Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ivan rubbed circles on Alina’s back as she retched. A half hour ago she had purged even the last of the bile in her stomach. She was hunched over, tears streaming down her face, and she retched again even as her body had nothing more to give.

She sat. Ivan offered her a cup and she used the water to clean her mouth and then spat it into the sick pail.

“No use in wasting good water,” she said with false good cheer.

“It was bad?” He knew the answer, but he also knew that it wasn’t just the stomach that needed purging, but the mind as well.

“Not even a quarter,” she whispered, her voice raspy. “They’ll doubtless lose more as they travel.”

“How is he?”

“I— I’m sorry I didn’t ask about Fedyor.” A few more tears fell.

Ivan appreciated her heart. He knew Fedyor would be gutted, but he also knew that it was the General who needed to stand again as soon as possible. In some ways, Ivan imagined Alina was falling apart for the both of them.

“I meant the General.”

“The girls won’t leave his side,” Alina said in her soft rasp. “His amplification soothes them enough that they don’t feel the withdrawal. With any luck the worst will have passed before he arrives here.”

That was some small comfort. “And the man who is responsible is dead?”

She nodded, seemingly unable to find the words. Another hour or so passed and finally the retching stopped. Ivan plied her with water and porridge and crystallized honey and ginger.

Much later she assured him that the General had regained enough of his mind to be of some use. Fedyor had had one of the other heartrenders render him unconscious so he could sleep. His love had killed at least thirty innocent girls, many of them with child, and Ivan was under no illusions that it hadn’t deeply affected Fedya.

He asked Alina if she wanted the same. She shook her head. “I have to be awake or dreaming to go to him. I can afford to sit in a pretty room and retch and cry. He can’t.”

Alina was ill almost constantly for four days. She declined to have a healer and Ivan couldn’t even blame her. He played nursemaid and fed her bits of anything she could eat after the worst passed for the day.

“Mal should be arriving… soon, two days or so. If I know him he’s moving twelve or fourteen hours a day and barely sleeping,” Alina said as she let some honey dissolve under her tongue.

“I’ll have someone in the upper city,” Ivan assured her. “You didn’t explain what it was the General retrieved from Brum’s corpse.”

“We have some intelligence—”

“You needn’t lie,” Ivan interrupted. “You… know things, don’t you? A vision from the Making, something that lets you see beyond seeing.”

A few tears came to her eyes. “I can’t, Ivan. Please just pretend my heart beats steady and true.”

“My apologies, moya soverenya. Please continue.”

“We… There is a man from Shu Han, Bol Yul-Bayur. He tried to make a cure for Shu sickness, so a grisha could not use their powers and not waste away.”

A reasonable goal, if frustrating, Shu grisha were dissected and experimented on, although given the words from Gafvalle he wondered if even vivisection might have been a mercy.

“He failed miserably at his goal and instead created something that amplified grisha powers ten or even hundred fold, but perverted their powers. Corporalki who could manipulate the dead, squallers who could fly, durasts who could turn lead to gold. A single dose is strong enough to warp the mind and cause withdrawal so powerful it lasts for months. Two doses… we don’t even know if the grisha can come back from that. The man feared the drug would be used by the Shu government… so he tried to defect.”

“To Ravka,” Ivan realized, where else would a man go when he feared for the welfare of grisha? That would be part of how the General and Alina knew.

A bubbling sob of laughter came to Alina’s lips. “He tried to bargain with the Kerch. He sent them samples. When the Kerch smuggled him out of Shu Han the Fjerdans came for him. He died in the crossfire and his son was taken to the Ice Court along with a stockpile of drugs. He is imprisoned even now, being forced to attempt to recreate his father’s work.”

For a smart man, Bol Yul-Bayur was certainly an idiot. At best the substance would be abused by the Kerch to increase the value of their grisha, at worst he would be sold to the highest bidder. “And they are now using it in the Ice Court?”

“Experimenting on grisha to weaponize them against Ravka,” Alina agreed. “We don’t know what the girls in Gafvalle were given, a mix of drugs, something to keep their powers but to make them so docile they would do anything for their next dose. It… burns the candle at both ends, burns through the body and the grisha ability to sustain themselves with their powers.”

“And so you wish to attempt to save them.”

Alina smiled bitterly. “I fear the best we can do is assure they are fed and give them a chance to weather the withdrawal. We need to get the drugs and Kuwei Yul-Bo out of the city and leave the grisha in their cells. They would gladly kill us for another dose.”

The sheer scale of the issue was… horrifying. Alina and the General had kept this secret to rein in the terror and panic. “We could… kill the boy.”

“He’s our best chance for an antidote,” Alina said. “We don’t know how much drug they have squirreled away, or if they could recreate it without Kuwei.”

Ivan nodded, seeing the wisdom in Alina’s words. “Do you think you’ll be well enough to fight when Malyen arrives? Can you even help without revealing yourself?”

“I have to be,” Alina answered. “I can’t let Sasha and my emotions keep getting the better of me.”

“You are quite strong,” Ivan said, feeling he needed to correct Alina’s apparent belief that she was weak for needing to feel something. Ivan had no doubt it was that very reason that she and the General balanced each other so well.

She laughed bitterly. “You don’t need to lie.”

He did not correct her belief, she wouldn’t believe him anyway. Alina was better the next day, ill but not enough to spend all morning over a basin, the next day was much the same. The next day Genya and Lund’s wife went down to Upper Djerholm for ‘shopping’. Malyen had stationed himself in the Warden’s Waystation, a tavern on the way from Upper Djerholm to the Ice Court, and had been able to pass Genya the key before melting back into Djerholm proper to await their next moves.

Genya returned to Alina’s room in the Palace, not able to resist the urge to tailor away the worst of her eyebags. She had the key, and a letter from Malyen. It was a quick recounting of the events in Gafvalle and an entreaty to stay safe. Ivan didn’t miss that Malyen was particularly terrified by whatever slaughter the General had perpetrated on the men of the factory.

“Do you know how bad it was?” he asked after Genya had left them alone again.

“He turned Brum’s body inside out and hacked through over a hundred men with the Cut,” she answered softly.

Ivan decided he could forgive Malyen some of his terror. The General was not a soft man, but even that was… likely a difficult thing to see.

Alina looked down at the key in the palm of her hand, it was shaped like a metal medallion. “Brum is paranoid,” she explained. “He doesn’t let the druskelle witness his torture. For all their faults, most druskelle at least believe their cause is a righteous one and believe in killing grisha, not torturing them.”

The next morning, he and Alina woke up before the fifth and a half morning bell from the Elderclock. She did something that cloaked them in light and she and Ivan snuck out of the Ice Palace without a single glance. They crossed the Glass Bridge and entered White Island unnoticed. Ivan took a distinct pleasure in the knowledge that if they had employed heartrenders this would never work.

They made their way to the ash tree, and Ivan could see the two druskelle flanking the door. Alina turned her head toward him, voice softer than a whisper. “I’ll need to maintain the illusion. It will take my full concentration. Move slowly and open the door slowly when the guard changes. Enter, and then close the door slowly.”

She handed him the key and then… stepped behind him and hugged him tightly, face pressed into his back. He understood now that he would be responsible for slowly tugging her along while she focused on the summoning. They waited, the sixth morning bell rang, and two new druskelle came into view, heading toward the door.

Ivan could see the movement of fingers, movements quick, economical, and precise. He slowly stepped forward and Alina shuffled behind him, hands still locked forward indicating she was holding a summoning even though he couldn’t see it. He took the key and slotted it into the door, rotated it once while the druskelle chattered for a few moments.

