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Chapter Text

before

Aleksander stalked across the grey sands of the Fold. Carnage roiled all around him – smoke, gunfire, screaming, the faint flickering light of lumiya in the distance – but he didn’t register any of it. His veins burned with the black, bitter tang of merzost, twisted up with his rage and the sickening, single-minded need that now consumed him.

Alina.

A Heartrender ran forward from the gloom, eyes wide and hand extended, but Aleksander merely flicked his fingers and the man was torn apart by shadows. He didn't even break stride. Alina was out here, somewhere, concealed in the very darkness he had created. He needed to find her. More than he needed to eat, sleep, or breathe – he needed her.

He turned his head slowly from side to side as he scanned the impenetrable blackness surrounding him, searching for her familiar form. In his stomach, he felt a hot flicker of hatred – for her or for himself, he wasn’t entirely sure. Something else for the merzost to take hold of.

Aleksander didn’t know how much of himself had been corrupted by the dark magic, but he did know that he couldn’t blame it entirely for the chaos that seethed within him. It was Alina who was responsible for that, Alina who had exhumed those long-buried pieces of himself and returned them to life, Alina who had reminded him what it was to feel with such intensity once again. Alina who had brought hope and brightness into his world again, only to betray him.

An uncomfortable tugging in his gut forced him to stop. Around him, the Fold quaked and groaned.

“Alina!” he shouted, furious. “Stop this!”

The Fold had long since taken on a life of its own, but it was still his creation – still something tied to him by merzost. Aleksander could feel as it was ripped apart; a sharp pain in his abdomen, a phantom tearing sensation in his torso. He clenched his hands into fists and set off again, running across the sand, following the pull of the tether.

She came into view suddenly – a blot of light in swirling darkness.

He slowed as he came towards her, taking in the scene before him. Alina’s shoulders were hunched, her white hair screening her face, her body folded over that of another, motionless in the sand. Her hand fell to her side, bloody fingers clutching an equally bloody knife. She slumped over, chest heaving, and Aleksander saw for the first time who lay crumpled beneath her.

A few beats were all it took for Aleksander to put the pieces together.

Malyen. The firebird. The Fold.

Alina tipped her head back to the sky, eyes closed, cheeks wet, and let out a shuddering breath before pushing herself to her feet.

Distantly, Aleksander could feel the outermost edges of the Fold start to crumble away. His insides felt as though they were dissolving. Overhead, a tiny chink of blue sky appeared in the blackness.

Infected though he was by merzost, by rage that thrashed and howled within him, Aleksander could do nothing but gaze at Alina, awed, as she turned around slowly to face him, arrested by the feeling of pride which swept through his body. His Sun Summoner was strong. He’d always known – long before she had come to accept it herself – but to see her reach for her true potential and grab it with both hands was staggering.

His eyes flickered back to the broken body of the tracker. And now she knew heartache, too – now she knew true loss, the likes of which most other people would never have to contend with.

Now, she was his equal.

She walked silently towards him, tilting her chin up as she neared, meeting his eyes steadily. The sounds of battle rang out all around them, but it seemed very far away. Alina did not bother to conceal her grief; it was written on her face, in her stance – her every movement steeped in anguish.

Aleksander felt for her. He did. But he had warned her that this would happen.

“Alina,” he murmured.

With a half-sigh, she took another step towards him. Mere inches separated them now, and the awful, restless tension that occupied Aleksander’s body when she was too far from him finally dissipated. Even the merzost grew still and quiet, waiting to see what would happen.

Her chest hitched slightly as she drew in a breath, eyes fluttering closed momentarily.

“Aleksander,” she replied. She sounded exhausted. Defeated.

Victory swelled in his chest. Alina opened her eyes. The look of desolation on her face gave way to blistering fury, and she moved, a flash of silver in his peripheral vision. She was fast – the tip of the knife skimmed the fabric of his kefta – but Aleksander had survived too many assassination attempts to really be taken by surprise. Acting purely on instinct, he caught hold of her wrist before she could drive the blade forward.

His fingers curled around her exposed skin.

In a split second, less time than it took for either of them to so much as breathe, Aleksander was aware of several things happening at once.

The tether that ran between them flooded with emotion and he was assaulted by the full force of her sorrow, her despair, her anger – wave after wave, never-ending, wild and searing in their intensity. She was drowning in it, and she intended to take him down with her.

The amplifier woven through him latched onto her power and drew it out, but what had once been a gentle hum, a pleasing warmth running beneath his skin, was now a piercing screech, a fiery blaze of heat. If Aleksander had possessed any doubt that she had taken all three of Morozova’s amplifiers, this would have brought an end to it. She was incandescent with power. Her amplifiers came into contact with his own with a bright flash of recognition – like calls to like. The screaming in his bones climbed to new heights.

The merzost that inhabited him, dark and corrosive, unfurled greedily, winding through his body like smoke, reaching out towards Alina. The merzost within her – the ugly consequence of claiming the firebird – raced to meet it, eager to consume something more.

Merzost, amplifiers, and sheer, unadulterated pain came crashing together where he held on to her.

No, Aleksander thought. Don’t let me lose her, too.

He didn’t have time to do anything more.

The world exploded in a blinding burst of light. For a moment, there was nothing else. Nothing but grief, white and purifying.

Aleksander could hear his heartbeat, unnaturally loud, echoing in the emptiness.

Then it was gone.

Chapter Text

now

His eyes open, slowly. Greeted by brightness – and Saints, it hurts – he has to blink a few times, eyelids sticky and heavy, before the world comes into focus. He tries turning his head, finds he can do it, if a little stiffly, and sees white in every direction. Blinks again, squints. Bare stone walls, whitewashed; a plain wooden dresser and matching writing desk; sunlight bleeding through the sheer fabric of the curtains, drawn across a narrow window, which flutter slightly every now and then.

The door opens with a quiet creak. He swings his head back around to see a woman, mid-40s, her hair covered by a white habit, pause in the doorway.

“You’re awake,” she notes, lifting her eyebrows in an expression of faint surprise.

“I suppose I am,” he says, after a moment of silence, unsure what else he could respond with.

She smiles a little and closes the door gently behind her, walking across the room towards the bed he’s lying in, setting down the glass of water on the nightstand.

“Do you remember anything?” she asks, after considering him for a moment, smoothing out the skirts of her long, blue-grey robe.

He thinks, then shakes his head. “No.”

She nods slowly and sits on the chair by his bedside. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing before I woke up, a few minutes ago.”

He starts to sit up, wincing as he props himself on his elbows, and she leans forward to help him into an upright position, placing a pillow carefully behind his back. She passes him the glass of water and he drinks gratefully.

“I am Sister Polina,” she says, taking the empty glass back from him. “This is the convent of Sankta Emiliya of the Cliff.”

He nods, even though it means nothing to him.

“How long have I been here?”

Sister Polina clears her throat quietly. “Nearly six months.”

“Six months?” he repeats. “And I’ve been asleep all that time?”

“Mostly,” she says, hesitant. “There have been times you have roused, briefly, but you have always been... confused. Distressed. We would try to calm you, but you would be unconscious again before long.”

Sister Polina watches him closely as he takes this in, as if she half expects his sanity to snap at any second.

He takes a deep breath and tries to steady his racing pulse. “I... I don’t remember any of that.”

“Well, it’s not such a surprise,” she says gently. “You were very badly injured when we found you.”

He glances at her, eyebrows raised. Sister Polina inclines her head slightly in acknowledgement to his unspoken question.

“You were in the river – half-dead. Burns all over your body, lacerations on your chest, several bones fractured or broken, and a severe head injury to top it all off. We weren’t even sure you would survive, at first. Sister Isolde has some skill with healing, but even so... the Saints must have been watching over you.”

Her words land uncomfortably, for reasons he doesn’t understand, and he flinches. Sister Polina catches it and looks at him curiously.

“You aren’t a believer?”

“I’m not sure,” he answers honestly.

“Well, it’s no matter,” she says. “The convent is a sanctuary for anyone who needs it, regardless of faith.”

“I see,” he mutters drily. “You make a habit of taking in strays, then?”

Sister Polina chuckles and pats his hand. “You are certainly not the first person whose injuries we have tended, whom we have fed and clothed. But your circumstances are certainly, ah, unique.”

He smiles a little at that. Sister Polina gives him another kind look and gets to her feet.

“I’ll fetch Sister Isolde to have a look at you. As I said, she knows a little about medicines and healing.”

He nods, watching as she leaves the room and closes the door behind her. Once he is alone, he shifts towards the edge of the bed, swinging his legs over the side and slowly pushing himself to his feet. His bones ache with unuse. The first step is awkward and faltering, pain shooting through him, but he makes it to the window and draws aside the curtains. A great expanse of ocean stretches out before him, blue and glinting in the bright sunshine. He pushes the windows open a little further and leans heavily on the windowsill, breathing in the salty sea air, letting the sunlight warm his face.

“You should be resting.”

He turns at the sound of a stern voice from behind him. A woman stands in the doorway, holding a large wicker box, her eyebrows knitted disapprovingly. Sister Isolde, presumably.

“Haven’t I done enough of that in the past six months?”

Sister Isolde says nothing, simply gestures to the bed. He sighs but obeys, sitting down on the edge of the firm mattress, while she pulls a chair to face him. Sister Polina hovers behind her.

“How do you feel?” Sister Isolde asks, as she sets her box down on the bed beside him.

“Sore,” he admits.

“Tired?”

He hesitates, then nods reluctantly. She smiles, as if she isn’t surprised, and begins running her fingers lightly over his forehead and his scalp, parting his hair to inspect the wound on his head.

“Now that you’re awake, I wonder if you would tell us your name?” Sister Polina asks, breaking the silence in the room.

He thinks, hard, searching the empty halls of his memory. Who am I?

Like all the others, it is a question that remains unanswered.

“I wish I could,” he says at last. Sister Polina looks sympathetic.

“You really don’t remember?”

He shakes his head, and she sighs. “We’ve taken to calling you Ilya – after Sankt Ilya, since you were in the river when they found you. You could always use that, for the time being.”

He shudders involuntarily and shakes his head again, more emphatically this time. “No. Not Ilya.”

He is unable to explain or make sense of the unsettling feeling of wrongness that twists in his gut at the idea of taking the name Ilya for himself. Sister Polina seems to understand from the look on his face and doesn’t press any further.

“Well, we have to call you something,” Isolde murmurs, sitting back for a moment. “Can you take off your shirt, please?”

He obeys, pulling the loose-fitting garment over his head. She leans forward again, holding her palms flat above his chest, not quite touching his skin, inspecting the scars that litter his torso.

“These have healed well,” she says, glancing up at him briefly. “I don’t know how long you’d been in that river before we found you, but the wounds had started to partially heal. I had to open them up again to get the shrapnel out.”

“Shrapnel?”

Sister Isolde shrugs slightly as she continues her path down his chest. “Fragments of a blade, of some sort.”

He is silent for a moment. What in the hells had happened to him?

“Oh, hold on,” Sister Isolde says, frowning, her hands hovering over his left side. “Your ribs – they were fractured when you were brought in. This one hasn’t healed quite right. I’m going to have to reset it.”

He is just about to ask how she intends to do that when she twists her palms and sharp pain shoots through his side. He hisses in a breath through his teeth and grabs her wrist, pulling it away before she can move to heal him. Beneath her skin there is a faint hum, something familiar, something he should have noticed before.

“You’re Grisha,” he says, not quite sure why it comes out as an accusation. Not quite sure why anger and betrayal flares in his chest at this revelation.

Sister Polina and Sister Isolde both go still. The silence in the room stretches into an almost unbearable tension.

“Under this roof,” Isolde says eventually, her voice calm and measured. “I am a priestess of Sankta Emiliya first. Everything else is second to that.”

“All Grisha are required to serve in the Second Army.”

Vaguely, he wonders where this is coming from. Sister Isolde doesn’t seem offended, though. She twists her wrist slightly in his grip.

“I chose to serve my country by serving my faith. Now, please, I know you’re in pain. Let me help.”

He takes a few deep breaths and releases her, slowly. With both hands now free, Sister Isolde returns to her work, brow furrowed in concentration. A hot, prickling sensation spreads through his side, soon overwhelming the pain there, and when it fades it leaves nothing but a pleasant warmth. Sister Isolde sits back, relieved, hands falling into her lap.

“Well?” Sister Polina prompts. Isolde smiles.

“You’ll be fine,” she says. “Take a few more days of rest. I understand the urge to move around, but go easy – while your body is mostly recovered from your injuries, you’ve been bedbound for quite some time, and it will take some adjusting to activity again. Start with short, gentle walks. Nothing too vigorous.”

She leans over and opens the wicker box, pulling out two small glass bottles of pills.

“These ones,” she says, handing him the first. “Will help with the pain, which, hopefully, should not persist longer than a few more days. You can use them as and when you feel you need it, but no more than four a day. And these ones will help you sleep. Take one with your evening meal.”

She places the second bottle on the nightstand. He nods, tugging his shirt back over his head and running one hand through his hair to neaten it. The movement feels instinctive, natural, like he’s done it countless times before – something his muscles still remember that he no longer can. It’s infuriating.

“And... my memories?” he asks tentatively. Sister Isolde gives him a sad smile.

“Unfortunately, my skills are limited to physical ailments. I can heal your head wound, alleviate the inflammation of your brain, but beyond that...”

She trails off.

“Time will tell,” Sister Polina says softly. “The Saints delivered you to us, I am certain of it. They will not abandon you now.”

He isn’t so sure about that, but he just nods in response. Sister Isolde gathers her box in her arms and both priestesses make to leave.

“Eryk,” he blurts out. “You can call me Eryk, for now.”

The name comes from – something, he thinks. It doesn’t feel like his, but it has a weight, an importance.

“Well, Eryk,” Sister Polina says, smiling. “I will pray to the Saints for your recovery – body and mind.”

It feels hollow to him, but he knows that she is sincere, so he dips his head in thanks. After they leave, he finds he is glad to be alone.

Is that the kind of person I am? He muses to himself as he slowly stands, stretching his arms above his head.

He paces the room slowly for a while, his steps gradually becoming surer, steadier, easier. He grows tired quickly, though; fatigue seeping into his muscles before long, unaccustomed as they are to prolonged use. He scowls and slumps down onto the bed. Whatever he was before this, he must have had a life, he must have been something – now, he cannot even stay on his feet for more than twenty minutes without exhausting himself. Pathetic.

As he sits on the edge of his bed, head in hands, the door swings open. He looks up, momentarily distracted from his internal strife. There is a girl standing in the doorway, looking at him with – some kind of reserved apprehension.

Her hair is covered, the same as the other priestesses. She is clutching a stack of books. Her eyes look Shu, and they narrow distrustfully as he stands up.

“Hello,” he says.

“Hello,” she replies, slowly. Her grip on the books tightens until her knuckles go white.

