Embrace the Dark

One

There had never been a year when Nika Morozova awoke on her birthday and there was no snow on the ground.

When she was a little girl, she would jump out of her bed before dawn and tear the curtains open, anxious to see that perfect world of white. As she got older, the novelty wore off and she was more often found sleeping well past noon or out near the woods, practicing with her bow and arrow.

Archery had been Alina's idea. When Nika got the age where lessons and dressing for grand feasts with Ravkan nobles became a chore, the Queen had a beautiful bow crafted for her. The princess would go out with an instructor thrice a week until she got the hang of it herself. Aleksander had been against it at first and often voiced his concerns about Nika relying on tools rather than exercising her own power, but Alina assured him that it was only a hobby. After all, their daughter found no joy in sewing or reading (she took after her mother, in that sense).

So, on the morning of her eighteenth birthday, only hours before her coronation as Queen of Ravka, Nika was out in the snow, shooting at birds.

"Nika Elizaveta Morozova, if you think I won't drag you back to your room myself, you are sorely mistaken!"

One of her arrows shot off in the wrong direction, missing a red sparrow and getting caught in a tree branch.

"Genya," Nika spun on her heel. "You broke my focus. I was going to stuff that one."

"I'm gonna break and stuff something else if you don't come back with me right now."

She grinned, and packed up her things. "I'm sorry they made you come to get me."

Genya shook her head. "I was the last resort, honey. Even your father was helping search the palace when I ran out here."

"Well, I'm sure mother was thrilled to see him out of the war room." Nika rushed to catch up with her. "It has to be going on a year now, he's been planning."

"He's proud of his little girl." Genya hooked her arm with Nika's. "Why wouldn't he want to take you 'round the country?"

"Oh, I don't know. I was starting to get worried he was going to blow off the coronation."

"Very funny."

As her eighteenth birthday approached, the Darkling had revealed to his family and advisors that he was planning a trip to take Nika around Ravka, and possibly even to Kerch or the Southern Colonies. He claimed it would be a royal tour for his daughter to finally see the world.

Alina had decided when Nika was a baby that she wasn't to leave Os Alta without Alina's explicit permission to do so. Despite that, when Aleksander announced the trip, she had been fond of the idea. The Queen knew it was about time that the heir to Ravka's throne see what she would be ruling, socialize with her own people. But when Alina discovered on her own that he planned on taking an army's worth of soldiers with them, she grew suspicious. He claimed it was for their protection, but she knew well enough that any Darkling could protect themselves fine. Alina was afraid that he was looking for the Firebird, an amplifier that was previously thought to be the third of Ilya Morozova's amplifiers.

When Alina discovered she was pregnant with Nika, she made very clear to her husband how their child was going to grow up. There would be no amplifiers. Not even talk of them in her lessons. If Nika were ever to get an amplifier, she would have to do it herself. Aleksander agreed, but only if they wiped talk of the war as much as they could from her textbooks. As far as their daughter would know, Alina and Aleksander helped overthrow a greedy, prejudiced royal family that had been driving Ravka into the ground.

After hours of arguing, Aleksander assured her that the army was only a precaution. The war was long over, and there was nothing he cared for more in the world than his child. And when he said that, they both believed it was the truth. The planning of the trip continued, and not another word passed between them about it.