Sun Queen

♛ Seventy-Seven ♛

                           ♛ Darkling POV ♛

The night is more bitter than our spirits. The sky hangs with a dead, dark gray color and the air would not still, a swarming sea of cold winds. No words are spoken, no glances exchanged. Everyone keeps exactly to themselves, the shock of the night's events rendering us all silent.

My heart may be heavy, but my chest is warm with the body of Alina curled inside it. I pull my shadows to hover around her head, gifting her with a dark escape from the deadened night. There's nothing more I want to do than run with her in my arms, out of this wagon, beyond this road, as far as I would need to go for her to be safe. And then even farther.

The need to get Alina away from danger was an insufferable itch in my heart and suppressing it took most of my mental power. I feel her head twitch slightly in the crook of my chest and my hand flies up immediately, cupping the back of her head. My fingers make slow strokes through her hair and I can feel the methodical movement slow my exhaustedly rushed mind.

Genya's kefta crinkles and she leans towards me. "Darkling?

It's the first words that have been spoken in nearly two hours so all fourteen pairs of eyes flick to us.

"Yes?" I murmur, watching Alina's strands of white slither like snakes through my fingers.

"What do we do now?" I can hear hollowness leak through Genya's voice.

Her question makes me realize that with Alina asleep, the survivors have to turn to me for answers. I'm luckily prepared, every moment my mind drifted from Alina I was thinking over what to do.

I lift my chin from Alina's head. "We need to make camp in the woods, not much farther so we can send scouts to assess what's left. Once we know all the details we can form a better plan."

It wasn't a real plan, not even the husk of one. But it would have to do for now. The man from Alina's war council, Oleg, I recall, was driving the wagon and at the end of my sentence he begins to lead the wagons into the woods. We stop in a clearing broken by thick, old roots.

I exit first, with Alina cradled in my arms. Without soft ground lay her down on, I stand in the clearing, clutching Alina a little tighter. Before confusion, panic, or exhaustion could set in, I set a hard gaze to the group.

"Genya, take three others of your choosing and ride the horses back to camp. If you don't return in an hour and a half, we'll leave and return to the Little Palace."

Genya is quick to choose, no doubt desperate to return and find that puppy dog eyed Materialki of hers. She leaves with both Heartrenders and one of the Inferni.

Without anything to do but wait, the remaining group makes for sore company. Alina wakes sometime when the sky lightens into a colorless hour.

"Aleksander?" She whispers, her voice trapped in the furs of my cloak.

I help set her down to her wobbling feet. I try to speak, but I fail when I see the pain weighing in Alina's eyes. The attack is a muzzle around everyone's mouth.

Except Alina's. "What happened? Where-Where are we?"

It didn't take long to explain what had happened since she fell asleep, given that it was uneventful. We stood together afterwards, leaning on each other to stand.

Genya returns quickly with an unreadable look. We all startle as she hops off her horse, striding forward in a clash of sorrow and relief.

"Well?" I ask.

Genya bobs her head, sorting out what she had seen in her mind. "Everyone else is gone, completely. The Fjerdans took them on caged wagons, twenty of them. They're headed towards Djerholm for a mass trial. The Grisha don't stand a chance."