He raises his eyebrows and waits for her to explain her presence. After a moment of staring at him, she holds the pile of books towards him.

“Sister Polina asked me to bring these to you,” she says.

“I see.”

Another beat of silence, then she crosses the room, still eyeing him warily, and places the books down on the writing desk. The door swings shut behind her, leaving them alone. She turns to face him, twisting her fingers together.

“She said you’ve lost all your memories.”

He frowns slightly at this, but nods. “That does appear to be the case, yes.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, and the words are sympathetic but she is still looking at him with something between suspicion and open hostility.

“Have I done something to offend you?” he asks, crossing his arms defensively over his chest.

She blinks in surprise, then smiles, as if in response to a joke that he isn’t in on.

“I – no,” she begins. “Sorry. Until now it’s only been the elder priestesses who have been allowed in here. I just... I wasn’t sure what to make of you.”

This seems like a poor excuse, but he may as well let it slide. “You’re... relatively new here, then?”

She smiles again and nods. “I’ve been here for even less time than you, actually.”

“What made you want to join the convent?”

He’s not sure why this is his first question, but there is something about her face – a nagging feeling at the back of his mind that, a little like him, she doesn’t truly belong here.

As before, she seems a little surprised at first.

“Um,” she begins, that faint smile that makes him feel as though there’s something he’s missing still hovering on her lips. “Well, after –”

She stops suddenly and frowns at him. “Wait. How much do you know?”

He shakes his head vaguely. “Know about... what?”

“About –” she gestures towards the window. “Everything that’s happened, recently.”

“Nothing, as far as I’m aware,” he says with a shrug. She blows out a breath.

“Oh, Saints. It’s quite a long story.”

Now he’s intrigued. He walks around the bed towards her and sits down on the edge of the mattress, looking up at her with raised eyebrows. She clears her throat, but as she is about to speak, the clear peal of a bell rings out, and they both look automatically towards the door.

“Evening prayers,” she says under her breath, shooting him an apologetic look. “I need to go. Somebody will be along with your evening meal, later.”

He stands up as she hurries to the door.

“Wait,” he calls softly, and she turns, halfway out the room. “What’s your name?”

She hesitates, her eyes flickering over him, then swallows and forces a smile onto her face. “I’m Sister Marial.”

He nods and opens his mouth to thank her for the books, but she’s already gone. The door swings closed, leaving him alone again, a lingering sense of melancholy in her wake.

Chapter Text

Several days pass before he sees Sister Marial again. He tries to follow Sister Isolde’s instructions and rest, frustrating though it may be, and works his way steadily through the pile of books Marial had brought for him; it does something to distract him from the memory of her face, so often worming its way to the forefront of his mind, and the way she had looked at him.

When he isn’t sprawled out in bed, he sits in the rickety wooden chair by the open window. This is where Sister Polina finds him one afternoon – book largely abandoned on the windowsill, chin propped in one hand, gazing out at the seascape before him and listening to the distant crash of the waves, the plaintive crying of the seagulls that wheel endlessly overhead.

“Hello, Eryk,” she says quietly as she shuts the door behind her. He turns towards her, stretching out the stiffness in his limbs, and returns the smile. He hasn’t seen her since the day he first woke up – most of his meals have been brought to him by other priestesses, their names and faces already a blur, and Sister Isolde has come by a few times to check up on him.

“Hello,” he greets her.

She holds up the teapot she’s carrying. “I normally take some tea at this time of the afternoon. Would you like to join me? I thought, perhaps, you could do with some company.”

He nods. “Thank you, Sister.”

She places the teapot on the windowsill and sets out two small ceramic cups, then pulls over another chair to sit beside him.

“How are you feeling?”

He shrugs noncommittally. “Better, I suppose. I’m not in pain so much, just tired all the time. Weak.”

Sister Polina pours the tea and nudges a cup towards him. “Not weak, Eryk. Recovering.”

He hums quietly, unconvinced, and takes a sip of tea. It’s hot, reinvigorating, but he can barely taste it. Since he’s woken up, everything tastes the same – bland and ashy in his mouth. He doesn’t know if he’s always been like this or if it’s something more recent, a lingering effect of his injuries, perhaps.

“You’ve been reading?”

His eyes stray to the books scattered on the writing desk. She’d picked out a varied selection of novels, religious texts, and history books, which he’d been working his way through slowly.

“Yes,” he says, setting his teacup down. “Thank you. It’s been good to have something to occupy my mind.”

She smiles a little. “I’d hoped that there might be something in there which would help to jog a memory – mentions of a name, or a place.”

He’d had the same hope, but it had turned out to be fruitless. “Well, there’s been nothing so far. But I appreciate it all the same.”

Sister Polina nods sympathetically.

“Might I ask you...” he begins, drawing in a sharp breath and forging ahead before he can lose his nerve. “Sister Marial. She delivered the books.”

Sister Polina nods again and gestures for him to continue.

“She said something which I’ve been wondering about. She asked if I knew what had happened recently. What did she mean by that?”

There is a beat of silence, during which Sister Polina takes a long drink of tea. She places the cup down and exhales slowly, her face grave, eyes fixed on the horizon.

After a moment, her gaze returns to him, and she sighs. "It’s rather a long story.”

“That’s exactly what Sister Marial said,” he grumbles. She laughs softly, then sighs again, leaning forward to pour them both more tea before settling back in her chair.

“There was a war,” she says. “Between light and dark.”

His eyebrows twitch upwards. “What does that mean?”

“Do you know about the Shadow Fold?”

He nods. The history books have not been remiss in their discussions of the Black Heretic, the Shadow Summoner who, four hundred years ago, had betrayed the king and torn a rift in the middle of the country.

“Well,” Sister Polina continues, after another sip of tea. “The Darkling – the Black Heretic’s descendent, the leader of the Second Army – tried to seize power. He killed the king, drove the Fold over Novokribirsk and massacred the entire city.”

She pauses momentarily, twisting her teacup around in her fingers.

“Sankta Alina raised an army. She and Prince Nikolai fought back against the Darkling.”

“Sankta Alina?” he repeats, frowning slightly. It wasn’t a name he recognised from Istorii Sankt’ya.

“Sankta Alina of the Fold,” Sister Polina says, her voice quiet and full of reverence. “The Sun Summoner.”

Sun Summoner.

From the books he had read, the existence of a Sun Summoner was regarded as pure myth – a fairytale, almost. An icon of faith, perhaps, but not something real.

Sun Summoner.

Something that had been buried deep inside him stirs ever so slightly. He holds his breath and nods for her to keep going, leaning forward expectantly.

“The war was terrible. So many lives lost. It raged all across Ravka, but ended in the same place it all began.”

“The Shadow Fold,” he guesses, and she nods.

“Sankta Alina martyred herself to destroy the Fold and the Darkling. People have started calling it the Great Immolation – an explosion, right at the heart of the Unsea, strong enough to burn it away completely. Strong enough to rupture the ground itself, change the very face of the earth. Hundreds of people were caught up in the blast.”

At this last part, Sister Polina’s eyes flicker away. He leans forward even further.

“When was this?” he asks.

She sighs, staring down into her teacup, before raising her gaze again. “Six months ago.”

He nods, his suspicions confirmed. “You think that has something to do with why I showed up half-dead in the river.”

It’s not a question. She tilts her head, considering for a moment before she responds.

“Given the timing, it seems quite likely. But we can’t know for sure. And it still doesn’t explain all your injuries. No – there's something more to your story, Eryk. Some pieces still missing.”

He almost laughs. “That is an understatement.”

Sister Polina gives him another sympathetic look. He sits back in his chair and rubs one hand over his face, suddenly exhausted. She refills his teacup and passes it to him wordlessly. They sit together in silence for a while, drinking their tea slowly.

“Sister Marial,” he says, once his cup is empty. “She said she had been here for less time than me.”

“That’s true,” Sister Polina nods. “She arrived a few months after you. She came to us on the Feast of Sankta Emiliya along with three other girls from the village below. The convent is open to anybody at any time, of course, but traditionally, women come to join the Sisterhood on Sankta Emiliya’s feast day.”

“I see,” he murmurs thoughtfully. “She’s from the village, then?”

Sister Polina hesitates before she speaks. “No. She arrived there a few weeks after the Great Immolation. She was injured and alone. The village elder, Hala, took her in.”

He sits very still for several seconds, just breathing and turning this information over in his mind.

“She was caught up in it, like me, wasn’t she?”

“She wasn’t so badly injured, but... yes.”

He exhales shakily. “But she was there. She might know what happened to me.”

"I don’t think so,” Sister Polina says gently. “The war and the Great Immolation affected so many people. A lot of the larger towns on the coast have seen a surge in their populations following the destruction of the Fold – people who were injured, homeless, people who have lost everything, moving west to start a new life.”

He frowns, recalcitrant, and she shakes her head. “Besides, if she did know what had happened – what reason would she have to keep it a secret? If she recognised you, why wouldn’t she tell you?”

He has no answer to that. Sister Polina lays her hand on his and squeezes gently.

“I wish there was more we could do to help you, Eryk,” she says, a sad smile ghosting across her face.

“You have already done more to help me than I can ever repay,” he replies graciously.

“There is no need for repayment of any kind,” she assures him. “Caring for those who seek sanctuary in the convent is our holy duty.”

He huffs what might be a laugh or a sigh. “Well, seeing as I cannot remember being shown kindness before – I am grateful for yours.”

His shoulders sag, then, suddenly exhausted. Sister Polina – uncannily aware of the swings in his mood – pats his hand again, gathers the teapot and cups, and stands up.

“I’ll leave you to rest, now,” she says. He can only nod wearily in response.

Once she has left him alone, he goes straight to his bed and lays out atop the sheets. Despite the bone-deep tiredness which has plagued him, he often struggles to sleep; he has no such troubles this afternoon, however, and passes out almost immediately. His dreams are blank, empty things. Sometimes he thinks he prefers sleeplessness.

Later, he is roused by a tentative knocking sound. He sits up, rubbing his eyes, and stumbles groggily to the door.

Sister Marial stands on the other side of the threshold. He blinks uncertainly a few times, and she stares at him with an unreadable expression on her face.

Several long seconds pass in silence.

“Sister,” he says eventually, standing to one side to let her in. Her steps are slow, measured, as she walks to the window and sits down in the seat he had vacated earlier. He hovers in the middle of the room, unsure if he wants more or less space between them. She is looking at him again with that same slightly nervous expression – no, that’s not quite right. She doesn’t look nervous. She looks at him like she’s trying to figure him out, but she’s not entirely convinced she wants to know what she’ll discover.

He sits on the edge of the bed, both hands flat on the mattress in an attempt to keep his fingers from twitching. She tilts her head slightly, noting his apparent reluctance to sit near her, and continues to say nothing.

Two can play at that game, however; he finds that he is not overly uncomfortable with the idea of sitting quietly, just watching her.

Her lips quirk into a tiny smile.

“Sister Polina asked me to come and sit with you,” she says. “From her request, it sounded like you had something you wanted to talk about. But I guess that’s not the case.”

He lets out a breath. “It’s not... not the case. I was just curious about what you said, last time. But Sister Polina has brought me mostly up to date.”

She nods in understanding. “I see. The Fold?”

He hesitates before he replies. “Were you there? When it... came down?”

Something in her face shifts. “I was there,” she whispers. “It nearly killed me.”

“Was I?”

He has to ask.

“The elder priestesses think so,” she says, slowly. “And – well, it makes sense.”

His fingers curl inwards, digging into the mattress. “But – did you see me?”

She is still for a second, her eyes drifting over him, then she shakes her head. “No. I didn’t see you.”

Her gaze is steady where it meets his, her posture unchanged, but he can’t quite shake the feeling that she’s not being honest with him.

What reason would she have not to tell you? Sister Polina had said. And, certainly, he can’t think of any good reason – but he doesn’t know her at all. Hells, he doesn't even know himself.

He frowns, frustrated. Sister Marial keeps her face carefully neutral.

“You are very good at that,” he mutters irritably.

“At what?”

He gestures towards her with a sigh. “Leaving me wondering what you’re thinking.”

She smiles properly, now, a hint of mirth in her eyes. “Well. I had a very good teacher.”

He sighs again, pushing his hand through his hair, and gets to his feet. Her gaze follows him as he crosses the space between them and comes to a stop in front of her. She has to tip her head back to meet his eyes.

“I thought, maybe, you could help me to remember what happened. How I came to be here. But if you can't –” he breaks off suddenly, slumping into the seat beside her. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get my memories back. Maybe I’ll just be this – this empty vessel – for the rest of my life.”

“I don’t think you’re empty,” Sister Marial says, her voice so quiet he can barely make out the words. “Even without memory, you are still yourself, aren’t you?”

He laughs bitterly. “I don’t know who that is. I’m a stranger to myself. I don’t even remember my name.”

“The priestesses call you Eryk,” she points out, but he shakes his head.

“It’s not my name. Just something I chose.”

He thinks, somehow, that she knows this, because she never refers to him by that name. She watches him contemplatively, her hands clasped together tightly in her lap.

“Marial isn’t my name, either,” she says eventually. There is a reluctance to her words, as if she is unsure whether this is a confession she truly wants to share with him.

She falls silent, biting her lip slightly, cheeks flushing a delicate shade of pink. She’s beautiful, he realises suddenly – not that he hadn’t been aware of it before, in some way, but this is different. The way she looks at him now, stubborn and reticent but with an underlying softness, unlocks something in his chest. It squirms and kicks feebly as he sits back casually, forcing himself to keep breathing steadily.

“We choose new names when we join the Sisterhood,” she explains. “A new name for a new life.”

“What is your name, then? Your real name.”

She stares at him, long and hard, then lets out a small sigh. “Alina.”

“Alina,” he repeats, savouring the feeling of it on his tongue. He is rewarded with an almost visceral reaction on her part – a look of pained yearning flashes briefly across her face as her breath hitches and her hands, still resting in her lap, curl into fists. He smiles in satisfaction.

“Like Sankta Alina?” he says, mainly to irritate her.

“The very same,” she murmurs. For this first time since he opened the door to her, she refuses to meet his eyes.

He tries for sympathy. “I imagine that must be tiring.”

“She does cast quite a long shadow,” she says with a wry smile.

“Why did you come here?” he asks. “I mean – what made you want to join the Sisterhood?”

Her gaze slips away again, towards the window this time, into the distance where sea and sky bleed into one another.

“Many reasons,” she sighs. “Escape. Purpose. A fresh start. Some sense of peace, maybe.”

"And why did you come here, to speak to me?”

She turns back towards him, head tilted to one side, the picture of innocence. “Sister Polina asked me to.”

He shakes his head with a smile. “She may well have done. But I get the sense that’s not the main reason you showed up at my door.”

“You’re very perceptive, for one with no memory,” she says. Her stare is sharp and assessing.

