordered you into his custody,” the commander answers coldly.

She shakes her head. “King Vasily? I saw the nichevo’ya tear him apart before my eyes,” she calls back. “The Lantsov line is cursed; none may take the throne and live.” As she says it, a prickle runs down her spine—these words came out of her mouth, but they are not hers. The Lantsov line is cursed…no, the nichevo’ya were born from the Darkling and they died with him. She was there and she witnessed it.

It is as though the commander hasn’t heard a word she just said. “We have your Tailor and your Squaller,” he continues. “Come quietly, and their lives will be spared. If you resist, no mercy will be shown to them or to you.”

She feels a sudden wave of hatred. After all she has done for Ravka, all she has sacrificed—all her friends have sacrificed—now she must bow her head meekly to threats? What did she destroy the Fold for, if not so this country could finally have peace; so that one day, there would be no more orphans sent off to war?

“Keep your arms outstretched,” the commander orders, and she does. Two soldiers step forward with chains in hand. She shuts her eyes and reaches for her light. Its familiar warmth leaps up from within her, incandescent and glorious, but beneath it she can feel another presence: a heaviness stirring in the deep. There you are, she tells her shadow. At last, I have found you; you have been here all along.

She vaguely registers that the two soldiers have slowed their approach, mouths agape and eyes wide with fear, and the commander is frozen in place with his sword pulled halfway from its sheath. “You must submit to us,” he says. There is a note of terror in his voice. “This is the order of your king.”

She lets out a harsh laugh. “No,” she answers. “It is you who must submit to me.” Her light blazes from her outstretched hands, with threads of shadow running through it—the soldiers all but disintegrate before her eyes, caught up in great moving wall of light and shadow—the power she felt coursing through her the first time she discovered her light, the times she had fused with the amplifiers, the time she destroyed the Fold, it was nothing like this, nothing has ever felt like this—

She wakes to an insistent knocking at her door and the sound of Genya calling her name in a high and panicked voice. Still half-dreaming, she stumbles from bed and pulls on a robe. It is dark outside at this hour; she can hear the sleepy chirp of crickets outside her window.

“You must come now,” Genya tells her the moment she opens the door, gripping her wrist and pulling her in close. Her perfect hair is mussed and she also looks as though she has just come straight from her bed. She murmurs in her ear, “Dmitry and his mother are missing.”

It is the tenth of May: three days until the Assembly gathers.

Chapter Text

“I don’t know how it happened,” Genya tells her in disbelief as they circle around the room Mila and Dmitry had been staying in. There is no sign of a disturbance—even the beds are neatly made, and the toys put back in their box. “I’ve been sleeping in the next room over; I should have heard something. Mila had never asked to leave or shown any indication she wanted to go home this entire time. I thought she was content here.”

Alina runs her hand along the bedcovers. They are cold to the touch. “Do you think the Lantsovs are behind this?” she asks. “The Assembly is meeting in just a few days. The timing would be awfully convenient.”

“I would put nothing past Tatiana Lantsov,” Genya says darkly. She abruptly takes a seat beside the desk and puts her head in her hands. “I must beg your pardon, Alina,” she mumbles. “You entrusted me with their safekeeping and I failed you.”

She sinks down on the bed. “Genya, stop,” she says gently. “There is no need for this. The most important thing is that we find Dmitry and Mila. Now think: if the Lantsovs took them, how did they do it and where would they hide them? Or if it was not the Lantsovs, then who?”

Genya lifts her head and frowns. “It could not have been by force,” she answers. “I saw them in the evening, just as Mila was putting the child to bed. All seemed well to me. If it had been a kidnapping, there would have been noises, perhaps furniture strewn about.”  

“Were there others who knew they were here?”

“I was careful about this,” Genya says. She shakes her head in frustration. “They never left this room from the time you met them. The Lantsovs knew of their existence, certainly, though not their exact location. But perhaps…” she trails off.

“Yes?”

“I never allowed any servants into the room, but there would have been additional meals prepared, more bedding and clothes sent to laundry,” Genya replies. “Servants notice these things; spies notice these things. I should know. I don’t see how, but somebody must have coerced them into leaving.”

Alina bunches up the blankets in her hands and sighs. She tries to think back to that first meeting: Dmitry playing with the curtains, his mother with her downcast eyes. At the time, Alina had thought her shy and overwhelmed—plucked suddenly from her old life and brought before a living saint, who wouldn’t be?—but now she wonders, was she afraid of me, did she believe herself a prisoner here?

“No,” she says. She lets go of the blankets and smooths them down. Mila had once been a servant in the Little Palace; she would have known how to move about discreetly, and all the hidden entrances and exits. “They left on their own. And I think I know where they went.”

The Little Palace was not built by the Lantsovs, not really—so Baghra had told her when they were on the road to Morozova’s workshop. The Lantsov dynasty had only reconstructed what was there before; they had torn down and repurposed pieces of the old structure and when they were finished, the palace appeared as though it was new. They pillaged the library and destroyed the history books: rewrite the past so that Ravka’s history begins and ends with the Lantsovs; let the rule of their family become the only one the country remembers.

Still, Baghra said, the foundations of the old palace remain. It was the predecessors of the Lantsovs who dug the maze of tunnels beneath the palace leading out to the city. There are dead ends and paths that lead you back to where you started, and many ways to become lost. To pass through those tunnels is to pass through the arteries of a great rotten corpse. No architect has ever successfully mapped the tunnels and secret passages of the Little Palace.

“Perhaps a cartographer could do it, if the architects have all failed,” Alina had suggested, half joking.

Baghra had stared at her. “You foolish girl,” she had muttered. “Have you not listened to a word I just said?” After that she spoke nothing further on the subject and Alina put it out of her mind.

Until now. She lets Genya lead the way down into the depths of the palace; Genya has lived in this place since she was a girl and so she knows its secrets far better than she does. Mila would have known them too. And if she were frightened…if she believed herself a prisoner and that her child would be taken from her…then of course she would have used her first opportunity to slip away. Alina would have done the same.

Something else lingers in the back of her mind as they walk, footsteps echoing along the seemingly endless hallway. The Lantsov line is cursed; none may take the throne and live. She thinks uneasily of Nikolai and his wrecked room, of blood and broken glass mingling on the carpet. The rumors, the assassination theories—after weeks of investigation, they are no closer to finding answers than when they started.

She thinks, I should tell Genya and Zoya. Her return to Morozova’s workshop, the journal, the conversations with the Apparat, the dreams…there have been too many riddles, too many secrets. The Sun Summoner should not shrink from the truth, and she especially should not be hiding such things from her friends, who have stood by her side for so long. When Zoya comes back to Os Alta she will tell them.

Genya comes to an abrupt stop and she almost collides with her. It takes Alina a moment to hear what Genya is hearing: the faint sound of a woman sobbing. A shudder runs down her spine as Genya turns to look her way with fear in her eyes and grips her wrist. We’re already too late.  

Some part of her wants to go back the way they came; to cover her ears and run. But her feet move on her own, turning past the bend in the corridor, Genya following behind in silence. For some reason, her mind wanders to Prince Vasily, stumbling drunkenly down this same passage on his way back from a night out in the seediest quarters of the city, his lamp flickering in front of him, and a long shadow trailing behind…and coming across an unlucky young washerwoman with her hair damp with sweat across her forehead from a long evening of work, clutching a basket of linens to her chest and shrinking up against the wall in a vain attempt to go unnoticed.

It did not save her then; it does not save her now: they find Mila sprawled out on the floor and shaking uncontrollably, unhurt but alone. They call out Dmitry’s name and their voices echo into the darkness. And even bathed in the brightness of Alina’s light, the shadows still gather round.

It takes a long time for them to coax Mila from the corridor—to raise her to her feet and half carry her back through the hallways, avoiding the shocked stares of the servants—to get her into Alina’s room with the bolt of the door locked firmly behind them—to wipe the tears from her shocked face and wrap her in blankets—and then, finally, to speak.

It was a shadow, Mila tells them at last. Her words come out haltingly, sometimes so fast that Alina can hardly understand her, and sometimes so slowly that she has to be prompted to continue. She had seen the shadow creature for days, just in the periphery of her vision, gone the moment she turned her head to look. At first she had thought she had only imagined it, but it kept coming back. She had seen it hovering over her son and so she took him by the hand and ran, but then it followed…

“When did it first appear to you?” Genya asks her gently. She tries to press a cup of tea into Mila’s trembling hands, but it hardly seems to register.

Mila swallows and glances at Alina. “After I first met the Sun Summoner,” she answers with reluctance.

Alina meets Genya’s eyes. “You should have told us,” she tells Mila, taken slightly aback by the insistence in her own voice. “We would have protected you.”

Genya frowns, her mouth already forming the unspoken question: how? When Alina had faced the nichevo’ya head-on, her light had done little more than slow them down, and the only blade that could cut them has already been returned to its owner in Shu Han. Even the Darkling could not fully control his creations.

Mila shrinks into herself, somehow making herself even smaller than she already is. Her eyes are still glassy with shock, and she pulls aimlessly at a loose thread on her sleeve. “I would like to go home,” she whispers. “Please.”

“It isn’t safe for you to leave,” Genya says, but Alina quickly interjects.

“Soon,” she promises Mila.

Genya gives her a surprised look. “Alina, if you would…” she says with a tilt of her head. She gets up and follows Genya to the next room, leaving Mila sitting alone on the couch. The moment the door closes, Genya sags against the wall and puts her head in her hands.

“Genya—”

“This is not possible,” her friend interrupts. All her composure seems to have deserted her. When she looks up again, her face is drawn tight with fear. “Alina, the General—the Darkling—he’s dead, I saw it with my own eyes, the nichevo’ya were destroyed along with him. If he somehow survived…is it possible that he killed Nikolai too?”

“The Darkling has not returned,” she answers sharply. The lie slips out of her unbidden and she swallows hard. “But the word will soon be out that Dmitry is gone, if it hasn’t already. If we aren’t careful, we will play directly into the Lantsovs’ hands. Let Mila go home; she’s been through enough. Make sure she is well provided for.”

Genya bites her lip and stares at her for a long moment. “This is my fault,” she whispers. A tear runs down the corner of her eye and her body starts to shake. “I wasn’t watching as closely as I should have been, and the child was taken. Saints! I’ll never forgive myself.”

She grabs her by the shoulders. “This was my idea, and so I am the one who is responsible,” she tells Genya without hesitation. “But we cannot let ourselves be paralyzed by this. We have to prepare for what is coming next. The Lantsovs will try to take advantage of this situation.”

Genya pulls away. “I have to leave, Alina,” she says slowly. “You should think about it too.”

She stares at her. “What are you talking about?”

“You know I cannot stay in Ravka,” Genya says. Her voice is oddly calm. “I had Nikolai’s protection, and after he was gone, we had a plan in place for the succession. Perhaps we would have even pulled it off. But we are out of time, and the way is cleared for the Lantsovs to take power again. When that happens, they will be coming for me. You will be next. They’ll find any excuse, believe me.”

“We should wait for Zoya and the army and then decide,” Alina says desperately. To come so close and fail now—no, no, no. She reaches out and takes Genya’s hand again. “Please, I need you here. This country needs you; the Grisha need you. We cannot let them win.”

Genya studies her. She looks distraught, overwhelmed, and above all exhausted—a far cry from the polished, confident Tailor who took her in hand so many months ago. “Let them win?” she repeats blankly. “Alina, don’t you think they already have?”

