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☾☼☽
There are two kinds of people who walk the streets of Os Alta after dark.
The children, the working men and women, the filthy rich, the dirt poor, the artists and musicians and scholars, they have all long gone into their homes. If they’re smart, they’ve locked their doors. If they’re really smart, they won’t open them for anything.
And the reason for this lies in the first type of person. If “person” can even describe such creatures. For they are vampires, undead beings with milk-white or ink-dark skin, hair and eyes in vivid red or solid black or gold, and horrible fangs. They are unnaturally strong and swift, and nothing save human blood can quench their thirst. In the daylight, they are trapped inside, out of reach of the sun. But during the nighttime? Then, the city belongs to them.
Which is why there is a second kind of person. The hunters, hardened human fighters whose mission is the eradication of the evil Darkling’s coven once and for all. They have no leader, no commonalities except their mission. Armed only by wooden stakes and bulbs of garlic, these fearless warriors sacrifice their own safety to keep the city safe.
And most fearless of them all is Alina Starkov.
☾☼☽
Alina is seventeen when she and her best friend, Mal, meet the Darkling. The Darkling is powerful, radiates energy and charisma, but something about him makes Alina uneasy from the very beginning.
He and his followers - Zoya, Ivan, Fedyor - are beautiful, impossibly so, and that should be her first clue. But at seventeen Alina is naive, hopeful, and so caught up in the thrill of being included in the Little Palace’s inner circle that it takes her far too long to understand.
She and Mal run away, eventually, before it’s too late for them but after the first girl Alina knows dies. They steal two of the Darkling’s horses and ride for the woods, leaving at first light so that all day they can remain hidden from the vampires for many hours. They don’t count on super-speed.
Hours after nightfall, Ivan and Fedyor attack their camp. Alina, through sheer luck, avoids a bite. Mal is not so lucky. She stakes Ivan through the heart, but it’s too late for her best friend. Mal begs her to kill him, too.
“It’s better than becoming one of them,” he says. Already his grip on her arm, which should be weak from blood loss, is locked tightly. “Alina, you promised you would save me.”
Alina doesn’t think she can do it, looking into the warm brown eyes of the boy who has been her everything since they were little kids. But she watches those familiar eyes flicker with red as he begins to writhe in pain, and she stabs him through the chest with the stake.
Something changes in her that day. Inside her chest, Alina can feel something glowing, stirring. It spreads through her entire body with a sensation like… like sunlight. Like a final gift from her dearest friend.
And something else changes, too. Alina makes a vow to herself, in that moment. A vow to kill every last vampire in Os Alta.
☾☼☽
Alina moves into the tunnels under the city a few weeks after she kills Mal.
She has few belongings: a change in clothes, a map of Os Alta, a book of fables from the orphanage that reminds her so much of Mal that she can’t bear to throw it away.
After that, it’s only a matter of sneaking beneath the cellar of a butcher’s shop.
Alina has the tunnels all to herself: a place to plan her attacks on the vampires, a safe retreat. She accumulates weapons: wooden stakes, the rare clove of garlic when they’re not bought out at the market, silver handcuffs.
(And there is another weapon - a sense of something she can feel thrumming through her blood - but in all honesty, Alina is terrified of the strange new presence within her. She ignores it as best as she can.)
At night, she prowls the streets, taking out as many vampires as she possibly can. She accumulates and loses allies. There are the twins Tolya and Tamar, who help her with a few raids but keep to themselves. There’s quiet Marie, who lends Alina a helping hand in secret but ends up bleeding out on the streets only five weeks into their partnership.
Alina makes sure the vampires pay for that one.
Best of all is the charming golden-haired Sturmhond, who refuses to talk about his past but remains a steadfast friend and hunting partner for four months until he disappears one day. Alina doesn’t know if he’s murdered or moved on or trapped in a dungeon somewhere, and she despairs over him for a few days before cutting her losses and moving into another cavern underground.
Yet the most intriguing ally Alina finds doesn’t cross her path until she’s been hunting vampires for nearly six months. One day, returning from a fruitless search for a rising coven leader, Alina returns to her home only to find an intruder staring back at her.
The other girl is tall, pale-skinned with auburn hair, and so gorgeous she takes Alina’s breath away. In fact, for a moment she looks so ethereally alluring that Alina wonders if she could be one of them, a creature of the night. But her eyes are human blue, and when she speaks her teeth are not pointed.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she says. It takes Alina a moment to register the words. The girl’s eyes dart towards the knife in Alina’s hands.