Alina’s stomach gurgled, loud enough to draw the attention of the guards. Shit. Ivan carefully backpedaled a few steps, still slowly, as the druskelle began to scan the area. He reached behind him and pressed his hand to Alina’s neck, paralyzing her stomach so it wouldn’t roil and clench… Amplifier, she was an amplifier even stronger than his own. He wasted no time, flicking his fingers. That way he urged them, just a nudge, her power running through him was enough that he could make the touch delicate, the druskelle didn’t even notice the nudge and began to fan out into the courtyard.

Ivan moved them forward again, slowly pushed open the door… nothing happened. The door didn’t move even as he felt it open under his shove. He continued to push, still slow, but his hand passed through the door. Illusion, he told himself, it’s her illusion. He then steeled himself and shuffled into the door. They were inside. He carefully guided Alina in behind him and closed the door.

“We’re in,” he whispered.

She released her summoning. Ivan released her and Alina retched softly but thankfully didn’t vomit.

“You’re an amplifier, a strong one…,” he whispered. Something came to him and he frowned. He was certain he’d touched her before and felt no hum.

Alina recovered and swept away from him, completely ignoring Ivan. She counted doors, stopped at one, and gestured toward the door. Ivan filed away his curiosity, used the key on the indicated door and they went in. An office.

Without a moment to think or scan the room, Alina strode in and began to pull open drawers in the desk. Alina set a folder in front of him, he checked it: planning for druskelle raids. Another landed in front of him: reports from the convent on his daughter Hanne. Most of the papers had no obvious use, but Ivan swiftly scanned the office and found a bag, grabbing each folder and putting them away. Alina even dropped what seemed to be a hefty purse on the desk and he slipped it away.

Finally Alina seemed to find what she’d been looking for: a stack of letters bound in string and a lump of cloth. She patted them. Ivan understood the rest was expendable, but these were not. She grabbed the rest of the folders and shoved them into the bag, shouldering it wordlessly. She went to the door at the side of the office.

“One heartbeat?” she whispered.

Ivan checked and then nodded.

“Send him unconscious, shallow.”

He did and then nodded. She pushed through the door, there was an older blond man locked in a cell. The lock wasn’t the same circular one he had. Alina swore softly. “Look away.”

Ivan didn’t know why she was being bashful about her use of the small sciences now, only to see her place her hands on the lock and look away herself, and then a blinding flash came from her palms. Ivan hissed, turned away, blinking away the afterimage that stayed burned behind his eyes.

As time passed he felt heat, heard a thud, a hiss, and then the squeak of a poorly tended hinge. Ivan turned and saw the entire lock assembly had been melted into slag and was now burning into the floor. Alina went into the cell and Ivan then helped her sit the man up, she pressed her hand tight to the man’s mouth and then nodded to Ivan.

“Shhhhh,” she greeted him as he woke. The man didn’t yell or thrash. “We are here to rescue you. Your cooperation is requested. Do not forget it would be easier to kill you and apologize to the fox later. Understood?”

The man nodded and Alina released his mouth. “The fox sent you?” he asked, voice rough and low. His eyes darted over the two of them, recognizing neither.

“In a roundabout way. We’re getting you out of Fjerda and into hiding. You know why?”

The man nodded. “My letters, my carvings, my purse…”

“Already handled,” Alina assured him.

“My dau—”

Alina pushed her hand to his mouth. “We will speak again, later and when it’s safe. Now, you are not our only guest of honor today, so please stay sitting and prepare to move. We leave at two when the guard changes. Don’t get clever. As I said, it’s far easier to kill you.”

“Smarter, too.”

Alina chuckled faintly. “Very true. You’ll be good?”

He nodded again and Ivan could feel the truth of it. Alina checked with him and he gave her an approving nod. Alina had him check the hall and they exited out, closing the door behind them.

“Magnus Opjer,” she whispered the explanation as they continued to walk deeper into the treasury.

That was the tsarevich’s presumed father. Alina was carefully cleaning up any evidence that Prince Nikolai was illegitimate. He’d wondered about the General’s friendly relationship with the tsarevich, but it seemed he and Alina were going to keep him in power, or hold all the leverage to remove him.

His mind spun in confusion as they walked, Alina striding forward as though she knew exactly where she was going, ignoring dozens of doors just like the others. Finally they headed downstairs and through a long hallway with doors, these ones held little windows. Alina stopped and closed her eyes.

Ivan walked to one door and looked in. He recognized a woman who’d been lost in a Fjerdan raid. He went to the next window and saw a man he’d thought had died in Chernast. Some he didn’t recognize, most he did, they were Second Army. They were not themselves, that much was clear, they were frantic, some paced with almost unimaginable speed, one was scratching open his skin, one was retching into a pale.

“Withdrawal is starting,” she said softly. “Brum should have been back days ago to give them a dose, but he’s dead.”

“Their chances?”

Alina shook her head. “Help me get to Kuwei and get started packing him up.”

Ivan did as instructed, he helped Alina knock out Kuwei, watched as she tugged on gloves and grabbed his head to face the man away from them and them.

“You knew some of those grisha?” He nodded. “Leave this to me. Talk to them, assure them that they will be free if they can endure.” She walked to the vault door.

“Leave the door cracked so I can monitor your heart.”

She nodded and did as he’d said. He could not hear much from her, she was speaking in rapid fire Shu, and he was too focused on snapping his comrades out of their drug haze long enough to recognize him. There were thirty grisha, he knew eighteen. Two he knew and one he didn’t asked him to kill them rather than try to bear the pain. He did as they’d asked.

He checked on Alina throughout. She packed notes Kuwei indicated, ordered him to burn anything they couldn’t take with them, and Cut open anything that could be destroyed that way. At just after one, the two of them exited the vault.

“Set the parem on fire and we’ll leave it to burn inside the vault,” Alina instructed.

“We could give it to the prisoners, they’d die content, at least,” Kuwei suggested.

Ivan bristled. Alina shook her head. “We give them a chance,” she said firmly. “I know the chance is vanishingly small, but we give it to them.”

Kuwei lit the drug as he was told and Alina closed the door. They finally returned to Magnus a bit before two with the promised three knock announcement. “I love a punctual lady,” he told Alina as she entered.

“Your puppy is cuter,” Alina informed him, and Magnus laughed. He let her help him toward the door.

They blindfolded both men unwilling to reveal her summoning at that point. Ivan grasped both blindfolded men, one in each hand, and the world took on a shimmering quality as Alina cloaked them in sunlight. Alina grabbed him around the waist. “This trick will be harder. If they burst through the door, kill them.”

“Understood.”

The warning was unnecessary. They slipped from the old treasury without the druskelle even giving a flicker of notice. They shuffled through the courtyard and onto the Glass Bridge and into the Ice Palace. They tugged their prizes through the hallways and back to Lund’s rooms and Alina finally dropped their illusion and brought the two men into the room where the men of their group had been sleeping.

Genya was there, along with David, and Ivan was fairly certain they were… flirting? Alina tugged off the two men’s blindfolds.

“Bored of the General already, moya soverenya?” Genya said with an amused smirk.

“You’re the Black General’s woman,” Magnus said, obviously surprised that someone so poorly thought of had helped him escape such a predicament.

“The Black—” Yuwei, however, started to scramble away. “Nononono, he’ll cover the land in darkness and—”

Ivan knocked the boy out, catching him and then laying him down on the ground and just… leaving them there. If his father had had any sense, the man might still be alive and they wouldn’t have needed to go to such lengths to retrieve the boy.

“Now,” Alina said, clapping her hands together and rubbing vigorously. “Genya you might notice some… familiar bone structure on our new friend here.” She gestured to Magnus.

