Chapter Text
Alina was happy.
Nights like these could get lonely, even if she knew the orphanage was full of children and employees and she was in no way alone here. But being surrounded did not protect one from loneliness, as she had learned a long time ago. Besides, everyone was fast asleep but her, and her only potential companion for the night, Mal, was gone. They had been invited by a neighbouring noble, again, but she had refused to go. She had refused the proposal of the most roguishly handsome prince she had ever known (the only prince she had ever known, really) specifically so she wouldn’t have to sit through high-class parties and dine in lairs of hypocrisy and privilege, she wasn’t going to start now. That’s what she told Mal, really. Because it was the easier answer, the one that made him laugh and nod and agree he would go alone, as it was important to keep good relations with their neighbour. The one that didn’t make him worry and that allowed her to not think about the deep ache that had settled within her bones again, the lack of appetite, and the permanent ashy taste on her tongue.
She did not want to think about it, because she was happy with the life she had now. Spending too much time wondering what it meant would only serve to shatter her happiness.
Suddenly, through the window, she caught sight of a shadow stumbling through the garden. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes a little, easily guessing it was Mal coming back from the party. Was there really a need to get drunk like that? Could he not even walk through the main alley? Hopefully none of the children would be up and at their window like she was, they were supposed to set an example.
Just as she thought that, he collapsed.
Huffing out a sigh, half amused and half annoyed, she got up, wrapping a warm robe around herself. She slipped quietly out of their bedroom and down the stairs, not a single step creaking as the estate was still new, the smell of young wood barely covering the fire’s, and put on a pair of boots lest she prick her feet on something in the garden. The cold hit her like a slap in the face and she cursed Mal out under her breath as she felt each inch of her skin break into goosebumps. She hurried down the alley and toward the gardens, quick and tiny steps to get there quicker so she could go back to the warmth of their home, but careful enough to not trip and fall, and finally spotted the big lump of a man she was married to sprawled into the grass.
She froze.
Mal had been wearing a light brown coat with fur around the collar. The man wore black rags that were wholly inappropriate for the weather, the torn sleeves leaving his pale arms uncovered. No boots on his feet, nor socks, the man had just been wandering around with them bare. And in lieu of the brown hair Alina affectionated, she could see a shock of black hair darker than the night sky above them.
She hesitated. She didn’t have a weapon on herself, and although she still practised them, the fighting techniques she had learned by Botkin’s side and then Tamar’s were a few years behind her now. But what could a passed out man do to her, anyway? And she felt… Unease settled in her gut even as her mind rejected the mere possibility with all its strength. This was a wanderer, perhaps a bandit at worse, likely just a man down on his luck. She could help him, give him some food, maybe some boots, and send him on his way.
“Sir?” she started as she cautiously approached him.
She got no answer, and soon she was close enough to touch him. She carefully laid a hand on his shoulder, hoping to flip him on his back, she just needed to be certain— but the contact jolted him awake and his hand shot up to grab her wrist. There was the sketch of a technique, of a hold, that she thinks would have put her on the ground if the man had any strength in him, but his long fingers just slipped away harmlessly as he let out a pained noise. Alina stayed frozen, shocked into immobility. The brief touch of his fingers to her wrist, where the tips brushed against bare skin at the edge of her coat, had brought on the unmistakable rush of power beneath her skin she had learned to crave and hate.
She pulled away, as if burned, and she felt burned, her blood pumping madly where his fingers had been. How? How? He had died in her arms, he had pleaded to not be given a grave, they had watched his body burn on a pyre, it was impossible—
Then again, they had also watched her body burn on that pyre.
“Aleksander,” she gasped out like she was drowning. Her entire reality crumbled around her.
Perhaps she was hallucinating? How could she trust what she was seeing when she had spent so many nights with him sitting on the edge of her bed, watching her sleep, here yet somewhere else, real yet made up? She grabbed his shoulder again, rolling him over so she could be sure. His back hit the grass with a soft thump and all the air was knocked out of her lungs.
It was him but she had never seen him like this, not even when he had collapsed in her arms, a dagger in his heart. He was still the same— the sharp jawline, the pale skin, the lips— and yet his cheeks were stained red like a child in a fever. His quartz grey eyes were half-lidded, unfocused yet looking up at her, and his perfect lips were parted to let out small struggling pants. His cheekbones had always been sharp, but now he was downright gaunt, and she wondered when he had last eaten.
