More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
April 9 - April 14, 2025
THE SERVANTS CALLED them malenchki, little ghosts, because they were the smallest and the youngest, and because they haunted the Duke’s house like giggling phantoms, darting in and out of rooms, hiding in cupboards to eavesdrop, sneaking into the kitchen to steal the last of the summer peaches.
A moment later the boy whispered, “I don’t think you’re ugly.” “Shhhh!” the girl hissed. But hidden by the deep shadows of the cupboard, she smiled.
I glanced at Mal. There had been a time when I could have told him anything.
“We grew up together.” “You don’t seem to have much in common.” I shrugged. “I guess it’s easy to have a lot in common when you’re kids.”
In the army, he’d carved out a real place for himself where no one needed to know that he’d once been an unwanted little boy.
“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.
I huddled over Mal, shielding his body with mine. I knew it was futile, but it was all I could offer.
pressed my forehead to Mal’s and heard him whisper, “I’ll meet you in the meadow.”
The Duke’s estate had been beautiful, but it was a melancholy beauty of dusty rooms and peeling paint, the echo of something that had once been grand. The Grisha tent was like nothing I had ever seen before, a place alive with power and wealth.
“I guess you only look like a mouse,” he whispered in my ear, and then beckoned to one of his personal guard.
“I’ve spent my life searching for a way to make things right. You’re the first glimmer of hope I’ve had in a long time.”
“Do you like the way you look?” Genya asked with what seemed to be genuine curiosity. “Not particularly,” I snapped. “But my life has gotten confusing enough without seeing a stranger’s face in the mirror.”
“We all serve someone,”
For a girl who hated looking at herself, I was at risk of becoming vain.
Distantly, I heard a door closing, voices calling their goodnights, the sounds of the Little Palace going to sleep.
I did the graceful thing and stuck my tongue out at her,
The other Grisha might look down on Genya, but she had her own kind of power and influence.
The only place I’d ever felt I belonged was with Mal, and even that hadn’t lasted.
He frowned slightly. “I’m not a monster, Alina. Despite what you may have heard.”
He reached out and took hold of my hand. I felt that wonderful sense of surety rush through me.
A moment later, I heard the sound of a door closing behind me.
“Why do you waste all of your strength fighting your true nature?”
What looked like magic was really the Grisha manipulating matter at its most fundamental levels.
One thing did stand out to me: the word the philosophers used to describe people born without Grisha gifts, otkazat’sya, “the abandoned.” It was another word for orphan.
“But I hope you will remember to feed the soul as well as the mind.
As much as I missed him, I couldn’t bear the thought of him knowing that I fit into my new life about as well as I’d fit into my old one.
“There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings, and even Darklings. Do you know what that thing is?” I shook my head, inching away from him. “Faith,” he breathed, his black eyes wild. “Faith.”
“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.”
I remembered standing at the window with Mal, watching the Grisha depart in their troika, how tired I’d felt. The next morning, I’d woken to find dark circles beneath my eyes. They’d been with me ever since.
Mal had moved on, but I was still standing frightened before those three mysterious figures, holding tight to his hand. It was time to let go. That day on the Shadow Fold, Mal had saved my life, and I had saved his. Maybe that was meant to be the end of us. The thought filled me with grief, grief for the dreams we’d shared, for the love I’d felt, for the hopeful girl I would never be again. That grief flooded through me, dissolving a knot that I hadn’t even known was there. I closed my eyes, feeling tears slide down my cheeks, and I reached out to the thing within me that I’d kept hidden for
...more
At last, there was something that belonged wholly and completely to me.
Suddenly, lots of things seemed easy. I wasn’t tired all the time or winded when I climbed the stairs. I slept deeply and dreamlessly every night and woke refreshed.
I patted her hand reassuringly. “He’ll come around. He’s just shy.” “Maybe I should lie down on a table in the workroom and wait to see if he welds something to me.” “I think that’s the way most great love stories begin.”
“Now get out of the way. It’s impossible to feel pretty with you standing next to me.”
“Do you always say exactly what you’re thinking?” “Not even half the time.”
“Why would you care what I think?” He looked genuinely baffled. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I do.” And then he kissed me.
Whagtttttg
I wanted to run after him, to take back what I’d said, to beg him to stay, but I’d spent my life running after Mal. Instead, I stood in silence and let him go.
because I saw it, as clearly as if I had been standing at its edge: the abyss. Ceaseless, black, and yawning, the unending emptiness of a life lived too long.
“Thanks for finding me.” I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming, but somewhere in the dark, I thought I heard him whisper, “Always.”
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
...more
Whatever burned between us was just as bright, just as undeniable. The moment our lips met, I knew with pure and piercing certainty that I would have waited for him forever.
The woods were silent in their grief.
“We all did our part to bring about the end of the world.”
The Darkling might be lying, but I didn’t think so. He loved power, and Mal’s life gave him power over me.
From now on, there is only the land inside the Fold and outside of it, and there will be peace.” “Peace on your terms,” said one of the Shu Han angrily. “It will not stand,” blustered a Fjerdan.
“Tell the story of what you’ve seen today. Tell everyone that the days of fear and uncertainty are over. The days of endless fighting are over. Tell them that you saw a new age begin.”
They’re hungry for this, I realized. Even after they’ve seen what he can do, even after watching their own people die. The Darkling wasn’t just offering them an end to war, but an end to weakness. After all these long years of terror and suffering, he would give them something that had seemed permanently beyond their grasp: victory. And despite their fear, they loved him for it.
