Siege and Storm (Shadow and Bone #2)(102)

I rested my hand on his cheek, hoping that there was still enough between us that he would understand. I stood on my toes and kissed the scar on his jaw.

“I have loved you all my life, Mal,” I whispered through my tears. “There is no end to our story.”

I stepped back, memorizing every line of his beloved face. Then I turned and walked up the aisle. My steps were sure. Mal would have a life. He’d find his purpose. I had to seek mine. Nikolai had promised me a chance to save Ravka, to make amends for all I’d done. He’d tried, but it was the Darkling’s gift to give.

“Alina!” Mal shouted. I heard scuffling behind me and knew Tolya had taken hold of him. “Alina!” His voice was raw white wood, torn from the heart of a tree. I did not turn.

The Darkling stood waiting, his shadow guard hovering and shifting around him.

I was afraid, but beneath the fear, I was eager.

“We are alike,” he said, “as no one else is, as no one else will ever be.”

The truth of it rang through me. Like calls to like.

He held out his hand, and I stepped into his arms.

I cupped the back of his neck, feeling the silken brush of his hair on my fingertips. I knew Mal was watching. I needed him to turn away. I needed him to go. I tilted my face up to the Darkling’s.

“My power is yours,” I whispered.

I saw the elation and triumph in his eyes as he lowered his mouth to mine. Our lips met, and the connection between us opened. This was not the way he’d touched me in my visions, when he’d come to me as shadow. This was real, and I could drown in it.

Power flowed through me—the power of the stag, its strong heart beating in both our bodies, the life he’d taken, the life I’d tried to save. But I also felt the Darkling’s power, the power of the Black Heretic, the power of the Fold.

Like calls to like. I’d sensed it when the Hummingbird entered the Unsea, but I’d been too afraid to embrace it. This time, I didn’t fight. I let go of my fear, my guilt, my shame. There was darkness inside me. He had put it there, and I would no longer deny it. The volcra, the nichevo’ya, they were my monsters, all of them. And he was my monster, too.

“My power is yours,” I repeated. His arms tightened around me. “And yours is mine,” I whispered against his lips.

Mine. The word reverberated through me, through both of us.

The shadow soldiers shifted and whirred.

I remembered the way it had felt in that snowy glade, when the Darkling had placed the collar around my neck and seized control of my power. I reached across the connection between us.

He reared back. “What are you doing?”

I knew why he had never intended to kill the sea whip himself, why he hadn’t wanted to form that second connection. He was afraid.

Mine.

I forced my way across the bond forged by Morozova’s collar and grabbed hold of the Darkling’s power.

Darkness spilled from him, black ink from his palms, billowing and skittering, blooming into the shape of a nichevo’ya, forming hands, head, claws, wings. The first of my abominations.

The Darkling tried to pull away from me, but I clutched him tighter, calling his power, calling the darkness as he had once used the collar to summon my light.

Another creature burst forth, and then another. The Darkling cried out as it was wrenched from him. I felt it too, felt my heart constrict as each shadow soldier tore a little bit of me away, exacting the price of its creation.

“Stop,” the Darkling rasped.

The nichevo’ya whirred nervously around us, clicking and humming, faster and faster. One after another, I pulled my dark soldiers into being, and my army rose up around us.

The Darkling moaned, and so did I. We fell against each other, but still I did not relent.

“You’ll kill us both!” he cried.

“Yes,” I said.

The Darkling’s legs buckled, and we collapsed to our knees.

This was not the Small Science. This was magic, something ancient, the making at the heart of the world. It was terrifying, limitless. No wonder the Darkling hungered for more.

The darkness buzzed and clattered, a thousand locusts, beetles, hungry flies, clicking their legs, beating their wings. The nichevo’ya wavered and re-formed, whirring in a frenzy, driven on by his rage and my exultation.

Another monster. Another. Blood was pouring from the Darkling’s nose. The room seemed to rock, and I realized I was convulsing. I was dying, bit by bit, with every monster that wrenched itself free.

Just a little longer, I thought. Just a few more. Just enough so I know that I’ve sent him to the next world before I follow.

“Alina!” I heard Mal calling as if from a great distance. He was tugging at me, pulling me away.

“No!” I shouted. “Let me end this.”

“Alina!”

Mal seized my wrist, and a shock passed through me. Through the haze of blood and shadow, I glimpsed something beautiful, as if through a golden door.

He wrenched me away from the Darkling, but not before I called out to my children in one final exhortation: Bring it down.

The Darkling slumped to the ground. The monsters rose in a whirling black column around him, then crashed against the walls of the chapel, shaking the little building to its very foundations.

Mal had me in his arms and was running up the aisle. The nichevo’ya were hurling themselves against the chapel walls. Slabs of plaster crashed to the floor. The blue dome swayed as its supports began to give way.