My Name Is Adela Kirigan (A Shadow and Bone Season 1 Fanfiction)

Chapter 17: The Day The Testers Came

At Os Alta... 

Alina sipped the tea Baghra had given her, and set the cup down beside her chair. Bringing her hands in front of her, she summoned a ball of her light with ease. 

'I think I need an amplifier. Something to boost my strength,' Alina said. 

'You can't light a doorway on your own,' the older woman replied. 'What would you amplify?' 

'When Kirigan touched me...' she began to say, but Baghra cut her off. 

'General Kirigan can't be your crutch forever. And the use of amplifiers is a barbaric, lazy practice...' 

'You could try to be encouraging.' 

'I'm not your mother,' Baghra snapped. 'But I guess you'll always be looking for one of those.' Alina stood, breathing heavily, eyes bright and blazing with fury at the mention of her dead mother. She brought her hands in front of her and lit them alive with another ball of her light, this time much brighter. 'There she is. Welcome. That tea should be taking effect.' 

'What?' Alina mumbled, the light in her hands flickering rapidly. 

The light in her hands all but vanished when her surroundings changed to the interior of a building. It was by no means fancy, like the Little Palace, but it was large and spacious. Two children ran past her and stopped at a kitchen counter, near the double doors that led to the exterior grounds of the orphanage in Keramzin. 

'Where are you, child?' the voice of Baghra asked in her mind. 

'I'm at the orphanage,' she replied. The two children, the two that she knew to be herself as a child and a younger Mal, began to speak to each other. 

'You stand watch,' the younger Alina said to Mal. 'If you see anyone coming, give me a signal. Once I have my sketchbook, we run. We never look back. Right?' Mal said nothing. 'How many times will we be out there in that field?' Alina asked, desperately. 'If it's not the Grisha trying to separate us, it will be the war. We can't hide forever, but we can run. Together.' 

'Together.' Alina turned to leave, but just as she whirled around, she knocked a porcelain object to the ground and it smashed into a million pieces. The two children knelt to clean it up. 

'What day is this?' Baghra asked in her head again. 

'The day the testers came.' 

'Thought you could hide?' the matron of the orphanage, Ana Kuya, came striding in towards Mal and Alina. 'Well, you're wrong. Come on.' Grabbing their arms, she ushered them to the room where they were to be tested by the Grisha examiners. 

'We cannot test him like this,' the Grisha woman in the blue kefta said. 'His injury makes it impossible.' 

'You stay with me, then, boy,' Ana Kuya said, ushering Mal over to her side. 

'Come,' the Grisha said. The younger Alina walked forwards. 'There's nothing to worry about. If you're not Grisha, then your life will carry on as it always has. But if you are, a whole new world awaits you. And all of this will fade into the past. This will prick. Just breathe and relax your arms.' The woman brought a sharp object towards the girl's arm and pricked it. 

'What happened on this day?' Baghra asked. 

'I was tested. I knew the testers used sudden pain to detect Grisha power. But it wouldn't show if I was already in pain. So I protected myself.' Behind her back, Alina held a piece of glass, cutting deep into her palm, the blood dripping onto the floor. 

'She is not Grisha,' the woman declared. Alina looked over at Mal. Their eyes met with hopeful smiles. 

'I was not aware I was Grisha,' Alina said as she summoned her ball of light again, and it flickered, bringing her back to the present as she felt the crescent-shaped scar on her hand, meeting Baghra's eyes. 'I was just doing whatever I could to not be separated from Mal.' 

'You protected yourself by denying yourself,' Baghra replied. 

'He was bullied when he was alone. I wasn't thinking of me, I was thinking of him. We planned to run away together.' 

'You had plans. Perhaps he never did, because where is he now?' 

'I don't know.' 

'Who are you holding back for, then? Bring the light.' She tried, and failed. She could bring it forth with such ease, but that was when she had had the tea that had brought her back to her childhood in Keramzin. Now, her hands were empty, devoid of the bright, beautiful light that had once formed a ball in her hands. She dropped her hands, sighing in defeat. 

'I'm trying.' Baghra stood, walked forward slightly, and glared at her with piercing eyes. 

'How many more Ravkan children need to be orphaned to this war because you are afraid to face the truth?' There was silence. 

That evening, Alina lay awake in bed, mulling over Baghra's words - and her eventual failure to summon the light. Sighing, she got up, and tiptoed through the halls. The door at the end of the hall was open, spilling golden light into the hall. Coming there, she peered through the door to see Aleksander Kirigan standing at a table with a model of a map. She opened the door slightly, making him turn. 

'Alina,' he said softly. 

'Am I... disturbing you?' 

'Not at all,' he replied warmly. 'Can't sleep?' She nodded. 'Come in.' He held out a cup of yellow juice to her. She stepped forward to the table and took a sip from it, placing it back on the table, coming to stand next to the general, who, for now, looked strangely vulnerable, almost like all of his grandeur as the famed and feared general had soaked back in, leaving only a man in its place. 

'Is this map current?' she asked. 

'It is. Our enemies are threatened by your mere existence. But Ravka can only stand up to them if we present a united front. And there is talk of uprising in the West, led by our... esteemed First Army general.' The two looked at a propaganda poster on the table of General Zlatan. 'Our own people, turning their backs on us.' 

'Aleksander...'

'I have been fighting this war alone, for so long.' His jaw locked in sadness, tears welling in his eyes, fighting to hold them back as the shadows in the room began to swirl with the enormity of his emotions. 'I have buried so many good soldiers. Friends. The coffers are running dry, the noose tightens... and our own people are turning against Grisha, just as their kin once did.' The shadows began to swirl faster. Alina placed her hand on his arm, easily summoning the light with the help of him as an amplifier. The room swirled in a bubble of light, chasing the shadows away. Then she let go, and the bubble disappeared as fast as it had come, restoring the room to its natural colours and lights. 

'You are not alone,' she said, reassuringly, meeting his eyes. He reached forward, tentatively, and placed a hand on her cheek, making her look up at him in surprise. For a few moments, they stared at each other like that. Then, he spoke, in a deep, husky voice.  

'I have been waiting a long time for you.' 

'I should go,' she said quietly. He kept his hand there for a few more seconds, then dropped it, almost as if a seeming rejection to his affection was sinking in. She turned and left the room, but stopped by the door. He came up behind her, but then she walked away, leaving Aleksander alone.