Chapter Text
***
At first, there is confusion.
Senses alive, but mind stuck in tar, too slow to comprehend. His conscience is colours and shapes, warmth and pressure. Free of words and ideas, a life born of overreaching perceptions and sensations. Though it is not material nor true, rather some ethereal volition ever changing and following whims not quite his own, he is no master of this strange reality that are the twists and turns of his imagination, a thrall to buried desires.
To his buried desires.
Oh, but such a thrall he makes, willing and pliant, eager to please, an act he has not played in a long, long while. He has missed it, missed the feelings that come with such submission, with such willingness to give himself, fully and truly. With time, the ache has grown into a familiar companion, sound and intimate, never leaving him as he left everything behind. But now he may appease it for a brief and unreal moment, though he can never choose when and where, can only err into the shimmering plane where the dreams take him.
This place, he has revisited often, a chamber like no others, full to the brim with objects and memories and shadows. This bed, these sheets, soft and cold against the incomplete reality of his skin.
Years. It has been years.
Years since he felt the intense weight of a black gaze. Years since he opened his legs and heart to the shade in the darkness. Years since he fell into an embrace, warm and inexorable. And now, he is pulled through that bond, caught by a lure so strong no refusal and denial can protect him. But never would he have rejected the call, even if it may cost him his heart―a touch that can cure his lonesome blood for a precious instant, he would never say no to, despite his own mind playing tricks on him. So feel him, he does, again and again against himself, within himself, even if it is just a phantasm. It seems only like yesterday when they discovered each other, when he learned more about who he is than he ever did through all the youthful years before, when what should have been a mere distraction grew into an entity grander than their own selves. How could he have known then that indulging himself would be but a step towards the unraveled torture of vulnerability and love?
And like then, never learning from his errors, he forgets once more, in this incomprehensible moment, that this love has a price, subjugated as he is by the pleasures and sensations his crazed mind makes him believe as truths.
Nothing lasts, despite his most heartfelt desires.
When he wakes up, his cot empty and cold, body rocking to the heaving roll of the sea, his whole being blazes with the ache of loss, born anew by wishful delusions.
Naught but a dream.
Thoughts sublimated by the drifting sensations, he is left cold and trembling in his lone cabin, an ear to the howling wind to anchor himself. Back again to a life not quite his own, to a face, a name. All not quite his own.
Perhaps there are some who can journey far away from their past, unmoored and never looking back, but he is not one of these fabled creatures. The past has a claim―every thing, every place, every person ever encountered and loved defining who he is, even under the falsehoods he wears daily.
With a pang in his breast, he lights the oil lamp by the bed bunk, casting a yellow glow on the stateroom he has taken for himself. Outside, the night is agitated, the waves of the Eames Bay crashing against the ship, its thick hull of wood and tar keeping his company safe from the wrath of the sea. And he is safe, he knows he is, used to this life he has made from nothing, built year after year into a comfort more true to who he is than what he left behind, regardless of the masks and personas he yet employs. When he stands up, untangling the deep-dyed sheets from his body and ignoring the rocking floor, his feet are grounded and steady as he walks to his desk.
But in this state of brittle conscience, he needs to make sure, he needs to see if it is real, if his maddened mind has not spun a story out of whole cloth.
A lantern in his grip, he illuminates the table’s surface, covered by all kinds of trinkets (a hazard, he is well aware, especially at sea, but he has never been one for order and tidiness). One wrinkled letter stands out among the rest, a creased line at its right edge, the pulp stained at another.
Thank the Saints. Still here, still real.
It lays unfurled over the clutter of his desk, like it has been ever since a postman accosted him near the chartered company of Leflin and he recognised the penmanship. Barely disembarked that he had rushed back into his cabin to slash the envelope open. His crew had hollered at him, laughing at his change of mind, but he did not heard them, bewitched by this single item made of paper and promise.
Dizzied and faltering, so strongly his heart had beaten against his ribcage, while he unfolded the letter with shaking hands. Dry mouth and breathless, his eyes had strayed to the initials.
A.M.
Afterwards, he had read it all, deciphering the message and paging through the book of Saints that came with it, a faint souvenir of a charcoal-lined serpent tickling his senses. But he had first been struck dumb, rendered to some benumbed plane for an unknown period of time (likely for too long, since Privyet had come and knocked at the door, startling him out of it). These initials had held him spellbound as surely as their writer once did. And the memories that followed after…
For ten years now he has kept treacherous thoughts and feelings under lock. Oh, he has flirted and slept around and made empty promises to several young things, fashioning actions to instruct the mind that the past was only that―the past. In those ten years, he has not permitted himself to revisit the fog of reminiscence, never letting his thoughts stray too far where they shouldn’t (a lie, such a lie―the past slumbers in his blood, seeps warmth like a phantom touch on his nape, over his beating heart, against his parted lips, and he cannot stop reliving it just as he cannot stop breathing). But the letter severed all pretensions, slashing asunder the fetter that chained to the dark recess of his mind what once was his. It pulled askew all of himself, both those unseen parts and the façades a degree from his true nature, like a rope knotted around his shin and taking him down into watery depths.
A waking tempest of memories surging out of a deep-pocketed love―as if the blinkers used to hide from himself could foolishly stand against the strength of inexhaustible emotions. He could not flee from the overflow of longing and regret sluicing through his arteries, taking part of his living system like the cells and fluids making him the man he is. The dreams, the reverie became frequent, moments lost in his head and nowhere else. If his crew noticed his distant gazes, his inattention, his absence of mockery, they did not comment on it, not directly to him anyhow. But there was no more hiding and he was as much a victim of his past as the men and women around him were of his morose mood.
A month later, the feelings are not as harrowing, but that same floundering beat resonates within and he still finds himself breathless if he muses on the promises he made. Now, despite himself, the old memories and emotions are never far, a constant vibration underneath his skin, born anew by the cryptic words.
In the obscurity, the black ink shines golden with the flame of the lamp as he caresses the yellowed page with a finger. The second letter, he has no inkling of its meaning, what name the ‘M’ could stand for. But the ‘A’, that he knows. The electrifying jolt of his heart, followed by the excited pumping of blood, warm and bracing, a full-body blush―of course he knows.
He has read it enough since that first time, a hundred instances at least, not realising until the written words blurred with the mist of tears how desperate he had been for some sign proving that his past life had not been completely forgotten.
A sign, tangible and vibrant, that he now cradles between his fingers like the most precious of gifts.
To His High Born, Kapitan Nikolai Lisitsyn, named Sturmhond.
Bring Ravka her Sun, its shine inured with the Saint in Chains’ silver beast. Remember your oath, as I’ve remembered mine.
Come home to me.
A.M.
Nikolai smiles.
***
The whaler lists sideways, struck by a sudden wave, the deck rolling under their feet. Ahead, where the dark of the night sky and the black of the frothing sea meet in an indefinite horizon, a storm is brewing. They are leaving the Bone Road and its many dangers behind, but they must brace themselves for the inevitable tempests created when the northern winds clash with southern gales, cold and hot air turning the region even more dangerous.
It is not the first time Nikolai finds himself captain in these deadly waters, but that does not make him any less wary and ever vigilant of any threatening signs. Even if there should no longer be any ice floes nor snowstorms, in addition to the menacing clouds straight ahead, the fog at their back persists on keeping them prisoners of its hold, layering a thick coat of ice from the upper deck to the towering masts. The growling hail of the south should whip them free of its cage, but to trade one for the other will not necessarily give them an advantage. The Fork and the Knife should be near, notwithstanding the unnamed islets sprouting like misty pieces of land all over the Bone Road. Still many an island have rendered this region of the True Sea hazardous to foolhardy fishermen, and though it is not a cachalot they have caught, the sea beast that now coddles in the try-pots, fuming its stench for miles around, reminds him that he cannot think himself better than those unlucky enough to have found their watery grave.
There is one advantage over these dead fools however: his crew is just as experienced, if not more, than himself. Years spent on those perilous seas, sweat and blood poured like fat on the taut ropes latched to the ships they have made their home. These men and women, he has faith in them just as they have in him. And now, right in this very moment where they are about to hit themselves against an even bigger monster, they are all mad enough to anticipate its coming.
At the top of the rigging, he can hear Big Danilo yell out to the rest of the crew to prepare the storm sails. By the stern, his quartermaster Tolya bellows his answer, laughing with his twin as they plot their course.
“Pour some of that serpent’s oil down into the sea while you’re at it!” Nikolai shouts over the rising wind, all of his arms’ muscles used to maintain the helm on course. A strong gale whips him from the back, his coat lifting like shadow lashes at his sides, and his copper hair flies free of its tie.
At his back, Privyet, his first officer, takes over, relaying his order. “As your captain commands, laddies! To the kettles and back overboard! Let that storm think it can wreck us,” he adds, his baying voice filled with mirth. “See how it’ll cry when the waves beat up to nothing against our slippery ass!”
Despite the many hours spent since the morning cutting through the mass of fattened flesh the ice whip left for them, his men could not be more primed for the menace ahead.
“Howl, my lovelies! Howl! Show to that undine mistress the merit of our folly!” Nikolai laughs, heartened and proud. “Let’s make her regret having chosen us for her quarry!”
All around, the company loses yips and yowls, the mood high and lively in the face of the encroaching tempest.
Already, striding all over, the crew busies itself with the storm preparation, his trio of Squallers to the sails while his two Tidemakers and the other foremast hands take on the task of pouring boiled blubber overboard to slick the nearing waters and keep the hull safe from the impact of the waves.
“If we make it until morning, double rations and some well-deserved prize it’ll be for all!”
Ah! Now he’s got them truly merry!
Pleased with their efforts, Nikolai leaves them to it, descending from the sternpost to join their guests where he has left them in the captain’s cabin.
Belowdecks, he crosses the path of one of his crew, a fifty-something years old Materialki who joined them too many years ago.
“I’ve cut the scales for fitting, Captain, and kept the rest for storing down the hull,” she announces, a flat line for a smile on her no nonsense face. “Let me know when you want me to put the prettiest on her wrist.”
“Will do, Mava. Perhaps right after the storm would be best. In the morning, if everything goes well,” he answers with a sly smirk, tilting his scarred chin in salute.
“When does it ever go otherwise with us? Sturmhond’s unending streak of luck is not about to fizzle out with a bit of spraying rain, is it?” she retorts as she walks on, an amused glint in her pale eyes and the skin wrinkling at the corners softening her sharp-tongued jest.
“It better not, or I’ll give you all the right to mutiny as soon as we reach the next port.”
“Hear, hear!” he receives at his back.
He smiles at himself before landing a knock on the wooden door leading into the ship’s only private stateroom.
The door is not yet opened that rapid footfalls follow along a sudden hush of voices, and when it springs wide, wincing on its hinges, he is greeted by a tall shape sporting a glaring scowl.
They are of a size, his own muddy eyes meeting brown ones narrowed in annoyance, but he is not the bigger one, sad is he to note. His way in is inevitably blocked.
“Let him in, Mal,” comes a stern voice.
“Oh, yes, Mal, do let me in,” Nikolai drawls, never tiring of seeing him so easily ruffled. That boy has no one else to blame but himself for his bad mood. “See how magnanimous I am, lending you my cabin, and here I am asking only for a bit of your time.” He receives a growl―a real and true growl―but Nikolai’s only reaction is the widening of his smirk. “Now pull those fangs of yours back in, I have not come for you. If you keep on acting like a guard dog, I’m afraid you’ll steal my epithet and what will I do then?”
“Do you ever stop talking?” Mal asks, though he does move aside, letting the slightest of space for Nikolai to come in.
And he does, not without throwing him another grin. “Not if I can help it. I’m stuck with my own company. Better make it enjoyable, wouldn’t you think?”
But Mal has no time to answer, their banter cut short just as it was starting to become amusing.
“Is this not a stolen ship?” comes that voice again, bringing his attention to the girl aglow in a handlamp’s light. She sits on the bed bunk, palms together on her lap, and regards them both with an exasperated air. “That claim you make on this cabin is not quite valid in that case.”
“Ah, straight to the jugular, I see.” Nikolai cannot help one corner of his mouth from lifting in a true smile. “Mayhaps we’ll make true hounds out of the two of you. Seems like you have the temperament for it.”
“Is that why you are keeping us captive? Because that is the only way to garner additional crew members?” She snorts then, and though she is a pretty girl despite her thin features, the sound is ugly and resentful. “Let me remind you that you were the one to kidnap us in the middle of the night, to force us aboard this stinking boat―”
“I can excuse injury to my person,” Nikolai cuts in, “but do not discredit the ship we are on. She is the only one guarding us from an untimely death. Be glad of her clemency.”
At their side, the boy scoffs and spits on the deck floor. “Why persist in talking to him, Alina? We’ll never get a true answer.”
