Chapter Text
The boy and the girl were running.
In the dark and the bitter cold of a Ravkan winter, they ran, not a care for their clothes or shoes or warmth. The only thing that mattered was the pumping of blood in their veins, two strong, beating hearts. They had lost their Healer and Heartrender back in the skirmish. There was no one to keep them going if they decided to stop.
Waves of hair trailed behind the girl, silver as the moonlight and streaked with dirt. They had to crawl through the tunnels of the White Cathedral, claw their way through the dirt and mud. Now, they ran through the woods with nothing to guide them but the moon and stars. The boy had a knack for woodland things, for picking out paths and hunting its creatures. He was not used to being the prey, and the girl was not used to being in the dark.
This was not the girl’s natural habitat. She preferred the sun, and everyone knew it.
That was why they wanted her dead. That was why she ran, she and the boy, dark of hair and strong of heart, hand in hand through the trees.
The boy jerked them to a stop, hiding behind a fallen tree. The girl’s lungs burned, her calves ached. The fear never abated. Her breaths came in shallow in quick. Even this far off, and she could still smell the smoke, the sweet scent of burning bodies.
Settling this close to the Fjerdan border was a risk, one the girl thought was worth taking to escape the king’s men. They were underground. They were safe. Then, the Fjerdans came anyway, their destruction drew the Ravkans, and the rest…
So many Grisha, lost. The sheer force of it drove the girl to her knees.
“All those people – “
“It wasn’t your fault, Alina.”
The boy took her by the shoulders, shook her firm but not rough. This was not the time to break down. They were not safe, not with the soldiers still out looking for them, their footfalls heavy in the snow.
“They came to me for help. They needed me to protect them. I failed.”
Tears stung at her eyes. It was a rule they had, not to break down when other people could see, but the boy never counted. The boy was not other people, not to her. The boy, the lovely otkazat’sya boy, oh, he was the only one who mattered.
The Grisha, they mattered too. Families, people with names and lives, desperate to hide from those who would see them beheaded or lit aflame. The girl thought they would be safe in the labyrinth of tunnels. She was wrong, and now they were dead.
How did they find them? They always found them. Enemies, everywhere. How -
“It wasn’t your fault.” The boy shook her again, firmer. His eyes searched the girl’s, pleading with her to understand. “It’s theirs: the Druskëlle, the Fjerdans, the Shu Han, the damn king – all of them. You couldn’t have known.”
His face flashed with an anger they both shared. His pain was her pain. Her fights were his fights. He made that clear from the time they were children, running from the orphanage where she had split her palm open on a shattered mug and set the kitchen alight with her shock of pain.
He was otkazat’sya. He could have left her at any time, turned her in, strung her up himself. He could have had a better life, a normal life.
A life without you is no life I want, he always said.
“I could have been stronger.”
She touched the fetter of scales on her wrist, the antlers at her neck. Two amplifiers, one more than any Grisha before had ever worn, and yet, she wanted more. Her other wrist lay naked, empty.
The boy touched that wrist now, bare skin on bare skin sending a jolt down her spine, a sensation of good and right and whole.
Never afraid, that was her boy. Not for a moment, not even when she expressed her wish to gather more power.
For them, she always said. To protect them. Then to protect others who heard of her power. Grisha seeking asylum. Grisha seeking hope.
The boy’s hand weaved its way into hers, gave it a squeeze. She squeezed back, gave a small smile. That wrist would remain naked the rest of her days. No emptiness could compare to losing –
Arrows.
They whizzed past her ears, lodged in the wood. It took everything the girl had not to scream. They had been still too long. She had wasted precious time and –
The boy grunted and slid down the tree. To the girl’s horror, he left a trail of blood in his wake. It stained the snow and his lips bright red against the endless white.
“Mal!” the girl shrieked, full of grief and rage. She scrambled to scoop him up and cradle him in her arms. “Mal, stay with me!”
She was no Healer. She could not mend flesh or slow heartbeats, but she did know that this much blood loss was too much. The wound was in his chest, over his left breast. He clutched at the arrow shaft, braced one hand over hers as they both held on to something, nothing.
“Alina. I’ve not…I’m not –“
“Shhhh…I’ve got you.”
She would not hear his protests. Despite the shouts and canonfire, despite the loneliness and isolation, she had to believe that her boy would make it. They’d come so far. They’d survived much, much worse.
The boy reached into his pocket and pulled out a dagger with shaking hands. He pressed it into hers, the blade biting into her skin.
“They can’t get me. It has to be you.”
The girl went cold for reasons that had nothing to do with the snow. She shook her head, vehement. “Mal…no…”
“Alina. Please…” The boy begged. He never begged, never asked anything of her. Why this? The girl could not hold back tears. She let them fall freely, down her cheeks and onto his face. The boy’s breathing labored, pain etched in his every feature, and yet, he smiled. “This is the only thing I can give you now. It’s all I have left.”
I do not want your bones, she wanted to scream, but that was not true. She would take his bones. She knew herself well enough now to know that. But she would rather him by her side, warm and alive, than his cold bones rattling around her body.
In a perfect world, she could have her boy and her power, but this was not a kind world. Grisha did not get happy endings.
“I can’t do this alone,” the girl cried.
“Yes you can.” The boy grabbed her wrist. The surge was stronger this time, all that power bursting at the seams of the boy’s body. “Please, Alina. There’s not…much t-time…”
The shouts grew louder. Canonfire increased. She was surrounded. It was only a matter of when the soldiers would find her. For the briefest of moments, she had the urge to lie down with the boy and let the land reclaim her. Let her be reborn as a peasant, a traveler, a saint. Anything. So long as she could be with her boy.
The boy would not let her be weak. She would have laughed at his obstinance had he not also raised the knife to his chest, just beneath his heart. He was already wounded there; it wouldn’t take much.
She couldn’t do this. Not to him. She couldn’t -
“I’ll meet you in the meadow,” the boy said, his eyes clear and his smile sincere. He didn’t blame her. He loved her, even now.
The girl choked back a sob. “I love you.”
The knife slipped between the boy’s breast bone and his ribs. Quick. Easy. He stuttered for a moment, eyes wide and panicked. He didn’t thrash, didn’t call out. Just let himself be held by the girl, let her sing him lullabies and run blood-stained fingers through his frost-scattered hair.
Time slowed. The boy exhaled, and his chest did not rise again. His heart stopped. The hand around the girl’s wrist went slack.
The boy was gone, and the power that filled the void was raw. Raw and vengeful and untempered. Like the sun had ripped itself from the sky and taken hold of her body, blazing hotter than a thousand Inferni, enough to burn through the earth and ignite matter beneath.
Near and far, men shouted. Horrible things, names, calls to their brothers in arms, hungry for the taste of more blood. They could see the light, the girl’s light, her body glowing with the power of three amplifiers.
Let them come.
They would pay for this. The Shu Han. The Druskëlle. The King of Ravka. Anyone that had ever raised a hand to a Grisha. She would destroy them all, starting with the Fjerdans.