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The ox feels the yoke,” she says, “but does the bird feel the weight of its wings?"
Alina had an important mentor when she first arrived in Os Alta, the Darkling’s mother Baghra. One of many lessons Baghra taught Alina was that leaders carry their responsibilities differently. By Chapter 14, Alina has experienced enough of leadership to remember Baghra’s lesson and wonder if she can ever truly master her own power. Alina has witnessed the Darkling take control of Ravka even as he hungers for the power to control the Small Science and merzost. She cannot reconcile that hunger with true leadership. In Siege and Storm, she watches as Nikolai seemingly charms his way into the people’s hearts, and she wonders at his grace in leadership. Nikolai’s façade cracks slowly and Alina learns the burdens he carries, from his fears of being illegitimate to his concerns about his own motives to worries about his possible shortcomings as a leader. As Alina quests for the firebird and adopts the command of the Second Army, she does not yet know whether she will be the ox, carrying the mantel of leadership heavily upon her shoulders, or the bird, soaring above the crowd. She has not yet considered the third option, that even the bird might carry a burden it longs to be rid of.
You cannot violate the rules of this world without a price. Those amplifiers were never meant to be. No Grisha should have such power. Already you are changing. Seek the third, use it, and you will lose yourself completely, piece by piece.
Tempted by the seductive lure of power, Alina rationalizes the adoption of a second amplifier and the quest for a third. But in Chapter 13, memories of her broken mentor, the Darkling’s mother Baghra, challenge Alina to realize that more is at stake than her unfulfilled desire. Power comes at a cost, and Alina already sees the distance her power creates between herself and Mal as well as the discord her ascent has caused among the Grisha. According to Baghra, this disharmony occurs because Alina seeks to instill an unnatural order by adopting more power than one person should have. Alina believes she is doing so to counter the Darkling, but Baghra’s quote suggests that the Darkling’s evil void might not be transformed by light. Instead, both the Darkling and Alina might suffer mutual destruction if Alina continues down her current path.
My life would be allegiance instead of love, fealty instead of friendship. I would weigh each decision, consider every action, trust no one. It would be life observed from a distance.
In Chapter 20, the tension in Alina and Mal’s relationship comes to a head. Throughout the novel, Alina has grown increasingly distant from Mal as her power and responsibility grow, making her an object of awe to him. Whether through the nichevo’ya bite on her shoulder, Morozova’s collar around her throat, or her own desire, the Darkling’s apparition accompanies her everywhere she goes. While no longer an outcast, Alina is no closer to being a normal, accepted member of society than she was before. Now, her status as the Sun Summoner sets her apart from even those she holds most dear. She spends most of the novel trying to balance her personal life with all its attendant feelings and relationships with this growing sense of destiny. But her final argument with Mal, and the Darkling’s subsequent appearance in her bed, force Alina to confront her fate head-on.
