Chapter Text
Aleksander has been drifting.
Stuck between the then and the now and the what will be. Floating in the vast blackness of the world he tore asunder. Waiting.
As he drifts he thinks of what was and what could have been. He thinks most of Alina Starkov.
He thinks of peace and endless solitude.
And then he wakes up.
Aleksander is lying on the plushness of grass. He turns his head with a groan, blinking at the noise that fills his ears. The sharp sound of a trumpet, birds, a clatter of a carriage perhaps. Another trumpet and then some strange piercing call that floods the sky with blue and red.
At least his head isn’t pounding.
He follows the lights and sees a man walking toward him. A tiny torch or perhaps Grisha summoning? A light. What the hell is that? Another Sun Summoner. That’s not possible. He groans and rolls onto his side.
“Hey, you alright?” The voice calls, male. Otkazast’sya given his lack of proper address. War criminal or not he is still the Darkling.
“My Sun Summoner, where is she?” He snarls, and pushes himself onto all fours and then his knees. It’s summer given the heat, his kefta feels hot around his shoulders.
The night is dark, but there are buildings all around him. Aleksander has never seen their like. Tall and commanding metal structures that reach into the sky, full of light. He is in a field of sorts, an unidentifiable purple structure to his left. He can hear the sounds of laughter, a child is playing on a swing. He can recognize that at least.
“Sir, are you under the influence?” The otkazat'sya calls out.
Under the influence of what? A fever dream?
“Where is Alina Starkov?” He calls and glares at him, pushing himself up to stand. He’s taller than the man, but the light he shines in his eyes is blinding. Aleksander lifts a hand to block it. Impossible. It's not summoning but some sort of torch beam.
The man actually has the gall to laugh, “You coming from one of those Grisha celebrations, where they dress all old timey? Had a little too much beer and lose your friends. Look I don’t care if you’re drunk, but you can’t sleep in the park.”
A carriage bolts by unmanned by horses and moving so quickly his head spins from it. He doesn’t know where he is, but this isn’t Ravka.
“Where am I?” He demands, and his shadows seem to pulse around his feet.
The otkazat’sya doesn’t even notice. “You’re in Os Alta square, off of Lantsov and first. If you know the name of your hotel, I can give you directions.”
“This is Ravka?” He asks, and his head starts pounding. That can’t be right. Aleksander has been to every mile of his country, there is nothing like this. He would know.
“Same old UFR.” He replies and the General doesn’t like the concern in the stranger’s eyes. “Are you hurt, sir? You don’t look like you’re pulling my leg.”
Aleksander presses his palm into his forehead. How did he go from the Fold to a foreign version of Os Alta? “UFR, explain.”
“The United Federation of Ravka, been the UFR for over a century. Teach that stuff in secondary school, you know when the countries came together after the Summoner’s War.”
Someone else starts talking with a strange crackle, and he pulls a black box up from his shoulder and speaks into it. “I copy, on route.” He drops the thing back down. “I gotta go, just don’t get into any trouble. Or you’ll sleep off your time travelling in a cell, you hear.”
The man, soldier apparently, leaves and Aleksander is left with even more questions. Is that what happened, has he shifted through time?
He walks from the field, and onto the smooth stone of a walkway. There are others dressed in odd clothing, some bordering on scandalous. A woman passes him in nothing but a corset, if it can even be called that and a pair of ‘shorts’.
He reaches inside himself, feels his health, and there the faintest trace of Alina. He holds up a hand, taking in the smooth skin, and clenches his fist. Not metal, skin and bone.
Aleksander follows that sensation, trailing it for what must be miles. Os Alta was always large, but this makes it look like a tiny village in the outskirts of the country. It doesn’t take long to realize he must avoid the roads entirely if he wants to survive.
The carriages move quickly enough to kill a man on impact, and they blare trumpets when he gets too close. People keep looking at him, but he spots no other Grisha, or they wear the same clothes as the others.
He used to be able to tell if someone was Grisha simply by the way they walked, but now he can’t. Now all he can do is follow the draw of her, and keep moving. He’s tired, hungry, but he doesn’t know how to navigate this strange Ravka.
Aleksander comes to a stop at one of the many tall buildings, and sees a sun symbol painted on the doors of glass. He scans the title pasted above, ‘Sunlit Apartments’.
Ironic, though he doesn’t know entirely what an apartment is. Perhaps a bunkhouse of sorts. He enters, and walks across a grand marble foyer. There’s a silver box in front of him, which dings like a bell and opens without being touched.
Two giggling females exit, holding little boxes of light. They take one look at him and giggle some more as they head for the exit. The lights are different, no longer gas. They do not flicker or change. Outside of the base material used for building it feels like there is nothing he recognizes.
