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April 10 - April 12, 2021
“Know that I loved you,” she said to the Darkling. “Know that it was not enough.”
I may even fix those weird incisors of yours.” “There is nothing wrong with my teeth.” “Not at all,” said Genya soothingly. “You’re the prettiest walrus I know.
“I’m the Sun Summoner. It gets dark when I say it does.”
I plucked Oncat from Harshaw’s shoulder. She gave a brief hiss, but I didn’t care. Right now, I needed to cuddle something soft and furry.
“I’m glad Sergei’s dead. I’m just sorry I didn’t get to wring his neck myself.” “You’d need two hands for that,” said Zoya. There was a brief, terrible silence, then Adrik scowled and said, “Okay, stab him.”
“I know why,” said Genya. I waited, wondering if she really did. “Animal magnetism,” she continued. “One more minute in that hut with you, and she would have torn off all your clothes.” David considered this. “That seems improbable.” “Impossible,” Mal and I said at the same time. “Well, not impossible,” David said, looking vaguely insulted.
Keeping them close was a luxury I would pay for. Now I had more to lose.
“They aren’t any better in Fjerda. There are witchhunters who don’t eat animals, won’t wear leather shoes or kill a spider in their homes, but they’ll burn Grisha alive on the pyre.”
“Maybe you’re hungry,” said Zoya. “I always get mean when I’m hungry.” “Are you hungry all the time?” asked Harshaw. “You haven’t seen me mean. When you do, you’ll require a very big hanky.” He snorted. “To dry my tears?” “To stanch the bleeding.”
“It’s funny,” Zoya said contemplatively. “I understand why the Darkling and Nikolai want your power. But Mal looks at you like you’re … well, like you’re me.” “No he doesn’t,” said Tolya. “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.”
“We might want to camp a little farther off.” “Why?” asked Zoya. “I’m tired.” “Oncat objects to the landscaping.” “That tabby can sleep at the bottom of the pool for all I care,” she snapped.
“This is a holy place.” “Great,” she retorted sourly. “See if you can pray me up a dry pair of socks.”
“You once put goose droppings in my shoes, Alina. A bad mood I can handle.”
You keep storing up all that anger and grief. Eventually it spills over. Or you drown in it.”
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.”
I scowled. “How about I slice you open and see how your bones fit?” Zoya fluffed her hair. “I bet they’re just as gorgeous as the rest of me.”
But Ana Kuya used to tell me that hope was tricky like water. Somehow it always found a way in.
“Is that my blood?” The stain was nearly as big as he was. We’d all been so tired and beaten after our long escape from the Spinning Wheel that no one had even thought to deal with it. “You made the mess,” said Zoya. “You clean it up.” “Need two hands to swab,” Adrik retorted,
Zoya yelped. “That little brat just kicked me.” “Smart kid,” said Mal.
I would murder the only person I’d ever loved and who had ever loved me. I’d dive back into battle wearing his bones.
Zoya made a retching sound. “Maybe taste will come with age.” “I’m only three years younger than you.” “Then maybe you’re just doomed to be tacky.”
Zoya, the grouse we caught need cleaning.” She stared at him and didn’t budge. He rolled his eyes. “All right, they need cleaning by someone else. Please go find somebody to order around.” “My pleasure.”
Harshaw returned his flint to his sleeve. “They’re all crazy, Oncat,” he said to the tabby. “Invisible armies, monster princes. Let’s go set fire to something.”
“You don’t know what you may be able to do once the amplifiers are brought together.” “You mean after I murder you?” “Alina—” “We are not talking about this.” “You can’t just pull the covers over your head and pretend this isn’t happening.” “Can and will.” “You’re being a brat.” “And you’re being noble and self-sacrificing, and it makes me want to throttle you.” “Well, that’s a start.”
