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Inej holds her hand to her side. Blood, thick and flowing under the pressure of her palm, squelches as she limps forward. Darkness shrivels in the corners of the chapel. With each second that drags on, the difference between the summoned shadows and the regular gloom of the room narrow. She squints and thinks that yes, there is a clear separateness now between the two. The artificial black tendrils have a harshness to them, unlike the soft gray of the natural dim, where the light fails to reach. The Darkling sits in the throes of that receding disparity, his body curled around a bone-handled knife.
“You’re wounded,” comes the voice, the god from behind her, and Inej turns back to look at her saint.
“It’s over,” she sways a little, and the feeling of steady hands braces her shoulders. The pain in her stomach flutters for a moment when Alina’s fingers trace the skin above her collarbone.
“You’re wounded,” the saint says again.
“Mm’fine,” Inej coughs. She can taste the blood that spills over her lip. Like sanitized metal and the fleshy fibers of some torn-open fruit.
“Inej,” Alina says, and Inej can’t bear how diplomatic she sounds, so she brushes her off with as much respect as she can muster.
“Told you, I’m-” and that’s where she falls and crashes. Because Inej is a wraith and an assassin but she is not a god. Even if she kills one to satisfy another.
“Let me help you,” Alina says.
“It’s finished,” Inej says, and fails to push her away. “I did it for you, what you wanted, are you happy now?”
Alina’s face is too composed. It’s been that way ever since the second amplifier, her mannerisms controlled, stiff yet serene. Inej knows what she wants and what she is willing to do now that nothing more stands in her way, and even though she’s dying she can’t bring herself to regret it entirely. Because this is Alina, who gave her the knife, so why should she protest where she wants it directed? Because when her saint took her hand, telling her that innocence was a luxury and not something she ever would demand of her, Inej feared what she truly meant. Innocence was not required because the only way this would work was if she paved the way through blood.
“Oh, Inej,” Alina raises her hand to her face, her thumb brushing the damp hair from her skin, streaking her cheek with red. “You’ve done so well.”
Inej swallows, her eyes misty. The burn behind her tongue kicks up and when Alina uses her other hand to curl behind her back, cradling her.
“What will I do now without you?” She says, and Inej wonders if she hears actual sentiment in her voice or if she’s just too dizzy to make sense of anything right now.
“Without your soldier?” She asks, because she is dying and maybe that means she is allowed some closure before she goes. Maybe now she can have some clarity. “Without your dagger?”
“No,” Alina says, moving her arm to hold Inej closer. “Without my friend.”
Alina reaches for her hand, and Inej hesitates only a second before clasping hers, intertwining her grimy, calloused fingers with her saint’s. Alina’s head dips forward, and Inej thinks before her eyes close at last that her lips taste not of death, of metal or of blood. Instead she feels like the salt of the ocean. Like the warmth of one last ray of sunshine.