Chapter Text
Alina looked at Aleksander as he held her against the wall by her neck. Before she could do anything to fight him off, Baghra was there, grabbing his wrist. She could tell she meant to do something to help and was about to wilt a bit in relief, when a strange feeling hit her. She couldn’t pinpoint it, other than the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.
She watched as the mother and son with her also paused and looked around. Then a light, one not from her, flashed. She watched as it coalesced into a blue white light that began to surround her.
She looked up in panic and saw Aleksander’s equally panicked look. Baghra’s eyes were wide in shock, “The Making. It’s interfering…” she trailed off, still stunned by whatever was occurring.
“The Making?!” She asked incredulously. She managed to look to Aleksander and his panicked grab of her hand as their eyes locked, the true fear, for her, on his face…
She didn’t manage to think much on it before the light surrounded her completely, and then she was gone.
No longer in the cave where Saint Ilya did his work. But instead sitting on a patch of grass by a dirt road, a little village ahead of her.
What. The. Fuck?!
One moment, she was fighting with Aleksander, denying him as he continually tried to get her back on his side. Fighting against everything she once felt for him and those doe eyes he wielded so easily. Then she was here.
Thinking of Aleksander, she thought of his panic as she was being taken away. She quickly banished it from her mind. She couldn’t afford to let go of her anger at him. At his betrayal. The stag. Novokribisk.
If she let that anger falter for a moment, she’d be screwed.
He had made every bad choice possible. Had made the Fold and ensured Grisha would be hated for it. Then doubled down and expanded it, swallowing up Ravkan towns and Ravkan lives with it. He’d collared her and tried to steal her power.
There was no excuse that could justify those actions.
Her own feelings couldn’t be a factor in it. So she’d shut them down since that day in the Fold. She’d told him before that, that they could have had everything. And she’d meant it. But he made his choices and ensured that could never happen. So she, in turn, couldn’t allow her feelings to turn soft toward him at all.
It was easier to stay angry to hold that truth in place. Feelings unfortunately didn’t just turn off. They took a long time to move on from. Especially for her. So she lived in that anger to keep them away.
She tried throwing herself back into things with Mal. Mal, who she’d finally let go of as her feelings for Aleksander intensified. Into something she’d never experienced before.
Her feelings for Mal were small in comparison. Another truth she buried. She’d held onto him all her life, so it was easy to turn around and go back to wanting a life with him. It was familiar. Comfortable. Easy.
Things with Aleksander had never been familiar, comfortable, or easy. Despite the ease with which said feelings grew within her. They’d been passionate and hard and unknown. Intense and world shaking. They were something only experienced between people who had big roles to play and big things to do, she thought naively at the time. The kind of feelings written about in stories of destined lovers.
Lovers who overcome all odds and find a passionate, all encompassing love between them. Who defeat the villains and live happily ever after together. Forever, eternal as they both apparently were. Meant to be. Decided by the Making itself to be one another’s destined other half, their balance. Sun and shadow. Darkness and light.
What a fool she’d been.
After that, going back to following Mal was easy. And having Mal finally want her, after feeling the heartbreak of realizing Aleksander was manipulating her? It was a balm to her broken spirit. She just wished she could feel more of what she felt towards Aleksander for Mal. It was easy and comfortable with Mal, yes. But that passion, that intensity…it just wasn’t there.
It never had been. Her love for Mal had been the crush felt for a childhood friend. A puppy love. Versus the all consuming feelings that had overtaken her for Aleksander.
Maybe that was okay. Maybe she didn’t need that. Maybe she could be a sun summoner who didn’t need an eternal companion. Mal would live another many decades after all. And maybe she wouldn’t even outlive him. Maybe something would happen.
And maybe she’d continue grasping at straws and living in denial. She was quite fine with that. Really. It still beat being with a manipulative, evil man who hurt her and their country.
She dusted herself off and stood up, trying to orient herself and figure out what happened. Baghra said it was the Making interfering? Maybe it didn’t want Aleksander to do something? Maybe it saved her?
Where was she though? Why would it send her somewhere else?
She would never get these questions answered standing around. So she began walking towards the village, hoping they weren’t going to recognize her. She couldn’t deal with that right now on top of everything.
Walking into the small village, she quickly realized it was not quite right. The people looked Ravkan, sounded Ravkan. But…sounded slightly off. Older. A dialect of Ravkan that had evolved but still had the same base language that kept it familiar enough to understand. And their clothes. They were so strange, nothing like she’d seen anyone wearing in Ravka.