It didn’t take long for her to realize what Alina meant. “Yes… I can see that now that I’m looking. I take it we want it to be… less familiar bone structure?” She didn’t even need the answer. “Let me get my kit. I think you’d make a lovely ginger, you have the coloration for it.”

Thus Ivan was subjected to one Magnus Opjer being tailored within an inch of his life for almost three hours. He hoped Fedya was doing well, at least.

Aleksander stood on the bridge of their barge, doing his best to exude strength and assurance while a seventeen year old girl clung to his pinky like a toddler. It had been well over a week now, and the girls were recovering, after a fashion. They needed less time with him to soothe the pain and hunger the parem mixture had caused as it worked out of their system, but each one still sought him out two or three times a day.

They had lost two girls, now they were down to five, but the healers assured him that the girls and the babies were coming around and recovering now rather than being barely held back from deteriorating. They were also nearly to Elling and he would be only too glad to get the girls out of Fjerda.

Two of the girls were corporalki and the other three were etherealki, and so he and Fedyor busied themselves with talking the girls through the first steps of touching the small sciences. The healers assured him it also helped the drugs work out of their system faster. It also meant he spent quite some time with the babies, using his amplification to bring their powers to the surface to burn off the drug. The children were a pair of durasts and a corporalki, so he had the distinct pleasure of staving off his heart being crushed by one of them.

They arrived in Elling just after dusk, exactly as planned, and hurried their men and the women and children onto the Sturmhond’s boat and they even took the barge they’d appropriated and pulled it out to sea as they left, one of his tidemakers sinking it beneath the waves to hide their last traces.

It was two days, far out to sea, after they left Elling that one of the babes carried by the grisha women decided it had to be born.

“You’re joking,” he said as a healer reported the news. “You said she had at least four more weeks.”

“Either the child is early or we misjudged the term,” she answered. “We’re not exactly midwives, moi soverenyi.”

“No, I suppose not.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. Grisha had children so rarely, especially during a heated string of conflict like they’d had of late, that midwifery was bordering on a lost art. Some of the older healers were proficient, but none were young anymore and thus were not suited for as long as three months behind enemy lines. “Have any of you supervised a birth?”

She shook her head.

“Check the rest of the crew, ours and Sturmhond’s.” He turned and went looking for Ulla, he found her chewing on a fish head on the prow. Typical. “Have you ever delivered a human child?”

She looked at him, eyes wide, and then shook her head. “Just sildroher.”

“That’s probably twice as experienced as everyone else,” he said, cursing at his lack of foresight, not that he’d have wanted to let one of those women from the convent live.

Aleksander waited for the report to come in: no one had ever delivered a child and the most experienced crew member was a mother twice over and nothing more.

Sasha? Alina could probably sense him panicking so he tried to calm himself.

Don't worry, milaya. Just a baby deciding to be born while we’re in the middle of the ocean.

He felt her wince. I’ve delivered a few children.

That brought him up short for a moment. You never mentioned you’d been a mother.

No, sorry, I mean sitting there and catching the baby. I… have the same problem you do, never conceived.

He knew that must have been in great part due to their powers, and he winced slightly at bringing it up. I’ve done this a few times with grisha when we were on the move or Baghra when she couldn’t exactly go to a midwife when she thought the kid might come out with a tail.

Alina snorted in his mind. That’s sort of horrifying, delivering your own siblings. Give a tug if you need me.

He pulled his mind out of their connection and checked, not much time had passed. Aleksander then headed to the small cabin where he knew the girls had been staying only to find it jam packed with people. He started pointing and saying ‘out’ repeatedly until he was alone with Ulla and a healer and the girl.

Thankfully she seemed little more than discomforted, curled up on her side, a few tears on her cheeks. Aleksander sat down beside her on a stool and brushed his fingers over her forehead. “Done this before?”

She shook her head. “You can’t deliver a babe, you’re a man.”

He smiled faintly. “I’ve delivered several children, and helped with many more. No one else on the ship has delivered even one. Does that change your mind?”

There was a moment of contemplation, and then she nodded. He had the healer check the child, thankfully positioned right and not distressed. He’d only seen a breach birth once and he wasn’t eager to repeat the experience in the middle of nowhere on the ocean.

“Get up, walk around with one of the girls, stretch if you can. Let me know when it gets too painful. Alright?”

After she’d left, he sat on the floor, leaned against a wall, took a long, slow breath, and then closed his eyes. A bit later Ulla sat beside him and used him as a pillow. “Did you deliver me?”

“I said I remembered and that you had a tail,” he answered without opening his eyes. “Let me get some rest, we could be at this for days if it drags.”

His half sister snuggled into him and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. Like so many times before, he thought about asking her to stay. He always craved this, a family, and just like Alina, Ulla would never wither away and die.

He didn’t know if he was lucky, never having a child of his own. As far as he knew Baghra had had at least twenty after him and probably several before, and in all that time she’d had a single Shadow Summoner and a single sildrohir, only two children who wouldn’t predecease her. He thought it would be worth it, even then… unlike his mother he would love any child, grisha or otskazat’sya, and he had a great deal of experience predeceasing his loved ones already.

Over the next two dozen hours, Aleksander may have reflected that he had known a great many saints, but he didn't thank them for the long - if uncomplicated - birth. “A girl.”

Thankfully he was able to push the bathing of the babe and the cleaning up of the horrifyingly disgusting sheets onto his healers. That they had experience with. He just wanted to lay down but he sat with the mother while she waited.

“She won’t just…?”

Aleksander tilted his head, not sure what she meant.

“Make more children.” A few more tears fell from her eyes.

Ah. He exhaled, trying to relieve the mounting rage. “No. You’ll nurse her if you’d like, send her to the creche if you like, and when she’s six she’ll join the other grishenka in school. She’ll learn to defend herself with fists and whatever her gift is, and… if we’re both very lucky she won’t even need to see the front lines. I can’t promise that last one, but… I always hope it’s true.”

“She’s… like me, a witch?”

“A grisha,” he corrected. Based on what Alina had explained, the drugs likely kept non-grisha from coming to term. “Yes, I felt it immediately. If you’d like you could learn what type. She might be a squaller like her mother.”

“I’d like that,” the girl said, biting her lip. Her eyes lit up when the child was returned to her and she held the babe swaddled in a blanket, and Aleksander hoped his assurances could make her think her daughter had a future to look forward to.

She tilted the babe toward him, and he took his ring from pinky to thumb and took the little girl’s arm in hand. His thumb and forefinger ran over her tiny hand, and he gently scratched just deep enough… “Squaller. Just like her mom.”

With a gesture a healer came over and mended the cut before Aleksander released his touch. “Get some rest, she’ll be a handful for a while and make it everyone on the ship’s problem.”

The mother giggled, just a bit, still exhausted from the birth. “My thanks, moi… moi… sov…?”

“Moi soverenyi,” he said.

He left her then, back out onto the ship’s deck. He rolled his neck and stretched and let his back pop and gave in to the urge to groan as well. Fedyor came up and offered him a tankard.

“Is that drinkable?”

“It’s watered down rum,” Fedyor said.

Aleksander accepted it and took a long drink. It was not good at all. He still finished it anyway.

“Just how many children have you delivered? That was quite the surprise.”

He smiled. “One more than I had two days ago,” he answered, letting the enigmatic response linger between them. “I’m going to bed. Don’t wake me unless we’re under attack by pirates.”

“Of course, moi soverenyi,” Fedyor answered with a smile.

Thankfully they made it to Djerholm without being attacked by pirates or any more of the girls going into labor.

