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I. When we were young
The first time Aleksander met her, he didn’t know how important she would be to him. He was but a boy of maybe seven summers, and she was barely a year younger when Baghra moved them into the village in the area that would later become known as the Sikurzoi mountains.
Ana’s family lived in the house next to theirs, her father welcoming them to the community, her mother coming over on the first day with food and the invitation to always come by when they needed something. And that was when they first met.
Ana. His first real friend. The youngest daughter of the neighbour's family, her brothers, and sisters all older than her. Together they explored the hills and forests around their village, went fishing together and plucked berries for their mothers from the hedges. She was the first person that he let touch him outside of his mother.
In the time Mother and he spent in this place, Ana and Aleksander became inseparable, with barely a day going by that they did not see each other. His mother finds it mildly amusing, her warnings about keeping a distance and especially about not letting other people touch him are always prevalent. Ana’s mother finds it charming,
But for some reason or another, his mother has them move two summers after they had come. Why Aleksander never knew, but she had sensed some danger to them and had decided that it was time to move on. Their stay there had been one of the longest he remembered being in one place.
He did not even get to say goodbye to Ana. That is what his younger self truly regretted. His closest friend, his only confidante besides his mother, his playmate and the only one he had ever met that made his skin tingle when they touched.
When he finally asked his mother about it, she paused and just looked at him for a long time. Her eyes remained unfathomable and dark, not bearing any thought on him.
“You let her touch you.” She finally asked back.
“Yes, when we played.” Aleksander knew that, theoretically, Baghra had strongly warned him not to touch others, lest he revealed himself as an amplifier. She had drummed into him the danger he would be in if he would reveal as such, and he had seen it in one of their last Grisha villages themselves when two relatively weak men had boasted about their animal amplifiers. Two beautiful creatures were slaughtered so the men would gain a modicum of extra power.
“And what did it feel like? Did she realize it, did she tell anyone?” There was a strange fire in her eyes.
“It tingled. Whenever our skin met, it felt like sparks would fly.”
“Do you think she was Grisha?” His mother’s voice shook just the barest bit, if he wasn’t so familiar with her moods, he wouldn’t have noticed it.
“I think so. But I think she didn’t know that yet.” Aleksander answered earnestly. Because Ana had told him that she was fascinated by Grisha power, but nothing had ever indicated that she knew she had powers herself.
Even years later, Aleksander remembered the deep sigh that Baghra dropped at this. And then she told him. About soulmates, about the first sign when soulmates met before their time, about how your skin would tingle, about how the world seemed to stop sometimes, or one felt a warm feeling enveloping the whole body. But sometime at the point when both parties had counted seventeen summers to their name, their soulmarks would appear.
Aleksander was elated at this. So, he had a soulmate, and it was Ana, his best friend. He begged his mother to go back as soon as they could, maybe Ana could come travelling with them so they would always be together. But Baghra said no, a sad smile on her lips, as it was too dangerous for them after an almost discovery of Baghra’s powers.
So, for weeks and weeks, he laid in his mother’s lap, like he had done when he was much younger, and cried. Wishing to go back, wishing to go to Ana again.
Baghra promised him that they would return to the hamlet, but when they finally were able to go over a decade later, the village was no more. Probably pillaged during the many skirmishes between the kingdoms and fiefdoms, with their former friends and neighbours now long dead or settled elsewhere.
II. Unbreak my heart
The years went by, and after the incident in Fjerda with Annika and Sylvi, Aleksander had taken his mother’s warnings a bit more to heart than before. He did not tell people secrets any more, he rarely touched anyone, except if he could be sure that the person was otkazat'sya.
His mother and he had gone their separate ways for now, but they will surely find each other again. For now, Aleksander had travelled South to the empire of Shu Han.
He had learned the language as a young man at his mother’s behest, and now he dove deeper into their culture, refined his language skills, and got to know the people. He travelled their great palaces, and their cities, and spoke with their learned men and women. Shu Han was a beautiful place - even if it was way too warm in summer for his liking – even though their attitudes towards Grisha were worrisome. He had to hide elsewhere as well, but in parts of Shu Han there had been more hostility than elsewhere. It seemed they mistrusted everything they didn’t deem natural, be it Grisha powers or soulmarks.