“How am I supposed to deal with this?” he asked. “I don’t feel noble or self-sacrificing. I’m just…” “What?” He threw up his hands. “Hungry.” “You’re hungry?” “Yes,” he snapped. “I’m hungry and I’m tired and I’m pretty sure that Tolya’s going to eat all the grouse.” I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. “Zoya warned me about this. She gets cranky when she’s hungry too.” “I’m not cranky.” “Sulky,” I amended graciously. “I am not sulking.” “You’re right,” I said, trying to restrain my giggles. “Definitely more of a pout than a sulk.” He snagged my hand and pulled me in for a kiss. He nipped
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“If I live, the first thing I’m doing is coming back here and swimming around in a tank of this stuff.” “Go easy, Harshaw,” said Tamar. “We need you awake tomorrow.” He groaned. “Why do battles always have to be so early?”
“If you make him believe he’s less now, he’ll never know he can be more.”
“Maybe that brought us together, but it didn’t make us who we are. It didn’t make you the girl who could get me to laugh when I had nothing. It sure as hell didn’t make me the idiot who took that for granted. Whatever there is between us, we forged it. It belongs to us.”
“Did you ever notice me at Keramzin?” He was silent for a long moment, and when I glanced at him, he was looking up at the glass ceiling. He’d gone red as a beet. “Mal?” He cleared his throat, crossed his arms. “As a matter of fact, I did. I had some very … distracting thoughts about you.”
“Idiot.” “That fact is well established and adds nothing to the plot.”
“I would have been different too, without you. Weaker, reckless.” He smiled slightly. “Afraid of the dark.” He brushed the tears from my cheeks. I wasn’t sure when they’d started. “But no matter who or what I was, I would have been yours.”
“You are all I’ve ever wanted,” he said. “You are the whole of my heart.”
It was all we needed. It was all we would ever have.
“You should look your best when you put the Darkling in the ground.” “Thanks,” I said with a smile. “I’ll try not to bleed all over it.”
The Unsea always felt like the end of everything. It wasn’t only the dark, it was the terrible sense of isolation, as if the world had disappeared, leaving only you, the rattle of your breath, the stuttering beat of your heart.
in the end, it was what bound the Darkling and me most closely—not our powers, not the strangeness of them, not that we were both aberrations, if not abominations. It was our knowledge of the forbidden, our desire for more.
I could almost imagine his laugh. Well, if I’m going to be a monster, I might as well be king of the monsters.
I screamed as power flooded through me, as I burned, consumed from the inside. I was a living star. I was combustion. I was a new sun born to shatter air and eat the earth. I am ruination.
It was a miracle. And I didn’t care. The Saints could keep their miracles. The Grisha could keep their long lives and their lessons. Mal was dead.
IN THE END, my friends did a good job of my death, and an even better job of Nikolai’s resurrection.
If he gets any more charming, men and women may start lying down in the street for the privilege of being stepped on by the new Ravkan King.
“Loss is loss,” Mal said. “You have the right to grieve.”
“I don’t intend to waste my days in holy pursuits.” “No?” “No,” he said as he drew me closer. “I have to spend the rest of my life finding ways to deserve a certain white-haired girl. She’s very prickly, occasionally puts goose droppings in my shoes or tries to kill me.”
“She’s worth it. And one day maybe she’ll let me chase her into a chapel.” I shuddered. “I don’t like chapels.” “I did tell Ana Kuya I would marry you.” I laughed. “You remember that?” “Alina,” he said and kissed the scar on my palm, “I remember everything.”
“Read him religious parables,” I whispered to Misha. “He loves that.” I barely dodged the pillow Mal threw across the room.
for a moment, I heard the Darkling say, You’re nothing now. The girl I’d once been would have believed him. The girl I’d become wasn’t in the mood.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I was lost in thought.” Then he grinned and added, “Unfamiliar territory.”
“Next time warn me when you’re paying attention. I’ll talk less.” “Now you tell me.”
“I do love it when you quote me.” He sighed. “If only I weren’t so damnably wise.”
