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Aleksander sometimes wondered what might have happened if he hadn’t fucked the sun summoner against the wall of the Tsarista’s sitting room the night of the Winter Fete. He hadn’t planned to — hadn’t had any plans at all, which was unlike him and part of the problem — but when he’d pulled back to tell her he was going to go see about the stag, she’d looked at him like she was drowning. He’d felt the warmth of her thigh on his hand, the press of her leg against his waist, and thought — well, he didn’t think. She let him, and he, for the first time in only saints know how long, let himself.
She’d wanted to accompany him to the war room, after, and he’d almost brought her. He could have paraded her through the hallways, starry-eyed and freshly-fucked and very clearly His. Could have brought her to hear the report from the tracker still sending her lovesick letters and put the final nail in that coffin. Instead, he’d sent her to her chambers and promised to visit her later that night — a promise he’d had no intention of keeping, but that he had, in the end, kept.
Taking the Sun Summoner outside the walls of Os Alta was too much of a risk, he’d informed her before leaving her bed to hunt the stag. She’d missed him while he was gone, which he knew because her excitement at receiving the antlers (if she partially understood the implications, she also understood that he couldn’t have towed the stag all the way to the Little Palace) was fully eclipsed by her excitement at seeing him again. She’d dragged him into her bed, and for reasons he didn’t examine, he’d let himself be dragged.
They’d been discreet over the next few months, though he couldn’t be sure that no one suspected. Alina seemed content to keep his visits to her room a secret, and if she was hungrier than he’d anticipated, if she was more, he was too busy preparing to hunt the Sea Whip to consider what that might mean.
And now that he’d returned after nearly two months with scales for her wrist, there were other things to deal with. He’d gone to see Alina the hour he returned, and had ensured the amplifier was fastened around her wrist before allowing her to bring him to her rooms. She’d been enthusiastic in bed, but despite the excitement of the new amplifier and it being not yet noon, had fallen asleep immediately after.
He was back in his own chambers, now, seated behind his desk. Genya stood before him. “You wanted to see me, moi soverenyi?”
He did not think Genya knew about the time he spent in Alina’s rooms; if the Tailor suspected anything it was buried beneath the neutral expression that served soldiers and servants equally well. He stood and walked around to the front of his desk, then leaned against it, putting them at eye level. “I need you to induce menstruation for Alina.”
Genya stood extremely still, unmoving save for shallow breaths. Eventually, her gaze boring into his, she asked, “Did Alina request this?”
“Alina,” he said, selecting his words deliberately, “has not yet realized that this is something with which she requires assistance.”
After visiting Alina, he’d been suspicious enough that he had summoned her maid, who had confirmed that Alina had not bled since he’d left. Alina had apparently told the maid that she’d missed periods regularly when she’d lived at Keramzin and that it wasn’t surprising to her to miss one or two now because — maybe it was just her adjusting to the amplifier, but she’d started feeling like she had back then a bit: struggling to catch her breath, frequently nauseated, easily fatigued.
He’d dismissed the maid, unsure whether to be grateful for Alina’s ignorance or irritated by it. Her naivete was clearly what had contributed to her not taking precautions that the other Grisha in the Little Palace — and the one in the Grand Palace — took. He could have taken them, too, he supposed, but it had been so long … and, at any rate, it wasn’t a problem he couldn’t fix.
Genya’s stare hardened, but he was not yet finished. “I would prefer,” he continued, “that she not be informed about the specific nature of your assistance.”
He had long suspected that Genya cared overly much about Alina. The way her nostrils flared and her gaze shifted — part fury, part resentment — and only confirmed what he had guessed when he’d decided to ask her: she would never forgive him for this.
But he did not need forgiveness from Genya. Not for any of it.
“See to it today, Safin,” he ordered, and she nodded once, tightly, before turning to go. She hadn’t made it to the door yet when he added, almost an afterthought, “And help her with the appropriate precautions going forward.”
She turned to look at him, the feelings she so carefully kept off her face in front of the Tsar, in front of Alina and every other Grisha, now all on display for him to see; with the right spark, the hatred in her eyes might have set the country aflame. But he knew as well as she did that she was, first and foremost, a soldier — that no matter what she felt, she would do as she was told.
Her voice was ice when she replied, “As you say, moi soverenyi.”
The tracker was as helpful in getting the third amplifier as he had been the first two, albeit in a different way. If Alina expected the bones of the firebird to be lighter than the ones the Darkling had sealed around her wrist, she did not question it.
