Taking power

Part 7 - meetings

Alina stood in the doorway, blushing a painfully deep red as she stood in nothing but her travel worn underthings in front of the darkling.

The black heretic. The enemy. Her enemy.

She brushed past him to grab the only thing she could see; his black kefta. It would have to do.

'As I remember, my colour looks good on you' He said smoothly as she clumsily shrugged into the too large garment.

She shot him an angry look in response as the smell of rain and pine needles and twilight began to soak into her skin. He was watching from the doorway, two hands clasped behind his back, shadows softly enveloping his dominating frame.

'Everything looks good on me.' She threw back. 'Even this old rag' Her heart was in her mouth.

A look the saints could only describe as pure outrage suddenly adorned the darklings face.
' Did you just say... rag? This was created by the finest Materialki in Ravka, overseen by me personally. No king or emperor has ever worn something so fine and i would certainly know. No Fjierdan bullet or shu blade could ever pierce that cloth, no grisha fire or ice could hurt the one who wears it. It is my armour and my jewels.'

'And now it's my blanket' Alina quipped.

'It is more than a blanket could ever be. It protects entire kingdoms'

'Protect!' She scoffed 'Is that what you still call what you're doing, what you've done to this land, it's people? It destroys kingdoms with you it's eternal wearer hiding within.'

'And now' He said bemused as the floorboards creaked with his approach. 'you wear it'

'I do not destroy!' Alina snapped feeling the air start to crackle. 'I have given everything to fight you, not this kingdom.'

'The kingdom that that see grisha as weapons before people, that would hunt us if they ever found another, that was falling into ruin from a bloated king's appetite. That is what you want to protect ,still?'

'Yes, and infinitely yes if it means saving it from you'
'Dont you see Alina! Ravka will not be a kingdom for much longer. There will be nothing to save. We are falling behind. Grisha will once more become the beggars and scorns of every land. Without me Ravka will fall to the Shu to the south and Fjierda to the North. They are already closing in. We let them sneak through our ranks.'

Alina thought back to the Shu captain after the fold. His plans. Was that what life could be like for all grisha? And yet she couldn't trust him. His black eyes had held false promise and warnings before.

'And still it's a better fate' She muttered. ' With your nichyova you will be more of a monster than any soldier ever was'

'That is what you say!' He exclaimed. The room was suddenly very cold. ' You don't know what they are. What they would do to you and me. We would be the very first and the very last target for every single one. Weapons worse than you or i could create. Ways to destroy your mind, destroy your soul.'

'I will never help you destroy' She mouthed.
'To destroy is to protect!' He shouted, shadows creeping up the walls. The candles flicked, as the darkness grew.

It was unnerving, to see him loose control. To watch his hands clench in the shadows. He was real before her. This was Alexander.

'And look where it's gotten you' She said quietly, calmly.

'I will make you see Alina, if it's the last thing i do.' You know what we have to do. You've already done it once' He said, storming out of the room, leaving Alina alone for the first time in days

She listened until his boots stopped stamping down on the rickety stairs. The blissful silence felt saints blessed in the turmoil of her mind. Was he right? She had failed because she hadn't gone as far as he would. Did Ravkareally need a Saint as a ruler? Was she any better than him? She desperately tried to push down, down the emotions that were already threatening to spill over. His words had left her head spinning. She didn't know if she wanted to cry, light up the whole room or just go to sleep.

A floorboard creaked behind her as two cold hands covered her own hidden ones. She felt his presence behind her like an icy wind.

'Alina, You're shaking.' It was almost a question.
She answered by snatching back her glowing hands and pulling back to look up at him. Gone was the smirking general lurking at the doorway, replaced by the alexsander she knew from her first summer at the little palace. It unsettled her very bones. What was he thinking, what was he planning under that forged countenance? Didn't he know that he already had her? He could discard his mask because she could see through it now. Only this time she had nowhere to run.

'Please, let me.' he said as his eyes crinkled with lines of worry. He watched her body tight with stress seem to both crumple and pull taught simultaneously. When the tiniest nod came from Alina she felt his shadows blanket her hands, her arms, her whole body and the whole world was silenced.

She felt like she could breathe, really breathe for the first time in days. Her light wasn't gone but it wasn't there either. It was part of her again, as unnoticeable as the hairs on her head because it was just her again. The light wasn't the gift she had to tame, control, weaponize, it was just light again. And it was so beautiful. She had forgotten its beauty, the way she could make a room sparkle with the warm rays of summer or make the light dance in even the darkest of corners. She smiled freely, entranced by no one but herself, happy to be lost in the light.

Beside her, crouched on his knees the darkling watched filling with equal relief but with eyes trained only on Alina. He slipped out of the room only when the stars outside began their own light display.

When Alina's eyes began to feel heavy and her light was the only one left on in the tavern she made her way over to the bed and slipped under the covers. She kept the darklings Kefta on, for warmth.

Alina woke with the bird song and the sun's glowing warmth. She stretched all the way down to her toes, kicking off the blankets to feel that crisp light that held the promise of a beautiful day ahead. In the night she must have shrugged off the kefta because it now lay snugly tucked under her arms, an imprint of her face in the heavy fabric.

She pushed it away quickly when she realised. Pushed away that look in the darklings eyes when he saw her shaking with anger, pushed away the memory of his arms around her body, pushed away the feeling that the whole world had finally stilled when she let him in last night. She wasn't some naive girl anymore. What he had done was irrevocably irredeemable. Just the thought of somehow accepting his presence made her skin crawl. Even if he settled the burning rage that had tortured her since that day on the fold. She hated herself for letting him in last night.

Banging downstairs brought her back to the present. Shuffling feet and callous laughter were beginning to get closer and louder, the sort that would quiet very nicely with a few beams of light aimed at them. If she wanted to. But she didn't want to ruin her gilded cage quite yet.

Someone, thank the gods, had placed clean trousers and a shirt at the bottom of the bed. To be free of his overbearing smell was a blessing in itself. One she unfortunately had only only seconds to appreciate before it returned, this time flanked by the reek of two heartrenders. Strangers. Their eyes met and what she saw there was just darkness, ancient and knowing. And cold, so cold. Did he know she had slept in his kefta? A sneer told her everything she hoped it wouldn't as callused hands once again led her forward and out into the street.