“I’m sorry,” Alina says, pocketing the knife. “My name is Alina, and I only kill the night demons.”
The girl blinks and then smiles cautiously. It makes her even more beautiful, if such a thing is possible. “That’s a comfort to hear. I’m Genya Safin.”
“What brings you to these tunnels?” Alina asks. “You don’t seem the type.”
Genya laughs, then sobers up. “I’ve lived in the Little Palace since I was a little girl. I escaped a few weeks ago, and I’ve been hiding from Al- the Darkling ever since.”
“Truly? That’s where I came from, too,” Alina replies, and tells her story quickly. “Why did I never come across you?”
“I was one of the king’s girls,” Genya says quietly, tilting her head so that a curtain of hair falls over her face. “He didn’t want me to talk to the others. I was never allowed a friend, so I’ve never had one.”
Alina’s heart clenches. She may have escaped that particular torture, the Darkling’s own interest in her eclipsing the wishes of the other Palace predator, but her heart aches for Genya. The King’s humanity has never quite been able to make up for his monstrosity.
“If you’ve never had a friend, it seems like you’re overdue,” she says. “And it just so happens that I’m in need of a friend myself.”
Genya smiles again, a real smile this time, and Alina thinks, Oh, this could be dangerous.
☾☼☽
They become fast friends. Genya turns out to be clever, funny, and resourceful, much more so than Alina herself was when she first struck out on her own. She makes Alina laugh so hard she nearly cries, and then holds her when she really does cry thinking of the last time she laughed with Mal.
Genya has secrets. Alina can tell from the start, the way she hunches over and jumps at loud noises and hides away in the tunnels all night and day.
She tells Alina one of them while they’re sitting, Alina cleaning her knife and Genya brushing her beautiful hair.
“I’m a Tailor.”
“A what?”
“It means I can change how other people look. Come here,” she says, and Alina crawls across the floor towards her friend.
Genya brushes a strand of Alina’s hair off of her face. Alina has to look away from Genya’s smoldering blue gaze for fear of blushing, and when she glances up again she feels a tingling in the roots of her hair.
She jerks back, reaching up and tugging a strand of hair in front of her face. The lock is pale golden in color, not the usual glossy black. “Saints!”
Genya laughs, reaching up to the crown of Alina’s head again, and her hair returns to normal. “Impressive, right?”
Alina nods, though she’s a little unnerved. “Can you do it to your own appearance, too?”
Genya winks. “Oh, Alina, I know my beauty is overwhelming, but am I really so irresistible you can’t believe it’s natural?”
They both laugh, although Alina can feel a flush creeping across her cheeks. She prays it’s dark enough that Genya won’t be able to see.
☾☼☽
The worst part is how obvious it all is looking back. The amount of times that Genya, despite claiming a fear of the dark, disappeared in the night while Alina was out hunting, the way she eats or drinks barely once a week, the way that in the firelight her pupils sometimes flash a metallic golden. But Alina excuses it all away in her mind, because the alternative is too terrible to bear.
And because she has been lonely for months. If she’s honest, because she has been lonely her whole life. Because she’s never met anyone with powers like hers, or a past so similar, or whose presence feels so right. Because it’s bad enough that she feels… the way she can admit she feels, late at night… for a friend, let alone for a monster.
And Genya isn’t a monster. She can’t be.
☾☼☽
“Are you going out tonight?” asks Genya. She’s in the middle of changing, and Alina averts her eyes quickly.
“I was planning on a night in,” Alina answers. She needs to rest sometimes, after all.
Genya hesitates, then says, “Okay. I’ve been pretty tired, too.”
They say their goodnights and roll over to sleep. For some reason, tonight the knowledge of Genya just a bedroll away is messing with Alina’s mind, though they’ve done this a thousand times. Genya is a very quiet sleeper, and peaceful too, curling under the blankets until her porcelain face is smooth and still.
Stop thinking about that, Alina chides herself, and desperately tries to think of something, anything else.
She thinks of the book of legends, tucked under her pillow. Some of the tales she has memorized, especially the vampire ones.
Vampires have no souls. Pure sunlight burns them agonizingly from the inside out, so they lurk in the shadows.
Genya lets out a soft sound in her sleep. Is she dreaming?
The salt of tears burns a vampire’s body, so when he despairs he weeps blood instead.