Chapter Text

In the weeks after Alina had first been brought to Os Alta, Genya had given her a discreet tour of the palace: the richly furnished offices, the sumptuous ballrooms, the hidden chapels, all of it far beyond anything this orphan from Keramzin had ever seen. On their last stop, Genya had taken her through the back entrance of the Assembly chamber, and they emerged onto the stage. The light filtered down through the windows to row after row of empty chairs, stretching back as far as the eye could see. She had to crane her neck to see the vast, glittering dome over their heads.

“It has not been used in over four hundred years,” Genya explained, her voice echoing in the silence. “The last Assembly gathered here to choose the first Lantsov tsar. Out of chaos and disorder, the new dynasty brought peace and prosperity to the land.” (Supposedly.)

Alina had vaguely remembered the story from the history books at the orphanage, though the histories had never much held her interest back then. At the time, she had been preoccupied with weightier matters, like not getting beaten up by her fellow orphans, and getting the hell out of Keramzin.

I should have paid better attention, she thinks to herself now, ten years and two tsars later, and the whole country holding its breath. I should have done many things differently.

She knows she ought to be strategizing, coming up with a new plan, meeting with allies. The Assembly meets in less than two days’ time, but she finds herself at a loss. She doesn’t even want to think about what Mal would say about all of this—how in her foolishness, she dragged a poor woman and her little son into this mess, and then got the boy killed. And this rash business with the Darkling…

She shakes her head. She walks on down the corridors of the Little Palace, now teeming with members of the Assembly and their servants and hangers-on, who whisper amongst themselves and give her a wide berth as she passes by. Off in their private quarters, the Lantsovs are already celebrating their victory. (Genya has kept her well informed, as usual—Alina has at least persuaded her to stay put for now.)

At last, she finds herself at the door of the chapel. The Saints look down on her with perfectly serene expressions as she walks down the aisle to the altar, heels clicking on the marble floor. It feels like they are laughing at her.

“You could have warned me,” she tells the Apparat, seated by himself in the front row.

He turns to her with a smile and a nod. He gestures for her to take a seat beside him. “Why, Sankta Alina. What a pleasant surprise.”

“This doesn’t feel like a surprise,” she says as she sits, glowering at him. “You said you wanted my friendship. A true friend would have told me the nichevo’ya were still out there. Instead, you said nothing and did nothing.”

The Apparat gives her a wounded look. “Saints are not omniscient, as you know. I had my suspicions, yes, but they were only suspicions at the time. I thought it better to not spread wild rumors.”

She scoffs. “And so Nikolai is dead. The child Dmitry is dead. The Lantsovs will have the throne after all.”

“The Lantsov line is cursed,” he answers. His gaze is intent, familiar in some way she cannot pinpoint.

A shiver runs down her spine. “What?”

He shakes his head and smiles. “Ah, here I go with wild rumors,” he says lightly. “Well, Sankta Alina. I do wish to be your friend and help you. Tell me what you wish to learn from me, and if I have the answer, I will tell you. Will that suffice?”

“Why have the nichevo’ya survived?” she asks. “The Darkling is dead. The Fold is destroyed and the volcra with them. Inej cut the shadow monsters down and my three amplifiers should have finished them off.”

He nods. “A fair question,” he replies. “Now, when did the nichevo’ya first appear?”

“Just last year. What of it?”

“They were the Darkling’s most recent creation,” the Apparat says. “He created the Fold and the volcra centuries ago, when he was still young and inexperienced. At the time, he had not yet come into his powers fully, and so the Fold and the volcra were…unfinished, shall we say. Like paint splattered across a canvas by an untrained artist. The nichevo’ya on the other hand—those were the creation of a Grisha at the height of his power, with many years of experience behind him. And those creatures have a consciousness that his other creations lacked. More resilience, one might say. You saw that your light alone could not defeat them. They have taken on a life of their own outside of the Darkling.”

“But then how can I destroy them?” she interrupts. “If my light is not enough, if the sword of Saint Neyar is not enough, if they can survive without the Darkling, what then?”

He raises his eyebrows. “Why do you need to destroy them?”

“I beg your pardon?” She stares at him, dumbfounded. “I—have you not been paying attention to anything that has been going on around here? You know…the murders?”

“Oh, well, that,” he says dismissively, waving his hand. “I understand your concern, of course. But you should know that the cost of destroying the nichevo’ya once and for all would be very high. In all likelihood, you would destroy yourself in the process too. The among of energy that would be generated would be enough to level Os Alta. I assume you don’t want that.”

“There must be way,” she presses. “If I could retrieve the Neshyenyer again from Shu Han…find more amplifiers to increase my powers…”

“My dear,” he interrupts. “That is very brave of you. And it would not be enough. You must find another way.”

“Then what?” she asks, exasperated.

The Apparat shrugs and turns his gaze back to the Saints, eyes upturned. She focuses on his profile—there is something about his features, a thing she cannot name. It is right below the surface; it is on the tip of her tongue. Why is he so familiar?

“Who are you?” she asks.

He offers her a smile. “Does it matter?”

“I would say so, yes.”

“I was born in the hills near Kribirsk,” the Apparat says calmly. “That area, until recently, was part of the Fold. I came into my powers as a youth and spent many years searching for others like me. The Grisha were very poorly understood back then, and very much feared. So I studied and I learned. In time, I came to Os Alta, where I taught in the university. That was where I met Mikhail Lantsov, who would be the first of his dynasty. I recognized his potential early on and offered my encouragement and advice.”

“What about the Darkling?” she cuts him off.

He raises an eyebrow. “Aleksander Morozova…well, I heard of him long before we ever crossed paths. The ability to summon shadow is exceedingly rare, as you know. And the creation of the Fold—there had never been anything like it, and no one like him. At least until you came along.”

“Hmm.” She gazes up at the stained-glass Saints: Neyar, Anastasia, Valentin, Leoni. Have they been watching her this entire time? Somehow, she doesn’t think so. “The Darkling knew all along about the nichevo’ya,” she muses. “Even in death, he thinks I’m still his puppet, dancing on a string. The journal, the dreams…more lies and manipulations.”

The Apparat lets out a little cough. “Well, I don’t know if I would jump to conclusions.”

She rolls her eyes. “Then what do you suggest? How am I supposed to figure out the truth?”

He shrugs. “Why don’t you ask him?”

Chapter Text

“I want the truth,” she tells him. “This has been your plan from the beginning—to what end, I don’t know.”

They are in Keramzin, in the orphanage. The warm summer sunlight streams through the cracked windows and a thick layer of dust settles on the worn furniture and the floor. How many times did she wander these rooms, these halls, and imagine herself elsewhere? Meet me in the meadow…

The Darkling has seated himself in the old headmistress’s chair at the head of the room with his feet propped up on the desk; she thinks to herself, Ana Kuya would kill you for that—but of course, she’s long gone by now. The nichevo’ya hovers behind him: making no move, merely watching her curiously, like a cat observing a mouse who has not yet decided to pounce.

He raises his eyebrows. “I told you before and I’ll tell you again—I don’t know everything, Alina. There are no schemes here except your own. You should understand by now that saints are not gods.”

“Nikolai,” she says in a tight voice. “Vasily. Vasily’s son, Dmitry, who did no harm to anybody. All killed by your monsters, your nichevo’ya. It was you all along.”

He slides his feet off the desk and leans forward. The room grows dim around them. A chill runs down her spine. “Believe what you will, Little Saint,” he says quietly. “Do what you will—you always have, haven’t you? But I tell you this: the nichevo’ya are my creations; that does not mean they are under my control, or that this is all part of some greater plot. I am only here because you keep calling me back.”

“Liar,” she whispers.

“Sometimes, yes,” he says with a shrug. The shadows lift all at once; the room becomes bright again. “Right now? No.”

She turns away from him, gazing out the window to the meadow beyond. The sill is covered in a thick layer of dust and one of the panes has a long horizontal crack, but beyond it—the same sun-soaked meadow of her memory, glowing in the light. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, she thinks bitterly. It was supposed to be her and Mal against the world; it was supposed to be Nikolai on the throne, ushering in a new era for Ravka; the shadows banished forever, the Darkling a pile of ashes in the sand.

She watches the grass waving gently in the wind and the hawk soaring overhead, rising with the updraft. This place she couldn’t wait to leave behind; this place she called home. This place that no longer exists. She wants to weep. She wants to scream. She wants to hurt him, make him bleed, make him beg. Break him as he tried to break her. And yet…and yet.

“I saw another Ravka,” she says softly. She doesn’t know why she is telling him this. “I saw a better world for Grisha and otkazat’sya alike. A country that looks after its ordinary citizens. A future that would belong to all of us. I was so close.”

She waits for him to sneer at her naivety. He lived in the world for centuries before she was born, witnessed the rise and fall of kings, saw his own ambitions crumble into dust. Instead he says, “I saw it too. And then I watched it slip away.”

She lets herself look at him. There is a trace of anguish in his eyes, something of a wounded animal, furious and afraid. How many years had he waited for her, his opposite and his twin? For a moment, she thinks, it could have been different between you and I.

“It’s rotten, isn’t it?” the Darkling—Aleksander—says quietly. “To be made the hero or the villain of a story not of your making; to stand alone at the crossroads. I was where you are now. So I made a choice.”

She sighs. “You made a choice and you lost.”

“And you may succeed where I failed,” he replies. “You know what you want, Alina. You have cleared your own path. You are so very close now.”

She can picture the empty throne in Os Alta in her mind. The crown without a king. “Nikolai was supposed to rule. That path was never meant for me; I never desired it as you did.”

“Didn’t you?”

She looks him up and down—the man who would have been king of Ravka, if she hadn’t stopped him. If it had been up to him, she would have spent her life in his shadow, a willing slave. But here she stands: her life is her own.

Her eyes slide past him to the nichevo’ya. She remembers her terror the first time she saw his creatures in the attack on the Spinning Wheel. Not even her light was enough to stop them. Now she studies it, and it turns its smooth and featureless face in her direction, watching her intently. And waiting.

“Leave us,” she orders.

For a moment, nothing happens. Then the nichevo’ya turns and slinks off into the hallway. She exhales slowly, watching it disappear around the corner.

“Always a fast learner,” Aleksander says with admiration, shaking his head. “Well, Alina, the time has come to make your choice. You can still turn from this path and leave the fate of Ravka to the Lantsovs. You can change your name, your face. You can cross an ocean, travel to remote places that have never even heard of the Sun Summoner. You can spend your life in hiding. Or you can run towards your destiny. You can be who you were born to be.”

The orphanage around them is beginning to dissolve, the color draining from the sky, everything swathed in shades of gray. The Darkling sits mired in shadow. She can no longer make out the expression on his face.

“Will I see you again?” she asks as he begins to fade away.

“Perhaps,” he shrugs. “Good luck, little saint.”

She wakes in the early morning just as the sun peers over the horizon. The light trickles in through the gap in the curtains. Still half asleep, she holds up one hand and observes how the light illuminates her skin and the shadow it casts against the wall. It is a simple principle, and yet it has taken her a long time to understand it. No light without shadow—no shadow without light.

She sits up slowly, rubs her eyes, and makes her way to the window to peer outside. The wood floor is cold beneath her feet; she idly decides she will tell the servants to bring in a rug. She finds herself less tolerant of the cold these days. She remembers tracking the Stag on foot through the snow, toes numb even with two layers of socks, tiny icicles forming on the tip of her nose. A different Alina had emerged from those woods. A different Alina emerges now in the soft morning light.

