Out of Time - A Darklina Fanfic

Chapter 10

We set out from Os Alta two days later. I had asked if Natalia would come, but she was to stay at the Little Palace to supervise some Grisha trainees. She offered to find me other handmaidens, but I declined; I could dress myself, and it wasn't like the Darkling kept attendants. Instead, we were accompanied by a dozen oprichniki and a half-dozen Grisha: a retinue of Corporalki and, oddly enough, Squallers.

Being queen came with benefits and drawbacks. I hadn't packed my own trunk, nor had I done my own hair. Natalia pinned it up in tight, interwoven curls and tied a black scarf tightly around them, telling me to take the pins out when we arrived at our destination and run my fingers through my hair. "You can brush it once," she said, "but no more than once." Ominous, but I didn't argue.

I found a moment to slip away and tell the monster that I was leaving, but I would be back, although I wasn't sure it understood what either of those things meant. There was gnawing guilt when I looked in those intelligent black eyes, the wings made for flying. I was getting out, but it couldn't.

Of course, leaving the palace didn't mean I was free of my cage. I was reminded of that on the rainy evening when I was bundled into a long horseless carriage — car — with the Darkling and a third of his oprichniki guard. As we rumbled down the paved Os Alta streets, I looked out the window and turned my thoughts, out of exhaustion and obligation, toward escape. I could probably take care of the guards with the Cut, although it would be better to just blind them without killing. I wished I had my mirrored gloves.

The Darkling was an insurmountable hurdle, almost as much as not knowing where I could escape to. I sighed, and tried to ignore my rising nausea. I didn't like the car, the way I felt every bump of cobblestone, every pothole.

The train, though. The train was a different story.

It stood waiting for us on a private platform, all black metal and gilded seams and glass windows, linked cars that seemed infinite though I counted ten. One of them had a roof that seemed entirely made of Fabrikator-fortified glass, barely visible in the night. Steam hissed gently from the head of the train. It looked to me almost as impossible as a dragon, surely a feat that would have been unachievable in my lifetime. Ravka had trains, sure, limited rail networks meant to transport grain and troops, only just branching out. After all, my country was poor. It wasn't crisscrossed by railways.

I climbed out of the car when the door was opened for me, shielded from the rain by an oprichnik who held an umbrella above my head. The royal train was dotted with our symbols, alternating the sun and the sun in eclipse. A little on the nose, I thought, wrinkling mine. My power dwarfed by his, even if we were equally represented.

But even that wasn't enough to dampen the marvel of the train. The Darkling came up beside me, another oprichnik keeping his head dry with another raised umbrella. "What do you think?"

We hadn't spoken since the night he'd carried me back to my room, and this seemed like a strange overture, but I remembered him asking what I thought of the Grand Palace when I caught my first sight of it. Maybe I was also supposed to find the train hideous. "It's so..."

"Black?" he asked dryly, pulling on his gloves. "I assumed you would have complaints."

"Modern," I said, a breathless sigh. I couldn't help but stare at the train, at its sleek metal body, the shiny bolts holding it all together. I had never seen one up close before.

"And yet decades old. We should be in Kribirsk in thirty-six hours."

"A day and a half? That's it?" I knew all too well that days of hard riding were needed to reach Os Alta. My body ached faintly with remembrance.