When The Devil Calls

Chapter Eight: The Loss of Time

Chapter Eight: The Loss of Time

Alina Starkov rushed from the General's war room. Her feet were alive with haste. Something bit at the back of her heels, encouraging her faster and faster to the cellars. The deserted halls spoke to the late hour. Only those in General Kirigan's personal confidence were awake in meeting with him.

The other Grisha, still in training, were tucked away with need for a full night's rest. The General's instruction had their training increased to a monumental amount of diligence to the enhancement of their abilities.

Alina did not think about training now. She couldn't.

All that was on her mind was Mal. His custody just released; she knew that it was the time to personally see him bound for the First Army, freed of the ugly mess that Aleksander had put him in.

The pair of men that she was pulled between required her mental oversight rather than the General's to see that the job was done correctly without accidents. Aleksander cared for Mal as she pleaded, but it was not of his gracious manners that kept Mal safe. Any threat to Alina would prove devastating to her childhood friend. Mal, on the other hand, despised the General. Call him the Devil. The disgust at the connection between Alina and the General made him angry, furious to the point of explosion.

That was why she had to do it, the one thing that was hardest of all to do: let Mal go.

The months in Little Palace in which she yearned for his company, let herself shed tears in loneliness at the heartbreak she felt being parted with the only person in her life to have never left her, they all laughed now. For all that time, she relished the life she had. Grisha, Second Army, Sun Summoner. It was her true identify finally given light. She became Alina Starkov in his absence.

It was why that the man she cared for as an orphan did not suit the man she belonged to.

Alina was no longer the Alina Mal knew.

The cool air of the cellar greeted her flushed features with a welcome splash. Her breath escaped in a cloud of dragon's smoke as she adapted to the change.

Cellars were dank, cool places that grew mold of every color. A palace cellar was different.

It was well lit. Clean. Stocked with all the foods to feed the Grisha within it's walls and a few dozen more guests. The scent was not of mildew, but of earth. She smelled the Earthy aroma of onions and potatoes stacked in their crates. Glass jars lined shelves. Every fruit she knew of was preserved in jams and labeled on that wall. The darker hues caught her eye. Blackberry preserves were her favorite on breakfast toasts and pastries.

Deeper into the rooms was storage. Log books of the palace and it's requirements were stacked in boxes. Old parchment rolls. Records. Records upon record books of the Grisha and their family trees were there, too.

She saw the wine barrels. Mal was kept close to those.

The Palace was not built with official dungeons, as it was meant to be a home for the Grisha, not a place for suspects to be held.

It was eerie quiet below the palace floor. Nothing moved. The light taps of mouse feet as they ran across the stone floor was all she heard to fill the void of silence.

Malyen was chained to a thick pipe in a nearby room. His back against a wall with his eyes closed. The soft snores of his mouth as he slept.

She sighed. Who knew how long it would be before she saw him again?

Two guards under the General's order were there. They were half asleep themselves at the late hour watch of their only prisoner. Their faces were disappointed when she showed the orders of the King. More work than they expected when they agreed.