The Starry Sky - A Darkling/General Kirigan Prequel

17

He wanted to feel her skin beneath his hands, trace the curves of her hips, run his fingers through her golden hair, and to know that she was all his. Know that he could keep her safe until her dying breath.

So, he rode into the night, hoping against hope that he'd find her family. Desperate as they may be to leave the country, he knew they wouldn't travel through the night, and by then they'd probably gotten as far as Kribirsk if they were following the Vy. Maybe he didn't know what he'd do when he found them, certain that he would, or maybe he did. Perhaps he left the Little Palace that night with his grandfather on his mind, his fantasies spooling out into the black sky, propelled by rage. His greed manifesting into something corporeal, a being that followed his footsteps and cajoled him for weakness. His mother, maybe, her voice shrill on the wind, telling him that he was a leader, that he could be the most powerful person to live.

The night was solitary around him, he was in the middle of nowhere, moving through the night along cobbled streets. He'd travelled the Vy hundreds of times before, though usually he was with a troop of Grisha and carriages, not alone save for his horse. He could tell you where every side road took you, the fastest route to which city, and how long it would take to get there. 300 years of learning accumulated in his head, guiding him west to the sea, weaving in and out of towns and villages along the way, just to make sure he wouldn't pass them.

Being alone with his thoughts was a dreary experience, but one he'd become used to. His head was a wonderful thing, he supposed, it contained millennia, secrets, ideas so obscure that he may have been the only person to know them. And yet, it was his falling grace, his tragic flaw. Everything that happened in there was catastrophic, no thoughts were neutral, instead they teetered on the extreme, hung on the impossible. How could he kill a king? How could he make his mother proud? How could he keep Anna by his side when he knew that it could only ever be him alone?

It was like a battleground. He was so familiar with the feeling that most of the time he forgot it wasn't normal. But then he'd look at Anna, or Ade, and they'd seem at peace, as if every second of their life wasn't a vicious grab for power, or a stand to prove that you were not to be fooled with. They weren't cracking under the threat of gunfire. They were huddled away in the trenches, safe from the battle raging on around them. Aleksander knew he couldn't hate them for that - he didn't, but he so badly wanted to cry out and beg for their help. He wanted to be able to trip up and have someone waiting with their hand outstretched. He was so tired of having something to prove.

Another town approached, some lights left on even though it was early in the morning. They twinkled like golden stars, cresting the horizon, welcoming wanderers. Aleksander slowed his horse to a trot, steering around bends and looking for taverns or boarding houses. When he found them he'd dismount and look for the coaches he so intently watched Anna's family retreat to. When he found nothing he'd feel as relieved as he felt angry, glad that he had more time, but furious that they were still out of his grasp.

He began to walk back to his horse, which he'd so diligently tied to a post, pulling his cloak around him. It made him blend into the shadows, not that he needed to when he could just create some of his own, making his heart rate still. There was a Suli proverb he liked, but he couldn't remember it; something about actions having echoes. He liked the thought, but shied away from it. He wanted no echo to whatever he did, so he made sure that whatever he did was unseen, unheard. Untraceable. Until that day.

The horse's reins had tangled a bit too much somehow, so Aleksander spent longer than he would have liked trying to free them. It was a warm summer night, so many people left their windows open, something Aleksander may not have noted, had he not heard the soft pad of footsteps, and then the rustling of curtains being pulled away. To his right a boy appeared, holding back the drapes from his window. Aleksander startled, he hadn't made any noise, at least not enough to wake someone. Curiously, the boy squinted at the man, his eyes surveying.