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the absence of warmth is what wakes alina up. it’s dark and the shadows are leaning over her like a looming martyrdom and immediately she grasps for mal’s hand but instead she finds dirt. shuddering, she pulls the blanket over her shoulders like the old women in the market and stands up, careful not to wake her sleeping friends.
she may not have mal’s tracking abilities but she knows her best friend inside and out. he’s incredibly broody so she gingerly sets off to the darkest corner of the woods, too scared to summon light in case it gives her away. in between the tangle of trees, there’s a small fire. and there’s a boy-shaped shadow bowed over it. alina tries to approach quietly, but it’s mal, and he hears.
“did you confuse me for a campfire?” she asks, crouching down next to him.
“you’re about the same size,” he answers, but his heart’s not in the joke.
it’s hard to make out his expression in the dimness, so she assumes it’s a scowl, which is a very safe bet for mal. she reaches for his hand but he snatches it away.
“are you going to tell me why you’re brooding over a fire?” she prompts him quietly.
mal buries his head in his scarred hands and stays silent. wordlessly, alina offers him half of her blanket, and when he doesn’t take it, she drapes it around his shoulders: a makeshift prince’s cape.
“you know you can tell me anything,” she says. “i love you.”
mal laughs without humour. “that’s why i feel so dumb.”
“well you’re always dumb, so what’s the difference?”
finally, he looks at her. tears shimmer like timid sunbursts. alina is half tempted to light up his face because she’s had enough of shadows. she’s had enough of darkness.
“what’s going to happen to me? when all of this is over?” mal tries to keep his voice steady but it quivers like a stag with a bullet through its head.
“what?” alina cups his face in her hands. scars and stubble roughen his cheeks and she brushes away the hidden tears with her thumb.
he pulls his head away and the blanket slips off his shoulders. it crumples in a pile in the mud. “don’t,” he murmurs, low and heavy.
“you’re not going to die.”
“i’m willing to die if i have to.”
alina wants to scream. this isn’t fair. none of this is fair. she never wanted to be grisha. mal never wanted to be general. and now they both have to risk their lives for a country that’s done nothing for them. a country that killed their parents; a country that signs teenagers up for the army; a country that demands more than they can give. if alina dies, she won’t die for ravka. she’ll die for hope. she knows what it is to have nothing.
mal exhales. “but, if i don’t die, where am i going to go?”
images of the orphanage up in flames leap into alina’s mind like nichevo'ya and she winces. the oak tree. ana kuya’s hanging body. botkin, pale and lifeless. baghra and the empty spaces where her eyes should be.
“you’ll stay with me.”
that scoff of disbelief again. “and what if you become queen, alina? what happens then?”
standing up, he steps on the blanket as he paces the forest floor. the fire crackles almost sheepishly beside them, as if it’s guiltily interrupting something. alina has this strange urge to confess every thought she’s had. to kiss every inch of the boy she loves. divinity was thrust upon her: a teenage girl becomes a saint. girlhood and godhood are very similar things. both are left begging for belief.
“mal,” she says, “we’ll figure it out.”
mal stops pacing, his back to her. if she squints, maybe she can see his tattoo beneath his shirt, blossoming with gold. “you should get some rest.”
“i’m not leaving you,” she says, in answer to every question pooling in his mind.
this selfishness that collars her just as much as the bone on her neck strains at its chains made of sunlight. the thought of them being together is almost too fragile to think about: as if it will shatter at the slightest touch. alina picks the blanket off the floor and hands it to him. warmth. protection. everything she has to offer.
“well,” he says, “you should.”
“what’s that supposed to mean?” she forces to blanket into his hands, chest burning.
slowly, he wraps it round himself. in the firelight flicker, he’s frowning, quivering like a surrounded stag. “you don’t need me.” he says this like a fact. “you can have a crown. you can have money. you can have everything, alina.” his voice breaks. “i have nothing to give you. nothing except my life.”
alina steps towards him, summoning the light so it grazes across his face. he looks shocked, and she smiles at him. “i don’t want any of that. i don’t want to be queen.” she offers him her hands, and he takes them. “believe me, i want you. you are everything i have ever wanted.”
mal shakes his head, everything in him shuddering. he clutches the blanket closer to his heart. “i don’t understand you.“
“then at least please understand that you deserve to stay alive.”
“i don’t deserve anything.” the certainty in his voice makes alina ache. “i’m otkazat'sya. i’m nothing.”
nothing is a lot of things. where does the darkness end and the person begin? where does the sunlight come leaking in? blood knows the body inside out and maybe that’s why it pours.
alina looks at this bruised, broken, battered boy, clutching at a blanket like it’s the last thing in the world. the thing about sainthood is that you’re always left ravenous. “you’re everything to me.”