Shadow and Bone (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #1)

by Leigh Bardugo

“What is wrong with you?” I whispered furiously. “Nothing,” he said, surprised. “I feel great.” “But how can you be so … so jaunty?” “Jaunty? I’ve never been jaunty. I hope never to be jaunty.”

“Just you and me,” Mal said. “Really?” “It’s always just you and me, Alina.” For a moment, it seemed like it was true. The world was this step, this circle of lamplight, the two of us suspended in the dark.

ministers, all talking loudly and rapidly. Ivan grabbed me roughly by the arm. “Come on.” “Ivan,” called the Darkling, “mind your tone. She is Grisha now.”

The Darkling slid from his mount and threw his hands wide, then brought them together with a resounding boom. Skeins of darkness shot from his clasped hands, snaking through the glen, finding the Fjerdan assassins, then slithering up their bodies to swathe their faces in seething shadow. They screamed. Some dropped their swords; others waved them blindly. I watched in mingled awe and horror as the Ravkan fighters seized the advantage, cutting down the blinded, helpless men with ease.

hesitated. “Who is it?” “I don’t have time for this,” a female voice snapped from behind the door. “Open. Now!” I shrugged. Let them kill me or kidnap me or whatever they wanted. As long as I didn’t have to ride a horse or climb stairs, I wouldn’t complain.

“It isn’t something separate from you,” Baghra snapped. “It isn’t an animal that shies away from you or chooses whether or not to come when you call it. Do you ask your heart to beat or your lungs to breathe? Your power serves you because that is its purpose, because it cannot help but serve you.”

“Mal,” I whispered into the night. “What?” “Thanks for finding me.” I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming, but somewhere in the dark, I thought I heard him whisper, “Always.”

“Did you miss me, Alina? Did you miss me when you were gone?” “Every day,” I said honestly. “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 and hear you complain about hard cheese every day. So don’t tell me we don’t belong together,” he said fiercely. He was very close now, and my heart was suddenly hammering in my chest. “I’m sorry it took me so long to see you, Alina. But I see you now.”

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.