However, since I'm also not the author, that doesn't really matter, does it?
So, the final book in the Grisha trilogy opens with Alina stuck underground at the White Chapel, the Apparat's home base. He wants to glorify her as a saint to the faithful pilgrim army he's amassed, but there's one problem: she can't summon anymore.
Or, well, she can probably summon, but she's too far underground to call sunlight to her, and the Apparat's totally unwilling to let someone as important as her go back aboveground. At least, until Mal and her other friends stage a mock-revolt and blow a hole in the one room in the chapel that has aboveground access, allowing her to call on her powers and pull the rug out from under the Apparat.
He begrudgingly agrees to let them go in search of the mysterious firebird, which will hopefully be the third and final amplifier Alina needs. They have to be careful, though - the Darkling has been destroying access tunnels left and right, and they don't want to walk out of a functional one into an ambush. They also need to figure out who has to go along with them to find the firebird, and who they might be able to send over to West Ravka into safety.
Tolya and Tamar inform the rest of them about a somewhat nearby smugglers' post Nikolai used to use once they're on the surface, and they decide to stop there first, hoping that Nikolai is still alive and might be able to help them. After almost getting caught by the First Army, Alina's band is rescued by the man himself and taken to his new base up in the mountains.
They all reconnoiter there for a while, making plans and getting more training, and everything seems to be going relatively smoothly. (There are a couple minor bumps in the road, but they work themselves out with minimal damage.) This, of course, means it's the perfect time for the Darkling to attack, which he does. He transforms Nikolai into some kind of monstrous bird-like creature and does some serious damage to the rest of the group, prompting yet another last second escape.
Now a little more bruised and worn, Alina's group finally makes it to the mountains where they suspect the firebird lives, and they begin the expedition to find it. When the firebird finally reveals itself, only Mal and Alina are actually present, and it leads her to a shocking revelation - the firebird's not the amplifier. Mal is.
Baghra told Alina her life story back at Nikolai's base, informing her that she, Baghra, is actually Ivan Morozova's elder daughter. (Yes, that Morozova, the man who infused the stag and the sea whip with their amplifying powers.) She had a younger sister that died, and Morozova resurrected her, infusing her and not the firebird with the power. Alina puts two and two together, and realizes that Mal's descended from the younger sister, which is why he's so spookily good at tracking. She automatically refuses to kill him, but he makes her swear that when the time's right, she'll do it anyways.
The time becomes right soon after, once the band makes its way back to the Fold. They've managed to get word to the Apparat to send his army, but only a few came - they had to sneak out, because he wasn't actually permitting anyone to go. The whole group is planning on sneaking up on the Darkling's skiff once it's in the middle of the Fold, but he's expecting them, and soon their plans go too awry to be saved. Mal comes running up to Alina, and she does what she has to do, stabbing him in the chest-
-and then another unexpected event occurs. Mal dies, but instead of his death amplifying Alina's power, it releases it instead. Now all of the non-Grisha fighters can summon minor amounts of sunlight, and they figure out how to work together and dismantle the Fold once and for all.
Alina's powerless now, but she's still capable of wielding a knife, and she kills the Darkling herself. She also makes her friends promise that they'll claim she died on the battlefield, leaving the newly untransformed Nikolai to lead Ravka. The epilogue informs us that she and Mal moved back to Keramzin and began their own orphanage, where they're visited periodically by some strange, grand guests.
Like I said before, I don't know if this is the ending I would have wanted for this series, but it's the ending I got. Even though Alina's loss of power was much less voluntary than I'd heard, I still don't particularly like it. I get that she didn't like all the changes she had to make in her life thanks to the discovery of her power, but sometimes you can't just magically get rid of your problems and go back to your old ways. I'd rather she finally learned to deal with her new circumstances and accept that she can't just be the old Alina anymore rather than get this deus ex machina of an ending.
I at least learned to like Mal again in book three. He was kind of a brat in Siege and Storm, but he admitted to that in Ruin and Rising and tried to amend his ways, as did Alina. I'm still not a diehard Mal/Alina shipper, but I'm not so turned off by it anymore, either.
(Let's be real, though, Tamar/Nadia and Genya/David are the real masterpiece ships of this series. Canon lesbians! In a fantasy series! That don't just have angst all the time! Be still my heart!)
Overall, Ruin and Rising is really good to its side characters and only okay to its two biggest protagonists. They have each other now, yes, but I'm a little skeptical that they'll be totally satisfied with that for the rest of their lives. Four stars, because the writing was still A+.
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