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May 11 - May 19, 2021
“When the leaves change color, do you call it magic? What about when you cut your hand and it heals? And when you put a pot of water on the stove and it boils, is it magic then?”
“I’ve been waiting for you a long time, Alina,” he said. “You and I are going to change the world.”
“The Grisha claims the amplifier, but the amplifier claims the Grisha, as well. Once it is done, there can be no other. Like calls to like, and the bond is made.”
“The horse has speed. The bear has strength. The bird has wings. No creature has all of these gifts, and so the world is held in balance. Amplifiers are part of this balance, not a means of subverting it, and each Grisha would do well to remember this or risk the consequences.”
“Why can a Grisha possess but one amplifier? I will answer this question instead: What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men.”
The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak.
I’d been lonely my whole life, but I’d never been truly alone before, and it wasn’t nearly as scary as I’d imagined.
“You belonged with me,” he said quietly.
“I missed you every hour. And you know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. I’d catch myself walking around to find you, not for any reason, just out of habit, because I’d seen something that I wanted to tell you about or because I wanted to hear your voice. And then I’d realize that you weren’t there anymore, and every time, every single time, it was like having the wind knocked out of me. I’ve risked my life for you. I’ve walked half the length of Ravka for you, and I’d do it again and again and again just to be with you, just to starve with you and freeze with you
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As we were led from the clearing, there was no sound but our own footfalls and the crackling of the flames behind us. No rustle came from the trees, no insect buzz or nightbird call. The woods were silent in their grief.
That night, I dreamed of the stag. I saw the Darkling cut his throat again and again. I saw the life fading from his dark eyes. But when I looked down, it was my blood that spilled red into the snow.
“I don’t care if you danced naked on the roof of the Little Palace with him. I love you, Alina, even the part of you that loved him.”
They were wrong. I wasn’t nervous or frightened. I wasn’t anything anymore.
The first time I’d entered the Fold, I’d feared the darkness and my own death. Now, darkness was nothing to me, and I knew that soon death would seem like a gift.
They are orphans again, with no true home but each other and whatever life they can make together on the other side of the sea.
“The ox feels the yoke,” she says, “but does the bird feel the weight of its wings?” Her eyes are black jet. Be grateful, they say. Be grateful. She snaps the reins.
“Do you take anything seriously?” “Not if I can help it. Makes life so tedious.”
“Mal’s always been like that. You could drop him in a camp full of Fjerdan assassins, and he’d come out carried on their shoulders. He just blooms wherever he’s planted.” “And you?” “I’m more of a weed,” I said drily.
this much trouble?” “I like to think of myself as delightfully complex.”
“When people say impossible, they usually mean improbable.”
“I’m ambitious, Alina. I’m driven. But I hope … I hope I still know the difference between right and wrong.” He hesitated. “I offered you freedom, and I meant it. If tomorrow you decided to run back to Novyi Zem with Mal, I’d put you on a ship and let the sea take you.” He held my gaze, his hazel eyes steady. “But I’d be sorry to see you go.”
“There’s a reason peacocks aren’t birds of prey,”
No matter what I said, we both knew the hard truth. We do our best. We try. And usually, it makes no difference at all.
Even if this is a total failure, I thought anxiously, at least they’re working together. Nothing like a fiery explosion to build camaraderie.
“You know the problem with heroes and saints, Nikolai?” I asked as I closed the book’s cover and headed for the door. “They always end up dead.”
“I have loved you all my life, Mal,” I whispered through my tears. “There is no end to our story.”
The Apparat said it was a holy place, their haven, their sanctuary, their home. The boy shook his head. He knew a cell when he saw one.
He was wrong, of course. The girl could tell from the way the Apparat watched her struggle to her feet. She heard it in each fragile thump of her heart. This place was no prison. It was a tomb.
wildflowers pressed between the pages of a book and forgotten.
“I can’t do this. Not if you make me laugh, not if you touch me like that.”
“What are you two doing barefoot and half naked in the mud?” asked a familiar voice. “Looking for truffles, I hope?”
Alina. I hope you weren’t looking to me to be the voice of reason. I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret.”
I don’t understand half of what goes on around me. I don’t get jokes or sunsets or poetry, but I know metal.” His fingers flexed unconsciously as if he were physically grasping for words. “Beauty was your armor. Fragile stuff, all show. But what’s inside you? That’s steel. It’s brave and unbreakable. And it doesn’t need fixing.”
“Maybe you were right to be scared of me.” “I wasn’t afraid of you, Alina. I was afraid of losing you. The girl you were becoming didn’t need me anymore, but she’s who you were always meant to be.” “Power hungry? Ruthless?” “Strong.” He looked away. “Luminous. And maybe a little ruthless too. That’s what it takes to rule. Ravka is broken, Alina. I think it always has been. The girl I saw in the chapel could change that.”
“It’s a promise to be better than I was,” he said. “It’s a vow that if I can’t be anything else to you, at least I can be a weapon in your hand.”
“And I guess it’s a reminder that wanting and deserving aren’t the same thing.”
Besides, rumor has it Oretsev here is quite the tracker. If he finds the firebird, we may just stand a chance.” “And if he doesn’t?” Nikolai shrugged. “We put on our best clothes and die like heroes.”
“This is your fault,” Baghra complained. “He can never be still anymore.” “He’s a little boy. It’s not something they’re known for.”
“I gave him his pride. I burdened him with ambition, but the worst thing I did was try to protect him.
“I never wanted him to feel the way I had as a child,” said Baghra. “So I taught him that he had no equal, that he was destined to bow to no man. I wanted him to be hard, to be strong. I taught him the lesson my mother and father taught me: to rely on no one. That love—fragile and fickle and raw—was nothing compared to power. He was a brilliant boy. He learned too well.”
Maybe love was superstition, a prayer we said to keep the truth of loneliness at bay. I tilted my head back. The stars looked like they were close together, when really they were millions of miles apart. In the end, maybe love just meant longing for something impossibly bright and forever out of reach.
“Know that I loved you,” she said to the Darkling. “Know that it was not enough.”
None of them were easy or soft or simple. They were like me, nursing hurts and hidden wounds, all broken in different ways. We didn’t quite fit together. We had edges so jagged we cut each other sometimes, but as I curled up on my side, the warmth of the fire at my back, I felt a rush of gratitude so sweet it made my throat ache. Fear came with it. Keeping them close was a luxury I would pay for. Now I had more to lose.
“He watches her the way Harshaw watches fire. Like he’ll never have enough of her. Like he’s trying to capture what he can before she’s gone.”
“You don’t understand. You can’t.” “Maybe not. But I saw this with soldiers in my unit. You keep storing up all that anger and grief. Eventually it spills over. Or you drown in it.”
“I know, I know. I don’t get it. I just know there’s no way to live without pain—no matter how long or short your life is. People let you down. You get hurt and do damage in return. But what the Darkling did to Genya? To Baghra? What he tried to do to you with that collar? That’s weakness. That’s a man afraid.” He peered out at the valley. “I may never be able to understand what it is to live with your power, but I know you’re better than that. And they all know it too,” he said with a nod back to where the others had gone to make camp. “That’s why we’re here, fighting beside you. That’s why
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“You move forward, and when you falter, you get up. And when you can’t, you let us carry you. You let me carry you.”
“I will strip away all that you know, all that you love, until you have no shelter but me.”
“I might buy us some time—” “At what cost? You were willing to give up your life,” he said quietly. “Why won’t you let me do the same?” “Because I can’t bear it.”
“You will bear it,” he said. “Or all of these deaths, all we’ve given up, will be for nothing.”
