Siege and Storm (39 page)

In answer, Tamar scraped one axe blade over the other, raising a horrible shriek of metal on metal. The sun soldiers lifted their rifles, and I heard the sound of Inferni flint being struck.

“Look around, Alina,” the Darkling said. “You cannot win. You can only watch them die. Come to me now, and I will do them no harm—not your zealot soldiers, not even the Grisha traitors.”

I took in the nightmare of the chapel. The
nichevo’ya
swarmed above us, crowding up against the inside of the dome. They clustered around the Darkling in a dense cloud of bodies and wings. Through the windows I could see more, hovering in the twilight sky.

The sun soldiers’ faces were determined, but their ranks had been badly thinned. One of them had pimples on his chin. Beneath his tattoo, he didn’t look much older than twelve. They needed a miracle from their Saint, one I couldn’t perform.

Tolya cocked the triggers on his pistols.

“Hold,” I said.

“Alina,” Tamar whispered, “we can still get you out.”

“
Hold
,” I repeated.

The sun soldiers lowered their rifles. Tamar brought her axes to her hips but kept her grip tight.

“What are your terms?” I asked.

Mal frowned. Tolya shook his head. I didn’t care. I knew it might be a ploy, but if there was even a chance of saving their lives, I had to take it.

“Give yourself up,” said the Darkling. “And they all go free. They can climb down that rabbit hole and disappear forever.”

“Free?” Sergei whispered.

“He’s lying,” said Mal. “It’s what he does.”

“I don’t need to lie,” said the Darkling. “Alina wants to come with me.”

“She doesn’t want any part of you,” Mal spat.

“No?” the Darkling asked. His dark hair gleamed in the lamplight of the chapel. Summoning his shadow army had taken its toll. He was thinner, paler, but somehow the sharp angles of his face had only become more beautiful. “I warned you that your
otkazat’sya
could never understand you, Alina. I told you that he would only come to fear you and resent your power. Tell me I was wrong.”

“You were wrong.” My voice was steady, but doubt rustled in my heart.

The Darkling shook his head. “You cannot lie to me. Do you think I could have come to you again and again, if you had been less alone? You called to me, and I answered.”

I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing. “You … you were there?”

“On the Fold. In the palace. Last night.”

I flushed as I remembered his body on top of mine. Shame washed through me, but with it came overwhelming relief. I hadn’t imagined it all.

“That isn’t possible,” Mal bit out.

“You have no idea what I can make possible, tracker.”

I shut my eyes.

“Alina—”

“I’ve seen what you truly are,” said the Darkling, “and I’ve never turned away. I never will. Can he say the same?”

“You don’t know anything about her,” Mal said fiercely.

“Come with me now, and it all stops—the fear, the uncertainty, the bloodshed. Let him go, Alina. Let them all go.”

“No,” I said. But even as I shook my head, something in me cried out,
Yes.

The Darkling sighed and glanced back over his shoulder. “Bring her,” he said.

A figure shuffled forward, draped in a heavy shawl, hunched and slow-moving, as if every step brought pain.
Baghra.

My stomach twisted sickly.
Why did she have to be so stubborn? Why couldn’t she have gone with Nikolai?
Unless Nikolai had never made it out.

The Darkling laid a hand on Baghra’s shoulder. She flinched.

“Leave her alone,” I said angrily.

“Show them,” he said.

She unwound her shawl. I drew in a sharp breath. I heard someone behind me moan.

It was not Baghra. I didn’t know what it was. The bites were everywhere, raised black ridges of flesh, twisting lumps of tissue that could never be healed, not by Grisha hand or by any other, the unmistakable marks of the
nichevo’ya
. Then I saw the faded flame of her hair, the lovely amber hue of her one remaining eye.

“Genya,” I gasped.

We stood in terrible silence. I took a step toward her. Then David pushed past me down the altar steps. Genya cringed away from him, pulling up her shawl, and turned to hide her face.

David slowed. He hesitated. Gently, he reached out to touch her shoulder. I saw the rise and fall of her back, and knew she was crying.

I covered my mouth as a sob tore free from my throat.

