Chapter Text
Ivan frownes down at the latest missive from his General, tapping his fingers in an absent-minded pattern as he thinks.
Fedyor stares at him, amused. “Vanya,” he says softly. “You can’t set the missive on fire with your stare. What has the General written that’s got you so upset?”
Ivan shifts his gaze over to his husband, then back to the missive. “He’s getting married.”
There is silence, and then: “Yes, and?” Fedyor touches his shoulder. “Wasn’t that the plan? He spent over a month putting his false identity together. He told us all about the advertisement he was answering.”
Ivan sighs. “No, he is legitimately getting married. He’ll be honoring the grisha traditions. Wants any of us who won’t be missed to come as witnesses.”
Fedyor sucks in a breath. “He’s never done that before, has he?”
“No,” Ivan says. He thinks of the histories that have been passed carefully down from one steward to the next, reviewing everything he can remember off the top of his head. “He’s had long-term lovers before, but never a true wife.”
“Did he write anything to explain?”
Ivan hands over the letter. There’s nothing in it that would expose any of his General’s secrets that Fedyor is not already privy to, so he doesn’t feel any shame in it. Besides, Fedyor is better with identifying hidden meanings in words than he is. Ivan is not unintelligent - he would have never been chosen for his position if he’d been stupid, regardless of how strong his gift - but he is a straightforward man and code sometimes eludes him.
Luckily Aleksandr Morozov trusts Fedyor as much as Ivan.
He thinks as Fedyor reads, going over the roster of active grisha, mind flickering over who was currently on active duty and who could be spared for a quick run down to Kribirsk. He also thinks about what excuses he will send to the Tsar.
Technically, with General Kirigan’s untimely ‘death’, Ivan is the General of the Second Army now. But while all the grisha play pretend outside the Little Palace to keep the fiction alive, everyone knows that their General is taking time away before he does something stupid, like throw the entire Ravkan continent into civil war by slaughtering the Lantsovs before it’s time. It’s not the first time he’s wandered off for a few decades after faking his death, and it likely won’t be the last.
But in all the histories that Ivan’s poured over, never before has the General risked exposure to the otkazat’sya for something like this .
“ Oh ,” Fedyor breaths out. “Ivan. Get Genya. Get her now . I don’t care what excuse you have to make, but she’s going to be an unholy terror if you don’t inform her first.”
Ivan turns his head, studies his husband. “Fedya, what did I miss?”
Fedyor looks up from the letter, awe and disbelief and a fierce happiness radiating off him. The smile that is creeping across his face is wide and bright, like nothing Ivan has seen since the day he’d proposed to him. “Vanya. She’s been found. The Sun Summoner has finally been found.”
Ivan’s heart skips a beat. “What.”
Fedyor flaps the paper. “He’s practically shouting it! He’s found the Sun Summoner, and is marrying her.” He drops the paper and grabs at Ivan, shaking him. “He’s going to bind her to him before the Making and then likely spend the next few decades getting her caught up on what she’ll need to know.”
And Ivan finally understands why the General would risk having his entire ruse destroyed. The Sun Summoner. The one being theorized to be his equal, his eternal companion. Ivan nods sharply to himself and immediately begins prioritizing what they’ll need to take with them.
“Remind me later to make sure Zoya is stationed as close to Fjerda as I can get her once the new breaks,” he mutters. “Also, what do we do about Baghra?”
Fedyor snorts. “Love, I’d move her before the news breaks. Let her find out in a few years after it’s far too late for her to run interference. And as for Baghra, leave her to the General when he finally does come back with his wife in tow. She doesn’t need to know shit.”
Ivan slants a look. “You’re asking for a cane upside your head, you know that, right?”
Fedyor scowls. “You know as well as I do she’ll do everything in her power to stop this. And you also know that for all she hasn’t Summoned in two decades, she’s still powerful enough that none of us can touch her.” He flicks his hand in irritation. “Let the General deal with his bat-shit insane mother.”
Ivan nods. “Right. Do me a favor, Fedya, grab the Heads for me while I go track down where Genya and her materalki have stashed themselves this time. We’re going to have to be careful - we can’t have too many grisha suddenly having a pressing need to travel to Kribirsk, but he should know by who we send that we stand with him, always.”
Fedyor smiles at him, leans over and kisses his cheek. “I’ll grab lunch for us all while I’m at it. You’ll likely be at least an hour.”