“The truth is that we are your prisoners, Captain Sturmhond. Not your guests,” she continues, ignoring her friend. “And keeping in mind the idea of my own value, you have given us no reason to think I won’t be sold to the highest bidder as soon as you are done fattening me up with amplifiers and lies.”
Nikolai grunts, arms crossed. Glancing sideways to the boy, tall and boorish in his corner, not missing a thing from the two-way tirade going on, he then considers an answer. Because, loathe as he is to admit, the girl―Alina―has a point. He may have underestimated her, or at least the depth of her frustration at being played like a pawn.
Raising an eyebrow, chin tilted up as he considers her, he pauses. Sitting in this modest whaler cabin, dressed in hues of brown and grey, face pale and traits strained by exhaustion, there is still something arresting about her―the way she holds herself, how she meets his gaze, how a light forever shines in those angular eyes. Perhaps there is a grain of truth in all this talk of sainthood and faith, even for a man as dismissive of religion as himself.
He still smiles, but it is now a dry thing, devoid of softness. “Oh, ‘tis a bleak truth you paint, my dear, but a truth nonetheless. My client has paid a fair bit of price for me to bring you safe and sound, and adorned with a new and powerful bauble at that. If I am to use your own words, you are indeed a prisoner, though your chains are not made of alloyed iron, but of the holy material of duty and symbolism.”
In his side vision, the boy leans away from the wooden wall, taking a personal affront to whatever is said. “This is no answer at all,” he repeats, lips curled in anger, and takes a step in their direction.
“Mal―”
“It is the answer you must contend yourselves with.” A steel edge hardens Nikolai’s words, and that stays the boy in his tracks. “I am but the messenger, paid to remind you of those you abandoned when you decided to leave Ravka behind.”
Outside, the winds strike the whaler from the bow and new waves break themselves on its hull. Again, the deck floor roils under their feet―Nikolai, used to the sea’s capricious nature, steadies himself with the nearby table while Mal must thrust a hand to the wall.
The storm is almost upon them.
Alina, frowning ever since hearing his words, uses the advantage of the unfrazzled composure her sitting position provides. “Am I to believe that a pirate like you―”
“Privateer.”
“―a cutthroat and self-serving man who robs, plunders and murders keeps in mind a country he abuses and forsakes? Under the frock and blouse, is there a bleeding heart weeping at the injustices he continues to promulgate? Let me spare you the effort―I am not that much of a fool, but you could very well be if you hope I’ll believe any of this.”
His good humour erodes under her allegation, and he uses a sharp tone and a dangerous grin to dismiss the pounding of his heart. “A lying cutthroat can still think of grander things in life, though that may be too hard to believe. Perhaps such a belief requires the ability to understand others in their complexity and not with the two-toned perception used until now.” Showing a canine with his dragging smirk, he takes a step towards her―Mal stiffens, but stays put with the girl’s blunt signal. “Let me offer my own observation, if we are to share our thoughts: am I to understand a living Saint needs enforced persuasion to save her own people? Is there some lofty and unobservable reason that keeps her away, or is she perhaps human like the rest of us and prone to the same weaknesses proper to men?”
She pales, then reddens, blotches of red over her cheeks and neck, giving some life back to her ashen skin.
Like this, coloured by anger, he finds her beautiful, more akin to the young woman she is supposed to be, and less the acclaimed deity the Church has made of her. In a way, she reminds him of himself, a decade ago, after the scales had fallen from his eyes.
He does not receive any comeback, her silence an answer in itself. But the reminder of her humanity does not serve only herself and her friend; he cushions his approach, choosing a gentler tone for his next words. “Then if I can permit some other words of advice, freely given since I am feeling generous and offerings to one’s Saint are a staple for us lowly Ravkans: do not judge and discredit others, Summoner, even those you think you know everything about. Life is an unending series of acts and displays, lies if you prefer the term, but they serve a goal most of us share―survival. And can you really fault someone for trying to survive? Must I pray for this small mercy, Alina the Merciful?”
He looks at nothing but her, transfixed, and sees the moment his words erode some of her defensiveness and she starts to consider him in a new light.
In her dark eyes, there is a mirroring shine, glistening with the faint gleam of oil lanterns. Their colour and intensity, so similar to another’s, mesmerise him, and such comparison makes him wish for her answer, anything to break the enchantment he finds himself in.
Surprisingly, it is Mal who interferes, vying the exchange away from the edge they were standing at, where something awaited them, something perhaps even Nikolai himself was not ready for. “I’ve not agreed to any philosophical debates―”
“You’ll learn with age that those are the best.” Nikolai leans back, huffing as he straightens his coat with two firm grips on the folded cloth of its lapels.
“Who is this client you speak of?” Mal continues, ignoring the interruption.
Alina nods, her lips pursed as she awaits an answer.
He may be a gentleman at heart, but he cannot make it all so easy for them, can he? “That would be telling. It could very well be Ravka herself, needing her Saint back to deliver the people from the evils at their doors.” Nikolai shakes his head at their confusion and makes his way to the locked chest by his desk, finding what he is looking for inside. “That reminds me―I have been tasked to give you this.”
He turns then, a bound book in hand, the same one he paged through to learn of the known lore regarding the silver serpent. His thumb lingers on its pressed cover and embossed title, but he gives it without further delay when he notices her intrigued glance.
She does not hide her curiosity, and nor does Mal who joins her, standing at her side. Taking it, she palms the binding, reading the title as her frown deepens around her eyes. “The Istorii Sankt’ya…? But why―who… Is the Apparat the one paying you to take me back?”
But Nikolai only responds with another enigmatic smile. “Some mystery must be preserved, you understand? But the study of the Saints may deepen your perception of Ravka’s current situation. And since we are a week from Os Kervo and with not much else to entertain you with, I suggest you devote yourself to some light reading.”
Mal crosses his arms, scowling again. “How can childhood tales give her insight? All these old geezers are long dead.”
“Ah, but that is hers to discover.” Nikolai considers them, youthful faces drawn in sullen lines, doubt clear as water in their expressions. “Cheers, my lovelies. In the morning, my dear Summoner, you’ll have a new bracelet on your wrist. A bit of power will offer you some fresh perspective, mayhaps even the insight your sweetheart speaks of.” That makes them blush, a deep ruddy colour on cheeks that desperately need it.
Ah, young love.
He offers another smile and a bow, primarily addressed to Alina. “On that note, I will leave you to it. I’m afraid the storm about to hit us must keep me away for some time. But we will have other moments to exchange on the subject before we reach land, be sure of it.”
***
There is no warm sunlight the next day, not with the storm still growling in their wake. They have survived its ire without loss, but the late hours have been anything but restful, the sum of his crew called on deck to survive the towering waves and the pouring downfall that unfurled upon them for hours at a time.
After a night spent shouting orders and giving a hand wherever needed, Nikolai did try to catch a wink in one of the unused bunks of the men’s appointed wardroom, in a too-short moment somewhere between midnight and dawn, though the grizzle outside kept everything in obscurity. But, as is his habit, slumber remained elusive during the one hour he tried to chase it.
After turning and huffing in vain, he left his cot for the main deck and the remaining watchkeepers.
When he stumbles his way outside, exhaustion heavy on his brows, the hint of a headache throbbing behind his temples, the first thing he notices is their young Summoner at the taffrail, a dark stain in brown rags, hurling into the sea the meagre portion she managed to eat the previous evening.
“You know we have a Healer aboard,” he says as he joins her, leaning his elbows against the rope rails, overlooking the dark horizon they are leaving behind. “They could give you something for your seasickness.”
Done with this bout of vomiting, she spits overboard, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve. “It should pass,” she groans, green at the gills. “As soon as you’re all done with boiling the sea whip and the stench disperses a bit, I should feel better.”
He throws her a side glance, a gentle grin coming to his lips at her stubbornness. “It’s been two weeks, Summoner. Seems like you are just as human as us―no need to martyr yourself with unending nausea to gain my respect.”
Pulling a tin flask out of his coat, he gives it to her. She takes it with no complaint and, gulping the spirit to wash her mouth, grimaces at the burning taste.
“I do not care for your respect,” she says after swallowing, but there is no bite to her words, any drive buffered by her shutting eyes and long exhalation.
With the sharp wind on his face, wiping locks of red hair from his brow, he watches her, a small and fragile shelf of a woman, barely reaching his collarbones. She shivers in the northern air, her arms crossing over her chest to rub at what must be frigid skin underneath the wool and linen of her threadbare coat.
He would give her his own coat, to bask in the heat his body has provided, but such gallantry would only be met with rebuttal.
“Indeed, I would not think you do,” he murmurs as an afterthought, but his comment startles her, and she turns her attention to him, catching his gaze with her own black one. “Nevertheless, if you have some consideration for my crew, if not for me, I would wish for a small favour.”
That piques her interest, and she takes another drag from his flask before giving it back and inquiring for him to continue with one raised eyebrow.
“My poor eyes cannot find it through the clouds and murk, but perhaps you could enchant the sun for us, so that it may warm our bones and give us all some respite from that grey weather that is the curse of this region.”
Is that a surprised curl of lips he sees at the edge of her mouth? A bit of a smile he has succeeded in calling to the surface, under all that rue and nausea?
She nods, the cold and the alcohol giving back some colour over her cheeks and nose. Rising her arms over the rails, angling her body to the port side, facing east, she closes her eyes and breathes out, as if cutting all distractions but her own inner world.
He sees it, the moment her summoning takes effect, an evidence in itself when her skin blooms under a strong rosy tint, a healthy glow over her face and any part of her bare to him. She smiles, a secret to herself which he happens to witness, and he beholds for the first time what happiness looks like on her. Then, between her palms, a shimmer gleams in the air, translucent like soap bubbles, and suddenly, he feels it, the heated kiss of sunlight. Casting the gloom of the night away, the angry clouds and the fog, in the horizon where he knows lies Fjerda appears the sun. A glorious being, a god answering to none but this tiny and brave girl who comes as an answer to all prayers.
When no more doubt and cynicism resides in him, when he knows that he has a true Saint before him, then she drops her arms to her sides, opens her eyes and turns to him. The shadow of a smile is still there, her features soft and light as she considers him.
“Feeling better?” he asks.
She blinks, realising in his question that he knew of the effects Grisha power has on one’s health and well-being. Tilting her head, mouth surprised, her stare is not as hard as those he received from her until now, more searching than judging.
He saves her from too much introspection, and from the moment of weakness that would have come from it, by extending a folded arm to her. “Now that the sun has risen, perhaps we should wake everyone else. You have an amplifier to subdue after all.”
Pleased when she accepts his arm, hooking hers around, he guides them back to the forecastle deck, where he knows Mava and his officers are waiting for them with the serpent’s scales.
To Privyet, who is up and about, having lent the helm to Tolya and a formal salute at the ready at the sight of his captain, he says, “Send for the boy. Our Summoner may need some comfort and assistance for this next part.”
No more than five minutes later, a grumbling Mal joins them, rubbing his eyes of leftover sleep, and Nikolai signals to Mava.
“Bare your wrist, girl,” she says in a curt tone, as cool as ever, even with a Saint under her touch. She places one scale after another around Alina’s arm, fusing each sharp edge together until it resembles a bracelet like no other. In the newly summoned rays, they glint, nacreous and beautiful, more awe-inspiring than the richest rhinestones belonging to Os Alta’s court.
Overhead, in the rigging, the men have their attention fixated on the scene, and every other deckhand pauses in their tasks, aware that they are about to witness something unique and otherworldly.
With a collective holding of breath, a press of eyes on one human being who is about to prove she is so much more, time stays suspended as everyone awaits the catharsis, when everything will become clear―when holy and mundane will meet in a single instant of exultation.
Nothing happens for one agonising moment, and Nikolai is about to share some clever quip, but then the air pressure drops, heavy and ominous, making the hair on his arms straighten and goosebumps traverse his spine. All around, the sea churns with even more anger, the waves roiling to escape away from the rocking ship. Above, the clouds part, the winds rise.
When Alina spreads her arms, when she opens her chest to the sun, calling its light to her, more commanding than she did moments ago, it becomes real. Making a star appear from the clouds―no, not just appear―it travels all the way from the skies, an incomprehensible form taking everything in its girth, absorbing all and everything around. No heat―thanks the Saints―but light, blinding light so white, so pure, no shadow, no colour remains. There is no longer any shape or form, nothing discernible. They all become one within the sun, within the girl who has the power to summon it to them as easily as drawing breaths.
The rocking of the whaler, the breeze of the sea air, the deep song of the waves, the sharp smell of salt and burning fat―nothing exists anymore.
