IV / Snakes in the Garden

Os Alta isn't quite home, but Vera supposes it is close enough. There isn't another place left in this world she can call that, so this pathetic lump is it. Even if the city makes Vera's skin crawl.

And it isn't the poverty around her as their group pass the first houses just before dusk two days after the night in the barn, that causes the feeling. It's the cut between the outer part of the city and the inner part. The bridge that can be closed off entirely.

It's that Os Alta is called the Dream City and yet, people still suffer here. The rich live just minutes away behind their little ditch and canal separating them from any other Ravkan and they call Os Alta the fucking Dream City. Everyone Vera has met who has never been to Os Alta talks about it like it's some sort of utopic place without hunger or poverty or suffering. That it's the place influential and powerful and rich spend their days. Their days in winter at least.

Just like the Gisha wearing the same uniform as the First Army when they're on the field, just like eating herring every day to tell everyone they're just like any other Ravkan commoner. All the while eating it off a golden place, all while living in a building called the Little Palace.

It's all a big joke, if you ask Vera.

The entire ride through the city and to the second set of walls, the gold ones emblazed with the double eagle of Ravka's royal family, Vera's mood sours. She's debating burning the houses, all getting more and more pompous the closer they get to the Little and Grand Palace, down right then and there.

If I were a queen, Vera thinks for what is not the first time. I would actually take care of my people and not just my own gluttonous desires.

The idea always leaves a bitter taste in her tongue.

When they finally emerge from the dark corridor of branches and trees, exhausting has settled deep in Vera's bones. For a moment, she is convinced she might actually shed a tear of relief when the Little Palace appears in front of her.

It's always been like this. Years of training and determination and stubbornness have honed her even before she ever set foot into Ravka's capital. It was likely the very thing that kept her alive those days walking through the Permafrost with nothing but the clothes on her back and her fire with her. Maybe it was the years since, too. The years she truly a soldier instead of being just another girl raised to be a wife and mother and nothing else.

Vera will push and push and push her body like it is a well-oiled machine until it isn't anymore. Until exhausting crashes in over her and render her utterly useless.

To her shame, Vera's knees wobble just slightly when she dismounts and a servant takes the reins of her horse. Then, she moment is over, and she forces her legs to follow the Darkling inside when the doors are opened for them.

At least, Vera finds that the Darkling had decided to give them at least a little reprieve and only walked off with his oprichniki, allowing them to rest.

She had no idea how long they would until the meeting that they would undoubtedly have soon. And Vera didn't care.

All she could think of was that she would not waste any moment of it standing around here.

So, she turns and makes her way to her room, unlocking it when she reaches the door. With a sigh, she pushes it open, letting the sight of her bed, against the wall on the other end of the room, sink in.

Vera might've not liked this room most of the time, but the first week after returning from whatever mission she was on, this room felt like paradise.

Which, to be fair, wasn't all that difficult after she'd slept on the ground for a week straight. After the entire thing with the Fold. And after sharing a coach will the entirety of the other Etherealki coming along.

Letting out a content sigh, Vera locks the door behind herself again out of an old-born habit she has never quite been able to shake, and never quite had the desire to do so, and begins peeling off her clothes.

It's about all she can manage before she falls onto the bed face-forward. A groan escapes her lips at the smooth fabric beneath her skin.

Dimly, before she drifts away into sleep, a thought surfaces to her. This bedding, this room, it was just like the one she'd grown up it. Different layout, different materials and colors, but the gist was the same.

There's this phrase from the Hedjut, a people from her homeland, her mother had told her about when she was little. Vera's mother always used it for her, and Vera never quite had managed to figure out if it was in disappointment or in endearment. Something Ylva Brum, who had descended from the Hedjut, had told her about.

Wolfblood. Vera thinks to remember that it means not fitting in where you are. It means being at home with the wolves.

Vera belongs in this little, ornate room in Os Alta as much as she did in her father's house.

━━━━━━━━━━

The next day, after she has woken and bathed, Vera hurries through the hallways of the Little Palace as she closes the last of her buttons at the front of her kefta. She can already see nearly all others gathered at their usual meeting point for when they're walking over to the Grand Palace. Only a few people are missing - the Darkling and his men included.