Genya liked to consider herself a smart woman, resourceful, and capable of finding the hidden truths behind others’ actions. Alina and Ivan had left her flummoxed. They received a little coin from Alina’s friend, knowing almost exactly when he’d arrive and what he’d bring with him, and then disappeared for more than half a day and then dragged back two men who couldn’t have been more different: a man in his fifties who was clearly Magnus Opjer - Prince Nikolai’s rumored father - and Shu teen who seemed terrified of them and whatever he thought the General would do with him.

She’d tailored Opjer for them, even though she had some very spiteful thoughts about the man who apparently loved Queen Tatiana, at least for a time. Genya’s feelings about the tsaritsa were complex, she’d been needy and selfish and vain, she’d never protected her from Pyotr, but she admittedly had never hurt her herself.

David forged Opjer new travel papers proclaiming him Kaelish to match his new flaming red hair, Alina had handed him a money purse and then told him to get the hell out of Fjerda as soon as possible.

“My daughter—” He’d said as he planned to leave. “She can’t inherit because of Fjerdan law.”

“Ravka is hardly in the financial state to be overly generous,” Alina said with cool confidence. “But I will protect his claim, and he will know your request. Linnea needs only to apply to him, and I’m certain the Tsar of Ravka will be pleased to have someone of her intellect in Ravka if she so chooses.”

Opjer chuckled. “How long will he be Tsar of Ravka with whatever deals he’s made with a demon?”

Alina gave a simple, coy smile. “I assure you the Black General and I are quite fond of the tsarevich.”

He didn’t even hide the way the answer caused him to shiver. Alina smuggled Opjer out of the Ice Palace on some returning prison transport, although how she’d managed that, Genya had no idea.

The Shu boy… he was a different story entirely. Alina and Ivan were unwilling to let him have any sort of liberty. He was always under at least some level of guard. He also seemed terrified of the prospect of meeting the General. Ivan seemed especially annoyed by this issue. Alina was less annoyed but obviously not pleased.

Alina and Ivan also disappeared every two or three days. They left incredibly early, the earliest she’d caught Alina gone was six in the morning. They arrived back around midafternoon and they never seemed pleased. If she didn’t know Ivan so well she might have suspected an affair; that was impossible on two fronts however: Ivan would never betray Fedyor like that and Ivan would never betray the General like that. Alina… she’d been with the General for a year and seemed blindingly in love and was set to marry him, but Genya knew that someone could hide their nature that long easily.

They waited for what seemed like ages until finally Lund reported that he would have a duel with the Grimjer king the next day. Finally this charade would be over with and they could go home? make peace? She didn’t know.

At the news, Alina had dragged her to the room where they slept, stripped down to no more than her undergarments and sighed. “Make me look like a beautiful, chaste, and pious Springmaiden who would make a man weep with desire to protect her.”

It was an interesting request, if a bit weird. Still, she had her orders from the General that Alina’s orders were his, and so she got to work.

Alina was too fine for Fjerdan beauty, and so Genya widened her hips just a touch and filled out her breasts. Alina squirmed a bit at that, saying the process was a bit painful. It shouldn’t have been, but Genya let her have a bit of complaining. She lightened every inch of the girl’s skin that might be visible and then went to work on her face. She reddened the lips, made her eyes the huge open blue ones she’d worn for their negotiations, and just pulled and lifted and pinched to turn her into a Fjerdan beauty. Her hair was of course turned blonde and Genya went to style her hair before Alina said that could wait.

One of the many bits of clothing the General had ordered for their trek north soon was brought out. There were fluffy boots and a thick wool skirt, there was a beautifully embroidered top that skirted just along the line of Fjerdan modesty, and there were scant bits of jewelry to compliment ears and wrist but none to draw impious eyes to her bosom.

Alina looked at herself in the mirror after nearly four hours of work… and winced.

“Not good?” she asked, a bit worried about the reception.

“It’s great,” Alina protested. “Perfect. I just hate it. You will be able to put me back, right?”

“I promise. The body has a certain… memory, putting you back will be easier.”

“Thank Djel for that!” she said without enthusiasm, and then went to the door to let Ivan in.

Ivan looked like he despised the change just as much. “It’s perfect.” His voice was a completely flat deadpan.

Alina then went to David, the poor boy was very confused, but he did eventually hand over the Hedjut styled crown he’d worked on for months. Genya could see the shape of the idea, a beautiful Springmaiden crowning a new king in Hedjut finery, but the style and even the substance were both a bit… lacking.

She tried not to worry, the plan had to have been approved by the General after all, and she woke the next morning when Alina urged her. They’d braided her hair and pinned it prettily and reddened the lips just a touch more, and then Alina strode out of the room. Genya followed just after her and the girl was… gone.

Genya looked for her, but it soon became apparent that Alina had just… vanished. She went to the men’s room and quickly informed Ivan. Losing the General’s fiancée was not a good look!

“She’s probably gone ahead,” Ivan mumbled, as though they weren’t missing the General’s fiancée!

As midmorning crept into late morning, Genya was actually panicking. The duel started at noon and their leader was missing! David didn’t care, but that wasn’t unusual, but the true confusion was that Ivan didn’t seem to care. They headed out the back of the Ice Palace as though things were fine.

Apparently duels like this one took place on the Glass Bridge between the Ice Palace - where the challenger would come from - and the Royal Palace - where the king would come from. It was a bit poetic, and death, dismemberment, or knocking a man into the moat were all considered victory.

“Stop fretting,” Ivan ordered her as they made their way to an area designated for the close guards or family of the challenger.

“Do you know where she is? Is this part of—?”

Ivan touched his finger to his lips. Oh. Genya took a slow breath, it was fine. It was fine! Really, their leader was missing while dolled up as a Springmaiden but this was fine… she hoped.

Finally the duel was set to start, their ally, General Lund, stood casually, the sheath of his saber in his offhand. The king stood at the other with his own blade. The two men drew their swords and… Lund’s gleamed with an almost blinding light.

Calls of ‘witch’ and ‘witchcraft’ went up, but Lund just raised his hands as though he had already triumphed. “[There is no witchcraft in Djel favoring a man of faith and strength. This is no witch’s flame!]”

A total of four druskelle came up and poked, prodded, and touched the sword and all of them agreed that there was no grisha fire. Genya was quite stunned, she was no faithful but even she was a bit impressed. Part of her wondered if she was truly witnessing something divine while the rest wondered what the trick was.

The duel began at midday, and Genya watched knowing that so much rested on this duel. She was relieved almost instantly, the General was the clear superior, but after a few minutes had still not been able to land a clean blow. Another minute and the king managed to slip past the General’s guard and bring the sword hard against the arm… but the blow skated off with obvious sparks.

A murmur went up, many people had seen it. Corecloth? She wondered. Thankfully the rest didn’t last long, the General lunged and landed a slash hard across the king’s entire torso, and then another moment to press the attack and the king was shoved into the moat.

Genya clenched her fists in victory even as she took a few moments to mourn the brutal death. It was customary to leave a felled king in the water. If Djel willed it, he would survive, but the chances of that were impossibly thin.

Another two druskelle inspected the General and confirmed he’d worn no illegitimate armor, merely the buff coat, and the cry went up proclaiming victory. Many of those on their side of the moat sent up a cheer, and Genya joined them.

There were a few moments of celebration, maybe a minute, and then a huge pillar of light shone down on the center if White Island. A cry went up, and Lund turned toward the Royal Palace and the Sacred Ash, and then slowly walked toward it as though captured by the wonder. The crowd started to press forward and Genya found herself ushered across the Bridge and onto White Island, Ivan at her side, they circled the Royal Palace, spilled out into the Ash’s courtyard and…

Alina. A perfect Springmaiden that would make a man weep with desire to protect her. Her hands clasped in prayer, her head bowed, and her eyes closed. This time the druskelle didn’t dare to try to break an illusion, the image was too holy, too sacred…

“Gustav Lund,” Alina’s voice was pitched a touch lower, but it was clearly her.