He shrugs. “A natural talent, I suppose.”

She scoffs slightly, and he has to smother a grin, delighted by every genuine reaction he manages to wrest from her.

“I just wanted to...” she trails off and sighs quietly. “I guess I wanted to know what you’re like.”

“There’s not much to know,” he says drily, and she smiles a little.

“I think there’s more to you than you realise.”

“I know there’s more to me than I realise,” he counters. “It’s just... out of reach.”

“Your memories may be out of reach, but who you are, at your core – that's still there,” she insists.

He blows out a breath and purses his lips slightly in disappointment. “I see. So that’s what this is? I’m just a puzzle that you’d like to solve?”

“Well... that’s one way of looking at it,” she says hesitantly.

He gives her a withering look. “And the other?”

“Don’t you want to find out who you are?” she asks, then adds, spitefully, “Eryk.”

He scowls. Somehow, it feels more wrong coming from her mouth.

Sister Marial – Alina – smiles demurely, as if she can sense her victory. It would be exasperating, if he could focus on anything other than the lingering blush on her throat, the playful gleam in her eyes as she looks at him in challenge.

“Very well,” he mutters. “But I want to know about you, in return. It’s only fair.”

She waits a second too long before attempting a carefree shrug. “Of course.”

His smile is a brittle thing, entirely too pleased with himself at having unsettled her. “You don’t like to talk about yourself, do you?”

“I told you, earlier,” she says, voice flat. “I’m trying to leave my past behind.”

He hums thoughtfully. “But – let me guess – the past won’t let you go so easily?”

She gives him another look, loaded with meaning which he can’t quite parse. “Something like that, yes.”

Chapter Text

Sister Marial – or Alina, as he now thinks of her – comes by most days, usually with another book for him to read, and some questions for him to answer. He doesn’t know why he enjoys talking to her so much, discovering new ways to make her smile or frown, untangling the confusing reactions she brings out in him. He doesn’t understand it, but he wants to know her; more than that, he’s beginning to realise, he wants to be known by her. Whatever vestiges of a man still remain in him – she can have them all.

He grows stronger as the days goes by, although he still tires quickly, and begins to explore the convent outside of his little room. He wanders the halls, the chapel, the cloisters; the priestesses are, by now, accustomed to his quiet presence, and pay him little mind as they go about their day-to-day tasks.

One sunny afternoon, Alina finds him in the walled garden in the centre of the convent. He has a book on botanical science open in his lap and is trying his best to identify the various plants that the priestesses grow here. Most of them, he quickly realises, have some sort of medicinal purpose. Others seem to be there mainly because they look nice.

“Taking an interest in botany?” Alina asks, and he looks up, concentration broken.

“I thought I’d give it a go,” he says. She smiles and gestures to the space on the bench next to him.

“May I?”

“Of course.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes. Alina has her head tipped back towards the sky, her eyes half-closed. In the sunlight, she seems more at home, more herself, than he has ever seen her before.

She opens her eyes to find him gazing at her. She blushes endearingly but, never one to back down willingly, doesn’t look away. He likes that about her.

Alina is the first one to speak.

“This is one of my favourite places to sit,” she says. “When I just want to be alone for a while. It’s always so peaceful here. You can just... forget about the rest of the world.”

He makes an amused noise in the back of his throat. “While I understand the sentiment, I feel I’ve done enough forgetting for one lifetime.”

She laughs softly and nods towards the book. “How are you getting on with botany, then?”

“It’s interesting,” he shrugs. “All these books I’m reading – it's like I can tell that I’m learning something for the second time. Like I did know it, before, even though I don’t remember knowing it.”

“So... you think you used to be an expert on plants?” she says, a hint of scepticism in her voice.

“I’m not sure,” he admits, looking slowly around the garden at the plants he has only recently realised he already knew the names of. “It’s... strange.”

“How so?”

“That one over there,” he points. “Can lower a fever. This one is poisonous, but if you dilute it enough it can be used as a sedative. And the leaves from this one here make a tea which alleviates nausea.”

He turns to her, frowning. “I knew all that, at some point before. But – over there, you see the plant with the little pink flowers?”

Alina looks at where he’s pointing and nods. He sits back with an exaggerated shrug.

“I found it, in here,” he says, tapping the cover of the book. “But there was nothing I recognised. I know nothing about that plant, and I never have. Not even its name.”

“What does it do?” she asks curiously.

“Nothing at all,” he sighs. “It just looks pretty.”

There is silence for a moment as she swivels around again, her eyes fixing on the plant with the little pink flowers.

“What kind of person would I have to be,” he says quietly. “To care so little about something beautiful, only because it has no use?”

Alina looks at him with almost unbearable sympathy.

“Maybe someone who couldn’t afford to think about anything other than just... surviving.”

He laughs harshly then sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “Maybe.”

“Whoever you were,” she whispers. “It doesn’t have to dictate who you want to be now.”

“I am who I am, Alina,” he says flatly. “No matter how much of my life I remember – some things can’t be changed.”

Alina worries at her lower lip, a faint crease between her eyebrows. “Do we really know that for sure?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean...” she stops, frown deepening, and thinks for a moment before she continues. “I mean, how can we know how much of who we are is affected by our past experiences – our memories – and how much is innate?”

He is silent. She smiles softly.

“Exactly. We can’t, not really. But – if you could be whoever you want to be, from here on out, don’t you want to try, at least?”

“A fresh start,” he mutters. “Everything you’ve ever wanted.”

Her eyes are sad. She doesn’t say anything, and he can’t help but wonder what she’s thinking about.

“I thought you wanted to know who I was?” he asks, leaning ever so slightly towards her. Alina shakes her head.

“I said I wanted to know who you are,” she corrects. “Your past... doesn’t concern me. As mine should not concern you.”

And perhaps it shouldn’t, he thinks, but it’s a lost cause. He wants to know absolutely everything about her – wants to break her open and see her insides, all the pieces that she is made from, hold them in his hands and turn them over until he’s memorised their shapes.

Alina lifts her hand and, very gently, brushes back a strand of hair from his forehead. Her fingertips graze his skin lightly.

She stands before him in a grubby khaki uniform. Her dark hair is tied back in a dishevelled, haphazard braid, her eyes wide, looking at him with just as much defiance as fear. Their surroundings are blurry, indistinct – a dark tent, a crowd of people all watching on.

The image flashes before his eyes – lightning quick but as vivid as real life, imprinted into his mind.

He snatches for Alina’s hand even as she withdraws it, digging his fingers into her palm, but no more memories come.

“I knew you – before,” he breathes.

“You didn’t,” she says, her voice firm. He tilts his head, disbelieving.

“I saw you, Alina. I remembered you.”

“You didn’t,” she repeats, tugging her hand out of his grasp. “You must be imagining things.”

She meets his glare calmly, but from the speed at which she had pulled her fingers away from his skin, he gets the distinct feeling that she saw exactly the same thing that he did.

“Alina,” he hisses, grasping for her again. She hurriedly scrambles backwards along the bench, her hands clutched to her chest, out of his reach.

“I told you,” she says. “It’s nothing.”

“Alina, please,” he begs. “If you know something about me – anything – you have to tell me.”

“I don’t know anything,” she whispers. Her chest rises and falls rapidly, the only outward sign of her discomfort.

A cold wave of anger surges through him. Before he can say or do anything, Alina abruptly gets to her feet and walks away without another word, leaving him alone in the garden, seething quietly.

And if the shadows that pool on the ground beneath the walls begin to stretch and convulse as his agitation grows, he is too busy watching her leave to notice.

He lets her go, for now. It’s not as if she can avoid him for very long, after all – they are both stuck here, by choice or circumstance, or a combination of both. Still, he has to grit his teeth as he stands up, forcing himself to turn around and walk in the opposite direction to her.

He retreats back to his room, replaying the memory over and over in his head. His first glimpse into his past, something real, made all the more precious by Alina’s presence. Underneath his irritation, he can’t help but feel a smug kind of triumph – he knew that she had been part of his life, before, and now he has proof of it. No matter how much she wanted to deny the connection between them, it is there.

The knowledge of it keeps him awake that night, suspended in the hazy limbo on the very edge of sleep. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees Alina’s face – her skin pallid and soot-smudged, her eyes wide and apprehensive, her chin raised and jaw clenched obstinately. Angry and afraid, and looking right at him.

He wonders what it is about this memory that she dislikes so much.

When he finally tips over into unconsciousness, his dreams are nebulous, ethereal – dancing between memory and fantasy. Alina, backlit in a dark tent. Alina, staring at him from several paces away, too far to reach. Alina, spread out below him. Alina, skin soft, hair mussed, cheeks flushed, eyes glazed with pleasure.

In the morning, he blinks awake and lies completely motionless for several minutes, wondering what to do with his new-found ability to dream. The room is bright, the sound of the sea drifting in through the partially open window. He can hear movement from within the convent as the priestesses bustle around through their daily duties.

He sits up, slowly, putting both feet on the cool stone floor, but hesitates before he stands. He glances somewhat guiltily up at the idol of Sankta Emiliya which hangs above his bed.

“Sorry, Sankta,” he says under his breath, aware that his thoughts about Alina have taken a turn for the not-very-holy-at-all.

He can handle being infuriated with her, can swallow down the bitterness in his throat and put a lid on his impatience. He would quite happily have locked himself in his room and just seethed in isolation for several days until he felt ready to face her again. But this – wondering how much of his dream came from something true, wondering what the nature of his relationship with Alina had once been – would surely drive him insane.

This is a thought which, now lodged in his brain, he knows will be impossible to shake.

He tears at his hair in frustration as he stands up and stalks to the door. He needs to get out of this room; he needs a long walk, fresh air. He needs –

Alina.

She is standing in the hallway, a few steps back from the door. Her eyes widen a fraction as he stops, frozen, in the threshold.

“Alina,” he breathes, and he has to shake himself mentally in an effort to remember that he’s still angry with her.

She winces and turns away.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I – I don’t know why I came here.”

She flees down the corridor, the skirt of her robe swirling at her heels, and he remains locked in place, watching her go.

A few moments pass, then his brain starts working again and he remembers how to move his limbs. He trails her through the narrow hallways, down the stone staircase, across the courtyard and into the chapel, drawn towards her as if there is some sort of invisible thread spooling out between them.

The chapel is dim. Daylight filters through stained glass, soft and muted, while candles on every alcove cast a liquid orange glow up the walls.

He has avoided it until now – some subconscious unease to step foot in such a sacred place. As if he feels he doesn’t quite belong.

Alina sits on one of the hard wooden pews, her hands clasped before her, prayerlike. Her head is not bowed, though; she gazes up at the figure of Sankta Emiliya, wrought in stained glass above the altar, with an expression more like pity than the reverence he had expected. He walks slowly up the nave towards her, each step echoing against the stone walls, so he knows that she hears him approaching. She doesn’t move, though, doesn’t turn around to look, not even when he sits down right beside her. Her eyelids flutter closed and she lets out a sorrowful little sigh.

“Alina,” he says, just about managing to keep his voice steady.

She flinches.

“Do not call me that,” she hisses, all acid and fire, fixing him with a scathing glare.

“It’s your name,” he points out.

She turns her gaze back towards Sankta Emiliya. When she speaks, it is barely a whisper. “Not anymore.”

“Is that what this is about?” he asks, leaning towards her. “You want nothing more than to forget your past, don’t you? To be somebody else, somebody new. So much so that you can’t even bear to talk about whatever memories we might have shared.”

Alina stays quiet. His sense of indignation comes back to him – slowly at first, then in a rush. He is gripping the seat of the pew so hard that he can feel his nails digging into the wood.

“I don’t know what happened to you,” he says in a low voice. “Whatever it is that you’re running away from – that's your choice. But my life, my past, everything that I have lost – you have no right to withhold that from me, just because you’d rather not look back. I need to know, Alina.”

“Do you?” she murmurs. He arches an eyebrow.

She tilts her head, a look of carefully controlled emotion on her face.

“How badly do you want to remember? How certain are you that you want the truth – the whole of you, whatever that may be? Have you ever considered that, maybe, it’s something you’re better off not knowing?”

He stares, taken aback by the strength of her outburst. She lets out a long, trembling breath, and for a second he thinks she has more to say, but then she lapses into silence.

“What could I possibly have done,” he says, slowly. “That makes you think amnesia would be preferable?”

“Maybe you should think about that,” Alina retorts. Her voice is weary. “And I mean really think about it.”

He frowns. “This is my life we’re talking about, Alina.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” she says, shifting on the bench so that she is facing him fully. “We can both choose to move forward – to let the past lie.”

“Why are you so afraid of it?” he whispers. She shakes her head – she either can’t answer, or won’t.

He reaches towards her hesitantly, fully expecting her to pull away from his touch, but she simply closes her eyes and lets the tension in her body go slack, allowing him to cup her cheek with his palm.

Alina looks up at him with red-rimmed eyes. Her face is streaked with blood, ash, and tears. There is nothing beyond her but a shifting blackness which looks almost like storm clouds but sits too heavily on his skin – shadow given substance. She is the only bright thing in this otherwise colourless landscape, with her white hair loose around her shoulders, pearlescent in the unnatural darkness.

There is no fear in the way she looks at him now, only misery.

“Alina,” he murmurs.

She draws closer to him – close enough to touch – then stops. He sees something flicker, deep in her eyes. Something that looks an awful lot like an ending.

This time, he is the one who jerks away, drawing his hand back from her skin as if she has burned him. Alina sits motionless as he stares at her, mouth agape, heart thundering in his chest, too many emotions coiling beneath his skin for him to make sense of.

“Alina...” he manages to stutter. “What was that?”

“Think it over,” is all she says. “And I mean really think about what you’re asking me – what you want to know. You need to be sure.”

She looks away before he can respond, casting a wary glance at where the wavering candlelight sends shadows rippling up the stone walls of the chapel. Her fingers twist violently in the fabric of her skirt.

In his mind, he can still see the way she looked at him in the memory – her eyes so full of bleak despair, hopelessness.

What happened to you? He wants to ask. What happened to us?

He holds his tongue, her warnings about things he might rather not know still ringing in his ears.

Is it me? Am I what you’re running from? Am I what you wish you could forget?

He is caught in a maelstrom, the black hole of his unknown past rising up to swallow him whole. Alina glances at him once more, sympathy and sorrow written plainly across her face, before she gathers herself and rises on unsteady legs.

He wants her to stay, wants to remain close to her, but he cannot bring himself to ask this of her. Not now. Not with this most recent memory still fresh in his mind, a weeping, bloody wound.

“Alina,” he chokes out again.

“I know,” she says, already turning away, already leaving.

The chapel seems darker once she’s gone.

Chapter Text

Every night, he lies awake for several hours, unable to rest. Unable to shake the images in his mind, the questions that crowd his every thought. The constant itch of not knowing.

