Chapter Text
You’ll have to send a strong
Goddamn wind to get rid of me.
Every single piece.
~ She Keeps Bees, “Owl”
two
“How long have you known?”
Mal’s question, as quiet as it might have been to the oprichniki standing guard, seemed to ring loudly in her ears.
Alina shook her head, unwilling to pull out of his embrace. “Does it matter?” she questioned in response.
At this, Mal pulled away from her, gently, but it still stung. He grasped her hands in both of his and gave her a familiar, challenging look. “How long, Alina?”
He wouldn’t drop this topic, wouldn’t let her talk her way out of answering his question.
“This morning,” Alina lied. “Last night, maybe.” She shrugged her bony shoulders and met his dark, dark gaze. “I went to the latrines sometime late last night and bumped into a Heartrender who told me that it looked like I had something called ‘wasting sickness’. He said that one of the Healers could take a closer look to see what was wrong.”
Her weakness, her frailty, was nothing new. She had spent most of her time at the orphanage struggling to keep up with even the most basic of tasks. Her sunken cheeks and dry, brittle hair only highlighted just how sick she truly was.
Mal knew this. They both knew it. She wouldn’t let him talk her out of going with the Grisha to the Little Palace. She wouldn’t let him shame her.
“Wasting sickness?” Mal slowly repeated.
Nodding, Alina explained, “I guess it’s something that happens to Grisha who fail to call their powers.”
A dark eyebrow lifted, challengingly. “You mean when they hide their powers,” Mal corrected. “Like what you did when they came to test us as kids. You got sick the next day.”
Alina opened her mouth to argue, but found that she hadn’t the energy to lie, to explain away the stupid, stupid decision that she had made when she was a little girl.
“I-I didn’t know,” Alina settled on after a moment. “I didn’t realise what I’d done. I swear it, Mal.”
Mal took a step back. But Alina held on tightly to his hands, unwilling to let him go just yet.
“You’re a Grisha now,” Mal rasped out with narrowed eyes. “You’ve always been one. And now you’ll get to live in a palace, and eat sweets every single day if you want.”
Alina hid a sob behind her hand. “I’ll write to you,” she promised. “I’ll even sneak you some of those sweets, Mal. I promise.”
Mal let go of her hand, and took another step back. He offered her a strained, uneasy smile as he rubbed a hand over his closely cropped hair. “You don’t need to do that.”
“I will,” Alina insisted. “I promise that I won’t forget you.”
⬞ ⬝ ✧ ⬝ ⬞
“Who was he to you?”
Watching the crops and farmland streak past as the black carriage sped along the Vy was mesmerising, almost hypnotic. Alina had to work to drag her gaze from the window, and focus her attention on the others with her in the carriage.
Fedyor sat directly across from her, on the opposite side of the carriage and facing the direction of travel. Next to him was Ivan, who was keeping watch out the window for any outside threats, or eager villagers getting too close to the escort.
Alina frowned at that thought, and mentally shook her head. People didn’t dare get close to the black carriage. Tsar Nikolai had been the one to encourage crowds to gather around his royal escort.
The Darkling’s carriage, on the other hand, was meant to intimidate. It was meant to instil fear amongst the broshenny.
Alina finally turned her attention to the man seated next to her, the one who’d deemed it appropriate to break the silence that had settled over the occupants of the carriage.
“Why do you care?” Alina rasped out, before quietly clearing her throat.
She didn’t want to speak about Mal. Didn’t want to even think about him for the next few months. But, judging by the sharp grin that appeared on Aleksander’s face at her response, it seemed that her wants would be ignored.
Saying goodbye to her childhood friend had been unnerving to say the least. The man that Alina had married centuries ago was just a boy.
“You seemed uncomfortable, tense even, around Private Oretsev,” Aleksander said, instead of answering her question.
Alina dropped her gaze to her lap. The oprichniki uniform that she’d been given was much too large for her and the coat was all bunched up around her midsection. Her persistently-cold hands, thankfully, were easily hidden and kept warm in the long sleeves.
She sighed tiredly into the fur-lined collar of her borrowed corecloth coat, and shrugged.
