𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕿𝖜𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖞-𝕱𝖔𝖚𝖗
ⓌᕼETᕼEᖇ IT ᕼᗩᗪ been two hours or two days, I could not tell. The
dungeon's darkness was maddening in itself, but the silence was the worse part. Early on, I tried to contact Aleksander using the connection; however, he quickly blocked me out of his impenetrable mind. Although he was thwarting my way of communication, he made it clear that he did not completely abandon me. A wool blanket and pillow were sent down with a guard as well as a tray of food, a drawing pad, and a pencil.
Maybe he thought that if he supplied me with all the basic needs and distractions, I would leave him alone, but even after the commodities were sent, I sought out the invisible tether between us and pulled as hard as I could. I tried to break through the mental brick wall he had built. I did not succeed, but I knew I was affecting him one way or another. My head was pounding with a pulsing headache from trying for so long, and the connection worked both ways. My pain is his pain. I thought I was going to pass out or crack in half from the waves of misery radiating in my skull until finally, he answered.
"Alina, what is it? I'm busy."
"Oh, I'm sorry to bother you. That must be very inconvenient for you."
I couldn't feel anger or frustration cross the tether, only exhaustion. "I sent you everything you might need."
"And that's supposed to fix something?"
I could almost hear his weary sigh before he went on. "I don't expect you to understand why I do some of the things I do, but you cannot interfere, even if you are my queen."
"So what, you're just going to lock me in here forever?" I asked.
"No, just until I find the prince."
My patience was wearing thin. "Just let me out, and we can talk about this like normal people."
"No."
"If you are worried Nikolai will take the throne, don't be. I made a deal with him. He just wants his country to be safe—"
There was a twinge of guilt but also irritation from his end. Aleksander interrupted by saying, "Your word means nothing to him. He can take the throne whenever he pleases. All he has to do is tell someone his identity, and the rumor that the sobachka is back will spread like wildfire, which is why I have men looking for him. Now, stop using the tether, Alina."
"Wait!—"
The connection broke off.
I growled in frustration and uselessly bonked my head against the wall. Why did he have to be so stubborn? I could feel his guilt. Aleksander did not want to put me in here, but now he was doing it less to evade his emotions and more to prove a point: I was not to defy the King.
Eventually, I got bored of sulking and turned to drawing. I drew simplistic maps from memory, but my mind wandered to the Firebird, as it often did, and the stone arch. My dreams were all the same. The radiant bird of all Ravkan children's imaginations flew over an unknown arch made of stone, its eyes sharp and dangerous, mocking me, daring me to find it. It worried me that the Firebird was becoming an obsession. After a few hours, the fresh drawing pad was half-full of the amplifier and that stupid arch I had yet to determine the meaning of. I tried to deny it, but the longer I wore the second amplifier around my wrist, the more my hunger grew for the last amplifier. The connection between Morozova's amplifiers was undeniable, and they longed to be together. The Stag, the Sea Whip, and the Firebird were like magnets held close, almost to the point of touching. The pull was almost too much to bear; every second, it grew harder to resist. I was sure the Darkling felt the same way, but he was better about hiding it.
With nothing else to do, I laid the pillow on the ground and cuddled up under the blue wool blanket. He at least had the decency to give me some comfort items for sleep, not that the dirt floor was very soft.
I ᗯOKE ᑌᑭ to the Darkling stroking my hair gently. At first, I thought it was a dream as I leered up at the Darkling's perfect face, chiseled chin, and colorless eyes. He was in the cell with me, but the door was closed, and the feeling of his fingers combing through my brown hair almost seemed ghost-like. I could sense the coldness of his hand as it skimmed my ear, but I could not feel the zing of power and surety that his touch always provided.
I unburied my arms from the blanket and reached out to touch him, laying my palm flat on his chest. My fingertips felt the divots of each stitch on his deep ebony kefta, the cold of his shirt buttons, the slow pulse of his heart. He seemed real.
Aleksander did not appear surprised in the slightest. In fact, I think he expected this to be my reaction. His mouth quirked up into a half-smile, and he continued to sit with me, stroking my hair comfortingly. I let him.
"This isn't a dream," I voiced aloud.
"It isn't."
"But you aren't real either."
"I am to you."
I held his icy gaze, which pierced through me even in the dark. "So this is another component of the tether."
He nodded.
"So, what? You just came to gloat that you can leave the cell whenever you please while I'm stuck here?"
"No."
His short answers were starting to get on my nerves. "Then why are you here?"
Before Aleksander could form a response, his eyes spoke for him. They held a sadness, a void of darkness created by years of having no one like him—the perfect recipe for loneliness. He was not here to boast or patronize me. He was here to fill the void.
"I can leave if you'd like."
He pushed up on his hands and began to stand, but I grabbed his wrist. "No," I said quickly. It sounded more of a desperate plea than I intended, but he didn't mind. Aleksander slid back down and tucked the blanket tighter around my body, then went back to stroking my head and rubbing circles into my shoulder.
"Okay," he said, a whisper for only us to hear. "I'll stay."
There were no more questions, no more quiet discussion shared between us. I sat up and rested my cheek on the planes of his chest. The Darkling, in turn, clung to me like I would fade away if he held on too loosely. I knew he was too stubborn to let me out when I asked, but he also needed me as he needed food and water to sustain life. Because if he let me go, he only had an empty bedroom to go back to. So, I let my eyes flutter shut, and we fell asleep huddled together in the corner of the dark cell.
