In The Name of Shadows - A Darklina Story

Chapter 1: Not This Time, Mal

Publishing date: 02/11/2022

Life had accustomed Alina Oretsev to getting up early in the morning. To waking up just when the entire orphanage was still shrouded in silence and when the sun was just rising above the horizon of Keramzin.

Honestly, Alina had never been able to enjoy a calm dream, especially now that the bottomless emptiness was ringing in her head at night. Alina had no dreams, but memories that used to crawl out of the dark whenever she least expected them. When the power of sun summoning had finally left her, almost everything had changed for Alina.

Yes, she didn't want this power, yes, sometimes she was very disgusted with it. But there were also the times when a part of her missed it so much. Especially for the gift of sleep, for escaping into being someone extraordinary, someone one of a kind.

It had been so close, and she would have had it all. Fortunately, that hadn't happened. Fortunately, her disgust of this broken world of power and manipulation had allowed her to choose wisely.

She had let herself to choose him.

To choose Malyen Oretsev, her beloved husband.

Meanwhile, today she was just herself – a wife and a babysitter for the children she and Mal had taken care of. These weren't her own children, but she tried to give them a sense of security and the feeling of being a part of their big family. Of being the part of Mal's family – the one her husband had always desperately desired.

Alina rolled over on her side, squinting at the first ray of sunlight falling into the small bedroom occupied by her and the man she had been in love with since practically forever.

Mal was still lying naked on the cushion, rolled on his stomach. His head was hidden in the pillow. He was breathing calmly because, after all, for him there was nothing to be afraid of anymore. After all, his wife was no longer the powerful Grisha, but she was just an ordinary Alina Oretsev – a love of his life from early childhood.

Until recently, any ray of light would call for Alina and command her to summon its power. Only a year and a few months had passed, and she no longer remembered any of it. Sometimes she wanted to remember, sometimes she was just afraid of it. Sometimes she found herself having fleeting doubts about what might happen to her and what had never happened.

But fortunately, it was only a fraction of second and then her common sense came back to her again.

Alina reached for the underwear lying on a dresser which was situated near of their bed. Her white hair was still disheveled, flowing loosely down her shoulders. Her body was still warm from the covering that was a shelter for her and Mal not long time ago.

"Don't run away from me, you promised me something."

Her husband did not change his position, but he was not sleeping anymore. He expected Alina to lie down next to him. On days like this, he especially demanded it.

Alina chuckled, setting aside some underwear she had intended to change into a moment ago. She looked at Mal's brown hair scattered on the pillow. His broad shoulders were still embracing this pillow underneath so that he could hide his face in their white sheets, waiting for his wife to come over to greet him in the morning.

Alina smiled to herself proudly, completely grateful that her fate had sent her such a husband like him.

Mal was more than just handsome. His broad shoulders were shaped by the hard physical work he did every day without any objection. Her beloved man was sun-swarthy, with a skin full of scars from his time of being a tracker in the First Army. These scars made him look like a tough man, even though they seemed to nearly shout out what had once happened to him.