Leigh Bardugo - Siege and Storm

Jeers and elated shrieks erupted all around us. A gleeful soldier grabbed Mal’s wrist and lifted it over his head in triumph as money began to change hands.

The crowd surged toward Mal, carrying me with them. Everybody was talking at once. People slapped him on the back, jamming money into his palms. Then Zoya appeared in front of him. She flung her arms around his neck and pressed her lips against his. I saw him go rigid.

A rushing sound filled my ears, drowning out the noise of the crowd.

Push her away , I begged silently. Push her away.

And for a moment, I thought he might. But then his arms closed around her, and he kissed her back as the crowd hooted and cheered.

The bottom fell out of my stomach. It was like putting a foot wrong on a frozen creek, the crack of ice, the sudden drop, the knowledge that there was nothing beneath but dark water.

He pulled away from her, grinning, his cheek still bloodied, and that was when his eyes met mine. His face went white.

Zoya followed his gaze and lifted a defiant brow when she saw me.

I turned and began forcing my way back through the crowd. Tamar fell into step beside me.

“Alina,” she said.

“Leave me alone.”

I broke away from her. I had to get outside, had to get away from everyone. Tears were beginning to blur my vision. I wasn’t sure if they were for the kiss or what had gone before it, but I couldn’t let them see. The Sun Summoner didn’t cry, especially over one of her otkazat’sya guards.

And what right did I have? Hadn’t I almost kissed Nikolai? Maybe I could find him now, convince him to kiss me no matter who I was thinking of.

I burst from the stables and into the half-light. The air was warm and thick. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I strode away from the well-lit path by the paddocks and made for the shelter of the birchwood grove.

Someone tugged at my arm.

“Alina,” Mal said.

I shook him off and hurried my steps, practically running now.

“Alina, stop,” he said, easily keeping pace with me, despite the injuries he’d received.

I ignored him and plunged into the woods. I could smell the hot springs that fed the banya , the sharp scent of birch leaves beneath my feet. My throat ached. All I wanted was to be left alone to cry or be sick, maybe both.

“Damn it, Alina, would you please stop?”

I couldn’t give in to my hurt, so I gave in to my anger.

“You’re the captain of my guard,” I said, blundering through the trees. “You shouldn’t be brawling like some kind of commoner!”

Mal caught hold of my arm and yanked me around. “I am a commoner,” he growled. “Not one of your pilgrims or your Grisha or some pampered watchdog who sits outside your door all night on the off chance that you might need me.”

“Of course not,” I seethed. “You have much better things to do with your time. Like getting drunk and shoving your tongue down Zoya’s throat.”

“At least she doesn’t flinch when I touch her,” he spat. “You don’t want me, so why do you care if she does?”

“I don’t,” I said, but the words came out as a sob.

Mal released me so suddenly that I almost fell backward. He paced away from me, shoving his hands through his hair. The movement made him wince. His fingers tested the flesh at his side. I wanted to yell at him to go find a Healer. I wanted to smash my fist into the break and make it hurt worse.

“Saints,” he swore. “I wish we’d never come here.”

“Then let’s leave,” I said wildly. I knew I wasn’t making any sense, but I didn’t much care. “Let’s run away, tonight, and forget we ever saw this place.”

He let out a bitter bark of laughter. “Do you know how much I want that? To be with you without rank or walls or anything between us? Just to be common again together?” He shook his head. “But you won’t do it, Alina.”

“I will,” I said, tears spilling over my cheeks.

“Don’t kid yourself. You’d just find a way back.”

“I don’t know how to fix this,” I said desperately.

“You can’t fix it!” he shouted. “This is the way it is. Did it ever occur to you that maybe you were meant to be a queen and I’m not meant to be anything at all?”

“That isn’t true.”

He stalked toward me, the boughs of the trees making strange shifting shadows across his face in the twilight.

“I’m not a soldier anymore,” he said. “I’m not a prince, and I’m sure as hell not a Saint. So what am I, Alina?”

“I—”

“What am I?” he whispered.

He was close to me now. The scent I knew so well, that dark green scent of the meadow, was lost beneath the smell of sweat and blood.

“Am I your guardian?” he asked.

He ran his hand slowly down my arm, from shoulder to fingertips.

“Your friend?”

His left hand skimmed down my other arm.

“Your servant?”

I could feel his breath on my lips. My heart thundered in my ears.

“Tell me what I am.” He pulled me against his body, his hand circling my wrist.

When his fingers closed, a sharp jolt rocked through me, buckling my knees. The world tilted, and I gasped. Mal dropped my hand as if he’d been burned.

He backed away from me, stunned. “What was that?”

I tried to blink away the dizziness.

“What the hell was that?” he said again.

“I don’t know.” My fingers still tingled.

A humorless smile twisted his lips. “It’s never easy with us, is it?”

I shoved to my feet, suddenly angry. “No, Mal, it isn’t. It’s never going to be easy or sweet or comfortable with me. I can’t just leave the Little Palace. I can’t run away or pretend that this isn’t who I am, because if I do, more people will die. I can’t ever just be Alina again. That girl is gone.”

“I want her back,” he said roughly.

“I can’t go back!” I screamed, not caring who heard me. “Even if you take away this collar and the sea whip’s scales, you can’t carve this power out of me.”

“And what if I could? Would you let it go? Would you give it up?”

“Never.”

The truth of that word hung between us. We stood there, in the darkness of the woods, and I felt the shard in my heart shift. I knew what it would leave behind when the pain was gone: loneliness, nothingness, a deep fissure that would not mend, the desperate edge of the abyss I had once glimpsed in the Darkling’s eyes.

“Let’s go,” Mal said at last.

“Where?”

“Back to the Little Palace. I’m not going to just leave you in the woods.”

We walked up the hill in silence and entered the palace through the Darkling’s chambers. The common room was blessedly empty.

At the door to my room, I turned to Mal.

“I see him,” I said. “I see the Darkling. In the library. In the chapel. That time on the Fold when the Hummingbird nearly crashed. In my room, the night you tried to kiss me.”

He stared at me.

“I don’t know if they’re visions or visitations. I didn’t tell you because I think I might be going mad. And because I think you’re already a little afraid of me.”

Mal opened his mouth, closed it, tried again. Even then, I hoped he might deny it. Instead, he turned his back on me. He crossed to the guards’ quarters, stopping only to snatch a bottle of kvas from the table, and softly shut the door behind him.

I got ready for bed and eased between the sheets, but the night was too warm. I kicked them into a tangle at my feet. I lay on my back gazing up at the obsidian dome marked by constellations. I wanted to bang on Mal’s door, tell him I was sorry, that I’d made a terrible mess of things, that we should have marched into Os Alta that first day hand in hand. But would it have mattered in the end?