Chapter Text
It was all a blur.
It had to be, really– there was no other way to comprehend it all without looking at it in an easier way: just one big, bloody, and heartbreaking blur.
Alina couldn’t see it otherwise. She had woken up in her tent that morning, with a few of the other girls in the cartographer’s regiment, and brushed her hair for the first time in days. She had even let one girl, Daria, braid her hair– it fell down to the middle of her back, reminding her of when she would ask Ana Kuya to do the same, so the boys at the orphanage wouldn’t grab and pull her hair out of her head.
That all seemed so far away now. Keramzin, her cot inside of the tent, and even the braid. The ribbon that had held her hair in the style had been ripped out by one of the monsters she’d encountered this afternoon, as it tried to take her head off.
Her head hurt. Alina’s heart hurt. But why? Why did her heart hurt, when she chose to see the last day as a blur? Should she not feel nothing at all, from ignoring it at the same time?
Inside of the gray place that was her mind, Alina watched her best friend’s death over and over, his heart as red as the blush on his cheeks from dinner the night before, as the Volcra ripped him to pieces. At that moment, Alina saw nothing. Only tears and Mal’s blood painting the wooden floor of the skiff. And even as the same volcra tried to rip her apart, too, Alina only saw white nothingness.
It had been hours since Alina’s hands had to be pulled from Mal’s cold remains. There wasn’t a name or a face to the person that the soldiers– no, the Grisha– brought her to. Alina couldn’t remember.
There was a tent, there was Grisha watching her, and now there was a bandage on her left arm, above her elbow. And there was a man, who called her… what was it?
The Sun Summoner.
Alina knew who that was- she had read about it, inside of the children's books that Ana Kuya kept in the bookshelf by the stairs, back in Keramzin. There would one day be a saint who could bounce light in their fingertips, and they would bring hope, and salvation to all of Ravka.
Mal thought it was bullshit. He teased her even back then, telling her to pray for the monsters under her bed at nighttime, too. Alina didn’t mind– hope was what she had to keep when Mal had enlisted before Alina was old enough to go with him. It felt like a betrayal then, but freedom when it became her turn to serve Ravka, too.
The cartographer lifestyle wasn’t what Alina’s imagination had in store for daydreaming about her and Mal together on a battlefield. There were swords involved somehow, and glittering armor.. And then there were horses, not Alina’s present nightmare of skiffs taking them through what had to be the universes’ ass, the Shadow Fold.
This wasn’t a nightmare, nor was it a daydream. Alina couldn’t remember what it was that made her think that the events had happened inside of her head. How did they get off of the skiff, anyway?
That was it: the people inside of the tent thought that she was the Sun Summoner.
No, that couldn’t be true. If Alina truly was this Sun Summoner, then she would have saved Mal from the volcra. If she was the Sun Summoner, the Grisha testers would’ve taken her the day they came when she was eight. Alina and Mal had tried to hide- and avoid the test, resulting in the crescent moon-shaped scar on her right palm…And if she was Grisha, they would’ve taken Alina away when she was tested. None of this would have happened if she was truly part of a fairytale.
Alina’s inner consciousness decided that now would be a good time to return to the land of the living, instead of hiding– blissfully– from the recent events.
The room she was in was black, and there was sunlight. No, the carriage that Alina found herself in was nicer than any room she’d been in before, with leather seats and two Grisha soldiers staring right at her.
She flinched, inhaling deeply, as her hands immediately went to hold her head, fingers pressing against her temples. Tears pushed at the rims of her eyes, and Alina let them fall. If she was in a carriage with Grisha soldiers, that meant one of two things:
Either everything that happened was real, and Alina truly was this Sun Summoner, meaning they would take her to the Little Palace and that meant Alina had to figure out how the hell to destroy the Shadow Fold.
The other possibility being that Alina was not the Sun Summoner, and these two Grisha soldiers in red were planning on taking her to the Little Palace, and killing her.