He hasn’t seen Alina since that morning in the chapel, several days ago. Her absence chafes him, almost as much as the lack of his own memories, but he still does not seek her out. He’s not sure which of them will be the one to snap and give in first; he has the sense that Alina is drawn to him just as surely as he is to her. Whatever it is that ties them together – this strange, intangible tether – is undeniable.

He keeps to his room. He reads. He stares at the sea and wonders how he came to be here.

Sister Polina visits, one afternoon, concern clear in her eyes. She asks why he’s confining himself once again, why he no longer spends time in the garden or the library. He can only shake his head and assure her that he is quite happy where he is. From the sceptical way she looks at him, he knows she can tell he’s holding something back, but she doesn’t pry, just pats his hand gently before she leaves.

He hasn’t dreamt again, not since that first night – when he sleeps, he sees nothing at all. Mostly, though, he does not sleep, just lies, unmoving, in the familiar soft cocoon of darkness. Thinking.

One night, his restless thoughts prove too much, and he finds himself wandering the deserted halls of the convent. He has no real destination in mind, simply uses the long, empty corridors as a space to try and calm the thoughts that wheel endlessly in his head like birds above a carcass. Perhaps this is why he finds himself walking in a particular direction without quite realising where he is going – down the west wing, up the narrow staircase, and out into the night air.

He cannot see her face, the figure who leans against the parapet with her back to him, but he knows immediately who it is. Knows why his aimless wanderings have brought him here.

He comes to stand by her side. She is wearing a long, sleeveless white nightgown, her hair covered loosely by a midnight-blue mantle.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks, quietly.

“I get nightmares,” she says in response. Alina tilts her head towards him, cautious, but doesn’t step away.

“I don’t dream at all,” he admits. “In my mind’s eye – there’s only emptiness. A void.”

He doesn’t mention that the only dream he has had since he woke up here was about her. A tiny smile tugs at the corners of her mouth, and he wonders if she knows, somehow.

The night is pleasantly warm, a gentle sea breeze winding around their shoulders, ruffling his hair. The ocean is so black it is almost invisible, save for the silvery reflection of the almost-full moon glinting on the edge of each distant wave. He inhales deeply, savouring the cool taste of salt in his lungs. Here, in this moment, he and Alina could be the only two people in the world.

He looks at her, and she looks back, her eyes roving over him intently. Reading every word he wants to say in his posture, his face, before he has a chance to say them out loud.

“Are you sure?” she asks after a moment, her voice soft.

“I –” he breaks off and heaves a sigh. “I don’t know. Sometimes, I think so. Other times...”

He stares into the darkness. Other times, he wonders if he can bear to carry the weight of his past; if Alina is right, and it would be better for everyone if he just cast it aside.

But then he looks at her again, and he feels the ache left by whatever he can no longer remember.

“If I could move on, I would. But I think it might kill me,” he whispers. “To not know.”

She nods her understanding, but he can see the pain in her face. It is ironic, he thinks – that what hurts her so much to remember has hurt him just as much to forget.

If he did believe in the Saints, he would curse them for this. For what has been done to the two of them.

“What was I to you?” he asks.

Alina smiles sadly. Her skin seems to glow, luminous in the light of the moon and the stars.

“So many things,” she murmurs.

Before he can ask what she means by that, she takes a long breath in and continues. Her eyes are on him, but he can tell that she doesn’t really see him – she is far away, lost in their shared past.

“Commander. Mentor. Protector,” she says, then pauses again, her lips twisting humourlessly. “Captor. Enemy. Nightmare.”

She sounds so tired. It takes every ounce of his strength not to reach out to her. That feeling rears up again, surging through the hollowness of his body – the awful, ugly need to possess her completely.

“You’re afraid,” he observes.

“I’m not scared of you,” she bites back. He shakes his head.

“No,” he says thoughtfully. “Perhaps not. But you’re afraid that if I remember – if you tell me – we will go back to whatever we once were, and the past you are trying so hard to distance yourself from will catch up with you again.”

“Is that such a bad thing?” she asks, her breath hitching in her chest. “I am happy here. I am happy here with you. Would it be so awful if we stayed as we are now? Couldn’t you be content with that?”

“You mean to say that you could be happy with me, as I am now,” he says bitterly. “Now that I have had all that I am stripped from me. Now that I am a different man to the one you knew, before.”

The man of your nightmares, he doesn’t say. She shifts slightly, her hand resting a little closer to his on the cool stone parapet.

“I’m not so sure that you are. Not entirely,” she confesses in a whisper. Her eyes fix on his face, brows furrowed, searching for – something. There is a soft edge of yearning to her, something that she hasn’t let him see before.

“What do you mean, Alina?” he asks.

“I could never tell what was real,” she says haltingly. “How much of what you showed me was just what you wanted me to see, and how much was true. But...”

She stops mid-sentence, inhaling a jagged breath. He can see her pulse vibrating, birdlike, beneath the smooth skin of her throat.

“But?” he prompts, his voice a little rough.

“Knowing you now has made me see all the ways in which I did know you, before. The ways in which I had you, if only for a few moments.”

She lifts her hand, trailing her fingers absentmindedly over the inside of his wrist.

Alina stands just a little more than arm’s length away from him, next to a large table littered with documents and maps. She is dressed in a dove grey velvet robe, her dark hair pinned back neatly, a delicate pink blush colouring her cheeks. Her lips are slightly parted, and she is gazing at him with a look of careful consideration.

Pale daylight filters weakly into the room, casting long shadows which seem to blend into the dark wood of the furniture. She exhales very slowly, straightening her shoulders, and he watches as the deliberation in her eyes turns to resolution. She closes the space between them in three steps and kisses him.

Her hands rest just above his collar, fingertips grazing his jaw. There is no uncertainty to be had here; they lean into one another readily, every movement and gasped breath underlined with an urgent sort of desperation. The feeling of her mouth under his is a heady thing. She is never more beautiful than when she takes what she wants for herself.

He blinks as the image behind his eyes dissipates. Alina withdraws slowly, running her thumb lightly over the back of his hand as she does so. She is still looking at him, but her face is shuttered, her expression distant, as if she is holding back her own reaction until she can judge his.

Vaguely, he wonders what conclusions she reaches. His head is in a state of disarray, and he’s certain it shows on his face; he is still caught up on the softness of her lips, the determined look in her eye as she came towards him, the way he had stayed frozen in place as his heart leapt into double time. And yet, he feels as if this is something he has always known – he is not as shocked, he realises now, as he had first presumed.

“What happened?” he asks, swallowing painfully. “What happened after that? What changed between us?”

“So many things,” Alina says, echoing her words from earlier, with a sardonic smile. “I discovered that you had been lying to me from the moment we met – about who you were, about what you really wanted with me. I ran from you. You came after me, caught me. I tried to kill you. A couple of times, actually.”

He is silent for a few long seconds, taking all this in.

“I see.”

She smiles again, softer this time, at odds with the tale of violence and betrayal she has just told him.

“You can’t have been trying very hard,” he murmurs.

“On the contrary,” she says lightly. “You are an exceedingly difficult person to kill.”

He hums contemplatively. “I take it this is not an intention you still harbour?”

Alina hesitates for just a second too long. He arches his brows at her in disbelief and takes an involuntary half-step away from her.

“Really, Alina?”

“I don’t know,” she admits, somewhat guiltily. “A part of me can’t help but feel that I should.”

“Why?” he scoffs.

She gives him a hard look, reminding him that he still knows very little about what, exactly, led them both here.

“Because,” she says, pausing to let out a heavy sigh. “I am terrified of what you might do if you ever remember your past – our past, I suppose – and everything that happened.”

She turns away abruptly, her eyes fixed on where the horizon lies, obscured by the veil of night-time.

“I don’t know what sort of man I was – I don’t even really know what sort of man I am now,” he says quietly, stepping towards her again. “But I am quite certain I would never harm you, Alina.”

Alina’s face is smooth, expressionless. She doesn’t look at him as she speaks.

“There’s more than one way to hurt someone.”

They lapse into silence, Alina staring out at the vast, inky-black ocean as he keeps his eyes fixed on her. He wonders whether he’ll ever be able to see her with her guard down – if he’ll ever know for sure how much of her is a disguise, and how much is real.

“Where does this end?” he asks, shattering the almost-peaceful quietude that surrounds them. “If I do remember, what then? Will we turn on each other again – even now, even after this? Does it not end until one or both of us are dead?”

She flinches almost imperceptibly, but he doesn’t stop.

“And if I never remember – if this is it, forever – will either of us be able to cope with that? Would you ever be able to let me walk away?”

“I don’t know,” she whispers.

“Where does it end, Alina?” he repeats, a little more forcefully. He can feel anger building in his chest, a frustrated growl vibrating against his clenched back teeth.

“I don’t know,” she spits out, exasperated, spinning to face him. “Do you think I planned any of this?”

“You might have, for all I know,” he says coldly. “You’ve kept me in the dark about almost everything. You would have continued to deny you knew me at all if not for this –”

Before she has a chance to back away, he darts his hand out and grabs hold of her forearm. She gasps, indignant, and struggles against him, but it does nothing to stop the image which washes over his vision.

Alina’s arms are around his neck, her lips brushing his. It should be gentle, but something about this has turned it into an act of violence, as sure as a knife in his heart. He can barely see beyond her – the air is crowded with inhuman, shadowy figures, writhing and seething.

He wants to be closer to her. He wants to break away. Death is seeping through his veins, cold and frightening.

“You’ll kill us both,” he says hoarsely.

“Yes,” she replies. Her eyes are steady, bright with purpose, even as he watches her strength sap away from her.

They collapse together, bodies still entwined. He presses his face into the crown of her head. His vision blurs with white spots and there is an awful buzzing in his ears.

“Alina,” he whispers, although he doesn’t think she can hear him anymore.

Distantly, he hears a shout. The shadows explode outwards, upwards, and the ceiling of the chapel comes down upon them.

Stunned, he releases Alina’s arm. She backs away from him, fists clenched, glaring furiously.

“Stop,” she hisses.

But he refuses to let her retreat, matching her every step back with one forward.

“You need to decide, Alina,” he says. “Tell me the truth or don’t – but at least have the courage to face up to the consequences.”

“The consequences,” she scoffs. “You don’t have the faintest idea what the consequences will be. Neither do I, for that matter! I don’t enjoy this, but I don’t want to release a monster into the world!”

He stills suddenly. “Is that what I am, Alina?”

“I don’t know!” she cries again. “If only it was as simple as that. This would all be so much easier if –”

She stops before she can finish the thought, choking on a ragged sob.

“If what, Alina?” he asks quietly.

She looks at him balefully, her chest heaving, and shakes her head.

“Go on,” he coaxes, a cruel edge to his voice. “Say it.”

Alina lets out a bitter laugh. When she speaks, it is a venomous whisper. “This would be so much easier if I hated you.”

Neither of them say anything for a long time after that.

Eventually, he remembers how to breathe, exhaling a long, shuddering breath. The sky overhead is the same deep blue-black, the sea before them still barely visible in the darkness, but behind them, to the east, the shining light of dawn has started to creep over the horizon.

He turns on his heel and stalks away, only making it a few steps before he wheels around again.

“I didn’t ask you not to hate me, Alina,” he snaps viciously. “You did that all by yourself.”

“I know,” she says, her voice muted. There is a quiet air of self-loathing about her, and he realises suddenly that she is as powerless as he in the face of whatever it is that ties them together.

He rocks back on his heels, his anger at her slowly giving way to frustration at this whole Saints-damned situation they have found themselves in. Clearly, the invisible, unspoken thing that exists between them isn’t going away any time soon, even if they both wish it would.

(And, if he’s being honest, he thinks that he doesn’t really wish that at all.)

He closes his eyes and breathes deeply.

“What do you want from me?” he sighs.

He opens his eyes. The way she looks at him is nothing short of tragic.

“I don’t know,” she whispers brokenly. “I just – I just want some peace.”

He nods once, then turns around and walks away from her. He makes his steps slow, steady, as he heads towards the door that will take him back inside – but she doesn’t follow him.

Chapter Text

He stops counting the days, after that. He hears her parting words – I just want some peace – in his head, over and over again, and knows that Alina will not come to him again.

And maybe it’s better that way.

It doesn’t stop him from thinking about her almost constantly. The handful of memories he’s regained play through his mind’s eye on a loop until he becomes certain he is losing his already tenuous grasp on sanity. When he isn’t stuck in a cycle of remembering, he is torturing himself with imagining all the things they might once have had.

He knows it is a foolishly self-destructive pastime to engage in, but he can’t help it. Alina is under his skin now – in his bones and blood. She has crawled inside him and taken up residence in the hollow cavity of his chest.

It is awful, the slow realisation that she might have been right all along – that he would have been better off not remembering at all. He hates this hold that she has on him, hates that his every waking thought belongs to her, hates that he craves her with the whole of his body and mind. Most days, he wishes he could forget about her all over again.

He jerks awake in a sweat one morning, sheets tangled around his legs, his heart pounding almost painfully against his ribs. He knows he was dreaming about Alina again – he can feel her presence in his subconscious, like a ghost – but, as most mornings, it dissipates the second he opens his eyes. No matter how desperately he grasps for the images, they slide away from his waking mind, passing through his fingers like water.

He stares at the ceiling without moving, simply stewing in irritation. He can already tell from the light in the room that it’s another beautiful day, but he’s not sure if he can face it – blue skies, soft breeze, sunshine, and there is no sign that anything will ever change. He is left floundering in a world which has no discernible past or future. There is only this, now; the smell of the sea clinging forever to his skin, the warmth of the sun melding to his bones.

Feeling as though he has nobody else to turn to, he finds himself in the chapel again. Sankta Emiliya looks down at him forlornly from her stained-glass window.

He wonders if he should just leave. He is recovered enough, by now – although it doesn’t take much to tire him, and he seems incapable of gaining any weight. But where would he go, and what would he do? Whatever aspirations or purpose he once had have all been eaten up by the hole in his memory. Aside from which, he knows he could not bear to leave Alina behind.

And this single, immutable fact sits at the centre of his being. If he stays here, she will consume him – but what other choice does he have?

He’s not sure he believes in the Saints enough to really look to Sankta Emiliya for guidance, but by the time he leaves the chapel, the disorienting clamour in his mind has quietened at least a little.

As he steps back out into the bright sunshine bathing the courtyard, he is greeted by Sister Isolde.

“Hello, Eryk,” she says, smiling kindly.

He inclines his head toward her. “Sister.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Much better, thank you,” he says lightly.

“You have recovered from your injuries well – much faster than I was expecting,” she murmurs, stepping closer to him and narrowing her eyes as if inspecting him. “Do you feel any stronger?”

He hesitates as he decides whether or not to tell her the truth. “Most days – no, not particularly,” he admits eventually.

