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A cold wind gusted off of the sea. Alina looked across the black sand beach to the pillars of rock on the horizon. She was almost there. Her destination lay between those two landmarks.
She had left her friend Alexei and their borrowed ponies at the village, with its bright white church of Sankt Egmond gleaming against the green and grey of the mountain. That mountain had breathed fire once, and it might again, melting the glacier into a vast flood of water and mud, much stronger than the graceful waterfalls she had passed on her way to the shore.
She had made the journey from the village on foot, as was the custom. She'd passed through a forest, dipped her hands in a cold river, and finally come here to where the land ended.
She reached a point on the beach opposite the first basalt pillar, and looked to her left. The cave was unmistakable, a void framed by the rocks of the cliff and the sturdy vegetation that clung to them. When she had almost reached the entrance the wind blew again pulling the blue and gold scarf from around her neck and blowing it into the cave. For a moment, it shone bright against the dark entrance, and then it vanished.
There was nothing to do but go inside. It was why she had come, after all.
The mouth of the cave was a wall of shadow. She was close enough to reach out and touch it, but she stopped. Instead, she brushed the tips of her fingertips together, then let light unspool from her right hand, a ribbon of sunlight that danced its way into the dark. And she hummed a bit of the melody that had been running through her head since she had seen her first glimpse of the sea from this lonely bit of land.
"Well? What are you?" a voice called from the darkness of the cave, the tone somewhere between annoyance and awe. It was a bit of a rude question, but Oracles weren't known for being polite.
"I have mapped the paths between Os Kervo and this place with my boots. I have been borne by hooves and the songs I heard in my dreams. And I know you, although you may not believe that."
"I am an Oracle. I know you as well."
"Can you really tell the future?"
The voice laughed softly, like the grumbling of the tide. "I can read the patterns of the past and present. I can tell the powerful what they want to hear, which is close enough. I can reveal the gifts the Making gave Sankt Grigori's children, with my touch or with my blade. But you know yours already. Will you show me again?"
She had come this far for a reason. She had a mission, and she needed the Oracle to believe her. Once more, she touched her hands together, and pulled on the pale light of the sun behind the grey clouds and the reflections on the waves. The light grew in her hands, pushing the shadows away, and she saw the Oracle.
In her dreams the Oracle had borne a cloak trimmed in sable, or black feathers, or made of silver cloth as if she wrapped herself in moonlight. In the waking world she was a shadow emerging from shadows, wearing a simple black dress not too different in cut from what the women among Baghra's acolytes were assigned, the kind of dress Alina herself wore. She did cloak herself against the chill of the place, a collar of black lambswool framing her throat. Her hair was long and black, and her eyes were very dark against the angular features of her pale face. She held Alina's scarf in one graceful hand.
In the light Alina held, the weight of centuries in the Oracle's eyes lifted for a moment, and she smiled. "Beautiful," she whispered. Then, louder, she said, "Would you come in, then?"
Alina stepped through the opening she had made in the veil of shadows. The Oracle gestured and darkness once again covered the mouth of the cave, blocking the view of the black sand and the ocean beyond.
Alina let the light in her hands fade to better know this place. When her eyes adjusted, she saw it wasn't as dark as she had expected. The cavern they stood in had a high ceiling and a floor that sloped upward. Two passageways led off from either side of the back of the cavern. A golden glow came from the left, and that was where the Oracle led her.
The passageway narrowed slightly, then opened out again into another cavern, smaller than the first but still high-ceilinged and airy. The space was lit by candles set on tables and natural stone shelves on the walls. The air smelled like damp stone and beeswax, and a fire burned brightly in a wall alcove. Faint sunlight lit the top of the alcove, indicating a shaft running to the surface.
There was a kettle over the fire, and a platter on the table with bread and cheese.
"You were expecting me," Alina said.