Why did she have a feeling that both options meant imminent death?
“Fedyor, she’s crying– is there something the General wanted us to do for this?” One of the Grisha asked the other, in hushed tones, clearly an attempt to give Alina some semblance of respect. He seemed confused, somehow unsure of what to do when a girl who just had her best friend murdered in front of her was having a mental breakdown.
The other Grisha playfully hit him on the shoulder, before running a hand through his dark hair to make sure it stayed in place. “Let her cry, Ivan. She needs it, and we need to make sure nothing happens before we get back to the Little Palace. It’ll do her good to process, but not if you keep staring at her!”
The hushed tones that the other Grisha, named Ivan, tried to speak in were now closer to a scolding from a mother, being directed to him from who was named Fedyor.
Alina took a deep breath. At least one Grisha seemed to understand why she would cry, and why she was upset. It was obvious. Shouldn’t she be upset? Now, Alina shamed herself for trying to ignore what had happened. Tears continued to stream down from her eyes.
Outside of the carriage, Alina heard the neighing of horses. That reminded her of the most important answer she still lacked,
“Where are we going?”
The words that fell from her lips sounded like those of a child, scared from a nightmare, weeping for their mother. It was how Alina felt, too. Her voice was hoarse, as too many screams had been pulled from her lungs today. She deserved an answer to her question, anyway– even if it meant that she was being taken to her death.
It was Fedyor who turned his attention to Alina, as his counterpart, Ivan, looked to Alina from his gazing out of the carriage windows.
The Grisha soldier smiled at her, now. Fedyor’s eyes held a soft, kind gaze. “General Kirigan has sent us to protect you until we reach the Little Palace, Alina Starkova.”
The Little Palace. So she was right, and hadn’t imagined the Sun Summoner part. Now the question was if there was death waiting for her, or a life that Alina wasn’t quite sure she wanted.
Training for the army was hellish, and the weeks spent running around camps and doing push-ups until an officer was satisfied was not a lifestyle that Alina wished to return to. She felt only so lucky to be able to draw a straight line, being thrown in with the cartographers, away from the front lines usually.
Alina nodded. “Will– what will happen at the Little Palace?”
It was an honest question. She didn’t know the differences between the colors that the Grisha soldiers wore, and she didn’t know what all happened at this palace, or if it was little. Considering it was called a ‘palace’ told Alina that it was not, in fact, little.
“You will sleep, hopefully. There will be technicalities, like healers tending to you. Then, you will train to learn to control your.. Power. You, and General Kirigan, will destroy the Fold.” Ivan answered this time, his attention fixed on the landscape surrounding them again. Alina blinked, the realities setting in.
How much time would she have to learn to control this power, if she even had it? Alina still wasn’t quite convinced that she was the right person with this supposed power. Would this General be teaching her how to control it? Would it be these two, Ivan and Fedyor? Alina hoped it wouldn’t be the stoic soldier teaching her to control a power that she wasn’t even aware of. Fedyor seemed nice enough, maybe even patient- she’d prefer him.
The carriage came to a jolting stop.
Ivan and Fedyor gave each other a look, one that seemed.. Familiar, as if they were delegating responsibilities to each other. Ivan nodded, looking at Alina.
“You will stay here,” Ivan told Alina.
Fedyor tilted his head. “I’m sure it’s nothing– do not fret, Alina.”
With that, the two soldiers opened the doors to the carriage, and left Alina, with the same kind of red jacket on her shoulders, still. She pushed her arms through the sleeves, beginning to fasten a few of the buttons. The fabric was thick, and somehow not heavy on her skin. She’d always wondered if they were wool on the inside, since the Grisha at the war camps never looked cold. Maybe Grisha just didn’t get cold. That would explain Alina not being Grisha, if she was cold.
Alina almost laughed at her own skewed logic- there was no way that the Grisha didn’t get cold.
