@xdarklingx
Chained to the floor in a tent erected in the middle of a snowy meadow, Alina’s thoughts were not on her surroundings. Instead the Sun Summoner could only hear the echo of Ana Kuya’s warning the first time she bled, the summer of her thirteenth year.
‘Men will whisper pretty words and promise you the world, but you mustn’t succumb until you are properly wed. A man can walk away after a tumble with no consequences, but a woman will always pay the price.’
If only Ana Kuya could see her now.
Alina was brought back to the present by the appearance of David wielding the stag’s antlers. The Fabrikator had fused the pieces of antler to form a sort of collar which would be placed upon her throat. She leaned back as far as she could from David’s outstretched hands, eyes seeking out the Darkling’s. Her stomach flip-flopped in a way that was wholly unrelated to the man’s child that she was now carrying.
Two months on the hunt with Mal and she didn’t have her cycle once. It had never been wholly regular, what with her poor health before discovering her Grisha abilities. However, since she’d begun to summon, Alina found her cycle ran like clockwork. Combined with the utter fatigue and waves of nausea, it had been all too clear what was wrong. They’d only been together once- the night of the Winter Fete- yet it had been enough.
“We need to talk,” Alina ordered, voice stern in the hopes of getting her point across. “Alone.” She stared Aleksander down despite knowing that she didn’t look so threatening while disheveled on the floor.