Lund strode forward and took a knee. Genya watched in stunned silence as Alina spoke in what she could only assume was a flawlessly delivered, archaic dialect of Hedjut. Genya had no idea what Alina had said, but from the many gasps Genya could tell that others did and were shocked, impressed, or both.

The crown David had made then appeared between her hands. Genya’s eyes widened as she had no idea how such a feat could occur… She then placed the crown on Lund’s head, the cascade of sunlight faded, and Alina… disappeared. Several people looked for her, Genya couldn’t even blame them, but no one found her.

Eventually the excitement dissipated, people returned to their lives… and Genya clung to the excitement of the moment. Gustav Lund was king, the man they hoped would give Ravka peace.

Alina was still missing when Genya returned to Lund’s family apartments, and she even had some dinner with Ivan and the others while they seemed unconcerned. Afterward, Genya returned to her room and found Alina relaxing casually on her bed.

“Could we get rid of this tailoring?” she asked, casual as you please.

It took Genya almost a half hour of nudging and tending before she finally found the words: “What was that?”

“Quite the show, wasn’t it?” Alina answered without answering.

“If I were otskazat’sya I’d think it was magic… but I’m grisha and I’m still not sure what that was,” Genya admitted as she continued to work.

Alina smiled at that. “That’s the trouble with pushing the bounds of the small sciences, isn’t it? Without the knowledge of the theory it looks like magic.” Alina had now admitted it was grisha power… Genya had thought she was otskazat’sya, and she couldn’t really imagine the General taking such a personal interest in an… inferni?

Alina then reached for Genya’s kit, making a gesture to suggest asking for permission, and Genya nodded. Alina picked up a small sapphire she often used for eyes.

“So the way seeing works…” Alina then went into a long explanation better suited to David than someone she’d mostly thought of as an intelligent woman but a lover first and foremost. It involved light coming from light sources, bouncing off items, and then coming to the eye. Genya nodded in the right places as Alina explained. “And so in the end you simply… curve the light—” she pointed to Genya, drew a line from her to the sapphire, and then circled the sapphire with her finger, and the stone… disappeared. “And poof, just like magic.”

The implications of what Alina had been rambling about for at least a half hour finally struck her. She was so used to David rambling on scientific ideas she barely understood that she’d just absorbed the information, but Alina was talking about manipulating… light!

“Uh…” She must have looked stunned. “You move… light?”

“Yeah, a bit rare, isn’t it?” she said with a faint little smile that Genya knew meant the girl was teasing her. The girl. The girl. The Sun Summoner. Her face fell, just a bit, and then she smiled a bit sadly. “The General and I are going to make certain that grisha are never, ever, treated as lesser beings and play toys for the more powerful again. Fjerda is just the start, and Ravka is already changing.”

Genya swallowed down the lump in her throat, the tears she’d shed alone for years, and she nodded. “I… always knew you’d be grisha, but it seems you’re also a saint.”

“I’m not a saint,” Alina said softly. “More than anything I need those people close to me to know I’m not a saint. I’ll play saint in public, I’ll wave and smile and the people will love me, but please always care for me as Alina, not as the Sun Saint.”

“I promise,” Genya told her. Finally somewhat recovered she began to continue to undo the tailoring she had done before. “I think most people thought you’d look a bit like… this.”

“I think it’s good for a saint to look a bit unexpected.”

Suddenly something came to her, something that somehow overrode a good portion of her logical thought that should have been given over to worrying about having the Sun Summoner beneath her touch. “Your wedding dress is gold!”

Alina laughed. “That’s what I love about you. You always have your priorities.”

“You can’t use gold as a highlight! Black! Silver! Do you think the General would let David weave some gold into his kefta?!”

Alina giggled at that. “I’m sure I can convince him,” she answered with a wink.

And that was the funny thing, Genya believed her. A year ago Genya would have said that the General might have overwhelmed the Sun Summoner, might have made her his subordinate. She didn’t know that, but it was a real worry. Now the General had his Sun Summoner and without a worry in the world he’d said she spoke with his voice. If Genya was being honest she’d even admit that Alina did a good job at it despite her age and inexperience.

She’d gossiped with Alina many times before, each time thinking of her as the General’s otskazat’sya mistress, but this time felt so different. Genya realized a weight had been lifted off Alina’s shoulders. They would be revealing her soon, Genya realized, the wedding at the latest… a wedding that could only happen if the tsar wasn’t there to claim Kirigan had been hiding the Sun Summoner…

Genya felt her own weight lift from her shoulders at that thought. He was going to die, he would be gone, and Prince Nikolai had said he was a man who kept his promises… Was that the General’s promise that Pyotr would suffer?

“Do you understand how much you mean to… us?”

Alina glowed. “I do. It’s taken me a while to really get it, to really understand how much the Sun Summoner means to grisha, Ravka, and even the General. I definitely get it now.”

They continued their gossip and Genya finally had Alina put back to rights. She flopped back onto her bed gratefully. Genya watched her wiggle a bit, frowning. “Not that I don’t think you did a great job, but are you sure you put my breasts and hips back right?”

Genya frowned faintly. “Of course, is something wrong?”

“I dunno.” Alina shuffled slightly. “I guess I’ve felt a bit off but I didn’t really notice until you yanked my build around.”

She nodded sympathetically. Tailoring and being put back could be quite disorienting so that wasn’t too surprising. “Anything else?”

“Mostly my boobs? They feel too big.”

Something came to her after that. The morning a week or two ago when Ivan had dismissed Genya from the room and Alina had spent much of the morning with Ivan while puking her guts out. She hadn’t worried too much, Ivan seemed to think it wasn’t anything and had told her to disregard it… but Ivan was… well… Ivan. As far as she knew he’d never been with a woman, and two men certainly had a few things that would never cross their mind when it came to intimacy.

“Have you… been having your monthlies?” Genya asked quite cautiously.

Alina sat up, face obviously confused by the question. “Well, yeah…”

Genya watched her face go through a very complicated set of motions. First was the easiest to read, contemplation as she tried to remember her last blood, confusion as she kept counting backward and not remembering the last time she bled, and then a touch of alarm as she kept counting. They’d been in Fjerda for around three months, so she hadn’t lain with the General in a bit longer than that.

She wasn’t certain why Alina wasn’t considering her monthlies, most women she knew either dreaded or dreamed of those first days their blood didn’t come when expected.

“We’ve just been so busy…,” Alina said softly.

That was when Genya knew for certain that Alina had come to the same realization. “You haven’t bled since we left Ravka.”

Alina shook her head, her expression was confused. Genya had a brief moment to wonder if the girl didn’t know how a child could have happened, if she’d been educated by some crone who only taught that it was a sin to be fallen, but she dismissed that. The day they’d met Alina had stripped nearly naked as the day she was born without a flicker of shame.

As if to prove that point, Alina stood, grabbed the hem of her shirt and undershirt and yanked them up to her breasts. She stared down at her stomach as though it held the answers to the universe. After a moment she turned sideways to Genya and looked at her, her question obvious.

Genya could admit that Alina certainly didn’t look pregnant. She knew girls could carry all different ways, low, high, further in, or further out. There was this absolute waif of a girl in the Palace kitchens who’d been seven months along with twins who’d barely looked pregnant. There was definitely a faint swell but nothing Genya couldn’t have dismissed if she weren’t looking. Unable to say that she did look pregnant, Genya shrugged.