She does not need to look behind her to see the creature that crouches in her shadow, watching and waiting. Before, the sight of it would have filled her with dread. She tells herself again she will never be like him: she will make different choices; she will be her own person. She still believes that. Almost.

“Follow,” she tells the nichevo’ya softly. “We have work to do.”

It is the thirteenth of May: the morning the Assembly meets.

Chapter Text

Excerpt from The Secret History of Ravka: An Eyewitness Account of the Accession of Her Majesty Alina Starkov, Eternal Ruler of the Double Eagle Throne:

My dear friend, I hope you will excuse this letter of mine, for my poor words cannot possibly describe what transpired in the Little Palace. Even now, in the privacy of my quarters, my hands shake and my thoughts race from one to the next. Still, I will try to write it all down before my memory of the day’s events fade, and pray forgive any of my omissions. I trust in your utmost discretion.

We had gathered in the Assembly chamber on the morning of May 13^th. I need not recount all the dignitaries I crossed paths with, for it would take up the better part of the page, and it is of less import than what happened after that—so I will say only that I saw representatives from East and West and South and even the war-torn North; the ambassadors from Shu Han, Fjerda, and Noyvi Zem, to name a few; and a whole host of Lantsovs, glittering and preening. Seven candidates had been put forward, but everyone in that room knew the conclusion was forgone. You would have thought Prince Danila Lantsov had already been crowned from the way people were carrying on around him.

It took some time for all members of the Assembly to be seated, and then another hour or so of speeches before the voting was to begin. I was to the left of the stage and fairly far back—no front row seats for a backcountry lad like myself—but this turns out to have been for the best, and I would not have wanted to be any closer.

They were just starting to call in the votes when I saw it: the blaze of light that emerged from behind the stage. At this point, I must say my words truly fail me, for there is nothing I can say that can convey what it is like to be in the presence of the Sun Summoner. I could hardly see the outline of her features, so brilliant was her light. It filled the entire Assembly chamber, and some shielded their eyes and turned away, but I was utterly transfixed. I watched the candidates on the stage backing away from her, and the Lantsovs in the front rising to their feet.

And then I saw what followed the Sun Summoner: two enormous beings made of shadow, in the shape of men. You have of course heard of these creatures, servants of the Darkling, and the terror they had visited upon the Spinning Wheel. At the sight of them, Danila Lantsov fainted dead away. (I don’t blame him.) Some panicked and attempted to flee the hall, but the doors were shut and locked and the Imperial Guard stood down. I learned later that it was Genya Safin herself who suborned the Captain of the Guard and persuaded him not to intervene on behalf of the Lantsovs.

The Sun Summoner began to speak. I will paraphrase her words as best I can: “Honored members of the Assembly, you know who I am. You know what I have done. I am the one who destroyed the Fold and allowed for the reunification of East and West Ravka. I am the one who defeated the Darkling, who terrorized the country we hold dear. I stand before you now and ask you to make your choice.

"In their centuries of rule, the Lantsovs have failed to protect the Ravkan people. Their line has grown weak and greedy, and none of the ones that are left deserve your support. Ravka deserves more. And so I ask for your vote and your fealty, and in turn I swear to always serve this country and its people faithfully for as long as I live.”

As soon as she finished speaking, there was an objection from the front row: the former queen Tatiana Lantsov, who stood and announced her opposition and protested the irregularity of the proceedings. She said many other things besides, about upstart Grisha and peasants and the Shu, none of which I will repeat here. But as she called on the Imperial Guard to seize the Sun Summoner, one of the shadow creatures reared up and moved towards her, and again there was panic and a rush to the doors.

“STOP,” the Sun Summoner cried out as Tatiana Lantsov cowered in terror, and I thought for a moment she was lost. But the creature slowed and, after hovering over the frightened woman for a few seconds, it retreated. The commotion throughout the hall suddenly died down as we watched the shadow monster return to its mistress’s side. Her light began to fade, and at last I could see her face: calm and triumphant.

From a few rows ahead of me, an older man rose from his seat. I did not recognize him, but I am told it was Misha Zakharov of Caryeva, south of Keramzin. In a loud, clear voice, he declared his vote for the Sun Summoner, and dropped to his knees and bowed his head. (Rumor has it his reward will be a seat on the council). Others soon followed, first tentatively and then with growing confidence. Some still declared for Danila Lantsov and others abstained entirely, but there was no question which way things were trending by the time it was my turn to speak.

I confess that I had intended to cast my vote for Prince Danila, despite my reservations. I need not go into my reasoning here. But I was so overcome by what I had seen—the Sun Summoner in her glory, commanding both light AND shadow—that, though my hands shook, I too knelt before her and pledged my fealty. For a brief moment, her eyes rested upon my face. I shall never forget that look for as long as I live.

To return to the subject at hand: it was not an overwhelming majority for the Sun Summoner, but it was more than enough. Even Danila Lantsov was briefly revived long enough to vote for her before lapsing back into unconsciousness. And so it was done, and so she who had entered the hall as the Sun Summoner left as the Sun Queen, and long may she reign.

You will ask: what of the army? It is a fair question. Even though the Queen had personally led the Second Army in the recent past, they had fought under Lantsov kings for centuries. After the Assembly finally dispersed, we learned that none other than Zoya Nazyalensky had brought a regiment down from the Fjerdan border to the capital and they were camped just outside the gates—presumably to quell the Guard, if they had sided with the Lantsovs, and then secure the city. But fortunately, there were no swords drawn and no bloodshed, as far as I have heard.

And now, my friend, the hour is very late and my candle is all the way burned down, and so I must end this letter and make myself ready for the coronation tomorrow (the Queen is leaving nothing to chance by waiting longer, understandably). Only time will tell if we have made our choice wisely. And may the Saints watch over you and I and this poor country of ours.

I remain

Your friend, S____ T______

Chapter Text

Alina has never felt such relief to see Zoya, still splattered with mud from the road. “You made it!” she laughs, drawing her into a hug. It is almost midnight now, and she has finally managed to free herself of all the people clamoring for her attention and retreat to her room, though she will move into the tsar’s chamber tomorrow. She knows she should be completely exhausted, but she is still filled with adrenaline, dizzy from the events of the day.

“Quite the surprise to come back to,” Zoya says once they separate. She gives Genya a warm hug as well. “I see things have changed around here. Did you have this in mind all along, Alin—your Majesty?”

Alina waves her hand. “Please, Zoya, that isn’t necessary. And no, I did not. Genya can fill you in.”

Genya still looks somewhat dazed. Alina thinks to herself that she probably should have warned her. No doubt the sight of the nichevo’ya had been such a shock. She does feel badly about it. I’ll make it up to you somehow.

“Alina, we need to talk,” Zoya tells her urgently. “The situation at the Fjerdan border is worse than I had imagined. They need reinforcements up there immediately and it is likely the Fjerdans will strike against Ulensk within a matter of weeks, if not sooner. You have won the crown, but if you don’t act, you may lose the country.”

“Saints,” Alina mutters, rubbing her temples. She hasn’t even had time to process the fact that she is now queen, let alone think about armies and the Fjerdans. “I’ll see to it, I promise.”

Zoya crosses her arms. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Not really. But she has figured out seemingly insurmountable problems before, and she has her friends at her side. (And her monsters, too.)

She takes the dispatch from Zoya and is about to read it over when a guard pokes his head through the door. “The Lady Tatiana Lantsov, Your Majesty.”

“Ah. You may show her in.”

Genya and Zoya both give her a puzzled look, and she shrugs. “My request. It’s time to settle this once and for all.”

Tatiana Lantsov sweeps into the room, looking somewhat worse for wear. The last time they were in this room together, the former queen had made herself comfortable in Alina’s chair and left her standing. How the tables have turned.

“You little witch,” Tatiana Lantsov snarls. So much for any contrition.

“You are in the presence of your queen,” Genya interrupts. Her voice is quiet but firm. “You will call her your majesty or you will be removed. You will not be reminded again.”

Tatiana Lantsov gives Genya a hateful stare. Then she swallows and grudgingly curtsies.

“Your Majesty,” she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Well, I will say to you what no one else has the courage to say. Your kind should have been dealt with long ago. The Fjerdans have the right idea when it comes to the Grisha. And now you steal the throne for yourself and soil it with your peasant hands. You may have dazzled the Assembly, but you have shown yourself for what you are. Your time will come.”

Alina lets the silence settle for a moment. Genya had maintained the former queen’s face and body for her for years, but now the illusion of youth is gone. She looks like an old, haggard woman. The wrinkles stand out clearly on her face despite the layers of makeup. Under different circumstances, she might have felt sorry for her: a woman who had lost her husband and both sons in short succession. But she knows perfectly well that Tatiana Lantsov never would have felt a trace of pity for a half-Shu orphan from Keramzin, no matter the magnitude of her losses.

She twists the royal emerald ring on her grubby peasant hand. “When we last met in this room, you gave me your terms,” she says. “Well, madam, here are mine: you will immediately depart for the convent and never return to Os Alta. You will receive no visitors and instigate no plots. You will spend the rest of your life in prayer and penance. You will not be cast into prison, and you will be treated with dignity. I offer you this only because you were Nikolai’s mother and I would not dishonor his memory. Consider yourself lucky. Oh, and you will return the remainder of the crown jewels you have hidden away as well.”

Tatiana Lantsov scoffs. She looks her up and down with utter contempt. In a twisted way, Alina almost admires her fearlessness. (That said, she will absolutely not miss her.)

“You know, I had put no credence to the rumors that you murdered my son,” she tells Alina slyly. “I had thought it was overblown gossip by servants with too much idle time on their hands. But now I see I was wrong. You wanted exactly what the Darkling wanted. His monsters, your monsters. That was how you killed Nikolai. At least the Darkling was honest enough to admit what he was. But you, my dear…”

“Madam, we are done here,” she snaps. “I pray the Saints make your journey smooth and swift, and I never have to see you again.”

“Your Majesty.” Tatiana Lantsov gives her a mocking curtsey and sweeps away without another word. Once she is gone, Alina forces herself to unclench her fists. Genya and Zoya both turn to her slowly.

“Alina, tell me it isn’t true,” Zoya says.

She frowns. “What?”

“What she said about Nikolai. Tell me she’s lying.”

“She’s lying,” Alina insists. “Don’t tell me you actually believe that horrible woman.”

“Then what about the nichevo’ya?” Zoya presses. She glances around the room to make sure they aren’t there. “You’ve been keeping things from us. Don’t deny it.”

“Stop,” Alina orders. She thinks for a moment that she should tell them about the Darkling, about Aleksander, but—well, she doesn’t know where to begin, and what would they think of her if they knew what she had done? They both despise him, and for good reason. “I had nothing to do with Nikolai’s death. I shouldn’t even have to say this. He was my friend too.”

They stare at her. Saints, she realizes, my own friends think I’m a murderer. “Please,” she says, softening her tone. “Please, you must believe me.”

“I believe you,” Zoya says hesitantly. Genya says nothing.

“I need both of you,” Alina pleads. “There’s no one else I can trust. Help me save this country.”

Another moment passes. “All right,” Zoya says. “What would you have us do?”

She lets out a small sigh of relief. “I will lead the army north to confront the Fjerdans myself. Zoya, I want you at my side. We must move quickly to push the enemy back across the border. Will you do that?”

Zoya nods. “I will.”

“Genya,” she says. Her friend looks tired and sad, not her usual polished self. “I need you to maintain order in the capital and act in my stead until I return. The Lantsovs must be watched closely. Tatiana Lantsov may be gone, but I don’t trust any of them.”

