XXV / i want to tell you this story without having to be in it

Along the way, there is a tentative sort of routine in the Little Palace as the days get longer and the heat increases while summer begins to arrive. It's the same, somewhat subduing sort of complacency that sets in whenever Vera is in Os Alta.

She isn't sure what to think of it. How easy it is to become complacent here, even with the threat of the Darkling looming over them. Even when she is going to the war room with the other elected members of their little council.

Even now, sitting with her arms folded in front of her abdomen right smack in the middle of their meeting, after discussing the terms and wording of a possible pardon for Grisha for a near-hour long, numb numbing eternity, Vera isn't quite sure why she is here. From Alina's point of view, maybe, she gets it. But from the other Grisha's? She doesn't think they can stand her presence. Either, they're disgusted or terrified by her.

Respect, Fedyor had called it last night when they'd talked and she'd pointed the issue out. They might fear you or dislike you for whatever number of reasons they can come up with but they all respect you one way or another.

Vera isn't sure she believes him.

She isn't sure about a lot of things these days.

Across from her Zoya is making pretty eyes at Mal every few minutes, and while Vera is half convinced it's just to rile Alina up and play into the front she gives everyone here, her fingers are twitching from the effort it takes to not reach over the table and wrap her hands around Zoya's pretty neck and strangle the Squaller to death.

(She doesn't because she knows. Vera knows about Liliyana and Lada and she sees the grief and the betrayal and the absolute encompassing pain in Zoya's eyes when the other woman thinks nobody is looking and she knows it's visible because Zoya is so tired of it all. She knows because Zoya is her own mirror. Her pain is Vera's pain, their grief and the betrayal from the man they'd trusted absolutely is the same. So, she stays still and keeps her mouth shut.)

Next to Zoya, Fedyor leans forward with a frown. "It's troubling that he's avoided capture for so long," he points out, voicing Vera's own thoughts, and a small crease forms between her eyebrows at the idea that the Apparat is still at large— and none of them have any idea where to find him.

It makes her skin feel like ants are crawling beneath it.

Sergei turns to Alina. "Has he tried to contact you?"

"No," Alina says slowly.

The Heartrender looks wholly unconvinced.

"He's been spotted in Kerskii and Ryevost," Fedyor points out. "He shows up out of nowhere to preach, then disappears before the King's soldiers can close in."

The Apparat shows up and vanishes into thin air again just as easily without rhythm or sense and no apparent means of travel. It's almost like magic — if Vera were one to still believe in fairy tales and the Apparat is just a man. There's a system behind it, they just need to find out what.

"We should think about an assassination," Sergei points out and it's one of the rare occasions that Vera agrees with him. "He's growing too powerful, and he could still be colluding with the Darkling."

"We'd have to find him first," Paja replies.

Zoya waves one of her hands. "What would be the point? He seems bent on spreading word of the Sun Summoner and claiming she's a Saint. It's about time the people had some appreciation for the Grisha."

"It's utilizing her for his own benefit by manipulating the masses and Ravkan faith," Vera points out and when the entire table turns to her with varying expressions of incredulity to surprise to confusion on their faces she wonders if this is the first time she's spoken at all during the meeting so far. She can't even say. Her chin makes a sharp cut into Alina's direction. "It's got nothing to do with appreciation for the Grisha."

"It's better than reviling us all as witches and traitors." Zoya replies with a one-shouldered shrug.

Vera isn't so sure.

"Let the king do the dirty work," Fedyor chimes in. "Let him find the Apparat and execute him and let him suffer the people's wrath."

Again, Vera is inclined to agree with him. She wants the Apparat dead and gone and if the king and his royal council get themselves involved in the mess instead of them, even better.

If only she'd have confidence that the royal council would actually do the job right.

Idly, Vera wonders if maybe she can talk Nikolai into convincing the royal advisors to kill the Apparat — because, really, if anyone would be able to do it it'd be him — before she remembers the last time Nikolai and her were alone together and maybe it's not such a good idea after all...

She should probably tell Alina to broach the topic when Nikolai comes to escort her to the council meeting the way he always does. After all, it will be her business to manage once she's queen.

Alina isn't who I want to be my queen.

Vera's jaw clenches at the echo of Nikolai's voice, her hands curling into fists.

Across from her, Zoya is watching Alina critically. "Do you think he believes it? That you're a Saint risen and back from the dead?"

"I'm not sure it makes a difference," Alina frowns softly.

"I'd rather fight a traitor than a zealot," Mal says slowly and the same range of expressions Vera got only moments earlier now greet him and Vera realizes it's the first time he's spoken at all, too. He sends her a glance, then looks back at Alina. "I may have some old contacts in the First Army who will still talk to me. There are rumours of soldiers defecting to join him, and if that's the case, they must know where he is."

At the other end of the table, Alina takes in a deep breath, her eyes mustering them all for a moment, before she says, "You need to know what were up against."

And just like that, the air between them shifts.

