During the season, Alina agrees to marry Nikolai, who is next in line for the Ravka throne. After the Darkling is defeated, unlike in the book, she still agrees to marry Nikolai, because she thinks Ravka needs help healing and protection (and, unlike in the book, she still has powers).
In Leigh Bardugo's books, the answer is yes, they end up together.
The two go to find the stag before the Darkling can and grow close again before confessing their love for each other. Alina gets Mal to promise to her that he should kill her if they are about to be captured by The Darkling, as she does not wish for her powers to be used against her will.
While Kirigan, the Darkling, is distracted, thinking of kissing Alina, she stabs him to death with the Neshyenyer sword. Alina defeats the Darkling once and for all with this fatal jab. Kirigan asks to be destroyed entirely so that nothing is left of him. He is burned on a funeral pyre.
Since learning of her powers, The Darkling has been obsessed with getting Alina on his side. Whether this is motivated by his fear of being beaten or, as he claims, by the fact that with her, he would no longer face eternity alone is unclear, but he didn't go about it in the best way.
Alina and the Darkling kiss, with him making the first move in the novel and her making the first move on the show. But then she finds out he's actually using her to gain control of the Fold and rule the country, so she flees. Despite his nefarious plans, it is thought the Darkling did love Alina.
Kirigan was undoubtedly manipulating Alina, but he never realized that he had fallen in love with her as well. Until his last breath in Season 2 of “Shadow and Bone,” he kept telling Alina how they belonged together.
Rather than raping or assaulting women, the Darkling tricks Alina into falling in love with him, his goal being to take Alina's power for himself and effectively enslave her.
The night before the big battle, Alina and Mal finally have sex and it's Alina's first time and they're worried about not making it through the next day and I am just so sick of seeing this. This sort of thing pops up in so many fantasy novels that it just annoys me now.
Mal was oblivious to Alina's love from before book one even began. He slept with Zoya and countless others before he realised who was waiting by his back door.
He sees her strong desire to belong and to find herself and it reminds him of himself. While his desire for Alina is not a healthy one and is obsessive, he truly does develop feelings for her. She is the one person who can bring balance to his life.
When time seems to have run out, Alina and her friends enter the Fold to fight the Darkling again. During the confrontation, Mal is killed, and Alina unites the power of all three amplifiers. Finally, she is able to bring down the Fold with a burst of light from her hand.
Mal leaves to take on the role of privateer as the new Sturmhond and Alina is left to fend for herself once again as Nikolai's future wife.
While she doesn't lose her powers as a punishment, she isn't in the clear either. Instead, her consequences are darker – literally. In the final scene, Alina uses her powers again and finds them changed. To Alina's surprise, she performs the Cut with shadows like the Darkling rather than her former light.
Between the novels Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising, on which season 2 is largely based, Alina loses her Sun Summoner powers completely for a time after a fight with Kirigan. She also ends up gaining a piece of the Darkling's power and vice versa.
Nina first thought Hanne was a Heartrender, but it appeared to be that Hanne was a Healer. The two become very close, eventually working together at the end of King of Scars to begin to bring down Jarl Brum. Nina is in love with Hanne and they are engaged to be married.
Indeed, the entire second season of Shadow and Bone should come with a warning for non-book readers. There were too many plot points, too many characters, and too many details to keep track of. Even said superfans might find themselves a bit befuddled! The changes from the books were sometimes absolutely insane.
Zoya destroys the remains of The Darkling when she realizes what is happening, but The Darkling's spirit goes into the body of a man named Yuri Vendenen. So, while The Darkling does return in some form, he does not return in the one that people recognize him as.
Unfortunately, Shadow and Bone has not been renewed for season 3 yet, and it's getting to the point where it's starting to get a little worrisome.
The Darkling and Alina's First Kiss
Every scene between the Darkling and Alina in Shadow and Bone Episode 5 is hot. Sorry, but it's true. After a few episodes of the Darkling attempting to forge a real relationship with Alina — she gets to call him Aleksander!!! — our girl finally gets the confidence to kiss him.
A picture of him in Baghra's cave reveals the man hasn't physically aged a day in centuries. The Shadow Fold was created roughly 400 years prior to the events of the series and the Darkling was already an adult by then. An estimate would put him at 500 years of age, if not a bit older.
As skilled as Alina is, though, the Darkling has to place higher than her in terms of power rankings once you take a look at everything he was capable of across the Grishaverse books.
She drove Inej's sword through The Darkling's heart to kill him. There was no way the two of them would end up together in the end. Alina would have had to go through some sort of head transplant to choose to be with that man. Instead, Alina chose Nikolai.
Though the Darkling may not have created the Shadow Fold intentionally, he never actually wanted Alina to destroy it. The only mistake that General Kirigan is seeking to fix is his loss of control over the Fold, and his true intention was to use Alina's power to expand and weaponize it.
Barnes explained to Deadline that his character really does have feelings for Alina, and when he loses her, his army, and his palace everything “brews into this storm.” Not only is he tormented, but he's also angry about losing everything he had, and as the actor behind him said, The Darkling has “gone off” which is ...