A Dance of Shadows and Light

Twenty-five:

Twenty-five:

Vasily was dead. Alina kept on seeing him tumble over, and the guards carrying his dead form out. She had wanted to fight for her country. She hadn't understood what that had meant. She bathed and her maids helped her dress. As she was buttoned into her dress, she stared at the mirror, examining her face. She thought that there was going to be some visible sign of change. But she still looked exactly the same.

Yet, she was married. She was no longer a virgin. And she had seen her country's Prince die right in front of her very eyes. How was she still exactly the same? "Lady Alina," said her maid, "are you alright?"

Alina took a breath. "I am fine. I think I am slightly overwhelmed from the previous days events, that's all, you know."

The maid smiled at her. "Of course. You were married yesterday, and last night was...." The maid trailed off, and Alina blushed. She had no doubt that the whole of the house knew that she had slept with Aleksander last night. But she still felt slightly embarrassed about it somehow, because she was so young, and now it seemed that the future of grisha relied on her and whether or not she was pregnant.

There was a knock on the door. "Alina?" Aleksander called.

Alina turned and went to the door. She opened it. He was dressed in his black kefta, handsome as ever, and all she could think of was last night, and how he had been in between her thighs. "Aleks," she said with a smile.

"Are you alright?" he asked. "You look a little pale."

"I'm fine," she said with a lie, "but we've......"

The maids bustled out of the room, closing the door behind them, and they were left alone.

"We've crossed a line that we can never go back," said Alina, "Vasily is dead. That is an official act of war."

He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. "Alina, we decided that we were going to war when we attacked the king. Dead bodies are a byproduct of war. In order to achieve greatness, there are terrible things that are going to have to happen."

Alina took a deep breath. "I know that. I know the cost of war. But this is the first time I've ever been part of it."

"You don't have to fight, Alina. You can simply be Lady Alina. The Sun Summoner. My wife. If that is what you want. But I must say, those moments when the two of us were fighting against the King, for the first time it...it felt like we were united. Like the two of us could do anything, as long as we were together."

"Do you really think so?" Alina asked.

He pressed his forehead against hers. "I know so. We are two of the most powerful grisha that have ever lived. We are going to claim the throne as our own, and we are going to create a place for grisha in this world together."

"Do you really think so?" Alina asked.

"I know so," he said, "and I know that you grew up with Vasily, and it can't be easy watching him die, but might I remind you, he did have a gun on us. And was threatening to take you away and to kill me and force you to marry him. Did you want that to happen?"

Alina shook her head. "No. I don't want to be with anyone else. The only one that I want to be with is you."

"You're the only one that I want to be with too," he said.

"I wish we didn't have to leave this room," she said, "I wish we could spend all day in bed, and that you could make me feel all of those things that you made me feel between my thighs last night."

He smiled at her and stroked her cheek. "We will have a lifetime of doing that. But right now, we have to go. We've got to work on our next move."

"We'll deliver Vasily's body back to the King," Alina said firmly.

Aleksander frowned. "Are you sure that's what you want us to do? It mean going back to the palace. The King could have us arrested."

"The King has tried that," said Alina, "but when people hear that Vasily is dead, we'll become the monsters that did it. We won't stand a chance at uniting the people of Ravka with that kind of division. No, we need to put Vasily's body in a coffin, and we need to personally deliver him back to his family. It might have been an act of war but there's no reason we need to be violent or gruesome about it."

He kissed her. "Oh, my darling Alina. Such light shines through you. If only I had had you by my side this whole time."

Alina asked, "Why didn't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You could have claimed me at any point. Trained me so that I knew what it was to be a general's wife. But you.... you stayed away. The only time that you ever came to see me was my seventeenth birthday."

"Your father wanted you innocent," he explained, "naïve to the injustices of our world. How could I deny him that? If you had met me earlier, been exposed to the horrors of our world sooner, I don't know that you would have retained that lightness. After everything that I've gone through, I.... I need that lightness that you have, Alina. It's the one thing that will keep me from being a monster."

She reached out and laced her fingers through his. "You've survived this long, Aleks. I don't think you would have if you were in danger of becoming a monster."

"You don't make it this far in war bathing in the sunshine."

"Well," she said, "now you have me, and I can give you sunshine anytime that you need it."

He smiled at her. "Yes, you can. I would like that." He stroked her hand. "Let us go, and we'll discuss your plan with Nikolai."

"How is he?" Alina asked.

"I don't rightly know," said Aleksander, "but taking Vasily back might be exactly what he needs to make amends for shooting him."

"Then," she said, "let's go. And we will put the Prince to rest. And then...."

"Then, the real work will begin."