“Alina,” he finally whispered, so quietly it could have been the wind murmuring in her ears. She leaned closer, her hand still on his shoulder, not pulling away when he wrapped his own around her wrist again. “I didn’t know where else to go,”
How did you know to come here? Alina wanted to ask, but she supposed it wasn’t such a far-fetched guess that she would return to the orphanage and have it rebuilt. And hardly the most important question here. How did he survive? Where did he go, what was he doing? Was this all part of a plot, was he tricking her again? But already his eyes were closing. Something seemed to ripple through him, making him tense, the lines of his throat jutting out before relaxing again, as if he were fighting some inner monster.
The Darkling had lied to her many times before. But he had never shown such vulnerability. This man laying on the grass was not the sharply dressed General feeding her a sob story about his ancestor’s sins and the guilt he carried. It was the broken boy confessing his name to her after his mother’s suicide.
Or she was delusional and he was mentally snickering right now. She ought to go back inside, get a knife, and stab him a good twenty times to make sure he would not crawl out of his grave again. Mal would agree. Zoya would agree. Genya would agree. Nikolai— had kept the Apparat by his side and for this decision alone Alina elected to reject him from her mental voting committee on what she should do with the evil man sprawled in her garden. Tolya would agree. Tamar would disagree and suggest decapitating him instead.
Alina was historically bad at listening to the majority.
She carefully hooked her hands under each of the Darkling’s arms, her breath stuttering at the shadow of amplification. She was supposed to have lost her powers before she had killed him. But here he was, in the flesh, as if he had never been stabbed. She felt the urge to tear at his clothes to check for a scar, a mark, anything that would prove she hadn’t dreamed that battle on the Fold. But she couldn’t, not now, she didn’t know when Mal would come back and he definitely would not approve of her choices right now. She did not approve of her choices herself either, and did not even know where she could keep him even as she huffed and puffed, struggling to pull his unconscious body toward the estate.
What a protector she made, about to host the man who had once set fire to this very orphanage. He had killed Ana Kuya, and now she was allowing him on the land that had witnessed the tragedy.
The manor had empty rooms, but they were sometimes used for guests, and regularly cleaned by the staff. He would be discovered immediately. The basement was a cellar, and used for other kinds of storage, and constantly had people coming and going, not to mention the children who liked to hide there. Which left one option… The worse one given Aleksander was useless in her arms, she thought as she looked up. They had recently found out the chapel had a few construction flaws rendering it dangerous to use, but winter had been here already, thus hiring builders for a non-urgent work had been a no-go. Nobody went there and the door was locked, only Mal and herself having access to the key, to make sure the children would not try and sneak there. It was unsafe for dozens of people to sit in… But it would be fine for one man.
And if it crumbled, well, it wouldn’t be the first chapel Aleksander would take to the head.
Painstakingly, she started dragging him up the stairs. She was careful with every step backward, proceeding slowly. Feeling with her toes for the marble, taking her step, pulling him up, pausing, repeating the process. He would probably wake up wondering why he had bruises all over his back and arse but that probably beat not waking up at all ever.
She didn’t know how long it took her, for there were three flights of stairs to climb up to reach the chapel. She had no energy left for care when she unceremoniously dropped him in front of the locked door, feeling just a twinge of guilt as his head definitely hit the wood, but her own arms burned and ached, and there was a pinch in her back. He was thinner than the last time she had seen him, and even then he had hardly been a burly man, more kefta than muscles, but he still had the audacity to be incredibly heavy for just one girl to drag around. She left him ungraciously sprawled on the floor while she went to retrieve the key, and was soon back by his side to open the door. He had not woken up. He still looked feverish, and it sent a shiver up her spine. Were grishas not supposed to be immune to sickness?
She tried to drag him more gently across the cold tiles of the chapel, although she quickly found there was nowhere in particular for him to lay.
