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In the endless, sticky-sweet spell of Ravkan summers, the sun forgets to sleep for days at a time.
So, too, does Alina.
It’s gradual at first. The days grow longer; her nights, shorter. The sun never fully rises nor ever truly sets. Dark and light blur into a steady eventide, until one day the sun simply roosts heavy in the sky and refuses to sink any lower.
Its constant presence fills Alina to the brim, the cradle of her soul spilling over; blazingly alive, ebullient and in her prime, she is reinvented by the same ravenous energy that bloomed through her body those first few weeks of being Grisha. The making at the heart of the world rests uneasily in the narrow span of her ribs. She could run for days, could sprint westward all the way to the Unsea without pause. She could drink up the Sokol River and still go back for more. If she wanted to, Alina thinks, she could replace the sun hanging low in the sky with a brilliant light of her own making—but won’t, for she’s too enchanted with the solstice’s perpetual daybreak glow to dare outshine it.
She’s not the only one affected by the season. With the advent of the midnight sun comes a flurry of festive preparations in the Little Palace.
“The whole solstice season?” Alina asks, overeager and more than a little impressed. In Keramzin, the so-called endless sun stayed in the sky for a mere week every summer, casting the world in deep shades of shadowed gold for those few precious, perpetually twilight days. Here in Os Alta, further north, the season of constant sun must be longer. Still a cartographer at heart, Alina pours over the map in Aleksander’s council room and starts running the calculations.
“Saints, that’s—that’s months, isn’t it? The festival can’t possibly last that long.”
Aleksander laughs, looking up from his desk. “Sure it can, honey. In the old times, the Grisha used to celebrate the solstice fest for even longer, though the Tsar—” and his tone shifts briefly, the humor dropping away, “keeps it shorter these days. I cut some of the older rituals from the agenda this year—mostly the ones which were outdated, not to mention inapplicable. ”
“Inapplicable?” Alina repeats, still counting latitudes in her head.
“We don’t exactly need to sacrifice goats to pray for a Sun Summoner, these days.”
Alina looks up from the map and blinks just once, slow.
“I suppose not,” she says after a moment. “Was that usually a large part of the festival, sacrificing animals for—for me?”
“It wasn’t all sacrifices. There was a lot of eating and drinking in your name, too. Lots of bonfires. I found records of a month-long dancing rite meant to summon the Sun Summoner, though I never participated in one myself. Mostly, we did a lot of praying.”
Alina feels a thrum in her chest, an unsteady thrill—something tightening, something falling into place. “And this year?”
He laughs, pushing back from his desk and coming to stand next to her, fitting his palm to the curve of her cheek. She leans in, hungry for his touch, and he gives her a fond smile. “This year, there’s still a lot of eating and drinking, though not nearly as much dancing. A whole summer of celebration, all for you my dear.”
She takes his words to heart, carrying them close, right alongside the restless buzz of the sun.
Alina asks Genya about it as the Tailor prepares her for the opening feast.
“I suppose it is a quite long,” Genya laughs, affable and melodic, her smooth hands gliding over the planes of Alina’s face. “But most years, I wish it was longer. Looking forward to this is what gets us Grisha, a lot of us at least, through the long polar night of winter, or else through our time in the field.” Or the indignities suffered at the hands of otkazat'sya, Genya doesn’t say, though Alina hears it all the same. “It’s hard to explain. It’s a celebration, yes, but also a ceremony. There are parades, songs, dances, feasts. The Apparat might call it our Holy Season, but the Darkling calls it our reminder. For us it’s just—faith, joy, togetherness. Time together to celebrate our survival, to relish in the waiting and the promise, to remind ourselves that there’s an end to the longest of darknesses.”
Outside the window, the constant sun; under Alina’s skin, in her hands and stomach and heart, a different kind of light. A summoning to end the darkness.
Genya moves onto braiding Alina’s hair, deft fingers sliding nimbly through a simple design. Almost conversationally, she says, “We prayed for you, you know. Not all of us believed you were real, but the General always kept the faith.” Her tone is a little wry, a little reverent. “That’s what all this is for. Was for. Hold still, Alina, please.”
A soft weight on the nape of her neck, a steadying hand; then, an intricate comb sliding into place. The crown of Alina’s head tips back imperceptibly with the weight and she meets Genya’s eyes in the mirror. The other woman beams, removing her hand, and Alina keenly feels its absence.
