How the Game is Played

I

Alina's eyes fluttered open. Head pounding and muscles aching, she groggily pushed herself to her elbows, the heel of her palms rubbing her eyes. It wasn't until her hand dropped onto the bedsheets that swathed her did she realise where she was. Black silk had wrapped itself around her body, upon the dark wood bed under the constellations cast into the high ceiling. It was Aleksander's room.

Her mind reeled, and she was confident that it was all a mistake, a simple hallucination. Grasping at every memory she could muster from that final battle in the Fold, Alina tried to piece together exactly what had happened. Mal had been on the floor bleeding out, and she'd been helpless to stop it. She'd watched countless Second Army soldiers perish, along with those fighting with the Soldat Sol. Nikolai had been there too, although she'd only caught brief glimpses of him as he flew in and out of the light she'd cast. And of course, at the centre of it all, had been him.

Aleksander was always the centre of the chaos. But she was the one who'd driven the knife into his chest, a direct aim for his heart as the nichevo'ya had closed in around her, snuffing out the light, her own world going dark. She knew she'd stabbed him, but she hadn't watched him die. However, she had watched the life leak from Mal's body, his final act in an attempt to save her.

Suddenly, hot tears were forming at the corners of her eyes as she frantically kicked the sheets off of her, a feeling of minor disgust rolling through her body as she looked down upon the black slip she had been dressed in. This was all wrong, why was she in Aleksander's room, his bed, when she should be with Genya, David, even Zoya, celebrating their victory and the distraction of the Fold?

"That would be because there was no victory for the rebels to celebrate, moya solnste," a cold voice replied from just beyond the shadows of a far corner. Alina's breath caught in her throat and the Darkling walked forth, donning his black kefta and a barely noticeable limp. She wasn't entirely sure what concerned her more, seeing him alive and in the flesh, or the fact he was able to reply to something she'd only thought.

"It is a strange predicament, isn't it Alina," he agreed, coming to stop at the foot of the bed, "Possibly a result of the completion of your amplifier collection."

In the few moments she'd been awake, Alina hadn't noticed the absence of that feeling of incompletion. Looking down to her previously bare wrist, it was all she could do to not scream until her throat was raw. A gold cuff now encircled her hand, set with shards of polished bone.

Mal's.

"You monster," she forced out, the disgust she'd felt now hitting her at full force, but directed to herself even more so.

He raised an eyebrow, infuriately still unharmed even after a battle, "I wouldn't make such rash accusations, Sankta," he chided, "after all, I wasn't the one to kill the otkazat'sya, Were you or were you not the one who held the knife, the very same knife you then turned on me? Doesn't sound all too saintly to me."

A choked sob escaped her, not in grief but shame. He was right, despite Mal's insistence that it was his sacrifice to make, she had been the one to deliver the final blow. And now she wore his bones to increase her own power whilst he was undoubtedly left to rot in a mass battle grave.

"But, the Fold-" she began, only to be waved off promptly.

"Still stands," Aleksander smirked, "The Sun Summoner was no match for merzost, and promptly passed out from exertion. I put it down to inadequate training due to the same Sun Summoner's habit for running away from those who try to elevate her."

She ignored the jab at her weakness and tendency to try and escape his clutches, still trying to wrap her head around what she was witnessing. Him, seemingly uninjured aside from what could just be a strained muscle, staring down upon her on his bed. "And you, I tried-"