She can also see Genya standing just a few steps away from the group, watching as a Corporalnik - Sergei, Vera realizes a moment later - is pulling her along to another of their group.

Vera can't hear what he says, but as she closes in on them, stopping in the archway, she is close enough to hear what Marie replies.

"She is a Summoner, Sergei. She walks with us."

While Vera doesn't particularly have anything to do with Marie, she is inclined to agree with her. Alina Starkov is a Sun Summoner, and as such, her place was among the Etherealki.

Sergei sends her a smile that Vera really would like to wipe off his face. It's the kind of smile that's so fake, it hurts in her teeth so even see it. It's also the kind of behavior that really makes her hackles rise.

"Marie, you cannot possibly be suggesting that she enter the hall as a lower-order Grisha."

Vera drew up an eyebrow at the insult. All around the group she could see other Etherealki stiffen and send Sergei dark looks. A dark red creeps up Marie's neck and to her face. "Need I remind you that the Darkling himself is a Summoner?"

Again, Vera finds herself silently agreeing with Marie. She's never really gotten the idea of ranking the three Orders. Especially the idea that the Etherealki were lower ranking than the Corporalki when their leader himself was, strictly, nothing more than a Summoner.

An incredibly powerful and rare Summoner, but a Summoner still.

"So you're ranking yourself with the Darkling now?" Sergei shoots back and Marie reeled back slightly.

Vera had no idea if it was from the insinuation of the accusation, or if she was just trying not to tackle a grown man in front of them all.

Well deserved, Vera might add.

Shifting slightly, Alina sends them an uncomfortable look. "Why don't I just go with Genya?" She suggests and it might make Vera like her a little more. That she not only can stand the argument enough to try and make peace between them, but also that she doesn't care for Genya's reputation among the Grisha.

But that might just be because Alina is new here and most likely has no idea what the entire thing with Genya is about. Not that Vera herself knows a lot about it. By the time she'd arrived at the Little Palace, Genya had already been in service of the queen. Vera hadn't understood the reproach the other Grisha displayed towards her, and she certainly did have no love for it now that she was older.

A few laughs go through the crowd and Marie looks almost positively aghast at the offer, staring at Alina with huge eyes. "With the Tailor?"

She says it like it's an insult and not like Genya's more special than any of them present - Alina being the big exception.

Alina throws Genya an unsure, confused look.

"She belongs with us." Marie announces and then, Vera watches in silence as the Grisha begin squawking and bickering like little children over who Alina Starkov gets the honor of entering the hall with.

It most definitely makes her regret leaving the bed this morning.

Behind her, she hears the soft footfalls between the rising voices and a moment later the Darkling appears at her side. She doesn't bother explaining. It's fairly obvious what is happening.

"She walks with me."

The entire group goes dead silent at his voice and he surveys them all for a moment before he adds, "We are expected."

Immediately, the Grisha in the room fall into motion and start aligning themselves into a long row of two next to each other. As the cluster of people begins to form into clusters of purple, blue and red keftas, Vera moves from her place beneath the archway and away from the Darkling, joining the line of Etherealki.

She ends up next to Harshaw, who throws her one of those crooked grins of his that she never is quite sure are genuine or just means he is about to commit arson.

Fedyor always says that the two of them, Harshaw and her, are a pair that always mean bad news if they are together. And it has nothing to do with the fact that their hair is the nearly same shade, only with hers being more on the side of fire and his on that of blood, or that they are both Inferni and everything with their personalities.

Vera, grudgingly, has to admit that Fedyor has a point.

Their group makes the way to the Grand Palace in silence and all Vera has to distract her during the walk is watching Harshaw getting more and more restless, fidgeting with the threaded embroidery of his kefta, the buttons.

After they have entered the Grand Palace, Vera casts him a look. Her glacier eyes meet his as they stop at the carpeted aisle and the members of the court present fall silent.

"Stop that," she says under her breath before she turns her eyes back to where the king is sitting.

Harshaw huffs, giving her an affronted look that tells her if they weren't right in front of the king, he'd argue. And he wouldn't listen at all.

But they are, and so he does.

Vera's body feels like something lethal going taut as they stop and she clasps her hands behind her back.