“Anyway. We prayed for you, and here you are. Oh, Alina, it’s all for you. It’s all so fun, you’ll love it, I promise.”
“Here I am,” Alina echoes back and smiles, close lipped.
She’s alone in her rooms when Aleksander comes to fetch her, having sent her attendants away to enjoy her last few moments of peace. Standing at the window, she looks over the palace grounds transformed for the occasion. Everything is done up in her colors and kissed by the low-hanging sun, the world cast in deep shades of shadowed gold.
“Are you ready, Sankta Alina?” Aleksander offers her his arm and a teasing smile, drawing out the vowels in her saintly title. His face holds an earnestness that belies the jest in his tone.
Turning from the window, Alina sniffs haughtily, as lofty and righteous as she can manage. She ignores his proffered arm but daintily offers up her own hand. “Is that anyway to greet your beloved saint?”
Mirth crinkles the corners of his dark eyes and he bows over her hand, taking it between his two large palms and pressing her hand against his mouth in a long kiss. Delight shivers through her body at the rasp of his beard, a warm flush of success that only intensifies as his breath skates over her knuckles.
“Cheeky,” he says, and then: “My dear girl, you look stunning, of course.”
The mischievous, imperious tilt vanishes from her body and Alina beams up at him when he straightens. In the low light of the midnight sun, he is a study in contrasts: lovely and severe, all lean lines and sharp angles. The broad cut of his shoulders beneath his dark kefta, both imposing and familiar. The sturdy feel of his hands against hers. The sun limns his hair in flecks of gold, stark against the stubborn pallor of his skin. Shyly, hungrily, just because she can, she uses her leverage from their joint hands to stand on tip toe and press a tiny close-mouthed kiss to the corner of his mouth.
She’s rewarded with a sharp intake of breath and his hands tightening around hers. “Alina,” he groans, and she loves the way he says her name: in a sigh, all at once, the syllables tangled together by the roughened burr in his voice. She does it again, this time on the other side of his mouth. For a briefest moment, his face turns towards hers, as if involuntarily, and she manages to brush a single ghosting kiss against his lips.
Then he steps back.
“Alina,” he says again, slower this time, stern. She pouts and he tucks her hand firmly in the crook of his arm. “We can’t be late to your own party.”
“Many men would kill for a kiss from a saint, Aleks,” she scowls, though she lets him maneuver them towards the door.
He glances sideways at her, one eyebrow raised. “Many men haven’t spent months planning the opening solstice feast for the legendary Sun Summoner.”
Alina hears the reprimand for what it is. Many men haven’t laid out an entire season of celebration for your mere existence. Many men haven’t spent lifetimes waiting for you. Behave yourself. Chastened, she lapses into silence as they exit the suite. That restless, covetous, unnameable itch—forgotten so easily in his presence—rushes back in.
Out of the residential wing, down the corridor, and towards the main banquet hall. Oprichniki fall in line behind them and she listens to the loud echo of their marshaled footsteps against the marble floor.
Nearing the dining hall, she catches snippets of an opening toast—the first of many—above the low din of chatter. If she listens carefully, beyond that she can hear the singsong of church bells, and further, the distant sounds of street revelry. Through the window, she catches sight of the banner flying at the palace gates: a stitched yellow sun against a field of blue, the colors vividly contrasting in the golden evening haze.
A frisson of something—trepidation, excitement, doubt—trickles down her spine and she recalls his earlier question. Is she ready? Everyone else certainly is.
Aleksander stops before the heavy wooden doors, turning towards her.
She wants him to touch her one last time before it starts, to smooth a finger along her brow bone or cup her nape in his broad palms and give her a firm shake that sets her to rights. She wants him to kiss her back.
Instead, he looks over her once more and nods.
“Let us go, my dear,” he says, without ceremony.
They walk together through the door and into the flood: raucous cheers, the smell of rich food heavy in the air, and wherever she looks, the light of the sun.
Once the solstice season begins in earnest, the unbounded force of Alina’s restlessness gets swept up in the neverending festivities. She feels like she’s everywhere, an extension of the sun itself, consecrating every inch of the city in restive light.
