I wasn’t sure when I realized it, but maybe it was when the Darling had vanished soon after I thought I had left him in the fold. Not for long though of course. Maybe it was four years later when armies had to invade and cut away portions of Rakva. Maybe it was six when Mal started to grow lines in his face and as I looked at my own smooth face. Maybe ten when we buried the child as we couldn’t dare, couldn’t even try to go for help. I cried then, cried harder then I thought I could.
It was all his fault, the darkling I thought. But another year and now Mal wasn’t just growing old. I knew, I knew without a doubt that I would live long past him. Would I live lifetimes, generations, watching as time when on? Would I even starve to death? Could I take a knife and kill myself? I didn’t want to know, and I knew too the moment I woke up twenty years into a long war. Twenty years into hiding in the forest living barely by the skin of our teeth in the deep woods.
Twenty years alone with Mal, and I knew. I knew because the bed was cold and it was summer. I didn’t want to know, I didn’t want to get up and look for him. He wasn’t there of course, Mal and I had talked about it. Endlessly when we both knew. When he knew without a doubt he would die long before me. He made me promise endlessly. Always promise at the start of each day and the end. But he wasn’t there anymore to wake me and make me promise.
Now there was just a lump of what used to be. And Now I had to deal with what used to be. I couldn’t bare it, I barely made it out of the house before I started sobbing not looking back. I didn’t want to look back and see what was left of him. Why was it me? Why? I wanted to beg. But I knew why. I knew because he was there too.
It had been at least a year since this strange energy connected us. But he was there leaning against the door as if he walked out of the forest hours ago and was waiting knowing Mal was dead just as I knew he was. Dead, dying in his sleep as I should have. Just as old as him. But here we were, neither of us really changed from that day at the fold. He still had scars on his face, and I wondered if he would ever try to remove them.
“I...” I barely managed out. “Why?”
“I used to ask it myself.” he answered and I could never know if he was actually telling the truth or manipulating me. “It took me a long while to realize it too.” he answered some unasked question. “When I saw my grandchildren old.” I wanted to ask why couldn’t I and Mal be more. I could have had more children, or tried to at least. But I couldn’t bare it, looking down at the silent little creature that had come out of me. The life that had twined Mal and I together. I knew, I knew then I thought. When our child died, that it wasn’t, couldn’t, and maybe shouldn’t ever be.
I wanted to hate him, I hated him, but I was crying still. “Alina.” he called and I lifted my head to stare into his old eyes. Eyes that had seen generations upon generations exist and flash by. Until he no longer truly cared about them anymore. Eyes I would eventually have as well, I knew. It was really only a matter of time.
“I can’t. I can’t go in there.” I choked out. I didn’t want to need someone. I wished for Bhagra, even if only for her to hit me and tell me to stop being such a child. The life I had with Mal was utterly behind me, cold as he was as I put my hands into my face. I cried still. How long would it take me to stop crying over the dead? “You could have told me!” I snapped but with no real anger behind it, only bitter sorrow. He knew, he had known maybe since he found me.
“Some lessons can only be experienced Alina.” he paused thoughtfully. “I thought that perhaps it wouldn’t be the same, that you too would grow old and die.” I glared at him. I didn’t want to be like him, I wanted Mal. But he was gone, and no power I held, or even he held, or even the both of us, could bring him back.
“I loved him.” it seemed stupid to him I knew. He had stopped loving long, long ago.
It was a simple sort of words. But it hurt me all the more. “Around four.” I didn’t want to look at him as he slid by me closer since I wasn’t about to scream at him. “Four generations and I stopped.” I barely knew, or could fathom how old he really was. I thought him almost immortal. Him and his mother. Two timeless beings that existed since the beginning of the world. Though I knew that wasn’t true. He didn’t try to touch me, if he even could.
“I hate you.” I had to hate him, I always wanted to hate him. But there was an unfathomable time before me and there was no one else. Bhagra had vanished just like him, and I wondered if she was dead. If he killed her, but even then I didn’t know what to feel. It was all so horrible, I couldn’t know how long I would exist without ending my own life. Or asking him to do it.
“I will bury him for you.” he said instead of anything else. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t want to go back in there. Why was I surprised when he was there not a day later? There were several others as I lifted my head to him. I hated him. I hated how I had to believe the kind look on his scarred face. “Where?” was all he asked as he held his hand out to me.
I hated him as I stared at him reproachfully. But I took his hand, thankfully gloved. The small grave was still there, even if I stopped visiting it. If he weren’t for him the little one could have lived I thought. But lived for how long? Would they have caught a fever and died just as young compared to the tiny thing? Or would they be there to help me bury what was left? Would they have had a child of their own? And Their children?
