Alina Starkov expected to wake up on a ship sailing across the True Sea, one that would take her far from Ravka, far from the Darkling and his mad crusade. Instead, she awoke in Os Alta to a devastating truth: the war was won nearly a century ago, h...
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.
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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.