She’s in the streets of Os Alta at the head of a procession, waving to the crowds from an open-topped carriage and soaking in their cheers.
She’s in the mess hall, tucked between Aleksander and Fedyor, drinking and laughing at the boisterous tales from Second Army soldiers returned home for the holiday as war all but grinds to a halt in the summer heat.
She’s in the Grand Palace, fielding inane holiday greetings from nobles who don’t understand the Grisha festivities, digging her nails into Aleksander’s arm whenever he starts to glare.
She’s in the library, hushed, as an old Corporalki solemnly recounts legends of old Grisha saints.
She’s in the ballroom learning a traditional Ravkan dance, letting Genya spin her around in continuous looping twirls and probably stepping on the poor girl’s toes.
She’s on the shore of the lake with the children.
She’s in the church, murmuring blessings over the heads of babies and elders, laying hands upon the infirm and accepting offerings with a beatific nod.
(Everywhere, everywhere, in murmurs and in shouts, her name which is not her name: Sankta Alina of the Fold, the Summoner Saint, Sol Koroleva, may her blessed light shine forever.)
The days glaze together under the ever-watchful gaze of the sun, a staccato rhythm of meetings and parties and parades to which Alina cedes any sense of time.
At night, or what passes for them, when the denizens of the Little Palace have slipped easily from revelry to slumber, she takes to restless quietude. Some nights, she reads. Others, she wanders the grounds. Once, she spends a whole not-quite-night playing a strategy game against herself, though she finds the whole experience so frustrating that she loses interest in the game entirely.
On the best nights, few and far between, she spends the evening hours in Aleksander’s rooms—talking, kissing, playing cards, snacking on leftover sweetmeats sent up from the kitchen, reading quietly alongside one another. Those are her favorite times, a rare few hours when she feels less fidgety and more contented, the blazing energy within her banked in his presence. But their evenings together are often aborted far too soon for her liking—either someone will come knocking for Aleksander, no doubt with information from his innumerable spies or updates on the stagnant battle fronts or more questions about planning the neverending festivities, or else he will send her to bed despite her protestations.
“It’s late, honey,” he would remind her, patient but unyielding. “And you have another big day tomorrow. Why don’t you turn in now and get a good night’s sleep? I’ll see you in the morning.”
It was unfathomably frustrating, to be sent to her room like a child up past her bedtime, except she sees the yawns he stifles and feels the sharp knife of guilt for overstaying her welcome, asking too much of the man everyone needed. He’s nice enough to entertain her unruly energies as often as he does, so she lets him send her away in the night, though she rarely sleeps like he tells her to.
Mostly, she finds herself on the rooftop balcony, staring up at the sun.
Each night, in the silent embrace of the world in stasis, she feels it: that tremulous energy buzzing beneath her skin, restless and incessant. A low humming in her ears that won’t fade. There’s a pressure in her chest that ebbs and flows but never fully disappears and it’s only at night, alone on the roof under the smoldering midnight sun, that she feels it in its entirety: a gnawing hunger, a holy ache, a growing awareness of her own difference.
Sometimes when she’s up there, she practices summoning, holding a ball of light up to the sun. Her own offering, of sorts, though to what ends she doesn’t know.
Os Alta is quiet at night but never still. Through the low hours, she watches the city’s nocturnal rhythms cast in dusky relief—lovers walking the deserted city hand in hand, nighttime messengers dashing to and fro, then the early morning deliveries trundling through narrow lanes and the slow signs of a city waking.
Up on the roof, Alina watches the bright edges of one day bleed into the next and feels almost peaceful.
A few weeks into the solstice season and Alina is late for their engagements more often than not.
“Where do you vanish to?” Sitting across from each other in the carriage, the air is heavy with tension. They’re late for meeting some renowned artist, a portraitist eager to capture the Sun Summoner in paint for the holy season. “You’re never in your rooms anymore when I come to collect you.”
She studies the window intently, fidgeting with the embroidery at her cuffs. “I don’t know. Wandering, I guess. ”
“Wandering?” Aleksander pinches his brow, not bothering to hide his annoyance. "Alina, this is important.”
He says that about every event, every day. “Sometimes I’m reading. I don’t know, I’m sorry. It’s hard to keep track of time these days.” Each day, a visit: to a church, a nobleman, a worthy cause. Each evening, a fancy dinner, and each night, a long span with only herself for company.
