Where The Spirit Meets The Bone

One: Alina Starkov

One

Alina Starkov

There was a knocking on her door.

"Alina?" a maid's voice called.

From underneath her covers, eighteen-year-old Alina Starkov groaned. "Go away."

"Miss Starkov, your father is requesting your presence. You know that tonight is the ball. You're supposed to be dressed and ready."

Alina wasn't dressed and ready. The very last place Alina wanted to be was at the ball to welcome Prince Nikolai back from University. "It's summer," said Alina, "I shouldn't have to go."

"It's summer, which means Prince Nikolai is home, and he's requested your presence tonight. You know that you're supposed to be there."

Alina groaned again. "Please just let me sleep."

"Miss Starkov, the Duke-----"

There was silence, then the sound of the door being swung open. "Why aren't you up, girl?" Duke Keramasov demanded. "You know that your presence has been requested at the palace party tonight."

Alina sat up, glaring at the man that was supposed to be her father. Her mother had been a girl he had met in college. She had spent most of her childhood raised by him, until she was a teenager had her Mom had gotten into a car accident forcing the Duke to take full guardianship of her.

His response had been to ship her off to boarding school until she was of age. When she was at home for the summer, he had used her as a political bargaining chip, taking advantage of the fact that Prince Nikolai had taken a liking to her. He was trying, desperately, to make her a Princess of Ravka.

Alina had fun with Nikolai, but the idea of being a Princess seemed absurd to her. That, and he had a strange, on again off again relationship with Zoya Nazyalensky, who father was the Prime Minister. Alina had gone to high school with the girl, and she had done things like steal her date for prom and start rumors about who she had and hadn't slept with. Which had been no one since she was a virgin.

That wouldn't stop her so called father from trying to sell her off like some kind of prize. "You are getting dressed," the Duke ordered, "and then you are going, whether or not I have to have your guard drag you there or not."

Alina took a deep breath. "Alright. Fine. I'll get up."

The Duke glanced at the maid, who was still standing in the doorway, looking like a terrified deer as she watched the Duke yell at her. "Do something with her hair!" he barked. He stormed out, when he was gone, Alina shared a look with the maid.

Stella had worked for The Duke since she was fifteen. She was a pretty, blond girl in her mid-twenties. "He's terrifying when he yells."

"You're right," Alina said, "I suppose I'd better get up."

"I don't understand----aren't you engaged to the Prince? That's what everyone is saying. Shouldn't you be happy that he's home?"

Alina sighed. "Father would like for me to be engaged to him. He's a friend. We went to school together, at the Ravka Royal Academy. We've gone on dates before, but it's never been serious."

Alina got up off of the bed. "I'll get dressed, go take care of the rest of your chores, Stella. I'm sorry for the inconvenience."

Stella smiled. "It's alright. Thank you, Miss Starkov."

Stella swept from the room, closing the door. Once she was gone. Alina changed out the pajama's that she had been in since that morning. She had thought she could manage to hide. But if Nikolai was coming home, Alina didn't stand a chance at hiding anywhere. The dress that she was supposed to wear was blue, with golden embroidery, and it was hanging up on her door. She slipped it on, then she went to her vanity, brushed out her hair, and put on a bit of lipstick.

There was a knock on the door. "Miss Starkov?" this time it wasn't Stella that was calling her. It was the deep voice of Mal Oretsev, the guard that her father had hired for her since coming home.

If anyone asked, Alina was technically a bastard. She'd been born out of wedlock. Her mother had never married her father. If not for her mother being in the car accident, she would still be in her home of Keramazin. She would only know her father through the monthly pay checks that he sent.

Instead, Alina was being forced to be a pawn.

If it were up to her, she would have stayed in the countryside. She would have been a schoolteacher or something simple. Lived in a nice little cottage. Had a garden in the back. But her father's grand ambitions instead meant she was forced to events she didn't want to go to, with a guard she didn't think that she needed.

Fortunately for her, Mal Oretsev was an old friend from school who was a year older than her that had been looking for work. He had been a scholarship student at the Royal Academy, and when the Duke had decided to hire a guard he'd gone to him first. He had brown hair, brilliant blue eyes, and the kind of smile that made other people smile.

Mal let out a whistle. "Well, look at you Starkov," he said, "you look beautiful."

She blushed. "Thanks, Mal."

"So, are the rumors true?"

Alina raised an eyebrow. "What rumors?"

"Oh," said Mal, "you haven't heard?"

"No. Heard what?"

"There's rumors that Nikolai is going to propose. I saw Zoya today for a lunch date, and it was all she could talk about. How the two of you are supposedly on the way to getting married."

Alina frowned. "I haven't heard anything like that. No. It's not true. Nikolai's never said that he wants to marry me, and my father----" she hesitated.

Her father barely knew her. The first time he had introduced her to Nikolai, he had said, "Your highness, may I present to you your future wife."

Nikolai had laughed and made a joke of it, as he was good at. Alina hadn't thought it was funny though. Those words had haunted her ever since she had heard them. But she couldn't tell her father that wasn't what she wanted. He was her soul source of income. She had no job, no experience, and no money.

She wouldn't inherit her trust fund until she was twenty-five. She had to survive the next few years without getting married off. Then, she would be completely free to do what she wanted when she wanted.

Mal saw her face and coughed. "Well, maybe Zoya heard wrong."

"Maybe," Alina said with a nod.

"Well, let's get you to the ball, Princess."

Alina grimaced. "Don't you dare call me that."

Mal smirked. "Prin---"

"I will hit you," she said.

He coughed, just as Alina's father came up the stairs. Duke Keramasov looked formidable in a stylish, Armani suit as he strode towards her.

"No makeup?" he said, looking her up and down.

"I put on lipstick," Alina said.

 He rolled his eyes. "It will do, I suppose. Come on. We're late."