Genya looks her in the eye. “As you command,” she says quietly. She sounds utterly heartbroken. “And if our friendship ever meant anything to you, then once you return from the border, you will dismiss me from my duties and we will go our separate ways. Your Majesty.”

She stares at her, at a loss for words. “Genya…” she swallows. “Please, will you let me fix this?”

“Oh, Alina,” Genya sighs. “There’s no fixing this. Now, if you will excuse me so I can make my preparations?”

Alina nods. Her first friend in the Little Palace, when all the others treated her with disdain or awe. Her friend, who has done nothing but offer her support and advice. She doesn’t trust herself to speak as Genya walks away, closing the door behind her.

“Saints, Alina,” Zoya breathes after she is gone. “What have you done?”

She glares at her. “Don’t.”

Zoya sinks down into a chair and wearily puts her head in her hands. “I left for a few weeks on your request, and this is what I come back to.”

“You were the one who told me I couldn’t afford weakness. All I have done has been for Ravka, so our people can have a future.”

“With Kirigan’s shadow creatures at your side,” Zoya says skeptically. “No wonder Genya wants nothing to do with you. Have you forgotten everything she lost because of them?”

“Of course not,” Alina snaps. She can hear the defensiveness in her own voice, and she tries to put it aside. “I did not mean to hurt her, but I know I have. And I know I have to make it right.”

Zoya looks her over thoughtfully. Alina remembers how much she despised her in those days when she was still discovering her powers—the whispers behind her back and the disparaging comments to her face. Now she may be the only friend she has left.

“Do you ever think of him? The Darkling, I mean. Because I do,” Zoya blurts out suddenly. She doesn’t wait for Alina’s answer. “I came to the Little Palace when I was twelve,” she continues, gazing at the floor. “I was in awe of him. He had a way of getting inside my head, and I wasn’t the only one. He would pit us Grisha against each other, make us compete for his favor. We all lived for the faintest glimmer of approval from him. But no matter how hard you trained or how many hours you studied, it would never be enough. He would ferret out your weaknesses and turn them to his advantage. I hate that I never understood this about him until it was too late. His true power was never his ability to summon shadow: it was the hold he had on us. On me. Even in death, I still sometimes feel his grip. You must feel it too. Don’t you?”

She is on the verge of spilling her guts to Zoya; to say yes, I felt it and I should have turned away, but instead I ran towards him.

She can't bring herself to say it, and so she just sits there, toying with the embroidery on her skirt, unable to look her friend in the eye. She finally says, “Zoya, I want to give the regiment a few days to rest and restock their supplies. As soon as the coronation is over and affairs are in order in the capital, we are leaving for the front. Whatever you need to get this done, you have it.”

Zoya ducks her head, eying the rich carpets under her feet. Her expression is unreadable. She stands up, gives her a graceful curtsey, and says, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

Chapter Text

She had first joined up with the First Army when she was a sliver over eighteen and Ana Kuya told her it was time she earned her keep. At the time, the army had been stationed some twenty miles west of Sikursk, close to the southern border, to deal with recurrent raids from Shu Han. Ruler and pencil in hand, she took quickly to army life— sleeping on the ground in a tent, saying yes sir and yes ma’am, sharing bad wine around a campfire with comrades. If she had to deal with the usual taunts and sidelong looks, it was certainly no worse than anything the other children at the orphanage had thrown at her. At any rate, the food was better with the army and she actually made some friends among her fellow cartographers.

She misses the camaraderie and the anonymity. Back then, she had been a nobody, assistant cartographer to the 15^th regiment, and not even an especially talented one at that. Her parents had also been nobodies, poor farmers who had lost their land after one too many bad harvests and made a risky, dangerous decision as a result. When the history books are written about the reign of Alina Starkov, her mother and father will not be included: their bones lie quietly under the sand and their souls rest in their daughter’s shadow.

She does not think of her parents often. They left when she was five years old and she had to learn to look after herself: to observe the world around her, to seek allies, to fight to win. These skills have served her well. She has watched her enemies fall one by one, and now she is queen. So no more sleeping on the hard ground, no more taking orders. She rides to the Fjerdan border in a closely guarded carriage and enjoys five course meals in a luxurious tent with its own bathtub (saints be praised). She tells her generals what she wants them to do and they do it.

And then when night falls, she lies alone in her bed in her tent, satin sheets pulled up to her neck. She lies there and does not sleep. After some time has passed, she gets up and wraps a robe around herself and sits down at her desk to reread the reports from her spies, or else go back over maps she has already looked at a dozen times. Sometimes she takes a blank piece of paper and a pen to write to Mal, but she finds she has nothing to say.

Then, when she grows tired of sitting around, she goes back to bed, closes her eyes, and searches for him. She wanders through Morozova’s wrecked workshop, the empty tent in the Fold, the hall in the Spinning Wheel where he looked at her and said power suits you. But he is nowhere to be found. She calls out his name into the deepening silence.

It is exactly the thing she had wanted, before—to be free of him. Now she finds herself more perturbed by his absence. She knows she should not be spending so much time thinking about a dead man. She has learned to summon shadow and has no more use for him. It should be easy enough for her to cast the thought of him aside and move on.

So she tosses and turns in bed for a few more restless hours, and the nichevo’ya curls up on the floor next to her and stays by her side until dawn.

She meets daily with her generals to learn the latest news from the front and strategize as they travel north. Two early summer storms have helped buy the Ravkan army some time. The heavy rain has caused the Olna River between the two countries to swell and the waters are still too high for the main Fjerdan army to cross in order to attack Ulensk. Fortunately, Nikolai had ordered the bridges over the Olna burned months ago after the debacle at the coronation—one of the few official acts he had accomplished in the short five weeks that he had ruled.

She has sent Tidemakers ahead to keep the waters up for as long as possible, but there are far too few of them to cover such a wide area. Besides, there have been worrying rumors coming out of Djerholm that the Fjerdans have been refining their use of jurda parem and intend to send their captive Grisha against the exhausted Ravkan army. An all-out assault would very likely be disastrous for Ravka, even with the Sun Summoner on their side.

“We need to have a contingency plan,” Zoya tells her late one evening after the meeting is over and she has dismissed her generals for the night. “We could evacuate Ulensk now and retreat to Adena and regroup.”

Alina runs her hand along the map on the table, tracing the path of the Olna. “Abandon the north?”

“You know the numbers on their side and ours,” Zoya says. “I passed through Ulensk a few weeks ago on my way to meet up with the Second Army. The fortifications were not maintained under King Pyotr and the garrison is meager. That city will not hold if—and when—the Fjerdans attack. Believe me, I would not suggest this if I thought we could keep Ulensk. If we pull out now, it will save lives.”

She shakes her head. “And if I leave Ulensk and the north to its fate, what will they say about me? The queen who gave up half the country to the Fjerdans without a fight? They will hold me responsible for losing their home, and they will be right.”

“Alina—Your Majesty.” Zoya sits down, rubbing her eyes tiredly. “Better complaining than dead. They will say what they will say. At least they will be alive.”

Alina mulls it over. “The Fjerdans will not stop at Ulensk,” she says. “It will give them a foothold in this country and they will eat away at us little by little. I will not give them Ulensk. But I agree that we should evacuate the civilians as soon as possible. Can you pass along the orders?”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Zoya says coolly, getting to her feet.

Once she is gone, Alina collapses in the chair that Zoya has just vacated. Saints, she thinks, we are going to lose this war. The soldiers are demoralized, the country’s resources strained to the limit, the treasury almost empty. The Grisha remain loyal, but there are nowhere near enough of them. And I am most likely sending them to their deaths.

She pulls out a rolled-up piece of fine linen paper from the trunk by her chair and unties the red ribbon, tracing her fingers along the broken seal: seven stars over the Great Tree with the waters of the Wellspring flowing away from the roots. She unrolls the paper and rereads the words once again. The morning after her coronation, the Fjerdan ambassador had bowed to her with exquisite politeness and delivered his king’s formal declaration of war against Ravka. She had—somewhat less politely—ordered him confined to his rooms and sent more spies to keep an eye on the Fjerdan quarter of the city. Then she dictated her response to the Fjerdan king: if you want this country, then be prepared to bleed for it.

Back in her tent, she slowly tears the paper into pieces and holds them out over her candle, watching the Great Tree wither and turn to ash in her hand. The Darkling, she thinks, would have let the whole country burn before he would have ceded an inch of Ravkan soil to the Fjerdans. He would say, Little Saint, whatever you want in this world, you must take, or else they will take from you.

“Perhaps that was true for you,” she says softly, brushing the ash from her clothes. “Not for me.”

A sliver of shadow wraps itself around her fingers. She pictures him in those final days, pacing about in his tent. Had he sensed the walls closing in around him, or had he walked blindly to his end? (Will she herself know when her death is near? Or will it be like falling from a precipice in the dark?)

She closes her eyes and imagines what advice the dead man would give her. He would say: there will be no peace with the Fjerdans until they come to fear you. And also: show your enemy no mercy, for you can expect none from him. And finally: the people of Ravka will only ever worship or hate you. They will never love you. You will not find what you seek.

“I don’t need their love,” Alina whispers. She gazes down at the shadow curled up in the palm of her hand. Then she flexes her fingers and watches it slip away into the night.

Chapter Text

June 10^th: the regiment finally unites with the First and Second Armies, which have made their camp five miles north of Ulensk. It has been three long weeks of travel along the northern roads, passing by so many burned farms and abandoned villages that at some point Alina lost count. From her view in the carriage, she watched the smoke rising in the distance and long lines of hungry and desperate refugees heading south. Some called out her name and waved as the royal carriage rumbled by; others cursed her and made hand signs to ward against witchcraft. On two occasions, small boys threw clumps of dirt and rocks until her guard chased them off.

It is nearly sunset by the time they make it to the camp. The strain is apparent on every face. Alina had hoped to meet with all her generals days earlier; time is running out and everyone knows it. She is tired and badly wants to dispense with the formalities and ceremonies, but she knows she must make an appearance before her army. So she walks up and down the rows of soldiers, inspecting tired faces and shabby uniforms, letting them have a good look at their queen. Some still gaze at her with wild hope in their eyes: at last, the Sun Summoner has arrived.

She flees to her tent as soon as she possibly can get away and summons her generals for the latest news. Their reports are uniformly negative. Despite the effort of the Tidemakers, the water level in the Olna River is falling and the Fjerdan army across the border continues to gain strength. She loses soldiers to illness and desertion day by day, there are no more Ravkan reinforcements coming behind them, and the promised aid from Shu Han has not materialized. They will have to fight the Fjerdans with what they have. She asks for ideas and a few of the generals tentatively speak up: they can send small raiding parties of their own to harass the Fjerdans, shore up Ulensk and prepare for a siege as best they can, try to avoid fighting the Fjerdan army on an open plain and stake out a defensive position the forests instead. None of them sound particularly optimistic.

After all their reports are given and their ideas have been exhausted, she thanks her generals and sends them away. Zoya asks to see her in private, but she declines and tells her guards that she is not to be disturbed. With the distractions eliminated, she carefully studies the large map on her table and flicks over the game pieces representing the Fjerdans one by one. She had hoped that the prospect of facing the Sun Summoner in person would have given the enemy pause, but it seems only to have entrenched them further. Neither side can back down now.