And the buildings, they looked equally odd. Like old architecture she’d seen in paintings and the occasional historical site. What the hell was this? Did the Making drop her in some weird play of olden times? A reenactment?
She stopped short in the town square. There were…by the Saints. There were people hanging. Dead. Still dangling from the nooses around their necks.
Based on the crowd around them, yelling, this had just happened. She inched closer to make out what they were saying.
“Witch!” “Hang the witches!” “Burn them!” “Burn the witches! A noose ain’t enough!”
Witches? They didn’t…Grisha? They weren’t wearing Kefta, but…she’d never heard any other groups called Witches.
It was rarer in Ravka to hear it, and certainly didn’t mean a hanging! But she knew it happened, Mal had frequently called Grisha Witches under his breath. A fact she now tried to ignore. They’d both been ignorant before about Grisha, after all. They were learning though.
But this…what was going on? Was this because of the Darkling, she wondered?
“You! Shu!” A man quickly grabbed her and snarled in her face. She was surprised, she had been spit on all her life for being part Shu, but no one had grabbed her on the street like this before. She reacted instinctively.
The sun came to her palm and she stuck her hand in his face, pushing him away.
“Witch! Shu Witch!” She heard another call at her. She quickly looked around as they closed in on her.
What the hell was happening here? Didn’t they know she was the Sun Summoner? People had never acted like this to her, outside the Druskelle.
Hands came to grasp at her arms and the villagers were trying to hold her and bind her. Over her dead body. Which…looking to the hanging dead bodies just over there, was a distinct possibility.
Darkness filled her vision all of sudden. She thought she’d been knocked out. But she felt the hands fall away and realized her attackers were now on the ground while she was still standing.
“Are you okay?” She heard a familiar voice and snapped her head up. Aleksander?
But…she looked at him. It was Aleksander. But…not. No black Kefta. But brown pants and a blue shirt. Long hair, tied partially back. His scars were gone. He looked…younger? Not truly, he looked the same age. Yet…his eyes and face were less burdened somehow. Less haunted than she’d ever seen him. Not gone, just much less than she was used to.
“Are you okay? What’s your name?” He asked while coming towards her, hands up like he was trying to assure her he wouldn’t attack.
Her tongue felt like lead. She didn’t know what to say. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. She was so confused.
“My name is Leonid. I’m Grisha as well. I came to try to save-“ he swallowed hard and looked to the hanging bodies, remorse and sadness and anger…and fear…churning in his dark eyes, to her shock.
“There’s a settlement I can take you to. Of other Grisha, hiding out. It’s relatively safe. As safe as we can get anyway. It’s not safe here though. We need to get out before they wake up. I promise, I’ll get you to safety. Unless you have somewhere else to go?” He asked gently.
“I don’t.” Was all she managed to say. It was Aleksander, but not. And…he said his name was Leonid. Wasn’t that the name recorded of the first Darkling? The Black Heretic? She knows it was Aleksander truly, but he’d been using the name Leonid at the time the Fold was made. Did that mean?
Saints, she couldn’t even consider it, could she? But the town, the people, the hanging? The weird speech everyone, even Aleksander, had? The odd architecture? Even Aleksander’s dress and hair, the look in his eyes, the name?
Was she…?
She swallowed hard as Aleksander gently took her by the elbow and lead her to a horse on the edge of the small village. Everyone was on the ground, but still breathing. She saw Aleksander take one more look at the dead Grisha hanging in the square and watched him close his eyes tightly before opening them with resolve.
“Let’s get you out of here and to safety.” He said, urging her up into the horse. He got on behind her and as he began to ride them away, it was so reminiscent of their first ride to Os Alta after she’d been discovered, she couldn’t shake the uncanny feeling.
Had the Making sent her back in time? To…to before the Fold?
Why? What was the purpose? To stop it?
Wouldn’t that change the entire future? What would she even go back to if that was the case? Or…or could it be related more directly to Aleksander? It happened while they were connected via their tether, after all. Right when Baghra was about to interfere. And it apparently dropped her right where Aleksander was. That was no coincidence.
She didn’t know. She was so, so lost in this moment. She only had the touch of Aleksander’s arms around her as they reached to grasp the reins, to ground her to reality. To her new, strange reality.
How did she get back? She tried not to panic. People were waiting on her. She had a whole war with the man behind her happening that she needed to be present for.
Damn the Making for this.