From there, the Fold was simple enough. The Darkling took Alina on a skiff and she shone through the Fold, burning it apart. He watched it disappear: the light radiating outwards in a circle, chasing away the darkness. The volcra’s cries pierced the sky as they fled, attempting to outpace the light. Alina glowed — literally, but also with pride — as she pushed the sunlight farther and farther, almost to the edges of Ravka. That was when he intervened.
“Enough, Alina,” he said. She didn’t hear him, too caught up in her own power. He walked behind her, pressed his chest against her back, one hand on her hip — he could almost feel her attention shifting towards him. “Enough,” he whispered in her ear.
She turned to look at him, but didn’t stop. “What?”
“Stop summoning.”
“The Fold is almost gone!”
He sighed. He hadn’t discussed this with her beforehand; as pliable as she sometimes seemed to be, she was also unpredictable and stubborn. It was possible that he also hadn’t discussed it with her because hadn’t wanted to have this conversation — and he didn’t particularly want to have it now. Instead, he placed a hand on her shoulder, took hold of the sun that she had summoned, and let it go.
The blaze was gone, leaving them on the grey sands of the former Fold. He felt Alina trying to summon again, but like swatting at a fly, he brushed her hold on her power away.
She turned to face him, fury and betrayal etched across her face: for the violation that he had committed, that he did not regret, that he would commit again — that, in fact, he was.
“Take us to the Fjerdan border first,” he told the Squaller.
“What,” Alina gasped, anguish and anger in her voice, “are you doing?”
“Saving Ravka,” he replied. He had Ivan take her below so he could focus on what needed to be done.
With the Fold now stretching across Ravka’s borders to the north and the south, and the towns in the line of the expansion providing enough nourishment for the volcra to remain a threat, Ravka was more secure than it had been in an age. Crossing the Fold by skiff in the clear Ravkan plains was one thing; crossing the middle of a mountain range or forest would be far more challenging. A few people would make it through, but anything short of an army didn’t worry him. Ravka would need a stronger naval presence, but now that it was unified again, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Neither was deposing the king. Genya had done her work well, and when the time came, convincing the Tsar to step aside wasn’t an issue. Vasily had to be killed, of course, and the younger prince would be once they found him. Many may have wanted to challenge the Darkling’s rule, but very few ultimately could.
Certainly not Alina. He spent the first couple weeks after the Fold establishing himself as Ravka’s new king — only once the initial upheaval had settled down did he go to see her. He’d kept a hand on the reins of her power during that time, ensuring that she couldn’t yank it free. She had unsuccessfully wrestled with him for her power for a while, but those attempts had petered out quickly. He’d never controlled another Grisha’s power before; it was strange for him, after having amplified so many Grisha both willingly and not, to now be on the controlling side.
She was slumped in a chair when he opened the door to her chambers. She raised her eyes slowly, then registered that it was him and shot out of her chair. She raced towards him and swung a fist; he lamented that she had not been found earlier, that Botkin hadn’t had sufficient time to teach her to throw a punch. He redirected her arm with his own and she followed the momentum of her fist, twisting. He grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms at her sides.
She screamed in frustration. “You can’t keep me locked up forever!”
He glanced around the room at the gilded bed frame, the expensive clocks, priceless antiques. “Half the women in Ravka would give anything to have the Tsarista’s rooms to themselves,” he replied.
“Not anything,” she spat, and he felt her tugging again at her power. He let her have a sliver, just to see what she would do with it; though her arms were pinned to her sides, her hands were free, and she was able to twist a ray of sunlight into what she’d clearly hoped would be a Cut. He sighed and pulled the power back. She screamed again.
“Why? ” she asked.
“Why what?”
“Why did you have to take it from me?”
He’d expected that question, though perhaps not first. He held off on giving an answer, letting her struggle in his grip until she stopped and sagged against him. Perhaps she’d exhausted herself, perhaps it was a ruse; she did not pose a threat to him in any case. He released her and helped her into a chair, where she sat glumly, looking at him from narrowed eyes.
“I asked you to stop, and you didn’t,” he explained.
“You could have told me.” Her lip was trembling, her eyes beginning to water.
“If I had, would you have done as I asked?”
“Yes! No. I don’t — I don’t know.” She looked miserable. Which made sense. After biting her lip for a minute, she continued: “I thought you …” She trailed off.
“You thought I what?”
She glared at him. “I thought you wanted me. Not just as a tool and not just as a fuck but that you wanted —“ She broke off with a sob, then put her face her in hands.