“I’ll get you a watch, then,” he scoffs. “Or better yet, I’ll get you a minder, someone to save me the trouble of hunting you down every time you’re late for a meeting.”
She recoils as if struck. “Why don’t you get yourself another Sun Summoner while you’re at it, one who’ll sit and stay and do tricks on command?” She sneers, her little face pinched in anger and obvious hurt.
He wants to take it back, to apologize and smooth the creases away from her brow.
Instead, Aleksander says nothing, putting on his unreadable sternness and letting the silence drag on.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Alina,” he says at last, just as the carriage rolls to a stop. “There are no others. You’ll just have to learn to behave.”
When the artist sees Alina, he is ecstatic and reverent. He gives her portrait a spill of white hair, righteous set to the jaw, and bright watery eyes, as if on the edge of martyrdom or crying. It is not, she thinks mulishly, very good.
That evening, Aleksander invites her to his rooms after dinner for kvas and a game of cards. Alina accepts, feeling wary, but can’t turn away the offer of company for a few hours of the night.
After one tense round, stuttered and awkward, he takes her cards from her and puts them on the table face down. She frowns at him and he takes her hand in his.
“You know I don’t want any other Sun Summoner, right?” He promises, holding her eyes over the game board. “It’s just us, just you. You’re special, Alina, you must know.”
She does; she says she does. She has a whole summer’s worth of celebrations in her name to prove it and the Black General before her telling her so.
Aleksander presses a kiss to the back of her hand and holds it against his forehead, as if in blessing. “You’re a gift, my dear, to me and the world. Our very own Summoner Saint.”
And she gives him her very best beatific smile, sweet and holy and utterly empty.
It’s the day of midsummer, the apex of festivities and the inaugural Feast of Sankta Alina, and the girl of the hour is nowhere to be found. Again.
She’s not with Genya or Nadia or any of her friends, nor is she playing with the children in the dormitories. Aleksander has checked her suite a dozen times, hoping she might’ve reappeared since his last visit, to no avail. The kitcheners haven’t seen her and neither have the stablehands.
It’s on his way back from the lake that he happens to glance up and he sees her: a tiny figure in blue and gold, silhouetted against the sky and blending in with the palace’s decorations. He recognizes her hair, the white shock of it whipping through the air like a flag.
Aleksander grits his teeth and picks up his pace.
He takes the stairs two at a time and meets her there on the roof, the uppermost balcony nestled beneath one of the palace’s turrets. “Fancy finding you here,” he calls out sharply, noting the way she startles at the sound of his voice before her body sags. He slows down as he approaches, letting her hear the clip of his footsteps. “I’m sorry to intrude.”
Alina is leaning against the railing, arms resting loosely against the wrought ironwork and head bowed between her shoulders. “How’d you know I was up here?”
Because he checked every other room in the Little Palace and turned up empty handed. “Lucky guess,” he says. “Gut instinct.”
She says nothing in response and his lips thin. “Your feast day is starting soon. I’ll walk with you down to your rooms to get ready,” he offers, voice taut.
She puffs up her cheeks and blows out, finally looking up. Her expression is troubled. That, more than anything else, finally tells him that something is truly wrong; he’s grown accustomed to the way her face lights up in his presence, and the absence of her welcoming smile cuts deep.
“Every day is my feast day.”
He frowns, trying—and failing—not to feel annoyed. “We often have festival dinners, yes. But this is your feast day. The first of many, I might add. You’re a saint now, my dear, you get your very own day on the liturgical calendar. Everyone will be there to celebrate you.”
“What makes it different from all the others?”
“There will be more—” more people, he starts to say, more eating and drinking and dancing and giving thanks for the saint among them.
He frowns suddenly, doubt sneaking in. “Are the celebrations not to your liking?”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Her mouth twists up and her face shutters completely closed, and before he can say anything else, she starts to cry.
In an instant, his arms are around her, holding her close. “Oh Alina, sweetheart,” he murmurs, alarmed. “What’s wrong, sweet girl, oh you poor thing.”