When I awoke, he was gone. There was only a moment of skepticism, thinking it might have all been a dream, but I could still feel his touch, the press of his body against mine, his breath on my neck. He was there last night; I had no doubt.
I yawned and stretched; my joints ached and popped in protest. Whether I had a pillow and blanket or not, my body still hurt from being on the floor. Indents of small pebbles and coarse dirt stung my legs and arms, leaving the skin red and raw.
I rubbed my eyes but paused when I heard footsteps. They were too light to belong to the Darkling. Being half-asleep, I saw a white kefta appear from the dark stairwell and called out, "Genya?" with a hint of hopefulness in my voice, but as I emitted a soft glow from my palm to see clearer, her hair was too light, face too slim, and eyes too shy as they averted my gaze. The girl held a silver tray of breakfast foods.
"No, Miss Alina." I recognized that sweet, timid voice with the tone of a mother's lullaby. I had seen her before our expedition to the True Sea. She rushed over to the metal bars, slid the tray under the gate, and backed away as if I had a contagious illness.
The girl zipped around and skittered away for the stairs, but I called out to her. "Wait! Am I that scary? Do I smell? Is that it?" I sniffed under my arm, and I caught her crack a smile, but it quickly turned back to the look of intimidation. "What is your name?" I was just desperate to talk to someone.
She looked back at the entrance and then to me. "I'm not supposed to speak to you," she murmured quietly.
"Let me guess," I said, "the Darkling told you not to?"
She nodded and looked at the ground.
"Well, I am the Queen. It may not look like it right now, but I hold just as much sovereignty as he does. Don't let him scare you." The room fell into a thick silence. "Do I scare you?"
She shook her head and watched me closely, at war with herself if she should speak or run as far away from me as possible.
"Emmeline. My name is Emmeline." She bit her lip nervously.
"That's a pretty name," I complimented, hiding the sudden surge of rage beneath the surface. That was one of the names rumored to be associated with the previous King but never proven to be anything other than a rumor. To think he could have done something to this sweet girl made my hands bunch into fists, but I hid my anger for her sake. "Emmeline, do you agree with what Kirigan is doing?" I gestured to the cell. I could tell she did not want to answer.
"He is the King," she pointed out worriedly.
"I won't tell."
She glanced behind her to make sure no one could possibly hear her. "No, moya soverenyi. I do not think you deserve to be down here. But I am just a servant girl. My opinion does not matter."
"You don't really believe that, do you?"
She shook her head again. "No. But it is what everyone else believes."
"Everyone else, being the former King?" I asked carefully. Her shimmering eyes grew wide as she gaped at me. "Listen to me carefully because you need to hear this, Emmeline. You have a voice, and you have the right to use it."
"I—I should go," Emmeline stammered. I had stirred up an unsavory inkling from her past, proving my fear correct. She was yet another servant, broken by the prior King. "He will be suspicious if I stay down here for too long," she fretted and sped to the stairs. Just when I thought I had scared her off for good, just like I scared away Genya, she stopped abruptly on the first step. "I appreciate what you are trying to do." Her voice became darker. "But you know as well as I do that our words are just that. Words. You said it yourself. You are the Queen, and you are locked down here for crossing the King. So what hope does a shy servant like me have?" My heart shattered into a million pieces when I saw it—the same look of brokenness in her eyes as Genya had before she left. The look of hopelessness because she was silently suffering, and there was nothing I could say at the moment to make the hurt go away. As I watched her fly up the stairs, I felt like I had failed yet another one of my people. Genya needed me because she was broken and lost, but I failed her, and now Emmeline and all of the other girls. But what could I do?
TᕼᗩT ᑎIGᕼT, the Darkling came again through the tether. This time, I was not in the mood to see him.
"Go away," I said, aiming a nasty glare at him. Aleksander acted as calm as ever, crouching beside me, examining my change in mood.
"What are you angry about?"
"You!" I blamed carelessly.
"No," he shook his head. "You are mad about something else."
I huffed in resignation and slowly began to explain my cause of frustration. "The prior King should not be written in history as the great ruler who died tragically of an illness. He should be exposed for the monster he was."
"By doing that, we would unbury rumors, which could expose more than his sins. It could reveal ours as well. He is dead, Alina. Leave it that way."
"He will never die. His image will always haunt those girls."
The Darkling sighed and cupped my cheek in the darkness. "You care so much about your people. You will make a good Queen."
"Not if you lock me up every time I defy you, moi tsar," I mocked.
His eyes turned dark, his mouth curving into a scowl. "I told you, Alina. This is what you receive when you challenge the King. Even the Sun Summoner cannot escape punishment."
I held my chin up high and looked at him defiantly. "Go away. I don't need you."
He did. But not before I could catch a glimpse of fury cross his features. There was a pit at the bottom of my stomach. I should have kept my mouth shut, played the silent strategist. When the Darkling was angry, forgiveness was not in the cards, and I had told him the worst thing possible. The Darkling was damaged and lonely, and I told him I didn't need him. What did I do...
ᒍᑌST ᒪIKE TᕼE ᗪᗩY ᗷEᖴOᖇE, I woke up to the sound of footsteps, but these were not quiet and repetitive, like Emmeline coming down with a tray of food. There were multiple people shuffling down, and to my horror, a scream—young, high-pitched, and frightened. My punishment for leaving the Darkling angry last night had arrived; my stomach churned in anticipation of what was to come.
Two Oprikniki came down the stairs, and they had a hold on the little mop-headed boy from Baghra's hut.
"Misha!" I gasped.