Chapter Text
The first time I woke up, I thought I was dreaming.
He often invaded my dreams on the ship that was supposed to bear Mal and me across the True Sea to a new life in Novyi Zem. A life where we could be whoever we wanted — except ourselves. A life that would be free of him.
So it was ironic that he haunted my dreams then, just as he haunts them now. I had left the Darkling behind, maybe even to die on the Fold, yet here he was looking down at me with night-black hair and slate-grey eyes, with his sharp, beautiful face. It was so familiar, the way he cupped my cheek in his hand.
In my usual dreams, I leaned into it. I let him brush his fingertips over Morozova’s collar and call forth the power that lived within me, the blaze of light. I let him do whatever he wanted.
But when he touched my cheek now, all I did was freeze.
His hand was warm.
“Alina,” he whispered.
I stared back at him. I was no vessel. I could think. I felt my heart speeding behind my ribs, the blood pulsing in my ears, numbness in my fingertips. I felt that I was lying on something soft. Felt his breath feathering my cheek. The night pressing in around us.
“This isn’t real,” I told him, as if saying it would make it true. “You’re not real.”
He sighed and looked over at someone I couldn’t see. “Again,” he said.
Before I could ask what that meant, I dropped like a stone.
Some people found sleeping at sea to be easy. I never did. Not because of the crash of the ocean, or the constant rocking as the ship coasted on the volatile waves, but because of the dreams. I knew them so well, but that one had been different.
I was relieved to find myself in my hammock belowdecks with Mal’s arms around me, his voice against my ear.
“You’re safe,” he said. “You’re all right.”
I barely registered his words as I shook against him. Our cabinmates were probably glaring. I tended to talk in my sleep. “It felt real,” I whispered, pressing my face to his neck.
“What happened?”
I shook my head. I knew well that Mal wouldn’t want to hear about the Darkling.
“That bad, huh?” he asked with a forced chuckle. Although I couldn’t see his face in the darkness, I knew he was frowning, even as he stroked a steady hand up and down my spine.
“It’s nothing,” I assured him. “You’re right. I’m safe. Just another dream.” I pressed every part of me that I could, every awkward, bony part, into his body, trying to find comfort in his presence. “I’m sorry to wake you.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.” His hand stilled, and he kissed my hair. “Do you want to try to sleep again or should we call it?”
“I can try,” I said quickly. I didn’t need to be the reason we both slept badly, even though Mal hardly seemed affected by how poor the food we ate was or how little sleep we got. He was as at home on the sea as he was anywhere else.
Now he settled back into sleep quickly, his breathing evening out into a gentle, familiar pattern. It took me longer to relax, rocking in the hammock, listening for his heartbeat. Eventually, I slept too.
The next time I awoke I only knew my head was pounding and the bed beneath me was much too soft. A too-familiar voice, harsh and cool, asked, “When?”
I stirred, but my eyelids were too heavy.
“Soon, moi soverenyi,” said another voice, unfamiliar, both placating and terrified. “She should awaken any minute now.”
I am awake, I thought. I can hear you. But I wondered if it would be better not to wake at all.
Still, I blinked my eyes open. I had to see where I was. I had to know.
Sunlight streamed through the windows. I was in a canopied bed. The sheets were white and clean. Three Corporalki hovered at the foot of the bed, looking like they wished they could be anywhere else. To my right was another Corporalnik, older and clearly more senior, watching me with keen interest.
To my left was the Darkling, shockingly lifelike in his black kefta. This time, he kept his hands to himself, although one rested near my left side on the duvet. There was a strange bracelet on my wrist, I noticed for the first time. It looked like it was made of overlapping scales, and I saw no clasp. So not a bracelet—a fetter, a shackle. One meant to never be removed.
“Alina,” he said.
“Where’s Mal?” I asked.
His face contorted unflatteringly, but even that wasn’t enough to make him truly ugly. Cruel irony. “Put her back under.”
“Wait—” I reached out and grabbed his wrist, careful to touch him over his kefta. “Wait. How did I get here?”
The look he gave me was almost despairing, which made no sense. “You’ve been here.”
“But.” I blinked. The decor around me was fine, as it had been in the Little Palace, but I didn’t recognize the room. “Where is here?”
The senior Corporalnik approached me with one hand outstretched, but the Darkling held his up, palm-out, without looking at her. “You’re in Os Alta,” he said to me.
My heart sank. How was that possible? After Mal and I had abandoned Ravka—our home—had there really been nothing to stand in the way of his taking the city? Had there been no one? “How long was I asleep?”
For some reason, that made his expression soften. “Two months,” he said quietly. “We had thought—”
“Two months?” I tried to sit up, but there was barely any strength in my body. “Where is he? What have you done with him?”
The Darkling nodded to the Corporalnik.
“Don’t you dare—” I began, putting my hands up, prepared to fight.