"What kind of Oracle would I be if I wasn't?" She laughed. "But no, I had word. I have friends in the village who send a raven if any travelers head my way. Wings are faster than feet, so I have time to prepare." Alina wondered if she had heard a raven's croaking amid the cries of the seagulls as she walked here, or seen black wings among the white.
The Oracle swung the kettle away from the fire, and pulled some mugs from a shelf. "Would you like tea? I have honey and jam." She looked down at her hand. "And here's your scarf back. I don't actually require offerings, not from a fellow Grisha."
Alina took it and wrapped it around her neck. "Thank you. I wanted to come here wearing something gold."
"It suits you." The Oracle sat down at a table that was strangely elegant for a room whose walls were living rock, and gestured for Alina to sit in the other chair. She poured them both tea, then spooned a generous amount of honey into her own mug. The platter of bread and cheese was between them.
"If I take your food and drink, am I...bound to you?" asked Alina. There were many stories about beings who lived in in-between places like this one.
"No," said the Oracle. "There are no obligations between us other than those of host and guest. Not bound, but we are connected, because like calls to like. Light and darkness are forever intertwined, neither finding form without the other." She gestured, and a tendril of darkness reached from her graceful fingers. Alina met it with a tendril of light, and she felt it as a physical touch when their powers met, even though there was still space between their hands.
The Oracle let out a long exhale, then let the shadow dissipate. Alina did the same thing with her light. They both took sips of their tea, and ate bread and cheese. The scene was both ordinary and surreal, and the connection between them remained, humming in the back of Alina's mind.
"I'm glad you came to me," said the Oracle. “I've seen you summon the sun in my dreams. I do feel like I know you, but I'd like to know you better."
"I could say the same," Alina said. "About feeling like I know you, and wanting to know you better." Her dreams had been full of shadows and music since she had first summoned the sun, but also immense pain, from events she hadn’t experienced in the waking world. She didn't quite know how to ask about that.
She took another sip of tea. "So, about me...well, to start with, my name is Alina." The stories said that there was power in names, but here, across from someone she already felt so connected to, Alina wanted to demonstrate trust.
There was a sense of recognition from the Oracle through their bond. She smiled. "My name is Aleksandra." Alina felt like she already known her name, had always known it somehow.
"Well, Aleksandra," Alina continued, "I'm an orphan. I grew up in the orphanage in Keramzin. I didn't know consciously know I could summon the sun until a month or so ago."
"Did the Grisha testers from Os Kervo or Caryeva ever come to Keramzin? I know the King of Caryeva has Grisha among his Court," said Aleksandra.
"Once, but...Mal and I were...he was my only friend growing up, and the other kids bullied him. Looking back...some part of me must have known about my light, and I didn't want to leave him. He just didn't want to be Grisha. So we hid, and that was that. I got sicker and weaker after that, and as he got older he got stronger, but some part of me still thought he was the little brother I needed to protect."
"And then?" asked Aleksandra.
"Mal and I joined the Army. Neither of us are highborn—it was really our only option, with the King of Caryeva needing more and more people to fight the forces of Ahmrat Jen. He became a tracker—he was always good at that. I was sickly but I could draw, so I joined a cartography unit. And..." She looked down, sipped her tea, and took a deep breath. Aleksandra's eyes held no judgement. "We were on our first assignment, surveying the disputed southern border of Caryeva, Mal's and my unit together. And we were all captured by Ahmrat Jen."
Alina took another deep breath. "The Fold was in southwest Caryeva then, close to the border with Ivets. They took all of us to the edge of the Fold - all the Caryevans who had survived the initial battle. They pointed crossbows at our backs and ordered us into the shadows. They had a captive Inferni with them too, to protect them."
Aleksandra's hand tightened on her mug at the mention of that detail, but she didn't interrupt Alina's story.
"They wanted to see how the Fold would twist us. The Volcra came for us so quickly. And the Fold must have moved, because the Ahmrat soldiers were inside too, and the Volcra came for them and the Inferni...I was between Mal and Alexei, my best friend in the cartography unit. A couple of other cartographers got picked off by Volcra, and then one was reaching for Mal and I—I don't know how I did it. Suddenly there was light in a dome around us. The Volcra inside the dome evaporated and the Fold didn't harm us.” Alina felt the shock of that moment all over again as she told the story.
