Beautiful and Broken

6.

Our journey took us outside of the borders of Ravka, into a land called Fjerda, as hostile to mages as Ravka was only a few generations ago. I've learned that the practice of witch-hunting, outdated in all civilised parts of the world I knew, was still practiced here. It would have been a great opportunity to gather some information for my anthropologically inclined colleagues, if it wasn't for the unpleasantness of being burned.

Aleksander had a rendezvous point here with his loyal Grisha, for emergencies as the one we were apparently facing now. To get there, we first needed to acquire some means of transportation, horses seeming to be the most widely accepted and most easily accessible version. I only had some vague memories of how to ride one, but even though I would have preferred a carriage and my stipend from the Council would have permitted it, Aleksander was against it. It's slow, and it draws attention, he argued, and unfortunately there was a lot of logic to it.

He chose a black steed (how predictable, I thought when confronted with his choice), and I settled for a mare with the temper and constitution closely resembling a couch. Of course his riding was effortless and elegant, while I was struggling to convince my horse to stop paying attention to the grass at roadside and start cooperating with me. By the evening, I had come to an agreement with the mare, but I had trouble sitting down for dinner. 

Fortunately while in Novyi Zem, I have experienced how people ate and drank half laying down on an array of pillows next to appropriately short-legged tables, so I simply pretended to have picked up some exotic customs. If Aleksander noticed, he had enough common sense to keep quiet about it. As a matter of fact, he followed my example and laid down himself next to the fire I summoned. I still found it mind-boggling how the mage who could create the Fold or summon shadow gholems out of it could only light a fire by using matches.

"So why are you suddenly a traitor now, if you haven't been one before?", I asked him.

He frowned.

"I'm just making conversation. Trust me, you don't want me to start singing."

"Way to make conversation, Altair."

But I was still looking at him expectantly, and he had to explain it to me sooner or later anyway, so he gave in.

"I've lived for hundreds of years. I've served countless kings, one imbecile after another, waiting, biding my chance to change Ravka, to give my Grisha the peace and safety they deserve. I've staged my death, I've returned as my own son to continue what I've started, and a few dozens of years ago, aided by the grandfather of our present king who happened to be in possession of something resembling an intellect, I've created the Second Army, next to the already existing one made of regular soldiers. 

Suddenly Grisha were not regarded as abominations, but as soldiers, and most useful ones at that. I was allowed to search for children with Grisha powers, to bring them to the capital, to train them. But there was still a king giving me orders, a king without magic, always in favour of his kind, not capable of understanding how Grisha could change the fate of this country if only given a chance. My Second Army was squandered in his stupid wars, my young Grisha dying for his whims, and I was done with waiting patiently for my time to finally come.

Then the Sun Summoner was discovered. A Grisha who could summon light, the first one with a power that in time could have been equal to mine, the one whose help I needed to shape this land into its best version."

"You've been planning a coup?"

"I wanted to scare the king enough to give me free rein, and to terrorise our enemies into submission, so that the wars could finally cease. So I searched for an amplifier for the Sun Summoner, I gave her Morozova's stag, and I gave them a demonstration of what the two of us could do with the Fold."

He paused, stopped looking at me and lowered his eyes instead. I wondered if this was the part that I have witnessed from afar, the one that was not my business. I wondered if now he was debating with himself how much of it he needed to make my business. I waited silently, not being in the mood for another pissing contest between mages. I was expecting to see anger in his eyes when he finally looked, up. Instead I saw a deep sadness.

"And then it all went to hell. The Sun Summoner turned against me, she fled and abandoned everyone who was on that skiff. And you've been there for the rest of it."

I was quite certain that he was omitting crucial parts, but there was nothing I could do about it. I could have pushed him if he was angry, in the worst case I would have had to fight off some shadows. I couldn't push someone engulfed by pain. He looked like he needed a hug, but the best I could do was to try to take his mind off it.

"What are you planning to do next?", I asked him.

"Planning? You think I'm able to do that right now?"

"You look like the kind who always has a plan."

"We need to get to my hiding spot in one piece. Hopefully some of my Grisha are already there. And when we get there, I gather an army, and I find the Sun Summoner. I have my ways of convincing her to cooperate."

I was quite sure that by convincing he didn't mean a heart-to-heart conversation.