More than three years after he had started this journey, Aleksander arrived in one of their smaller cities, near Nehlu.
It was a chance meeting, if he would still believe in Gods or Saints or whatever people believed in, he would have thought that they had guided his steps towards her again. She stepped onto the market square with a servant, radiant as the sun. At least to Aleksander. As soon as she had stepped onto that square, his soul had been soothed by her mere presence. And when he had finally seen her face again, he had immediately known that it was her.
Aleksander once again could not explain it. The draw he felt towards her, the way his heart seemed to beat faster but he seemed calmer than he had ever been in his life when he laid eyes upon her. But it was her.
“What is that lady's name? She looks very familiar.” He murmured to his current travel companion, a scholar whom he had accompanied on his travel back to the city.
“Mistress Ai-Ling Song, my friend.”
Ai-Ling. He repeated the name a few times in his head.
From everything he knew now of the world, Aleksander was sure that Ai-Ling was his soulmate. But he soon found out, that she was married, this time and expecting a child with her husband. It would do no good to steal her away now. Even getting to know her would be difficult as such, and as far as he knew the people of Shu Han did not look too kindly upon soulmates and often tried to break these unions on purpose to the detriment of the involved parties.
He stayed for months to observe her from afar, even though his original plan had been to travel further South and explore Shu Han.
She was radiant, glowing like the sun as her pregnancy progressed. Aleksander’s heart ached every time he saw her. Maybe, he hoped, maybe he could spirit her away after the birth. Maybe there was a future for them.
But alas, it was not to be. They seemed to be destined to cross paths, but never to merge with one another. When he got the news, that she had died in the childbed, Aleksander packed his bags. He could not bear to stand in the city any day longer.
If he was lucky, he would meet her another time.
III. In the end it doesn't really matter)
He loved Luda.
He truly did. Aleksander had been prepared to be with her and love her until she would draw her last breath. They had met when Luda had found his safe haven, a few decades after his trip to Shu Han, and wanted to evaluate if it would be a safe place. She had stayed and contributed with her powers as a healer, caring for the Grisha in their little community. Caring for him. It did not take too long for him to throw all of his mother’s warnings out of the window. Luda stirred something in him. She was not his soulmate, that much was clear to both of them. But there was genuine affection and love and passion between them. So why not enjoy it while it lasted?
Luda was a widow, with a daughter from a previous marriage. And while the healer worked for their cause and helped many people in their little enclave, the child remained with her elderly parents for now. But at some point, there came news that their health was declining. Luda had missed her daughter and jumped at the opportunity to be reunited with her. She left and travelled back to her town, and when she came back a few weeks later, she had a little girl with her.
Alya was four summers old. A precious child, maybe a bit shy, but with an adorable smile that she graced him with after a few days.
At their first meeting, she hid in her mother’s skirts from Aleksander. Luda gently nudged her forward, coaxing her away from her hiding place. Aleksander had no clue about children, how could he? His life so far had consisted mostly of war, politics and trying to survive. There had been no place for a child, and they were rarely around him.
There was a strange familiarity around her, a strange pull towards her. Aleksander couldn’t place it until she smiled at him for the first time. When that happened, it was warming his heart like the sun was shining on him.
Ana. It felt like it had with Ana. The way his heart beat a bit faster like he was lying in the warm sun being warmed through by the first rays in spring when winter had finally disappeared.
And in the years after they had parted, Aleksander had spoken with many people and got so much more knowledge about the world, and he was pretty sure that this feeling was very similar to the feeling soulmates had when meeting each other.
In the months that followed, he achieved happiness he had not thought possible before. Luda was his wife in everything but name, and he had taken Alya as his own daughter. His mother always warned him that this would not last. That he would outlive them both and be alone again. He didn’t dare to tell her of that strange pull he had towards Alya. Baghra would only find something else to nag about, trouble was always on her mind. The thoughts of loneliness and abandonment surrounded her like storm clouds, and Aleksander doubted his mother would ever be able to lose them.