She paces about the tent as darkness falls, listening to the voices of the soldiers outside gradually drop off into silence. The breeze picks up and a chill settles in her body despite her robe and slippers. At last, she lies down in bed and pulls the blankets over her, still wide awake. In the past few weeks, she has unsuccessfully experimented with seven different sleeping draughts from three different healers, reading painfully boring textbooks, and reciting mind-numbingly dull prayers from The Lives of the Saints that she was forced to memorize as a child. Sleep does not come, though she desperately needs it.

Finally, she closes her eyes and travels to the same familiar places: the tent in the Fold, his quarters in the Little Palace, the halls of the Spinning Wheel. She tarries for a while in Morozova’s workshop, blowing away the dust and sifting through the papers left scattered on the table, looking for nothing in particular. It was in this place that the Darkling caught her alone. He came up from behind her and grabbed her by the mouth so she could not scream, and if Baghra hadn’t intervened, he might have killed her then and there. Even now, a shiver runs up her spine.

She is about to move on when she sets aside a packet of diagrams and finds the journal hidden underneath: worn black leather, page after page filled to the margins with spidery writing, and the message to her at the very end. She had thrown it back at him and told him she wanted nothing more to do with his games. But this time, she runs her hands along the cover and opens it with care, turning to the final page one more time: you know where to find me, Little Saint.

Alina exhales slowly. Then she frowns in the dim light of the workshop. She expects to see the same cipher as before, but as she squints at his writing, the letters on the page seem to rearrange themselves into ordinary, perfectly readable Ravkan script. She summons her light to examine it more closely, but the text shifts before her eyes and reforms into cipher. She extinguishes her light and then summons it again a few times, shaking her head in amazement as she watches the letters change. Of course he would come up with such a trick: his secrets invisible to the light, only to be revealed in shadow.

“I see you,” she whispers. Then she opens her eyes and blinks.

Morozova’s workshop is gone. She is lying under her own blankets, in her own bed, in a tent near the Fjerdan border. The only sound she hears is her own breathing. She almost closes her eyes again to take herself back to the workshop so she can read the journal, but something makes her pause. She is not alone.

In the darkness of her tent, she sees the silhouette of a man seated in her chair: back straight, feet planted on the ground, watching her watching him. She blinks a few times and sits up. His eyes glitter in the dark as she studies his profile—the slope of his nose, the curve of his mouth. She had watched as his features disappeared into the flames and melted into ash; she had said, no grave, nothing left. She had told herself that was the end; she had even believed it, for a little while. But now she slides out of bed and walks over to him: her enemy, her mirror. She summons her light and looks at his face. The shadows fall away.

When she first knew him, she had thought him quite handsome. General Kirigan was considered a great prize for all the unmarried women in the Little Palace, and though he was known to have his dalliances, there was never a hint of anything more serious. His aloofness only served to increase his allure. Although she had been in love with Mal at the time, she had been caught up in it as well. And as she came to know him better—or so she thought—she found he could be charming, even romantic, and she had very much enjoyed his attention. But that had been back then.

His appearance is much changed from those early days in Os Alta. Her eyes travel along the vivid scars on his face and the false hand resting in his lap. He looks older and wearier. But for all that, she cannot help but think that he is beautiful still. She runs her fingers along the scar on his cheek and feels him flinch at her touch. He is a little bit afraid of her. Good.

Back in those early days in Os Alta, they had kissed and gone no further. It had been on her own initiative; she does not think he would have made the first move. She had been embarrassed by those kisses later on, and grateful she had given him nothing more than that. Indeed, she had never spoken to anyone about exactly what had taken place between the two of them: not Genya, not Zoya, certainly not Mal. After all, this is the man who would have destroyed her life and those of her friends without a second thought. He had come so very close to succeeding.

She places her hands around his neck and feels his pulse jump. “Do you know what it feels like to be strangled?” she asks him softly, starting to squeeze. He doesn’t answer. “Tell me why I shouldn’t do to you what you did to me. Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you twice over.”

“Do it, then,” he says at last.

She hesitates. He waits patiently under her grasp. She listens to him breathe; watches the slow rise and fall of his chest. She could choke the life out of him or cut him in two if she wanted. There had been a time when she could summon her hatred for him as easily as she could summon light. Now she looks within herself and tries to find that hate once more, but she discovers it is no longer there. He is her monster and she is his, and the only thing that separates them now is the space between him and her.

She lets go of his neck and grabs a handful of his hair, pulling his head back and bringing her face close to his. He winces but does not break away or push her hand aside. His breathing quickens and her heart beats faster. Some part of her thinks she should stop there, but another part says, why should I stop, why shouldn’t I have what I want?

She closes the last few inches between them and he kisses her back hungrily, his tongue hot in her mouth. She releases his hair and straddles him. Her nails dig into his shoulders as his grip tightens on her back—one hand made of metal, and the other flesh—and she shudders, letting her body rest against his. He feels warm and solid, not a ghost at all. She whispers in his ear, what shall I do with you, Aleksander? He merely watches her, his eyes dark with desire, and she has her answer.

She leads him to her bed, stripping him of his kefta and his shirt along the way. The volcra left deep gouges near his shoulder and collarbone in addition to the scar she left between his ribs, and she studies them as he tosses aside her robe and pulls her nightgown over her head. She shivers at the cold air on her skin, standing naked before him. A small smile hovers on his lips. She has a feeling she is never going to live this one down.

She quirks an eyebrow at him, tugging at his pants: well? He shakes his head, his smile turning into a grin, and quickly shrugs off the last of his clothes and follows her into bed. She pushes him down none too gently and climbs on top of him. She stifles a cry when he enters her, letting her head rest briefly on his chest before starting to move her hips. He grips her wrist with the metal hand, letting out a low moan. She quickens her pace and he follows her lead, clutching her wrist hard enough to hurt.

Time slows to a crawl. She plants kisses along his neck and nips his ear and he rewards her with a groan of pleasure. She gasps in turn when he pinches her nipple. He moves in sync with her, sometimes rough and passionate, and sometimes with a tenderness that surprises her. Don’t stop, she breathes, please don’t stop.

She feels the pressure building between her legs and she knows she is close. He seems to be in no hurry, running his hand through her hair as she sweats on top of him. She finishes before he does, trembling in his arms and crying out his name. She doesn’t give a damn if they can hear her all the way in Os Alta; the two of them are the only thing that matters.

He buries his face in her chest as he finishes, gasping and grabbing onto her shoulders. She feels him quake underneath her; a deep shudder that goes on for a long time. When he is finally still and he eases his grip on her, she lies there for a little while, her body pressed against his, breathing in his scent. For once, he is silent. He idly runs his fingers through her hair, gently combing out the tangles.

At last—and not without a little reluctance—she slides off of him, dropping her body next to his in the narrow bed. She stares up at the ceiling of the tent, still panting from the exertion. She can sense his eyes on her.

“Oh, go on,” she sighs. “Gloat. Crow in triumph. Deliver that lecture you’ve been dying to give me.”

“What lecture?” he asks, propping himself up on his elbows.

She rolls her eyes. “‘Why, Miss Starkov, how naïve and foolish you are. You should have listened to me, for I am ten thousand years old and have no ulterior motives whatsoever. You and I, we are birds of a feather, peas in a pod, a pair of ingrown hairs in a volcra’s nostril…’”

He somehow manages to keep a straight face. “An excellent lecture, Miss Starkov,” he says. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

She smacks his arm, though not hard. He bats her hand away and pulls her in for another kiss. She kisses him back and for a little while forgets all else.

Alina wakes an hour or so before dawn. It takes a moment for her to find her bearings. She lies there for a little while before reaching out to touch the space that Aleksander had occupied. The mattress beside her is cold. She exhales, running her hands along the covers. In another time, she might have told herself it wasn’t real, it was just a dream. But she knows better now. She rubs her face and then pulls her hand away with a frown. There is a bruise forming on her wrist.

She sits up slowly and looks around, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. It is a moonless night and the tent is swathed in shadows. Everything seems to be where she left it—the pile of maps on the table, the robe she had tossed carelessly over the trunk with her clothes, her slippers by the bed. She gets up and pads over to the empty chair, feeling her way across the tent without her light.

Her fingers brush against something when she touches the seat. She picks up the journal and weighs it in her hand before opening it to the first page. In the darkness, she can just make out the words. His gift to her, and his curse.

She pulls out her paper and pencil, takes a seat, and begins to read.

Chapter Text

On the 18^th day of August, in the fifth year of the reign of Anastas Lantsov II, 1604 A.S.G.: On this day, I made something.

So begins the journal of Aleksander Morozova. In it she finds his account of the creation of the Fold, and her heart races as she reads each page, running her fingers along his words. It shares some similarities to the tale of the Black Heretic she was taught as a child, but to read his words is something else; the story takes on a life of its own. She scribbles some notes as she goes along: useful details from the writings of the Bonesmith, observations on the effects of merzost, a certain incantation in old Ravkan that she can only read with difficulty.

As night fades into dawn and then early morning, she continues her reading and ignores the commotion going on outside, only vaguely registering the shouts and the sound of horses. She is not even a third of the way through the journal and already the words are beginning to fade and shift back to cipher as it grows light. At last, her concentration is broken by Zoya’s worried voice outside her tent, calling for her.

“Your Majesty?” Zoya calls again.

“Come in,” she says, hastily getting up to hide the journal and pull on her robe. Her heart sinks when she sees the expression on Zoya’s face.

“The Fjerdans crossed the river last night under the cover of darkness,” Zoya tells her in a grim voice. “There were a series of coordinated attacks on our Tidemakers. One of them made it back to the camp this morning.”

“Saints,” she whispers, squeezing her eyes shut.

Zoya steps forward hesitantly and takes her by the hand. “We must go, Your Majesty,” she says, unable to keep the fear out of her voice. “We must make ourselves ready for the battle to come.”

“Elena Yuripova was the Tidemaker that returned,” Zoya explains as Alina hurriedly pulls on her clothes. Weeks ago, she had sent her Tidemakers out in pairs so they could take turns keeping the waters of the Olna River up to prevent the Fjerdan army from crossing. It had been Zoya's idea, and a clever one. Elena’s group had been the only one with three Grisha—herself, her twin sister, and a twenty-year Second Army veteran. Each group had been accompanied by a few guards; not enough, but all that could be spared.

“According to Elena, they knew that the Fjerdans had been watching them for several days,” Zoya continues. “I suspect they misjudged the numbers because of the twins. At any rate, around sunset last evening Elena had gone upstream to wash out some cooking pots, so luckily she was away from the camp when the Fjerdans struck.” She swallows hard. “They had a Heartrender with them. Under the influence of jurda parem, from the sound of it. I don’t think I have to tell you what happened next.”

Alina shudders inwardly as she crams on her boots. At the end of Nikolai’s coronation, there had been a pile of corpses in the pews, blood splattered all over the marble floor: the work of a single Heartrender who had taken the drug. “The other groups of Tidemakers, the guards that were with them—no one else has come back?” she asks. Zoya shakes her head.

Outside her tent, it is near-chaos—soldiers hastily getting their weapons ready, officers barking orders, every nerve on edge. Someone has already gotten a horse for Alina, and she pulls herself up into the saddle. Three of her most senior generals are waiting for her on horseback, and she and Zoya follow their lead out of the camp and up a steep deer trail, with the Imperial Guard close behind and on high alert. The path takes them up a hill and out to a forested ridge high above the river. It is an excellent vantage point, not easily spotted from below.