“And Mal—like I said, he's a phenomenal tracker,” she continued. “Somehow I kept the light up and he guided us to safety, the five of us who were left. We emerged from the northwest edge of the Fold in Caryevan territory that the Caryevans still held. There were Grisha there—Heartrenders, Healers, and a Squaller. They were all interested in what happened and said I should go to Os Kervo right away. So I did, and Mal and Alexei came with me.”
Alina took a long drink of her tea. “The other two cartographers who made it out of the fold, Raisa and Petya, stayed in Caryeva. Alexei and I were still good friends after this, but Mal seemed to be afraid of me. He thought my sunlight was an abomination, the result of being twisted by the Fold."
"No," said Aleksandra, her voice quiet but fierce. "Your light is a wonder."
"I didn't know there could be Grisha who summoned sunlight. I knew there were occasionally shadow summoners. I've heard people say that Os Kervo keeps all the shadow summoners for themselves, but you're the only one I've met and you're here ."
Aleksandra laughed at that. "Indeed. The Sun Summoner has been a legend and a hope to Grisha for a very long time. How did they treat you in Os Kervo?"
"I did make some friends. I trained with both Baghra and Ulla. When I met Ulla, I thought she was you - she looked a lot like how I saw you in my dreams, and she sang one of the same songs. But her voice is...different. Like there's more to it, somehow."
"Ulla is my half-sister," said Aleksandra. "She sometimes comes up the coast to see me here. She knows the tides of magic the way I read the flow of power in the Courts and cities."
"She brought out my light by singing, then taught me how to control it on my own. Baghra just yelled at me and gave me a pile of books to read, half of which made no sense at all. I can't tell if she was happy with my progress by the time I left to come here, but I think Ulla was."
"You never can tell, with Baghra," said Aleksandra.
"The Apparat came to visit too. He seemed far too interested in the idea of me as a Saint, especially when he started talking about past martyrs. I think Ulla scared him away, though."
"Good," said Aleksandra. "I'll never trust someone who talks about how Grisha don't suffer."
Alina took off the ring she had been wearing on her right hand. "Oh - Ulla gave me this - I almost forgot. So you would know that I had come from Os Kervo, and to show to certain people along the way, so Alexei and I would have help if we needed it." When Alina had shown the ring to the two men at the village stable - one tall and grim, and one shorter and full of smiles - they had directed her the rest of the way to the beach. And, she now knew, sent the Oracle a raven.
The ring was an intricate openwork design, in a grey metal with an unfamiliar luster somewhere between silver and steel.
Aleksandra picked up the ring. "Yes, one of David's. Very distinctive."
"David?" asked Alina.
"A Durast. The priest at the Church of Sankt Egmond in the village here."
"I didn't think Grisha were often part of the Church of the Saints. From what I've read, it sounds like most of the saints were murdered Grisha," said Alina.
"You understood your reading correctly. Most of the saints are revered as martyrs by the descendents of those who killed them for being different," said Aleksandra, and the cavern got darker for a moment, before the shadows withdrew to their previous places. "But things are a little different here at the edge of the Continent, and when the previous village priest died, a Durast was a perfect choice to revere the patron saint of architects. From what I've heard, David's sermons are either very short or very long, and usually about something related to the mountains or buildings or metal, just as Sankt Egmond would want it." Aleksandra smiled a little. "He and his wife are dear friends of mine."
"Wife?"
"As I said, we do things differently here. David can tell you about the theology and tradition of it, but I'll simply say that the Apparat can't abide the cold and leaves us be here."
"Well, that must be a relief."
Aleksandra took a breath. "Now tell me-what do you know of me? What did you dream?" There's something oddly fragile about her expression.