“I’m— I’m sorry,” she hiccups between cries, burying her face in her hands. “It’s just— I’m just—just give me a second, I’ll be fine—”
She doesn’t seem fine. He tugs her hands away from her face and pulls her into his chest, letting her sob against the fine weave of his kefta. His hands rub smooth circles over her back and shoulders, hugging her close, like he’s trying to pull her into his own body. “Don’t apologize. Let it out, darling girl, it’s okay,” he croons, then again. “Let it out, that’s my girl. Tell me what’s wrong, let me help, let me make it better.”
A month’s worth of tension pours out of her. The restless energy and the heavy expectations, all those people looking for a saint; the midnight sun’s itch beneath her skin, too many long nights without sleep, all the times she was sent from his rooms to roam listlessly until he woke. It all, suddenly, seems so overwhelming and she tells him as much between heaving breaths of air, his arms heavy and still around her.
She’s not sure how long they stay like that, only that he holds her the whole time. When her tears and sobbing rambles finally ebb from a steady stream to a gentle trickle, she lifts her head from his chest to apologize.
He beats her to it.
“I’m so sorry, Alina.” He says, cupping her face so he can look at her directly. His eyes are tinged in red, like he’d been crying too. “I can only imagine, this whole thing must’ve been so much. I was so focused— I’ve been celebrating the solstice for so long, just waiting for you, and now that you’re here, I wanted it to be perfect…” he voice is rough with emotion, his shoulders stiff even as he holds her. He sounds more hesitant than perhaps she’s ever seen him. “It’s no excuse. And I had no idea the solstice would affect you like this, I didn’t even think…I didn’t think of it, but I should’ve. I should’ve asked you, talked to you. Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”
She tries to tell him it's not his fault—that anyone else would’ve enjoyed the festivities without second thought, that the sun of all things could hardly be considered within his providence, that he has more important things to concern himself with than her petty discomforts and poor sleep schedule—but he’ll have none of it.
“I have been unpardonably inconsiderate,” he insists, low and earnest. “About all of it—the sun, the parties, the whole damn thing. I know I can’t undo the hurt I’ve caused, but please let me make it up to you. Please, Alina, can I?”
He’s hurt her, he has. For weeks, she’s felt like a poor imitation of her own self: not a saint, but a lonely girl with too much time to think, begging for his attention and ashamed of herself for it. He has been busy and high-handed, shuttling her about between social engagements with no thought for her feelings on the matter. He’s sent her away when she needed him. He’s brought her to tears.
It doesn’t matter. It’s Aleksander, asking to take care of her, saying her name in his tender way again, like it's a source of pleasure and not a prayer; of course she says yes.
He places a gentle kiss on her brow and tells her to stay put, somewhere between an order and a placation.
“Aleksander?”
He turns back just as he reaches the top of the stairs.
She hesitates, gathering herself up and giving him a watery smile. “Don’t ruin their festivities on my account, please. You know I’ll come down if you need me to, I promise, I just… just give me a minute.”
A sad smile. “I know you would, honey. That’s why I won’t ask you to.”
Her tears have dried by the time he returns, and it’s all she can do to not laugh at him.
“Aleksander, no! Tell me you didn’t.”
The famed Darkling, the Black General, dressed formally and looking severe. Under one arm, a rolled up blanket, and under the other, a wicker basket bearing all manner of foods.
His grin transforms his whole face, turns him boyish and playful and limned in summer gold, as he shows her his bounty. He’s gathered not just the leftover desserts and stray snacks she tends to pilfer from the kitchen, but feast foods, too—tiny wedges of cheese, slices of summer melon, a stack of blini, roasted meats, rich buns of malted bread, a small clutch of figs bruise-toned and jewel-bright.
It’s not the only gift he’s brought her. “Marie is going in your place,” Aleksander informs her. “Or at least she can if you want. When I was downstairs, I asked her and Genya if they could…well, if they could tailor her your face again, make sure that the Sun Summoner is present at her own feast day. If you change your mind and want to go, we can always go downstairs and Marie will step out. The people will get their saint no matter what, and whether it’s you or someone else, they’ll never know the difference. After everything else, I wanted to give you the choice.”
Alina doesn’t burst out crying again, though it’s a near thing.
Only once she’s reassured him that she’s fine, he did the right thing, he did a good and nice thing for her, she’s just a little underslept and overemotional is all—only then does he relax. The stiffness drops from his shoulders as he brushes tender kisses against her closed eyelids.