His own body, his self, the face Tamar has conjured for him, they all disappear. He can barely manage words, let alone thoughts. He dissolves into the light, like he once did in the darkest point of night. Nothing, he is nothing, as if he does not need to exist anymore. Does not have to do a single thing. Only primordial light and the wisps of feelings, but even that is fading.
Pure passivity, no attempt to struggle, to keep his head above the surface in hope of surviving―the knowledge of his unimportance before the grandiose moulds him into a docile creature.
But some awareness remains. A slimy sensation of fear takes over, a muted apprehension battling with the heaving heat of awe, but after a time where he can only fathom having closed his eyes, a last instinctive barrier to protect himself, he starts to hear noises, sounds, cries. A name, shouted over and over again.
Alina. Alina.
A voice surging in anguish. And slowly, the radiance dims and outlines appear once again. His senses come back. Blinking away the spots and flashes of shimmering glare in the sheen of his eyes, he sees them―a boy holding a girl, arms clutching shoulders, voice calling out to her, summoning her back onto their plane of existence.
It works, to Nikolai’s surprise. She awakens from whatever trance the amplified power has projected her into. And falls straight against her friend, leaning her whole weight into his tightening embrace. Something in the scene pinches at Nikolai’s heart, and he swallows around the dry and swollen pressure in his mouth.
Clearing his throat, Nikolai signals to his crew to leave them alone, ordering all hands back to their post after making sure that everyone is safe and without injury. With a glance over his shoulder, finding them still clinging to each other, he lets out a long sigh and steps to join his men, preparing for another watch and another day. Not that any normalcy will be possible, not after what they all just witnessed.
***
When they reach Ravkan waters, when the coast of their homeland draws in the horizon like a promised mirage, the goal of their journey becomes something tangible. Nikolai feels it, in his crew, in the guests who have become more than ballast, more than simple prisoners.
The miracle they all saw is still fresh in their collective mind, and its impact is ineluctable even among his most loyal men. Already, Tamar has taken Alina under her wings, giving cues and tips on how to hold every kind of weaponry and how best to defend oneself. They sometimes meet on the main deck, between two shifts and when the weather permits it, and often enough they are joined by others―Mal, of course, but also Tolya, Big Danilo, even Privyet after Nikolai gives him his expressed permission.
Everyone’s spirit is lifted, the general mood lively and hopeful, such good ambiance contagious to all, and Nikolai does not escape it.
There is something within him, an excitement more baffling than anything else. Where he should be anxious and overwrought at the prospect of setting foot on land that has been forbidden for the past ten years, there is instead a billowing anticipation rising inside with each swell of waves bringing them closer.
The last miles at sea are loaded with obstacles―the threatening presence of a two-layered Fjerdan blockade on the major ports, the tussle of escaping Ravkan ships, another growing summer storm just as they enter Alkhem Bay and its violent waters. But they have the Sun Summoner aboard, inured with two amplifiers. A quick cast of light and they shimmer in an invisible bubble, passing by all other vessels as if they weren’t there at all. The storm, they meet with aplomb, the expertise of his crew barely tested as they clash against the strong waves of the bay.
And then, he sees it, one fresh morning.
The sea air is cold, almost biting, but he is well-protected in his wool coat. Even without, he wouldn’t have cared, unfeeling of all but the vision in his range of sight. Before his eyes, Os Kervo’s harbour opens itself to them, the whaler slashing through the waves and gaining fast enough ground for the city to draw ever more distinct with each passing minute.
At first, it appears like a hint of familiar civilization to the homesick eyes of his crew, the land taking shape in the form of a tall lighthouse at the end of an extension of the seawall. Then, the golden domes of the many churches arise on the coastal frame, over the three-storied white-grey buildings of the lower city and the palladian administrative edifices of the upper neighbourhoods surmounting the port.
Mist from the night rain still covers parts of Os Kervo, despite sunlight piercing through the fog. It makes for an impressive sight, almost mystical in its nature. The bells of a distant church tower ring in a distinct order. It is not a melody, but a complex rhythm of timbres where the first strike is clear and limpid, almost hopeful―the Zazvonny, the smallest of the three bells. As the toll ends, it is then followed by an alto ringing of the middle bell, the Podzvonny. The chimes are steady and slow, culminating by the peal of the third bell, massive in scale and sound, to be heard all over to the farthest boroughs of the city.
“A funeral zvon. The Saint church must toil day and night to cover for all the dead, citizens and refugees alike, from within the city walls and outside,” Privyet offers at his side, his weight against the sternpost rails, a short break while Tolya toils at the helm.
They both have been entranced by the sights and sounds, the two of them calm and still in the morning air. A fragile trepidation takes hold of the ship, a flutter of hope at seeing their country within staring distance. But beyond the towering shape of the urban sprawl can also be seen the smoking clouds of battle―the Border War appears to have reached further inland than anyone else could have predicted.
“Nowadays, I fear Os Kervo must hear the Perebor more often than the Blagovest, my friend,” Nikolai agrees, eyes glued ahead.
At his other side, he perceives a movement―Alina, and a silent Mal further away, having joined them on their vantage point to watch the coastline draw near.
“You know quite a lot about the Ravkan church, Sturmhond. Another interest of yours?” she comments, a smirk at the corner of her lips. But just like Privyet and him, despite her attempt at humour, she cannot suppress the emotions born from the sight of the familiar city―when Nikolai glances her way, there is a tremor to her shape, something subtle though evident to his keen eyes.
He answers with a smile, keeping an act of mystery that makes her roll her eyes and pulls a scoff from Mal. “I am as pious as they come, sweetheart, but only with my favourite Saints.”
“Oh, and what kind of Saint could draw the devotion of such an infamous privateer?”
Heavy-lidded, his eyes fall upon her face, watching her reaction, and he lets one corner of his mouth pull up slowly. “The kind made of flesh and blood, of course.”
Her lips part and her gaze meets his in spite of the faint blush on her cheeks. At her back, Mal watches them, a deep scowl drawing creased lines between his eyebrows. Throwing a glare reserved only for Nikolai, malcontent but not yet ready to interfere.
Nikolai brings a palm up, brushing along Alina’s shoulder, eyes still meeting Mal’s―she does not reject the touch, not quite embracing it, but nonetheless at ease, giving him a quick glance before her attention switches to whatever Privyet is saying. Nikolai sees it all, especially the tautness of Mal’s face, the frown darkening and eyes glinting with fury. But Alina is smiling and chatting with his second-in-command, happier than she has been yet, and even in his anger, the boy understands enough to refrain from acting. It doesn’t mean Nikolai cannot enjoy goading him however, and his grin grows sharp as he watches the display of ireful emotions on that scowling face.
“Did you not follow the liturgy of the Saints in your youth, Sankta?” Privyet asks from behind Nikolai’s shoulder, unaware of the tension.
“Not as closely as you two, it seems,” she responds with another gentle smile.
With shuffling hands, Privyet gestures to himself, nervous at having gained her full attention. “My family is very pious, the fate of every member given to one Saint in the hope of being delivered of our poverty. My brother-in-law is also a man of the cloth. He is a zvonar, the one who tolls the bells. From my wife’s last correspondence with him, he was appointed to one of Os Kervo’s monasteries. I wonder if it is not him we hear right now. I hope so.” His expression is wishful, but an underlying worry pulls his features tight―a downturn of lips and a slight frown appears.
“What is your favourite bell?” Alina asks, perhaps seeing the same thing as Nikolai, keeping the conversation light and away from more distressing subjects.
A shy smile draws on Privyet’s face, something unusual on one used to control and command, and it breaks off the concerning thoughts painting shades along the lines of fatigue. “My favourite has always been Anya, the smallest of the Zazvonny. She is named after Sankta Anastasia.” He throws a glimpse at Alina. “Most likely they will name a bell after you. Perhaps in Os Alta, at the royal chapel.”
Nikolai can almost hear the echo of the royal bells, a ringing toll distinct and profound, reminiscent of past memories. How often their songs have marked moments in his forgotten life, signs of passage he had no insight of their importance until later. The ache of souvenirs is fresh again, a mute pang turning him unsettled and contemplative.
“For Faith, Tsar and Fatherland,” Nikolai murmurs to himself, a grim remark.
“Maybe,” comes Alina’s answer―to him or his second, who knows, for whatever she would have said next is lost to a sudden clamour.
A fracas of resounding bells, bracing and startling as they ring in tandem with one another. It coincides with their arrival as the whaler docks on the quay and is then moored by the eager deck crew, overjoyed at the prospect of land and shore leave.
But then comes the tidal strokes of one grave bell mixed with the tolls of a second one―a double-pealed pattern repeated over and over from one grand bell to another, a harmonious communion building louder and louder, reaching toward a culmination that inflates all over Os Kervo.
Palms at the rails, gaze facing his crew preparing their disembarkment, the western wind swells at his back, reaching like an invisible hand all over the city, chasing the fog and mist away. High on the hill, over the white-stone buildings of provincial lords can be seen the billowing flags of his home―the double-headed eagle, gold and glorious.
If Nikolai was a holy man, he would have felt each sign as an augur of good fortune. But he is not, his mind turned to more profane thoughts―of another, one he thought of like an equal, one who he hopes awaits him some hundreds miles east of here. There is yet a long road ahead, but despite the apprehension and the nervousness rushing through him, despite the reminder of adversity and conflict his people live through to this day, he feels naught but a deep longing.
To go home, to find his rightful place beside those with whom he belongs.
***
A hard sound wrenches him out of the heated images his mind has conjured in his exhaustion. A knock at his door, sudden and startling.
He slides his hand out of his underpants, rubbing the palm against the coarse sheets. Sucking on a breath, then sitting up to stop his heart from pounding through his chest cavity.
And here he was getting to the fun part. A wry curl of lips, willing his cock to take on the cue and soften. He blows some of the steam he had no chance to let out and runs his hands through his hair, groaning aloud.
They have been lucky enough to find some rooms yet available in a lodge not far from Os Kervo’s harbour, his companions and him. Or perhaps the enchanting sight of glittering gold made the owner reconsider their demand not so outlandish after all―and for three private quarters at that. Such luxury has not been seen often, even within the walls of what separatists call the western capital, not since the Border War redoubled in effort with the Apparat’s coup and the collapse of the tsarist autocracy. Again, greed is the easiest vice to exploit, and he has no one else to thank but the Sun Summoner for the riches accumulated with the sale of the sea whip’s scales.
But now it is hours past midnight, the darkness dragging slow and heavy. Not many of his crew have followed them, the majority staying with Privyet in another of his fleet’s vessels now docked in town. Their goodbyes had felt more final than a simple farewell―and with whatever scenarios his future reserves for him, Nikolai fears it will be quite some time before he can set foot aboard one of his ships. Only Tolya and Tamar have joined him in this new adventure, and of course Mal and Alina, tagging along.
A knock, again, just as insistent as the first that snatched him from the waking dream he keeps on reliving.
Then another, and he grunts in frustration, kicking at the sheets coiled around his limbs.
When he stumbles out of bed to unlock the door, Alina is the one he finds standing in the dim corridor, alone and dressed for slumber in pale gossamer, an ethereal appearance if there ever was one.
“What the―” Nikolai says, swallowing back a curse of surprise at seeing her here, and, clearing his throat, lowers his voice. “What is it, sweetheart?”
She does not appear to be startled by his dishevelled and more than improper appearance, staring right through him. Her expression is impossible to read―more an absence of reaction than anything else, and prodigious he may be at reading people, even he struggles with a blank page.
Frowning, he flickers a glance down at himself, dressed in nothing but his drawers, then to the seemingly empty corridor, left and right, making sure none are witness to her standing before his allotted chamber. Solely shadows and wisps―they are the only ones awake at this forsaken hour. He steps away from the threshold, his body angled so there is enough room for her to walk in―which she does, as quiet as before.
Shutting the door with a cautious click, the sound barely breaking the silence, he turns to her, arms crossed over his naked bust.
Her posture is hard to translate. Shoulders held tight, tendons bulging in her neck, her collarbones visible through the cleavage of her nightgown, but her face remains impassive, as if whatever thoughts claiming her still hold her completely.
Something is wrong, even if he does not understand what.
“Summoner?” he calls when she still does not say a thing, voice soft as to not spook her.
Though the room is one of the inn’s best according to the owner, there is not much in terms of furniture, not to his eye―a double bed, one closet, a small powder desk with its accompanying chair and ablution tools. Between the disparate articles, she stands still. Moonlight filters through the stained window, casting the room in a play of darkness and grey light, accentuating her outline.
Still no answer but slow and shuddering breaths, hiccuping on some choking emotions to which he can only hazard a guess.
“Alina?” His frown deepens. Taking a step to her, he lifts a hand to her shoulder.
But before he can touch her, she pivots her head to the left, her eyes cast down, profile visible in the cold light.