Once they have reached their destination, she dismounts and one of the generals hands her a spyglass. Down in the valley, the Fjerdans have already made camp on the Ravkan side, with many more still fording the river in tidy, organized lines. The general directs her attention a little ways northeast from the main camp, where a team of six horses are straining to pull a cannon across a makeshift bridge. A short distance away, a group of three Durasts—their legs chained together—are working to construct a second bridge. The metal frame is already in place.

“That is their bottleneck,” her general explains. “The Durasts had that first bridge together about an hour past dawn. The Fjerdans will not attack until all the cannon and supply wagons are across.”

“How long will that take?” she asks, handing back the spyglass.

“Probably all of today,” he replies. “We estimate there are still sixteen cannon left on the Fjerdan side, but things will go faster once the second bridge is in place. I expect the assault will begin early tomorrow morning.”

“Can we send out sorties to take down the bridge and rescue the Durasts?”

He shakes his head. “The bridge is heavily guarded and there are already thousands of Fjerdan soldiers on this side of the river. It would be a suicide mission.”

She feels a sudden flash of irritation. Here is she, surrounded by the finest commanders of their generation, men with elite military educations and decades of experience on the battlefield, and this is the best they can come up with? Wait politely for the Fjerdans to come to them? “Must I go down there myself?” she snaps at him.

He turns pale. “Moya tsaritsa, you can’t, it is too risky—”

“I can’t? Have you forgotten who I am?” she interrupts. She can sense the nichevo’ya looming over her shoulder and she feels a sudden thrill. Her generals and guards scramble to get as far away from her as possible without actually fleeing. The horses whinny in terror, pulling hard at their reins. She imagines herself down on the riverbank, her shadow creatures cutting a wide path through the Fjerdan camp and destroying the bridge; give them a taste of what is waiting for them in Ravka. She knows they call her the witch queen in Fjerda; very well, see what the witch queen can do.

All of her generals are babbling, talking over one another, trying to persuade her not to go. Finally, Zoya’s voice cuts through the noise: “Alina, if you fall, then Ravka falls with you.”

She turns to look at her friend, who has hung back a little ways from the group. “Go on,” she says.

“If you die down there, this country dissolves into civil war,” Zoya says. “The Fjerdans will take Ulensk, Ryevost, and finally Os Alta. Any Grisha that aren’t lucky enough to flee will be killed. The ordinary people of Ravka will suffer. They need their sun summoner. They may not realize it, but they do. You can throw away your own life if you wish, but will you throw away theirs with it?”

She stares at Zoya for a long moment, waiting for her to look away. At last, she sighs. “Very well,” she says coolly. No one says a word as they head back to the camp.

Once they have returned to camp, Alina slides off her horse, hands over the reins, and gives her generals some perfunctory orders—they are still watching her warily, as if she’s sprouted a second head. She doesn’t even look at Zoya as she marches to her tent. Still fuming, she sweeps her books and maps off the table and watches them clatter to the ground. The Darkling, she thinks, would already have been down by the river striking terror into the enemy. He would never have allowed himself to get talked into inaction by his cowardly generals.

“You have a visitor from the capital, moya tsaritsa,” one of her Guard calls out, bravely sticking his head inside the tent.

“I’m busy,” she snarls.

“He says he’s a friend, Your Majesty.”

She pauses, nudging one of the fallen books with her toe. She briefly contemplates picking them up so she can throw them at this visitor. “Send him in,” she relents, though she glowers at him as he enters the tent. “This is not a good time, friend. You should be in Os Alta. I didn’t summon you.”

The Apparat offers her a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He is not dressed in his robes of office, only shabby traveler’s clothes; if she hadn’t known better, she would never suspect he was a Saint, and one who had temporarily ruled Ravka at the Darkling’s behest. He bows to her and then bends down to retrieve one of the books scattered on the ground. She is suddenly relieved that Aleksander’s journal is hidden within her trunk and out of his reach.

“The Lives of the Saints,” he says, running his hand along the cover. “A most edifying read, despite some omissions.”

“I do hope you haven’t come all the way from the Little Palace to comment on my reading material.”

“No, though I’d be happy to make recommendations if you would like,” he says cheerily. “I have come to offer you some help at this critical juncture.”

She drums her fingers on the table. “All right, then tell me what help you can give and be on your way,” she says impatiently. “If you haven’t noticed, there’s a war happening here. I don’t have a lot of time for this.”

The Apparat nods, suddenly serious. He pulls a small vial from his pocket and places it on the table with care. Inside is a coarse powder the color of ivory.

“Did you ever meet a Grisha by the name of Vladim Gulav?” he asks. “No? He was the Darkling’s personal Alkemi, and quite a talented one. When the Darkling lost his hand in that…encounter with yourself and Baghra, it was Vladim who fabricated a new hand and cleaved it to him. The rest, as you know, is history, but Vladim kept the Darkling’s hand and refined the bone for his own experiments, as any sensible Alkemi would have done. No reason to waste an object of such power.

“After the Darkling was killed, Vladim fled, taking his experiments with him. It took longer than I hoped to track him down, so please forgive my delay getting here. He was persuaded to share a small portion of the Darkling’s bone at great cost to myself. And now, I give it to you to use however you see fit.”

She eyes the vial on the table. She had burned the Darkling’s body for this exact reason—so no part of him could ever be used against her. “And if I don’t want it?”

He shrugs. “Then burn it or let the river take it. Or give it back, preferably. I’m sure I can find a use for it.”

She crosses her arms and strongly considers telling him to get the hell out of her tent. Maybe banishing him from Ravka, even—that would put an end to all the tiresome riddles and hints. But something makes her pause. Her eyes travel down to his left hand, still holding her copy of The Lives of the Saints. The tips of his ring and pinky fingers are missing. A shiver runs down her spine.

“An accident?” she asks, though she already knows the answer.

He follows her gaze to his maimed hand. “Oh, no, no, no,” he chuckles. “That was…a sacrifice, made long ago. Nothing lost, nothing gained.”

She remembers Baghra on their journey to Morozova’s workshop. Early one morning, Alina had bandaged up her mangled hand with the missing finger. “Ever since he was a boy, Aleksander has always been excessive,” Baghra had complained, wincing as Alina had tied the bandage in place. “But this really was unnecessary. Just the fingertip is all that is needed to make an amplifier.”

Her heart thumps in her chest as she looks at the Apparat more closely, seeing him at last. “The Stag was yours,” she says softly. “The Sea Whip and the Firebird too.”

“Yes,” Ilya Morozova agrees. “A magnificent experiment. The three of them took on a life of their own.”

She thinks of the Stag bleeding out in the moonlight and the Sea Whip dead by her own hand. She thinks of Mal, who she had loved for so many years, now so distant from her—if he even still lives. And she thinks of how much destruction the man standing before her has wrought: his own family collateral damage. Baghra, dead on the floor of his workshop; Aleksander, dust in the wasteland of the Fold.

“The Darkling never knew who you were, but Baghra must have,” she speculates. “You were all at the Little Palace together.”

He shrugs. “The Darkling and I had a decent working relationship, and I saw no need to disturb that by revealing myself to him,” he says. “As for my daughter…well, she preferred not to see what was in front of her. Perhaps it was too painful. But all that is in the past now. It is time to look to the future.”

“The future,” she repeats with skepticism.

“Yourself, Sankta Alina,” he says. “You have done what no other Grisha has ever done. You destroyed the Fold. You seemingly mastered shadow summoning overnight. Even for the Darkling, it took him many years to learn his power, and he was a diligent student. And—most remarkably—you raised the dead.”

She swallows. Of course he would know about Mal. She can almost feel Baghra breathing down her neck, saying stupid girl, didn’t I tell you? She tries to steer away from that subject. “It will be a very short future if the Fjerdans win.”

Morozova smiles. “Somehow, I don’t see that happening,” he says. “I am sure you will find a way.” He bows, places her book back on the table, and turns to leave.

“You once asked me if I knew what my greatest weakness was,” she says suddenly. He turns back to look at her. “I didn’t want to hear the answer then. Will you tell me now?”

Ilya Morozova raises his eyebrows, and at last, she can see the family resemblance. “You have lied to yourself, my dear,” he answers. “It is a common failing, and I do not fault you for it. You know what you desire and that frightens you. But the truth is that you tasted power and you liked it. Why not be honest with yourself?”

She says nothing. He straightens up and fiddles with his collar. “You are busy and I must be off,” he says blithely, bowing again. “Do let me know how I can be of service to you when the time comes, moya tsaritsa.”

After he is gone, she picks up the vial of bone dust and puts it in her pocket.

Chapter Text

The message comes shortly after dawn, as expected: the Fjerdans wish to parley with her. She hands the paper back to the messenger and pulls her cloak around her shoulders. “I will meet them in half an hour,” she tells him. “We will be waiting in the meadow west of Ulenskaya Creek between our two camps.”

Once the messenger has departed, she turns to Zoya and her generals, all squeezed into her tent. She knows she should offer some words of encouragement or comfort on the morning of battle, but nothing comes to mind. “Let’s go,” she tells them instead.

Her party arrives first. To the left, Ulenskaya Creek tranquilly burbles on its path south; some miles away to the right, the walls of Ulensk rise out of the hills. It is a clear, beautiful morning and already the chill of night has started to lift. By the end of the day, this place will be almost unrecognizable.

She sits on her mare and waits, Zoya at her side, her generals and guards just slightly behind. No one speaks. The minutes tick by slowly. At last, she sees the group of Fjerdans in the distance, white flag raised, moving steadily across the plain. There are about two dozen of them on horseback, the same size as her own group. They come to a halt about twenty feet away and she studies each of their faces: these are hard men, with years of experience; they have already devastated the Ravkan countryside and now they intend to do worse.

Two of the men urge their horses forward and then dismount. The man on the left is older, with closely-cropped silver hair and a military bearing—the commander, she supposes. The man on the right looks to be in his early thirties, also in uniform, but with a fine fur cloak draped over his shoulders and a chain of office around his neck. He looks her up and down through narrowed eyes. “That is the Fjerdan crown prince,” Zoya murmurs in her ear.

The prince gives her a short bow and then draws a piece of paper out from his pocket. He reads the message out loud in Fjerdan, and when he is finished, he tucks the paper away and nods to the commander to translate for him.

“To Alina Starkov, witch queen of Ravka, the king of Fjerda sends greetings,” the commander begins. His Ravkan is excellent, with barely a trace of an accent. “The Fjerdan army outnumbers yours four to one. Our men are well-rested and have ample supplies. Can you say the same for yours? Spare a thought for your soldiers and let them go home tonight. Do not throw away their lives in a fight you cannot hope to win.”

“Oh, is that all?” she asks coldly as she and Zoya dismount. “You have brought terms, I assume?”

He nods to a subordinate, who hands a sealed envelope to Zoya. She takes it without opening it and crosses her arms.

“These are the king’s terms,” the commander says. “First, he requires your personal and unconditional surrender. You will immediately be conveyed to the Ice Court to stand trial for witchcraft. I give you my solemn oath that you will be treated with all due respect befitting the ruler of a neighboring country. Second, all your Grisha must turn themselves over peacefully to the Fjerdan authorities so they can be tried as well. Any resistance will be met without mercy.

Third, the king bears no ill will towards the ordinary people of Ravka and he intends to rule fairly. Therefore, there will be no plundering of the countryside or harassment of Ravkan citizens as the army marches on to Os Alta. Any damages suffered by farmers and merchants will be promptly compensated, and Fjerdan soldiers who disobey will be hanged. These orders have already been communicated to the regiments.”

