{BOOK 3/3 of The Triumvariate Trilogy}
What it darkness was a place? A place where creatures that ruled nightmares flew about. And what if it was created out of spite and greed by a dangerous man with a purpose?
It has been almost two centuries sinc...
The entire ride towards the Little Palace, the Darkling had one thing running in his mind. Or one person, to be more specific.
The Sun Summoner was real.
But so was the Morana.
Alina was a Cartographer, which wasn't much different from her hobby. "You have a good hand." He remembered exactly how surprised she looked when the words had left his mouth. She was surprised that he was talking to her when there was no one else around.
He should have been careful, but his heart betrayed him.
What if Alina was another trick? What if she had intended for him to be vulnerable about every hope that he had about saving Ravka? That would be the biggest punishment that she could ever give him. But would she do that?
She had been his answer and he only needed to talk to her again. But she was the ghost of the past that echoed in his brain. She was his burden to live with.
There was a change in the course of the journey that made the Darkling realise that something was wrong. One look at the forest cover, he realised that the Fjerdan spies that he had been warned about were heading for his carriage.
"No." He whispered, remembering her face.
He hit the reins of Destrier and headed to find her. He was searching for that familiar pull of energy but found nothing. Alina wasn't her but there had to be something. There had to be a residual energy that he could catch onto.
And he found it.
He sensed her fear right as he was in the cover of the trees. Anger boiled him when he saw his soldiers taking cover behind a tree because the Fjerdans had bested them with smoke bombs filled with jurda. The smell was hard not to recognise. He had been tortured with a similar tonic in the past.
His eyes searched the place for the raven-haired girl, and when he saw a druskelle in the lower part of the valley with a knife above his head, the Darkling acted out. He brought his hands together, the sounds of thunder taking over his veins.
He used the Cut.
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The man fell backwards. Thank goodness, the Darkling thought. Otherwise cleaning up the mess would have been really hard. He walked towards the girl who was staring wide-eyed at the three pieces of the Fjerdan's body.
"Alina, look at me." She averted her eyes to see him and his heart melted. They had the same irises for sure. "We'll take the southern trails." It was what he should have done at first but he was a coward, because that was where her camp had once been located. He still remembered every detail from that day.
"So you do make mistakes."
The Darkling stopped pulling on his gloves. For a second, he thought that....no, he was hallucinating her into his thoughts. "Of course I make mistakes." He remembered the time he had accidentally pushed himself and her into the Hand when she had shown him the waterfall, telling him that he was the first to lay eyes on it. "Just not often."
He let Alina ride with him, not only to protect her from any other potential threat, because he remembered what she had wished for. No innocent should die at the hands of Grisha. The Darkling found himself looking at the orphan girl occasionally because he was considering his luck.
Could Alina have been another reincarnation of her?
He scoffed. He couldn't even bring himself to mention her name. That was how big of a coward that he was. Their secret would die with him because among all the secrets that he had, this was the most precious and important one.
Sitting by the fire during one of the stops, the Darkling found himself staring into the embers of the fire. He was warming up his hands but he could see the ghost of the artist that she once was sitting before him.
That was when Alina sat in the exact space that he had been imagining her to be seated at. He was observing her without being too obvious. She had the same ivory hair, the same black irises and the same smile.
"What are you smiling at?" The words were out of his mouth before he realised it. He needed to get to know her, because what if she was his chance at redemption? The irony of the situation wasn't new to him but what if she was his way to meeting Adaline Chernoff again? "Are you that funny?"
"I'm hilarious."
This can't be happening, the Darkling thought. No matter how many coincidences came his way, this couldn't be happening.
"I'm not Grisha."
There it was. There was the denial that he had been looking for. Isn't that what Adaline was claiming from the beginning? That she wasn't Grisha? Well, she had been right. She wasn't Grisha, but she had been the Morana of Life....which did not change her fate either way.
And when Alina asked him why he had used the Cut in a sort of accusing manner, he could only hear Adaline. You shouldn't have asked him to do it in the first place. But that wasn't the answer that came out of Alina's mouth.
"I don't know."
He tried not to look disappointed but Alina had somehow failed and passed the test at the same time. He shifted his thoughts elsewhere and tried to distract himself.
Two days later, they reached Os Alta and the Little Palace. The Darkling did not talk to Alina during that time because how could he? He was seeing the reflection of a ghost in her eyes that he had been hiding from....that he had mistook to be in one of his most trusted Grisha.
It wasn't shame that engulfed him every time he saw the two Summoners. It was hatred. He hated himself for having been so weak to mistake Zoya to have been Adaline's reincarnation. Was he going to make the same mistake with Alina?
He didn't know.
Once the Grisha were inside the safe gates, the Darkling brought his horse, Destrier, beside Alina's. "So what do you think of it?" He was going to continue to test her the way he should have to Zoya. He was going to get answers to prevent himself from getting blinded by the real truth.
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He was hoping that she would say the exact same words that Adaline once had, but found himself slightly relieved and disappointed when she didn't. "I think it's the ugliest building I've ever seen." He said and nudged his horse forward.
Alina had failed and passed that test once again, because her answer hadn't matched with what he had lived through. She couldn't be Adaline. She wasn't. But she could be, and the Darkling remembered his vow.
