Sound Your Name (Oh, My Darling)

1. Memories From Another

Alina was 5 when she lost her parents to the Fold. The grief was overwhelming, the shock of losing them was more encompassing than the fear of what had taken place that morning crossing. 

It clung to her like a new coat, heavy and thick, the ice in her heart causing her to shiver in her boots. 

She wasn't the only child to survive the crossing that day, a boy named Mal was beside her too. Later on she would find they would have even more in common. 

However, as they were corralled into a merchant's carriage on its way to Keramzin they both stared out into the night trying to shake from their minds the screams they heard of their dying parents and others on the skiff. 

She would get her first dream that night of the man she would figure out later was her soulmate. 

She watched a man meet up with a woman by an old hut. She could sense his fear even in the dream, as he glanced around the dark night as if waiting for some monsters to find them. The two kissed. They spoke of things Alina didn't understand, of things called "amplifiers" and how they would allow the woman to live more than a hundred years. As Alina stood in the middle of the dream memory, she saw the look in the man's eyes and it was one she recognized. 

It was one she'd seen in her mother's eyes when Alina had asked her why her mother couldn't use her fire to protect them from the 'bad men'. 

Then the monsters came like the man had been watching for but they dressed themselves in soldiers' coats calling out for the 'Darkling'. 

Alina screamed when they shot the arrows at him, not knowing why it hurt to see him hurt, but he still stood up to them. 

'Grisha' she whispered, for that's the only way he could have survived. Then the monsters had the woman...the woman he loved and he pleaded for them to let her live. 

Tears fell down Alina's cheeks as the soldiers' stabbed the lady who had healed him, who had loved him and he screamed. Her heart clenched and she let out a sob. Unknowingly tossing and turning in her small cot in the orphanage, her whimpers becoming evident. 

She was shaken awake by a nurse maid, "You are waking the other children, little Shu." 

Alina's tears wet her cheeks, but she ignored them to slip on her slippers and put on her clothes. Slipping down to where the library was she began to search for anything and everything on the Grisha, the Darkling and healers. 

 
~~~
 

The next dream came when Mal and her had been spit upon by some of the older children for being 'half-breeds that would have been better to have died in the Fold too.' They ran to the meadow out behind the orphanage and breathed in deep breaths of sunlight. Alina always had felt as if the brightest air made her feel the most renewed. 

That night though the fear came back Alina remembered what it was like to be huddled in the back of the skiff with Mal and a few adults that could not fight against the Volcra. The fear of the beasts that were descending but not fear of the Fold itself. It just made her sad. 

She dreamed again of the man. He was too late to save the woman he loved, the healer had died. There was a group of Grisha grouped together all so frightened but not of him. They stayed huddled together as if seeking comfort, waiting for something to come to pass. 

Alina remembered this same look on those who had frozen at the front of the skiff, their arms together before being devoured by Volcra. 

She turned her attention back to the dream walking through the ruins trying to find the man again, and as if merely thinking of him again she appeared before him.