“Why is it that I know you?” she whispers, voice tight and wrecked, befuddling him. “Why do you seem so familiar yet a stranger?”
It stops him in his movement, the arresting question holding him immobile, in appearance at the very least. Within his ribcage, his heart gains speed and force, his lungs rushing to follow the same cadence. A wave of warmth overwhelms him.
“I’m afraid I do not know what you mean. We have grown from strangers to acquaintances, if a man lowly like I can assume some relation with one as holy as you, Summoner. But we have never met befor―” he says, the sentence cutting short.
He is struck dumb by her eyes assessing him, the odd intensity in her expression making for a sharp contrast to her mute silence instants ago.
“No more lies. You are…” Her eyes dash all over his face, pausing at each feature he knows Tamar has taken care of modelling. But their last Tailoring session dates to a week ago, if not more. Before the ice serpent.
It feels like the incoming drop of a pendulum, meeting the stare travelling back to his own, stripping him naked like he can scarcely remember being―even more than he already is.
What sorts of power have they, Summoners, to beckon him with the mere act of their existence?
Open-mouthed as she studied him, now her lips part wider, forming a syllable he has not heard in a long, long time. “Kol―”
He plasters a hand over her mouth, blocking the sound in. “Stop.” Heart in his throat, wide-eyed. “Stop,” he pleads again. “Not many know to use another name but my moniker. How come you...” he manages to say, before the words become mute and ragged breaths tumble free.
Alina does not struggle against his hold―on the contrary, she is calm, calmer now that she seems to have reached whatever conclusion not yet shared with him. How the tables turned, when he finds himself the one stripped of all pretensions and defences, and she grander than the girl she appears to be.
His hand slowly slides back to his side, and close as he is, he sees the faint lines wrinkling at the edge of her eyes―a smile reaching all over her face.
“I dreamt of you,” she tells him, a comment more blunt than their previous interactions could have predicted, only softened by the affection lacing both tone and expression. “I was your lover and you were mine.”
What?
What does she…?
Any other time, he would have made a bawdy joke or two. But the ground has opened underneath his feet with that whispered name, and he remains staggered still, too witless and dumbstruck to formulate any comeback. He cannot know what he looks like right this very moment, but he hears himself―the loud pants as if he had run a mile, the expression of pain becoming audible.
Before she left Ravka, before the war brought the country down to its knees, he had heard of the Sun Summoner and the Black General, how one had been discovered by the other like a promise of hope for a people without any. He listened to tales of prophesied bonds, tethering them together, their elements a perfect complement to one another and where the border of each became unclear. At first, any whimsical conjecture about fairytales and destined lovers seemed like simple stories, hypotheses to those prompted by naive and childish hearts.
But now… now he begins to understand that there may be more to those rumours which drifted all the way to his ears.
A soft palm seeks his cheek, scattering his thoughts. Caressing him with more tenderness and love than their interactions until now should permit. But Nikolai does not care for the incongruity of her touch nor her reasoning―her hand is hers and not at the same time, an indistinct extension of another whom he misses with every fibre of his being, wishing to be filled completely with deep-rooted affection. He leans into it, instincts stronger than volition, chasing her warmth like a moth to a flame. His bewildered eyes are still bound to hers, his mouth opening in a silent grimace of misplaced hope as confusion makes way to bewildered realisation.
Could he be more than what Nikolai knew, nearer to Sainthood like she is, for the transition from one remote place to another be without effort, a link becoming an instant channel between them? Could Aleksander, through his Sun Saint, be both there and here?
Come home to me.
And he has. Nikolai, lost son of Ravka, has come home. And Ravka knows of his coming. As must Aleksander, spliced to their country’s essence like an immense shadow, everywhere and all-knowing.
I’m here, I’m home, Nikolai wants to shout to the soil, the air, the land. But perhaps he does not need to. Perhaps…
Mad thoughts. Impossible. But he wants to know, needs to know. His lungs ache from the sudden pressure, a void needing to be filled growing inside him.
“Is he―” he swallows, struggling to find enough air, to snare untethered thoughts, anything to put into words the crazy images plunging his mind in an opaque fog. All around, there is darkness and gloom, a weight binding him to an impossible conclusion, “―here? Is he here with you?” he murmurs, barely believing himself.
“No,” she says in the same clear voice she would use to answer any other request, her innate understanding of who he is alluding to making him more maddened with absurd notions. As if he could have been here, just as real as she is, standing inches away. The hundreds of miles between them, erased in an instant; the past rushing to meet the present, to be within reach once more, close enough to touch, to kiss, to―
His stomach twists, looping down as the building pressure reaches new heights.
“But he was,” she adds.
The roar in his ears is violent, just like the shrouding obscurity covering his eyes. He hears and sees nothing, caught in the blazing pulse of red and black entrapping him. At his throat, his heart grounds a beat, furious and whirling.
“How…?” Reeling from her confession, he stammers voiceless words, blinking away the dark cover to see her again, to come back to his room unchanged by her admission―but him, torn asunder, out of the whirlpool of stupor clinging to his senses.
Swallowing around the hard lump in his throat, making it impossible to breathe. “I need to sit down,” he manages to say, weak and feeble, so far from whatever act he has played with her until now―and so far from caring, not when the tidings she offers are beyond the realm of simple mortals like him. Plopping down on the unmade bed, elbows to his knees and face hidden in his hands, he tries to make sense of it all.
A gentle touch falls on his hair, fingers combing through his unkept strands with affection. He whimpers, a boy once again seeking love. “I understand why you could have loved him,” he hears her say. “He is a man like no other. I fell for that too.”
When he looks up, he finds her at his shoulder, the solid shape of her body a comfort despite the turmoil her words create.
“But just like his power, he is a man of stark ruthlessness and cruelty,” she adds, taking her hand back. “You must have heard, far as you were. The world heard of Novokribirsk’s fall.”
He clears his throat, focusing through the filter of incomprehension in an attempt to listen. “The Fold…”
“Yes, the Fold. It ate the town whole, people and buildings trapped within, devoured by monsters. That was him. His doing.”
He knew. Ever since hearing the news, he knew that Aleksander was at the heart of this revolution. His oath of gifted power―no such power ever comes without a price. And in accepting his pledge, Nikolai had given him a personal gauge of trust, making himself an accomplice for whatever action needed to achieve their goals. He knew then and he knows now, but the first time he learned of what happened, he preferred to turn a blind eye, the distance between them helping to keep at bay any recoiling guilt rising within him. But no longer can he remain impassive, not when he now walks on the same soil.
“A terrible move,” he says, voice a gravelly sound, but the words out of his mouth help to ground him back. “Ruthless like you say, but it gave him the advantage he wished for. And ruthlessness born of a cause is not the same as cruelty.”
Now, it is her turn to frown.
“Control of the Second Army’s movements, free from the King’s impediment,” he explains. “And without any loss on his side, apart from your sudden escape. He achieved what many have tried over the years and without success―to bring terror in the hearts of Ravka’s enemies, to remind those who wish to put our country to flame and fear that we are more of a threat than they ever realised.”
Her frown tightens with anger, her clenched jaw a sharp line. “While bringing terror and death to his own people.”
“Terror already dwelled in their hearts. It is not the sole province of Darklings, after all. Like many other instruments of tyranny, it is a tool most appreciated by the Crown.” He huffs, a chuckle without humour. “No, his attack was swift and without mercy, but Novokribirsk was a military town on the verge of unprecedented insurgence.” His smile becomes grim, and he rises to his full length, towering over her. “As for death... the many innocents who lost their lives need justice, there is no denying the fact. But Kirigan did cut the head of the hydra, bringing traitors down with more ease and efficiency than a standard battle could have achieved.”
Alina tilts her chin up, shoulders rolled back and rigid. A scorching light resides in her black eyes. “Are you still so in love with him that you are ready to excuse any action of his?”
His whole body stiffens under her accusation, but Nikolai forces his muscles to uncoil. “Perhaps I prefer to keep an eye on the grander picture, on the many lives saved thanks to his bold move.”
“The lives saved? You speak just like him,” she accuses, her teeth bared.
“Do I? Seems to me you already know who I am. And what did I just say about terror and monarchy?” He grins, full of self-derision and devoid of any humour.
The truth of his identity perhaps does not need explicit telling, now that she knows him. But he still readies himself for the univocal avowal, breathing slow and long to calm himself, to bend but not break at the sound of a name he hasn’t heard in too long.
The anger dims from her face, reading in his stance what he wishes her to. “You are not like your family, even if you wish me to believe it with your attempt at kidnapping and your roguish airs. No, I’m doomed to know you like he does,” she says with a wry tone, but she does not remark on the willful heat that spreads over his face; she must see it like some dark splotches of colour in the moonlight. “But even without that knowledge, there are other clues―you have neglected your hair. Not a lot of red to be found on that head anymore. Did you forget your daily preening session? I remember only too well some of the Grisha describing you and your golden head with all kinds of flattery. You left your mark all over the Second Army, moi tsarevich, not just with its General.”
“Tsarevich?” Despite himself, her words strike at the doubt residing within his breast, assuaging the deep-seated anguish at the thought of having been forgotten. He smiles once more, a rush of warmth leaving him lighter. “I have not been called that in years. But it is no longer my just title.” He bows his head, blinking slowly as he watches her leftover anger completely diminishes. “I am only Nikolai.”
She nods. “And now I know, Nikolai, what you hid from me. It is evident, even if I was too blind to it before: the one who is paying you, it is no other than the Darkling.”
He does not react―he does not need to, if she now knows Aleksander like she claims to―but his lack of reaction is an answer in itself.
Crossing her arms, she leans away, putting an arm’s distance between them. “How much is he paying you? What could he give to a prince, to one who has everything?”
His eyebrows jump up. “Everything? It’s true I have many things a great number of people dream of possessing. But it is far from everything…” he chuckles, the dry rasp of his words almost choking him as the yearning suddenly widens like a vertiginous chasm inside him.
He would give all the prizes in his possession to have what he hasn’t. What he cannot have.
She considers him, but as much as he appreciates her, it is not in his nature to reveal himself. A rare boon of self-preservation spinned through a small act of mystery―in spite of his showmanship, the deprecation is never far, but this time some sense of survival protects the scraps of ego that remain. She already knows too much, if she has access to all he has shown Aleksander.
When he does not provide more of an answer, her shoulders drop, a long and heavy exhale leaving her. She shakes her head, passing a hand through her hair. Back to looking like a mortal girl, brought low by the weight of duty and expectation.
“So you are bringing me home to the one I chose to flee.” She snorts, looking down at her feet. He does not miss her choice of term―home. “Did you know he tried to collar me?” she adds, without waiting for a reply. “That he used me to spread the terror you spoke of?” She pursues his gaze again, holding him to her in that way. “Is he the one we are to follow? To love? Is he the one to be at the head of a country that should be yours?”
He smiles, bittersweet and tender, and such an expression visibly destabilises her. “A country that should be mine? There is some attempt at flattery in there, Summoner. Beware of the vain creature that I am―I shall accept all compliments, my dear.”
His words make her moan in frustration. “For once in your life, I would appreciate a real answer. Now that I know your name, is it too much to ask for honesty? We can pretend all you like tomorrow morning, with you as Sturmhond and me as Sol Sankta. But now, just Nikolai and Alina. Please.”
Fatigue laces her tone, and he feels it in resonance with his own exhaustion. He takes pity on her and complies with a nod. For all his years, he has never stopped being a fool for pretty girls.
“Kirigan has always been the answer Ravka has sought for, even with his many faults. I am not blind, and I am also not forgetful of all he and his kin have endured at the hands of my forefathers. His anger, though terrible, is justified, and the end results must be brought at the feet of the real culprits. The Lantsovs are the beating heart of malignance and hate. Not the Grisha. Not Kirigan. Not when they have been driven to the wall, centuries after centuries, generations after generations, enduring endless trauma and mistreatment. Yes, what Kirigan did was horrible―to have not spared the innocents caught in the fray is a ruthless act, but few generals can pride themselves on their merciful nature. In spite of this, the end to this violence cannot come from him and his Grisha―their subsequent submission would give reason to their oppressors and would be seen as acceptance of any hate to follow. No, it must come from the Tsar and his sycophants.” His muscles tense, his jaw tight and locked. “But the Tsar… how to say this with tact―he is not one for diplomacy and humanism. The coup d’état Kirigan engineered, that is now shouldered by the Apparat, it is an act born of necessity. For too long Ravkans have been forsaken by their rulers. The revolution Kirigan proposes will not only benefit the anarchists and reformists. Grisha and non-Grisha, you will all outlive us in the end―the people, blessed by the Small Science or not, will always outlive those who claim power―you share the land and the life it provides; not the ruling class, not when they have separated themselves from the world in their lofty pretensions. This is a moment of imminent change like no other. And this moment, you have to seize it, Alina. As a Saint and as a Grisha, but also as a Ravkan that is part of this world. With the light bound to you, you must pave the way to all who will follow. It is high time the era of monarchs and autocrats be over.” He pauses, taking a breath, then turns his eyes again to her. “This is the truth you ask of me, that I give you with my knowledge as one who once was a Lantsov.”
