[He's had days to get used to not feeling the shadows, to feel them only like otkazat'sya do, but it's still a disappointment when he can't feel his power flow in to her at the soft touch. That he can't call on hers either.

He turns back to her, frustration clear on his face, before he rakes a hand through his hair.]

How soon you forget. Do you think every Grisha captured by drüskelle are powerless? Did you really think that none of them fought back, that only you thought to do that when they came for you?

[He's petty enough to do this, to press the matter. To remind her of how he saved her once.] They would have burned you at the stake, Alina. If I hadn't been there...

[He leaves the rest unsaid. It is but one of the threads in this complicated tapestry between them, one of the strings to pull and play. He flings his hand out towards the towering walls keeping them captive inside the courtyard.] What do you think the Shu do to people like us? Did you even think to ask, before leaving me to fight on my own?

[How he hates this, loathes that he's reduced to this when he's near her. He's the Black Heretic, the Darkling of Ravka and the General of the Second Army, pleading with a girl too young to understand the true meaning of eternity.]

What they do is worse.