“I want safety for Grisha, Alina,” he replied. “A stronger Ravka.”
“But not me,” she said, bitterly.
“Also you.” It was true, if you looked at it in the right light and squinted, but more importantly, it was what she wanted to hear. “I want you by my side.”
“To help you destroy villages?”
“To help me rule Ravka.” She looked up now, surprised. “To help me keep Grisha safe.”
She narrowed her eyes again. “Will you give me my power back?”
“In time.” He knelt before her chair, bringing himself to her height. “Show me I can trust you, Alina. Show me you’ll work with me; bring the authority of your sainthood to the throne. And this power, all of it —” he took her wrist in his hand and she gasped, the amplifier working on her power, straining at the reins he held it by, “— can once again be yours.”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide, angry, but also hungry. The hunger he remembered, the hunger he liked — and if it made her easier to control, then all the better. He leaned forward, until their lips were nearly touching. She blinked slowly, but did not close her eyes.
“Think about it, Alina,” he murmured.
When he left, she was still sitting there, still holding her breath. Still waiting.
This might, he considered, work out better than he’d let himself hope.
It was not a perfect adjustment. Alina had always had a temper and getting her to comply was a struggle; she had a lot to learn, but once she stopped fighting him she’d have plenty of time to learn it. His own work kept him busy enough that he did not miss her company as much as a small part of him had feared he might.
But the day he gave her back a sliver of her power, and that same night when she allowed him into her bed, he realized that perhaps he had missed this more than he‘d let himself believe.
It was different with her, now — she did not bring him to her bed with the enthusiasm of teenage infatuation. Now, she’d recognized the loneliness inherent in her position; now, he was the only person she could turn to.
That was enough for him.
The next decade passed faster than weeks had in his time in the Little Palace. He was busy in the way he preferred to be, spending his days doing things which mattered. Spending his nights with Alina.
Alina had changed in the last decade. She had been a teenager when they’d met, and she’d matured. Some of it the result of the passage of time, but she’d also become, in many ways, the partner he’d never had. She never fully fit to the shape of the space he’d carved out for her — never willing to bend in all those ways that might have caused her to break — but, surprisingly, he liked her a bit better for that. He would never have called whatever was between them love — and he knew Alina would not either, their relationship built as it was on his ultimate control — but whatever it was, it worked. Or it seemed to, anyway.
Right up until it didn’t.
The northern border hadn’t been problematic, exactly — how problematic could it be, when the Fjerdans would have to get through the Fold first? — but the drüskelle were finding ways to harass Grisha within Ravka even so. He and Alina had missed dinner the previous night while dealing with a series of coordinated attacks, so he was surprised that this morning she was barely touching the array of pastries on the table.
“Not hungry?” he asked.
She scrunched her nose and pushed away her plate. “Lost my appetite — your herring stinks from all the way over here.”
“It doesn’t smell unusual to me,” he replied.
She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “Even being in the same room as it is making me nauseated.”
He blinked. Then he did some counting, and narrowed his eyes. It was uncommon for preventative methods to fail, but it wasn’t unheard of, especially if one wasn’t diligent.
“Why don’t you try a pastry and see if you feel better?” he suggested.
She sighed, then, obliging him as she always did, took a bite of her favorite. And spit it out. “There’s something wrong with them, they taste different today.”
“Different how?”
She widened her eyes at him. “Do I look like a chef? Ask them.”
He was more certain his suspicion was correct when, two days later, he woke to hear her retching in the bathroom.
“What’s wrong, Alina?” he asked from the doorway.
“I told you there was something wrong with the food.” She held her head in her hands for a moment before leaning over to retch again.
And that was when he realized: he was not the only one who could count.
Alina was, as he’d suspected, pregnant — what he hadn’t suspected was that she would try to hide the pregnancy from him.
Perhaps she thought he wouldn’t realize. The boys she grew up with at Keramzin might have received the same dismal education about reproduction that she had herself, but he was neither so young nor so inexperienced. If she thought she could keep this secret from him, if she thought she could use a pregnancy as leverage … then perhaps he had misjudged her. Perhaps it wasn’t the result of an unlucky failure of prevention, after all; perhaps it had been deliberate.
Because the things that she might be able to do with a child of theirs, depending on how it turned out —
He had taken her compliance for acquiescence. But it seemed she had simply been biding her time.