He was also sure that little Alya was a summoner. When he played with her, when she demanded he carry her around or swing her, he felt a tingling where their skin met. Her not-yet-manifested power already rising to his amplification. He never thought, he would have children. Aleksander knew of his mother’s struggles to have a child that would be like her, of the heartbreak she had suffered watching her children die… And he knew that he would not go down that route.
But with Luda and Alya? He had a family here. In the few months they had together, the little girl had become his daughter in every aspect that counted. Aleksander had even begun understanding the fierce devotion his own mother had had towards him and his security. Aleksander was her father, in everything but name, and even that would change when he and Luda would be able to marry.
When Anastas’s men came and apprehended him in Luda’s house, and then dragged her out of the house after they had observed her helping him, they had awoken Alya. Aleksander had not realized it until the little girl was sprinting out of the house towards Luda.
As soon as he saw her, everything seemed to happen all at once. Luda tried to fight her way out of her captor’s grip, a cloud of arrows were let go towards the suddenly appearing target. Then a knife sliced into Luda from behind, and the agonizing cry of a little girl in pain.
Panic and fury gripped him. Aleksander reached deep within himself and the Cut, while a powerful tool on its own, became even more powerful when fuelled with his wrath. The king’s men were all sliced in half.
He scurried over to Luda and cradled her in his arms, begging her to not leave him.
“Save her. I can still feel her heart beating.” Luda sobbed in his arms, her speech already becoming slurred, her eyes growing distant. “Save Alya. She might make it; it is too late for me.”
He made it back to the safe keep with a bleeding little girl in his arms, urging the horse way beyond its usual capabilities. All the while whispering to Alya that all would be well, telling her he would protect her for all eternity.
But at the keep, there was no other healer available, and the ride had weakened Alya’s small, injured body further. Baghra was by his side, using her old knowledge of helpful herbs and otkazat'sya healing methods to somehow alleviate the girl’s pain, making her hold out until maybe some of the other healers would come back from their current mission, but it was not to be. Alya’s time in this world was over only a day after her mother’s death.
Aleksander was holding her hand when she took her last breath. His mother’s hand strangely comforting on his shoulder.
Hours later the king’s henchmen were at their door, demanding his surrender. Aleksander knew that as soon as he would give it to them, they would slaughter everyone. He was caught between a rock and hard place. Whatever decision he would make, all Grisha would suffer for it.
Something in him snapped, and he let go of the power within him.
The Fold that he created on that day was to be his greatest achievement but also his biggest shame for many years to come. A monument to what he had lost on that day.
Aleksander only hoped that his path would cross with Alya’s soul for the third time.
IV. You were always on my mind
She would be safe with him; Aleksander swore to himself. When it was finally in his grasp, Aleksander threw everything he had into building the Little Palace. He would still be subject to the tsar’s will, but it was a relative safety for his Grisha.
He should have expected it, Ana not being reborn in Ravka but elsewhere. But Aleksander did not prepare for it.
Until one night, an urgent report from Fjerda reached him. A story from a border town, some druskelle had rounded up Grisha there and given them “a trial.” The verdict and sentence were clear and, unfortunately, nothing unusual with the Fjerdans. But, during the burning, something extraordinary had happened. According to all reports he received, one young woman had exploded in a ball of light when being burned at the stake, taking the whole village with her to death.
So, she had been there. But he had been too late. He had not been able to save her as he had promised.
Up till now, Aleksander had never really thought about what his soulmates powers would be, but of course it made sense that his soulmate would be his match in every way. Sun to moon. Day to night. Shadow to light.
And if there were sun summoners at some point in time being born in Kerch, Novyi Zyem or the Wandering Isle… well this news certainly never reached him.
There were others. Aleksander was sure of it, and he always hunted down any rumours as soon as they came to his ears. She appeared throughout the years, but he only got to meet her on a few rare occasions in brief flashes. And he was sure that it was her. With the ones he got to meet in those fleeting moments, he could tell through the look in her eyes, the tilt in her head, and sometimes even the way they spoke, that this was Ana, or Alya, or whatever name she had been given in this iteration. Always the same feeling warming him from within. The same content that he had felt the first and the second time.
They were not meant to be just yet it seemed. But something bloomed in his chest. A surety that this woman, this soul that had been reborn at least a handful of times already and that he had crossed paths with occasionally, was his other half. The figure that was meant as his equal by the making. The sun summoner.