“Could you… check?” Alina’s voice was filled with an almost painful hope.

Genya patted the bed and stood. “You have to go looking quite deep before it quickens,” she explained. “That’s around sixteen to twenty weeks, same as when a heartrender would notice the beating.”

Alina nodded, sat on the bed and then laid down, pulling up her shirt again unnecessarily. Genya sat and felt her own hands tremble a bit, still uncertain if Alina was happy or terrified or some mix. She moved her hands as she’d been taught in early corporalki training and looked.

“It… would be fifteen weeks,” Alina whispered.

Genya found exactly what she’d looked for, a tiny fetus perhaps the size of a small fist. She didn’t know much about babies but that seemed to track. “You’re with child,” Genya said. Alina didn’t immediately react. “It hasn’t quickened yet.”

“Is that… bad?” Alina sounded terrified. Her hands crossed protectively over where the baby sat.

“It’s a bit early for that,” Genya said. “Another two or three weeks could be expected.”

Alina nodded, and Genya watched her almost mechanically lower her shirt and sit. She looked completely shocked, bordering on true medical shock, barely moving, barely breathing…

Genya waited. Alina was certainly feeling a great many things but Genya had no idea if she was thrilled or terrified yet.

“He can’t know,” she whispered.

Genya’s heart clenched painfully. She didn’t know if she could find—

“He can’t know until it quickens,” she clarified.

Her tension eased. She smiled brightly, and she wrapped Alina up in her arms. The girl started to sob, but Genya was now fairly sure they were happy tears.

“He’s never… he thought we couldn’t…”

Her shock made sense now. The General was quite old, well over a hundred, and although he was never well known for some voracious sexual appetite there was certainly a good likelihood an accident would have happened at least once. It also meant her decision to wait until the babe quickened made sense. If the General thought he couldn’t sire children, Alina waiting to tell him made sense, to make sure it took.

“He’s not expected for another week or two anyway,” Genya assured her. “I’ll check, anytime you like. A healer can sense it a bit before the mother.”

Alina shook her head, almost like shaking out an unpleasant thought or memory, and then released Genya and laid down on her side. “I’m fine,” she whispered.

“Of course,” Genya said softly.

“No, I—” She looked startled, as though she’d just realized Genya was in the room.

She would have been offended if she didn’t know the girl had just had such a shock. “Should I stay? go? get you some dinner?”

“I should eat,” she answered, simply.

“I’ll be right back,” Genya assured her.

She exited Alina’s room and Ivan was sitting, staring at the door as though trying to melt it with his eyes. “Is Alina unwell?”

“She had a busy day,” Genya demurred with the truth. Always tell a heartrender the truth.

“I suppose she did,” Ivan admitted. Genya was startled to realize a bit ago the revelation Alina was the Sun Summoner had been shocking only to be replaced with a second shock, less monumental in its scope for Ravka but likely far more monumental to Alina personally. “She feels… distressed.”

Ivan was probing, of course. Ivan would know Alina was the Sun Summoner. Their illusion today had required it and Ivan was unsurprised by it. He was worried about the Sun Summoner, and she supposed the General by extension.

“Just needs some food and rest,” Genya assured him.

Ivan eyed her again, maybe catching her half-lie. “Tell me if she needs anything.”

Genya nodded, feeling a bit bad for obfuscating, but glad Ivan seemed willing to let her handle it. “Just keep an ear out, ya know?”

She was well aware that Alina’s child should quicken soon, and she also knew Alina was desperately waiting for that. Ivan might even catch it before Genya if Alina didn’t obsessively ask to be checked.

Genya was in the middle of putting together a plate for Alina when she was struck with another jolt of horror. The wedding wasn’t for seven weeks! The cut of the gown: unacceptable; the waist: entirely incorrect; the accents: completely wrong; otskazat’sya styled: wrong. Getting that skirt to fall right would be a nightmare! Would Alina keep carrying so trim? Would she make a rapid transition into looking much more pregnant? Where would she put on weight? It was an unpredictable mess!

With a new sense of urgency, Genya finished up the plate for Alina, took it in for Alina, and then fled to the room that was her current gown workshop, dragging David behind her as her anxiety mounted.

Genya looked at the dress and felt a surge of anxiety, frustration, and extreme excitement all rolled into one. She then pulled the entire dress off the dress form and gave it to David. “I need it back to fabric form.”

“Is something… wrong with it?”

“We’re starting over!”

The child quickened eight days later. Genya couldn’t be certain of the exact moment, but it was around ten in the morning. Alina had slept in and was eating a piece of toast with butter and jam and drinking juice. Ivan was across the room chatting with David about the various peace negotiations and drinking coffee. Genya was daydreaming about wedding gowns and looking at David.

This meant that she caught Ivan’s face as his brow wrinkled and he glanced around. He then took another sip of coffee, brow furrowed again, his eyes glanced around again. The third time he took a sip of coffee, looked around, and his eyes fell on Alina. Genya felt a flicker of a smile pull at her lips. Ivan’s eyes then darted down to Alina’s waist and stayed there, and then his eyes widened. He then looked away from Alina, stared into his coffee cup, and then calmly set it down.

“Alina?” Genya said.

“Hmm?” She looked over at Genya, Genya pointed to Ivan. Alina turned to look at Ivan as his eyes were blown wide as saucers and now trained back on her midsection. “… Oh.”

Genya didn’t miss her broad smile or the way she curled up and hugged her stomach.

Ivan… Ivan looked like he couldn’t decide if he was going to laugh, cry, scream, or throw up.

David was completely clueless that anything had changed in the room at all and that was why Genya adored him.

Aleksander was desperately trying not to be annoyed at how damn long their boat ride was taking. They’d run into a fairly intense storm about four days out of Elling. Even with squallers and tidemakers it was basically a lost cause to do much more than stay still, since the winds and tides were in exactly the wrong direction for their trip.

He’d been away from Alina for three months, not that he was counting, and he absolutely hated it. He’d gotten spoiled by having her always around. She’d visited fronts with him, she’d even done proper cartography or oprichnik work wherever they were, and so he was used to just having her there, and now she wasn’t.

The navigator was definitely sick of him. Around midday he’d reported that they were two days out from Djerholm and all Aleksander could think was ‘finally’.

And so he found himself staring at the rocky cliffs that made up the bulk of Fjerda’s coastline and wishing they could just go faster. Things had gone well in Djerholm, Lund was now the king, and negotiations had been going on between Alina - as delegate from Nikolai - and Lund for about a week. They were going so damn well and he didn’t quite trust it and that seemed to manifest as him wishing that Alina was with him so he could be certain everything was alright.

King deposed, Brum killed, Gafvalle women saved, and old treasury raided. No grisha had survived the treasury, Alina had reported that with great sorrow, one made it nine days and that was the longest. She’d told him it was a long shot from the beginning but even though he’d steeled himself for the news it still hurt. Eighteen of them had served under him.

In an odd way it helped him feel that the last months had been real. A few bits of tragedy mixed in with so much going right made it easier to believe he wasn’t caught up in the sort of beautiful dream he didn’t think he’d had in centuries.

Alina had been a bit… off the last week too. He’d seen her almost daily, she’d reported bits and pieces from the negotiations, she’d assured him it was going well, and yet he felt certain she was hiding something. He’d asked three times, all she had said was ‘nothing bad’. Aleksander knew she had spent quite some time not lying to him, but she had said she might lie in the future, and Aleksander was… conflicted about the feeling.

Something was bothering her and she couldn’t confide in him. He knew her so well now, knew her history, her future, her regrets, and her triumphs. It felt like he’d failed somewhere if she couldn’t talk to him.

