Shadow and Bone: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

Alina stands on the edge of the crowded main road, staring down into the valley below. She hurries along the Vy, the main road that once connected Ravka’s capital city, Os Alta, to the sea, before the Shadow Fold was created. The Fold looks like a smudge in the distance, but it cuts Ravka in two, separating East Ravka from the ocean. On some maps it’s labeled “the Unsea,” but this is just to make people think that it’s not so bad. However, it is that bad: this valley used to be full of rich estates, but one day, darkness filled the valley. The farmers and other residents vanished.

As Alina tries to tell herself crossing the Fold will be fine, Mal whispers in her ear that she can’t faint in the road. Alina says she has a plan: if she got hurt, she wouldn’t have to risk dying in the Fold. Just then, a pretty girl named Ruby passes, and Mal tells her he’ll see her later. Alina rolls her eyes; she and Ruby were friends, right after Alina and Mal joined the army. But it didn’t take long for Alina to realize Ruby just wanted to be her friend to get close to Mal. Noticing that Mal looks happy, Alina snaps that they could easily die. Mal insists the Grisha will protect them, and they have guns.

In truth, there’s more wrong with Alina than just fear of crossing the Fold. She used to be able to tell Mal anything, but she can’t anymore, so she says nothing about how uneasy she is. He suggests that the volcra will go for Mikhael first, and Alina flashes on a childhood memory of flipping through a book with Mal. They’d come to an illustration of a volcra, with its leathery flesh and blind eyes. They live in the Fold and eat human flesh. It’d been holding a human foot. Coming back to the present, Alina realizes she’s stopped walking. Mal assures her that things are going to be fine, and Alina rubs the scar on her right palm.

Suddenly, Mal snatches Alina and jerks her out of the road—a big black coach rushes past. The coach belongs to the Darkling. As Mal hastily lets Alina go, a red coach and then a blue coach roll past. A gorgeous girl looks out of the blue coach and smiles at Mal. Mal’s friends Mikhael and Dubrov rush up to him, teasing him about the Grisha girl. They point out that she’ll be staying at camp and that the lavish Grisha tent has lots of dark corners. Teasing Alina, they lead Mal away.

Alina continues into the village and to the Documents Tent, where she slips in without the Senior Cartographer noticing. She sits next to her friend Alexei and tells him she’s late because the Darkling almost ran her over. Pulling out her notebook (as a junior cartographer, she’s supposed to submit two sketches each day), Alina begins copying a sketch of a mountain range. To bribe Alina into telling him more about the Darkling’s coach, Alexei pushes over one of his drawings for her to pass off as her own. When Alina is finally done, she and Alexei head for the mess tent. Over the meal, Alexei and a girl named Eva argue: Eva insists the Darkling isn’t natural, and Alexei calls her a peasant for believing this. Alina says nothing; she’s more of a peasant than Eva, but neither she nor Mal talk about their youth in an orphanage.

Across the hall, Mal is entertaining his fellow trackers. When Alexei shakes his head at the idea that Mal and Alina were ever friends, Alina tells Alexei that they grew up together and he wasn’t always so full of himself. When they’re finished eating, Alina and Alexei walk past the Grisha camp, which is lavish and massive. Then, they return to the barracks, where people are clearly afraid for tomorrow. Alina gets into bed, but she’s wide awake when, hours later, she hears tapping on the tent. She slips on her boots and heads outside to meet Mal on the steps. Mikhael and Dubrov are drinking on the footpath. Alina hesitates: it’s hard to be around Mal because she doesn’t want him to know how much she cares or how his flirting with others hurts her. But she swallows her jealousy and sits down.

As they watch Dubrov and Mikhael drink, Alina asks Mal what he’s doing here—he used to visit her all the time, but he hasn’t in a long time. He says she looked miserable at dinner, and he’s worried about her. Alina offers that hopefully a volcra will eat her tomorrow so he can stop worrying, but Mal insists he’d be lost without Alina—a clear lie, since he’s a skilled tracker and has never been lost in his life. Mal admits that he’s nervous too. They discuss Keramzin and Ana Kuya, and then Mal grabs Alina’s hand. Tomorrow, he says, they’ll drink and watch the ocean, just the two of them.

Mikhael ends the moment by shouting for Mal. As Mal jogs away, he asks for luck. Alina wishes him luck, but she wishes she hadn’t—he’s just going to go seduce a Grisha and have lovely babies with her. Mal has never looked at Alina like he looked at the Grisha girl earlier, or even Ruby. Alina tells herself that they’re still friends, and that’s the most important part—but will they keep getting further and further apart?