“He’s just a boy,” Alina said, voicing her earlier thoughts. “Mal…” she trailed off, shaking her head. She didn’t know whether to answer Aleksander’s question or pester him with some more of her own.
“I know him – knew him – much better than he’ll ever know me,” she settled on after a moment.
She pulled her gaze up from her lap to peer at Aleksander, and was surprised to find a look of understanding on his face.
“Who was he to you?” Aleksander repeated, quietly.
Alina smiled at the question, knowing that it didn’t reach her eyes. “My first husband. I married him just a few weeks after I stabbed you with Grisha steel.”
She was vaguely aware of Ivan and Fedyor both tensing at her words, but only had eyes for Aleksander.
Thankfully, Aleksander’s eyes were shining with amusement. “Grisha steel?”
Alina shrugged. “It seemed poetic at the time.”
Aleksander chuckled quietly at her response, and shook his head. “That’s fair, I suppose.”
Silence engulfed the carriage once again. Alina returned her attention to the crop fields out the window.
“Will Oretsev be a problem?” Fedyor was the one to question her this time. “You promised to write to him once you settled in at the Little Palace.”
Because it would’ve sounded wrong if Alina hadn’t promised that to her childhood friend. He would’ve known something was off, and she didn’t want to risk him worrying about her and making his way to Os Alta, to the palace to confront her.
Not this time. Never again.
Alina shook her head. “Mal won’t be a problem.” She swallowed, her throat felt tight with grief. “I just… I need to keep in contact with him for the time being.”
She turned slightly in her seat to look at Aleksander. “Where will Mal be stationed?”
Aleksander hummed for a few moments as he pondered over her question. “Why do you need to know?” he questioned in response. He held up a hand to keep Alina from challenging him. “Knowing Private Oretsev’s location, and the future location of the regiment he has now joined, can be viewed as a security concern for both the First and Second Armies, Miss Starkov. Especially considering the fact that I’ve assigned a squad of Grisha to join up with the regiment on their trek to that particular location. Especially if you’re planning to keep up correspondence with him.” He paused, narrowing his eyes at her in confusion. “Why do you think you need to know?”
Alina swallowed to give herself a bit of time to think about how she should respond. She needed to make sure Aleksander trusted her enough to listen to her concerns about the Lantsovs, and to share with her his plans for Ravka. In turn, she needed to know that she could trust him as well.
Perhaps the truth will suffice. A little test to see just how he responds
“During my last time around, Morozova’s stag was tracked to a region in south Fjerda sometime around the Winter Fete,” Alina told him. “I’m just curious as to how close Mal will be to its potential location.”
Aleksander kept his expression neutral, but Alina could feel his surprise at her willingness to share the information with him. Knowing what she did about him, she knew that he wasn’t one to trust many people, nor did those outside the walls of the Little Palace trust him in return.
“Why are you telling us all of this?” he asked.
“I’m trying to build trust,” Alina admitted truthfully with a small shrug of her shoulders. “I also know the location of Morozova’s other amplifiers. Giving up one of them, even if you do attempt to control my powers with it again, is not a concern for me.” She frowned. “Last time I was able to throw off your control relatively quickly.”
She had also left him without the safety of her light in the middle of the Shadow Fold. The man that had stepped out of the Fold had been damaged in more ways than one. And desperate.
At this, Aleksander gave her a smile with far too many teeth for it to be considered kind or friendly. “That was either incredibly bold of you to admit so willingly, or incredibly stupid, Miss Starkov.” He shook his head in disappointment. “Who’s to say I won’t pry the other locations from you as is my responsibility as the general of the Second Army, and protector of Grisha? Who’s to say I won’t find a way to develop a stronger control of your powers compared to your past?” He sighed. “You’re incredibly naïve for someone who is supposed to be centuries old.”
Alina rolled her eyes, and settled back in her seat with her arms crossed across her chest. Apparently Aleksander had decided that the best course of action was to act like a mudak.
In response, she ignored the man sitting next to her and instead narrowed her eyes at Ivan, giving him a smirk. “Tolya Yul-Bataar.”
It was a name that she had never, ever allowed herself to forget.
Ivan slowly shook his head. “I’m not sure I follow, Miss Starkov,” he admitted. “I’ve no knowledge of a person by that name.”