The stare he receives is one of appraisal, and he sees it on her face, the consideration she lends his words. She takes her time, cogitating his arguments. He sees clear as day when she starts to change, when the hard-set defensiveness melts into a shy desire for communication.
“Don’t you want to come home?” he dares ask the girl underneath the Saint.
“Don’t you? In this revolutionary world you paint, what place is there for a misplaced prince?” she inquires―a despairing question that resonates with the unanswered insecurity residing within him.
Another smile, another hopeful admission, another way for him to strip himself to the bones―but what else has he to lose with her? “Can a prince be like his country? Transformed by the sickle of revolution, emerging like the newborn firebird of old?”
The tiniest of grin appears, at the edges of her lips, opening her face like a flower in bloom. Such sweet victory!
“More like a peacock than a firebird,” she teases.
“I was born with a hopeful heart, what can I say?” he says with a chuckle, the leftover tension of their argument fizzling out with his laugh. “If I am to be one or the other, then I fully embrace it, no matter which transmutation befalls me.”
She smiles, light and precious. He can see how someone could fall for her; how that boy, Mal, became so smitten―how she could have given hope to someone like Aleksander. “We’re going on a tangent,” she observes with amusement.
“Like I often do. The sound of my own voice and all that trite, you know?” he offers, bringing to the surface another layer of self-derision disguised as light mockery.
A sharp inhale, and her features tighten with sudden curiosity, almost avid with the intent look she gives him. “Do you sound like yourself? Right now? Is it the voice of the prince or of the privateer I am listening to?”
A wry grin, and he shares his own curiosity―a question for a question. “What does the Darkling in your head tell you? Can you know everything he does?”
She purses her lips, eyes narrowed, as if searching both within herself and that uncharted space shared with Aleksander. “You’re older now,” she says slowly, like the words come not from personal knowledge. “It sounds different. But is it because you Tailored yourself or because you don’t even know what the true you really is supposed to be, hiding beneath masks and pretences?”
The tone is light, could be taken as a teasing comment by someone who did not hear the question. But the message spears him through, more vicious than a dagger at his throat.
“Is this you or him asking?” he demands in return, heart pounding. A surge of ugly emotions swells in his breast, making him defensive and mean. “Where does he end and you begin?”
Beneath the swelling anger is a more terrible jealousy, a monstrous shade out of this old wound of his. He senses it in the timbre of his voice, in the chosen words, in the tremors of his closed hands.
Struck by his harsh questions, her eyelids squeeze shut and she exhales a shaking breath. “I don’t know,” she answers, a murmur so faint, so full of fear, that he deflates, feeling like a monster for having lashed out.
She is barely into womanhood, only just mature enough to be on her own. The useless mass of angry feelings has no weight against her, now that she forces him to remember what she is. Despite the light at her fingers, despite the names the people have given her, the double amplifiers she possesses, she is a breathing and living being just like him.
Like she said, though wise beyond her years, they are Nikolai and Alina, two people who are trying to understand one another.
“I never wanted this,” she confesses with that same voice, tearing through him with her unashamed sadness. “The burden of a people who has always despised me for what I look like, who spat on me and injured me years after years. And now, only I can save them.” The chuckle she lets out is dry and devoid of humour. Her eyelashes are wet and she swallows, rubbing her nose with a hard motion of hand.
There are such heavy expectations on her―how well could she have been prepared for all of it? Raised in a royal family and moulded by an army of tutors, Nikolai himself had struggled with the weight of a thousand eyes on him, and he had been a second-born prince. An orphan from the low social spheres, Alina never had his chance. As well as she may have survived until now, no warning nor lesson could have readied her for the deshumanisation that comes from transforming into a symbol.
His right hand slides into her left one, his thumb petting the skin, asking for her forgiveness. “You are not alone. You have your friend Mal. You have the Grisha waiting for you, and allies within my own crew. Aleksander asked for you, so you have him too―” he hesitates, the use of this gifted name making him pause, but she knows him like he does, if not more “―and you have me. I’m with you, Alina. I’ll help you shoulder that burden.” He seeks her eyes, giving her a small smile when their gaze meet.
She answers him with one of her own, weak and shaky, but it is still a smile. “Did you not tell me your business wasn’t in saving princesses in distress?” she teases through the unshed tears.
“Ha, I’m doomed to lie even to myself, I fear,” he jests, his heart beating with an unexpected surge of affection.
He is back again on the bed―does not realise when he sat―and she joins him, taking a seat at his left on the too soft mattress.
“What was it you said about lies?” she asks him, looking at his white-knuckled hands clenched on his knees. He takes a conscious effort to relax them when he feels the weight of her stare. “That they are useful to help one survive?”
He nods, stuck between appreciation at her quoting him and bafflement as to where she is going with this comment, a dubious grin on his lips.
She bites her bottom lip, tuck between her teeth, before glancing right at him. “They’re no longer murky. Your eyes,” she adds when his brows lift and his mouth part in confusion at the first sentence. “Seems like you’re becoming more yourself.”
“Tamar does it for me, the Tailoring. It’s not her speciality, but she does manage.” He blinks slowly, giving her a hooded look before clearing his throat and straightening his back. “I’ll ask her tomorrow morning, before we depart.”
“Don’t,” comes her soft voice. “You don’t have to hide who you are to survive. Not now that you’re home. Whatever pushed you away the first time cannot hold you anymore. And if you ever need it, you have my protection.”
“I do?” he asks with widening eyes, an odd weight coiling around his heart, uplifting him and rendering him shy with unknown happiness.
“Of course. I consider you a friend. And every friend of mine is worth protecting,” she adds in all seriousness, chin up and mouth curling at one corner.
He replies with a warm smile, the contentment heating him from the inside out―if he was a Sun Summoner, light would shine from his body, he is sure of it. “A friend?” he says, wishful.
“I know you too well for us not to be friends,” she comments with a low timbre, the flash of a quirky little grin making him draw one eyebrow up. “Some of Aleksander’s memories I have, they are quite revealing.” The blush is back on his cheeks, his mouth parted in stupefied indignation at the implied meaning. But she does not spare him (a hound through and through like he’s known from the beginning), her mouth twitching at his flustered reaction. “I know what you look like when you―”
“Saints, Alina,” he squeaks―really, he does―torn between laughter and dread, but in the end, dread does not win.
They both fall into laughter, bathed in moonlight and new affection.
***
There is guts and blood in his mouth, scalding and wet over his jaw and chin, dripping down the sweat-slicked skin of his throat beneath the neckline of his military garb. He spits it out, stomach heaving, but the taste and smell remain. The explosion caught them by surprise, both his men and the Fjerdans unlucky enough to have been too close to its trigger point.
Around him, several conifer trunks have been severed, jagged limbs torn up just like human ones, pines and cones flying around in a smoking cloud of debris, falling on the wet mulch the hundreds of marching feet have transformed the forest ground into. There has been incessant rain in the last week, their advance gloomy and devoid of laughter, the general mood cast low by the threatening prospect of hopeless fights and the unrelenting weather of early summer.
It could almost paint a pretty picture, death and decay splattered in gore, if it was snowy winter and this moment was a passage in one of the thousand books shelved throughout the Grand Palace’s library. But this is no tale and none of it is pretty―death and decay are disturbing, even when natural, and more than horrifying when unnatural―and it is not winter―the days are unusually warm, and the smells and sights and sounds are nauseating, even to one used to the atrocities of battles like himself.
He is alone, standing on wobbly legs in a sea of bloody mud and dead men and women, of tattered trees and unrooted rocks. Some inconceivable miracle has made it that he is no less sound than before―he should be dead like everyone around, but somehow he still stands. The obscuring smoke makes it hard to see further than a few metres, the surrounding shadows having lengthened to cover most of his sight, but he has to move, even when half-blind and disorientated. He needs to find the others, to see if some of his unit live, if he is not the only one left―
Another explosion resounds not far, his ears ringing with the blaring noise when it hits him just after the wave of pressurised wind. Nikolai slaps his hands over, covering them in vain protection as he crouches to escape any flying debris. Around him, the forest grows dark with shadows, swallowing him whole. He struggles to draw breath. The piercing sound of the blast is so loud it feels like blood trickles from his eardrums―but when it relents and he can drop his hands and touch himself again to pinpoint possible wounds, the blood he thought he felt is only an illusion.
But not the shadows, which slowly relent their emprise on him, slithering back to their natural shapes as an extension of the world. There is something uncanny here, though he does not understand, but at the same time his head is still ringing, his vision blurs into mismatched colours and his stomach churns like the sea.
Coming back to himself, one flung piece at a time, he walks off when dead silence falls, when the cacophony within himself and outside relents. But the quiet is more unnerving than everything else. There are no more voices (no shouts nor commands), and what could be heard from the fauna is now completely quiet. Swallowing his boots, the soil is not only soil now, colonised by dark blood and exposed flesh and wrecked fabric. There are forgotten rifles and pistols and swords, all of Ravkan making, and beyond, where the Fjerdan line was a minute ago, are the broken rapid-fire arms and other machine guns that ripped through his regiment of hundreds like mere blocks of blubber.
Hundreds of lives lost in one unsustainable moment.
He remembers the weight of those eyes on him, how his words had been taken as truth, how he had brought hope when there was none left, promising victory as the prodigal son of Ravka now returned to the frontline among his men, as he should have been from the start. An oath given with all his heart, but in the end it was a lie, each and every word made false by the cruel reality they live in. Like everything he has ever said, lies sprouted from his lips, a bolster to embolden the courage of men in the full knowledge that they would meet their untimely death. And they have―because of him, because of the greed of his family, of those who still wear a name snatched from him.
But Lantsov or not, he has acted just like his forebears, vomiting empty promises to veil the hollowed eyes of his people, giving the soldiers a false hope of victory over an endless wave of tireless Fjerdans.
Not even an hour into the fray, and they all lay dead.
Only now, he steps over the fallen shape of a young corporal, one he knows by face―freckled visage and mousy moustache, barely promoted―and lifeless on the ground, slowly absorbed by the mulch, blood and guts and skin, a mimic of humanity, lower jaw torn apart and lost somewhere in the melee.
He watches that mutilated face, transfixed by the horrifying sight. The glassy pupils stare right into his―they were pale blue or grey, before. Bending the knee, muddying his trousers even more, his fingers reach out to the open eyelids, drawing them close. Still warm, the skin. Somewhere in that body, there are functioning organs, struggling before the inevitable shut down.
Standing again, he lets out a shaky exhale, back slouched before straightening his posture and redressing the rifle’s sling over one shoulder. A dry cough, and he turns to―
A loud sound fires in. At the same instant, a flash of debilitating pressure splinters the inside of his leg, stealing all air from his lungs and plunging his eyesight with the red of scorching pain. Only because of the tree behind him does he not crash to the ground. He must bowl over, but he can’t perceive it over the roar of nerves and the shock tearing through his left side. The scream that wants to get out cannot, blocked in his throat by that same intense pressure.
Everything hurts, a wildfire of pain devouring him. His right palm flies to his left thigh―and when he forces his eyes open, it comes back covered with blood.
He’s been shot.
Heartbeat a thundering cadence and brain barely working from lack of air and too much pain, he still forces himself to move, his body screaming at him. Lest he becomes a target once more, he needs to hide, to get out of sight. And he does, somewhat. An ungracious crawl through mud, roots and lifeless bodies that tears choked grunts out of him; scrambling behind another tree, this time angled to hide from where the shot must have come from.
His leg is a mess―his whole body threatens to faint when he leans against the uneven surface of the tree’s bark. The dizzying spells abate only when he coughs, getting air back to his head. But he has no choice―until death finds him, he must persevere.
Arranging his belt in an improvised compress around his thigh, he then presses both hands on the open gap of his wound―useless, his artery is severed, the warm blood already drenching the fabric of his clothes―but it should still get him a few more minutes at least. He swallows around the mass of wracking sensations, but the strangling intakes of air he manages to inhale are too loud. The remaining Fjerdans must be behind over the treeline, the firing range of their artillery farther than any of his own. That he cannot see them does not mean they do not, equipped with precise scopes and sights the First Army could only dream of possessing. They’ll be able to pinpoint him as easily as if he was standing mere metres from them. It would be suicide to move away from his hiding place, but waiting is just as dangerous. They know where he is, only have to approach and flank him, and he will be like a mouse in a trap.