What is she dreaming about?
There are many ways to kill a vampire. Stake through the heart is classic. If you can tie one down (better yet, cuff with silver) until dawn, or light aflame for hours, you may have luck. Beheading one can work if you have garlic with which to stuff the neck…
Alina is just beginning to fall asleep when she hears Genya climb out of her bedroll.
Surprisingly, the other girl is nearly silent as she slips out of the cavern. Alina turns her head slightly and watches Genya’s back, her russet hair and navy coat blending until she’s only a dark suggestion, edges hazy, in the soft starlight. And then she’s gone, turned the corner, and Alina lets out a breath.
Damn it all, she thinks, face hot. It’s dangerous enough for someone in her profession to have a friend. She can’t afford to feel something more for anyone, no matter how dazzling Genya’s smile is and how dreamy her laugh….
Alina pulls out her book, needing a distraction. It’s too dark to see the words, but that hasn’t been a problem for Alina since Mal died.
She takes a deep breath, looking around to make absolutely sure that Genya is gone, raises one hand, and pulls light into being.
This isn’t something she does often. The warmth from her palm reminds her painfully of Mal, and the power frightens her, in all honesty. But it’s dangerous to deny something that rings true in your heart. Neutral traits can become exploitable weaknesses. She learned that lesson in the orphanage, when bullies used her friendship with Mal to manipulate her; in the Darkling’s palace, when he used her inexperience in love against her; with vampires, who could sense her queasiness around killing before she overcame it.
So though her hand shakes, she forces herself to read a few pages. Not the vampire tales, too familiar to distract her, but a less well-worn tale about a clever fox and a trap. It leaves her reminded of Sturmhond, for whatever reason, and when she extinguishes the light and lies back down, her thoughts are far from Genya’s disappearance.
At least until the other girl returns, her steps quiet as she settles into the bedroll. Alina closes her eyes quickly, but Genya must have seen the movement in the dark somehow, because she sighs softly.
“You’re awake, aren’t you?” she calls across the cave.
Alina nods. “Where did you go?”
It’s not safe out there, she thinks but keeps unsaid. Genya knows the dangers of the night intimately. If she’s leaving the safety of their shelter, it must be for a good reason.
“I was looking for my… friend,” says Genya, “David Kostyk. But it seems he’s out of town for a few days, so I’ll have to try again later.”
Alina blinks, startled, because she knows David Kostyk. He’s an old client of hers -- brilliant, always working on some invention or other. Alina likes him well enough, his no-nonsense approach and his earnest way of speaking, how he’s brave enough to openly associate with vampire hunters and make himself a target.
But she can’t imagine what he and Genya Safin could possibly have in common.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Alina asks quietly. She means to add, where you were going, but as she says it something else occurs to her, a horrible possibility.
“Tell you what?” asks Genya. Her voice is steady, measured, but there’s a hint of worry there.
Alina goes out on a limb, heart beating in her throat, hoping she’s wrong. “That you had a lover.”
Genya is silent for a long time. Then, so softly Alina almost misses it, “I’m sorry, Alina.”
Alina rolls over, face burning, blinking back tears, and doesn’t respond.
☾☼☽
They don’t talk about what Genya said. In fact, during the following days, Alina wonders if she might have dreamt it. She passes David’s workshop one evening, hunting a pair of vampires through the city, and the sight of him bent over tinkering fills her with fury for a moment.
She stakes one of the vampires through the heart, but the other one gets away, and she instantly blames David. If I wasn’t so distracted… But it’s her own fault, and she knows it. How stupid to think a girl like Genya would ever want someone like her. She wishes Mal were here to comfort her, to joke around and cheer her up, but of course that’s impossible.
It starts to snow on her walk back to the cave, and a bitter wind has picked up, chasing snowflakes around the dark air. Alina hurries for the cave, rushing in and hoping Genya might have started a fire.
Except Genya isn’t there.
Gripped by the sudden fear that something terrible has happened, Alina runs to the side of the bedroll. Cold. She grabs her pack and shoves things into it as quickly as she can, then races back outside and towards the town, wind whipping against her cheeks.
It’s only when she reaches the edge of town that she realizes where Genya must be, on a night like this. With David.
Alina lingers by the side of the road, debating with herself. Would Genya really leave with no warning on a night like this? She would have thought Alina would be out all night, though…
Just as she’s about to walk back, she hears a shout and turns. A young woman peers through the doorway of a house, eyes wide and voice urgent. “Sankta, please!”
