Too many things to unpack here
“If only I’d known you’d prove such an apt pupil.” His voice was genuinely admiring, almost surprised. To my horror, I found that pathetic orphaned part of me taking pleasure in his praise. “Why come to me now?” he asked. “Has it taken you this long to recover from our skirmish?”
If that had been a mere skirmish, then we really were lost. No, I told myself. He’d chosen that word deliberately, to intimidate me.
I ignored his question and said, “I didn’t expect compliments.”
“No?”
“I left you buried beneath a pile of rubble.”
“And if I told you I respect your ruthlessness?”
“I don’t think I’d believe you.”
The barest smile touched his lips. “An apt pupil,” he repeated. “Why waste my anger on you when the fault is mine? I should have anticipated another betrayal from you, one more mad grasp at some kind of childish ideal. But I seem to be a victim of my own wishes where you are concerned.” His expression hardened. “What have you come here for, Alina?”
I answered him honestly. “I wanted to see you.”
I caught the briefest glimpse of surprise before his face shuttered again. “There are two thrones on that dais. You could see me anytime you liked.”
“You’re offering me a crown? After I tried to kill you?”
He shrugged again. “I might have done the same.”
“I doubt it.”
“Not to save that motley of traitors and fanatics, no. But I understand the desire to remain free.”
“And still you tried to make me a slave.”
“I sought Morozova’s amplifiers for you, Alina, that we might rule as equals.”
“You tried to take my power for your own.”
“After you ran from me. After you chose—” He stopped, shrugged. “We would have ruled as equals in time.”
Again it rings very hollow, I don't know how it's supposed to create any feeling but tears in my eyes that Sasha has such a waste of page as LI.
Where is she an apt pupil? A mythical plot armor, you mean?
But for real, all these jokes about the Darkling being a simp is funny, but let's not confuse it with the canon.
He ain't love and respect her as she is now; he finds some of her qualities interesting when she stops being the disgusting, stupid and malicious creature without common sense that she is now. She will become a normal person, not a brainless idiot, over time, and then her ruthlessness, her desire to remain free, and her stubbornness can even be respected. He has repeatedly shown that he despises Alina, as she is now, for her stupidity and selfishness, but he cannot help but see in her a potential measurable only by their immortality.
I felt that pull, the longing of a frightened girl. Even now, after everything he’d done, I wanted to believe the Darkling, to find some way to forgive him. I wanted Nikolai to be alive. I wanted to trust the other Grisha. I wanted to believe anything so that I wouldn’t have to face the future alone. The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak. A laugh escaped me before I thought better of it.
“We would be equals until the day I dared to disagree with you, until the moment I questioned your judgment or didn’t do as I was bid. Then you would deal with me the way you dealt with Genya and your mother, the way you tried to deal with Mal.”
She calls it "disagreement" and she's talking about: a) the treason and personal betrayal; b) personal betrayal; c) desertion. That's the reason why they can't be equal right now — she's a dumb bitch!
He leaned against the window, and the gilded frame came into sharp focus. “Do you think it would be any different with your tracker beside you? With that Lantsov pup?”
“Yes,” I said simply.
“Because you would be the strong one?”
“Because they’re better men than you.”
“You might make me a better man.”
“And you might make me a monster.
a) they're worse men than he; b) you're already a monster and he has nothing to do with it; c) “You might make me a better man.” doesn't sound like something he would say and mean it as it is. Does he mean: "When we will be together (so you'll stop being stupid bitch) I can finally let myself relax."?
“I’ve never understood this taste for otkazat’sya. Is it because you thought you were one of them for so long?”
“I had a taste for you, once.” His head snapped up. He hadn’t expected that. Saints, it was satisfying. “Why haven’t you visited me?” I asked. “In all these long months?”
He stayed silent.
I think he knows it isn't true as well as I do. Mam, you were lusted for him (and still do) and nothing more, stop it.
“There was barely a day at the Little Palace when you didn’t come to me,” I continued. “When I didn’t see you in some shadowed corner. I thought I was going mad.”
“Good.”
“I think you’re afraid.”
“How comforting that must be for you.”
“I think you fear this thing that binds us.” It didn’t frighten me. Not anymore. I took a slow step forward. He tensed but did not move away.
“I am ancient, Alina. I know things about power that you can barely guess at.”
“But it’s not just power, is it?” I said quietly, remembering the way he had toyed with me when I’d first arrived at the palace—even before, from the first moment we’d met. I’d been a lonely girl, desperate for attention. I must have given him so little sport.
I took another step. He stilled. Our bodies were almost touching now. I reached up and cupped his cheek with my hand. This time the flash of confusion on his face was impossible to miss. He held himself frozen, his only movement the steady rise and fall of his chest. Then, as if in concession, he let his eyes close. A line appeared between his brows.
“It’s true,” I said softly. “You are stronger, wiser, infinite in experience.” I leaned forward and whispered, my lips brushing the shell of his ear. “But I am an apt pupil.”
His eyes flew open. I caught the briefest glimpse of rage in his gray gaze before I severed the connection.
I scattered, hurtling back to the White Cathedral, leaving him with nothing but the memory of light.
You all understand that she's the only one who hates, wants to kill and is using his basic human crave for connection that won't end with time like all his lovers, friends and soldiers do, being mortal, while he isn't to hurt him?
She IS the one who's cruel and abusive during their interactions. Do you honestly take her impetuous lies, lust, infantilization and projection for compassion and, God forbid, love?
