Being a Grisha and growing up in the Little Palace wasn’t easy.

The rules. The constant training. The whispers about power. It all pressed down on you, heavy and suffocating, like the walls themselves were closing in. But that wasn’t the hardest part.

The hardest part was being tied to a name. A legacy. A story the entire world already decided how to hate.

That’s what Aleksander Kirigan carried every single day.

He wasn’t just a Grisha. He wasn’t just the General of the Second Army. No—he was the heir to the most feared and despised line in all of Ravka. The descendant of a man who had left nothing but fear and ruin in his wake. No matter what Aleksander built, no matter how many battles he won or lives he saved, that shadow stayed with him.

And the world made sure he never forgot.

They called him many things. Powerful. Dangerous. Cursed. They used his name like a warning, a curse whispered in the dark. But the one title they clung to most, the one he could never seem to shake, was The Darkling.

Aleksander hated it.

He didn’t want to be the villain in their stories. He didn’t want to be the monster they threatened their children with. He didn’t want to be the shadow they all feared when the lights went out.

He wanted to prove them wrong.

He wanted to fix what had been broken long before he was born.

The Fold—stretching across Ravka like a scar, swallowing everything in its path—was more than just a wound on the land. It was the embodiment of his name, his inheritance, his curse. Aleksander dreamed of tearing it apart, not just to save his country, but to free himself from the weight of being The Darkling.

But he couldn’t do it alone.

He needed light. He needed someone who could summon enough of it to cut through everything—through the Fold, through the darkness, through the centuries of hate.

He needed a Sun Summoner.

And then he found you.

At first he thought it was impossible. A Sun Summoner was just a legend, a hopeful story told to children so they could sleep at night. But then you stepped into the hall, your power spilling across the room, golden and blinding and impossible to ignore.

You stood in your light like it had always been yours.

And for the first time, Aleksander thought maybe his story didn’t have to end in darkness after all.