There's silence as Alina lays out the information on the nichevo'ya, a grim sort of determination as she describes them and steel glint in the Grisha's eyes.

Soldiers, Vera thinks. Despite what Ravkans might say, what Nikolai's rogue Grisha thought, they were soldiers — each one of them.

"But you escaped," Paja says from her seat next to Alina. "So they must be mortal."

"My power can destroy them. It's the one thing they don't seem to be able to recover from. But it isn't easy. It requires the Cut and I'm not sure how many I can handle at once," Alina replies and Vera recognises the subtle shift in her demeanor and knows she's thinking of the Amplifiers again.

Something twists in her stomach to know that she can recognize it by now.

"We only escaped because Prince Nikolai got us outside the Darkling's range." Alina adds and Vera nearly snorts out loud at the title — she's half convinced this is the first time she's ever heard Alina use it in reference to Nikolai. "They seem to need to be close to their master."

"How close?"

Alina glances at Mal in a silent question and he hesitated for a moment, a contemplative look on his face. "Hard to say. A mile, maybe two."

"So there's some limit to his power," Fedyor points out, even though Vera relayed all of this to him already and he's aware of the distance and it's limitations, but when Vera sees the way the tension bleeds away just a little in the others, the tentative relief in their eyes, she knows exactly why he'd pointed it out like a new epiphany that had just come to him and for them all to hear.

"Absolutely," Alina replies quickly. "He'll have to enter Ravka with his army to get to us. That means we'll have warning and that he'll be vulnerable. He can't summon them the way he summons darkness. The effort seems to cost him."

"Because it's not Grisha power — it's merzost," David says from his place at the table, fiddling with his sleeve mindlessly. "That energy, that substance has to come from somewhere. It must be coming from him."

"But how is he doing it?" Zoya says, frowning. "Has there ever been a Grisha with this kind of power?"

It's a rhetorical question — if there ever was, the records of them were eradicated by now and they were wiped from the history taught to the Grisha at the Little Palace. For a moment, Vera thinks of Illyia Morozova —of the Bone Smith — and how she'd heard rumours of his journals. She thinks of the three amplifiers around Sankt Illyia in the Istorii Sankt'ya.

Maybe, if there ever had been another Grisha who'd used merzost, if there was an answer to the answer to Zoya's question, it might be one she already knows.

——————————

"Nikolai wants to rebuild the Hummingbird."

Vera blinks. Looks up to find Alina standing in the doorframe leading into the Darkling's former chambers where the Inferni had been lounging in one of the sofas in the room (she'd been half tempted to burn down the stupid black silk with absolutely ridicolously elaborate black and silver, glittering embroidery all over it before she'd decided it's too comfortable to bother) and looking at her.

The redhead returns her stare, eyes blank. "What?"

Alina stares at her for another moment before she reaches up and rubs her temples, making her way over to Vera and letting herself fall onto the sofa next to her. "Nikolai wants to rebuild the Hummingbird."

"Okay," Vera says slowly, still feeling a little like she's just got some sort of whiplash because this is most certainly not the topic she'd just been reading in the tattered, red leather-bound copy of the Istorii Sankt'ya she'd spotted in Alina's room — if Vera's honest, she's doesn't mind the distraction at all. After all the hours of pouring over this tome and the books in the library whenever she'd found the time, she cannot stand the idea of spending more time reading about the martyrdom, which, really, was just Ravkans drowning their saints or chopping them in halves or something equivalently disturbing.

She'd always thought burning heretics was extreme as a young girl — now, she's not so sure anymore. At least in Fjerda they point at you and call you an abomination for your abilities. In Ravka they give you a pat on the back and then make you a martyr for your troubles.

It still does not quite explain Alina's sudden statement.

"That's the flying ship we used to travel through the Fold, right?" Vera asks and Alina lets out an affirming hum, still rubbing her temples, her eyelids squinted shut tightly.

Slowly, Vera closes the red book in her grasp and sets it down on one of the tables nearby. "Alina?"

Alina lets her hands drop into her lap, looking up at her with wide eyes and an expression in them that Vera cannot quite put her finger on and that ancient, feral thing in her cracks an eye open at the knowledge that someone must've put it into her eyes. "Do you think we even have a chance to win?" Alina whispers.

It's a conscious effort to keep her posture open and to not close up, to keep softness and not freezing steel in her eyes. "I don't know," Vera says, every word carefully considered.

She wants to tell Alina that, yes, of course they have a chance. Yes, they'll make it. Yes, this look in her eyes isn't necessary. Vera will make sure of it.

But this is war and the only promises made in war are death and blood and everything else is a pretty lie spun by fools and little girls.

And yet, there's one thing Vera knows she can keep — she used to be a little girl that wore pretty dresses and smiled sweetly and braided flowers into white-golden hair like her own. Now, she's a wild thing of fire and claws and ice and she can promise Alina this one thing: death and blood. She will bring it to the Darkling until he brings it to her and she's nothing but ash and roots in the ground again.