Sister Isolde hums thoughtfully. “How strange. You are not sick – in fact, you seem to be otherwise in perfect health – but it’s as if there is something still afflicting you.”

“Maybe I was always like this?” he suggests. She nods slowly but looks unconvinced.

“Perhaps. I suppose I have no way of knowing for sure.”

“Yes, this seems to be something of a recurring theme in my life,” he says drily.

Sister Isolde smiles and gestures towards the chapel. “Would you like to pray with me? I know you have just been inside, but you’d be more than welcome. I, too, seek out moments of solitary contemplation, however I’ve often found that communal prayer can help to elucidate one’s thoughts in unexpected ways.”

“Thank you, Sister, but I’ll leave you to your solitary contemplation, this time.”

She laughs gracefully and nods. “Are you still figuring out what you believe in, then?”

“I am,” he says. “Although I’m beginning to think it’s a distinct possibility that I may never reach a conclusion.”

“Everyone finds their own way to their faith,” she assures him softly. “There is no right or wrong path, and no deadline.”

He nods, still unconvinced, and she smiles again.

“I’ll let you get on your way. But my offer stands, should you ever wish to take me up on it.”

“Thank you, Sister,” he says. “I’ll remember that.”

She dips her head and continues into the chapel. He crosses the courtyard, through the cloister, and starts to climb the staircase which leads to the library. Since Alina stopped coming to him, he’s worked his way through every book piled up in his room and needs something new to read. Besides which, he likes the library – the ink-and-paper smell, the stillness, the quiet creaking of the old wooden floor, the reassuring gloom of the alcoves and recesses.

He trails his fingers over the spines as he reads their titles. Some of the books in here are ancient – several centuries old, at least, their covers worn, delicate bindings frayed, pages nearly translucent with age. The oldest volumes are written in a dialect of Old Ravkan which, for some reason, he has no problem understanding. Another fragment of the endlessly confounding puzzle that is his life. He tries not to dwell on it.

He isn’t looking for anything in particular, so he browses the shelves leisurely, waiting for something to catch his eye. Once he’s curated a small collection, he tucks his books under his arm and weaves his way to his favourite nook, at the very back of the room. He’d discovered this corner of the library the very first time he had visited, and it had immediately become one of his favourite places in the whole convent.

He settles into the cushioned window seat and flips open his first book. For the first time in days, his body relaxes fully.

He only makes it through a few pages before he feels it – a prickling at the back of his neck, a warm hum somewhere low in his gut. A tightening in the invisible cord which he is tied to one end of.

“Hello, Alina,” he says, casting a glance over his shoulder. She is staring at him with narrowed eyes.

“What are you doing here?”

He lifts the book out of his lap. “Reading.”

“I can see that,” she says. She has a book clutched tightly to her chest. “But why here, of all places?”

He looks around at the nook he has sequestered himself in and shrugs. “I like it here. Is there a problem?”

Alina’s scowl deepens. “This is my favourite place to read.”

He can’t help it – he smiles smugly, leaning his head back against the wall behind him. “How interesting. That’s something we have in common.”

“You are infuriating,” she mutters.

His smile widens. “Sorry. There’s space for two here, though.”

He sits up a little straighter and moves his legs to make room for her. She hesitates, looking at the velveteen cushion with suspicion, and he sighs.

“I’m just here to read, Alina. Honestly.”

She shoots him one last distrustful glance but acquiesces, sitting down at the other end of the window seat. They regard one another silently for a few moments.

“What are you reading?” she asks eventually.

He holds up the book so that she can read the cover. Her lips twitch into a grudging smile.

“Poetry? Really?”

He shrugs. “I like it.”

There is a spark of warmth in the way she looks at him then, one he hadn’t expected he’d see again.

“Even now, you still surprise me,” she whispers.

He hums quietly. “I suppose you don’t know me quite as well as you thought you did.”

A pained expression flits across her features and she looks away. “Believe me, I know.”

“You hate that, don’t you?” he says. “That I deceived you, once before.”

“It was a lot more than once,” she mutters harshly.

He drums his fingers lightly on the page of his book and raises one eyebrow pointedly. “I’m not the one keeping secrets now, Alina.”

Alina closes her eyes and screws her face up. After a moment, she lets out a long sigh, relaxing her hunched shoulders.

“I know,” she says softly, turning to face him again.

He tries to smile, even as the wretched look in her eyes makes his insides curdle.

“I...” she begins, then trails off, chewing on her lower lip uncertainly. She sighs again and shakes her head. “You should know – I’ve never hated you.”

He stares. “What?”

“I’ve never hated you,” she repeats, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I might have wished I that did – I might have told you that I did. But it’s something I’ve never been able to do. Not now, and not before, either.”

“I see,” he nods slowly. “But you tried to kill me, anyway?”

She manages a strangled laugh. “Uh, well. It was... complicated.”

“That seems like an understatement,” he mutters, and she smiles ever so slightly.

“I guess it is.”

A few moments pass in silence, then he clears his throat quietly, having determined to use this moment of unexpected honesty for a confession of his own.

“I didn’t think you’d want to speak to me again.”

Alina looks down at the book clutched in her lap. She takes a deep breath, and he sees some of the tension in her white-knuckled grip dissipate.

“I didn’t think I would, either,” she says, bringing her gaze back up to meet his. “That’s the problem with you – you make me break all my own rules. You make me do things I swore to myself I never would.”

There is a touch of exasperation in her voice. She stops suddenly, mouth half-open as she catches herself just before speaking, and her cheeks redden. He arches his eyebrow in a silent challenge.

“Go on, Alina.”

Her blush deepens, but she accedes. “You make me feel things – want things – I know I shouldn’t.”

This makes him wonder if perhaps Alina is right, and he is not a good person at heart – because he likes the sound of that far too much to be decent. He tries to swallow, but his mouth is dry and his throat is tight.

“I shouldn’t be here,” she murmurs.

“Why?” he asks, his voice thick. “Because I’m a monster?”

She looks at him carefully. “That’s not what frightens me the most.”

“You told me before that you weren’t scared of me.”

Alina laughs, but there’s no humour in it. “I was lying. You terrify me. Not because of who you are, or what you’ve done – because of what you might turn me into.”

Neither of them say anything as this revelation sinks heavily into the air between them.

“And what about me, Alina?” he asks quietly. “What might you turn me into?”

She smiles wearily. “I’ve been asking myself that same question since the first time we had this conversation.”

So they’ve had this argument before. He finds that he’s not particularly surprised to hear that.

“And have you reached any conclusions?”

“Not yet,” Alina says, levelling him with another assessing stare. “I want to believe that you could change. There’s a side of you that you buried, before, which I could only get glimpses of then, but I see so clearly now – and I want so badly to believe you could let yourself be that man. But I just... I can’t. Letting myself hope for something like that is too dangerous.”

“Nothing I say is ever going to change that, is it?” he says. He can feel his control fraying. “Even if I never get my memories back, if I stay this way forever, you’ll never be able to trust me. I’ve damned myself with actions I don’t even remember.”

She doesn’t respond, but the fleeting flicker of guilt in her eyes says it all. He smiles grimly at her reaction, feeling satisfaction curl in his stomach, ugly and spiteful.

“Why bother trying to change me at all, then? What’s the point?” he goads. “Does it make you feel better? Is that what this has all been about – so that you can kill me with a clear conscience, because at least you tried to make me a good man?”

She groans. “No, Aleksander –”

They both freeze.

Aleksander.

Such an ordinary name. He must have read it hundreds of times in his history books – the name of common men and tsars alike – and not once has it ever registered. Like every other name in his books, it has always passed easily through his mind, a fallen leaf on the surface of a stream, carried along by the current but never sinking in.

But now – hearing it in her voice – from her lips –

The expression on Alina’s face is one of barely restrained panic.

“Say it again,” he demands in a hoarse croak.

Her eyes fall closed and she manages to take a shaky breath in.

“Aleksander,” she whispers. He doesn’t think he’s imagining the bittersweet note of longing in her voice.

He can feel the tremulous beat of his heart, violent, in his throat.

“Again,” he repeats, softer this time, placing his book down and shifting towards her.

Instead of responding, she opens her eyes, pupils dilating as she takes in his sudden proximity.

“Alina,” he murmurs as he leans closer to her, slow enough that she could move away if she wanted to.

A pink flush blooms on the smooth skin of her throat. She tilts her head towards him, her lips parting ever so slightly.

“Aleksander,” she breathes.

She reaches up towards him, twining her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, as he cups her cheek in his palm and draws her mouth towards his.

His nose brushes against hers as he bends to kiss her. Alina is still smiling, her lips curving softly beneath his, meeting his fervour beat for beat. He grips her by the waist, fitting their bodies together as he presses her against the edge of the table behind her. Her hands slide from the back of his head and down his jaw. Whatever tenderness remained between them vanishes in this moment and he descends on her with an almost deranged kind of desperation. He can’t stop touching her – his hands roam possessively over every inch of her body. The only sound in the room is of their breathing, harsh and ragged.

He breaks the kiss for just long enough to lift her inelegantly onto the table and step into the space between her legs, bringing their hips flush again. Alina, who is apparently just as impatient as he is, drags his head down until their lips collide. Her face feels so small between his hands. When she pushes her fingers into his hair, tugging gently, he barely manages to swallow down a groan. He braces one hand on the tabletop and leans into her so forcefully that she bows backwards, almost collapsing beneath him; the other hand, skating up her thigh beneath the layers of her skirt, stills, and he pulls back to look at her, trailing his gaze down her body. Her eyes are shining, pupils blown wide, skin flushed and lips swollen – but he has managed, somehow, not to make a complete mess of her carefully constructed hairstyle thus far.

“Are you sure?” he murmurs.

Alina smiles, delight clear on her face, and nods breathlessly. She curls her fingers around his collar and pulls him towards her again. He doesn’t fight her.

Somewhat overwhelmed by the onslaught of sensations, the memory of kissing Alina vivid in his mind’s eye at the same time as he kisses her in real life, Aleksander draws away and takes a moment to steady himself. Alina’s eyelids flutter slightly, her expression one of pure bliss.

“Is that going to happen every time?” he asks.

Alina opens her eyes, blinking at him a few times, and smiles.

“Every time?” she repeats. “That’s presumptuous.”

He huffs a laugh and shrugs. “Am I wrong?”

Something passes through the depths of her eyes, there and gone before he can make sense of it. He’s already leaning forward again, pressing light kisses upon her cheekbones, the curve of her jaw, the exposed skin of her throat. Alina sucks in a breath, and before he can brace himself for it, another vision sweeps through him.

His fingers are wrapped around Alina’s wrist in a grip nearly tight enough to be cruel. He is sitting on the edge of a table and she stands locked between his thighs. His other hand is flat against the small of her back; he can feel the way she shifts slightly as she struggles to decide which direction she wants to move in.

Before she has the chance to break his hold, he dips his head, pressing his mouth against her clavicle. He sighs softly, breath fanning out over her bare skin.

“Don’t,” Alina says, her voice choked. He slides his hand up her spine, weaving his fingers through her hair, tilting her head back to expose her throat.

“Let me,” he whispers. His lips graze her pulse point. He presses his heel into the back of her calf, nudging her further into his embrace, and she releases a shuddering breath, slipping her arms involuntarily around his waist.

“It isn’t real,” he says, lifting his head to meet her gaze once more. Her mouth hovers, tantalising, not even an inch from his. “Let me.”

“Enough, Alina,” Aleksander growls, jerking upright.

“Sorry,” she sighs. “I can’t always help it.”

He pulls her into his lap, tracing the contours of her face with his fingertips, shoulders tensed in expectation of yet another memory – but, this time, it doesn’t come.

“Is this real?” he asks quietly. Alina manages a small smile.

“You tell me.”

“I want it to be.”

It’s devastating – how easily the admission slips out. Alina turns her head into his hand, placing a brief kiss in the centre of his palm.

“I do, too,” she whispers.

“Could it be as simple as that?” he wonders aloud. “Could that be enough?”

Alina’s eyes are full of remorse. Before she can speak, before she can voice her doubts, before she can withdraw from him, he leans down to kiss her again.

He wants to devour her – wants to open himself up and swallow her whole – but he knows they both need this to be gentle. He cradles her face in both hands. She has her fingers curled in the front of his shirt. Her lips are soft beneath his, the rush of her breath so sweet as it pools on his tongue. She shifts her weight in his lap, turning into him, and he is so taken aback by the effect such a movement has on him that he actually moans into her mouth. Alina huffs a faint laugh, so he bites down on her lower lip in retribution – not hard, but just enough to make her squeak in surprise.

She rocks her hips slightly and he takes this as a sign to deepen the kiss. Her skin is burning hot to the touch. Need prickles underneath his skin with such feral urgency that he thinks he may soon be left with no other option but to take her right here, in this window seat – entirely indecent, he knows, and Alina deserves better, but he just doesn’t see any possibility that he’s going to separate from her for long enough to get back to his room.

But he’s interrupted by noise from somewhere within the library – the clattering of books falling from a shelf, startlingly close. With a stuttering gasp, Alina tears herself from his arms and leaps out of his lap.

He feels almost unbearably cold without her near him.

They both keep very still, breathing heavily. He decides not to point out that, should anybody actually round the corner, it would be immediately obvious what they had just been doing – Alina’s headscarf is askew, there is a slight glaze to her eyes, two pink spots have appeared at the top of her cheekbones, and he suspects he’s in a similar state – regardless of how much space she puts between them.  

Now that she’s no longer squirming in his lap, Aleksander can recover a fraction of his rational thinking, and can’t help but be slightly glad that this happened before he took things any further.

There is a faint shuffling sound, then the click of receding footsteps as the mystery interloper leaves the library. Alina’s shoulders relax slightly.

Aleksander lets out a low breath and runs one hand through his hair. He gets to his feet, slowly, and approaches Alina, but she prevents him from getting too close with a hand flat on his chest. Sensible, he thinks. It doesn’t stop his body from pining miserably for hers.

“Alina,” he says softly. She allows him to cup her cheek, tilting her chin up a little.

“Aleksander,” she responds, the word nothing more than a sigh, as he runs his thumb along her bottom lip.

She doesn’t need to say anything more – he understands. He understands that if she lets herself give into this now, she will sink until the surface is no longer in sight, until there is no hope of coming up for air ever again.

Aleksander is more than ready to let himself drown. But if she needs a little time, if she needs to learn how to trust him again, he will give her that.

It’s not as if he has anywhere else to go.

Chapter Text

Aleksander rises early, with more energy in his body than he can ever remember having. He pushes the window wide open and stands there for a few moments, stretching his arms above his head, taking in deep lungfuls of sea air and enjoying the warmth of the morning sun on his skin.

For the first time since he woke up, some months ago now, he sets foot outside the convent, following the trails that wind their way through the scrubby birch forest. It’s only a short distance to his destination – the stream which snakes down the shallow slope of the cliff towards the sea – but it occurs to him as he walks that, until recently, he would not have had the strength to manage even this.