She lets out a sarcastic chuckle, remembering the ruined farmsteads she had passed on the journey north. “I don’t much like these terms, sir.”

He nods. “I understand, tsaritsa, and I am not without sympathy for your position. But this is what it means to be on the losing side of a war. You have one hour to give your answer.”

She thinks: no need to wait so long. Your soldiers raided Ravkan villages, you burned our crops in their field, you murdered countless Grisha. You came here to make war; very well, then you shall have it. Instead she says, “Thank you. I will deliver my answer soon.”

The commander inclines his head. “Of course, Your Majesty,” he says with utmost politeness. He turns to the prince and tells him something briefly in Fjerdan, and they both get back on their horses. With a word over his shoulder to his subordinates, the Fjerdans turn their horses around and ride away, leaving the Ravkans behind. She wonders in passing how they intend to transport her to the Ice Court—in a carriage with the curtains drawn for the sake of security, or on horseback with her hands bound for all of Fjerda to see? Either way, she means to deprive them of their prize.

She turns to Zoya and her generals once they are out of earshot. “Begin the retreat immediately,” she orders. “Every single soldier, Grisha, scout, and camp follower. Leave behind anything that cannot be carried. Do not wait for me.”

They stare at her in consternation. “What are you planning to do?” Zoya demands. “We can’t leave you here!”

She smiles. “Don’t worry about me,” she reassures her. “Now go. This is an order from your queen. I’ll be all right.”

Zoya’s face is pale. She takes Alina by the arm and draws her close so the generals can’t overhear. “Whatever you’re about to do, you don’t have to do this,” she says quietly. “Please. We’ll find another way. Alina, I’m begging you.”

She has never heard Zoya beg before. Under different circumstances, she might have stared at her in astonishment. She knows that what she will do now will break their friendship, just as she has with Genya. But she weighs the loss of her friendship against the survival of the Grisha and Ravka, and against her own future. She makes up her mind.

“Go, please,” she repeats. “Get clear of here. You must lead them. There is no one else who can.”

Zoya lets go of her arm and steps back. Her expression is neutral, but she knows Zoya well enough to see the fury in her eyes. “As you wish,” she says with a bow.

For a moment, she feels a pang of regret. But only for a moment. She gives the reins of her horse over to one of the generals and watches as they ride away without her. Once they are out of sight, she drops to her knees and runs her fingers along the dry grass. She sits there for a long while, feeling the breeze in her hair, and then she lays down and closes her eyes. She tries to recall Keramzin and the meadow, but she can feel it slipping from her grasp, the memory fading. She had believed they would last forever, herself and Mal; that their love was enough to overcome any obstacle. And then it had all fallen apart.

Above her, the sky is a pale, clear blue, not a cloud in sight. She watches the tall grass waving in the wind, and she remembers being nine years old, hiding from Ana Kuya and the testers, heart thumping in her chest and sweat running down her brow. But Mal is not there. She turns her head to see the body of the Darkling stretched out in the grass, his face pale and lifeless.

“You made me into a murderer,” she tells him. “I never wanted to kill anyone. But now thousands will die because of me. They will die if I win and they will die if I lose.”

He turns to face her with his cold, dead eyes. “They would have died if you had stayed home and done nothing. They are going to die and you will be the one who kills them. I told you that you would have to make a sacrifice. That is the price of power.”

“Mal was the sacrifice,” she whispers, but even as the words leave her mouth, she knows that is not so.

“Is that what I told you?” he asks. “No, he never was. Not even the lives of thousands of strangers. It is and always was yourself, or the person you believe yourself to be. Once you let that go, there will be no limit to the things you can accomplish.”

“What if I don’t want that?”

He merely laughs: a long, shuddering laugh that grinds in her ears. “Do you still think that matters? It is far too late to turn back now.”

She bites her lip and looks away, staring up at the sky. “You don’t know everything,” she says after a while, and that is true: there are times when he has miscalculated, overreached, misjudged his enemies and his supporters. But then again, so has she. She reaches into her pocket and takes out the vial of bone dust, turning it around in her hand. The glass glitters in the sunlight. “Here’s something you don’t know about,” she tells him. “This is yours. A gift from your very own grandfather. Our mutual friend the Apparat has been keeping secrets.”

He looks surprised for once. “I should have guessed,” he says. He raises the metal hand at his side and flexes it, opening and closing the fingers a few times. “I always had thought him something of an old fool. How wrong I was. What will you do with it?”

“I haven’t decided,” she says, though already the shadow of an idea has been forming in her mind. She puts the vial back in her pocket. “You should have paid more attention to your Alkemi.”

“An oversight on my part,” he agrees. Then he adds dryly, “I was rather busy at the time.”

They both fall silent for a while. She watches a hawk soaring overhead in wide, lazy circles and tries to calm herself. She has faced deadly situations before. There have been times when she was certain she would die: the volcra attack during her first journey across the Fold; the Darkling’s hands wrapped around her neck in Morozova’s workshop. On those occasions, the danger came upon her swiftly and she had no time to think until it was already over. But this time, with every passing second, she can sense death creeping closer—waiting for her on the battlefield, something swift and sharp; or else lingering at her side in a cell in the Ice Court, waiting for execution. She shudders.

“I’d like you to tell me something,” she says to him. She has been thinking about this subject often in the past few weeks, turning the thought over in her head. “I want to know what it was like to die.”

He gazes at her with curiosity. “Why do you ask?”

“Because…” she begins, faltering a little. “Nikolai was king for only five weeks. I may be queen for even less. Depending on what happens next, I could very well be the shortest reigning sovereign in the history of Ravka. Not to mention the fact that I’ll probably take the country down with me. So I want to be ready.”

He stares off into the distance. “I thought perhaps you’d ask me this someday,” he says with the barest trace of a smile. He doesn’t seem perturbed by her question. “I remember you gazing down on me. I remember the warmth of the sun on my face. The warmth washed over me and all the pain and fury and fear that I had lived with for so long receded like the tide. Nothing hurt anymore. And for a short while, I glimpsed the beauty and endless wonder of the Infinite, until I felt you calling me back. Little Saint, you have nothing to fear from death.”

She blinks back tears and gazes at the clear blue sky overhead. “Well,” she says as she fights to keep her voice from trembling, “that doesn’t sound so bad.”

“It isn’t,” he agrees. He gives her a thoughtful look. “Boris the Unlucky,” he says after a moment.

“Excuse me?”

“Boris the Unlucky,” he repeats. “The sixth Lantsov king. He usually occupies only a footnote in most Ravkan history books, so I’m not surprised you don’t know about him. He ruled for twelve days and then was overthrown by his cousin, Pyotr I. Pyotr could have had him killed—I certainly would have—but instead he sent him to a monastery near Chernast, where he outlived Pyotr by about three decades and spent his golden years writing a very influential text on the fermentation process of barley. So you’ve already been queen longer than Boris was king.”

She stares at him. “Are you…trying to make me feel better?”

He gives her the tiniest shrug and she nearly laughs. Oddly enough, she does feel a little better. “Somehow, I don’t think the Fjerdans would allow me to retire to a convent,” she jokes.

“No,” he says quite seriously. “You have no choice but win.”

She sighs. What would victory look like? Ravka secured from the Fjerdan threat, the nation’s laws reformed, her own position stable. No more orphans. The task feels overwhelming. Before, she hadn’t thought much beyond destroying the Fold; hadn’t really pictured what kind of world would come after it. She had seen herself and Mal, settled down somewhere, happily ever after. That picture of herself was bits and pieces of an earlier imagining, adapted to fit the changing circumstances: a different path to the same ending.

“I had this stupid dream,” she blurts out. “I thought I knew how my life was going to be. I would serve as Assistant Cartographer to the First Army for a decade or so until I’d saved up enough money and my contract ended, and then I’d resign and marry Mal. We talked about buying a farm. My parents were farmers and so were his, so it seemed like a good idea. Perhaps we would have children when we felt ready. Even after I discovered I was Grisha, I still somehow thought it could happen. It would be a comfortable, safe life. We would be happy.”

She waits for him to laugh at her or call her a child. When the mockery does not come, she turns her head and looks him in the eye and sees all the lies, deceit, and fear stripped away. This, she thinks, is Aleksander Morozova: not the Black Heretic, not the Darkling, not anyone else. She wonders who he sees when he looks at her—the Sun Summoner, the Queen of Ravka, or Alina Starkov?

“You’ve told me your stupid dream. Do you want to hear about mine?” he asks. He rubs his beard and gazes into the distance. “When I was young, I had this fantasy about running off to somewhere no one would recognize my face. I’d build a cabin in the forest next to a stream and live there with the woman I loved. Of course I knew nothing about how to build a cabin, but that didn’t matter. The important thing was that I would answer to nobody but myself. And her. Perhaps it would have been possible if I had been someone else. But for you and me, there is no hiding from the world.”

She tries to picture him leading a domestic life. Puttering around the garden, chopping firewood with the Cut. Coming home after a day out by the creek to a woman who would clean the fish he had caught and make a simple stew in the stove. “What was her name?” she asks.

He looks away. “Luda,” he says at last. “Her name was Luda.”

She waits for him to tell her more, but he does not speak and she cannot bring herself to ask. Instead, she reaches out and tentatively places her hand on his. He does not pull away.

They lie together in silence for a long time, watching the sun rise ever higher in the sky.

Chapter Text

Do you fear your creations? she asks him in the hour before dawn, while the rest of the world still sleeps.

Yes, he answers. He runs his fingers along her collarbone and she shivers at his touch. But I fear you most of all.

In those days after she had killed the Darkling and destroyed the Fold, she had walked through the world in a daze. She remembers some parts of it with clarity—saying goodbye to Mal; weeping with Genya in the silent, ruined halls of the fortress at Zvedya; counting the countless dead—those that she had known, and those she had not. Nikolai had insisted on a decent burial for each of them. So she spent hours digging graves at his side; sweat rolling down her face, hands filthy with dirt. At times, he suddenly paused and straightened up, touching his wounded shoulder with a wince. Then he took his shovel and kept on digging: her king, the man she might have married. When they rode back to Os Alta, the people had lined the roads and cheered for her, not him. She had thought for a moment that it would upset him, but he gave her an easy, genuine smile and murmured that she deserved it.

And then he had died and she could not save him. In the middle of the night, alone in her bed, she has sometimes wondered what might have been, and if they could have loved each other in the end. She has wondered as well about Mal; about whether he was happy with his choice, and if he had already met someone else.

Paths not taken, futures that will never come to pass. She thinks that Nikolai and Mal would not recognize her anymore; they would be like strangers to each other. But no matter—she will save Ravka without them. She will save this country and its people, who already whisper about her in the taverns and the markets, who spread the rumors that she killed the rightful king and took his throne. Only a few short months have passed since she destroyed the Fold; one would think that would be enough to please them. But if they will not hail her as a hero, then she can be their monster instead. And she will protect them from the Fjerdan threat all the same.

But more than Nikolai, more than Mal, more than anyone—she thinks about Aleksander. She doesn’t need to wonder about the thoughts that passed through his mind on a moonless night, and his unquiet dreams. She already knows. Do you know the only thing more powerful than you or me? he asked her. The two of us. Together.

She can hear the Fjerdans coming before she sees them: the vibration of their horses’ hooves against the ground, the murmur of voices spoken in a foreign tongue. She stands up to greet her enemy as they draw close. It is mostly the same group as before, with the crown prince and commander at the front, but this time, they have brought a Heartrender with them—a young woman, no older than herself, with a gaunt face and hollow eyes. They approach her with caution this time, perhaps anticipating a trap: they certainly did not expect to find the queen of Ravka standing alone and unarmed in the meadow.

