Alina tries, however, to steady his hand, to show mercy much like Hermione, sending more to jail than to the burial grounds, detailing her case about how they couldn’t rule over ashes, how she doesn’t want that. It is still hard to believe, somedays, that Aleksander really wants her as his equal, that he didn’t want her to agree with him on every single thing like Mal, he wanted to hear her, see her. Mal, Ana Kunya, and Baghra, they all tried to teach her that a man who respected her opinion and wanted her to have power in her own right was just trying to manipulate her, and it was a notion that ended up buried in the middle of her mind no matter how ridiculous it is. But she’s working to push it out of her, to use her powers without fear, testing her own limits under Aleksander’s grey’s eyes, that always shine full of pride.