Did he deserve a bed, really? She pondered as she watched him. She had never seen him sleep, actually, even though he sat by her bedside so many nights watching her in her slumber. She doubted he usually slept like this, there was clearly something wrong. His face would twitch in discomfort every now and then, and his breathing was uneven. She crouched down and carefully pressed her fingers in his neck, feeling for his pulse. It was wild even in his dreams. His hands jerked, long fingers tensing as if ready to summon, and the sight alarmed her every time.
She went back downstairs to get spare beddings for him. She tried to arrange blankets and plaids on the ground as a makeshift mattress and rolled him over until he was settled on top of them. She pulled one last heavy blanket over his body, though he seemed too hot already with his red face and the sweat upon his brow.
By the time she made one final trip downstairs to retrieve a jug of water and some food for when he would wake up, the sun started peeking above the horizon, making her keep a careful ear out for Mal’s return. How would she even explain what possessed her to let him in?
“Alina,” Aleksander suddenly called, his voice raspy and still thick with sleep. Still, it startled her and she nearly threw the jug at his face in retaliation.
“You couldn’t have been awake when I had to drag you up all those stairs?” she grumbled.
“Is that why my back hurt?” he asked with a sigh, moving to try and find a more comfortable position. He did not find one, but he managed to push enough of the blankets away so that he could press his forehead to the cold tiles beneath. “I need—” he started before cutting himself off. Even rolled over his stomach as he was, she could see the telltale signs of him tensing and gritting his teeth.
“What do you need?”
“I don’t—” he curled his fingers into the sheets, taking in a slow, deliberate, and painful-sounding breath. “Listen to me,” he stated firmly.
Historically, listening to him led to being lied to, and she didn’t want to listen to whatever he wanted, she had questions to ask, she needed answers, so many answers. But the struggle behind each word he uttered forced her to stay still.
“The Shu have something. It’s called—” he pressed his forehead even harder against the floor, tensing entirely. “—jurda parem,”
It was like merely uttering the word caused him physical pain.
No. Not pain, Alina thought as she watched the way his fingers greedily curled into the sheets, the way his back bowed slightly, as if he were reaching for something imaginary. Need.
Saints knew he would probably prefer to be in pain.
“Is it like regular jurda…?” she asked, familiar with the herbs many would chew on to keep themselves awake, popular in the army.
“No,” he growled lowly, but suddenly she heard the front door open and close, the sound reverberating throughout the entire manor and up the stairs.
Her first instinct was to hiss at how violently Mal had closed the door, then she remembered what she was doing and who she was with.
“Is that my cue to hide in the closet or escape through the window in my underwear?” Aleksander asked sourly.
“It’s your cue to stay quiet, get some sleep and stay in this room. If you do anything but those three things, I swear to the Saints—”
“You’ll stab me?”
He turned his face toward her, just so she could see his insolent albeit weak smile.
“No, I’ll drag you to Os Alta so everyone can see how miserable you are right now,”
Stabbing clearly didn’t work on him, but perhaps being seen so weak would just make the prideful bastard keel over. He only let out a soft noise of amusement at that, shifting again, this time pulling the blanket around himself.
“Come back soon,” he mumbled, his eyes already closed.
She had to force herself to take her eyes away from him, as he fell asleep almost immediately. She left the chapel and carefully locked the door behind her, slipping the key in her pocket, and sneaked back into bed.
It was well in the afternoon when Mal left with some of the kids for a tracking and hunting lesson. Alina sneaked in the kitchen, putting together some food. She would have felt guilty for not giving the Darkling anything to eat for lunch but she remembered how rarely he ate back at the Little Palace. For all she knew he hadn’t touched what she had given him the night before.
And while she was in the kitchen, she slipped a long knife underneath her jacket. Just in case.
Not that the first time had really worked, clearly.
But she was glad for the weight of it when she unlocked the chapel’s door and found the Darkling standing, his blankets neatly folded in military fashion as he looked out the window. He still had the presence of mind to not stand right in front of it, so that people looking up wouldn’t notice him. She carefully slipped a hand beneath her jacket, feeling the knife’s handle as she closed the door behind herself.
“Aleksander,” she greeted and he jolted.
Her surprise at actually catching him off-guard, at startling him, made her let go of the knife. He turned around, facial features schooled into his usual mask of impassibility, but she noticed the way he was leaning against the wall, a hand firmly clasped over an ornament that stuck out.
“Alina,” he replied smoothly.