The leaves overhead cast a wavering, dappled pattern of shadows over his skin as he picks his way through the trees. He tries not to think too hard about the fact that he is now not far from the place where, at the foot of the cliff, this stream merges with a larger river as it empties into the endless blue of the True Sea. The place where the priestesses found him, barely clinging on to life. The place where he might have died, his lungs full of water, bleeding out into the brackish mud.

He knows that the priestesses use this stretch of the stream, where the flow of water slackens as it passes through several pools of varying depths, for washing their clothes and bathing, so he doesn’t hesitate to strip off and wade in. It’s the perfect temperature – cold enough to be reinvigorating, but not so cold that he’s in danger of going numb.

Sunlight glints off the surface of the water. Aleksander releases a long breath and feels a tightness in his chest, something he had barely been aware of until now, slowly loosening. He plunges his head underwater, into a blissfully muted world of cool green tones. Streams of silvery bubbles trickle up the skin of his chest; light and shadow dance with one another across the bottom of the pool. His fears and doubts slough off him and are washed away.

When he rises, drawing in air gratefully and blinking the water from his eyes, he is greeted with the sight of Alina standing on the riverbank. She is wearing a simple linen shift, clutching a towel to her chest, and her hair is uncovered – it tumbles down her back, pure white, the colour of starlight, just like in his memories.

Aleksander pushes his wet hair out of his face with one hand and smiles at her.

“Hello, Alina,” he says, keeping his voice casual. He’s acutely aware that he’s completely naked and she’s staring at him – gawking, really, not that he minds. Let her look.

He walks out of the water slowly, grin widening with every step. Alina blushes and her eyes flicker away, up to the sky, but it isn’t long before she looks back at him again. A few feet from where she stands, Aleksander stops and bends down to pick up the towel he had brought with him; he dries his hair roughly but, pointedly, does not use it to cover himself.

“The water is perfect, by the way,” he tells her, as he lays his towel out on the bank.

“I, uh, I didn’t know you’d be here,” she blurts out. “Sorry.”

“I know you didn’t, Alina,” he smiles wryly. “As you have evidently been avoiding me these past few days. Again.”

She flushes again, looking down at the towel in her arms. “I just need a little time to figure things out.”

“If I were to give you one piece of advice,” he says. “I would tell you that you need to stop thinking so much about what you should do and focus on what you want, for once. But since you’ll never ask for my advice, much less listen to it, I suppose it doesn’t really matter.”

He casts her a significant look before flopping down on top of his towel. The sunlight feels absolutely glorious on his damp body.

Alina sighs heavily. “Turn around, then.”

Smirking, Aleksander rolls over onto his front, so that he’s looking into the trees that climb the hill towards the convent. Behind him, he hears the rustle of cloth – a few seconds pass, then there is a rippling splash, and Alina lets out a soft noise of contentment.

“Well?” he asks, fighting the urge to look over his shoulder.

“Don’t you dare say ‘I told you so’,” Alina grumbles. He laughs.

“Am I that petty, Alina?”

“You know you are.”

For several minutes the only sounds are the faint whispering of the wind in the leaves, the gurgling of the creek, and the quiet lapping of water against Alina’s skin. It is a divine sort of torture – to have her so close after days of nothing but absence, yet still out of sight.

She climbs out of the pool, her footsteps light as she comes up the bank towards him. Aleksander keeps his gaze fixed dutifully on the forest in front of him.

“You can turn around,” she tells him after a moment. He shifts onto his side so that he can look up at her. She has slipped back into her dress, although the fabric clings in places to her still-damp form, and is leaning forward as she squeezes the water from her hair with her towel. Aleksander swallows, his throat suddenly dry. Alina catches his eye and smiles.

“You were right,” she says, shaking out her towel and setting it next to his.

“About the water, or everything else?” he asks as she sits down. She rolls her eyes.

“You’re insufferable.”

He grins. “Doesn’t make me wrong, though.”

“I didn’t realise losing your memory had made you such a font of wisdom,” she scoffs.

Aleksander thinks about this for a second, then shrugs. “I suppose, when I didn’t have any idea who I was, listening to my intuition was the only option left to me.”

“Is that why you were so sure you knew me?” Alina asks.

“Yes,” he replies immediately. “There was no logic to it at all. I couldn’t remember ever seeing you before. But somehow, part of me just... knew.”

He feels a gentle thrumming in the tether that runs between them. It is alive with light and warmth.

“I can understand that,” she says quietly. “Some part of me is just... drawn to you. Saints know it’s not logical in any way – not something that can be made sense of.”

There is an undercurrent of resentment in her words. He props his chin in his hand and looks at her carefully.

“You hate it, don’t you? The thing that ties us together?”

“Sometimes,” she admits. “So did you, you know.”

He shrugs one shoulder. “That doesn’t surprise me. Sometimes I still do.”

She nods slowly. “You told me once, before, that wanting makes us weak.”

Aleksander frowns slightly as he mulls this over. Although it sounds like the kind of thing only a deeply cynical person would truly believe, he can appreciate the sentiment. After all, if he didn’t want Alina quite as desperately as he did, he might have had the strength to leave this place already and at least try to start a new life. Instead, here he was – still waiting for her to decide if she would have him.

“Do you believe that?”

She hesitates. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Because I gave you reason to believe it?” he asks drily, raising one eyebrow.

Alina sighs and lies back, staring up at the sky, and doesn’t respond. She doesn’t need to; he already knows the answer to this question.

“This is why you’ve been avoiding me,” he says. “Isn’t it?”

She turns her head to one side, eyes trailing down his body, pink flush returning to her cheeks. “It’s not been easy.”

A smile twitches at the corner of his mouth. “Then stop.”

“I wish it was as straightforward as that,” she sighs. “But – knowing who you were, who you could still be – it’s not something I can just forget.”

“Even if you could,” he says quietly. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

It’s Alina’s turn to smile. Her gaze is soft. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

They lie there for a while longer, side-by-side, but eventually Alina sits up.

“I should go,” she says, glancing up at the convent. “Before anybody comes looking.”

“Of course,” he smirks. “We wouldn’t want Sister Polina to accuse me of distracting you from your duties.”

“Distracting is right,” Alina mutters, glaring at him. She stands up with a sigh, sliding her feet back into her little linen slippers, and shakes the dust from her towel before rolling it up again.

“I suppose I’ll... see you soon,” she says hesitantly.

“I expect so.”

They look at one another cautiously for a few more seconds, then Alina begins to walk back up the trail. Aleksander watches until her figure has vanished into the trees.

It’s not long before he follows after her, although he takes his time in pulling his clothes back on and shaking out his towel. His trek back up the cliff to the convent is similarly unhurried. He’s not sure either one of them is ready for another encounter like this – it always leaves him feeling like a frayed thread, like something inside has been shaken loose and is rattling around inside his ribcage.

So, he goes about the rest of the day trying not to look for her around every corner, across every room; trying not to imagine how Alina’s bare skin would have looked beneath the clear green water of the stream, or glinting wet in the golden morning sunlight. By the time night falls, he is exhausted by the sheer mental exertion of not thinking about it.

But, once lying in his narrow little bed, he finds himself entirely incapable of sleep. Every time he closes his eyes, they spring back open almost immediately. There is a hot stickiness crawling incessantly beneath his skin – something he feels certain is entirely unrelated to the warmth of the day. He tosses and turns, kicking the blankets into a tangled heap at the foot of the bed, but the itchy restlessness never abates.

Aleksander glares up at the ceiling and swears furiously under his breath. Wanting makes us weak. He’s definitely coming around to the idea.

The door creaks open slowly. He sits bolt upright. Alina is standing in the doorway, one hand still on the handle, her face frozen in an expression of uncertainty.

“Alina?” he says. His voice breaks on the last syllable of her name.

She is illuminated perfectly in a shaft of moonlight. He can see the way her body grows taut with indecision, the shifting of muscles beneath her skin. The fine fabric of her nightgown flutters in the soft breeze that slips through the open window.

Aleksander closes his eyes then opens them again. She’s still there – not a phantom, not a figment of his desperate imagination.

Alina takes a deep breath and crosses the space between them, letting the door fall closed behind her. He shuffles backwards, moving his legs to make room for her, and leans against the wall. The stone feels blessedly cool against his flaming skin.

She sits down at the other end of the bed and they eye one another warily.

“Why are you here?” he asks when he can bear the silence no longer.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she whispers.

“Nightmares?”

“No,” she says, a ghost of a smile flickering over her face. “Not this time.”

He feels it again – a plaintive tugging on the cord that ties them together. There’s a kind of desperation to it that he recognises. A tiny, hopeful voice in his head whispers that there are very few reasons why she would come to his room in the middle of the night.

“Alina,” he says, and it is a tortured groan. He screws his eyes shut and tries to focus on breathing.

He feels the thin mattress shift as she moves, opening his eyes just in time to see her climb into his lap.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she repeats, soft and beseeching, as she runs her hands up his chest.

Aleksander growls in the back of his throat and crashes his lips against hers. Alina responds eagerly, clutching at his shoulders as he grabs her by the hips and pulls her closer to him, tilting her chin up and opening her mouth with a small sigh. He slides his tongue over hers, biting down on her lower lip just hard enough to make her whimper. Her fingernails dig into the skin on his shoulder blades – a sharp, cutting pain that brings him hurtling out of the haze of desire which has clouded his mind. He breaks away suddenly, holding her still as she wriggles.

“This isn’t real,” he says, already breathless, struggling to stay grounded. “Stop. This isn’t real, is it?”

Alina looks at him pityingly. “Aleksander...”

His grip on her tightens until she winces in pain.

“I only want it if it’s real.”

A parody of what he’d told her once, before. Let me. But they both know he’s not the same man now as he was then.

Alina brings her hand up to cup his cheek. “Don’t you trust me?” she whispers.

“Not at all,” he replies stiffly, and she smiles.

“I know the feeling.”

He leans into her touch, sighing sadly. “Don’t do this to me, Alina. Not if you don’t mean it. Please.”

She brushes her lips over his, lightly, then leans back, meeting his eyes solemnly. “I mean it.”

Aleksander’s resistance crumbles and he lets his mouth fall onto hers again. He moves his hands up her back, winding her hair around his fingers, and she holds his face between her palms. She melts against him – soft and sweet like warm honey. Something he wants to consume.

His hands drift down to her thighs, pushing up the skirt of her nightgown until it bunches over her hips. The dance of his fingertips against her skin makes her shiver, and he smiles against her lips, slowing his movements even further until she gasps and grinds against him. He runs his palms up her ribcage, high enough that he grazes the underside of her breasts – but just as she arches into her touch, he pulls away again.

The look of indignation on her face is spectacular.

“Tell me you want this,” he says, because he needs to be sure.

“Aleksander,” she whines. “Please. I want this. I’m tired of acting like I don’t.”

She is breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling in sharp little pants. He can see that she craves this just as fervently as he does. It doesn’t make it any easier.

He wants to ask her what will happen in the morning. He wants to fuck her until she can no longer remember anything except his name. One of these things is rapidly becoming a more pressing need than the other.

He grips the hem of her nightdress and tugs it up, over her head in one smooth movement, letting it crumple soundlessly to the floor by the bed. She immediately reaches for him, but he catches her wrists before she can slip her hands around his neck. He wants to see her.

Aleksander lets his eyes rove over her body, enjoying the way her skin heats under his gaze. She is glorious, and he is hungry for every inch of her; every dip and curve, everything soft, everything unyielding. He lets go of her wrists and traces the pattern of scars which litter her right side – fine, silvery marks strewn over her upper arm and across the front of her shoulder. Alina’s breath catches softly. He glances up and finds her gazing at him with a mournful expression.

“Me?” he asks quietly. She smiles and shakes her head.

“No. Not those ones.”

She brings her hands to his chest, a light touch that raises gooseflesh on his arms.

“We match,” he says, as she runs her fingertips over his scars, almost identical to her own, and she smiles again.

“We do, don’t we?”

She leans forward and presses a soft kiss against the long slash just above his heart. He cradles the side of her face, threading his fingers into the white silk of her hair, and tilts her head up. The sight of her like that, staring up at him through her eyelashes, lips parted as she releases a silent breath, makes his head spin.

With a low groan, he pulls her up towards him. They meet in a clash of teeth and desire, his grip on her hair tightening, her hands sliding down to his hips. He kisses down her throat, scraping his incisors over her pulse, running his tongue over her collarbone, revelling in every jagged gasp he drags out of her.

“Aleksander,” she complains as he busies himself sucking on the soft skin of her breast. “I swear to all the Saints, if you do not –”

Her words are lost to a small, broken whimper when he trails his fingers up the inside of her thighs, nails biting softly into skin, and presses them teasingly against her cunt. He raises one eyebrow in admonishment.

“Be patient, Alina.”

She has no response to that except another moan. Her head falls forward to rest on his shoulder, exhaling sharply, her breath hot on his clavicle. Aleksander places one finger under her jaw and turns her face gently towards his.

“I hate being patient,” she mumbles, although she’s smiling. He chuckles and plants a gentle kiss against her lips.

“I can see that,” he says, stroking her hair. “But I don’t want to rush this. It... it matters too much.”

Her eyes soften at this admission. She kisses him again, clutching his shoulders, and it is underlined with a tender kind of longing that makes his heart flutter painfully in his chest.

He pulls his hand back so that he can lift her out of his lap and she whines quietly at the sudden emptiness.

“Alina,” he laughs, as he lowers her onto the bed. “I’m not going anywhere, milaya.”

She blushes at the endearment. Aleksander leans forward, kissing her once on the mouth, then makes his way steadily down her body, nudging her knees apart as he positions himself between her legs.

He intends to take his time – he really does – but he loses every shred of his self-control the second he puts his mouth on her cunt. It is simply not possible to restrain his fervour, not when the thought of this has taunted his imagination for weeks, when he has gritted his teeth and squashed it down every time. Not when Alina is writhing and moaning so prettily under him, her hips jerking so violently he has to hold her down. Not when every one of her fevered gasps and bitten-back cries stokes the red flame of desire licking through his insides.

One of her hands is fisted in his hair, the other clutching at the pillow behind her. He works her to the edge and back three times, relishing the way he can bring the pitch of her breathy whining to new heights, before finally slipping his fingers inside her again. It only takes a little pressure to tip her over. Aleksander sits up to watch as her body convulses then slumps back into the mattress, limbs trembling in the wake of her orgasm.

Alina opens her eyes as he makes his way towards her on hands and knees, until his face is hovering just above hers. She smiles happily, a little dazed, and reaches towards him, hooking her ankles around his legs. Her hands glide down his chest and she curls her fingers into the waistband of the loose linen trousers he sleeps in, tugging them down over his hips. Her chest is heaving, skin flushed, movements jerky and impatient.