"I heard you singing, music I hadn't heard anywhere else. Sometimes a violin," said Alina. "I saw this cave, and the ocean, and shadows. I tasted honey cakes. And—I saw the fall of Tula, long ago."
Aleksandra stilled.
"I saw that you and the other Grisha were betrayed when you had been promised sanctuary," Alina continued. "I saw the king's soldiers kill your beloved. I saw when your shadows swallowed the king, and his palace, and then his city." Alina had woken crying from the dream, feeling like her being had been torn apart by the shadows and the forbidden magic used to wreak that destruction.
King Anastas had been the first and last king to unite the northern kingdoms, and at his death they fractured again. The Shadow Fold that covered his city was discovered to grow and move, sometimes slowly and other times quickly. Under those shadows, buildings and tools broke down. Water was poisoned. Living beings could be twisted into monsters.
And all the kingdoms suddenly needed Grisha, to protect them from the effects of the Fold, the Bane of Kings. Durasts to rebuild and fix, and Alkemi and Tidemakers to purify the streams when they emerged from the Fold. Healers to restore the monsters to their previous forms, and Heartrenders to stop the monsters who couldn't be Healed. Inferni fought the creatures as well, and Squallers could predict or sometimes modify the Fold's movements.
"You saw what I did, and you still came here," said Aleksandra wonderingly.
"Yes," said Alina. She'd felt Aleksandra's loneliness through all her dreams of her, and it felt like her loneliness at being a Sun Summoner. The Oracle being the Black Heretic of legend meant that she had lived a long time. Alina wondered if her own lifespan would be just as long. "Also, that portrait in the Academy at Os Kervo doesn't do you justice," she added.
"You mean the portrait officially of my ancestor, General Eleonora Kirigan, the Black Heretic? When I've been back there to teach I always take it down, not that I have much to worry about. It is a terrible likeness. Baghra puts it back up when I'm gone. I'd say she's sentimental, but the truth is she's far too fond of a cautionary tale."
"Sentimental?" asked Alina.
"She's my mother. Mine and Ulla's both. And the only other Shadow Summoner."
"Ah," said Alina. "I never saw her summon. She said she was a Tidemaker."
"She does that," Aleksandra said.
Alina took a deep breath."So I should also say...I did come here because I wanted to meet you. I also came here because Baghra and Ulla sent me." Alina thought how best to communicate the message she was entrusted with. "As my unit found out, Ahmrat Jen has conquered the southern kingdoms, and are now pushing their way into Carveya, and there's no indication they will stop there. They kill or experiment on Grisha, and only allow a scant few to live as prisoners. The kingdoms of the north have no desire to be conquered and have agreed to fight Ahmrat Jen together, and most of the Grisha of the Academy want to as well. And Baghra and Ulla are asking you to come to Os Kervo. To command the united forces."
"Ah," said Aleksandra. The room darkened slightly as shadows gathered around her, and her posture straightened. "I've known about how Grisha are mistreated in the southern kingdoms. It wasn't always that way. There was a time when the Grisha of the south were safer than their northern kin. And I still pay attention to our other neighbors, in case they bring back the hunters and the pyres, but they haven't yet. So yes, I will go to Os Kervo. I wouldn't be an Oracle worth the name if I didn't know I'd be going to war again sooner rather than later." She smiled and it was both beautiful and terrible. "And I have never broken my oaths to those I swore to protect. The northern realms may soon find out that a queen has nothing to fear from the Bane of Kings." Her voice softened again. "Especially one with the legendary Sun Summoner beside her. We could enter the Fold without fear."
"And destroy it?" asked Alina.
"And do whatever we want with it. Whatever will keep Grisha safe." Her eyes were fathomless, dark and intense, and she reached out a hand across the table. "Alina, you and I are going to change the world."
Alina still had questions, but she had known enough of Aleksandra before coming to the coast to guess how the conversation might go. She had made her choice before she had left Os Kervo. "Yes," she said, and the light flared up once more as their hands touched.