When is it Enough

Chapter 13 - Someone Waiting

Aleksander never had time for religion. At best, religion had been wary of his existence, and he of it in return. At worst, well, the Soldat Sol weren't the first to try to kill him, they just had the most success at it.

And as far as he was aware- though he hadn't had time to really check in about two hundred years- while the monks of the Holy Six weren't outright hostile to Grisha, they were more than a healthy amount wary of his people. Six, like the Faith in Ravka, almost certainly owed its roots to a handful of especially powerful Grisha, though they were loathe to admit that their Ancients were any less than gods. They misliked the implication that Grisha had any resemblance to the Ancients and outright forbade the practice of the Small Science.

Which is why he hesitated to cross the threshold into the monastery. Alina had assured him of the Abbot's good intentions, but that paranoid voice in the back of his mind- the one he had honed so well as the Darkling- warned him against trusting who could not wield Grisha power, much less someone who would call themselves holy.

As he was wont to do when he was nervous, Aleksander clenched and unclenched his fist, flexing the finely toned tendons in his knuckles. He could feel the corporalki watching with unease, which only served to amplify his own anxieties.

He'd barely spoken to them on their trek through the jungle. In all fairness, they'd had to set quite a pace to make it to the temple by dawn, and the Grisha were malnourished, tired, and bore the scars of months of abuse. Still, the boy who died in the foyer wouldn't leave the space behind Aleksander's eyelids, and he knew the others felt the same way.

The boy had been afraid of Aleksander. He'd died because Aleksander failed to gain his trust. Aleksander should've been the first one out that door, and the boy should've made it to freedom.

But now his body sits under a ton of stone. Aleksander used the bombs he was supposed to use in lieu of his shadows to decimate the facility once everyone had made it out. He'd had to.

The parem Grisha had to be taken out.

Just the thought was enough to make him shudder. The windowless Grisha Steel cages. The small noises of someone alive and dying. The desperate calls for more.

Aleksander shook off the ghosts of the ones he couldn't save and stepped into the courtyard of the monastery, the Grisha he'd rescued following suit.

The walls surrounding the courtyard were neat and well kept. For a building nestled in a jungle, there was surprisingly little lichen growing in between the white-painted bricks. The gate's solid oak doors were well-used but well-maintained, and the handles sported minimum rust. Stubborn weeds were determinedly kept from their quest to stretch through the cracks and gravel of the courtyard ground. Sturdy round red columns supported a sweeping green tiled roof that shimmered in the thin early morning sunshine. Birds called from stunted trees and flitted between the exposed rafters. Somewhere beyond the wall, leaves rustled and swished as some big cat went looking for its dinner.

The monastery as a whole was oddly peaceful. Aleksander didn't feel particularly safe, and yet an unfamiliar calm wound between his ribs. He let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding in. It reminded him of when he'd first seen the Little Palace.

And then he spotted an unexpected friend.

"Tolya?" Aleksander questioned his own eyes.

"Sasha!" the large man exclaimed, throwing his arms and bringing Aleksander in for a crushing hug.

Aleksander didn't know how to react. He stood stiff, and when Tolya didn't let go immediately, he brought his arms around to pat the man on the back, hoping that would trigger some release mechanism.