It had been years since he’d kept his hand on the reins of her power, but he put it back there now, relieved to feel nothing out of the ordinary. But that could change in a second, he knew — and when she needed to act, she would act fast.
That just meant he would need to act faster, to figure out what she was planning before she was able to execute on any of it.
So if she intended to distract him from her pregnancy, he would play along.
“I’ll go speak with the cook, then,” he replied, his voice cool.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, before retching once again.
Alina had fallen asleep during the late-night meetings they had with their advisors for three nights in a row now. The advisors left; the click of the door closing behind them roused her, and she looked around blearily.
It would be more suspicious if he didn’t remark on it, so he did. “You don’t usually fall asleep in these meetings, Alina,” he observed.
“They’re not usually this boring.” She yawned, then straightened in her chair. “We just got a new batch of Grisha from the examiners, and they are the most demanding kids I’ve ever met. Working with them has been exhausting.”
He waited a few beats before replying. “I see.”
She looked at him, eyebrow cocked, as if she detected something unusual in the evenness of his voice. But he would not let her know that he knew, not until he also knew what she was up to. He hadn’t figured it out yet — he had hadn’t a clue, actually, which was endlessly annoying, but he didn’t let that show.
“Shall I send someone else to take over their education?” he offered. “It’s not typically the Tsarista’s responsibility.”
“No, it’s fine,” she said, stifling another yawn. “I like working with children.”
That required a delicate response. But by the time he thought of one, she had already curled herself up in the chair, and fallen back asleep.
Despite his best efforts — which were extensive — he could not find any evidence that Alina had made a move to subvert him. She hadn’t taken any secret meetings and hadn’t objected to him joining her for ones he wouldn’t have normally. She hadn’t even attempted to squirrel away funds for an eventual departure. There was nothing out of the ordinary in her activity, at all.
Nothing other than the fact that she was pregnant and lying to him about it.
He decided he should give her a chance to tell him, to allow her to rethink her secrecy around the whole matter. So over lunch one day (a modified lunch menu, due to Alina’s extensive complaints about the food), he asked: “Are there ways in which you wish your life was different, Alina?”
She had been ripping off small pieces of bread, but now she looked up at him. “That’s a strange question.”
He gave his eyebrows an innocent raise. “Is it?”
“Yes.” She straightened and examined him for a moment. “You’ve not been yourself lately.”
He gestured to her plate, where the entirety of a piece of bread had been shredded. “I could say the same about you. Or you could answer my question.”
“You want to know if I wish my life was different?” She leaned back in her chair, one corner of her lips twisting up, though there was no mirth in it. “Just how much of me do you think you’re entitled to?”
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve already helped yourself to almost all of me — my sainthood, my power. My body.” He might have pointed out that she’d shared at least two of those willingly, but she did not give him the chance. “And I have done what you asked: I’ve been your partner in ruling Ravka. I have been your obedient Tsarista, and your beatific Saint. I have done everything you could have hoped for and more.” She leaned forward. “But I need not share every thought with you.”
He did not know how to respond. After a moment, she pushed her chair back and left, perhaps to return to bed, perhaps to the nefarious plot he had not yet been able to discern. He watched her go, considering. Wondering if she would have given that same response ten years ago.
But then again: ten years ago, it would never have occurred to him to ask.
A few nights later, he was awoken by a moan.
“Alina?” He could hear her breath, heavy in the dark. “What is it?”
He reached towards her and felt her curled up in the fetal position. “My stomach,” she groaned.
“Are you about to request they purge the kitchens of yet another food item,” he asked wearily. She’d made the chefs waste far too much food with this pretense already.
“No.” This time he could hear the pain in her voice, the speech through gritted teeth. “It hurts.”
His brows furrowed. “Give us some light, Alina.”
A few pants later, she replied: “You do it.”
In all these years, she’d never once asked him to use her power, never once not fought him when he did it. He paused for a moment, then lit the room around them, a soft glow. Now he could see the sweat on her brow, her breath coming in shallow pants.
It occurred to him that this, at least, was not pretense. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” A grunt as she brought an elbow beneath her. “Help me sit up.”
He positioned his arm behind her, and once she was upright, helped her lean back against the pillow. He went to rearrange the covers around her; when he pulled the covers down, they both saw the blood.
He stared at it for a moment that lasted an age. He had not, in the midst of attempting to identify and subvert Alina’s plan, spent time thinking about what it would mean for them to have a child; he realized now that he would not have to. And that realization brought with it a wave of relief.
