A year after Alina Starkov tears down the Shadow Fold, she is finally able to settle into her peaceful life. There is no more war with Ravka. The Darkling, once her enemy, is now a loyal, protective husband, and a father to their adoptive daughter...
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ᗩᒪEKSᗩᑎᗪEᖇ'S EYES ᗩᖇE as dark as the shadows he conjures. When he turns around to face the Shu assassin, the natural light streaming through the windows is covered with a suffocating drape of darkness that bleeds into the room, twitching and stirring with eagerness. The boy looks blankly back at the Darkling, waiting.
"You went after my daughter," Aleksander states quietly, in a near whisper, but his voice exhibits every bit of his pure, unhindered fury.
"The little one is powerful," Chinua says in his thick Shu Han accent. "But she isn't my main concern." A wicked smile appears on his face as he looks at me for the first time. It makes my skin crawl. "And here is the half-breed in person."
Ivan draws his hands up, ready to inflict pain, but with the blink of an eye, Aleksander is clamping his hand around Chinua's throat. His eyes bulge from their sockets, but the manic smile still remains, making him look doubly insane.
"Don't speak to my wife that way, or I will not hesitate to kill you."
A realization clicks into place after he says that. That's what this man wants. He wants to anger Aleksander. He wants to be killed. This man is going to die either way, but he has information that will perish with him if the Darkling makes the rash move to slaughter him now.
"Wait!" I assert, taking a step forward. My hand rests lightly on Aleksander's shoulder. "That is what he wants."
The Darkling's white-knuckled grip finally releases Bat-Chen's bruised neck it as his reason returns. He shrugs his shoulders back and takes a deep breath. He says, "Yes, you deserve a slow, painful end, but before that, you are going to answer our questions."
More teeth show as his grin returns. "Only if I can speak to her."
"No," Aleks says immediately.
I negate him and answer for myself, "Then, speak."
Aleksander aims a heavy glare in my direction.
Chinua leans as far forward as possible against his ropes and says, "I wonder, what makes you so loyal to Ravka, hm? You have Shu blood coursing through your veins too."
I don't have to ponder the answer for more than a second. The answer is simple. "Ravka doesn't experiment on their Grisha like a sick science project."
"They say you could be the bridge between Shu Han and Ravka. You now know that our Queen wants to burn that bridge. She does not want a science project in her courts. And, see, you are worth a lot of money to our scientists. That energy inside you, that sunlight, it could provide us with a lifetime of energy to power our ships, our weapons, if only we can harvest that power from your filleted corpse."
