Saints and Sinners

Thirty-four:

Thirty-four:

"Nina---wake up, lovely Nina." The voice that was talking to her was charming, laced with silk. She recognized that voice. It was Aleksander's voice, but there was something different about it. Her eyes fluttered open, and she saw a man in a black kefta standing before her. It was an old, military uniform from the days of when Ravka was an autocracy. Nina was still in the safe house, but she noticed there was an unconscious woman in the corner. A woman that wasn't Alina, who was the last person Nina remembered visiting her.

"Who---in the Saints name-----are you?" Nina said. Nina tried to sit up, and immediately; the room swayed. She was on her couch, she realized.

"Aleksander Morozova," the grey-eyed, dark-haired stranger in the kefta replied.

"No. No you aren't. I know Aleksander Morozova." Nina placed a hand on her temples. The pounding from her head wouldn't stop. "You are.... you're something."

The man before her smirked. "I guess I should be clearer. I'm not the Aleksander Morozova you know. I'm the first Aleksander Morozova."

"The first?" Nina shook her head.

Aleksander nodded. "Surely you know your Ravkaan history, Miss Zenik. The Tsar and The Tsarita took in a man that claimed to be Blessed, who had powers that he used to keep him safe. Creating the First Army, the one that was disbanded when the revolution came because everyone thought that they were witches."

Nina's eyes widened. "You can't be him. You'd have to be----"

"Centuries old?" he smiled. "I am. It's a bit hard to die when your soul has been taken from you."

Nina blinked and tried to focus on the room to get it to stop spinning. Aleksander----or the man who claimed to be a version of Aleksander----however that worked----walked over to the kitchen and got her a glass of water. She took it from it and downed it, and it helped her headache subside a little. "What are you talking about? Not a single word that you're saying is making sense. Who is the woman that's knocked unconscious?"

"Ah," Aleksander glanced at her, "that's Luda. She's an old lover of mine."

"An old lover?" Nina said. "Why did she look like----"

"Like your friend Alina?" Aleksander said. "For you to understand everything, that is an awfully long tale. But it's imperative to keeping you and Hanne alive and out of jail, Miss Zenik. I know it might be hard to listen to but it does hold the key to everything."

"Will you stop talking like a character in a fantasy novel?" Nina took another sip of her water. "I'm

"You live in a world with soulmates Blessed by Saints, Miss Zenik. I would think that you would be a bit more understanding of things not meant to be understood in this world."

"I'm a doctor. Or I'm trying to be one. I don't go looking for things that are out of the ordinary. I make the out of the ordinary.... ordinary," Nina said, "I make people understand what's going on with them. I don't have people explain things to me."

Aleksander took a seat in the chair across from her. Off to the side, the woman that he had declared was his ex-wife moaned.

"Is she alright?" Nina asked.

"She's fine," he said cavalierly, waving his hand.

"She's unconscious. That's not fine."

"She's centuries old. She's immortal because of a spell she cast on us. Of course, she didn't count on the whole thing backfiring and creating this mess that we have now."

"A spell?" Nina raised an eyebrow. "I feel like you are leaving some stuff out."

"Ah. Yes, well. In old Ravka----back when there as still a King and Queen---the Blessed were persecuted. I managed to convince the Tsar and the Tsarita that we were magic, and that we should be protected. The woman that you see there, she helped me with my little charade. She used her magic to convince the Tsar and the Tsarita that we had powers. Every year, at Solstice, they would have a Winter Fete. It was there that we would present our 'powers' to the royal family to remind them of our worth. Now, I had been marked for a long time, but my soulmate had yet to appear. Until one day I was helping out with some children at an orphanage, and I heard a young woman singing. The minute she saw me, she doubled over in pain as she was made Blessed."

"But you----you said something about you not having a soul?"

"I'm getting to that. You see that----shrew----had become obsessed with me. She thought that she was entitled to me, because she had been helping me with the charade I'd set up with the palace. What she did was, she helped to make the revolution happen. She used her magic to cast a spell spreading hate, and distrust, and the commoners turned against us and the royal family. But death wasn't good enough for her when it came to me and all of the hurt, that she insisted I caused."

"She cast a spell to make it so that you were stuck as an immortal?"

"Worse," he said, "she cast a spell ripping the souls of everyone that was in The Little Palace to be doomed to repeat history over and over until I decided that I would give up my mark to my Alina. For as long as I kept Alina's mark, she would keep my soul and Alina's captured to where neither one of us could be with each other."

Nina pressed her cool glass to her forehead. "Does that mean the Alina I know is somehow your Alina?"

Aleksander shook his head. "No, my Alina is trapped. Being held hostage by Luda somewhere that she won't tell me. Aleksander and the Alina that you know are two people that are actually Blessed. Aleksander is one of my descendants, as I said. I've been around for centuries. It was impossible for me not to have dalliances, given that I'm several hundred years-old."

"But you have a soulmate."

"A soulmate that is trapped, without a body. I'm still a man, Miss Zenik."

Nina snorted. "Apparently. Matthias would never be with anyone else when he was...alive."

"Hmm. Yes. He had a trail of blood behind him, but he was noble in that regard. I didn't know him well in his past lives, but he's remained much the same throughout. You however.... you beat the system."

"What are you talking about?"

"The curse Luda made dictates that you meet your soulmate, you fall in love, and then you die a tragic death together to have your souls ripped out and placed in new bodies again. Over, and over until I agree to Luda's demands to remove my Blessed mark. Somehow...you and Miss Hanne have interrupted the curse. And I don't know why, because a soulmates blood is the only way to keep you sustained without them. And that's not forever."

"Are you saying that Hanne and me broke the curse?"

"For you," he replied, "and that makes me think it can be broken for others. If you and Miss Hanne will help me figure that out. What do you say?"

Nina thought of Alina, and how upset she'd been when she'd found out she'd been tied to Aleksander. She would do anything to help a friend. "Yes," she said, "yes I'll----"

There was shadows coming over then, and Nina turned to see that Luda had disappeared. "What did you do her?" Nina asked.

"Sent her away for a time. Don't worry. She'll be back. She always is." There was a dark tone in his voice that Nina didn't like. "But if you help me, I can end this once and for all."

"I'll help," Nina said, despite the gnawing feeling of unease in her stomach.