Well, as usual, his musings did eventually summon her just after midday. She came to him by leaning against the same railing he was, standing just beside him.

“Hey.”

He smiled in spite of himself. “Good afternoon, milaya. No negotiations today?”

She shook her head. “Break day. Things are going well enough anyway, we’re basically done. Lund might be unimaginably grateful for me putting him on the throne but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m not the witch-king.”

“You’ll be my Queen someday, they’d best get used to it.” He moved his hand just enough so he could place his atop hers, and Alina moved her fingers so they could thread together with his.

Perfect, this was perfect.

“You seem…” He didn’t quite have the words. “Less stressed,” he decided after a long moment to consider.

She beamed so beautifully it was a wonder that he wasn’t standing next to the sun. “Yeah… way less stressed.”

“The negotiations wrapping up?” He guessed.

She shook her head. “I—” She paused. A little bit of concern came back to him.

“Nothing bad?” he probed, that's what she said before.

“Something good,” she said instead, her smile still blinding. “Something… impossible, something unbelievable.”

That was quite the tantalizing build up. “And what is so wonderfully impossible and unbelievable, milaya?”

Alina… burst into tears. Aleksander took a few moments to collect himself and then mentally tugged her between his arms and wrapped his arms around her and clung to her as Alina clung to him and continued to cry.

“This… isn’t instilling me with a lot of confidence,” he admitted.

She laughed. That was good at least. After a few moments she collected herself and released him and stepped back just enough to appear as though she was resting on the railing of the boat.

“Do you want to wait until I can see you?” she asked.

“I can think of nothing I want less. I’m honestly a bit concerned at this point.”

“I— I— I’m— I—” Alina looked as though she was going to cry again. What the hell had happened in Djerholm in the last hours?! “I’m pregnant.”

…

“Three and a half months. It quickened this morning,” the words tumbled out.

…

…

“… What.” It wasn’t even a question, it was just… ‘what’. “What?” Good, it was a question that time. A question was what was needed. “You’re… what?”

Alina inhaled deeply. “Pregnant, knocked up, in a family way, expecting.”

“Expecting… a baby.”

Alina giggled. “Yes, a baby.”

“That’s not possible.” It wasn’t. He’d been with women for almost seven hundred years. He’d spent years with some women, decades. “Quickened? That’s…” That was fairly far along. They hadn’t lain together in three months, he’d been counting. He knew the first months were the most delicate, but… “Pregnant!?”

“I’d tease you but I had basically the same reaction,” Alina said with a little ghost of a smile.

“You’d have noticed months ago,” he protested.

“We were traveling, we were negotiating, we were sneaking in and out of the treasury! I’ve never been pregnant in over four hundred years, why would I think I’d start now?”

… That was somewhat reasonable. “So you’re… three and a half months pregnant, at least.” She nodded. “You’re… through the first trimester and it’s quickened.” She nodded again. “That…”

She grabbed him around the middle and he hugged her back and held her so tight he didn’t think he was able to even breathe. He then realized that was a horrible idea and released her.

“A child…” He also realized something else. “You waited until it quickened to tell me.”

Alina nodded.

“You didn’t think it was real either…” He hugged her again. “You can always tell me. Please.”

“I didn’t want… to disappoint you.”

“You would never disappoint me,” he assured her. “I can’t wait to see you, hold you… Saints I thought I was going crazy wanting to see you before.”

He looked down at her midsection and held out his hand. She nodded and he pressed his hand there. It was… not much, just a faint firmness, the barest hint of swell that he wouldn’t have even noticed if he wasn’t so familiar with the feel of her body.

“It’s… doing well?”

She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Genya’s been checking for over a week, Ivan nearly spit out his coffee when he sensed it, and then he checked over it himself, and dragged Maxim to check. I am thoroughly being watched over.”

“Good… good…” A… child. If he’d thought things were going too well before it was now almost impossible not to think about that. Still, he let his hand linger there. “I’ll be there in two days. It’s quickened, can you feel it?”

She shook her head. “That’s not unusual, apparently. First it quickens, then I’ll be able to feel it, and then… you can.”

He closed his eyes and buried his face in her neck, and felt a few tears prickle in his eyes.

“Moi soverenyi!” Fedyor. Fedyor whose tone made it very clear this was not the first time he’d called.

He shook his head to clear the connection to Alina even though he wanted to just stay with her forever. “Yes? Sorry.”

“You seem… very troubled.” Fedyor was standing a bit to his side, eyes filled with concern. “I could hear it clear across the ship.”

Aleksander ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up without even thinking. He realized what he was doing and set his hands back on the railing. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

He then belied that insistence by leaning over and placing his head on the railing, somehow still not believing his fortune.

“I… see,” Fedyor said with uncertainty. “Perhaps you would like to be ‘fine’ with something to drink in your quarters?”

He must have looked absolutely frazzled if Fedyor was suggesting that. Aleksander knew how important it was that he projected strength and assurance and so he nodded and allowed himself to be nudged toward the small room that was his for the voyage and then Fedyor disappeared, likely to fetch the promised alcohol.

When Fedyor returned, Aleksander was standing with his forehead pressed against a wall, mind flipping through… everything. Realizing he was uncomfortable he then sat on the floor so he could use the bed as a backrest and stared out into the middle distance and saw nothing.

Fedyor handed him a small glass, a proper shot, and he took that and drank it wordlessly before handing it back. Brannvin, actual Fjerdan spirits, he scraped the taste off his tongue with his teeth. Fedyor held out another and Aleksander shook his head.

“I am well aware I am a poor substitute for my better half, or Alina, but—”

“Alina’s pregnant.”

Fedyor fell silent, looking quite stunned, blinking a few times. “That is… not so surprising a thing to happen, no?”

Aleksander looked up at Fedyor, confused.

“I am more surprised you somehow have decided this miles from the Fjerdan coast when we’re two days from Djerholm and over a week from Elling and we’ve had no news from the south for months.”

“Right…” That did make sense… “Well, she is. I’m just surprised.”

Fedyor looked down at the shot glass and then drank it in one shot and placed both empty glasses on a table and joined Aleksander on the floor. “I think we’ve missed a few steps,” Fedyor said calmly. “Not… how… I’m certain the entire Little Palace knows how, but all the rest of it.”

It was a testament to how disoriented Aleksander was that he didn’t quite understand what Fedyor’s confusion was, so he started at the beginning. “Alina and I speak near daily.”

“… How?”

An easy question. “We have a bond formed in the Making.”

Fedyor nodded for a moment. “Such bonds are not rare… between two grisha.”

Aleksander nodded. He knew that.

“Alina is grisha?”

Aleksander nodded. Yes, that much was obvious. Fedyor frowned slightly, and then shook his head, squared his shoulders, and continued on: “And what sort of grisha is Alina?”

“She’s the Sun Summoner.”

“I’ll fetch a healer. I suspect you are dehydrated.”

Fedyor got to his feet and left before Aleksander had a chance to protest, and so he sat, his mind again flipping through… everything. Fedyor had dismissed the question of how, but that was what Aleksander was stuck on.

He didn’t have long to think, as Fedyor returned quickly and handed him a tankard of water that Aleksander drank without complaint while a healer knelt on the ground and checked him over. When he finished that, Fedyor handed him another and he drank that as well.

“He’s completely healthy,” the healer reported. “No sign of dehydration or any cognitive issues. Heart rate is a bit elevated and he seems a bit dazed but he’s otherwise fine.”

“Thank you…,” Fedyor said, dismissing the healer, closing the door, and then sitting back on the floor.