Aleksander knew he would find her again, and if he helped it along a bit, who was there to complain to the making?
V. Here comes the sun
No matter how often he had gone already, going to Kribirsk was annoying and disconcerting. His folly, his shame, visible for the world to see. Not that anyone except Baghra knew that he had created the Fold, but still it gnawed at him every time he saw it. It reminded him too much of what he had lost.
The new skiff, made by his best durasts, was ready to be tested for its maiden voyage through the Unsea. He had recently had the desire to see the True Sea again, but it was a hassle to fight or sneak through Fjerda or Shu Han to get there. Now was not the time for such a journey anyway. Not when the tsar was breathing down his neck with the latest attacks from Fjerda. Not while the tsaritsa also begged for a peace contract with Fjerda and her countrymen. Not when it meant all his Grisha could be in immense danger from the crown. No time for personal indulgences.
But a trip to Kribirsk was necessary for now. He had things to oversee, counterattacks to plan and some of his spies were due to report back in Kribirsk from their latest missions. He needed the information to plan his next steps.
He personally saw the skiff off. Zoya was a competent squaller, the best in her class. Maybe a bit too intent on pleasing him, but he was human after all.
A blue scarf was blown away from one of the soldiers from the skiff and landed near his feet. For a moment Aleksander felt a slight tug at his heart, but then he went back to his tent.
Paperwork was tedious.
There was a sudden chaos in front of his tent. Then Fedyor burst in, a bit ruffled, his eyes wide but his mien uncharacteristically earnest. “Moi soveryeni. There has been an incident on the skiff.”
“On the skiff? They barely left, how can there have been an accident?” He snarled back, wanting to finish at least some of the tasks of the day without interruptions.
Fedyor gulped, his eyes wide. “It has just docked back into the ports.”
An attack then. Saints, he really hoped that it was salvageable, he had great hopes for that new design.
“How is the crew?”
“Most of them seem to have made it out alive. A few casualties among the First and Second Army.” Fedyor was still speaking as if someone was coming after him. “But… there is more.”
Aleksander only raised an eyebrow. Fedyor would tell him, but whatever had happened had made one of his best heartrenders shiny-eyed and even more talkative than usual, his eyes alight with reverence.
“The Fold lit up a while ago. Maybe the quarter of an hour after the skiff left. The first time it was thought it might be a heavy storm and lightning on the other side of the Fold. But then it continued. It was like lightning was illuminating the fold from within.”
Now that definitely had his attention. Could it be? She could be here? It had been a while since he last saw his… soul mate. How he loved and hated that word. That whole concept. He had waited so long, and had suffered so much. He deserved some happiness. But he had accumulated so many secrets, so many things that could not, should not ever be heard again. How could he still have a soul mate?
“Sun Summoner.” Aleksander did not like how breathless he sounded, but Fedyor just nodded, hopefully, oblivious to his surely elevated heart rate.
“Find out who was responsible and have them brought to the Grisha tent.” After a moment he added. “Bring everyone you deem able to give testimony from that skiff. I want to know what happened.” And then Aleksander spent quite a bit of time, anxious and pacing in his tent, before he made his way to the bigger one where he would receive her.
By the time they brought the supposed cause of this light, as well as the rest of the crew, to the Grisha tent Aleksander had calmed himself down enough to not be absolutely giddy and face this situation with the needed seriousness. Before his Grisha he had to maintain a certain composure.
So, when they brought a young woman with raven black hair into the tent, Aleksander outwardly was the perfectly composed leader of the Second Army. She was young, underfed, highly likely suffering from wasting sickness. He noted all of this with concern, before looking directly at her face. The light in her eyes, even though she seemed scared right now, was the same. The warmth that bloomed in his chest was the same as it had been every time before.
She was shoved into the midst of the tent. Unsure and hesitant, she stood there, trembling under his gaze. It occurred to Aleksander at this moment that it might be a bit strange that he had not said a word so far, only stared at her. “What are you?” Who was she in this life?
“Alina Starkov. Assistant cartographer. Royal corps of surveyors.” Her voice trembled a bit, but Aleksander paid it no mind and sank into his observations again. Alina . The bright one. A fitting name for the sun summoner.