And if they don’t, the blood loss will do him over just as efficiently, even with the tourniquet he has managed to fashion.
Straining his ears, he catches the sharp sounds of Fjerdan words, unintelligible voices coming from not far. Not far at all―much too near in fact: they are almost upon him. Alone and wounded, he cannot fight them off with what he has―a repeating rifle hanging by his shoulder, his precious Grisha steel dagger at one hip, the army-standard hand pistol at the other.
But he can try.
His heart thunders inside, so loud in his ears it must reverberate through the forest. He draws a breath to steady his wavering vision. Closes his eyes. Draws another. A fallen branch cracks nearby. There are no more harsh shouts, but he knows―he is not alone. Plastering himself to the tree trunk, he shoves cartridges in the empty chamber of his rifle with shaking fingers, then lets out a shuddering grunt when a stab of pain shoots through his bloodied thigh. Teeth gritting and pushing the pulsing wound out of his mind, with hands tight on his firearm, he waits.
And waits.
And waits.
Another snap of twig. So damn close it’s almost upon him.
He is shaking, growing cold all over, but it is not yet his end. Some hope remains. His crew is safe, back on his ship, if not already on the True Sea en route to wherever Privyet guides them next. Tolya and Tamar are aboard the Hummingbird on a journey to the far side of the Fold, escorting their most precious prize to the Old Country. And Alina… they will pursue their duty like they promised each other, her as the Sun Summoner, him as the prince atoning for his family’s faults.
Everything is in order. He did well.
Some last wisps of pride and reassurance. A long breath to draw in the Ravkan air, tainted it may now be, but he has dreamt of doing so every night for the past ten years. He is happy. He is. Dying on homeland, among his men, there is nothing else he could ask for. If his only regret is not having been able to see Aleksander one last time, then that is between himself and the Saints.
But there is no more time to lose.
If he has to die, if he has to welcome death today, then it will be with the most reckless howl and by taking these sons of a gun right alongside him. Jaw locked, eyes furrowed, he curses through the pain―Saints and devils all―and steps out from behind the tree, twists around with a vicious shout to make his old crew proud, rifle bracketed against his shoulder as he aims at whoever is there.
And almost pisses himself.
The fright reflexes take over before the cerebral shock. His eyes widen, stomach twisting and limbs locking onto themselves, but his military training is wired too deeply in his muscle memory for his grip on his weapon to falter. The somersault of terror clogs his throat, unable to escape as he struggles against horrified immobility, but he still manages to aim, to keep the rifle sight steady on his target, even if everything else shakes like the trees’ leaves overhead.
What devilry is this?
Not a man.
An impossibility stands before him.
Smoke and soot and silence, but tall, taller than an adult man, than him even, a yawning shape made of frothing black that walks―glides?―towards him. Wider and broader than any person he has ever met, bigger than Tolya or Big Danilo, but there is no discernible feature to make sense of. Mind rattling and begging to stop, Nikolai cannot stray his attention away despite all his senses screaming at him to flee.
But foolish, reckless man that he is―he stands his ground.
Then, just as some last nerve gives him courage, the thing moves, fast and too close, much too close, and with it comes the heightening of fear.
Trying to breathe around the panic rising up in his throat and keeping a strenuous control on the tense heartbeats within his chest as blood still seeps from his wound, Nikolai presses the trigger. A loud noise shreds the silence. He sees―he sees, dammit―the point where the bullet should have pierced through the shadow, and… nothing, there is nothing.
The shape advances. The ringing of the rifle shot resounds, his shoulder spasms from the recoil, his thigh a burning nightmare of pain, but it is as if he did nothing at all.
This thing, this… creature. No mere weaponry can defeat it.
But he cannot look away. Something inside him, thunderous palpitations and suffocating desire called forth, just as incomprehensible as the monster staring with no eyes at him. It battles the growing fear and confusion, stirs him into a quiet mania over which his control weakens as the moment stretches. But the more he stares into that mass of black, the more the darkness expands, outside and within, spanning unending wings―eternity, time and space filled with ineluctable shadows.
These same reactions create hiccups in his frazzled brain, bringing images to the foreground, images that belong to the twilight. A twilight that has conditioned his shameful responses. Blood throbs through his veins, muscles clenched and nerves vibrating. A piercing whisper shutters his mind―he knows, he knows, he knows―
In its advance, swallowing the trees and ground and dead footmen, the shadow creature multiplies in a mass of beastly outlines, unknowable shapes splitting into another and another and another. All before his very eyes, paralysed and unable to look away. Nothing left of the world but dark pantomimes.
It is incomprehensible and not at the same time, because if he cannot comprehend the source of these shades, he recognises the goal: birthing an army.
Soldiers of shadows where a few minutes ago stood human ones, all under some single command, monsters without will nor thought. And who in the whole world has the power to bend the darkness into such servitude?
Feeblemind, head throbbing and dizzy, what he sees and what he feels become the sum of his reality. He does not move of his own volition, but his bad leg gives out. The mud splatters all over him as he crashes down, but the feeling of falling is a slow and blurring affair, like he is watching himself tumbling down from afar.
When consciousness grips him again, his greyed sight is tilted to the sky. Keeping his eyes open demands an effort too immense for his weakening will. The fuzz in his head roils like waves, and he is seasick with it. The cold tingling at the far ends of his limbs has spread, making his body shudder all over. Down his leg, the spill of blood is no longer warm.
Everything is dark.
The swarm of buzzing black smothers him into its midst, and he becomes one with them as they welcome him as theirs. Through it all, one name echoes in his mind.
Like a promise.
The last of his fear flows out of him at that silent name, at the shadows’ contact, at the memory of a night where he felt that same touch beneath the surface of his mind, and with it his despair disappears, until he is naught but a vessel for branding hope.
Take me with you, he wishes to say. But speech is impossible, just like every other sense muted by a cold embrace. The throbbing pain of his wound is now a memory, faded to nothing.
He fades, too.
Slowly. As he stops fighting. Eyelids closing, heartbeat weakening, breaths spacing out more and more. He floats in that sea of shades and smoke, a whimsical grin at his lips. It feels like flying, like lifting off, not too different from the lurch in his stomach each time the Squallers send a gale in the Hummingbird’s sails to make it soar.
However, even that small pleasure disappears, along the last vestige of thoughts and consciousness. Coldness gives place to caging warmth, solid arms cradling his torso, his face tucked in the shade of a long neck. Memories and realities, all beckoned into one.
He is at peace, letting go just as the vague perception of his own name bubbles through his dampening senses.
Nikolai.
***
The awakening is a brutal affair.
There were instances before, between that last moment of strained awareness and now, where he must have neared the surface of consciousness―sensations, more than explicit thoughts, of a twilight atmosphere where he wasn’t alone, where at the edges of numb limbs was someone else more familiar than his own breath―but he had plunged back as soon as the effort claimed him with exhaustion.
But now he is awake, for probably what amounts to minutes, though the pain his body is in stretches the perception of time. Pain isn’t new however―his surroundings are.
What he does discern is indomitable light, the direct touch of a white sun bathing all in warmth. Blinking, his perception sharpens to shapes and forms and lines, and he fathoms he must be in some kind of tent, the canvas fabric overhead coloured by midday. He is lying on a hard surface―a quick turn of head reveals a military cot, standard in most medical quarters. Faint sounds of dulled discussions and footsteps reach him, until the light touch of unknown fingers lands on his shoulder and a moving shadow blocks the tent’s white ceiling.
He blinks, the crust at the corners of his eyes making his sight blurry, and after rubbing them clean, he recognises the dark red of a Corporalki’s coat. Grey embroideries embellish the thick wool. A Healer. Brown-haired, young and fresh faced, perhaps not much older than Alina.
“You can slowly sit up, if you wish,” she tells him in an impersonal voice. Despite her youthful appearance, she must have experience on the field. Seems like it is not only the First Army that employs soldiers at a young age.
He follows her guidance after giving a faint nod, bracing the weight of his upper body with shaking arms, palms pressed to the cot. Getting from a prone position to a sitting one is an ordeal―his head protests, plunging his sight in a whirlpool of colours, and the lingering nausea explodes into dry-heaving.
Wonderful. He has never been better.
A steady pair of hands holds him by the shoulder, making sure he does not waver. “Careful. You were under forced slumber for a while, and you may experience dizzying spells if you sit up too fast.”
“Too late,” he croaks with a side grin when he feels able to speak, opening his eyes to give her a look.
She shakes her head, but her attempt to hide her smile does not escape his notice. The sudden shyness bolsters his own grin.
“Where―” he coughs from the dryness in his throat, tongue coated with disuse, “―where am I?”
She is seated by his cot, on a chair he hadn’t spotted. Hands in her lap, the slight tilt of her head makes her felt hat almost fall off. She straightens it awkwardly under his amused gaze, gives him another timid smile before answering. “We are in Kribirsk, my prince.”
There are several elements that startle him in that short sentence. Well, two, but they are quite impactful. The first―my prince? That, he can deal with later, especially since there’s already some far-fetched conjecture rushing through his mind. But, the second… oh, the second. “Kribirsk?” he says out loud.
His face must paint some of his confusion for the Healer takes pity on him and offers an explanation concerning his unexpected travel from the Fjerdan frontline in West Ravka all the way to the country’s central east, including an improbable traverse of the Fold, where he knows the crossings have been suspended ever since the uprising. “We have maintained the outpost, even when there was no more travel through the Shadow Fold. On order of the General. He is the one to have brought you here,” she says.
Even if her intention was well-founded, that explanation triggers more questions than it provides him answers.
If his usual composed self escapes him, she will have to excuse him. He cannot help but stammer with the overflow of reactions she has provoked. “I was north of Arkesk. To my knowledge, General Kirigan” ―he almost smiles from the nervous lurch of his stomach at the outright mention― “was not presented in the region, if not in West Ravka at all. There has been no word of a commissioned unit from the Second Army to help us with the Fjerdans. The liaison between our two armies has been cut short since… since the Sun Summoner has disappeared.”
Better to not directly reference Novokribirsk.
At Alina’s mention, the Healer’s smile becomes a wide and brilliant thing. “Oh yes! The Sun Summoner has come back, and with her return, the channels have reopened. The people are leaving the New Country to escape the war, and we have been slowly welcoming them, a stipend to each family willing to house refugees. This is all done to the best of our ability, of course. The greenhouses are running full-time, night and day. And there is a brand-new concerted effort between our army and the King’s, with that Major General Pensky not being the asshole Zlatan was.” She realises her words and clamps down like an oyster, eyes low and repentant. “Sorry, my prince.” She darts a glance his way as if awaiting a sudden anger on his part.
The Lantsovs’ published fate may be known in all major centres of the world, but his take as second-born prince on this whole affair remains a mystery. Even if Aleksander provided him indirect clout inside his circle by apparently saving him, it does not imply some inherent mercy on Nikolai’s part.
And Nikolai does react, though not with the anticipated anger. “No worries. The late General Zlatan was quite… um, the asshole, as you say. What you just told me, it is all good news. Thank you. If I knew getting injured would have changed our fate so drastically, I would have slashed my own leg at the first instance.” He grins with good humour, and she throws a quiet laugh before becoming serious again. “But, what of… are the Lantsovs still alive?” he inquires with a low voice.
She nods, quiet as the ambiguity of their respective position makes itself known.
Normally, Nikolai would be the first to diffuse the tension. But he finds himself tired, even if he has awakened from a who-knows-how-long sleep a moment ago. The prospect of his reality, with this change so sudden, drains him even more. Breaking their exchanged stare, he rubs at his face, sucking in a breath as he turns his thoughts inwards.
“The royal family is alive. They are well-treated,” she offers him. He does not look at her, but even without a glance he knows she must make some kind of faces―her tone is short, though with forced gentleness for his sake. The subject is not one of her favourites.
When he turns to her, her deep frown makes him pause. Who knows what this girl has endured because of his family, directly or not? And here he is, selfish with unwarranted guilt.
“What is your name?” he asks to distract from the gloomy subject, his mild smile breaking the sullenness of her expression.
“Me? I am Lyuba, moi tsarevich.” It is accompanied by a short bow, more of an incline of head since she remains seated.
Her name surprises a real smile out of him. “For Lyubov? That is a beautiful name.”
If he adds some sharp edges to his expression, some twist of lips he knows to be devastating in this old face of his, he can excuse himself in justifying it, especially when it is to underline such an innocent comment.
Ah, pretty girls. They will be my doom, he thinks with heavy eyes as he watches her blush deepen under his continued gaze. His real face may not be as roguish as Sturmhond’s, but it still has some charming allure.
Muffled words stream in from outside, growing louder, and then the flaps at the entrance fly open, wrenching his attention away from the girl. A tall shape walks in, hooded in the pavilion’s natural shadows, where only a black coat is discernible in the sharp outside light, the hem falling over leather boots speckled with mud and adorned by silver spurs.
