Saints and Sinners

Thirty-one:

Thirty-one:

Alina felt strange, not going to class, or working. But she could tell from the way that Aleksander actually slept in that he was tired. She was tempted to stay in bed with him, but she got up, and she went to the kitchen where she found Ivan making them breakfast. "Morning, Alina," he said with a smile on his face.

"Morning."

"Where's Aleksander?" he asked.

She sat down at the kitchen island and leaned across it with a grin. "Sleeping in."

Ivan stopped chopping the cilantro he was cutting up for the scrambled eggs that he was making. "You're shitting me."

Alina smiled. "I most definitely am not. He was sound asleep like a baby which after last night we---"

Ivan grinned. "Did you finally fuck?"

Alina blushed. "It's not that big of a deal, is it?"

"I mean, you are without a doubt the sweetest girl that I've ever met. I was kind of surprised you didn't kill him the first week." He waggled his eyebrows. "Also, Feydor owes me 20 Kruge."

Alina frowned. "You two bet on how long it would be before we had sex?"

Ivan smirked. "I said one month. Fedyor said that you would probably go to The Apparat to see about removing the Blessing once you found out about everything that happened with Alexie."

Alina frowned "What do you mean, what happened with Alexie?"

Ivan coughed. "Didn't Aleksander tell you about how this all started? Like with Alexie? And that was part of why Matthias went to go check on Hanne to see what was happening with her?"

Alina stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

Ivan flinched. "Maybe I've said too much."

"No, you've said just enough because I didn't know anything about this. How long as Aleksander known about this whole thing?"

"A few weeks, at least," Ivan said, "Alexie's our nephew. We came to Aleksander because he got locked up because he got a Blessing from the Saints and that Blessing was Hanne. But Hanne's father didn't like that Alexie was from Ravka. He had him arrested, and tried to have him declared insane because he told the stad watch that he was stalking his daughter."

"How did he manage to convince the stad watch of that?" Alina asked. "Wouldn't Hanne still have her Blessing too?"

Ivan winced. "Yeah, I don't think I'm supposed to tell you the next part."

"What's the next part?" Alina asked. "Ivan, tell me the next part or I'm taking all of your cookware and tossing it."

"NO!" Ivan said. "Aleksander got me the fancy kind that I can't afford in my real life."

"Then TELL ME what the next part is."

Ivan sighed. "Hanne's father paid The Apparat to remove her Blessing, and then he had her institutionalized. Apparently, that's something that can be done for the right price."

Alina was very quiet for a moment.

Ivan squinted at her. "Alina, are you okay? You like you're going to----"

"MOROZOVA!" Alina shouted. "GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE!"

Ivan coughed. "It's time for my break."

"Stay right there, Kaminsky," Alina ordered, "you aren't going anywhere."

Ivan winced. "So close."

Alina heard stumbling, and then Aleksander came into the kitchen. "Alina, what in the Saints name are you shouting for? Is everything okay?"

Ivan was hiding behind the kitchen island.

Aleksander frowned. "What did you do to Ivan? Why does he look like a child playing hide-n-seek?"

"Possibly because I want to kill him because of the information that was just given to me. Which means when he tells me the information that was given to me, to you, you are probably going to want to kill him too."

"I THOUGHT SHE KNEW. YOU'RE ALL MR. REDEEMED NOW," said Ivan, "I FIGURED YOU'D TELL LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE THE TRUTH."

Aleksander furrowed his brows together. "The truth? The truth about what?"

"The truth about Alexie and Hanne," Alina said, "and how Jarl Brum had his daughters blessing removed."

Aleksander sighed. "I didn't tell you because there's nothing to tell."

"What do you mean?" Alina demanded. "Matthias died, and Nina is still alive. And somehow she has Hanne's mark on her."

"There's no way to remove a mark. Nina still has Matthias's. You know what Brum did to make Hanne think that the mark had been removed?"

"I don't know. You don't tell me anything."

Aleksander glared at her. "Alright. You want to know the kind of horrors Hanne Brum went through? Her father had The Apparat cut out the piece of skin with Alexie's name on it, and then he burned her so that it was impossible to see it. Hanne wrote Nina's name on her wrist with Blessed ink she stole from The Apparat when she was a teenager. That's why her name appeared on Nina's wrist."

"But Nina didn't have that before," Alina reminded him, "I watched it get burned onto her skin, exactly like a blessing."

"The Blessed Ink is fake. It mimics a Blessing, but it is not a true Blessing. Blessings are given, not forced."

"What will happen to Nina and Hanne then?"

Aleksander ran his hand through his hair. "I don't know. This has never happened before."

"Nina is still alive though."

"Yes," said Aleksander, "but she's also been sick, and so has Hanne. That's why the trial hasn't even taken place yet. We don't even know if she's going to be alive for it."

"Hanne's sick? But I thought you said that she used the Blessed ink when she was a teenager. If Hanne was sick, wouldn't that have taken place sooner?"

"Her father had her drink Blessed ink every day to make her build an immunity to it."

"But Blessed ink.... I thought..." she made a face. "I thought that was one of those things the church sold to tourists."

"It is, but it also has the blood of Saints in there. That's why Hanne's still alive. That's the only reason Hanne is still alive. I'm sorry I kept it from you Alina, but I'm not sorry I didn't give you false hope."

"I honor my Blessings, Aleksander. I promised you I would. I'm just hurt that you didn't trust me to tell me what was going on with my own friends."

"My darling----"

"No," Alina shook her head, "you don't get to do that. Not after you kept secrets from me."

"Come on, Alina," he said, "come on malyshka, please don't be like that, baby girl. All I'm trying to do is to keep you safe."

He walked over to her, took her in his arms, and started nuzzling her neck as he massaged her breast through her nightgown. "Such a pretty girl, and I just want to keep her safe. Can you blame me, Alinochka?"

Alina groaned and swatted him away. "Ivan's still here."

"Sorry Ivan," Aleksander apologized.

Ivan chuckled from where he had popped up behind the kitchen island. "It's okay. I can enjoy the show."

Aleksander shook his head. "No one gets to look at her but me."

Alina blushed. "Then, you'd better take me back to our room."