Minutes passed, and the two Grisha still hadn’t returned. Alina tried to look around, using the tinted windows of the carriage. There was nothing in her immediate line of sight that would tell her anything about the carriage stop. Perhaps it was a simple fallen tree branch blocking their path.
Then, Alina heard a yell, and more neighing of horses. The carriage shook suddenly, for a moment.
Alina decided that this would be a good time to exit the shaking carriage.
What met her sight, though, was nothing comparable to the volcra from earlier.
A man, dressed in furs with a long beard, held an axe as he stood above a clearly dead Grisha soldier. Their jacket was blue, but red stained the fabric.
Exiting the carriage had made no noise, and the bearded man hadn’t turned around to notice Alina. Maybe, just maybe, Alina reckoned that now would be a great time to run.
So she did- the crunching of leaves alerting one of the attackers to her presence, and suddenly, Alina was not only running, but running from someone. She knew that one of the possibilities of the day included imminent death.
‘Just my luck,’ Alina thought, as she continued to run into the woods. Behind her, she could hear the yelling of Ivan and Fedyor, and the galloping hooves of horses, seeming to follow where she ran from one of the men with axes.
Alina dared to look behind her, the air cold and heavy as she struggled to breathe it in. There the bearded man was, blood on the hands that held the blade.
Suddenly, the land dipped, as Alina tumbled and rolled down the side of the hill, coming to a clearing, on what was a cliff– and a rushing river below. She stopped in her steps, for a moment forgetting the man that would probably cut her head off.
Where would she go? Would Alina allow herself to jump into the freezing water below, unsure of what lay beneath its waves? Would she attempt to run the way she came, into the arms of more people wanting her head on a platter?
If Alina truly was the Sun Summoner, perhaps this wouldn’t have happened. Perhaps she would have already battled the attackers, and left their bodies in shreds. If she was the person everyone now expected her to be, perhaps Mal wouldn’t be dead.
And then, Alina was in that gray place in her head again, leaving her body on the grass.
She could accept death, Alina realized– because wherever the Grisha would take her, she wouldn’t have friends. There wouldn’t be anyone who knew her from Keramzin. No one would understand that she came from nothing, and that her wit came from standing up against the older boys when they tried to hit Mal.
Alina realized that no one was ever going to truly know her again.
There was Mal. If Alina died, she would be with Mal, and it would feel fair. There had to be another Sun Summoner somewhere– it couldn’t be just one half-Shu girl who barely even knew how to fight.
Then she was awake again, pulled from the place inside of her mind where Alina could choose to not think just yet.
Was that normal? Probably not.
There was a man on top of her now, and Alina didn’t really enjoy that she had spent the time thinking of her own untimely death while she could’ve easily jumped off of a cliff and discovered if she still remembered how to swim.
In the man’s eyes was rage, and in his hands still, the axe. The weapon had a polished wooden handle, with leather wrappings. What language were the carvings above the leather in?
“Drüsje,” the man grunted, taking his hands to lift the axe high above his head, ready to bring it down onto Alina’s throat.
She took in a deep breath again, wondering what it would feel like should it be her last.
Alina had almost forgotten– the Fjerdans and their Drüskelle, Grisha hunters. Sometimes, during dinner at the war camp, Grisha would tell stories of their encounters and how they escaped the Fjerdans. Now that she was Grisha, Alina now had the wonderfully fun chance to live her life in constant danger.
The supposed Sun Summoner closed her eyes, praying for a merciful end. And to what god?
None were going to answer.
Alina called, and prayed, and yelled inside of her mind, with that tiny little voice she’d spoken in, inside of the carriage. She pleaded for someone, anyone, to save her. Saints knew that Alina couldn’t even save herself.
So here she was, shaking and thrashing under a Fjerdan Drüskelle’s hold, tears streaming down her face.
This was the end, wasn’t it?
