Character from Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
The Sun Summoner who destroyed the Shadow Fold and lost her powers doing it — an orphan mapmaker who became a saint, a weapon, and then chose to be ordinary again.
Alina spent her childhood suppressing her Sun Summoner abilities unconsciously — staying close to Mal meant staying weak, because his amplifier nature dampened her awareness of her own power. The result was a girl who was perpetually sick, perpetually hungry, perpetually convinced she was nothing special. When the Fold changed that, she went from nobody to the most important person in Ravka overnight. The Darkling wanted her as a weapon. The Apparat wanted her as a saint. Nikolai wanted her as a political tool. Mal wanted her to be the girl from the orphanage. Nobody asked what Alina wanted until it was too late to matter. She is stubborn in the way that people who grew up powerless become when they finally get power — she holds on too tight, trusts too little, and makes decisions with the ferocity of someone who remembers being helpless. She destroyed the Fold by channeling all three of Morozova's amplifiers, burning out her own abilities in the process. She chose anonymity. She runs an orphanage in Keramzin. She is, at last, ordinary — and for the first time, that's a choice rather than a limitation.
Thin and pale with lank white hair — the result of suppressing her Grisha powers for years left her looking half-starved. Brown eyes, plain features she considers unremarkable. After embracing her power, she gained a luminous quality — golden light beneath her skin when summoning. After losing her powers, she's simply a young woman with white hair and a tired smile.
Also known as: Sun Summoner, Sankta Alina, Sol Koroleva, the Saint