She takes his cock in her hand and strokes him a few times – gentle at first, then with a little more insistency. The noise he makes is almost inhuman. He wants so intensely that he thinks it might set him aflame.

Aleksander cups her face, drawing her eyes back to his. She stills at his touch.

“Aleksander,” she sighs, a quiet plea. He smiles, brushing loose strands of white hair back from her face, and nods.

She shifts her hips, hitching her legs higher as he sinks into her. Alina exhales sharply, fingers scrabbling against his lower back, while he presses his open mouth against her shoulder in an attempt to smother his groan. He holds himself there for a few moments, unsure if he is still in full command of his limbs. Alina arches her back and wriggles, nudging his nose with her own, bringing her lips to his in a soft, desperate kiss.

“What did I say about patience, Alina?” he whispers with a smile.

“I’ve waited long enough,” she retorts.

This comment is punctuated by several emphatic thrusts of her hips. Aleksander’s mind nearly whites out with pleasure – but she makes a compelling point. He kisses her again, harder.

“I think we both have,” he murmurs, trailing his mouth down her neck, sucking a bruise into the hollow of her throat. Alina hums in appreciation, her cunt tightening around him.

He begins to fuck her in earnest, then – except... he doesn’t. He realises very quickly that this is something else. The motions are familiar, but it feels different in a way he can’t quite explain. Their bodies fit together – move together – perfectly. He is gripping her thigh with one hand, his other cradling her face, pressing the full length of himself against her; desperate to have as little space between them as possible. Her heels press into the small of his back, her legs locked around his waist. He feels something shift as he buries himself in her, as she throws her head back with a silent gasp of exultation, as heat flares across his skin everywhere they touch. It is her, his Alina – she is everything.

Something deep within him cracks apart, and he is flooded with the awful certainty that he hasn’t had anything like this, anything so warm or meaningful, in a very long time. But Alina has clawed her way into the truest parts of him – had done so even before he lost his memories, he thinks – and made him feel something. Made him feel something that is ripping him apart.

Aleksander looks down at her, stricken, his heartbeat heavy against the inside of his chest.

“Alina,” he chokes out, overwhelmed.

“I know,” she whispers. A few tears slide down her cheeks. “I know, Aleksander.”

She reaches for his hand, lacing their fingers together, pulling him even closer to her. He rests his forehead against hers and closes his eyes. The rhythm of his hips falters. Alina lets out a soft little cry that undoes him completely.

“I’m –” he gasps. “Alina –”

“Aleksander,” she pleads, clutching his hand so hard it hurts. “Please. Pleasepleasepleaseplease.”

Her back arches, her head tipping back. Aleksander sinks his teeth into her bared throat as he shudders, moaning hoarsely against her skin, and spills inside her. His limbs give way beneath him and he collapses on top of Alina, face still pressed into the crook of her neck.

They lie there together in silence, breathing hard. Aleksander can hear the thundering rush of his own pulse in his ears.

Alina lifts her hand, stiffly untangling their entwined fingers, and gently combs through his thoroughly dishevelled hair. He releases a long, contented sigh at the soothing scratch of her fingertips against his scalp. When he finally works up the courage to look at her, she is gazing down at him, a smile dancing at the corner of her lips.

Aleksander rolls onto his side, one arm thrown over her waist and his leg wedged between her thighs.

“I think this might be the first time I’ve seen you like this,” she says.

“What do you mean?” he asks, propping his chin in his hand.

“So... unguarded. Vulnerable, I suppose.”

He raises his eyebrows slightly at that, because he's pretty sure he has bared his soul to her these past weeks. But, as he thinks about it, he realises she is right – even in all that time, he had still been perpetually on guard around her. Even tonight, as she had crawled into his lap, let him undress her, let him touch her and taste her and fuck her, he’d still been holding something back, out of fear.

It’s gone, now; the last thread of wariness and mistrust snipped in the second he had looked at her and realised that he loves her – had loved her, before, and has never really stopped.

Rather than saying any of this out loud, he gives her a slightly uneven smile and leans up to kiss her, brushing away the remnants of dampness on her cheeks with his thumb.

He doesn’t ask her to stay – not with words, at least – but she does, anyway. They fall asleep in one another’s arms, and for the first time since the day he woke up in this very room, months ago, Aleksander thinks he might know what peace is.

Chapter Text

He wakes up to the sound of rain.

His window is still open and the watery, musical burbling is loud in the small space of his bedroom. He lies still, holding Alina close to him, just listening. The air is cool and fresh, the room bathed in the half-light of dawn.

Alina stirs slightly and lets out a fluttery breath. She opens her eyes, blinking at him muzzily, then smiles.

“Good morning,” he whispers.

“Good morning, Aleksander,” she says, lifting her chin to press her lips softly against his. “Did you sleep well?”

He makes a quiet noise of assent, twirling his fingers in the gossamer-fine strands of her hair. “You tired me out, milaya.”

She blushes endearingly at that.

“What about you, Alina?” he asks. “No nightmares?”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “Not tonight.”

He cups her face in his hands and kisses her forehead. “Good.”

Alina sighs contentedly, nuzzling into his chest. Aleksander wraps his arms around her, fingertips skating over her bare back, and holds her a little tighter.

But then she sighs again, forlornly, this time, and glances up at him. “I need to go, before everyone else wakes up.”

His lips twitch into a half-smile. “I see. You don’t want the elder priestesses to know that you broke your vows for me?”

Alina smiles too, but her eyes are solemn. “I came here for you, Aleksander. No vow is more important than that.”

She plants a quick kiss on the underside of his jaw and starts to sit up. He catches her by the wrists and tugs her back down; Alina topples against his chest, palms flat over his heart. She frowns at him.

“Alina,” he says quietly. “You don’t have to tell me anything more.”

“What do you mean?” she whispers.

“I mean – you don’t have to tell me any more about my past than you already have.”

Alina stares at him, taken aback. “Aleksander...”

“No, wait,” he says, shifting so that they’re both sitting up. He holds both her hands in his own. “Just... let me finish.”

She bites her lip but nods.

“I... I can’t apologise for what I don’t remember. But, for what it’s worth, I am sorry that you are so burdened by memories you’d rather not have,” he stops, taking in a breath, and she leans closer to him. “If you want to leave the past behind completely, we can do that. I’d rather have a future I can share with you. That’s more important to me, now, than knowing who I was and running the risk of losing you.”

Alina tilts her head. Her eyes are wide and sorrowful. “Are you sure, Aleksander?”

He’s not. The thought of carrying around this gaping chasm in his mind forevermore makes him feel ill. But it’s still a better option that letting Alina go.

“Yes,” he says.

“Okay,” she nods. “Okay.”

She reaches up to push his hair back from his face, then leans forward and kisses him. It’s soft and sweet and, even more than anything that passed between them the previous night, it feels like the beginning of something.

Alina sits back and gets to her feet, retrieving her nightgown from where Aleksander had tossed it to the floor. She slips it over her head, tucks her hair behind her ears, and turns to face him again.

“I’ll find you later,” she promises, bending over to kiss him one last time before padding across the room to the door. It swings closed behind her with a low creaking noise. Alone again, Aleksander lets out a long breath, then tugs the blanket up over himself and tries to go back to sleep.

He drifts off, lulled by the rhythmic noise of rainfall and the scent of Alina that clings to his sheets, and when he wakens again, he can tell from the light in the room that it is mid-morning. He sits up, stretching slowly, and walks to the window. The rain has stopped, but the feeling of it lingers in the air. The sea is a pale, milky blue; the sky above still dappled with washed-out rainclouds. The whole landscape is still – almost, he thinks, as if the world is holding its breath.

The morning passes in something of a haze. By early afternoon, Aleksander is restless, so he picks out one of his new books and sets off to find a quiet corner to read in.

He’d been intending to climb the tower in the south wing – it is almost always deserted, and the view from the top is spectacular – but finds himself drawn instead to the chapel. It is empty when he steps inside. It’s clear the priestesses were in here not too long ago, because the room is still thick with the smell of incense, and there are fresh candles burning on the votive stands. Their tiny orange flames flicker and dance as he passes, distorting his shadow.

Alina finds him standing in the chancel, both hands resting on the altar, staring up at the stained-glass windows. He’s read a lot about Saints in the months he’s been here – Sankta Emiliya in particular – and their stories are all painfully similar. These tales of miracles and martyrdom pick at a loose thread in the back of his mind.

“Aleksander.”

He turns around at the sound of his name. Alina is standing before him, hands folded, looking at him with a carefully reserved expression on her face. He frowns.

“Alina? What’s wrong?”

She takes one uncertain step towards him. “I was thinking about what you said. About how I shouldn’t tell you about your past.”

He nods, concerned, and gestures for her to continue.

“I wish, more than anything, that you and I, together, could let the past go. But I don’t think it will ever be possible.”

Her voice has dropped to a whisper. He stares at her, horrified.

Alina reaches for him sadly, cupping his jaw in her palm. “I thought I could keep the truth from you. But I can’t. If I don’t tell you who you are, right now, you will see it for yourself one day – and I can’t live with that hanging over me. I’m sorry.”

“Alina,” he says, his voice rough. “What in the hells are you talking about?”

She comes to stand by his side, slipping her hand into his, so that they are both facing out into the nave of the chapel.

“Aleksander,” she begs. “Look. Just look.”

She points with her free hand, indicating the floor, the walls. He looks, but he doesn’t see anything unusual – smooth, unadorned stone; wavering patterns formed by the interplay of candlelight and shadow.

“Alina...” he says again. She sighs.

“You’re not paying attention,” she mutters, releasing his hand to pinch his forearm – hard.

And the shadows – the shadows jump.

Aleksander goes completely still, rooted to the spot.

“That wasn’t –” he starts, then stops, because the rest of that sentence – that wasn’t me, was it? – is just too ridiculous to speak out loud.

But then Alina brushes the pad of her thumb against the inside of his wrist.

He swings down from the saddle in a smooth motion, already taking several long strides towards where Alina lies, pinned beneath a huge man in furs. She’s struggling against him, trying to fight, but he must be twice her size and is clearly a seasoned warrior. He raises his axe above his head.

Shadows race across the ground, flooding the clearing. The man with the axe freezes, twisting around to face Aleksander; Alina goes still, too, staring at him with an expression caught somewhere between relief and horror.

He raises his hands in front of him, gathering the darkness between his palms, shaping it into a fine, crescent blade. The movement is familiar, easy. The shadows obey him without question. He hurls the blade forward – it releases from his hold with a thunderous crack, scything across the clearing and slicing Alina’s attacker clean in two, from the shoulder to the hip. The two halves of his body slide apart with a sickening squelch.

“Impossible,” Aleksander breathes. His mind is spinning, his emotions in turmoil, and the shadows are writhing on the floor in front of him. Impossible. At his unspoken command, they rear up – darkness takes form before his very eyes, thick and black, rippling through the chapel towards him.

His lips part, a soft breath of astonishment rushing from his lungs. There is only one man who can command the darkness itself. Only one Shadow Summoner.

And he’s dead.

But if he isn’t...

He turns towards Alina, grasping her arm before she has a chance to step away. There – he can feel it, through her skin. Something that’s been there all along but, always overwhelmed by the resurgence of memories or the strength of the connection between them, he had missed. A warmth; a resonance. Singing to him.

He tugs on it, forcefully, and she makes a small, aggrieved noise in her throat. Light spills through her skin, bright and golden, cutting through the darkness he has called upon.

“Sun Summoner,” he growls, tightening his grip. “Alina.”

And the dam bursts. His memories are a torrent, a tidal wave, a flood.

Darkling. General. Black Heretic. Morozova.

It surges through him with a ferocity that makes him stumble. Alina manages to wrench her arm free and takes several steps back, disappearing into the churning darkness that fills the chapel.

Aleksander takes a sharp breath in. With a flick of his hand, the shadows abate, and he follows her down the nave towards the door. Emotion snaps at his heels with every step, red-hot; anger, betrayal, and a nauseating sense of shame at what forgetting had turned him into.

The courtyard darkens as he steps out of the chapel. Alina stops, turning slowly to face him. Her hands are clenched into fists but she doesn’t summon any light. Aleksander smiles grimly. His Sun Summoner has always been stubborn.

“Running away again, Alina?” he mocks. “I shouldn’t be surprised. You always did have a knack for it.”

She flushes angrily. “Just as you have a knack for lying and murdering?”

He tuts. “Come now, Alina,” he says reproachfully, with as much condescension as he can muster. “Must we go through this again? You’ve tried to kill me so many times, I’ve lost count. And lying – well, you've certainly evened the score in that respect these past few months.”

Alina grimaces, but he sees the flash of guilt in her eyes before she has a chance to hide it. Ah, she loves to paint him the villain, but cannot stand when he casts her own actions in the same light. Aleksander tilts his head, approaching her slowly.

“I’ve grown rather tired of this game, Alina.”

He is close to her, now, close enough to touch her, but he doesn’t; instead, he draws in the shadows that have been steadily amassing in the courtyard. They latch onto Alina’s lower legs, twisting and weaving up her body, holding her firmly in place. She doesn’t struggle.

“You still think of this as a game?” she spits. He pauses, considering her thoughtfully.

“No,” he admits. “I don’t.”

She scoffs. “Because you’re not enjoying it anymore, I suppose?”

But the barb falls flat. Alina doesn’t realise that, despite the pleasure he gets from goading her, from finding her pressure points and squeezing, he hates being at war with her – and has done from the second their little spat turned into something deeper, something much more vitriolic.

He won’t tell her that, though. If she’s going to resort to immature jibes, he’s more than happy to respond in kind.

Aleksander hums quietly and steps closer still. “On the contrary, malyshka, I enjoyed myself thoroughly last night.”

The colour in her cheeks burns a shade darker and he smiles. She has become good at keeping her emotions hidden from him – as he once told her, after all, she is an apt pupil – but it only makes the occasions he succeeds in drawing a reaction from her taste even sweeter.

His satisfaction is an intoxicating, perverted thing. The shadows in the courtyard ripple and swell with it.

“You bastard,” she hisses. Aleksander tuts and shakes his head.

“It’s a little late for misgivings, Alina. You knew who you were getting into bed with.”

The fury that flashes in her eyes, cold and blinding, sends an obscene thrill through Aleksander’s body.

There is a muted murmur from somewhere behind him. He has been aware, in the vaguest sense, of their audience since the moment he burst into the courtyard, but has been so preoccupied with Alina that he has not paid much notice to the priestesses watching on. But two words catch his attention.

“Starless Saint.”

It is barely a whisper, but the words carry over the hush of the courtyard. Aleksander turns his head slowly in the direction of the speaker – one of the younger priestesses, Sister Feodora, he remembers. Her eyes are wide, her hand pressed against her mouth.

