Leigh Bardugo - Shadow and Bone

I said nothing. I tried to avoid talking about the Darkling as much as possible.

When I asked about the time Mal had spent tracking the stag, he always seemed to find a way to bring the conversation back to me. I didn’t press him. I knew that Mal’s unit had crossed the border into Fjerda. I suspected that they’d had to fight their way out and that was where Mal had acquired the scar on his jaw, but he refused to say more.

As we were walking through a band of dessicated willows, the frost crunching beneath our boots, Mal pointed out a sparrowhawk nest, and I found myself wishing that we could just keep walking forever. As much as I longed for a hot meal and a warm bed, I was afraid of what the end of our journey might bring. What if we found the stag, and I claimed the antlers? How might an amplifier that powerful change me? Would it be enough to free us from the Darkling? If only we could stay this way, walking side by side, sleeping huddled beneath the stars. Maybe these empty plains and quiet groves could shelter us as they had sheltered Morozova’s herd and keep us safe from the men who sought us.

They were foolish thoughts. Tsibeya was an inhospitable place, a wild and empty world of bitter winters and grueling summers. And we weren’t strange and ancient creatures who roamed the earth at twilight. We were just Mal and Alina, and we could not stay ahead of our pursuers forever. A dark thought that had flitted through my head for days now finally settled. I sighed, knowing that I had put off talking to Mal about this problem for too long. It was irresponsible, and given how much we’d both risked, I couldn’t let it continue.

That night, Mal was almost asleep, his breathing deep and even, before I worked up the courage to speak.

“Mal,” I began. Instantly, he came awake, tension flooding through his body, as he sat up and reached for his knife. “No,” I said, laying a hand on his arm. “Everything’s all right. But I need to talk to you.”

“Now?” he grumbled, flopping down and throwing his arm back around me.

I sighed. I wanted to just lie there in the dark, listening to the rustle of the wind in the grass, warm in this feeling of safety, however illusory. But I knew I couldn’t. “I need you to do something for me.”

He snorted. “You mean other than deserting the army, scaling mountains, and freezing my ass off on the cold ground every night?”

“Yes.”

“Hmmph,” he grumbled noncommittally, his breath already returning to the deep, even rhythm of sleep.

“Mal,” I said clearly, “if we don’t make it… if they catch up to us before we find the stag, you can’t let him take me.”

He went perfectly still. I could actually feel his heart beating. He was quiet for so long that I began to think he’d fallen back asleep.

Then he said, “You can’t ask that of me.”

“I have to.”

He sat up, pushing away from me, rubbing a hand over his face. I sat up too, drawing the furs tighter around my shoulders, watching him in the moonlight.

“No.”

“You can’t just say no, Mal.”

“You asked, I answered. No.”

He stood up and walked a few steps away.

“If he puts that collar on me, you know what it will mean, how many people will die because of me. I can’t let that happen. I can’t be responsible for that.”

“No.”

“You had to know this was a possibility when we headed north, Mal.”

He turned and strode back, dropping into a crouch in front of me so that he could look into my eyes.

“I won’t kill you, Alina.”

“You may have to.”

“No,” he repeated, shaking his head, looking away from me. “No, no, no.”

I took his face in my cold hands, turning his head until he had to meet my gaze.

“Yes.”

“I can’t, Alina. I can’t .”

“Mal, that night at the Little Palace, you said the Darkling owned me.”

He winced slightly. “I was angry. I didn’t mean—”

“If he gets that collar, he really will own me. Completely. And he’ll turn me into a monster. Please, Mal. I need to know you won’t let that happen to me.”

“How can you ask me to do this?”

“Who else could I ask?”

He looked at me, his face full of desperation and anger and something else I couldn’t read. Finally, he nodded once.

“Promise me, Mal.” His mouth set in a grim line, and a muscle twitched in his jaw. I hated doing this to him, but I had to be sure. “Promise me.”

“I promise,” he said hoarsely.

I breathed a long sigh, feeling relief flood through me. I leaned forward, resting my forehead against his, closing my eyes. “Thank you.”

We stayed like that for a long moment, then he leaned back. When I opened my eyes, he was looking at me. His face was inches from mine, near enough that I could feel his warm breath. I dropped my hands from his stubbled cheeks, suddenly aware of just how close we were. He stared at me for a moment and then stood abruptly and walked into the dark.

I stayed awake for a long time, cold and miserable, gazing into the night. I knew he was out there, moving silently through the new grass, carrying the weight of the burden I had placed on him. I was sorry for it, but I was glad that it was done. I waited for him to return, but finally I fell asleep, alone beneath the stars.

WE SPENT THE NEXT few days in the areas surrounding Chernast, scouring miles of terrain for signs of Morozova’s herd, drawing as close to the outpost as we dared. With every passing day, Mal’s mood darkened. He tossed in his sleep and barely ate. Sometimes I woke to him thrashing about under the furs mumbling, “Where are you? Where are you?”

He saw signs of other people—broken branches, displaced rocks, patterns that were invisible to me until he pointed them out—but no signs of the stag.

Then one morning, he shook me awake before dawn.

“Get up,” he said. “They’re close, I can feel it.” He was already pulling the furs off me and shoving them back into his pack.

“Hey!” I complained, barely awake, trying to yank back the covers to no avail. “What about breakfast?”

He tossed me a piece of hardtack. “Eat and walk. I want to try the western trails today. I have a feeling.”

“But yesterday you thought we should head east.”

“That was yesterday,” he said, already shouldering his pack and striding into the tall grass. “Get moving. We need to find that stag so I don’t have to chop your head off.”

“I never said you had to chop my head off,” I grumbled, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and stumbling after him.

“Run you through with a sword, then? Firing squad?”

“I was thinking something quieter, like maybe a nice poison.”

“All you said was that I had to kill you. You didn’t say how.”

I stuck my tongue out at his back, but I was glad to see him so energized, and I supposed it was a good thing that he could joke about it all. At least, I hoped he was joking.

The western trails took us through groves of squat larches and past meadows clustered with fireweed and red lichen. Mal moved with purpose, his step light as always.

The air felt cool and damp, and a few times I caught him glancing nervously up at the overcast sky, but he drove onward. Late in the afternoon, we reached a low hill that sloped gently down into a broad plateau covered in pale grass. Mal paced along the top of the slope, ranging west and then east. He walked down the hill and up the hill, and down it again, until I thought I would scream. At last, he led us to the leeward side of a large cluster of boulders, slid his pack off his shoulders, and said, “Here.”

I shook a fur out on the cold ground and sat down to wait, watching Mal pace uneasily back and forth. Finally, he sat down beside me, eyes trained on the plateau, one hand resting lightly on his bow. I knew that he was imagining them there, picturing the herd emerging from the horizon, white bodies glowing in the gathering dusk, breath pluming in the cold. Maybe he was willing them to appear. This seemed like the right place for the stag—fresh with new grass and spotted with tiny blue lakes that shone like coins in the setting sun.