His heart stops beating, chest stuck in an inhaled motion as he stares open-mouthed in the intruder’s direction.
“Sergeant Cherkashina, if you could leave us for a moment,” comes a command out of the shaded entrance, voice brooking no argument. And the shape steps forth, closing the flaps behind and bringing familiar features into the light provided by the sun’s filtered glare.
Nikolai does not realise how hard his whole body clenched onto itself at the unexpected entrance, a long line of tension that holds in the explosion of reactions within. But before he can fully lay his eyes on the newcomer, his leg suddenly cramps with the keen spasm of pain. Jaw locked, he squeezes his hands into fists, nails digging into the calloused skin of his palms.
Healer Lyubov is naught but a moving shape when she stands up, after what seems a moment of hesitation. But Nikolai does not watch the interaction, both fists now gripping the flimsy sheets of his cot to hold in his wound’s responses. Not that they are the only reactions he feels, but―perhaps to spare him from additional foolishness―they are the most predominant.
She walks out, and he is left alone with General Kirigan―with Aleksander.
His eyes are still cast down, breathing out through his nostrils as another wave irradiates from his thigh, reaching along his nerves all the way to his heart, a grabbing pressure as hard as his hands’. But he does not need to watch him to know when Aleksander’s tall shape joins him by his side, taking the seat Lyubov occupied a moment ago.
Nikolai swallows everything down, pressing his eyelids shut then opening them when he has wallowed enough in his cowardice.
With a long inhale, he turns to Aleksander, fists still tight, but face at least devoid of expression. The numbness he forces is perhaps a last attempt at remaining dignified, but if he loses even that, nobody can be sure of whatever stunt he’ll deploy when he inevitably falls a thrall to the turmoil of emotions raging inside.
But turning so soon towards Aleksander proves a mistake.
It feels almost like the first time he truly saw him, years ago, back when Aleksander was still his father’s general and he was still his father’s son. If he ignores the spasm of chaotic memories in-between, the febrility that runs below his skin is almost akin to the one he felt when he gazed upon his long form, astride his war horse on a pale morning of late autumn. Back then, only Aleksander’s voice had broken the spell he was under. Mayhaps now it will be the same, as if the man’s life Nikolai has experienced counts for nothing beneath a gaze as old as time itself.
As unchanging.
Because Aleksander has not changed at all. The same straight shoulders, high neck, tilt of chin, purse of lips. The same eyes. Saints, those eyes―he could weep from the sole feeling of their regard. How many dreams, night after night, year after year, where his imagination attempted to replicate their dark colour, their intensity and complexity, only to fall short and nourish his frustration instead of appeasing his longing?
And now, after wandering along the flow of life like a man parched, he falls struck by the inexorable tether formed by their shared observation. Such a gaze is the prize he has looked for in all of the True Sea. There may be a lot to deal with, both for himself and for the world, but this small slice of time, where they are two men who were once lovers now sharing a quiet moment together, could not be more precious.
Though quiet is maybe not the right word―his heart has redoubled in pace now that he permits himself to stare and his chest heaves anew with obvious pants.
There is one difference he had not caught on at first―some faint lines along Aleksander’s left jaw, mounting to his cheek in diagonal slashes up into the region of his forehead. Silver scars, almost invisible but for the way the hair of his beard no longer grows and the eye draws naturally to where the lines end. That was not there, before. Thinking of his own collection of scars, those Sturmhond earned as much as Nikolai, it reminds him of the time spent since their last farewell. Another reminder that many things have changed since, and how the way they act before does not determine how their interaction can now unfold.
With that in mind, Nikolai is the first to break the tenuous silence―before that silence breaks him first. Licking his lips, he lets out a breath, bolstered by the idea that he is a man grown, with his share of scars and pains, and must use such experiences to guide him through the unknown. Uncharted waters are his specialty, after all.
A slow smile, bashful, and a controlled tilt of head, followed by an innocuous question, something of an icebreaker that should also serve to destabilise Aleksander in hope of dismantling this hard mask he still favours.
“How are you?” he asks.
The quick spasm of one eyebrow is the first reaction he gets, but it is still a win after the drought of expression on that beautiful and cold face.
“A fair guess would be to say better than you,” comes the slow drawl, rich in tone and barely-veiled smiles.
Nikolai can only cheer at such a gain. There is a murmur in that tone, a promise of more. Something to act on in any case; better unleash the full force of his charisma, now that he knows Aleksander has not grown into the perfect replica of a marble statue. The hot-blooded man he knew is still under there, and as before, he’ll take pleasure in shaking him free.
He gestures at his bad leg, hidden underneath the sheets. “You mean this? ‘Tis just a scratch. Another trophy to add to my collection of very manly scars,” he says with a loop-sided smirk. If he turned on the charm with Healer Lyubov before, it does not hold a candle to the flirting he is currently employing. Keeping his eyelashes low, pursing his lips to make them fuller but parted to let glimpse a hint of canine, he watches Aleksander like a cat does a prey.
Throughout his adult life, he has courted his way into many a bed, employing this very tactic that has never let him down. Remembering the heat in Aleksander’s eyes, he knows he can pull such fervour out of him again, with more ease than his younger self could ever do.
But to his surprise, after a long pause Aleksander gives him a dry smile, barely reaching his eyes, and stands up from his seat. “You never learned patience, I see,” comes his voice, the sentence ending in a mocking edge.
Towering over his low bed for a brief instant where confusion dampens Nikolai’s enthusiasm, Aleksander gives a sharp nod and proceeds to leave without another word.
The whiplash Nikolai goes through is stronger than the cold shower he once received when he drank his way through a crate of rum and Tamar had to wake him up with a bucket of rainwater. His parted lips fall fully open and he stumbles on the stupefied words he cannot find, mind turning over and over on what just happened, coming to a deadend at the reason for such a sudden departure.
Inside him, the same whirling of repressed feelings threatens to spill out now that he does not hide under a flimsy façade, but shame wins out in the end. Shame and indignation.
Uncaring of his wounded thigh and the state of undress he is in, he storms out of the healer’s bed with some unknown energy, straight outside where the warm sun blinds him. Where he drowns in the loud clamour of the military camp. Shielding his eyes with a hand, he searches for a black stain in the horizon of white and colours―and finding it, yells out over the melee.
“Hey!”
Not his most dignified moment, but necessity justifies most acts. At least in his case.
His shouting is loud enough, infused with the same tone he used to conduct his crew, and many around come to a stop, making him feel their incredulous stare.
He is only in a long shirt, legs naked and face probably pale and blotchy with sickness, but he does not care―the only care he gives concerns Aleksander’s immobility some metres before him, all movements paused as if awaiting another exclamation on his part.
Gritting his teeth when vertigo follows his sudden sprint and another flash of pain takes hold of his leg, Nikolai stands as straight as he can manage, keeping his eyes on the tight kefta-cloaked shoulders.
“Please,” he says to Aleksander. “Please. I am not above begging. It’s just… can we―” he swallows, sweeping a glimpse over the crowd of Grisha that has accumulated in the short time since his first outburst “―can we talk? Just a moment.”
Aleksander turns to him, his movement bringing the crowd’s attention to him. The sun against his back makes it hard to decipher his expression, but Nikolai guesses a hint of a smile, followed by a slight softening of his posture.
“There is no need for begging,” Aleksander tells him, facing him directly despite the distance separating them. No one has dared break that line of sight, all holding quiet and immobile as their exchange continues. “I’ll see you in the evening, after the day’s work, moi tsarevich.”
That unexpected use of his old title provokes an odd warmth inside Nikolai, something strong enough to appease the ugly mess still squirming along his heart cavities. He does not respond with anything but a nod, strangely mute, but it suffices for Aleksander bows his head to him.
“Now go back to bed. You need your rest.” A glance to the rest of the Grisha. “And all of you, to your posts. You all have duties and chores, and undue loitering will not be tolerated. If there is a lack of tasks, Ivan will take pleasure in assigning new ones.”
There is no mistaking the general shudder that passes over the crowd, and the threat―for anything worth mentioning Ivan must of course be a threat―is taken most seriously if the sudden shuffle of feet is to account for.
But through that sea of scurrying people, Nikolai stands, smiling.
***
The rest of the day is spent sleeping and eating, the dull passage of time only disrupted thanks to Healer Lyubov’s welcomed apparitions, even if she is not exactly the one Nikolai is waiting for.
After some exchanged discussions and pleasant teasing, the professional mask is back on again, when it is time to undress his wound. The injury is a bad one, his femoral artery badly damaged as he had suspected. Because it took time between the moment he got shot and when she could heal him, there will be a star-like scar after she is done with it. But when he probes her for more details about the wound itself, he finds her strangely quiet, as if keeping some information from him. As much as he tries, she remains silent on the subject, offering him only the reassurance that he will regain full use of his leg in a matter of days. An enforced delay to let the new cells naturally grow, prompted by her knowledge of applied science to speed the process along. Days indeed, instead of weeks and perhaps months, where anyone else not as lucky and well-connected as him would have ended up lame if not outright dead.
Healer Lyubov leaves him alone when evening comes, as soon as he starts to show signs of fatigue. However, contrary to the comatose slumber of the past days―weeks?―he falls into a restless sleep. The images populating his dreams are indefinite, moving shapes and lines he keeps chasing after, a growing feeling of resentment and anguish holding him below.
The soft noise of boots on the carpeted floor stirs him free of the nightmares, and he leaps into a sitting position, palm to his chest, over the thundering slam of his heart. Heaving, he finds not Healer Lyubov at the tent’s entrance, but Aleksander himself.
Nikolai raises a hand to wave at him, but the pounding in his head, in tandem to his heart, makes him wince, face crinkled with lines of pain.
“Do I have to call Lyuba again?” asks Aleksander, coming to him.
The slight worry Nikolai reads in his tone makes him tilt his head up, curious despite the pain.
Again?
To his surprise, he finds Aleksander with two plates, one in each hand, and the smell that fills the tent is enough to filter through the worst of Nikolai’s headache. Mouth watering, he shakes his head and signals him to sit down.
Clearing the nearby table’s surface, Aleksander lays down the steaming dishes, side by side.
“It is almost nighttime,” he tells Nikolai. “We would have awakened you before, but your Healer preferred for you to sleep.”
Nikolai scoffs. “For all the good it did. I could not achieve the restful state she prescribed me.”
Proceeding to cut through the meal―poultry and mashed potatoes, with buttered black bread―Aleksander turns an inquisitive peek in his direction. “Nightmares?”
Nodding, Nikolai wets his lips, his attention split between the concentration on Aleksander’s face and the food he is preparing, one bite-size at a time. “Yes. She is not as generous as you―as your Alkemi were when they concocted that magical sleeping draught back… back in my youth.”
A low hum, his lashes low on his pale cheeks as he presses another slice of knife through the meat, Aleksander listens to him, a serene expression softening the sharp lines of his face.
So very beautiful.
Breathing growing shallow, Nikolai does not hide his stare. And is not so ingenuine with himself to pretend that the sudden flood of saliva inside his mouth comes entirely from hunger. He swallows around the thick lump in his throat, but not all feelings and thoughts are flushed back under the surface.
“Aleksander…”
Something in the way he says his name beckons him to look over, a chicken’s piece stabbed through his fork’s tines. His gaze remains hooded, but it is now directed at Nikolai.
“You’ve lost weight. Eat, Kolya,” he commands.
And brings the fork to his face, up to Nikolai’s mouth, who has no choice but to part lips and teeth and chew on the offered food.
The metallic taste of the fork disappears under the burst of savours. It is delicious, mouth-watering after days of watery gruel and hard tack, back on the frontline at the border of Arkesk’s northern forest. And how long since, forced asleep and nourished with whatever potions to keep him alive? His hunger rears its head, stomach widening and aching for more, and he moans, the sound ending in a faint whine when he opens his eyes after swallowing everything.
Aleksander’s attention is fully on him.
Oh, right.
He fathoms the sound he just made is not too dissimilar to another kind of moan. Teasing at the interior of his upper teeth with his tongue, he stares at Aleksander, whose face is kept under rigid control (though not quite―the lips are slightly parted, his chest heaves and there’s some tightening at the corners of his eyes). The slow grin he throws breaks the spell however, and Aleksander returns to the plate, stabbing at another piece of food.
They don’t speak for several minutes, Aleksander intended on stuffing him one morsel at a time, sometimes bringing him a piece of chicken, others a mouthful of pureed potato. Each time Nikolai opens his mouth to say something, there’s suddenly food at his lips, forcing him to eat instead of saying whatever words come to mind. Not that he quite knows what to say―not when he grows more and more flustered with each bite, not when Aleksander’s dark eyes dip to his mouth every time he opens to swallow whatever food he feeds him.