But he was surprised to find it was a complicated relief. Rather than allowing himself to contemplate that, he chose to focus on the feeling that came alongside the relief: anticipation.
The pretenses were gone; whatever game they had been playing was over. There was no denying the secret she had been keeping now.
“Oh,” Alina said, relaxing a bit only to grimace again. “This shouldn’t — hurt — this much.”
“I can call a healer,” he said, running a thumb over the sheet between them. “Miscarriages can be quite painful.”
She turned toward him, stared for a beat. “Miscarriages?”
The astonishment in her voice surprised him; perhaps she was under the misconception that Grisha with their improved health did not suffer from such. “They’re not uncommon. They happen to Grisha as well as —”
“You’re saying I was pregnant? ”
The shock on her face was genuine, and it caught him by surprise. He had not considered that this older Alina might not have put the pieces together. He had not considered that she might genuinely not have known.
Had not considered that this might not have been any sort of game to her, at all.
“You didn’t know?” he asked, bewildered.
Her face contorted from pain to rage and betrayal. “You did??”
He left to find a Healer. Alina did not look at him when he returned, and he left once the Healer was by her side.
He waited in the adjacent room for the rest of the night, the door just ajar enough to hear her sobs.
He had misjudged the situation, that much was clear. He had misjudged Alina, had believed her to be subverting him; in return, he had lied to her, and now she knew it. There was a wedge between them that had not been there before, a lack of trust made apparent. If things had been different, he might have asked her if a child was something she would have wanted, and if there was grief at learning what she had lost — but things were not different, and she had made it abundantly clear that she would not be answering any questions he cared to ask for the foreseeable future.
He and Alina had had to work together to trust each other, once, but he had held all the cards then; she had been so inexperienced that it hadn’t been difficult to push her in the directions that he thought best. The situation was different now, and he did not know what to do.
He left her power alone; he kept tabs on it but did not restrict it. He felt her testing her summoning regularly, testing him: she needed to know how far he was willing to let her go, and the truth was that he wasn’t sure. He knew something would have to give, but could not guess what it could be.
And then, one day, she came to him and asked him to let her go.
“I’ve never travelled outside of Ravka,” she said. “I want to see the world.”
He nodded. A reasonable request, if that’s what it would take. “You can have your pick of the guards to take with you,” he replied.
“I will be traveling alone.”
She held his gaze without flinching, without, it seemed, caring what he thought. “You traveling alone presents a security risk.”
“I can defend myself better than any army battalion could. Better even than the palace walls, and you know that.” He did — it had been true for a long time. “So tell me,” she continued, raising her chin, “what is this security risk you’re concerned about?”
She held his gaze, a challenge: she knew what he believed the risk to be. And in the interest of giving her what she wanted to hear, he said it. “I’m afraid you won’t return.”
“Because you don’t trust me.”
His jaw clenched. Of course he didn’t trust her. How could he?
And after what he’d assumed about her, what he’d kept from her, how could she trust him?
“Have you considered,” she suggested, “that this is what we both need?”
How could this be what I need? he wanted to ask. Instead he said: “Explain.”
“If you let me leave, and I come back, maybe you’ll finally be able to trust me.” She walked toward him, close enough that she had to tilt her head up, close enough that, if she wanted, she could touch him as she had not these past many months. “And if you let me go, if you keep your hands off my power the entire time I’m away — then maybe, maybe I’ll be able to trust you.”
He did not need to let her leave. He could do any number of things to ensure her compliance once again: most simply, he could take her power, call the guards, and have her chained in the basement until she broke.
But even as he thought it, he knew that her compliance alone would never again be enough for him. He needed more of her than that.
“Is there another way?” he asked.
“No,” she said simply. “There isn’t.”
He watched her, the girl she had been, the woman she was, the hard edges of her and the shattered vessel of trust between them.
“Then go, Alina,” he said.
She nodded once, turned on her heel, and left.
He did not see her again for nearly twenty years.
He had not given up hope of her returning — he could not have endured if he had — but he no longer glanced out the window during meetings, no longer woke in the middle of the night thinking a footstep might be hers. He did not wait an extra hour for dinner so that if she arrived hungry there would be food at the ready; he did not stay up late just in case. He carried on as he had carried on before Alina, with one difference — now he was accompanied by the awareness of a lack that he had not felt those many, many years before they met.
He received occasional reports of her appearances in Novyi Zem, Kerch, Shu Han. Mostly not official business, though she wasn’t beneath using her title when it suited her. As the years went on, reports became fewer and farther between. When people would ask after the Tsarista’s return, he’d answer, “She’ll come back when she’s ready.”