“I, uh, brought you food,”
He glanced at where he had left the blankets, and she noticed the food she had given him earlier, untouched. So much for that.
“Thank you, although I find I lack appetite,”
“Are you…Feeling better?” she asked cautiously, unsure what she wanted the answer to be.
“The cravings appear to have receded slightly now that I am in a safer place,”
She nodded hesitantly, her back still almost stuck to the door, him on the other end of the channel. He peeled himself away from the wall and made his way toward her. He did not hold onto them but she still didn’t miss the way he walked close to the benches, likely in case he collapsed. Which he eventually did, of his own accord, sitting down as if it were a relief. He scooted over a little, invitingly, and looked back at her in waiting.
Well, here goes nothing, she thought as she joined him, stubbornly looking ahead at the altar and the large glass stained windows.
“Sankt Grigori,” Aleksander commented, his hands carefully folded into his lap.
The Saint seemed to stare back at them as he laid against a tree with his lyre, the great bear peacefully at his feet.
“Patron Saint of doctors and musicians… It felt like a reasonable figure to put in an orphanage’s chapel,” Alina explained, but Aleksander did not buy it one second.
“Was that your explanation to Malyen?”
She stayed stubbornly quiet. She could feel his gaze on him but she stared ahead, even as Sankt Grigori’s half-lidded eyes seemed to reflect the sharpness she knew dwelled in Aleksander’s. The Bodymaker, the slayer of the Great Bear.
The First Grisha.
“So. Jurda parem?” she finally turned toward him, and this time it was his turn to avoid her eyes. She could only notice the way his fingers dug into his thighs.
“A… Shu scientist invented it. It’s a drug. It doesn’t work on otkazat’sya,” he paused. “Well, it kills them. But for the grishas it… Amplifies our powers. Beyond anything I have ever seen. Beyond, perhaps, Morozova’s amplifiers, even,”
Alina’s breathe stuttered at the mere thought.
“For what price?”
The corner of the Darkling’s lip twitched.
“I taught you well. The price is… Everything. Submission of the mind, of the soul… Surrendering of the body. Once the drug is consumed, the experience is—” his gaze turned dreamy before he forced himself out of it, letting out a low groan. “Afterward, the body is drained. And the addiction settles in. For most it only takes one dose for the need to consume everything else. Nothing then matters as much as getting their hands on the drug again. To the point that they will faithfully obey whoever has it for the next dose. It’s a new brand of slavery,” he shook his head before spitting out dejectedly. “Another torment designed specifically for the grishas,”
He fell quiet then as Alina’s mind reeled, trying to process all the information. His shoulders slumped and she was at a loss, wanting to gather him in her arms, but the hair at the back of her neck was raised from the mere thought.
“How— Were you— Did you take it?” she finally asked, knowing the answer already by how wretchedly he spoke of the drug. He merely nodded. “How could the Shu capture you? You are—” so powerful, so strong, so cunning, and yet he had been beaten once, although he had slithered away and faked his death once more it seemed.
At that, Aleksander startled her by letting out a bitter laugh.
“I let them,”
“You what ?”
“I let them. After our… Battle, I decided to lie low. There are several grisha networks dedicated to rescuing those who live in hostile countries, Shu Han has one, the Wàng . I joined it. Queen Keyen Kir-Taban had the laboratories closed, but I suspect her daughter reopened them in secret, as grishas kept disappearing, and that’s what we were investigating. Sometimes the best way to infiltrate a place is to let them take you there,”
“...So you let them take you?” Alina asked, still flabbergasted. Aleksander wasn’t impressed.
“As you might have noticed, Alina, I’m hard to hurt and even harder kill,”
“Vaguely came to my attention,”
He smirked. “I was counting on that,” but his smile fell. “I was wrong. The laboratories still exist. But what they do in them has nothing to do with what they used to,”
“What— What did they used to do?”
He looked at her with something akin to surprise, then disappointment, but answered anyway as she wanted to disappear into a hole.