Aleksander is lost, off kilter. He’s always prided himself on his adaptability, yet in this he feels so confused his heart rate won’t slow.
He wishes for a familiar face, for Ivan’s calm expression or Zoya’s arrogance. But mostly, he wishes for Alina. He finds a sign reading stairs, and climbs. It is harder here to identify where she is, but he continues methodically up stories of steps.
He climbs until his legs ache and his lungs scream and then further still. She feels closer, he looks up and finds he’s reached the top. If he fell from this height, he shudders and looks away, pushing through the door to a long carpeted hallway.
It’s silent up here, and there’s another silver box at the end and two doors. He closes his eyes, feeling the pull, the left. He walks to the wooden doorway and raises his hand to knock and pauses.
Last time they spoke she’d run him through with a blade. It feels like lifetimes ago, he spent so long ... asleep. Dead? It’s coming back the more he thinks about it, drifting. Thinking about her, and their false future.
If she stabs him again at least this confusion will end. He knocks.
The door opens to a man wearing nothing but sleep pants. The jealousy roars up in Aleksander like a tidal wave and he sneers, “And who are you?”
The man leans casually against the door frame and looks him over with a smile, “Uh, says the guy wearing a fucking kefta in twenty twenty three. You do know those went out of style with your great grandpa right?”
“I do not have time for this. Where is Alina Starkov?” He snaps, and fights the urge to smash his fist into this boys face.
The child laughs, “Right, okay. And I’m looking for the tsar of Ravka. Do me a favor and fuck off.”
Aleksander’s shadows pull toward him, and he sees the boy’s eyes go wide in surprise. But it all halts when he hears her voice further in the suite, “Who is it, Maxim?”
The boy looks over his shoulder, “Some asshole. Hey, you look good in that dress, babe.”
Aleksander shoulders his way through the doorway. He is done being polite, and he is done being confused. He jerks to a stop in what must be a main living space. He spots a sitting area, fireplace, and dining table.
But all that matters is her. She’s exactly the same as he remembers and completely different.
Alina is the same age as she has always been, Shu eyes she doesn’t want to get rid of and perfect skin. Her hair is pulled back, and there’s coal around her eyes. The dress she wears, he notes immediately is black. It hugs her frame at the top with tiny jeweled sleeves and falls to her feet in loose waves.
She is breathtaking.
Alina blinks, and says nothing. Like she doesn’t see him, like she’s looking through him. That is until Maxim turns and shoves him.
“Get the fuck out.” He grabs the front of Aleksander’s kefta and the General pulls back a swing and hits him hard in the jaw.
They grapple until Alina is between them, one hand on each of their shoulders. At her order he pauses, waits to see what she will do next. Her whore has no such reservation. He tries to swing around her and hit him, but Aleksander shifts out a foot and knocks him to the floor.
“Enough!” She shouts.
Maxim pushes himself back up to his feet, and steps forward. Alina stops him, seeing that Aleksander won’t attack and focuses on the boy. “Hey, knock it off.”
“You know this guy?” He asks, and glares for good measure.
Aleksander tilts his head in challenge. The boy is lucky he didn’t even bother to summon.
Maxim brings his hands together, and the Darkling’s chest goes tight. A heartrender.
Alina smacks him hard in the back of the head and he stops, more startled than anything from the looks of it. “Absolutely not. Saints, do you want to die? Go.” She makes a shooing motion toward the door. “I can handle this.”
“So you do know him.”
She throws up her hands and leads him to the door. “I did not have this in my calendar, go. I’ll uh call you.” Alina snaps the door shut behind him and locks it.
Aleksander relaxes and eyes the strange kitchen. It has to be a kitchen, there’s nothing else it could be. “Your lover I take it?” He drawls, and the jealousy rolls in him. “So much for your Tracker.”
Alina goes still, “Don’t.” There’s a warning in her voice that he knows well enough to abide. She walks to a box and pulls it open. There’s food inside. She grabs a clear bottle and drinks from it.
“So, care to tell me where the hell you’ve been?” She asks, and he notes the threat behind the question. This Alina is different. Time has passed.
Aleksander is in the future, or he supposes the present. She has had time to grow.
Remarkable.
“I don’t know.” He replies honestly and walks to the stone table she rests against. Aleksander plucks the bottle from her hand and drinks.
He expected water, given the clarity. It is not.
When he chokes on it, swallowing hard she smiles. It’s the first genuine smile he’s seen her make in such a long time. Aleksander glares at the bottle.
She only takes it back and drinks again, and he’s amazed with how easy she makes it look. “Vodka.” Alina explains.
