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Alina wakes to the scents of something delicious wafting through her home.
She burrows her head in her pillow, yawning. Stretches, grinning stupidly at the lingering aches from the night prior. She doesn’t know much about Aleksandr, but she can say with perfect honesty that the man knows what he’s doing in the bed. Which is good, because it isn’t like Alina had much knowledge beyond tab a inserts into slot b.
She hums into the pillow before sighing and hoisting herself up. A mere glance out the side window tells her she’s slept much later than she’s ever managed before in her life. And, assessing this for a moment, notes that she actually feels well-rested for once. And hungry. If this is what good sex does for her, she’s going to have to make sure that Aleksandr spends most of his nights in her bed.
Alina gets out of bed and over to the washbasin. Pouring the waiting pitcher of water into the basin, she mixes in a touch of rose water and grabs the waiting cloth. Her wash is perfunctory, possibly a little two quick given the mess between her thighs, but her stomach is rumbling and the smells coming from below are beckoning. She throws on the first pieces of clothing she manages to grab, then slips down the stairs.
Stops in the small kitchen, and just stares.
Aleksandr is standing before the stove in nothing but a pair of pants, a cloth thrown over his shoulder as he stirs something in the pan on the stove. On the small table already rests tea, a small platter of pancakes, and another small platter of zapekanka. What looks like her entire pantry litters the space between - all four jams, the powdered sugar, the butter, the cold crème, the milk.
“What’s all this?” she asks.
He cocks his head to the side, but doesn’t look away from the stove. “Breakfast,” he tells her. “Please, sit and start eating. You’re going to be ravenous for a while.”
She raises a brow. “Last night was amazing, Aleksandr, but I’ve never had a large appetite, especially in the morning. I hope you’re not intending me to eat all of this.”
“Yes, I am.” He pulls the pan from the stove top and turns to set it on top of the waiting cloth on the table. Porridge. He’d made her porridge.
She crosses the room, places a hand on his arm, shivering at the delicious pull of heat that rocks through her body as she does so. He’s a living amplifier, she remembers from what little talking they’d done the night before, remembering on the heels of that thought that she is grisha now. “I’m serious, Aleksandr. It smells delicious, and I’m grateful one of us knows how to cook more than basic bread, but I’m never going to be able to eat all of that.”
He looks at her, something sad in the set of his face. “Milaya, eat what you can. But you’ll find yourself hungrier than you think.” He leans over and kisses her forehead, lingering for a long moment before he pulls away. “You’ve been coasting through life by the skin of your teeth, milaya. I imagine your nonexistent appetite was caused by the food tasting like ash in your mouth. Nothing satisfied, so you learned to ignore the hunger.”
She blinks. “That’s …remarkably accurate. How did you know?”
“It is the wasting sickness,” he says. “One of the first signs is loss of appetite. Followed by periods of intense lethargy and long bouts of insomnia.” He pours her a large cup of tea, and she sighs at the scents of cinnamon, clove, and citrus that rises from the cup. “Eat up,” he tells her again. “I’ll be back shortly.”
She looks up. “Where are you going?”
Aleksandr smiles. “I need to fetch the rest of my things from the inn, and post a letter to my fellows.” His eyes are dark and deep as he stares at her. “I’d like to do this right, if you don’t mind, and marry you in grisha custom.”
She cocks her head. “Is that different from how it’s normally done?” Winces even as she says it. Normally done. Saints, just imply her husband-to-be is abnormal.
Thankfully he doesn’t seem to take much if any offense by her words. “Grisha aren’t allowed to be married, technically, by Ravka law. So we’ve formed our own traditions. Our marriages aren’t legally binding, but they are more deeply meant.”
She nods thoughtfully. “So I don’t need a chaplain?”
“Oh, no. You should book an appointment with one as soon as possible.”
“But you said-”
“No one knows you’re grisha yet, Alinochka. If I have my way, no one will know until you are ready and prepared for what it means to be the Sun Summoner in Ravka. And my current identity is as otkazat’sya as they come. We will be married under both traditions.”
Alina looks at this man. “Why?” she asks him simply.
The look on his face should scare her. Possessive, fanatic, hungry . It should alarm her. But Alina feels… good under such a gaze. Wanted. Beautiful. Oddly safe .
“I have waited a long time for you,” he tells her. “Longer than you could ever dream. I would bind you to me in all the ways if you would let me.”
And… Alina should be hesitant. She should . She knows nothing, really, about this man. He is a veritable stranger, and this could all be some kind of set up. But, at the same time, she can’t find it in herself to truly care about what she should do. She had been prepared to marry a stranger - that’s what the whole advertisement had been about in the first place. That she had found a falsely-dead grisha general instead of a normal man is a bit of a twist, and she highly suspects he isn’t telling her something, but she’ll ride with it until it ends.
So she smiles at him and nods, watching as he smiles back at her, radiant in his relief.
***
Aleksandr can’t stop smiling.
It would be a problem, if he was still still playing at being Kirigan. As it is, he is free to be exactly what he is - a man sublimely pleased with the world at the moment.
Alina Starkova is a gift from the Making, and nothing anyone tells him will ever change that for him. How else can he explain the inane urge to read the personals that day? How else can he explain the sudden, pressing drive to answer that one advertisement out of the dozens just like it? How else can he explain the growing, steady fear that if he hesitated he would regret it for all time?
The Sun Summoner. Making , his little bride-to-be is the Sun Summoner .
He is giddy with excitement. He has never had an equal before. Lovers aplenty, of both sexes, but never the possibility of eternity. And he will have decades with her all his. He won’t have to share her with incompetent royals, or sycophantic otkazat’sya, or even his head-strong grisha. (He values them all, appreciates their loyalty, but he never forgets that they are people instead of pets. They have their own feelings, their own thoughts, and at times those are in direct opposition to what he needs from them.)
Aleksandr thinks hard on all the plans and contingencies he’d ever made in regards to the eventual discovery of the Sun Summoner. He immediately discards most of them - they’d been made with the idea of discovering them as a child and raising them. He also discards the more… manipulative of them. He’s only known Alina for a few hours, but he can tell she is an astute woman, clever and careful. Her warning rings loud and clear in his head - he will lose her if he proceeds like she is brainless, naïve, gullible.
And that is something he will not tolerate. Not now, not ever. He wants to bind her to him, in every way he can manage, until he is her only refuge, her only comfort. But he understands enough of people to know that this will backfire on him. No, better to woo her slowly. Feed her, buy her gifts perhaps, teach her to be strong in her own right. Bring her such pleasure at his touch that she would never even glance at another.
Yes. And then, if all else fails, there is always one of the other plans.
He writes his letter to Ivan, paying only the briefest mind to what he is penning, seals it. Gathers his things and pays a boy to run them over to Alina’s rented property.
He makes his way towards the postmaster, paying the exorbitant fee to get someone to carry the missive to the Little Palace. Whistles as he walks through the markets, buying more food. Alina doesn’t know it, but summoning on a regular basis will see her body demanding more and more food as it heals from the years she had gone without. He makes sure to pick up a great many sweets and more sugar than a normal family would go through in a month.
He is curious to see if she’ll also develop the sweet tooth that both he and his mother share. And if she doesn't, well. More for him.