VIII / Point of No Return

The wind whipping around her bites into Vera's skin with a ferocity, freezing her to her bones. The cold is like an old friend welcoming her home the closer they get to the northern border where Ravka meets Fjerda. For their entire track following the Darkling's hunters she's gone over and over what happened. Where everything had gone wrong.

That night, after the Darkling had told them that Alina had vanished, she'd been blindsided by the shock crashing through her system. There had been a meeting with a small number of the Darkling's closest Grisha, including her and Ivan. Nobody had known where Alina had gone but they'd assumed that not only had she been gone for hours at that point but that they had to consider that someone had taken her after she'd left the fete and returned to the Little Palace. At that point her two guard had left her, beliving her safe.

Vera liked to think that the Little Palace was safe, but she'd always known this was the case. Now, whether or not Alina had been taken, this just confirmed it.

But there was also the possibility she needed to make herself face that Alina had not been taken but had left of her own volition. Just... Vera could not figure out why. Was it because of the Darkling? Of what might have happened between them?

Somehow Vera found that hard to accept. She just didn't think Alina would run away instead of confiding in someone.

At least, that was what she'd hoped.

Then the Darkling had told them all about Morozova's Stag. About how he'd had his trackers look for it and how they had discovered it in Tsibeya. From the reactions in the room Vera had been able to tell that she was one of the few who had not known about it.

She'd nearly launched herself at the Darkling and throttled him.

But, despite the revelation, the nagging feeling that he was keeping something from them, something vital, did not let her go. It clung to her like a festering sickness, spreading and spreading until it was all she could think about.

She knows that he, as their leader, has a right to keep things from them if he deems necessary. Still she doesn't particularly like it. Especially when he swore them all to secrecy about what happened to Alina.

The Darkling had send word for the hunters, who had found the Stag in Tsibeya to return and find Alina instead, but they'd been unsuccessful.

Another thing that did not quite add up. The hunters had managed to find a legendary creature that only appeared in twilight and that Vera had been convinced wasn't real until days ago but did not manage to find a seventeen year old girl? It didn't make sense.

And then, they'd gotten word about Ryevost.

About how, apparently, a few of the oprichniki tasked with finding Alina had witnessed that she had used her light to defend herself against a drunk, or something like that. And, despite the grim pride Vera felt about that, it had also told her another thing that made her stomach sink. If Alina was free enough to use her Summoner's power she was either free from her captors or she had not been kept in the first place. That she'd fled from the guards and was now, essentially, hunted throughout Ravka behind the king's back.

Shortly before they had departed for Ryevost that very day, they had gotten word about the king's condition.

From what Vera had gathered, the king had fallen ill after the fete, and while his medics had originally suspected that he'd eaten something bad or drunk too much, he'd only worsened. Vera didn't have a lot of sympathy in her heart for the king, but she could admit it was not a good sign. 

Departing to Ryevost feels like leaving the house you build for a walk knowing fully well your house is on fire.

A fire that the Darkling not only poured the gasoline for and but lit the match, too.

It feels like a rope closing in around her neck. Like time is running out.

And deep in her bones, Vera knows it is.

By the time they had arrived in Ryevost, Alina had long been gone and the men who had been looking for her had no idea where she might've gone. Apparently, she'd simply vanished into nowhere. But, it had been Alina. Even without the description given by both, the blinded man and the oprichnik, the injuries, like a small sun had appeared in front of his eyes, spoke volumes. It told them enough about what had happened.

That day, the Darkling had announced that they would be going north to Tsibeya rather than continue searching for Alina near the river town.

Vera didn't need to ask to know that he thought she would go after the Stag on her own, without the hunters.

Which was how they ended up here, tracking through the darkness now that the sun had set behind the tree lines, giving way to night.

A handful of days ago they had run across a group of men telling them about two young adolescents, a girl and a boy, who they'd robbed. According to them, the boy had been a deserter. That, not the way they'd perfectly accurately described Alina, hit a memory within Vera.

A deserter. A tracker who could make rabbits out of rocks.

Alina wasn't alone. She was with Mal - Mal, who she had clung to so desperately. Mal, for whom she'd caged herself within her own body without even realizing it.

They'd also known then that the Darkling had been right. Alina was going after the stag, just not on her own.