“Alina is a pregnant sun summoner who you speak with near daily because you have a bond formed in the Making of the Heart of the World and you are confused because the pregnancy was unexpected…”

“Exactly,” Aleksander agreed.

“… Right. Why don’t you lay down and take a nap and I will return a bit later and we can discuss this further.”

That sounded perfect. A nap meant he might be able to talk to Alina again and he could again assure himself he wasn’t dreaming. So he nodded, kicked off his shoes, and climbed into bed.

What. The. Fuck. Fedyor was not much for swearing, but that was the only thing his mind could offer up. ‘What the fuck?’

He knew Vanya was closer to the General and had a closer relationship to him. It wasn’t surprising that he was more likely to see the General when he was low or gripped with a state he couldn’t risk sharing to the army at large. Fedyor was not unaccustomed to Vanya being concerned for the General's well-being when Fedyor had thought he was fine… but this was not something he’d expected even Vanya to have dealt with.

Fedyor would have never considered the General someone to be delusional. In his eyes, the General was probably the one who saw things most clearly in all of Ravka. He couldn’t claim he had the same complete and unerring trust that Vanya did but it was a close thing.

He could come to no other explanation. The General was not lying, therefore he was delusional. It was certainly a… ‘logical’ delusion. The General wanted Alina, the General wanted the Sun Summoner, and Fedyor supposed that the General wanted a child. Rolling those wants together into one person was simply the best way to fill his desires in a single delusion.

There were many logical issues. Even if Alina were a grisha - which Fedyor doubted, bonds formed by the Making took years to develop and began very weak. He and Vanya had been together for over a decade and their own bond was enough that he could barely sense Vanya’s emotions if he was feeling them quite intensely and Fedyor was looking, it was the same for Vanya.

Alina was also not grisha. She had been tested when she was eight, Fedyor had seen the file, and Alina had confirmed it when he interviewed her. The General would have known she was grisha immediately, the General rarely bedded grisha long term, and the General definitely wouldn’t have slept with a grisha. Frankly it was like asking to be murdered.

Alina was not the Sun Summoner. To be honest he had no proof of that, but it was just good sense. The General was at least two hundred and a Sun Summoner had been expected for at least four hundred years. If she were a newly discovered grisha she would have gone to the Little Palace and stayed there, not follow the General around on the front so he had a convenient… companion. So Alina was not the Sun Summoner.

Perhaps Alina was pregnant. That was certainly possible. He had certainly not kept an exact accounting because he was not a masochist - and Vanya always bemoaned knowing the General’s sex habits - but it was very well known that the General and Alina were very… ardent. Oprichniki gossip had it that they slept together at least three or four times a week, and that was just what was heard from guarding the door.

This was still impossible on two fronts, however: the General was a man of enough years to not be shocked by a woman he bedded almost daily falling pregnant; Alina would also be at least three months pregnant, or sixteen weeks he thought it was, there was some strange accounting about a woman’s last blood. He was well aware he hadn’t seen Vanya for fourteen weeks and so sixteen was the absolute least amount of time Alina would be pregnant. Unless the child was not the General’s, which he highly doubted, Alina should have known her condition months ago.

And so it was obvious: Alina was not grisha, she was thus also not the Sun Summoner. Even if she were grisha and she and the General did have a bond formed in the Making it would be too weak to transfer much beyond feelings. Beyond that even if Alina were a grisha, and did have a strong bond with the General, she would have been just as pregnant two months ago! She would have missed several of her monthlies by now. Fedyor was not a woman but he was fairly certain he would notice that.

Safely assured he was not losing his mind, Fedyor nodded to himself as he leaned against the railing and stared out to sea.

“Fedyor,” the General greeted him.

He looked much better, his hair was neat again, his eyes less swimming with confusion, and the sleeplessness under his eyes had softened just a touch.

“I’m sorry about…” He waved his hand dismissively. “All of that.”

“Think nothing of it, General. It’s been a long three months.” Fedyor did not sigh in relief but he certainly gave an internal one. “You must be quite eager to see Alina.”

“Ecstatic.”

Fedyor frowned very faintly. No, that was reasonable, the General and Alina’s relationship was still very new and they were used to being together so he would miss her all the more for it.

“I also didn’t know if you and Ivan considered children, I should have been more sensitive.”

… What? “We… have chosen not to consider it while the war is still so active.”

The General nodded. It was an assured nod, one that said ‘yes, that makes sense’ and approved of the decision. It was, for lack of a better expression, the General’s nod, one of command and forethought and contemplation.

“Had you and Alina discussed the possibility?”

He shook his head. “We’d discussed trying when the Ravkan situation was more stable, but I didn’t particularly expect us to be successful.”

Again a very… reasonable answer. That sounded like the General. He would have wanted Ravka more stable and it was difficult for powerful grisha to sire children or become pregnant. “Is the timing troubling?”

The General made a rather emphatic exhalation that Fedyor couldn’t quite interpret. “I’m thrilled.”

Right. Fedyor decided to leave that be. The General did not seek him out to discuss the matter further over the next two days, although Fedyor would have to be blind to miss that the General was quite happy.

They arrived in Djerholm and said their farewells to their charges who would be continuing to Arkesk for more focused treatment. They were then met by several palace guards who seemed to be expecting them and who had a carriage to take them to the Ice Palace.

The General had been confident that things had been going well, but… Fedyor was quite surprised that they were expected and the General did not seem at all surprised or wary. They rode the several mile long road to the Ice Palace. Most of them were given quarters in Upper Djerholm where a few other soldiers were staying but Fedyor, Ulla, and the General were all taken up the rest of the long road to the Palace.

They were escorted to some rooms in the Palace, not unexpected, and then entered to find Vanya and Maxim both watching Alina eat like she was one of David’s science experiments. The General wasted no time in going to her, kissing her soundly and repeatedly, although thankfully not the expressive lewdness they sometimes shared.

“You should be resting,” the General said.

She laughed. “I’m pregnant, I’m not dying.”

Fedyor blinked a few times. Alina was pregnant and Alina seemed to think the General knew. Vanya came over to him and Fedyor found he was hugging Vanya more on reflex despite being very happy to see him.

“Alina is pregnant and the Sun Summoner and she and the General have a bond formed in the Making at the Heart of the World.”

“Yes?” Vanya said, as though this was very obvious and Fedyor should have known. “The General said he told you.”

Fedyor took a few more moments to process the actions of the room. The General had scooped Alina up and was now dragging her to one room, Genya and David and Maxim were sitting on couches and inviting Ulla to join them, and Fedyor was… confused.

“I think I need to lay down,” he said.

Vanya patted him on the back. “That sounds like an excellent idea.”

They went to another room and Fedyor sat on the bed Vanya indicated and stared out into the middle distance for a few moments. He and Vanya were, in many ways, an old married couple so there was not the same rush to be immediately intimate as the General had, so Vanya didn’t seem too confused when they simply held each other for some time.

“You seem troubled,” Vanya said. “Is it being in Djerholm? The Ice Palace?”

“Alina is pregnant and the Sun Summoner and she and the General have a bond formed in the Making at the Heart of the World.”

Vanya touched his forehead. “Are you dehydrated? Do you need a healer?”

“I thought the General was delusional!” Fedyor admitted in a soft hiss. “He seemed completely not himself and he was dazed and rambling about a pregnant Sun Summoning Alina in the middle of the ocean!”

“Oh…” Vanya shrugged. “No it’s quite true. She quickened two days ago.”

“Oh…”

“If you’re going to sit there confused for some time I can call Genya to remove the tailoring?” Vanya suggested.

“Sure… that would be great.”

What. The. Fuck.