Chapter 3
Additional Tags: Amnesia, Memory Loss, Slow Burn, Slow Build, Enemies to Lovers, enemies to found family, grudgingly assimilating the villain into the found family, Moral Dilemmas, Moral Ambiguity, Philosophical Discussions, Narrative foils, Complicated Relationships, complicated feelings, Mistrust, Understanding, gets meta about the power of storytelling to shape perception of events, both within the fic itself and as commentary on the original books, pre-canon the Darkling | Aleksander Morozova, Ensemble Cast, POV Alina Starkov, POV The Darkling | Aleksander Morozova, no bashing of any character, Book 3: Ruin and Rising, show characters with book lore, Canon - Grishaverse (Book & TV Combination)
Summary: The consequences of merzost are unpredictable. In the ruins of a chapel that nearly killed them both, Alina took more than she expected: centuries upon centuries of his memory. The Darkling may not remember the Fold, but that doesn’t mean he can’t help her destroy it—if she’s willing to press her advantage.
Aleksander has lived for 100 years and never heard of this so-called saint, this Sankta Alina. There’s something off about it, something he can’t quite recall. He’s never put his trust in saints and he does not intend to start now.
But the better they get to know each other, the more complicated it becomes.
—
The Saint did not return for several days.
Aleksander looked for her, whenever the door swung open. But his twice-daily rations were delivered by the stony silence of his rotating guards. The girl was Tamar; he hadn’t yet decided which of the two boys was Tolya and which was Mal. It hardly mattered.
“What is she the Saint of, exactly?” he asked Mal-or-Tolya one day, at mealtime.
The boy dropped his food on the ground, inconveniently beyond his reach. “None of your concern.”
“Not the Patron Saint of Hospitality, then? Or of Manners?”
This earned him little more than a huff and a slammed door.