“Let them have their saint,” Aleksander says, decisive, “but I want time with my Alina.”
And the warmth in her cheeks has nothing to do with the sun.
He lays the blanket out across the balcony, barely enough space for their two bodies and their array of foods to spread out. When he sits down, back against the wall, she hesitates for a moment too long, trying to figure out where there is space for her. Seeing her pause, the corner of his mouth twitches up in the tiniest of smirks that he schools unsubtly with a cough.
“Come here.” He beckons, patting the narrow spot next to him.
Alina doesn’t need to be told twice, and as soon as the words are out of his mouth she’s scrambling closer, only barely avoiding crushing various little plates of food in her efforts. She easily folds herself under his arm, tucking into his side.
“Now,” says Aleksander, drawing her even closer and passing her the first plate of food. “Tell me which is your favorite. I brought you a little of everything, just to be safe.”
Somehow, as the interminable evening draws on, she finds herself sprawled between his legs, her back pressed to his chest and their limbs tangled together. In the soft summer heat, they’ve both shed their keftas and she relishes each gentle touch of their twined bodies. He insists on feeding her, letting her bite slices of fruit off his paring knife and placing morsels of meat directly into her mouth. (The tiny salted quail eggs are her favorite; the hothouse peaches are too sweet for her liking, though Aleksander is more than willing to eat her share). There is a flagon of something sweet and faintly spiced, and they take turns sipping straight from the bottle.
Every so often, she catches distant snatches of music and conversation from far below their private enclave—her feast, carrying on gladly without them.
“Thank you, Aleks.” She tucks her chin into her shoulder, suddenly shy in the aftershocks of gratification. “This is—lovely, I mean it. It’s perfect.” This is all she’s wanted for weeks now: his touch, good food, the warmth of the sun on her bare skin. The combination melts her body to softness and she turns her body into his, held in the cradle of his wide chest.
He hums, a low rumble of satisfaction that reverberates between them. His hand settles heavy against the back of her neck, his thumb tracing formless shapes against the flutter of her pulse. Aleksander’s touch is heady and potent, less an amplifier now than a modulator: as his hands skim her body, she feels everything smoothing over, the knot of her being untangling in his adept hands. She wraps her arms around him and tucks her head under his chin, breathing in deep.
She falls asleep without meaning to, lulled into sleep by his gentle touch.
She stirs only briefly, distantly aware that she is moving. Alina half opens one eye and finds that she’s being carried, strong arms looped at her back and knees, her head resting against a familiar chest. It’s dark out, she realizes with a start, the hallways around them have lost the glow of the summer sun. But no: she’s swaddled in shadows, blocking out the constant light.
“We’re almost there,” comes a deep voice, vibrating around her. “Go back to sleep.”
Easing in and out of awareness, she listens to snatches of the world around her. Footsteps against marble, then muffled by carpet. A door opens somewhere, letting in the brief sound of laughter and a snippet of an Old Ravkan drinking song, and then closes again. She feels the chest beneath her ear rumble again, hears him tell someone that they are not to be disturbed, and then the creak of another door plunges them into silence.
When she cracks her eyes open, she’s met with total darkness. She blinks into the black and is glad for it. Her body is put down, sitting upright, and someone guides her arms out of her sleeves. When they move away, she reaches out a grasping hand without conscious thought.
“Stay,” she requests, voice burred with exhaustion.
A kiss at her forehead, a hand smoothing through her hair. “I’m not going anywhere, sweet girl,” Aleksander whispers, tender. “Stay still.”
She feels him unlace her boots and tug off her socks, then lets him lay her body down before he steps away. It’s a bed, she notes, and then, turning her head into the pillow and breathing in, she realizes: it’s his bed.
Somewhere in the darkness of his room, she hears the shuffle of undressing, the familiar rustle of his undershirt and his belt softly clinking. Another moment of silence and then a weight sinking into the mattress behind her, pulling her close.
Aleksander slots his body up against hers, twining their legs together and wrapping an arm around her chest. He kisses her neck, right behind her ear, and presses his hand against her sternum. She snuggles back into his chest, already giving herself back over to darkness.
“Sleep, Alina.”
And so she does, faintly glowing all the while.