‘See you soon, Mal,’ Alina supposed that for last thoughts, last words, the least she could do was offer it to the man she couldn’t save.
No matter how many prayers Alina sent in those seconds before her death, it made no difference.
She wasn’t going to make a difference. Alina had just cried and cried since the skiff. From the skiff to the clearing, she had done nothing. She was calling for anyone to save her, for once, Alina just wanted to be saved.
But nobody came.
There was a gutting scream coming out of her lungs now, the last noise that Alina expected herself to make. The axe’s blade glinted in front of her eyes.
She felt the darkness, it swooped over her in one sharp cut. Something cracked.
A warm liquid spilled onto her neck, her stolen red Grisha jacket. It was pooling, spreading up her neck, warm droplets on her cheeks. Was this what death felt like? Painless? The weight of the Fjerdan seemed gone now, Alina’s eyes still shut tight– there wasn’t even any pain in being beheaded, she realized.
Death felt cold, wet, and smelled of dirt. The ground seemed to shake for a moment, almost as if there was a galloping horse, coming to escort Alina to what was the afterlife.
“Are you hurt?”
A strong, soothing voice. It reminded Alina of Mal. Was that Mal?
Alina opened her eyes, expecting to see her best friend in the afterlife–
“Alina, are you hurt?”
So she wasn’t dead after all. Somehow, it was slightly disappointing.
The body of the attacker was in pieces, on the grass around her. That was why the weight vanished.
This was the man from the tent, after the skiff. The name and face had vanished from Alina’s memory, until now. General Kirigan. He must have been the one to eliminate her potential murderer.. But how? He wielded no blade, had no sheath for a sword. Alina opted to not ask at the moment.
Feeling the blood on her neck and chest turning cold, Alina shook her head. “No, not really.”
What was she supposed to tell him? That she thought she had died and moved to the afterlife that quickly? Surely not.
General Kirigan looked her up and down, her body next to the body of the Drüskelle.
“The others will have fled, now that I’m here,” he said, extending a gloved hand, “You ride with me.”
Taking his hand, General Kirigan pulled Alina from the puddle of blood that the ground began to soak up, while the blood spread onto the blouse underneath Alina’s jacket, cold and thick.
He helped her onto the dark horse he came on, a hand at her waist to support her, maybe expecting her to collapse. Alina did want to collapse, right about now, into her bedroll on top of the cots, back with the army. This could’ve all been a dream, if she just managed to fall asleep…
No. The General’s horse galloped away from the clearing, Alina already feeling warmer with her back against his chest, his cloak shielding both of them from the cold wind.
It felt as if she hadn’t seen Ravka before. Keramzin was a dull place, fields and farms– but where Alina and General Kirigan rode through.. The trees were green, and the sky was bluer than she had remembered it being that morning.
Alina realized she knew little to nothing about the General, who she was now closer to than she had ever been to anyone physically. She had heard of him, of course: General Kirigan was a Grisha who had some sort of control on darkness. Alina also wasn’t sure what that exactly meant, to have control of darkness.. What was she needed for, then? Couldn’t General Kirigan just manipulate the Fold until it broke?
They rode on, faster, and faster, and faster, Alina couldn’t even breathe and could only think that she was utterly useless if someone who could control darkness itself couldn’t do what she needed to, until–
“Can we stop? Please,” Alina asked the General.
A deep inhale. “Why?”
“I’m going to be sick.”
They stopped in the middle of a field. Alina’s breath slowed as soon as her boots finally touched the grass. She knelt down, breathing heavy.
Today felt like a dance with the god of death: he’d turn Alina in a spin, and then there’d be a dip, until they came face to face again and there wasn’t a way out.
Alina didn’t want to dance with the god of death, saints, could she even dance? Her mind seemed to be far more absurd today than it had ever been in her whole life.
General Kirigan, or the Darkling, as Alina now remembered him being called, tended to the horse that had helped them travel so far, so quickly.
