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January 15 - January 16, 2025
“Just you and me,” Mal said. “Really?” “It’s always just you and me, Alina.”
I pressed my forehead to Mal’s and heard him whisper, “I’ll meet you in the meadow.”
“I hope you don’t expect fairness from me, Alina. It isn’t one of my specialties.”
“We all feel it, you know.” “Feel what?” “The pull. Toward the Darkling. But he’s not like us, Alina.”
“Alina, the Darkling doesn’t notice most of us. We’re moments he’ll forget in his long life. And I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing. Just … be careful.” I stared at her, baffled. “Of what?” “Of powerful men.”
“The problem with wanting,” he whispered, his mouth trailing along my jaw until it hovered over my lips, “is that it makes us weak.”
Why don’t you just admit that you wanted to belong to him? said a voice in my head. Why don’t you admit that part of you still does?
“I was happy,” I admitted. “In that moment, I was happy. I’m not like you, Mal. I never really fit in the way that you did. I never really belonged anywhere.” “You belonged with me,” he said quietly. “No, Mal. Not really. Not for a long time.” He looked at me then, and his eyes were deep blue in the twilight. “Did you miss me, Alina? Did you miss me when you were gone?”
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.”
“Fine,” he said with a weary shrug. “Make me your villain.”
He reached out and touched Morozova’s collar, letting his long fingers spread over the rough bone, then slide up my neck to cradle my face with one hand. I felt a jolt of revulsion, but I also felt the sure, intoxicating force of him. I hated that it still had an effect on me. “You betrayed me,” he said softly.
“Tell me,” he said, his grip tightening painfully, his fingertips pressing into my flesh. In the firelight, his gaze looked unfathomably bleak. “Tell me how much you love him. Beg for his life.”
He cocked his head to one side, a small, skeptical smile playing about his lips. Then the smile disappeared, replaced by something I didn’t recognize, something that looked almost like longing. “Mercy.” He said the word as if he were tasting something unfamiliar. “I could be merciful.” He raised his other hand to cup my face and kissed me softly, gently, and though everything in me rebelled, I let him. I hated him. I feared him. But still I felt the strange tug of his power, and I couldn’t stop the hungry response of my own treacherous heart.
“Yes, Alina,” he said, stroking my cheek. “I can be merciful.” He leaned forward, pulling me close, his lips brushing my ear. “Tomorrow, we enter the Shadow Fold,” he whispered, his voice like a caress. “And when we do, I will feed your friend to the volcra, and you will watch him die.” “No!” I cried, recoiling in horror. I tried to pull away from him, but his grip was like steel, his fingers digging into my skull. “You said—” “You may say your goodbyes tonight. That is all the mercy traitors deserve.”
I love you, Alina, even the part of you that loved him.”
Only I had the power to save him—and I was powerless to save him. In the next breath, the darkness swallowed him. I heard him scream. The
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.