“They just used to cut Grishas open to examine them. Now they have parem. I saw them use it on others, and I wasn’t going to take the risk of letting them inject it on me. Unfortunately… Igor, a grisha who was in the Wàng with me, recognized me. Many who join networks such as the Wàng or the Hringsa network in Fjerda only have a short stay in the Little Palace, or not at all, and then live their entire lives in the country they are infiltrating, so I didn’t think any of them would recognize me. My cover was that of a particularly weak heartrender. But he joined after fleeing the civil war. He didn’t want to choose a side, to fight against other grishas. He recognized me, but he didn’t tell anyone. Until the Shu gave him a first dose and refused to give him another…”
“He betrayed you,” Alina let out softly, but Aleksander only shook his head.
“I know betrayal, Alina. That wasn’t betrayal. That wasn’t even him anymore. I fought to escape, but injection wasn’t the only way they could administer the drugs. I didn’t know it. They used it in the form of gas. And once it was in me…” he took a steadying breath. “I could have made the Fold look like a child’s creation. I did,” he breathed out in awe. “For a moment there I held in my palm—” he stopped abruptly. “Have you heard about anything happening in Shu Han around a month ago?”
“...Not really, no. But they are good at keeping their internal problems secret. What did you do ?”
The Fold. A child’s creation.
“This,”
She stood up abruptly when he pressed his hand to his sternum and started extracting something out of himself. It could have made the Fold look like a child’s creation. Her fingers flexed uselessly at her sides, calling for a light now long out of reach, but Aleksander paid her no mind, all his focus on the thing forming in the cradle of his long fingers, even as she finally had the presence of mind to reach for the knife in her jacket. But it was too late, sitting in his palms was—
A small sphere of shadows.
“Very underwhelming, isn’t it?” he commented.
She deflated completely, letting go of the knife that went clattering on the ground. Aleksander did not even glance at it or comment on the fact that she had it hidden since the start.
“What is wrong with you? You said— Are you mocking me?”
“I’m not, Alina. What I said is true. It was… Similar to the Fold, in some regards. Turning everything to dust. But it pulled everything to it, swallowed everything into nothingness, and kept growing and growing like it was feeding on matter. I knew it would never stop. Saints, I wanted to let it grow until— I thought about— I came back to myself. And I was able to seal it with merzost. It’s here now. Much smaller, imprisoned in this… Merzost cocoon,”
Alina still wondered if he was toying with her. He had created the Fold that had destroyed hundreds of acres of Ravkan land and split the country in two, that turned ordinary people into winged monsters. From his hands had been born creatures of shadows that still haunted the nightmares of all those who had crossed paths with them, and the mere thought of them made her scarred shoulder throb. She had even seen him turn one of her dearest friends, a man as good as gold, into a mindless hungry beast.
And this… Toy sized ball of darkness was worse than all of that?
“Can’t you just…” she made a little exploding movement with her hands, still staying at a safe distance.
“I don’t think I can. And I’m mildly worried that if I try, it’s not just the orb that will go—” he imitated her gesture.
“Alright, definitely don’t do it then,”
He did not reply but pressed the orb back into his chest, letting out a long sigh. She wondered if it was painful, or perhaps drained him like using merzost had affected him. For all that he was, it couldn’t feel good to walk around with a small merzost prison containing Saints-knew-what-exactly inside of him. But it was probably the safest place, ironically, who knew what could trigger it enough to break out.
“What did…What did it look like… After? What damage did it cause?”
“I don’t remember,”
“You don’t— How do you forget something like that?”
“I don’t remember most of the past month. Just— The need . The cravings. I think I… Must have searched the area for more parem. But my creation truly destroyed everything but me. Everyone but me,” she did not ask about the other grishas from the Wàng or the other prisoners in the laboratories. His sombre tone said enough. “And then I must have started walking. Most of the trip is a haze to me. I wanted…” he looked at her, fell silent. She could feel her own heart pounding in her ears, feeling pinned under his pale gaze. No wonder a simple night of sleep had done such wonders already compared to the state he had been in. Had he slept? Had he eaten at all since the laboratories?
She nervously chewed on her bottom lip.
“Wouldn’t it have made more sense to try and go to Os Alta? Nikolai is a pragmatic, he would have listened—” he interrupted her with a laugh.
“Alina. My Alina,” his cool voice was raspier than before, but it had not forgotten the way it used to caress her name as he said it, and it sent shivers up her spine. “You were the only thought that reached me through the fog,”