Alina gazed at the horizon, admiring the sun setting beyond the clouds. For a moment, there was silence.
The Darkling cleared his throat. “Alina,” he called, holding a handkerchief out to her.
She turned, rising from the ground, eyeing the square in his hands. “For your face.”
Taking the black fabric out of his hands, Alina began wiping some of the blood away from her face, her neck, her hands. It would stain, she knew. Deeper than surface level.
“What happened back there?” Alina hesitantly asked, as she looked down at the blood-stained cloth, waiting for an answer.
“Drüskelle. You may have learned of them in the army- the Fjerdan soldiers who infiltrate our borders to kidnap and kill Grisha.” The General answered simply.
Shaking her head, Alina placed the handkerchief into one of the pockets of the red jacket. “Not what I meant. How did you– you cut him into pieces, a dozen paces away– you have no sword, not enough knives…”
“Would you rather I have used a sword?” The Darkling asked, a flash of amusement on his face, and gone before Alina could even memorize how it looked.
She swallowed, pushing her hair over her shoulder, regret in her tone. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter, I could have said thank you.”
Walking towards her, the Darkling held out one of his hands from underneath his cloak. “You know there is matter to everything, Alina. Even in darkness, you will learn. I used something known as the Cut: something that only very powerful Grisha can do; it focuses power and energy into one sharp, sweeping attack.”
Alina took the Darkling’s hand in hers, leading back to the horse. “Am I to get used to being hunted now?”
“You get used to it.” A sharp answer. “Your light was visible from very far distances, meaning there will be many people coming to find you, Miss Starkova. That’s why I travel with you, so that–”
Backing away from the horse, Alina interrupted, “They’re that afraid of you?”
The Darkling smiled. “More you than me. Your potential to destroy the fold, what you’ll do for Ravka, for us all.”
And then, it all felt like a trap. Alina had her boots on the ground and she couldn’t breathe, the one thing she wanted for the last two hours was to just stop. Stop and have someone explain things to her, let her stand on the ground without a soldier standing behind her.
Her fate had already been decided. Alina would enter the very same place that killed the one person she cared about, and she would destroy it. Even if she didn’t want to, she would have to. Destiny in a daydream about fighting for what was right felt more fun than it suddenly was. This wasn’t her fate, it wasn’t her destiny.
Alina wanted to choose. “And what if I said no?”
The look in his eyes told Alina that she’d chosen the wrong answer. “No.. to what? To being the Sun Summoner?”
“I don’t want this, any of this– can’t you see that? Why can’t I just give you my power? If you haven’t destroyed the Fold yet, what really makes you think that I will?” Alina blurted, not caring if what her words meant held the right moral value.
She meant it, though. Alina didn’t want this. She wanted to go to sleep, have this all be a dream. There wasn’t a reality in which Alina was this Sun Summoner that they’d been searching for, not when she could barely even protect herself from being murdered.
The Darkling didn’t respond.
“What makes you think that I want to be hunted for the rest of my life, dragged away from my life, and forced to be someone that I’m not? I know why the Fold isn’t gone yet– no one with my power wants to be found.” After her last words, the Darkling held one of her arms tightly.
“I’m going to ask you again, like in the tent. Were you tested as a child?” His words felt accusatory, as if she had done something wrong.
Maybe it was wrong– to hide from the truth.
A moment passed. The trees around them swayed, as Alina looked down at her boots, then back up at the General.
“We hid. Mal and I were already different enough- I didn’t want to be even more alone, if I had been Grisha.” she admitted, allowing the Darkling to guide her back to the horse, helping her onto the saddle again.
He joined her on the horse, his cloak wrapping around them both again.
“You are Grisha, Alina. You are not alone.”
Alina wondered if she and Mal would’ve hid from the testing, had they known her true fate all along.
Alina was right.
The Little Palace wasn’t little at all.