Alina hates being called that word so, so much. The villagers claim vampire-hunters are “saints” as if what they’re doing is holy, not bloody and despicable however necessary. The stake in her hand must have given her away. She pushes through the falling snow to the entrance of the house.
The girl grabs her by the arm and hauls her inside, then sinks to her knees, gripping Alina’s hands like a beggar.
“Please, you have to help me,” she begs. Her blonde curls are falling onto the shoulders of her nightgown, making her look like a small child, although she has to be at least Alina’s age. “You are the Huntress, aren’t you? Sankta Alina?”
Normally, Alina would correct the nickname. She has no patience for the villagers’ superstitions around her abilities. But this time, she just nods. “Yes. Tell me, please, what’s wrong?”
“It’s my friend,” the girl sniffles. “I’m afraid he’s going to be killed by a vampire. A woman came here earlier asking about him, and she seemed friendly enough, but then she walked by my mirror and I didn’t see a thing-- He’s a genius, he’s created something that reflects sunlight just so--”
“What did the woman look like? What did she want to know?” Alina demands.
“She was old, white-haired,” the girl says. “She wanted to know about his inventions, and I told her almost everything - please, help me, Sankta! She could be at my friend’s house by now!”
The girl directs Alina to the house (“Tell him Nadia sent you at the door and he’ll let you in,” she instructs).
Alina has one foot out the door when she thinks to ask, “Nadia, what did you say your friend’s name was again?”
“David,” Nadia answers. “David Kostyk. Why?”
No.
Alina doesn’t answer. She doesn’t know if she could speak. She just takes off, throwing open the door, and then she’s out in the streets. Racing on and on, her heart pounding, blood thrumming, repeating the same words in her mind: Not her. Not her. Not Genya.
The streets wind on forever. Every second she takes is a second Genya and David might not have.
Alina finally reaches the house Nadia directed her to. Its door swings open easily, which is how she knows something is wrong. Nobody in Os Alta leaves their door unlocked before dawn.
She flies into the entryway, stake already out, and freezes.
David is slumped on the ground, glasses askew, head angled unnaturally, covered in blood. He’s gone or near enough for it not to matter, Alina can tell instantly. And hovering over him is the creature that must have done it. Her head is bent down over his neck still as she feeds, a curtain of brilliant crimson hair falling over her face, ice-white hands gripping the corpse.
The second Alina steps through the door, the vampire pulls away from David, and only years of honed instincts keep Alina from dropping the stake in her hand.
Because she knows that face. It’s slightly off, but close enough: golden eyes, not blue. True red hair, not copper. Fangs, not human teeth.
Alina’s heart breaks. How could she be such a fool?
“Alina,” Genya whispers, those metallic eyes widening and fading into their familiar shade, the familiar version of her that must have been Tailored this entire time. Alina moves forward, muscle memory guiding her stake straight towards Genya’s heart.
She looks very human, enough that doubt flickers through Alina’s mind and she falters for a moment. If Genya were human, that moment’s pause would mean nothing.
But she is not human.
Genya surges impossibly quickly, snatching the stake and casting it across the room. Her hands fly to Alina’s throat and take hold with what must be vampiric superstrength, her fingers shockingly cold against Alina’s collarbone. The human disguise is nearly perfect, Alina has to admit, except that tears are filling Genya’s eyes, and her recent feeding turns them scarlet as they run down her perfect cheeks.
Alina has nowhere to run. No stake, no backup, no holy water. There’s no way out, not unless….
“I never meant for it to come to this,” Genya says softly. Her guard slips for a second, gold sliding across her irises and fangs popping into view, before she regains control of her mask and emotions. “But I can’t let you keep hurting my kind.”
“You were lying to me,” Alina gasps, feeling tears prickle at her own eyes, “this whole time.”
Her heart is breaking. Genya has been betraying her for months. She’s a vampire, a monster. Alina wants to be furious. But all she can feel is sorrow. For everything that’s happened between them… and for what Alina’s about to do. She swore to herself that she would never use her powers like this, but she doesn’t have a choice.
Genya’s eyes flutter shut in anguish as her fingers tighten. Her beautiful face is streaked with blood. “I’m so sorry.”
It’s me or her.
“I’m sorry, too,” Alina chokes out,
and summons the Sun.
☾☼☽