“That’s nothing like - “
“Where have you been, Aleksander?” She interrupts and he shivers at the sound of his name.
“In the between.” He really doesn’t know. “I was there, in the dark. And my mind was and wasn’t. I don’t know how to describe it. Lost? Dead? I woke up a few hours ago in a field.”
“What’s the last thing you remember before that?” She finally sets her kvas down. But her cheeks are a delightful shade of pink.
His hand comes up subconsciously and touches his chest. She flinches.
“Dying,” He whispers.
For the first time her mask seems to slip and there are tears in her eyes. She reaches out a tentative hand and rests it against his kefta.
As soon as she makes contact, she breaks down entirely. She sobs, and throws herself forward into his arms. He holds her out of reflex more than anything.
Aleksander was meant to hold her, even if he's never properly gotten the chance to.
His hand finds the back of her neck, and the other the small of her back pushing her in closer. He sighs, relaxing against her. It feels so good to have her in his arms, to have that wonderful flooding sensation of peace.
“Alina.” He breathes her name like a prayer. “I have missed you so much.”
That only seems to make her cry harder, but that’s alright. He isn’t afraid of a few tears. He keeps his hold as she cries, never wavering. He breaths in the perfume she wears, and lets himself be.
When her wails turn to hiccups she nuzzles into his chest. It’s gentle the way she does it, almost childish. Lonely, he realizes. She knows what it’s like now to be alone. At least he had his mother’s cruelty to fall back on.
Aleksander holds her a little tighter at the thought of her isolation. “I’m here.” He whispers, “You are not alone.”
She nods into his chest, hands still gripping tight around his waist.
“How long?” He asks, and almost wishes she would not reply.
“Five centuries or so.” She replies, “Ravka never stops changing.”
“I can see that.” He says dryly and her lip tips up in a smile. She is so beautiful even with black smears around her eyes and flushed damp cheeks.
Her voice is muffled where it’s pressed into his chest, so quiet he almost misses it, “Stay.”
Aleksander practically crushes her into him, “Eternally.”
Another moment passes before she collects herself with a deep breath and takes a step away. She seems to shake herself out of it and sighs, “Shit. I’m late.”
She looks up at him, eyes darting down his outfit. Her lips quirks up again. “I miss keftas. Come with me.”
He follows as she leads him into a bedroom. Her bed is large, a dark four poster statement piece at the head of the spacious room. There’s a wall of pure glass to the side and he stares out into Os Alta in amazement.
It’s nothing of what he knows, and yet there’s a beauty to it too. He stands there staring until she returns and goes to slide his kefta off. He allows it, and the weight falls from his shoulders. She drapes it over her own like a cape and drags it across the carpet.
“There’s a suit on the bed that should fit you. It’s pretty self explanatory. I need to redo my makeup.” She disappears into what must be a washroom.
He examines the clothing on the bed. It’s not terribly different. Aleksander strips down to his smalls and pulls the trousers on. The fabric is rougher than he’s used to but he dismisses it. The shirt is black and dotted in the front with buttons, silk by the feel of it.
“There’s no undershirt.” He calls.
She comes back into the room with the coal cleaned from her eyes, his kefta gone. Her gaze darts across where he stands in nothing but the breeches. Rifling in a closet she picks out a garment and tosses it at him.
He looks at the tight black sleeveless thing and slips it on. She approaches, and grabs the shirt helping him put it on before looping around and doing up the buttons.
“Why do you have these?” He asks, already knowing his possessiveness will not help him with her answer.
She seems to know that too. “Sometimes people leave things behind. I’m too lazy most days to get rid of them. Useful now though.”
“Maxim’s then?”
Alina snorts, “Met him yesterday. I hate going to these things alone. I think this one was Jordan, no Jerome, Jackson. I don’t remember.”
“You entertain lovers often?”
She tisks her tongue at him and smiles, “And how many women have you taken to bed because you wanted to fight the loneliness.”
He doesn’t remember. “Point taken.”
Now that she’s finished all the buttons, she turns around, tossing over her shoulder as she returns to the washroom, “I wouldn’t mind if I still got laid tonight though.”
He follows, standing in the door frame. “Laid?”
The mirror she is looking into is massive, he has no difficulty seeing her smirk in its reflection, “Fucked, Sasha.” She turns her gaze at him and blinks innocently, “Think you can manage?”
He sucks in a breath and nods. “Yes.”
“Perfect, my night is looking up.” She goes back to reapplying her ‘makeup’ and he entertains himself by watching her. He can’t get enough.
When she’s finished she nods to herself and checks her hair. “How do I look?” She does a little spin in the washroom.