The entrance gates swung open, and the Darkling’s horse stopped exactly in front of the grand doors leading inside the palace. The General helped Alina down from the saddle, his hand in hers as he guided her through the doors.
Men and women dressed in white and gold waited, standing in lines, at attention. Soldiers wearing black and red, different from the jacket Alina had been given by another Grisha, waited between the others. They bowed their heads when the Darkling entered. He nodded his head in acknowledgement.
“I’ve decided to escort Miss Starkova to the Vezda suite myself. Please assist her should she need anything,” He instructed. Alina realized that they were maids and soldiers, as they nodded.
She hadn’t let go of his hand. Alina didn’t think that she wanted to let go, not yet.
The Darkling led Alina down long hallways, the colors of the walls changing from creme, to a light blue, to black, grand doors at every turn. His cloak billowed behind him as he walked, and Alina was suddenly very aware of how much blood she was covered in.
“This is my wing of the palace, and your room shall be the Vezda suite, as I had mentioned,” the General began to explain, gesturing to large wooden doors. He pointed to two other doors, “My rooms- the war room and my quarters and study, you’ll have better luck finding me there rather than anywhere else in the palace.”
Alina nodded to affirm she was hearing the information. Her bedroom was next to his, and the man was always in the war room. Fitting for a General, she thought.
Pushing open the doors that led to Alina’s quarters, the Darkling let go of her hand. The room was massive, and Alina knew immediately she had never been in any place so big, or lavish. The bed was the only thing to catch her eye, out of all of it.
Turning back to the Darkling, Alina looked up at him, expecting any sort of conversation.
“Alina, I would advise you not to wander just yet,” The General warned.
What did that mean? “I’m sorry, am I a prisoner?”
There was a sad look in the Darkling’s eyes. “No, Alina. All of Ravka is, until we destroy the Fold.”
She blinked, and he bid her goodnight.
“Try to sleep, Alina. You will need it.”
He turned then, the cloak swaying with his movement.. Dramatically.
Alina almost wanted to laugh.
“No pressure,” she muttered to herself. It seemed her humor had broken for the day.
The doors to her quarters fell shut, and Alina turned to look at her surroundings. A dark wooden wardrobe– she really should change out of the bloody clothing. Opening the doors to the wardrobe, Alina pulled the drawers open, finding a pale nightgown.
The buttons to the red jacket felt easier to undo than they were to fasten earlier that day. Alina peeled off the bloody jacket, before turning to see an opening into another room, a bathroom, she realized. Carrying the nightgown, she padded into the bathroom, the tiled floor somehow not cold.
This was the most relevant and pleasant discovery of them all: the Little Palace had running water. Alina turned the knobs to the bathtub, thinking she was much too small for it. The water filled quickly, and the rest of the clothing was harder to pull off than the jacket was. Hopefully, Alina would never have to wear anything similar to her army uniform again.
The water reached a depth Alina felt satisfied with, and she turned the knobs for the water again, turning it off. She sank into the hot water– saints, when was the last time she’d had a warm bath? A hot bath, at that one! Making an effort to use the soaps and different colored liquids around the bathtub, Alina scrubbed at her hair, noticing the water’s color darken.
Although it would be wonderful to soak in hot water for as long as she’d like, there was a bed in the room next to the bathroom, and Alina wanted nothing more than to sleep.
As she stepped out of the bathroom in the soft nightgown, walking to the soft-looking bed, Alina pulled back the covers, pushing aside at least ten unnecessary pillows. She sank into the soft surface, the blankets warm.
Sleep felt like a friend, but Alina was alone.
There were no friends in her life, now. Mal was dead, and it was her fault.
It wasn’t clear to Alina if she was crying herself to sleep, or crying in her sleep.
She realized, in the darkness and underneath warm blankets, that none of this was a dream.
Alina was the gifted Sun Summoner, and her fate had been decided.
It all felt more like a terrible, damning curse.