I wasn’t given the chance. I was gone again before I could summon a single sunbeam.
We were curled up in our hammock. The world around us rocked as the ship was tossed by uncaring waves. I could no longer feel the damp cool of the ship’s hull, nor the warmth of Mal’s arms, the strength of them, and that’s how I knew that this place was the dream, the other one real.
“Alina,” he said, grabbing my shoulder. “You have to wake up. You’re screaming.”
I shook my head. The ship shuddered around us, groaning, threatening to break apart. I could hear a distant boom of thunder. Was this a nightmare? It wasn’t much worse than the waking world.
“You’re not there,” I told him, voice breaking. “You’re not there. I can’t find you.”
“Hey, hey,” he said, pulling back so he could look at me. He brushed a stray lock of hair out of my eyes. It was white. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll always find you.”
“But—”
“No matter where you are,” he continued. “I can find anything, remember?”
Thunder crashed outside again, closer now. The wooden boards around us trembled.
Mal looked at our tiny, fragile room, then at me. He touched my face, the cheek that the Darkling hadn’t touched, and I leaned into his hand, trying to summon the memory of his calluses.
“You have to wake up,” he murmured. “They need you.”
“Who does?” I asked.
“Everyone.”
“Mal,” I insisted when I surfaced again, grabbing onto the embroidered sleeve of the nearest Corporalnik. “Where is he?”
“He’s resting,” she assured me. “Be calm, moi soverenyi, and sleep.”
I sank back into the bed. Her grey hair and the few crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes gave her an air of authority, and her voice had something behind it, a honeyed thickness that made me think sleep would be welcome. I barely even noticed the strange way she’d addressed me.
Besides, I now had an answer about Mal, something no one seemed willing to give me before. And resting was good. Resting wasn’t dead.
“All right,” I said drowsily. “I’ll just—”
My head hit the pillow. I didn’t fight sleep when it claimed me.
I wanted to tell Mal what I needed, but he didn’t return to my dream.
There was only me on the sinking ship, standing in water up to my ankles, watching as the world fell apart.
When I woke up, it was day again.
To my great relief, the Darkling was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a lone Corporalnik sat in the armchair he had occupied the last time I saw him. I tried not to move too much so I could take in my surroundings. I wasn’t in my room at the Little Palace, although this one was equally grand, if not grander. The bed seemed far too big for one little Sun Summoner.
The Corporalnik on duty, who had his nose in a book, was not much older than me. He might even still be in training. I didn’t recognize him from my time with the Second Army, but it was probably a little much to ask that I remember everyone.
Slowly, I shifted, watching him through half-lidded eyes.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, nearly dropping his book in surprise and leaping to his feet. “Moi soverenyi, you weren’t supposed to wake for—”
I couldn’t understand why this man was showing me any sort of deference if he was with the Darkling, but I would probably get further by playing on it than I could in fighting outright. There would be fighting later. “I would like to leave the bed.”
“A-Alright, but I’m supposed to—” He glanced desperately at a bell over my nightstand.
“Please,” I said firmly. I couldn’t let him call for anyone else.
He nodded and scurried over to offer me an arm. I slid across the mattress to him. I hadn’t thought about what I was wearing, and was relieved to find it was a plain nightdress that floated around me, white but opaque. I leaned heavily against the young Corporalnik and pushed to my feet.
I had supposedly been in bed for two months, but my body felt much as it always had, with a few notable exceptions: a dull ache at my shoulder, the weight of the fetter at my wrist. As ever, I was not especially hardy, but I wasn’t an invalid either. I put one foot in front of the other, almost strong enough to walk without his help. What I could see of my skin looked pale and paper thin. I watched the sunlight, dappled from branches outside of my window, dance across the backs of my hands.
To answer my unspoken question, the Corporalnik said, “We’ve been stimulating your muscles so your body didn’t think— that is— so you wouldn’t lose muscle tone entirely.”
“Good,” I said, almost to myself. “And I’m sorry about this.”
“Sorry about what—”
I brought up both my hands and called the light to blind him.
The Corporalnik gave a yell and stumbled back, releasing me. He clutched his hands to his face. Hopefully he would be seeing spots for as long as it took me to get away.
I staggered to the door, somehow managing to turn the knob and fall out into the long hallway. Then I clutched at the wall, trying to get my bearings. This was a high, vaulted hall, like no part of the Little Palace that I had ever seen. Behind me, I heard one of the palace servants give a startled yell, the crashing of a tray. I couldn’t think about that. I had to get out of here.
With one hand on the wall, I started forward, until my blood started really pumping and I remembered how to run. To my surprise, nobody tried to stop me. At least, not until an alarm bell rang a minute later.
Breathless already, I pushed myself harder. The hallway, its marble floors spotless, seemed to stretch forever, but I saw what seemed to be sunlight again through heavy double doors at the far end. I reached it just as I heard the patter of soldiers’ boots on the floor and hurled myself outside.
