Chapter Text
***
The vast winged shape hurtled towards Alina as she screamed out for Mal. The firebird responded in kind, its beautiful but terrifying cry echoing through the valley. As Alina instinctively turned and raised her hands in front of her to use the Cut, her foot slipped and she felt the ground disappear from underneath her. Time seemed to slow down as her head struck a rock on her descent from the cliff’s edge. A magnificent flurry of white and gold flashed before her eyes, then excruciating pain a split second later as gleaming talons wrapped around her torso and pierced through her skin. Bright white sunlight poured out from every fibre of her being.
Then, it all went dark.
*
The first thing that brought Alina to her senses was the pungent odour of herbs and garlic. She could hear female voices speaking in hushed tones in a language that sounded familiar and yet... It wasn’t exactly like Old Ravkan. In fact, its cadence vaguely reminded her of a play put on by a traveling troupe that had stopped at Keramzin many years ago. Her mind was still too foggy to recall what the play was about. She could probably ask Mal-
Mal! He was there when the firebird descended upon her. Alina’s heart rate picked up as a sense of dread twisted in her gut, her subconscious mind silently praying to saints above that Mal was safe, unharmed.
Alina’s eyelids felt heavy but she forced them open when she felt an uncomfortable prickling sensation on her side. Her eyes searched across the dim surroundings and landed on a blonde girl whose hands were hovering over her right flank.
“Shh... you are safe now,” the girl murmured soothingly whilst studying her exposed lower torso. She looked about Alina’s age. “You’ve been asleep for 5 days..My madraya found you at the foot of the Firefalls,” she continued, jerking her head towards a middle aged woman who was busy stirring some concoction in a pot. Perhaps that’s where the smell was coming from. Alina felt something tamp down on her rising sense of panic before it slowly slipped away.
“You’re a healer.”
“You looked as if you were burning when we first saw you. The injuries on you.. saints, what happened to you?”
“A- a beast attacked me. And I fell,” replied Alina in halting Old Ravkan. She decided not to disclose the encounter with the firebird.
“You’re one of us, aren’t you? An inferni?”
Something like that, she thought as she nodded.
“Thank you,” Alina replied, her voice sounding raspy as if it hasn’t been used in a long time. And after a long pause, “Where- where am I?”
*
Yelena the healer girl had informed Alina that they were on the outskirts of Dva Stolba. That was where she had found the firebird so in terms of physical distance, she hadn’t gone far. She was also told that they were in a grisha camp and that the camp would move north in two weeks, having spent the entire spring in Dva Stolba.
Which could mean that Alina might have been unconscious for several months before Yelena and her mother found her. Or it could mean something else. Something that sounded so completely absurd that Alina quickly brushed it off the moment the idea popped in her head. She can’t possibly be the sun summoner, Sankta, leader of the rebellion against the Darkling AND a time traveler at the same time, can she? That’s just greedy.
As she walked around the camp later on that day, it dawned on her that her surroundings did not seem to add up. And it wasn’t just the archaic language that sounded incongruous to her ears. The clothes, the primitive tents, the weapons- saints, are those swords?- they all bore the markings of an earlier time period.
“There you are! Food is served in that tent.” Yelena gestured to a makeshift tent made of a patchwork of animal skins. “You’d better hurry up if you do not wish to be served crumbs.”
The broth that was served tasted gamey and could’ve been better with a bit of salt. It was still better than herring so Alina kept that criticism to herself and quietly ate her dinner. Yelena came over to join her at the table with a slightly older boy in tow.
“This is Dimitri, my husband”, she said with a hint of shyness. Alina nodded at him in greeting. She was pretty sure that Yelena said she was sixteen. Although marrying at a young age was fairly common in a bygone era…
Alina listened politely to Yelena and Dimitri chatting away, giving the occasional nod to indicate that she wasn’t being rude. There was a nagging feeling that something must have happened when the firebird caught her. Did the mythical feathered creature trigger magic that made her travel back in time? Did she die and get reincarnated? Or is someone, something playing a trick on her? Alina’s attention snapped back to the couple in front of her when Dimitri mentioned the Tsar’s name- Anastas Lantsov. Didn’t that king rule Ravka in the 14th century?
Which begs the pertinent question- why on earth was she sent half a millennium back in time? If the saints had a mission for her then they’ve been very vague about it. Surely the polite thing to do was to leave her with a message or better yet, a specific set of instructions. Alina supposed that thoughtfulness wasn’t a strong trait of theirs considering the fact that they only brought about her time travel/reincarnation after she was mauled by a giant bird. So unnecessary, she huffed as the painful memory returned to her.