Vera had been fairly certain that the entire thing was a ghost hunt until they had found the tracks this evening.

According to the hunters, it had to be more than one person, but no more than a small group. Two or three. They'd tried to cover their tracks in the snow that had fallen overnight, but had done a poor job of it.

They had bee following those tracks ever since, and now that night was around them and Vera could barely see, she really wanted to put up their camp. She even found that she missed the Little Palace, to her utter shock.

Through the darkness, Vera watches the form of the Darkling ahead of her. Their group was small - only a few hunters, the Darkling and a handful of other Grisha, including David. Vera didn't think she wanted to know why the Darkling had taken a Durast along.

Maybe, he'd at last changed his mind and decided that he wanted to take an amplifier for himself. Maybe, he wanted someone with them just in case Alina had managed to fashion the Stag into an amplifier herself after killing it, despite having no help from a Materialki or any other experience in the area and needed to destroy it.

And then, they'd found the two of them. They'd hidden among the trees as Alina and Mal talked, as they kissed. And as, at last, the herd of Morozova's Stag found them.

They only moved when, through the trees, light blooms out of nowhere.

Vera pauses, her mouth drying at the sudden sight. Cold dread seeped through her bones when she realized that this was it. This was the point she had dreaded.

For whatever reason, Alina had just lit a fire announcing her presence to them all.

At once, silence fell over their group approaching the light. After a moment, Vera could make out a girl in the light that she knew was Alina, and, her hand on his side, was Morozova's Stag.

The animal is so beautiful, it makes Vera's heart ache. For the first time she understands what the people from her homeland mean when they feel Djel's presence in the wellspring. Right here, looking at the Stag, Vera knows with certainty that the ancient being is more than just another amplifier.

It feels magical. Like... like what their books say about the making of the heart of the world. Which, according to the books, is what Morozova's Stag is part of.

Almost reverently, Vera takes a step towards the Stag. She's so entranced by it, she notices it a moment to late.

Then, the arrow hits the Stag's chest with a soft thumb.

As that ancient creature goes to the ground, as Alina staggers back and the rest of the Stag's herd flees into the forest in their panic, the Darkling steps out of the forest as the first of their group. Then, the rest of them fill the clearing and it's all Vera can do to keep up.

"You should have listened to him, Alina." The Darkling says and Vera, through her reeling thoughts, dimly remembers that Mal had told Alina to kill the Stag and claim the amplifier for herself when she'd hesitated.

Alina whirls around to him, her eyes flicking from the Stag, who lay near the Darkling and the man himself. Something akin to horror and shock on her face.

It was the boy at her side, who looked dimly familiar to her simply because Vera knew that he'd spoken in the Grisha tent in Kribirsk all those months ago, who moved first. Drawing his bow, he fires an arrow at the Stag. A desperate attempt to keep the Darkling from killing it and claiming the amplifier.

The arrow doesn't even make it close. With a wave, one of their Squallers sends it flying harmlessly into the trees.

As Mal moves to knock another arrow, the Darkling sends a wave of darkness towards them. Raising her arms, Alina shatters the shadows with her light.

She barely had time to reacts as the Darkling turns on the stag, his arms rising into the beginning of the cut.

"No!" Vera isn't entirely sure if the cry comes from Alina or her, but all she can think about in that moment is that there's an ancient, magical creature and the Darkling just wants to carve it in two like it isn't a living, breathing thing. Like it isn't a legend come true.

Another kind of horror fills Vera when Alina flings herself in front of the stag to cover the creature's body with her own in an attempt to protect it.

Vera moves, ready to shove Alina out of the way when she sees the Darkling move and the darkness cuts through the trees beside Alina and the Stag.

Clenching his jaw, the Darkling brings his hands together and darkness engulfs Alina, Mal and the Stag just before a bubble of light blooms around them so bright, Vera had to look away.

"Impressive. Baghra taught you far too well," The Darkling says and it is in that very moment that Vera knows it is over. Whatever the Darkling has planned, whatever he is going to do to get the Stag and Alina, he is utterly sure that it will work. "But you're not strong enough for this, Alina."

Still, between her emotions of panic and worry, Vera feels her confusion, relentless and loud, pressing against the inside of her skull. What happened at the night of the fete? Why was Alina here, fighting against the Darkling after she'd spend months as one of them?

