Chapter Text
Yeah, you and me we can ride on a star
If you stay with me, girl, we can rule the world
Yeah, you and me we can light up the sky
If you stay by my side, we can rule the world
If walls break down, I will comfort you
If angels cry, oh, I'll be there for you
You've saved my soul
Don't leave me down, don't leave me now, oh
“Rule the World” – by Take That
“Alina.”
She flinched, turning, the night sky at the end of the passageway just out of reach.
She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to see, in the event he managed to catch her before she left the Little Palace. Anger maybe. Disdain. Or perhaps even nothing, stone-faced and cruel, proof that everything they had shared the last few weeks had been a lie.
The pain, the hurt etched on his handsome features was not it.
“You’re leaving,” he breathed, both a question and a statement.
Alina could only step back cautiously, but that small movement seemed to only pain him more.
“Why?”
“She told me, Aleksander. Baghra told me everything,” Alina accused, trying to keep the hurt from her own voice.
Aleksander closed his eyes. “I see. So that’s it then? My mother reveals ‘all’ to you, and you run,” the bitterness in his voice grated at her. How dare he?
“You’ve left me no choice, Aleksander,” she spat, “What would you have me do? Stay and wait like an obedient pet for you to collar me?”
“And that’s what you think of me? You would take a decrepit, abusive bat at her words without even asking me for mine?” he accused back.
An angry, hot retort boiled in her throat, rising from pain and defensiveness, but something else took root in her soul, weak and thready, but there. Hope.
She took a breath. “And if I did? Ask you, I mean? What would you say? What could you tell me that would convince me that your own mother was wrong about you?”
He took a step forward, and she took one back. Not as large as one he did, a half-step, a weak attempt to keep her distance. “How about that she herself gave up on the world, on Grisha, long ago? And in doing so, gave up on me?” Another step forward, another shift back. “How about that, even though I am her son, she left me to rot, to despair, to loneliness?” He took a shuddering breath, more uncontrolled than Alina had ever seen him. “Yes, I have lied to you, Alina. I’ve lied to the world. All in the name of Grisha. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for Grisha.” Another step forward. “But even after centuries of work, of our blood and our lives spent for this country, Ravka barely tolerates us. Even now, as Shu and Fjerdan weapons evolve, and our usefulness wanes, they are on the cusp of turning on us.”
A distant memory surges, her training officer, schooling them on the basics of the Second Army, telling them, Once, I was told one Grisha was worth fifty of us. Now, now you’re lucky if they’re even worth ten. Who knows, maybe by the time you lot are done your service, if the so-called Second Army will be worth anything at all.
“So that’s why…that’s why you want to use the Fold,” she realized.
“I’ve tried, over and over and over, to turn their view of us. To get them to see us as friends. When that failed, as harmless citizens. When that failed, as soldiers. Now that is failing, too, and it is time to try a new approach. The greatest weapon the world has ever known, at our fingertips, and with you by my side, Alina, we could finally control it.”
“So you would control me, then? Rather than work with me, rather than let me carry the burden with you? I’m just a tool to you?” Alina accused, hating the tears that burned at the back of her eyes, “If you just wanted to use me, then why? Why pretend you care? Why pretend that I was special to you? Why pretend that I was worth…” her voice weakened, struggling to fight past the lump in her throat. She thought of quiet conversations and playful banter. Of dark eyes, intense and piercing. Of looks of amazement and admiration. Of the feeling of being seen, from the very first. “You’ve strength enough. You didn’t have to manipulate me like that, you didn’t have to make me feel – you didn’t have to – didn’t have to – ” she gasped, breath stuttering and chest aching.
A large, warm hand gripping hers startled her out of her panic and she jerked back, but his grip held strong – he had gotten closer without her realizing it. Her eyes lifted to his before she could stop them, and his deep earnest gaze held them there. “I wasn’t pretending, Alina,” he implored, “I wasn’t. Not with that. Not with your heart. Not with mine. I…I’ve been betrayed and disappointed, again and again. Lost people, again and again. I learned to close myself, and the world turned grey. And in my numbness, I did plan. I did scheme. I couldn’t afford error, had no room for mistakes. I couldn’t risk the sun summoner…failing.
“But then I met you. Defiant and stubborn. Naïve and clever. Unruly and beautiful. And suddenly, my world had color again. I didn’t plan that. I didn’t plan to open myself again, but once I realized I had, it was too late, and I didn’t know what to do. I’ve been alone, for so long, so long, that I’ve forgotten…I’ve forgotten how not to be.” His eyes pleaded as his hand squeezed hers tighter. “But I don’t want to lie to you, anymore, Alina. I don’t want to lose you. Please…I’ll tell you everything, please…just…just stay.”
The tears she had been fighting rolled over the corners of her eyes, her heart and mind split and tearing her in two. “And be subjugated by you?”
“No, Alina. No. I would not subjugate you. I would not collar you. I would make you my equal. I would…I would make you my queen,” the last words were only a whisper, but she heard them loud and clear.
Heart pounding, she searched him, took every inch of him – his wide dark eyes, black as midnight in the dim moonlight, the distressed wrinkle on his brow on an otherwise smooth face, the heave of his shoulders with each breath he took, the slightest of tremors in his hands – she looked for the smallest sign of a farce, of a lie.
But all she could see was a loneliness, both ancient and young. The same loneliness that she’d caught a glimpse of that night in the war room. The same that she’d felt against her lips, not thirty minutes ago.
“You won’t only make me your equal. You will treat me as one,” she demanded quietly. “If I am to listen to you, you must listen to me.”
Something like hope bloomed in his eyes, and he nodded, slow and deliberate.
“No more lies, Aleksander. No more hiding from me.”
He nodded again.
Slowly, with a trembling hand of her own, she covered his, and took a step towards him.