The crown prince says something in Fjerdan to the commander. “We will have your answer now, witch queen,” the commander translates.

When it had become clear to her what she would have to do, she had imagined this moment. She had thought that she would be afraid. She thought she would hesitate. But as she carefully studies each of their faces, she feels no fear—only a sense of clarity.

“Send my answer to your king,” she tells them. Then, to her shadow monsters, she says go.

The nichevo’ya need no further encouragement. They have been waiting eagerly for this order to come, as they surely knew it one day would. The horses shriek in panic as the nichevo’ya bear down on them. A couple of the men manage to fire off some hasty shots, but the bullets pass right through the creatures, just as they did in the Spinning Wheel. Her monsters cut through the men with ease, splattering the tall grass with blood.

She feels a sharp pain in her chest, like the edge of a knife, and she falls to her knees. The Heartrender, she thinks in a panic. Her vision fades; the world around her turns to black. But then the pressure and the pain suddenly vanish. She gasps for breath and looks up in time to see the nichevo’ya grab the Heartrender by the neck and lift her up into the air. She looks away quickly, but she cannot block out the sound of her screams.

The fight is over within minutes, with the surviving Fjerdans fleeing back to the camp and nichevo’ya chasing after them. She kneels in the grass for a few moments longer, still panting, and then she slowly gets to her feet and follows. She steps over the corpse of the commander with care—the royal laundress will be upset if she ruins her clothes with blood—and follows Ulenskaya Creek through the meadow and to the woods, where she finds the steep deer trail she had taken with her generals the day before.

Even from a distance, she can hear the Fjerdan army well before she sees it. She walks up to the top of the hill and pauses. She needs no spyglass to see her nichevo’ya destroying the Fjerdan camp, with soldiers desperately throwing themselves into the river and stampeding across the bridge to get back to their own side—not that it seems to be doing them much good. She hopes that Zoya has obeyed her orders and pulled the Ravkan army back; if she hasn’t…well, she doesn’t even want to think of that.

She places her hands into position and summons her light and shadow together. They swirl about, intertwined, mirroring each other. The Darkling had needed an amplifier and David’s skill in order to control her light, but she needed none of that to master shadow: only her own will. Now she will take it even further.

Baghra had warned her against using merzost; made her swear never to use it. You will not know what price it demands until it is too late, she said. And Alina had promised, though only because Baghra had insisted. She had not understood it at the time, but she does now. Baghra—for all her wisdom and skill—had been afraid. If the Fold was Aleksander’s creation, then he was Baghra’s. Of course she feared what she had made.

And as for Alina herself: the Fold had molded her, shaped the trajectory of her life. Without the Fold, she would never have been orphaned, never become the Sun Summoner, never become the Queen of Ravka. She might have lived quietly and peacefully, with her powers forever dormant. But because of the Fold, she is who she is. And now it is her turn to see what she can will into being.

She speaks the words in the journal, the Old Ravkan rolling off her tongue. She can feel the power coursing through her body, the fire in her veins. Long before the Darkling, long before Baghra, long before the Bonesmith, a nameless ancestor had taught herself magic—not the Small Science, but something far more dangerous; something ancient and deadly. Those that followed her had tested their powers, perfected her experiment, and then they vanished and their knowledge was nearly lost. But one day, a young and ambitious Alkemi stumbled upon it: the writings of the first of their kind, tucked away in the dusty corner of a long-lost library. He studied and he learned, and in time, he discovered great power of his own.

But all power requires sacrifice. Alina draws her knife with shaking hands and places the tip of the blade against her chest. She knows the exact spot—Mal had taught her that—and now the only question that remains is whether she can bring herself to do it. Nothing lost, nothing gained, Ilya Morozova told her, but he had never attempted anything like this. No one has ever attempted this.

Alina pauses for a long while, staring down at the knife in her trembling hands. She thinks about turning back, walking down the hill, disappearing. She could leave Ravka far behind and live quietly somewhere else. Perhaps she could change her name and go to Ketterdam, a city cosmopolitan enough that her half-Shu face might not raise so many eyebrows, or to the Southern Colonies far across the sea, where tales of the Sun Summoner are still received with skepticism. She imagines herself in a peaceful flat in some distant city, curled up in a comfortable chair with her tea cooling on the table and a book in her hands. The fantasy of an ordinary life. Her hands loosen ever so slightly around the handle of the knife.

She can hear Mal murmuring in her ear: This has gone too far, Alina. Where do you see this ending? But in her other ear, Aleksander says, How long would it be until your room across the sea begins to feel like a cage?

The crown is a cage, she reminds him. So is being the Sun Summoner.

So choose your cage, Little Saint.

She squeezes her eyes shut and plunges the knife into her heart.

When she wakes some time later, the sun has already disappeared below the horizon and all is silent, save for the sound of the wind rustling through the leaves. For a moment, she feels utterly disoriented, blinking in confusion at the sight of the sky through the tree branches overhead. She sits up very slowly. Her ears are ringing and her head aches terribly, but she pays them no mind. Her bloodstained knife lies in the dirt beside her. When she gently places her hand against her ribs, she feels no wound, though the knife left a hole in her clothes. She does not think about that for long, however. Her eyes are fixed on the light.

It should be dark by now. The crescent moon is rising to the east; she can see the final traces of sunset in the west. But the sky is bright as day and the trees around her are bathed in an eerie glow, casting long shadows. She stands up, walks on unsteady feet through the trees to the edge of the cliff, and gazes in awe at her creation.

The Fjerdan army is gone. Before her stretches a curtain of light for as far as the eye can see. It fills the valley of the Olna River, running east to west along what had been the Fjerdan border. Shadow ripples through the light like waves in the ocean. Off in the distance, there are thunderclouds forming within, rising high above her head. It is the most beautiful thing Alina has ever seen.

“I made something,” she whispers into the night.

She can feel his presence at her side. This is only the beginning, he tells her. See what tomorrow will bring.

Chapter Text

They call it the Rift—a searing wall of light running from the mouth of the Olna River, snaking along the edge of the permafrost past Chernost, and extending all the way past Elbjen on Fjerda’s southeastern border. The blast obliterates almost the entire military leadership of Fjerda, along with tens of thousands of Fjerdan infantry and cavalry, hundreds of druskelle, mercenary units from Kerch and the Wandering Isle, and the Fjerdan Crown Prince himself. The government at the Ice Court swiftly collapses. It will be centuries before the weakened Fjerdan state can threaten Ravka again. The Rift reshapes the world around it; reconfiguring alliances and shifting the balance of power—Ravka, long considered weak and impoverished, now takes the center stage.

In the months and years that follow, the Rift is studied and crossings are attempted, same as the Fold. The vast majority of crossings on both sides fail, and the few survivors that do emerge from the Rift are broken by the experience. Some tell of the blinding light, the sweltering heat, the shadows in the shape of men that cannot be felled by bullets or swords. Others simply go mad. The Rift far surpasses the Fold both in its size and its deadliness. It keeps the mapmakers busy for a long time.

Those Ravkans that live near the ravaged northern border gradually go back to their lives to the extent they are able. Those that return home rebuild their villages and plant their meager crops in the shadow of the Rift. They grow used to the ever-present light, to the land where night never comes. But things are never quite the same as they were.

Alina Starkov, meanwhile, returns to Os Alta and moves into the royal apartments. She consolidates her power, announces changes to certain laws, plans reforms, and laughs off her councilors’ repeated suggestions that she should make a strategic marriage. She has no time for that, and more importantly, she has no need for it. Who would challenge the Sun Summoner now?

And yet. While she is popular in Os Alta, the citizenry out in the Ravkan countryside is rather more divided. There are some who erect altars in their homes to Sankta Alina and pray to her each day with a fervor bordering on fanaticism. But in taverns and inns, others continue to grumble that she is a Shu witch; that she seduced and then murdered the rightful Lantsov heir—the usual slander, nothing particularly creative.

What is more troublesome are the anonymous pamphlets that begin circulating in Ryevost several months after the end of the war. These ones tell a new story: that, with the aid of the Apparat, the Witch Queen has requisitioned a corpse for her dark magic. Her new spymaster ferrets out the author and publisher of the pamphlet and has them arrested and packed off to the capital for questioning—though naturally, this only fans the flames in the streets of Ryevost. Government officials are assaulted in broad daylight and a school for Grisha in the heart of the city is looted and burned. Rumors die hard.

Now picture this: the Sun Queen, resting in the royal apartments after supper with the ambassador from Noyvi Zem, reading her spymaster’s report with the latest news from Ryevost. Once she is finished, she folds up the paper and tucks it away in her drawer before pulling on her robe and slippers. She pushes the hidden button behind the mirror in her dressing room and the secret door—a plain, unadorned panel beside the bookcase—swings open with a groan.

She summons her light and follows the staircase down into the depths of the palace, fumbling with the key in her pocket. The room she is seeking is well disguised, practically invisible except to those who know where to look. The keyhole appears to be nothing more than a crack in the wall; some long dead Durast’s clever trick. When she reaches her destination, she hesitates a moment. Then she turns the key in the lock and steps inside.

Ilya Morozova is waiting for her, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. His Alkemi’s tools are scattered about the room and jars of saints-know-what line the shelves. On the long table is the naked body of a Heartrender, a Ravkan man in his early forties, who in life occasionally was mistaken for General Kirigan because of his build and the way he wore his beard and his hair.

“Is everything ready?” she asks Morozova.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he says. He hands her a knife and steps out of the way, watching her with a mad gleam in his eye. She approaches the table and takes out the vial of bone dust. This is the culmination of weeks of labor, ever since they had obtained the body. She studies the corpse’s face for a moment. It is not his face, of course, but a Tailor can make the necessary adjustments later.

Alina takes the cold, lifeless hand and draws her knife along the palm, forcing back a sudden wave of nausea. She then makes a matching cut on her own hand and sprinkles a portion of the bone dust into the open wound. She gasps in pain as the powder makes contact, burning the flesh. She presses her hand against that of the corpse, closes her eyes, and waits.

Nothing happens. The room is silent except for the sound of her and Morozova breathing. Not at all what she expected. At last, she opens her eyes and looks at her fellow Saint with eyebrows raised.

“This sometimes happens with new experiments,” he tells her, not quite able to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “After all, what we are attempting is quite unprecedented. Clearly there is more work to be done.”

She pulls her hand away and puts the stopper back in the vial. About half of the bone dust is left. Morozova approaches with a bandage ready, but she waves him off. “I want you to find another body and try again,” she orders, and he bows. She stops the bleeding and bandages the cut on her hand herself.

After she leaves, he curses under his breath and packs up his papers and his tools, thinking about what went wrong. The last item he picks up is a worn leather journal, left lying open on the shelf. The writing inside is almost entirely in cipher, except for one sentence at the very end. He briefly flips through the pages and puts it in his bag. With one last glance at the corpse on the table, he extinguishes the lamps and shuts the door firmly behind him.

Two o’clock in the morning: the Little Palace sleeps. A few servants still wander the halls, yawning; tired guards rub their eyes and wait for their shifts to be over. In a small hidden room in one of the many secret passages, all is silent save for the slow, steady drip of water from a leaky pipe and the skittering of a mouse on the stone floor. A body rests on the table in the center of the room, quietly decomposing. Or not.

In the darkness, Aleksander opens his eyes.   

FIN.