The rest of the week was spent wandering around the camp and trying to make sense of this oxymoron of a new old Ravka that she was currently inhabiting. When she looked beyond the trees surrounding the camp, Alina could see the pointy roofs and the large wheels of two mills, flanked on both sides by horizontal ridges with craggy hillsides. So far she had spotted two other people- a brother and sister- with Shu-ish faces amongst the Grisha at the camp. Sometimes she would help the others pack for the impending migration whilst she chatted with them and slowly learnt to mimic the accent and colloquialisms of the 14th century. Learning to act like everyone else around her was easy. Besides, there was not much else that she could do. She had no home, no purpose and no possessions other than the clothes on her back. Even the sea whip amplifier that she had around her wrist was gone. She assumed that the Morozova stag collar was no longer there but it was hard to tell for now.
No friends, no family, no Mal.
Yelena and her mother, who had asked Alina to call her Tyotya, have treated her kindly. They gave her clean clothes to wear- a white linen shirt and a simple sarafan in a deep, brilliant shade of green because “respectable girls do not wear pants”. Alina was grateful that her hair- that had been bleached to bone white by merzost- had reverted to its original dark brown. At least she could blend in with those brunette locks and a traditional outfit, she thought ruefully.
Although the other Grisha at the camp have yet to warm up to her, they have not shown her any hostility. Everyone here seemed to be very discreet with their powers, only using them to do essential chores- heal, fix things, light the campfire or fill up their water skins. She hadn’t seen any of them manipulating the small sciences just for the fun of it, like the Grisha at the Little Palace did. It was as if they did not want to draw attention to themselves. No one has asked to see her powers and she assumed that the others probably trusted Yelena and her mother enough to not harbour enemy otkazat’sya.
“You never told me about your family,” Yelena enquired one day.
“My parents died when I was a baby and I… don’t have anyone else.” Not anymore, she added silently.
“I’m sorry.” Yelena looked at her with pity but thankfully didn’t question her any further.
That night Alina lay on her cot and pulled the heavy fur blanket over her head. Her daytime preoccupations had prevented her from wallowing in self pity. But now, under the cover of darkness, the tears that she held back ever since she had woken up in this foreign place streamed down her face. She bit down on her lower lip to muffle the sounds of her anguished sobs as an overwhelming sense of loss crashed down upon her, knowing that she may never return to her previous life. Despite squeezing her eyes shut, she could see a light behind her eyelids that kept burning brighter and brighter till the only thing that was visible was a manifestation of her grief. And it was white.
*
If Yelena’s mother had noticed Alina’s glowing form huddled under a blanket that night, she made no mention of it.
*
The group of about thirty Grisha- men, women and children- and two horses trudged through verdant forests, grassy hills and meadows filled with vibrant summer wildflowers for five days, stopping briefly every few hours in the day and laying out their blankets on the ground after sunset to sleep. The shorter nights of summer meant that they only had a few hours of sleep before the sun came out and they had to move again. Perhaps in an effort to stay unseen, the group seldom followed paths and bridleways and, only once did they stop at a hamlet of quaint cottages with thatched roofs to get some supplies. Soon, they came upon a secluded clearing roughly two hundred miles northeast of Dva Stolba. And if Alina’s estimation was right- she had been a cartographer after all- they were approximately halfway between Balakirev and the Sokol river.
Everyone went about their tasks of turning the place into their new temporary abode. The leader of the group- a heartrender with broad shoulders, dirty blonde hair and a matching long beard called Igor- delegated the more complicated job of building the tents and furniture to the fabrikators whilst the others were to gather firewood, hunt for food and tend to the children. Having materialki Grisha with them meant that the camp was set up in hardly any time at all. A large tent in the middle surrounded by ten smaller tents, all made of ash wood, animal skins and some type of woollen fabric, now stood in the once empty clearing. The fabrikators had even manipulated the branches of shrubs and trees around the clearing to twist and bend into hedgerows around the encampment.
The following day brought rumours of some new arrivals at the camp. The flaps of Igor’s tent were drawn to the sides which left the entrance wide open. So when Alina walked past, she could see Igor and a few elders in deep conversation with a woman. The woman had her back to Alina so all she could see was her small frame and long black hair that matched her black attire. Igor let out a deep chuckle in response to something she said and then the woman playfully placed her hand on his forearm.
When Alina arced around them towards the largest tent that served as a stolovaya, she saw a young man lurking behind the woman. The man was tall, slender yet muscular. He tilted his head slightly towards his right shoulder and Alina felt her mouth go dry. Only the side profile of his face was visible but Alina could tell that he was beautiful. He was pale with sharp features, his dark, wavy, shoulder length hair framed his smooth, chiselled jaw. His onyx eyes looked cautious and reserved. Alina’s heart started thundering in her chest, her rushing adrenaline calling the light to her clenched fists.
It can’t be him. How can it possibly be-? This version of him seems different yet...
So she blindly reached for the tether and yanked. Hard.
Aleksander snapped his head in her direction, his face startled and confused. His eyes scanned the area and when they landed on hers, lingered for a few seconds before he turned away. Alina let out the breath that she’d been holding and stormed off to get her dinner.
*