I didn’t want to think about it. Instead I let him take me slowly away from the grave and grave to be. It felt far, it felt like miles in those few steps away from the ramshackle home we had built together. Had huddled in with those first few winters. Then finally it almost seemed like a normalcy when it was patched enough, built enough for us all to live in. If only there had been a full us.
There was a calm, pure reassurance that filled me and I wanted to scowl and beat him. I wanted to sit there and hurt him as much as I felt hurt. His forehead to mine as I cried a little more. “Why?” I asked again. Mal had left me behind, and I had promised him for years that I would not follow him. Not until I finally started growing old myself. If I ever did. Would I forget Mal was all I could ask of myself.
Maybe more open and true as I could ever see him I stared into his eyes and asked it once more. “WHY?” I begged. I wanted an answer. I wanted to know why me of all people would be granted this. But I knew why. I was the sun summoner and he was the Darkling.
“I don’t know.” it was honest, or as honest as he could be. I didn’t have to look back as he put an arm around me. What did it matter if the men with them did burry him? He had seen bones turn to dust himself, and I knew, I knew I would be seeing that as well. What did it matter when even in just a year the home would be in ruin? No wonder Bhagra was insane.
But there was years and more in front of me as I let him pull be far away from what used to be. Twenty years, twenty years of growth and new Grisha, of even a new Tsar. Twenty years of war. Was anyone I had loved and cared for alive still? I didn’t think so, they were behind me as Mal was. And all the tears I had now and in the future wouldn’t bring them back to me.
“I am sorry.” he supplied and I let him be. Even if it was just a false comfort, even if it was just a mask he wore. What did it matter? Eventually there wouldn’t even be anyone who remembered my name. No one but him. Did anyone remember it now? Mal had been the only one to say it. ‘Promise me Alina, that you don’t...’ his voice old and hoarse. I didn’t want to promise.
But then I didn’t want a lot of things. But I had to have them, I had to have this expanse of years before me. Maybe the hunger in him for me wasn’t just the satisfaction of my power that he wanted. Maybe it was the hunger for someone even as far from his own age as I was, to know. To be with anyone that could comprehend even the slightest what all those years were to be. I wanted to believe it, but I knew I was hurt.
I knew he had taken advantage of that hurt and I hated him for it. But he had all the years ahead of him now that he had me more surely than when he put the collar on me. Just as I knew I had now. All I had was what was left of me after Mal. Which wasn’t that much I thought. But there was that calm reassurance as he kissed my forehead as he put me onto a horse. I could try to run, but without Mal there was no place to really run to.
I had no one else. Just him, and he knew it just as I knew it. I well and truly hated him for it, and I hated Bhagra for it too. Maybe she’d try to come back, maybe not. I didn’t know, and maybe she was like us both, but Bhagra looked old. She looked like something barely holding on that last time I had seen her. Maybe she too was blessed with long life, but the Darkling, and I... we would eventually outlive her too.
I didn’t want to keep to the promise I made with Mal. But I also didn’t want to be alone for all those unfathomable years. Anything, anyone would do. I couldn’t stop myself for reaching for him, as he paused about to mount his own horse. I was hurt and wounded, I told myself. And he was the snake abusing my wounds and taking advantage of me. But I couldn't make myself believe it not until I had seen it pass and numb over. Maybe it wouldn’t be even twenty years, or even ten. Maybe only moments like this. I hated him so much.
“Alina?” he asked and took my hand gently. I couldn’t believe the kindness and gentleness of his voice of his actions. I couldn’t not then. But I could now. Because it was what I had. And even a hollow mask was better than the cold dead behind me.
“We need to end the war.” I told him, maybe wanting to shock him out of the mask, but he only nodded looking concerned. What I was committing myself to I didn’t want to know. But it was cold even in summer and I had a calm reassurance in front of me, even if only for a few snatches of moments. Of lives brushing past my fingers. Of knowing that every life I touched even briefly would pass. Were we even human? Did we even truly have mothers and fathers? Did it really matter if we did?
I guessed not. Not unless somewhere in time, somewhere out there in the unfurling yawning emptiness before me, and now him, we found them. Maybe Bhagra. But from the slow mounting horror, I knew. I knew that eventually she too would become dust. No matter how bitter and desperate she was to stop him. Eventually the fight would end, and she’d be dust. I didn’t want to know, and refused to. I refused to know for twenty years.
He walked his horse next to mine taking my hand and I let him. Even a wounded creature wanted help, even if it was a false one. I wasn’t about to deny it. Not anymore.