“You look lovely.” He says, and knows that doesn’t do her justice.
But her expression brightens, even as it looks a touch sad. “The first time I wore black for you, you said the same thing.”
And then everything they could have had went up in flames shortly after.
“If we can make it through whatever evening you have planned without one of us running away, I’ll count it as a success.”
She laughs, “I think we can manage. You need your suit jacket.” Alina heads back toward the jacket he left on the bed. “And a tie.”
He allows her to help him slip into the jacket, though it’s terribly short and thin. Not much of a jacket. And then she starts putting fabric around his collar and he’s forced to simply stand still and allow her to finish.
“Perfect.” She touches his cheek and he leans into it. “Like a gentleman. Now come on, we are so late.”
“I don’t even know where we’re going.” He replies, but follows after her easily enough. That’s his only plan really, follow Alina.
He’s retiring from trying to save Ravka. All he wants it her, and a life for himself. He’ll go wherever she goes.
Which apparently means holding a tiny bag for her, and entering into the metal box. The door slides forward and she smacks a glowing button with her finger.
He complains, “I don’t see how this - "
It starts moving and Aleksander flounders for the little railing along the side, grabbing it in a white knuckle grip as Alina laughs. She laughs so hard her hand comes to cover her mouth, eyes crinkled at the sides in delight as he tries to wrap his head on what is happening.
“It’s a pulley system.” She explains, between giggles. “Perfectly safe.” Then she blinks at him in horror, “Saints, Aleksander, did you climb all those stairs?!”
He nods, too overwhelmed to speak.
She doesn’t stop laughing at him until a bell chimes and the door slides open. He’s quick to exit, and happy to have solid stone beneath his feet. Though secretly he’s grateful not to have to take the stairs again.
The engineering is quite incredible when he stops to think about it. Such a large complicated pulley system, and one trusted enough to move people.
While he is staring at the contraption she reaches out and takes his hand. He hums in approval at her warm palm in his own, feeling her power call to his.
He turns to find he is not in the same foyer, but some strange cave filled with carriages. A variety of colors, sizes, and styles.
“Cars.” She explains and pulls him along. “They’re the most common form of transport. They operate with uh, engines. I don’t really know much to be honest.”
She plucks the little handbag he has in his other hand and pulls out a set of keys. At least he’s assuming that’s what they are, though they’re fatter than what he is used to. Her ‘car’ chimes and the back of it flares with red light.
He tries not to stare, not wanting to come off as a blubbering idiot confused by the world, but he wants to.
She pulls open a door and sits. He moves to follow her, bent down and she laughs pressing a hand on his chest to stop him. “Other door.”
He sees the way it’s set up like individual chairs and nods, circling the black ‘car’ to enter on the other side. As soon as he sits it roars to life. Aleksander takes a steadying breath, like riding a horse. It’s like riding a horse, perfectly normal. Perfectly sane.
She reaches across his chest and grabs a strap, pulling it until it clicks. “A seatbelt.” She explains, “It’s to keep you safe in case we crash.”
That makes sense considering how fast they go. He’s seen that first hand at least. Music starts playing as if through a gramophone, and she turns it down with another button.
And then with no warning at all she is moving backward. He startles but forces himself to take a breath, to trust her. He may be new to the way of things, but Alina is not.
Besides her little smiles say that she’s endeared by his confusion. He’ll take any advantage he can get.
“Ninel.” She says abruptly, “My name.”
He nods, not surprising that she’s needed to change it as the centuries pass. “And the last name?”
Alina pauses, “I’ve kept the same last name.”
“Oretsev then.” He remarks, but the bite is only so harsh when his competition is dead.
They move in silence. She shifts her foot and grip on the wheel and they travel with the other carriages along the roads. It’s not as intimidating on the inside, though he’s not a fan of watching the world wiz past from the window beside him. To counteract that he spends most of their journey looking at her.
“Mal lived to be seventy seven, good for an otkazat’sya. Though I wouldn’t use that word anymore, it’s considered offensive nowadays.” Her hands tighten on the wheel. “Curb your possessive streak with the knowledge you were right, Aleksander. There is no one like us, and there never will be. But if you talk ill of my dead, I won’t kill you but it will hurt.”
He lets it rest. She is right. There’s no point in pettiness between them on the subject. Their war is over, her Tracker is naught but bone. It is time to rest.
They pull down a steep incline and enter another stone cave like the one they were in before. She expertly brings the car into a spot between two others and stops, pulling free her keys. The car quiets back down and he lets out a sigh of relief.
“How did he die?”
Alina holds the keys out to put away, and he does so. She doesn’t answer until he’s latched her bag closed again, “He burned.”