But this isn't that conversation and in the end, Vera only says those three words. I don't know.

Alina nods almost absentmindedly and her shoulders curl in a little, her form sagging just the slightest amount. She looks more defeated than Vera has seen her in a long, long time.

She doesn't know what to make of it, how to make it better and so she asks, "Why is Nikolai rebuilding the Hummingbird?"

She can take a guess she's fairly certain about — she knows Nikolai well enough, after all. She knows what she'd do if she were him and decided to rebuild the Hummingbird.

Alina's back stiffens a little and for a long while, there's only silence in the bedchamber that once used to belong to a man who thought himself a savior. She doesn't look at her when she replies, "He wants a backup plan if we don't make it when he reaches Os Alta."

She can't even bear to say his title out loud and something in Vera perks up in alarm when she notices the evasion, the sudden way Alina fidgets at the mere mention of the Darkling.

"Makes sense," Vera says with a half-shrug. "I'd do the same thing if I had the resources he has. It's a good idea."

Alina gives her a look, half righteous outrage and half understanding. "He asked me to go with him if it looks like we can't win."

It's a twist of the shard in her heart, but again Vera gets it. She understands it. Djel, she is relieved about it. She narrows her eyes at Alina just a bit. "You should."

Alina bristles. "I can't just leave. This is my fight as well as yours."

Vera leans forward, her eyes flashing a little. "If we all die, it's gonna be devastating. But if you don't make it, everything is lost. You need to make it out if you can, do you understand me?"

Because as much as she hates the idea, hates the burden it puts on Alina, only someone truly equal could stand a chance against the Darkling. It only left someone like her — a Sun Summoner, the entire opposite of the Darkling's Grisha powers — or another Shadow Summoner — as the perfect equal to them — to stand a chance.

It was also what, in turn, had the potential to make Alina so dangerous.

For a moment, Vera wonders if Nikolai has a contingency plan for that, too.

She doesn't think she'd much like the answer either way.

"I won't just leave you all." Alina replies, more steel in her voice as she stares back at Vera, unflinching.

Soldiers, Vera thinks again. They were soldiers, all of them.

"Fine," Vera grits out. For no other reason than because she knows that if she keeps pushing this now, Alina will retreat and put up walls again.

But like hell will she let this go.

She takes in a sharp breath, her jaw clenching just a little as she forces her shoulders to relax, her posture to become less a stance braced for impact, for the fight and more for a talk with someone she trusts. Because she does trust Alina. She knows Alina.

And this, not Mal's words or Tamar's or Tolya's, is exactly why she knows something's wrong even before any of the others ever approached her about it.

She's seen the way Alina froze up in the Fold — albeit foggy and clouded by her own terror and horror. She's seen the erratic behavior, the sleep deprivation, the looks that almost feel like paranoia to her. Like Alina's watching for something not truly there.

And every time she notices, every time she sees the collar around her throat like a cage, like it's waiting for a leash, something in her stomach twists further.

She looks at her friend.

And makes a choice.

It feels like ripping out her heart with her bare hands and laying it at Alina's feet like a kill, unhidden and every little thing and secret and truth she buried out in the open for her to see.

But maybe if she gives Alina a truth like this, maybe, she might trust her enough to do the same, too.

Fedyor's voice from all those days ago echoes in her mind again. And I think that when you admit the truth, when you stop running, you'll be able to change the face of this war.

It's a lie. It's a pretty, idealistic lie and still, Fedyor's words haunt Vera ever since he spoke them into existence in that room on the road to Os Alta, that first night they'd seen each other again.

At the memory, Vera's eyes burn and she presses them closed, exhaling an unsteady breath. "I want to tell you a story," she whispers into the dark, her voice shaking.

Alina tilts her head towards her, studying her. As if she can sense the sudden change without ever having to ask Vera about it. "Okay," she whispers back.

As if the spell would be broken, should they speak too loudly.

And then Vera begins.

Vera tells her the story of a young Fjerdan girl who disappeared into the night. Who was saved in the snow and the dark by the shadows themselves. Who went into a strange place, but was never quite at home. Who met a prince who became a pirate and then a prince again. She tells Alina her story.

When she is finished, Alina is quiet for a long time. So long, Vera thinks she won't say anything at all and dread pools in her stomach, her chest clenching painfully.

And then, Alina tells her a story in return. Of an orphan girl who went into the Fold a soldier and came out a Grisha and then a saint. Of a girl who has been seeing things she should not see, dreaming things she should not. Of a girl who has been thinking of amplifiers and magic and shadows.

She tells her everything, and leaves nothing out. Just like Vera did before.

And when the night makes way to dawn, the sun chasing away the shadows around the Little Palace, there are no more secrets between them.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

offically caught up with all the old chapters eek!!! thank u to all the readers who stuck around all these months, this really means so much to me and i'm so grateful for all my readers 🥺💖🦋💗💫💗