I’d seen a thousand horrors on this long day, but this was the one that broke me, Genya cringing away from David like a frightened animal. Luminous Genya, with her alabaster skin and graceful hands. Resilient Genya, who had endured countless indignities and insults, but who had always held her lovely chin high. Foolish Genya, who had tried to be my friend, who had dared to show me mercy.

David drew his arm around Genya’s shoulders and slowly led her back up the aisle. The Darkling didn’t stop them.

“I’ve waged the war you forced me to, Alina,” said the Darkling. “If you hadn’t run from me, the Second Army would still be intact. All those Grisha would still be alive. Your tracker would be safe and happy with his regiment. When will it be enough? When will you let me stop?”

You cannot be helped. Your only hope was to run.
Baghra was right. I’d been a fool to think I could fight him. I’d tried, and countless people had lost their lives for it.

“You mourn the people killed in Novokribirsk,” the Darkling continued, “the people lost to the Fold. But what of the thousands that came before them, given over to endless wars? What of the others dying now on distant shores? Together, we can put an end to all of it.”

Reasonable. Logical. For once, I let the words in. An end to all of it.

It’s over.

I should have felt beaten down by the thought, defeated, but instead it filled me with a curious lightness. Hadn’t some part of me known it would end this way all along?

The moment the Darkling had slipped his hand over my arm in the Grisha pavilion so long ago, he’d taken possession of me. I just hadn’t realized it.

“All right,” I whispered.

“Alina, no!” Mal said furiously.

“You’ll let them go?” I asked. “All of them?”

“We need the tracker,” said the Darkling. “For the firebird.”

“He goes free. You can’t have both of us.”

The Darkling paused, then nodded once. I knew he thought he would find a way to claim Mal. Let him believe it. I would never let it happen.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Mal said through clenched teeth.

I turned to Tolya and Tamar. “Take him from here. Even if you have to carry him.”

“Alina—”

“We won’t go,” said Tamar. “We are sworn.”

“You will.”

Tolya shook his huge head. “We pledged our lives to you. All of us.”

I turned to face them. “Then do as I command,” I said. “Tolya Yul-Baatar, Tamar Kir-Baatar, you will take these people from here to safety.” I summoned the light, letting it blaze in a glorious halo around me. A cheap trick, but a good one. Nikolai would have been proud. “
Do not fail me.
”

Tamar had tears in her eyes, but she and her brother bowed their heads.

Mal hooked my arm and turned me around roughly. “What are you doing?”

“I want this.”
I need it.
Sacrifice or selfishness, it didn’t matter anymore.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I can’t run from what I am, Mal, from what I’m becoming. I can’t bring the Alina you knew back, but I can set you free.”

“You can’t … you
can’t
choose him.”

“There isn’t any choice to make. This is what was meant to be.” It was true. I felt it in the collar, in the weight of the fetter. For the first time in weeks, I felt strong.

He shook his head. “This is all wrong.” The look on his face almost undid me. It was lost, startled, like a little boy standing alone in the ruin of a burning village. “Please, Alina,” he said softly. “Please. This can’t be how it ends.”

I rested my hand on his cheek, hoping that there was still enough between us that he would understand. I stood on my toes and kissed the scar on his jaw.

“I have loved you all my life, Mal,” I whispered through my tears. “There is no end to our story.”

I stepped back, memorizing every line of his beloved face. Then I turned and walked up the aisle. My steps were sure. Mal would have a life. He’d find his purpose. I had to seek mine. Nikolai had promised me a chance to save Ravka, to make amends for all I’d done. He’d tried, but it was the Darkling’s gift to give.

“Alina!” Mal shouted. I heard scuffling behind me and knew Tolya had taken hold of him. “Alina!” His voice was raw white wood, torn from the heart of a tree. I did not turn.

The Darkling stood waiting, his shadow guard hovering and shifting around him.

I was afraid, but beneath the fear, I was eager.

“We are alike,” he said, “as no one else is, as no one else will ever be.”

The truth of it rang through me.
Like calls to like.

He held out his hand, and I stepped into his arms.

I cupped the back of his neck, feeling the silken brush of his hair on my fingertips. I knew Mal was watching. I needed him to turn away. I needed him to go. I tilted my face up to the Darkling’s.