She says nothing else and exits the car, leaving Aleksander simmering with that answer. He’s expected illness or age, not what he can only assume from her clipped tone must have been murder.
He exits and walks to her side, touching her arm. “I am sorry for your grief if nothing else.”
Alina sighs, “It was a long time ago. Best left in the past. Come, I promise this elevator is just as safe.”
There’s a somber edge to her tone as he steps into the box with her. She presses the button and this time they go up. It makes his stomach flip, but he forces himself not to touch the railing. He keeps his pose centered, feet firmly planted and waits.
When the door opens it is to a room that reminds him a bit of the Grand Palace, not the resplendent gold but the size and the amount of art on display.
“Welcome to my art gallery.” She smiles, and waves a hand. “Everything on display tonight can be bought. Me, my colleagues, or my students made everything.”
“Your students?” He asks.
“The Grisha Institute of Art and Culture. It was opened a little over eighty years ago. It gets some flack for only allowing Grisha students but,” She shrugs, “There are plenty of universities out there.”
He realizes as she walks forward in her black dress that she has created her own Little Palace. This new world seems far less rife with war, but battles are not always on the front.
“I am proud of you.” Aleksander calls to her retreating form.
She pauses in her step, posture straightening before she continues on to a few people across the hall. Despite complaining about being late it doesn’t look like the event has actually begun. He spots servants in white setting up platters of food and champagne, as well as a few others loitering around making sure everything is in place.
He looks at the items as he passes, there’s a little of everything but he notes the Grisha elements in most of it. The pottery has been baked by Inferni, jewelry made by Durasts hang on display, and there’s glass sculptures and all manner of things.
Not all of it is made with the small science, some of it is simply well crafted. He stops before a painting, and gazes at the swirling colors. It’s the Fold. Black and foreboding, a skiff halfway into entering.
Aleksander turns to the little placard with it’s title and the creator, ‘Shadow and Bone by Ninel Morozova’.
He stares at it, at his name. The one she’s kept. He had figured it would be Mal’s name, but he was wrong. It was his. He swallows hard, fighting back the tears that burn his vision.
Someone to mourn him.
“This one is my favorite.” A voice comes from beside him, and he shoves the emotion down behind a mask. He’s young, looking no older than twenty, though as a Grisha he could be older than that with a blaze of black hair that sticks up despite an attempt to push it down. “She never fails to impress.”
He forces himself to be polite, this is one of his Grisha likely. Or a friend of Alina’s, there’s no purpose in rudeness. “Indeed, she is remarkable.”
“I’m assuming you’re her plus one?” The child asks, and there’s a spark of curiosity there. A friendliness.
Alina swoops in, “Dmitri!” She throws her arms around his shoulders and shakes him. “I see you’ve met Alexei.” He supposes that will be his name now, better than sharing an errant king's name anyway.
“Well he is very pretty.” Dmitri replies with a laugh.
She shakes him again before letting go, “And very much taken I’m afraid. Alexei meet Dmitri Safin, I raised this one since he was a little sprout.”
Despite his surprise Aleksander does not show it. Some lines continued on it would seem. Perhaps David had reunited with her after all. “A pleasure.” He inclines his head and the other man does the same.
“Do you think it will sell?” He whines to her and Aleksander can see the familial energy between the two.
They all look over at the charcoal drawing framed nearby. Alina chuckles, “Of course it will.”
He looks back and grins again, so youthful, soft. Unblemished by the world. He has never seen a Grisha smile so freely. “You’ve been crying.” Dmitri frowns and his hand cups her cheek, thumb sliding across the underside of her eye. He does it with the other as well and the puffiness vanishes. “There, perfect.”
The boy bolts off without so much as a goodbye, but Alina smiles softly after him. “His parents, they died in a house fire. I raised him myself. I made Genya a promise, long ago to always do so. He’s the last of his line, and given his preference for men my promise will be fulfilled soon enough.”
Aleksander wraps an arm around her waist in silent comfort. He understands the situation more than anyone. “He’s a bit chaotic.”
She laughs, “I swear he’s given me several heart attacks. Try taking a blonde boy to the park and returning with a mess of dark curls and entirely different eyes. Once someone thought I was kidnapping him.”
He chuckles and his hand on her waist tightens. “Don’t worry I shall help in such pursuits in the future, Miss Morozova.”
To his delight her cheeks flush to a stunning shade of pink. “Right. A bit embarrassing now that you’re alive.”
“Nonsense, had I had my way we would have married.” He replies and she gets pinker. Aleksander smiles.
She seems to find her courage however because a moment later she smiles back, “Well, no time like the present.”