Vera is a soldier, and cowering had never come natural to her when faced with a situation that wasn't her comfort zone. Instead, she went alert. Ready to fight, whether with her words or a way out.

"Your Highness, moi tsar. Alina Starkov, the Sun Summoner." The Darkling announces.

After a moment of silence, the king waves one of his hands. "Come, come! Bring her to me." He calls out more like an impatient child and less like the ruler of a country. Very tries very hard not to pull her lips curl her lips back in her wolf-snarl and instead keep her face serenely blank as the Darkling and Alina stop before the dais.

The king frowns slightly. "She's very plain."

Said like a truly godlike sight, Vera thinks bitterly, and the twisted fingers behind her back tighten their grip on each other.

Vera has spend many a dinner with Jarl Brum and Claes Kvalheim and other various Fjerdan high-ranking men, nobles and Drüskelle alike. She'd been raised by those traditional Fjerdan customs that made her head ache.

Yet, the King of Ravka usually made her feel like he topped them all.

"Show me." The King tells Alina like she's a party trick. And to him, Vera supposes, she must be.

Alina sends the Darkling a look, her anxiety nearly palpable in the room as the Darkling spreads his arms before bringing his hands together in that familiar boom and darkness descends on the room.

She knew what as coming and yet, even prepared, it takes Vera's breath away. For a moment, she is back in the Fold. Darkness suffocating her. The fire. The volcra. And Inferni being eaten on the skiff just a few feet away. She thinks she can hear the screams of the crew just as the same light erupts from Alina, banishing the dark.

It brings Vera so much relief, it tasted like ash on her tongue. It makes her hate Alina a little. For her own weakness and reaction to the darkness, and for Alina to bring the reprieve from it. For her to feel like she needed her to.

Around her, the court erupts into cheers and cries. Vera can see a woman faint. The king jumps from his throne as he claps while the light fades away.

Like a big, pompous circus.

"Brilliant!" The king exclaims. "A miracle!"

A big, pompous circus and he was the worst of them.

As the king descends from his dais and talks to Alina and the Darkling directly, closely followed by the Apparat, Vera lets her eye wander over the room. The nobles are dressed in matriculate clothing, military uniforms or dresses. She'd grown up amongst nobility and court and all those formalities. She knew the Fjerdan customs inside out. And yet, this particular royal court was exhausting to her bones. It had always been.

Vera lets out a breath as the stand-still in the court created by their appearance and the demonstration dissolved and the court now buzzed with excitement, all swarming towards Alina, crowding her.

It was also this point where Vera could slip away without actually anyone noticing, or caring, or causing some sort of palace-wide scandal amongst the Grisha. Not that she particularly cared about the last one.

Before she can weave her way through the crowd, someone says behind her, "Vera."

She stops at the Darkling's voice and turns to him. He gives her a look that tells her he knows exactly what she'd been about to do. And she is fairly certain that the faint hint of amusement she thinks she can see in his granite eyes means he has no objections against it.

"Yes?"

"When I ride out again next time, you won't accompany me."

Surprise sparks through her for a moment at the unexpected topic. She'd been planned in the group that the Darkling favored when he went out a few weeks ago. The trip to the Fold had been her first one away from his group since then. Not that there had been many away from Os Alta...

But still. She had expected to join him when he went out next.

"Of course," she says with a tilt of her head because she knows better than to object. She looks up at him and considers asking. If she has done something wrong that warranted her relocation into the walls of the Little Palace again.

He must've seen some of those thoughts in her eyes because he adds, "I need you to keep an eye on Alina while I am gone."

Oh.

Oh.

Not a punishment at all, but a reward. Maybe. Even if it felt like a punishment to Vera, she could see the appraise in the order. That it had been her to be entrusted to keep an eye on the Sun Summoner while the Darkling cannot. It only lessened the blow a little that she had been more or less declared a babysitter to a seventeen-year-old after working so hard to rise into a respected position among the Grisha.

Again, she nods. "Of course."

The moment the Darkling leaves her side, Vera escapes out of the throne room and into the blessed silence of the hallway.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

also,,,,,the way the other grisha were introduced in the book was just: alina being new to the family and finding a horde of 5 year old children (aka the grisha) and a very exhaused single dad (aka the darkling)