“They are all gone. It’s my fault. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?” This brought him back into the present. She sounded miserable about the deaths that had happened. They were not her fault, if anything they were his, even if he couldn’t tell her that yet. But had Alina known what she was?
“Answer the question. What are you?” Aleksander pressed another time.
“A mapmaker, Sir.” So, she had not known. Laughter rang through the tent. His Grisha and the First Army soldiers thought it funny?
“Quiet.” He would not accept any insolence towards his soulmate, but he still had to get to the bottom of what had happened on the skiff.
“So, who actually saw what happened? Zoya, you manned the main sail.” He briefly glanced at the reliable squaller, before his eyes fixed themselves on Alina’s face again.
“We were attacked. Barely two markers in. Someone lit a lantern.” Aleksander wanted to growl at the sheer stupidity of it. He knew that the crew had been warned. Why was there always someone who did not listen properly?
“And?” He drank in Alina’s features, the way her hair was just a bit loose and Aleksander wondered how it would feel in his hands. How her skin would feel under his fingers.
“The Volcra went after the riflemen and our Inferni first. And then there was a searing light.” As Aleksander glanced over to Zoya again, her gaze was fixed firmly on Alina. Her eyes, like Fedyor’s before, shone with adoration. The way her gaze bore into Alina was his first confirmation.
“It was her.” The second confirmation.
“Our mapmaker,” Aleksander said with some affection. She would not remain a mapmaker for long. He would bring her out of the First Army. Out of the shabby clothes and free her from the scarce food supplies and give her everything.
He asked her a few questions, soaking up every piece of information she was willing to give him, but she was so unsure about herself. In denial about her summoning abilities. An orphan, it seemed, in Duke Keramzin’s care.
If she was to be established as the sun summoner, with no one doubting it and securing her the status among Grisha and otkazat’sya she deserved, he would have to make it as public as possible that Alina Starkov was the one they all had been waiting for. “Well, let us just make certain.”
She was hesitant to do as he told her, not bearing her arm to his test.
“Your sleeve, please.” Hesitantly, she lifted her tattered sleeve at his second insistence, barely bearing her wrist to him. In an urge to feel her skin against his for the first time, he grabbed her wrist with one hand and shoved up the rest of the sleeve to her upper arm, wondering if her own skin tingled the same as his own where their skin touched.
He had drenched the tent in shadows before so that they would not signal to everyone in the closest one hundred miles that they had found the legendary sun summoner, but it was not to be kept secret. With his talon ring in hand, Aleksander cut a tiny, superficial cut into her arm.
A searing pillar of light erupted from the little cut, burning his shadows away.
Alina’s gaze was fixed on the light, while his was more fixed on her face. Awe, bewilderment, and wonder playing on her face.
“I didn’t know.” She whispered inaudibly to the rest of the room.
As soon as he let go of her arm, the light vanished, the burning slowly fading away to some wispy lights. But a different burn crept up Aleksander’s arm, and if he was not completely mistaken also hers. It was finally the right moment in time. The soulmarks were forming on their skin.
“Everyone out.” Aleksander snarled with the last bit of restraint he had. He wanted to have this moment only with her. In mere moments, everyone was out of the tent. Alina and he were finally alone together.
This finally felt right. Something in him had clicked, like all pieces of a puzzle coming together, or all the stars now perfectly aligned. Even if she still looked confused, especially now that she was alone with him.
Aleksander smiled at her, as he unlaced the fabric around his right wrist. “I thought it best, that we were alone for the next thing.” Their soulmark, a sun in eclipse, was now inked forever on him. And Aleksander wouldn’t want to have it any other way. He held it out to her.
Her face, which had been only fear and confusion when she had been brought here, morphed into something different. Her gaze glanced towards her wrist, and then back and forth to his own. Contentment settled over her as she took a deep, shuddering breath and then smiled at him, her face alight with wonder.
“It is you.”
Aleksander lifted her marked wrist to his mouth, gently tracing it with his lips. All the while never breaking eye contact with her. A shiver gripped her as his lips touched her skin for the first time. “I have waited a long time for you, Alina Starkov.”