"You, tracker! Are you so ready to die for her?" The Darkling continues. "That was a very touching scene we witnessed. Did you tell him Alina? Does the boy know how willing you were to give yourself to me? Did you tell him what I showed you in the dark."

A shudder runs through Vera. She'd known what happened, or had at least strongly suspected it and yet... For the first time since she has known him, the Darkling's cool voice makes Vera's skin crawl.

In response, the light falters ever so slightly. The Darkling lets out a laugh.

Vera tears her eyes from the bubble of sunlight and to the Darkling. She takes a single, small step back.

At last, the sphere of light faltered and darkness swept over it.

Vera heard, more than saw what happened. The scuffle of what she knew had to be the Darkling's men taking hold of Alina. A shout from the tracker she isn't quite sure comes from injury or from his desperation to reach her.

When the darkness lifts, Vera knew she had been right. The Darkling had won, and he had known it the entire time.

Both of the two were held by a pair of guards. Ivan, his hand around Mal's left arm, gives the tracker an ugly look. "Be still or I will kill you where you stand."

"Leave him alone!"

Shushing Alina, the Darkling makes his way over to her, holding a finger in front of his lips. The smile on them makes Vera feel nauseous.

"Go ahead now, or I will let Ivan kill him. Slowly."

Vera could see Alina was crying and all she wanted to do was go to her and hold her in her arms. Put herself between that girl and the Darkling.

Fresh shock spills through her system at the realization that she'd rather shield a stranger than the man she owed everything with her life.

"Torches," the Darkling commands and Vera knows she should obey. Should call forth her fire for him.

She can not.

As the other Inferni strike their flints and light torches around the clearing for them, Vera can't move. She feels utterly cold and the fire in her core, her fire, impossibly far away as the Darkling pulls out a knife.

"We've wasted enough time here." He announces and walks to the Stag, slitting its throat.

Vera hears Alina let out a anguished sob. Or maybe that was her. She doesn't know as the blood pools around the dead animal.

"Take the antlers. Cut a piece from each." The Darkling commands and one of the oprichniki obeys. The sawing sound is the only thing in the clearing, ringing in Vera's ears as the oprichnik hands the pieces to the Darkling.

This is it. Vera thinks. This is how the most powerful of us will become even more powerful.

In that moment of horror and desperation, as she stands rooted to the frozen ground all she can think of is a line she'd once read when she'd studied the topic of amplifiers. The author had been quoting some philosopher or another scholar, Vera doesn't remember. It had been about the topic of the number of amplifiers one Grisha could have and why it was limited to one.

What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men.

Vera should feel elated. She could not remember the last time a Darkling had ever taken an amplifier. If any of them ever had. This, right here, is where he'll write history.

All she feels is despair as the Darkling takes the two pieces of the antlers into his hands.

With a gesture, he calls David forward to them and the Durast emerges from the shadows.

"David," Alina says quietly, pleadingly. "Don't do this."

Davids sends her a quick glance before looking away again, unable to meet Alina's eyes but the Darkling turns his cold eyes on Alina, unflinching. "David understands the future. And he knows better than to fight it."

As David moved to stand behind Alina's shoulder, Vera's stomach sinks.

Oh, god.

No. Please let her be wrong.

"Open your coat."

Nausea spreads through Vera, tasting like acid on her tongue as Alina doesn't move and the Darkling gives Ivan a nod. A signal.

Mal screams as Ivan's Corproalnik abilities make direct contact with his heart, squeezing it and he crumples to the ground.

"Please! Make him stop!" Alina screams at the Darkling and, at another signal from him, Ivan stops.

Trembling, Alina pushes the oprichniki away and takes off her coat.

Don't, Vera wants to say. You foolish girl, run.

She truly thinks she will be sick when the coat slides to the ground and Vera can see the glint of a knife at Alina's leg.

Her knife.

"Lift your hair." The Darkling says as he moves in front of Alina, who, with an almost numb expression, does so.

Slowly, he holds the two pieces against Alina's collar and motions David to them When she sees the reverence in the Darkling's movements she can't bear it any longer. Vera looks away. She might have hated herself most in that moment.

"It's done," she hears David say after a moment.

Vera doesn't hear the command, passing unspoken between them, but she can see the Darkling move in the corner of her eye, clasping his hand around Alina's wrist.

And Alina's light answers.