“My power is yours,” I whispered.

I saw the elation and triumph in his eyes as he lowered his mouth to mine. Our lips met, and the connection between us opened. This was not the way he’d touched me in my visions, when he’d come to me as shadow. This was real, and I could drown in it.

Power flowed through me—the power of the stag, its strong heart beating in both our bodies, the life he’d taken, the life I’d tried to save. But I also felt the Darkling’s power, the power of the Black Heretic, the power of the Fold.

Like calls to like.
I’d sensed it when the
Hummingbird
entered the Unsea, but I’d been too afraid to embrace it. This time, I didn’t fight. I let go of my fear, my guilt, my shame. There was darkness inside me. He had put it there, and I would no longer deny it. The volcra, the
nichevo’ya,
they were my monsters, all of them. And he was my monster, too.

“My power is yours,” I repeated. His arms tightened around me. “And yours is mine,” I whispered against his lips.

Mine.
The word reverberated through me, through both of us.

The shadow soldiers shifted and whirred.

I remembered the way it had felt in that snowy glade, when the Darkling had placed the collar around my neck and seized control of my power. I reached across the connection between us.

He reared back. “What are you doing?”

I knew why he had never intended to kill the sea whip himself, why he hadn’t wanted to form that second connection. He was afraid.

Mine.

I forced my way across the bond forged by Morozova’s collar and grabbed hold of the Darkling’s power.

Darkness spilled from him, black ink from his palms, billowing and skittering, blooming into the shape of a
nichevo’ya
, forming hands, head, claws, wings. The first of my abominations.

The Darkling tried to pull away from me, but I clutched him tighter, calling his power, calling the darkness as he had once used the collar to summon my light.

Another creature burst forth, and then another. The Darkling cried out as it was wrenched from him. I felt it too, felt my heart constrict as each shadow soldier tore a little bit of me away, exacting the price of its creation.

“Stop,” the Darkling rasped.

The
nichevo’ya
whirred nervously around us, clicking and humming, faster and faster. One after another, I pulled my dark soldiers into being, and my army rose up around us.

The Darkling moaned, and so did I. We fell against each other, but still I did not relent.

“You’ll kill us both!” he cried.

“Yes,” I said.

The Darkling’s legs buckled, and we collapsed to our knees.

This was not the Small Science. This was magic, something ancient, the making at the heart of the world. It was terrifying, limitless. No wonder the Darkling hungered for more.

The darkness buzzed and clattered, a thousand locusts, beetles, hungry flies, clicking their legs, beating their wings. The
nichevo’ya
wavered and re-formed, whirring in a frenzy, driven on by his rage and my exultation.

Another monster. Another. Blood was pouring from the Darkling’s nose. The room seemed to rock, and I realized I was convulsing. I was dying, bit by bit, with every monster that wrenched itself free.

Just a little longer
, I thought.
Just a few more. Just enough so I know that I’ve sent him to the next world before I follow.

“Alina!” I heard Mal calling as if from a great distance. He was tugging at me, pulling me away.

“No!” I shouted. “Let me end this.”

“Alina!”

Mal seized my wrist, and a shock passed through me. Through the haze of blood and shadow, I glimpsed something beautiful, as if through a golden door.

He wrenched me away from the Darkling, but not before I called out to my children in one final exhortation:
Bring it down.

The Darkling slumped to the ground. The monsters rose in a whirling black column around him, then crashed against the walls of the chapel, shaking the little building to its very foundations.

Mal had me in his arms and was running up the aisle. The
nichevo’ya
were hurling themselves against the chapel walls. Slabs of plaster crashed to the floor. The blue dome swayed as its supports began to give way.

Mal leapt past the altar and plunged into the passage. The smell of wet earth and mold filled my nostrils, mingling with the sweet incense scent of the chapel. He ran, racing against the disaster I’d unleashed.

A
boom
sounded from somewhere far behind us as the chapel collapsed. The impact roared through the passageway. A cloud of dirt and debris struck us with the force of an oncoming wave. Mal flew forward. I tumbled from his arms, and the world came down around us.