Where The Spirit Meets The Bone

Sixty-one: Baghra Morozova

Sixty-one:

Baghra Morozova

She had seen her son live many lives. Too many to count. She had watched him fall, and fail, and make the wrong choices over and over again. Baghra Morozova knew what her son was. He was a power hungry bastard who shouldn't have been allowed to live. In the past lives, she had even taken matters into her own hands and killed him if she needed to. But Aleksander had changed this time. It was not all bravado. He was in love with Alina, he cared about their life together, and he would do anything to keep it.

"Get away from my son, Genya," she demanded of the tailor, "I don't want to hurt you but I will."

Genya glowered at her. "How can you?" she said. "You know what he is! He is a monster. Just because he has a baby, that's not going to change things. I was a girl when he gifted me as a child to the Queen! Look at what happened! It does not matter if he is in a different time, or a duplicate, or whatever. The Darkling is always going to be part of him. There is no difference between him and Aleksander."

"That is where you are wrong," Baghra said, "you know I don't suffer fools, girl. If I thought for one second that my son was a danger----"

From the ground where Aleksander had fallen from his wound and was bleeding out, he moaned in pain. "Genya," he said, "I don't want to hurt anyone. All I want is my family, all I want is Alina." He was clutching at his wound which was bleeding now.

"Alina thinks you are going to do something with the grisha," said Genya, "she told me herself. She wanted me to look into her powers because she's frightened of what you might do if you find out that you have them."

"I want to help my country," said Aleksander, "and that includes grisha, but not at their expense. I know the difference now."

"You are still a monster!" Genya hissed. "And you deserve to pay for the things that you did."

"He already has, Miss Safin," said Baghra, "or didn't you understand what The Fold was? It was Aleksander, and all of the times his heart was broken by his country, by his people, by himself. The reason the fold comes and goes as it pleases now is that Aleksander has let himself heal. He has let himself open to love. If you kill him now, just before he has found the true meaning of love, The Fold will never heal. It will always be there. But if you let him live, and let him continue to grow with Alina, and his children.... eventually The Fold will be the thing of nightmares. Something that only exists in between the waking and the sleeping."

Genya dropped the bloodied knife in her hand and crumpled to the ground. "I'm sorry. I.... I couldn't let there be two of them. The idea that there was another one out there somewhere along with my own----"

"Genya," said Baghra softly, "what are you talking about?"

"He's the one that brought me here," said Genya, "from our time. He said that if I brought him here, it would be enough for him to destroy The Fold, so I did. He's in the room with Alina right now."

"No!" Aleksander called out. "No, you don't know what you've done----"

The clock was ticking. The clock was getting louder. Baghra looked down at her son. "He's time travelled," said Baghra, "he's taking her back to the past to destroy The Fold there, instead of letting it get smaller over time. But what time is he from?"

"The beginning," said Genya, "the first time Alina was at The Little Palace. When you started changing things, he started having dreams. He knew Alina was coming this time around. He knew about Mal. He...."

"What did he do, girl?" Baghra demanded.

"In my time, he killed Mal. He made Alina fall in love with him. But she found out and ran away. When he figured out the time travel, he had David build his own magic clock so that he could come here. He intends to steal Alina from here and use her to destroy The Fold. He promised me that if I gave him enough time to do that, if I killed him here, it would kill him in the past because the two of you were the same person."

Baghra's eyes widened in horror. "You foolish girl! Aleksander is not the same as The Darkling from your time. David duplicated them so that they could help him find a time where he could have peace of mind, and The Fold could die out, and he got to love Alina without the complications of having to fight it and save Ravka. You have now given him not only Alina, but her child, and returned him to the point where he was most powerful. He will destroy everything! Including our time!"

"I didn't know," said Genya, "I don't know how any of this works. All I know is----"

"I'm sorry," Aleksander rasped, "Genya, I am sorry for the pain that I have caused you in this time or any other. I didn't understand how my darkness affected others, I thought that because my cause was for my people it made it right. I know now that darkness, no matter the reason, only begets more darkness. But you must help me. You must help me bring my wife and my child back, and destroy him."

"You are wounded," said Baghra, "you cannot go anywhere, and you won't do anyone any good dead. We're going to need some help."

"Who's going to help me?" Alekesander rasped.

"I can think of a few irritating souls who might," Baghra said, "you there, girl, help me carry him to a bed. We need to make sure he doesn't bleed out. We've a happy ending to fix."