The moment spreads into some kind of eternity. With every turn the fork appears, his hazel eyes meeting dark ones, filled with more appetite than the simple need for food.
Then, like it was bound to happen, some gravy spills down his chin after another wolfed bite, and only because Nikolai is so attentive to Aleksander’s every reaction does he notice the tight intake of air he makes, the small pause he takes―the retracting fork brought to an unsteady stop at Nikolai’s lips. Perhaps he does not realise it, perhaps seeing Nikolai dirty with the food he provides works something inside him.
It certainly does for Nikolai.
They are very close, Nikolai no longer inclined on the cot’s headboard but leaning towards Aleksander, who is at the edge of his chair, his bent knees against the sheets where Nikolai’s hand carefully rests. Somehow, the fork disappears from his lips, a sharp sound when it clings against the ceramic plate. Then, Aleksander is suddenly very near, his pale face all Nikolai can see.
Throat closing up on his next exhale, a shaking immobility stops all movement, but inside a storm rages, flushing him with blood and ecstatic nerves. The hand at his side twitches, rebels against his weakening control, with Aleksander’s knee a breath away from his fingertips making for such a tempting presence.
The edge is before him, and it would be so easy to take a plunge, to close all distance and pretend they can resume what they stopped ten years ago.
Aleksander may have accused him of not having learned patience, but that is not completely true. Beneath the desire and longing, something holds him back. Perhaps not patience, but another similar virtue―his talk of survival with Alina comes to mind, and Nikolai sucks on a harsh breath.
“I’ve not cleaned my teeth in a while,” he says as an excuse, lips pulled to one corner in a makeshift smirk as he leans away. With rough fingers, he rubs at the gravy still on his chin.
Aleksander huffs, a faint sound of laughter quickly absorbed. He meets his eyes, holds all of Nikolai’s attention with a gaze that is heavier than any touch. “Do I look like I care?”
The question is a rhetorical one, but it feels like a hookline, an opening left only for him if he decides to step forth and take that figurative plunge.
But he doesn’t.
And they resume eating, as if nothing happened, Aleksander no less attentive than before in spite of Nikolai’s subtle rebuttal. But there are no more words exchanged, no more heavy looks. If there is a tension, not as pleasant as before, nobody mentions it.
Only when the plate is almost cleaned does Nikolai find enough courage to dare a comment. “It’s not my hand that is wounded, you know. I am not such an infirm that I cannot feed myself.”
Aleksander gives a low sound, something pleased and warm. “There’s not much left of your supper, Kolya. If you truly protested it, you would have said so from the start.” But he does not offer him another bite, turning to his own plate, now probably cold.
Chewing on his slice of bread, Nikolai leans back against the thin pillow flushed between him and the cot’s slat. Even with the remaining tension, this shared moment, though strange, is almost domestic. It feels downright conjugal, though he cannot for the life of him recall the Queen and King ever sharing a meal without it becoming an uncomely affair.
His headache has faded, now a sound drumming instead of the screaming mess it was, but the deep-bone exhaustion is still there. Nibbling on the rye bread, he stares ahead at nothing in particular, without thoughts or images badgering in. Content to be alive, for a single moment, with the sounds of Aleksander’s own chewing at his side grounding him.
When some crumbles of bread stick inside his throat, he starts to cough, but a glass of water appears in his blurred sight. Gulping it down, he wipes at his mouth like a child, thirst quenched and throat free of food.
“Thank you.” Flushed with the blush of his coughing and his voice still tender.
Aleksander considers him, another of his faint smiles lighting his face. It reaches his eyes, making them shine. “You’re welcome, Kolya.”
“Not only for the food and the water. And the healing provided by your people.” Nikolai clears his throat again, eyes darting back and forth before he forces himself to meet Aleksander’s soft gaze. “Thank you for… for the letter. For asking me to come home.”
For not forgetting me.
There is a pause, where the air becomes a bit heavier, where breathing becomes a bit harder under the weight of their shared connection.
“You brought me what I asked for. You gave us what you promised,” Aleksander tells him.
Nikolai shakes his head, his mouth dipping into a slight grimace. “I haven’t given you your freedom. You did that yourself―started to put the right events in motion at least. That wasn’t me. I did nothing.” He frowns, unsure of where he stands in Aleksander’s schemes.
“You brought back the Sun Summoner when even my power of persuasion fell flat.”
“Stubborn girl,” Nikolai says with a fond smile, his frown dissipating.
“Yes, she can be stubborn indeed. But I am pleased to know she is also reasonable. And that you were the one to make her see reason. I am thankful for your help.” Aleksander turns to him, leaving his dinner alone to give him his full attention. “But it is not over, Nikolai. We will need you, in the end. We will need you to be the Tsar and we will need you as the Tsar to proclaim us a free people. Only you, I believe, are able to relinquish the power provided by my people. Only you are not yet tainted by greed to deny us our freedom.”
There is no consideration needed, and when Nikolai answers, there is another frown between his brows. “Of course. I always said I would. It is not ten years that would undermine the oath I gave you.”
Aleksander’s expression turns bittersweet. “You would be surprised to know what ten years can do to a man.”
Nikolai considers him, considers his words, the implied revelation that lies dormant underneath. What Aleksander went through during their time apart―there are new scars on him, yes, but there could be others yet unseen, cruel enough to erode at the patience and wisdom Nikolai knows he possesses.
The reckless destruction of Novokribirsk, though some reasoning can give him justification, is perhaps only the most obvious chip in the cold armour. And concerning the overthrow of the Tsar’s rule, whatever harsh and calculated actions that simmered into such a revolt could still remain underneath the surface.
But Nikolai has always struggled to read him, and ten years have not changed that, hard-pressed he is against the calm appearance Aleksander cloaks himself with.
“So what of Alina?” Nikolai asks, voice kept neutral and devoid of inflections.
That triggers a small reaction―a twitch of lips, but nothing else. “What of her?” And if his tone is harder, the rest of him remains neutral.
There is a knot here, something that cannot heal, and based on what Alina told him and what he knows of Aleksander, Nikolai fathoms this is a sensitive subject. But he cannot let it go just yet.
“Now that people can traverse the Fold once more to come here and escape the war, what is her purpose?” he asks.
The General is not far, a mask of haughtish authority back in place. “Is it not enough for her to be a symbol?”
“You are not the Apparat to stay your ambitions to the realm of symbols, Aleksander.” The use of his name may not create the ripples it once did, but Nikolai needs all tools available. A small pause, and then he murmurs, “I know you.”
“Do you?” A sharp, cruel edge, throwing back at him the gentleness Nikolai tries to coax within.
Could Alina be right in calling him cruel? Ruthless, yes. But cruelty freely given, that he has never known Aleksander to administer so easily.
But Nikolai is no longer a boy of eighteen, even if his heart and his cock still think him so. He has grown layers to protect himself in that time, and by shielding the pale underbelly of his feelings, he perseveres. “We are too alike to settle for comfort and peace. Work never ends for men like us. Can you really say that your ambition will be satisfied with the independence of the Grisha? What will you do after? What form will your power play?”
That keen edge in Aleksander’s previous words now translates to his smile, where teeth appear, and in his eyes too, where resides a spiteful glint. “Not greed at all―perhaps that was satisfied by the glittering loot you plundered throughout your career as privateer, my dear Sturmhond―but mistrust does guide you for you to doubt me.”
Nikolai furrows his brows, breathing out through his nose to calm himself before he says something they will both regret. “I do not doubt your word, the word you pledged to me. But beyond that, I cannot know the details. Only suppositions. Hypotheses, based on what I know of you. Of me. But this is beyond me, beyond the both of us. I need to keep my people safe, just like you do yours. We are a mirror to each other, Aleksander, as are our people. Our duty does not need to be exclusive to one another.” Some of the tension in Aleksander’s shoulders and neck deflates, though not all as he awaits for Nikolai to continue. “If, beyond our oaths, we can continue to work together, then that would be best for both our people. To maintain this relationship between Grisha and non-Grisha, to see the other as a brother instead of a stranger. If we could remain together… then yes, we’ll have achieved what we want. ”
Once more, Aleksander closes in, this time reaching out with his hand. His thumb lands on Nikolai’s clavicle, rubbing at the scarred ridge there, while the expanse of his palm cradles the back of his nape, pulling Nikolai to him.
After so many years without, Aleksander’s solid touch is startling, downright scorching, the nerves of his skin exploding in sudden activity as his heart lurches down his stomach. Again, Nikolai finds himself breathless, and when he does manage to suck in enough air, it comes out in a shuddery exhale. With it escapes his possession of himself, baring him like he once was, alone and naked before those dark eyes, flayed alive by the desire he read in them. By the desire he can still read, at this very moment.
But Aleksander is not yet done with torturing him. He leans forward, their heads bent together. And when his lips come so close that only the span of a breath separates them, he asks, “Brothers? Is that what you want us to be?”
It is a gauge of his good nature that the first thought that comes to Nikolai is about Ravka. About his people, war-torn and life destroyed. About what he would sacrifice to have them safe. But it quickly drifts away under the strong swell of other, baser instincts.
The forbidden is ever more tempting.
If Nikolai’s eyes flicker to the parted lips before him, if he shuts them for a moment while he resolves himself to not fall prey to the lust ravaging his guts, then this brief moment of weakness can only be an inherent and forgivable part of their interaction. While Aleksander plays the torturer, veiling all affections under this acted yearning, Nikolai is the one struggling to not abase himself to his most essential urges. Will that always be the case, if they pursue their allegiance beyond the promised culmination of coronation and freedom? Will he always be like a bitch in heat, willing to bend over and spread his legs at a hint of interest?
The shame leaves a bad taste in his mouth. An accusation that resonates like the one once received, standing on the parquet of a too-large, draughty room.
The jump between one memory to another is effortless, bringing him to the crux of his tragedy, to what sundered their liaison. To how the mere acts of affection between them create an unbalance too precarious for those they represent. A Grisha commander cannot bind himself to the son of a family who has persecuted his people since the dawn of time―no freedom can come from such an association.
With all this in mind, he is about to answer, to step on his personal wishes and take the high road. But Aleksander adds another layer to his torment. Power of persuasion indeed.
The hand at his nape moves, slowly, with intent, up his bobbing throat all the way to his scarred chin, a finger’s touch both light and heavy that still manages to startle him. Opening his eyes, finding Aleksander right before him as he watches him with eyes so dark there is no more irises. His thumb brushes the stubble on Nikolai’s jaw, its rough skin warm and dry, creating another mess of nerves and feelings. It slides to the dip below his mouth, rubs there once and twice when Nikolai cannot stop a groan out, then adventuring closer, stopping just before reaching his bottom lip. Awaiting.
They both are. Waiting. For that taut line to snap. It cannot bend anymore. There is no more part within Nikolai that can spread furthermore, not unless he wants to break.
“What do you wish for, Kolya?” Aleksander asks again, his voice low and teeming with so many secrets that Nikolai can almost taste them.
Fucking Saints.
He is doing it again. Dangling the one thing Nikolai has yearned for so long. He wants it so bad. This thing that eats at his very core has become more than devouring want; it is a need like he needs air, like he needs to fill the holes inside him and only Aleksander could ever fit in. He knows―how he tried, one tryst after another, desperate to escape this tireless emprise he is still under. To no avail, each fucking time leaving him empty and longing for something impossible to have. And now, here it is, gifted with this impossibility once more. How easy it would be, to say yes. How easy to fuck everything, to engulf both thumb and duty with the yawning lust tormenting him. Easy to make them only this―not even lovers, just two humans incapable of keeping their hands and mouth and cock away from each other.
But doing so would only be for one selfish, stolen moment, gone in the length of one breath and ecstasy. They’ll get up in the morning, full of regret, and pretend nothing important happened. To this day, Nikolai is still paying the harsh price for the folly he imbibed in ten years ago.
His decision is made.
“Aleksander,” he murmurs, the name rough and wrecked. As he says it, the thumb slips up, just barely, landing on the plump flesh of his bottom lip. “What I want…”
Inside him, the coil around his heart tightens evermore.
The smile he gives must be horrible to witness, but he permits himself another weakness―he kisses Aleksander’s finger, closed-mouth, a light press, and then, with every cell of his body screaming at him, he leans away, breathing in the air outside of their shared space.
The vertigo that takes hold of him is not from his injury.
No, that particular weakness is all his.
But the choice has been made (another one of his many deflections; it has not been made, he made it consciously), and not once, but twice―who knows if Aleksander will ever offer himself again, who knows if the door will now be forever shut―but Nikolai accepts the sacrifice, he accepts the hurt, shovels it all down with the pain already brimming to the full.
“Brothers,” he whispers.
***