The sunlight, my erstwhile ally, blinded me for a moment. I took a few errant steps off the path and found damp grass under my bare feet. Bringing a hand up to shade my eyes, I realized why nothing was familiar.
I had only visited the Grand Palace a handful of times, but it seemed diminished in a way I couldn’t quite explain. The Darkling’s banners were draped over everything. Half-crazed, I kept going, scanning for something familiar to latch onto, and that’s when I saw the dark shapes in the sky. I brought my hands up again, thinking they were volcra, thinking some shadow creatures had found their way here— and then I realized.
Ships.
The dark shapes were ships, impossibly high in the sky, and they, too, bore the Darkling’s symbol. The sun in eclipse.
He had won everything.
Something, an invisible hand, grabbed my ribcage and crushed it. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t breathe. Anguish poured out of me through my hands instead, making the palace grounds in front of me vanish in harsh, bright light. It was hot, hotter than I thought it would be, and after a moment my hair started to singe. But there was no stopping the torrent of light that this sort of loss unleashed.
I never knew grief could be blinding. I never knew grief could be white.
“That’s enough.”
A curtain of weightless shadow was cast over me, like a blanket smothering a fire. The light winked out, and I was left in punishing darkness.
Then it was gone, and the Darkling was there with his hands on my waist. “Steady,” he said. There was an edge to his voice that I could not place.
I couldn’t stop my trembling as I took it all in: the Darkling, looking much the same as he ever did with the exception of a few, barely-there scars. The singed lawn. The startled servants. The ships suspended in the air above, obscene in their shapes, bloated like pregnant bellies. And I did the only thing that felt right.
I fainted.
I awoke in the same bed with the Corporalki speaking quickly over my head.
“It’s difficult to say what would right it. The brain— neural pathways— everything is so delicate, moi soverenyi, and there is much we don’t understand—”
“I don’t tolerate excuses,” said the Darkling, who was back at my bedside. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him raise his hand.
“Don’t!” I cried out. I knew what would happen when he brought it down.
He startled at seeing me awake. Then, to my surprise, he listened. He dropped his hand without consequence, turning to look at me. In his eyes, I glimpsed profound grief before he masked it with a calm, impassive face.
“Of course,” he said, almost gently. “I forgot myself. Alina—”
He reached out to touch my cheek, but I flinched away. I wanted to fight him, to fight everyone, but I was wearing some sort of leather vest that plastered my hands to my sides. I was powerless.
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped.
His eyebrows drew together, creasing his forehead. “Of course,” he said again, a soft echo. His voice hardened again as he spoke to the Grisha. “Don’t breathe a word of this until you find a cure.”
“Moi soverenyi,” one said, bowing, and the two Corporalki scurried out, leaving us alone.
He watched me, sitting forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. “How do you feel after that display?”
I would not give him the answer I knew he wanted — using my power restored me, as it restored all Grisha. I was still tired, but invigorated. I tucked my chin, looking down at the vest that bound me. “This seems like a little much.”
“You can’t be trusted in your current state.”
“Afraid I’ll run away?”
He frowned. “Afraid you’ll hurt yourself by trying again.”
“I think I know better.” I gestured using my head, since it was all I could use. “Besides, where would I go?”
“A fair point.” He eyed me for a moment before reaching across to gently undo the buckles, first on one side, then the other. I watched his hands, pale as ever, like they might bite me, but he kept his word and touched me as little as possible. I wondered what I’d done to earn any amount of his favor. It’s not like we parted on good terms.
When the last buckle was undone, he pulled the leather off. I hadn’t realized how constrained I was until I drew that first full breath.
“Better?” he asked quietly.
“Much,” I said, and then I lunged across the bed to try to scratch at his eyes.
The Darkling easily caught my wrists, one hand closing over the strange shackle. Cool, unbothered, he said, “You tensed. Your shoulders gave you away.”
I spat at his face, and he only sighed. His expression was usually carefully schooled to reveal nothing, but his eyes… there was no fury there. This was wrong. I was missing something.
“Fine,” I said warily. “I’ll behave.”
“Good.”
He released me so he could wipe at his cheek, settling back into the armchair. He looked tired. Wearier than I realized, I swayed, vision blurring, and slid back so I could prop myself up against the pillows. Grisha or not, I couldn’t expect to do much coming off of two months of bedrest. Weakness chafed, like the collar at my throat, like the strange bracelet at my wrist.
“What is this?” I asked, holding up my left hand. “A shackle to match my collar? Something else to bind us together?”
The Darkling looked at the fetter of golden scales, a little crease forming between his brows. For a moment, he said nothing. Then: “What’s the last thing you do remember?”
I turned my head away, unwilling to give him anything.
He sighed again. “You’re not here as a prisoner, Alina.”
“Then what am I?” I demanded, looking back at him.
This time there was no hesitation.
“You’re my wife.”