“What did you say?”

She draws in a stuttering breath. “It’s – what they’re calling you, now. The Great Immolation was as much your martyrdom as Sankta Alina’s.”

Interesting.

From the discontented shuffling in the cloisters, Aleksander can sense that not all the priestesses are comfortable with his recently bestowed Sainthood, but a handful of faces – Sister Feodora’s among them – gaze at him with something akin to reverence.

He looks back at Alina. Her expression is closed off, her reaction impossible to read, but he remembers well enough how much she hated being cast as Sankta Alina. He had never expected he would be given cause to know how she felt.

Aleksander’s lip curls. He doesn’t want their reverence – not like this. Not if it means being forced into a pantheon of his murdered Grisha kin who have been turned into false idols of otkazat’sya holiness.

“Do you hear that, Alina?” he says, arching one eyebrow. “How eager they are to rewrite history. It’s not even been a year, and already I have gone from villain to Saint. Already, they claim the destruction of the Fold was not your achievement alone. Do you see, now? Do you understand? How they diminish you. How they diminish both of us.”

She remains stubbornly silent. He rocks back on his heels, frustrated.

“Do you truly believe that in ten years, one hundred, they will still love you – their precious Sankta?”

This time, he is successful in provoking her ire. Alina glares at him.

“I didn’t do it for anybody’s love,” she snaps.

“Hmm,” he nods slowly. “Perhaps not. But you care for them, don’t you? Even now.”

He raises his hands, and the darkness turns solid around them. He feels the first flutters of panic run through the crowd of priestesses and smiles to himself. It seems ridiculous now, to think that he had forgotten about this power he possesses.

“Aleksander,” Alina pleads. Her face is pale, her voice quiet. “This has gone far enough. Stop.”

“Stop what, Alina?”

She makes an irritated noise in her throat. “This – what you always do – using other people as a means of hurting me.”

He stands in front of her, motionless, the ghost of another smile taking shape on his lips.

“Fine,” he says with a shrug, flicking his fingers, allowing the shadows to melt back into the cobblestones. He doesn’t turn around when he addresses the gathered priestesses, but he raises his voice enough to make it clear who his words are for. “You can go.”

There is a moment of shocked stillness, then he hears the faint scuffle of movement. He doesn’t move his eyes from Alina’s face. Her jaw is set stubbornly, but the relief in her eyes is clear.

Foolish.

He waits until they are alone again, then, with another gesture, the shadows entwining her limbs dissolve. Before she has time to move, he has closed the space between them and wrapped his hand around her throat – not hard enough to cut off air, but enough to hold her still. She sucks in a startled gasp, both hands flying up to encircle his wrist. He doesn’t let go.

“Is this better, Alina? Nobody in between us, now. Nobody for me to hurt but you.”

Every time she breathes in, he squeezes a little tighter. And as he does so, watching her eyes widen, he thinks about how satisfying it would feel to kill her with his bare hands – not with the Cut, not with the nichevo’ya, not with a knife or bullet or poison. Not for Alina.

“Go on, then,” she gasps weakly. Aleksander raises one eyebrow.

“Are you so keen to make a martyr of yourself?” he sneers, leaning closer. “Again?”

She manages to shake her head. “You won’t do it.”

As she says the words, he realises that she’s not fighting him – not really. He’s not binding her hands anymore; she could summon, if she wanted to. Even without the use of her hands, he knows that she could still pour enough light into her skin to burn him where he touches her. She’s more than powerful enough – she has three amplifiers of her own now, after all. She doesn’t need him to glow these days.

Alina holds his gaze with infuriating calmness. Rage lances through him anew and he tightens his grip again, fingertips digging into flesh.

“Really?” he snarls. “What makes you so certain of that?”

“Because –” she breaks off to draw in another stuttering, painful breath. “You’d be alone.”

He shudders involuntarily. Don’t let me lose her, too.

It has started raining again, and now water soaks slowly through his hair, rolling down his face. The sound of it fills the courtyard.

“Alina,” he breathes her name, half a groan. “You are the worst thing that has ever happened to me.”

He loosens his hold on her slightly and she gasps in air, tears springing to her eyes.

“That’s the problem with wanting,” she whispers miserably.

Aleksander lets his fingers trail downwards, splaying his hand out over her collarbone where he knows the antlers of Morozova’s stag now lie, buried beneath her skin. Where he had collared her, chained her to him.

He has been desperate to own her since the moment he met her. He has needed her far longer than she has wanted him.

And Alina knows this.

He had expected her to draw back the second he released her, but she just stands there, motionless, allowing him to feel the power thrumming in the amplifier he had placed upon her. Her eyelids droop slightly. The tether runs hot with a deluge of emotion.

Aleksander tips his head back towards the sky. There is a blade between his ribs, a phantom of the knife she had once thrust at his heart – twisting and twisting.

“What will become of us, Alina?” he asks. Raindrops bead his eyelashes, wet his cheeks. “Where do we go from here?”

He draws his gaze down to meet hers again. One strand of long, white hair has slipped free from her habit and swings gently in front of her face. He has seen this look in her eyes, once before; in the Shadow Fold, with her beloved tracker lying dead at her feet. She is staggeringly beautiful like this – radiant with power, grief-stricken, nothing left to lose.

“Are we to spend eternity at each other’s throats?” he asks desperately.

Alina shakes her head. “We don’t have to.”

Aleksander almost laughs at that.

“No? What other choice do we have?”

“You know we have another choice,” she pleads softly. “You are just scared to make it.”

She stops, squeezing her eyes shut, then takes in a long, uneven breath.

“Do you remember,” she begins. There is a slight tremor in her voice, and when she opens her eyes again, he can see that they shine with unshed tears. “That day we sat in the garden together, and you showed me all the flowers you didn’t know the names of because they have no purpose. No reason to exist except to be beautiful.”

Another flush of anger and shame kindles in his breast. He recoils from her as if burned.

“That man was not me,” he growls.

“He was,” Alina says firmly, stepping towards him now, placing her own hands on his chest. “And you are him. You have the same heart.”

He can’t help the bitter smile that twists his features. “And here I was expecting you to believe I don’t have one.”

“No, Aleksander,” she murmurs. Her eyes are sad. “I can feel it.”

And he knows exactly what she means – in this moment, with neither of them caring enough to shut off the tether, he can feel everything she does. Every emotion bounces back and forth between them, like light reflecting off two mirrors.

Alina gazes up at him, beseeching.

“I thought I wanted them to be separate, but there is no separating them – the man I waged a war against and the man I’ve come to know these past months. The man who reads about everything, from history, to natural science, to philosophy. The man who can’t quite bring himself to believe in the Saints. The man who will never give in once he’s set his mind to something. The man who loves poetry and libraries and sunshine.”

She pauses, her voice dropping to a whisper.

“The man who always knows when I need him. The man who held me last night. Wasn’t that you, Aleksander? Hasn’t it always been you?”

He reaches towards her, cradling her face in one hand, and she leans into his touch with a forlorn sigh.

“Do you regret it?” he asks, softly. 

Alina’s eyes slide closed and she shakes her head once. A bubble of relief rises in Aleksander’s throat. 

“I meant it when I said I was tired of pretending,” she murmurs.

He exhales slowly. “I’m tired of it, too.”

Her lips tilt upwards in something approaching a smile. “Then stop.”

Aleksander wonders if he knows how to. He’s spent so long in the role that the world needed him to fill, so many years hiding the truth of himself behind layers and layers of pretence. The Darkling. The mask he had worn which had stopped being a mask, at some point.

And it had been all too easy, without his memories, to shrug off the armour, the parts of the façade that no longer fit right. Now, he thinks about all the times Alina had looked at him with a kind of longing – a desire to have what he has – and understands why she wished she, too, could forget their past.

“I don’t know if I will ever be able to trust you,” he warns softly.

“Nor I you,” she admits.

They look at one another steadily. Wanting Alina is nothing new to him. He craves her like he craves honey on bread, needs her like he needs air in his lungs. He wants to break her, control her, own her. It is not a way of wanting that requires trust.

But she will never let him have her like that.

Her fingers curl in the fabric of his shirt, as if she can feel him wavering and wants to hold him here, in front of her.

“Yours was the first betrayal,” she reminds him. “It must be your surrender first, too.”

“Alina,” he mutters through gritted teeth. “You know I do not back down easily.”

Alina smiles and lifts herself onto her tiptoes, bringing her face towards his. “I know. Neither of us do. That’s how we ended up here, isn’t it?”

He can feel her breath on his cheek now, soft and warm. Melting every shred of resistance left in him. It drips down his spine, liquid grief, collecting with the rainwater in puddles at his feet.

That’s the problem with wanting.

Aleksander tilts his head forward and kisses her with a sigh. In the past, he has kissed her in the same way he would wield a weapon; another way to get under her skin, to hurt her. Now, it is acquiescence. Submission.

He can feel the thrill of triumph run through her, through their tether, and grips her face between both hands. She has had his surrender – now, he will have hers.

And she gives it to him. Aleksander drinks it in eagerly, sweet on his tongue. Intoxicating.

They break apart, slowly, still holding onto one another. He stares at her – his Alina, the only person he will ever give in to – and wonders what it means that he doesn’t regret it.

The silence between them is a tentative thing. A breath held, a what now?

She needs to run – he can see it, written over her skin, woven into her bones. It’s a feeling he is achingly familiar with, having experienced it many times before in his long life. She is so young. The burden of everything that has happened to her in the past few years, everything that has been foisted upon her shoulders, is crippling her, but she’s struggling to cast it off completely. It clings to her still – a shroud, a spectre, a second skin.

If she needs to run, to leave and not look back, they will run. Ravka will still be there when she’s ready to return.

“The world believes we are dead,” he murmurs. And in a way, they are, or at least the versions of themselves that the world knew – Sankta Alina and the Darkling, who walked into the Shadow Fold to do battle and didn’t come out. “There is freedom in that.”

Alina is quiet for a moment, her gaze heavy with the weight of the past, and the life she once lived. She nods. “I know.”

“We can go wherever you want to go, Alina,” he says gently. “For as long as you need.”

Shu Han, Fjerda, Kerch – it doesn’t particularly matter. The plans he had to take the throne may not have unfolded as he had hoped or predicted, but Aleksander is hardly a stranger to that. There are plenty of other ways he can fight for his Grisha until he can come back to Ravka. Because they will, one day – he is certain of it. And then, when he has Alina at his side, not shackled to him but by her own choice, he’ll be able to bring those plans to realisation at last.

He’d come close to losing her forever, all because of his impatience and impulsiveness. He will not let it happen again.

Alina takes a breath, straightens her spine, then reaches up and pulls off her headscarf – a disguise no longer needed. Her hair cascades down her back in soft, ivory waves. In the muted silver light that filters down into the rain-soaked courtyard, she does look ethereal, perhaps even a little divine. Something to be worshipped. 

Biting back a groan, Aleksander pulls her towards him, crushing her lips under his. Her scarf flutters to the ground as she lifts her hands to tangle in his hair, arching into him.

She is real, he has to remind himself, as if the feeling of her body pressed against his, the taste of her in his mouth was not proof enough. This is real.

Later that evening, in an inn a short way down the coast from the convent, he is reminded of this over and over again as they map out one another’s bodies in the blue, twilit dimness of their tiny room. He has barely closed the door before Alina leaps at him. She drags him across the room by his collar, kissing him frantically as she does so, breaking away only to forcibly remove his clothes and push him down onto the bed. Aleksander is utterly powerless in the face of her furious, white-hot desire. When she kneels between his legs, entirely naked save for the ribbon she used to tie back her hair, and licks a line up the length of his cock, he thinks he might be about to combust.

“Saints, Alina,” he gasps, heartbeat throbbing jaggedly in his throat. “You’ll be the death of me.”

She grins, sharp as a knife. “Don’t tempt me.”

He decides it’s best not to question why that makes him even harder. Judging by the glint in Alina’s eyes, the slight tilt of her head, he has failed spectacularly at concealing his reaction to her words. He can feel heat rising in his cheeks, but she manages to distract him quite successfully – driving him to the edge of his sanity, his mind emptied of everything beyond the feeling of her mouth wrapped around his dick.

When he feels himself about to snap, Aleksander leans forward and grabs her wrists, hauling her towards him. Smiling breathlessly, she straddles his hips, shoving him down roughly as he tries to sit up, and lowers herself onto him. Aleksander’s vision goes a little blurry and he swears again.

It is not tender or gentle – not this time. It is teeth bared, claws out; sheer, uninhibited ferocity. Anger at what they have done to each other, what they have done to themselves, simmering in every touch, every kiss, every breath.

With a growl in the back of his throat, Aleksander sits up, shifting their weight so that she can wrap her legs around him. He has one hand on her thigh, gripping so tightly he knows it will bruise, the other tangled in her hair, his mouth hard on hers – and all of it a claim. Mine.

Alina whimpers his name – fingers pressed into his ribs, cunt squeezing around him – and throws her head back with a choked gasp. Aleksander comes instantly, buried deep inside her, his mouth open in a silent howl against the curve of her shoulder.

Sated and exhausted, emotionally as well as physically, they both slip easily into unconsciousness. Aleksander is woken the following morning by the burnt orange light of the rising sun pouring in through the windows, neither of them having thought to close the curtains the previous night. Alina’s hair is strewn out across the pillow, her face serene – a picture so perfect he stares at her until it is fixed in his memory.

He makes love to her with lazy, languid thrusts of his hips, both of them still soft around the edges with the lingering haze of sleep. They lie curled on their sides, Alina tucked up against his chest; Aleksander has one arm thrown over her waist with his hand splayed over her stomach. She tips her head back to rest on the crook of his neck, giving him a delicious view of all the bruises he has left on her throat so far. The breathy little sighs she lets out every time he moves inside her makes his pulse flutter in his veins. He knows he will never be able to get enough of her.

Afterwards, she rolls over to face him, twining her legs with his. Aleksander runs his fingers through her hair.

“We should get out of here, soon,” he says. She had played the part of Sankta Alina one final time before they had left, entreating the priestesses not to share the secret of their ‘resurrection’ with the world, but he’d still prefer to put some distance between them and the convent – fast.

“Not just yet,” Alina murmurs. Her eyes are warm, her skin even more so. She glows faintly – he thinks she doesn’t even notice she is doing it – with the same golden hue of the just-broken dawn.

“Alina...” he tries for a stern voice, but it’s difficult when he’s smiling at her and her adorable, obstinate pout.

“What’s the rush, Aleksander?” she says, pulling herself even closer to him. Her hands skate over his back, fingertips tracing the ridges of his spine, and he shivers.

She smiles up at him and presses a light kiss against his lips. “We’re not exactly short on time.”

And, well – he can’t argue with that, can he?

“No, milaya, we’re not,” he agrees, cradling her beloved, beautiful face between his hands. “And we never will be.”