Alina snorted. “Of course you don’t, you haven’t met him yet.” She shrugged. “I just figured that you’d want to know the name of the man who’ll kill you.” She paused for a breath. “He’ll crush your heart in retaliation to you doing similar Heartrender shit to his sister.”
Ivan stiffened in response. He seemed about to question her on what she knew of his would-be killer, but she turned her attention to Fedyor before he could get a word out.
“The Darkling kills you, Fedyor,” Alina stated bluntly. “Not directly, no. But his attack on the palace will lead to a bunch of Grisha getting killed. Yourself included.”
Fedyor’s eyes widened slightly and his mouth dropped open in shock.
Alina returned her attention to Aleksander and smiled. “You, of course, already know who’ll do you in, darling.” She blinked innocently at him, before letting her smile grow larger, crueller. “Perhaps you’d be interested in learning just who snuffs out your mother instead?”
“Enough.”
Alina chuckled. “If you say so.”
The earlier silence that she’d been enjoying returned once again, albeit, with a layer of unease bubbling just under the surface this time.
Alina used the quietness to look out the window, and continued to watch the mesmerising farmlands streak by.
If she also kept watch of Fedyor signing something to the Darkling from time to time in the reflection of the glass, well… she certainly wasn’t going to admit it.
⬞ ⬝ ✧ ⬝ ⬞
Alina let out a heavy sigh as Aleksander covered her shoulders with his travelling cloak before joining her in the spot she’d chosen for herself in the abandoned barn. They were seated some distance away from the bonfire that everyone else had gathered around for the night.
She poked her hands out of the too-long sleeves of her borrowed coat, and pulled the heavy cloak tighter around herself.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see Aleksander take a long swig of kvas directly from the bottle. He screwed the lid on tight before setting the half-empty bottle down on the dirt floor between the two of them.
“As surprising as it may sound,” Aleksander quietly began, “I’ve heard that sitting nearer to the flames tends to stave off the cold a lot better than hiding away from everyone in the shadows.”
“Lies,” Alina quipped, burrowing deeper underneath the warm cloak. “Next you’ll say something even more ridiculous, like needing to socialise with people in order to make friends.”
Aleksander’s answering chuckle warmed Alina up from the inside.
“Surely it’s not that arduous. Not even for you,” he teased.
Alina huffed quietly, shaking her head. She took one last look at the group of Grisha and oprichniki meddling together around the fire, before she focused her gaze on Aleksander.
He had a small smirk of amusement on his lips, and a hint of intrigue shining in his eyes. His earlier anger at her harsh words in the carriage had completely dissipated.
“I’m surrounded by children, by ghosts – malenchki,” Alina murmured. “And I can’t even remember their names.”
Aleksander’s mouth popped open slightly. A look of understanding flashed across his face before it was hidden away just as quickly.
Alina had to look away from Aleksander. Her shame was hard to endure on the best of days, but being here with him only seemed to make it that much more difficult.
She was vaguely aware of Aleksander shuffling closer to her, so that their shoulders and knees were pressed together, and then felt a heavy arm wrap around her shoulders and bring her even closer against his side.
“No one is expecting you to know their names,” Aleksander muttered in her ear. “And you being here has already changed the outcome of so many.”
“You can’t possibly know that,” Alina argued, weakly.
Aleksander hummed. “Can’t I? I’ve certainly got no plans to kill Fedyor, even mistakenly. And I doubt Ivan will ever meet that Heartrender you told him about.”
“I don’t want to have to kill you again,” Alina quietly admitted.
There was a small puff of breath against her hair, and she could practically feel Aleksander’s smile in his next words. “I don’t want you to have to kill me either,” he confirmed.
“Tolya though… he can’t be ignored,” Alina continued after a moment. “It would be foolish to underestimate either him or his sister.”
“Who is the sister?”
“Tamar Kir-Bataar,” Alina answered with a yawn.
She closed her eyes and tried to get a bit more comfortable using Aleksander’s shoulder as a pillow. She was exhausted after everything she’d been through. Apparently dying and travelling some three hundred years into the past took a lot out of you.
“I killed her to protect the children,” Alina murmured, knowing that Aleksander could hear her perfectly. “Took Ivan’s advice… and shot her in the head.”