The separation wore at him, though he ignored it as best he could. He did not touch her power while she was gone, though he wanted to, desperately — not even to control her, but just to connect to some part of her. If he wanted her to return, though, he knew he needed to wait.
And even though he had been anticipating it with every fiber of his being, her return still caught him by surprise.
It was the middle of winter in Ravka; there were hours yet before he would turn in for the night, but the sun had long ago set. She entered his chambers without knocking — he heard the familiar footsteps coming down the hall, had gone through the well-worn routine of convincing himself that it could not be her.
And then he looked up.
In the midst of the darkness of winter, in the midst of his desperate loneliness, she was an oasis. He did not recognize the style of clothing she wore — he had not left Ravka since she had, unwilling to not be here for her return — but it suited her, accentuating her without softening her a bit. Her cheeks were flushed from the chill, but when he approached her, she radiated warmth.
“You were gone a long time,” he said, dumbly, unable to think of anything else.
She watched him evenly. “I was.”
“I did not touch your power.”
“I know.”
They stared at each other for a few minutes, his heart beating heavily in his chest. He was nearly too afraid to ask the next question, but he needed to know the answer. He asked, “Are you planning to stay?”
“Do you want me to?”
Two decades ago he could not have given an honest answer to this question, because he would not have known what it was. “Yes,” he said.
She placed her hand into his, the first time in decades they had touched. Her skin was warm, and their fingers laced together like she was young again, before he’d had a chance to betray her even once. Her expression didn’t soften, but it did shift. He couldn’t read it anymore.
She looked down at their hands, then up again at him. “This time, we do things the way I want,” she said.
She would stay. He did not have the words to respond to that.
In the end, she did not require him to speak very much.
Ruling Ravka with Alina by his side was different than it had been all those years ago. She knew more now, had more experience, and more confidence, too. She had more edges — or maybe the same edges, but more pronounced. There were parts of her past he would never know about, now; the mystery did not bother him as it might have once.
He was different, too, he found — a little more gauzy-headed, not thinking as clearly as he once had, and he briefly wondered if she’d managed to find a way to drug him. But then he realized his inability to think was only when she was in the room.
And for the first time — for the first time, he trusted her. When she looked at him — calmly, openly — he realized that she trusted him, too.
They both knew that if she asked to go again, he would let her go. And that was why she did not ask.
He also realized that he had never seen her happy before, not really. Those early days in the Little Palace — perhaps she might have thought herself happy then, but this was something different. This was a happiness with herself, a confidence in herself that she’d never developed, that he’d never let her develop. And a contentedness with him that had not ever existed before, either. Perhaps he did not quite fit the mold she’d designed for him, either; perhaps she also liked that.
And when she smiled at him like they shared a secret, he allowed himself, as strange as it felt, to smile back.
They were seated in deep chairs in front of the fire one evening after she’d been home nearly a month and half. She had different patterns than she had before she left, and he’d had to adjust to those, too; tonight he went through a stack of correspondence while she dozed, leaning back in her chair. A log cracked loudly enough to rouse her and she looked over at him, giving him one of her smiles, which he returned.
After a few moments of just watching each other, she asked, “How do you feel about it?”
“About what?”
“The baby.”
His heart failed to beat, then started again. “The what?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Did you really not know I’m pregnant?”
He opened his mouth, closed it. What might he have noticed that he failed to? He went back through their interactions, cataloging them. Wondering. He shook his head.
Then, it was only because he trusted her as much as he did that he was able to ask: “Mine?”
And it must have only been because she trusted him, too, that a corner of her lips ticked up as she answered: “Of course.”
Something complicated happened in his chest. He did not know what of that might be showing on his face, but after a moment she cocked her head. “I didn’t expect this to catch you by surprise.”
Everything had been catching him by surprise lately. Including being surprised to find that he didn’t mind the surprises.
Didn’t mind this one, even.
She curled her feet beneath her on the chair and leaned back. He forced his hands to relax, placed his elbows on the armrest of his chair. Kept his voice even as he asked, “What will we do now, Alina?”
She looked at him from where her head tilted back against the chair. “We’ll do better, this time,” she said.
This time, he marveled. How many times in life were people truly given another chance?
“You think so?” he asked.
“No, Aleksander.” She adjusted herself in the chair before closing her eyes again, a tiny smile at the corner of her lips. “I know.”