CHAPTER FIVE
death and the maiden / mikah

— twelve years ago —

All around then, riflefire clamours. Lyssa can hear the screams, but she has long since lost count of which ones are Grisha. And which ones are from the enemy.

Still, after an eternity of carnage and killing and of death, there's no end in sight.

She has no idea how they even found them, but the legion of Shu soldiers are here now. And they have completely encircled them from all sides. Cut them off from any way out. Cut them off from any backup that might come for them, too.

"Lyssa!" Irina's scream carries to her over the noise from where her friend is hiding behind a larger rock. "We need to get out of here!"

She knows. Saints, of course she knows. But how? How is she supposed to get them out?

Lyssa pulls her red kefta closer around her neck, covering as much of her body with the Fabrikator material as she can. "I don't see a way out!" She screams back, craning her neck to find where Irina is.

The moment she moves, the bullets train on her and she jerks back against the flat, cold stone of the rock behind her to evade them.

"Doesn't matter! If we don't move soon, we're all dead anyway!" Another voice, Mikah, comes from the same direction. Fainly, Lyssa remembers that the two Corproalki had hidden behind the same rock.

"How many are there?" Zorah calls out from her place against a tree. One look to her tells Lyssa that the Squaller's cover is going to give out. And soon.

Does it matter? Lyssa thinks desperately. All that scoping out the number of heartbeats around them had told her was that, not only were they at a disadvantage in the terrain and in their position, they were also mostly outnumbered. And that was before the Shu soldiers had started opening fire on their group, picking them up one by one.

"Too many!" Mikah, who is the last Heartrender still alive in their group where once five had been, replies.

"Maybe two dozen more than us." Irina adds.

That was a rather generous assessment of their odds, Lyssa thinks.

Mikah turns his head towards Lyssa as much as he dares. "You think there'll be any backup?"

Cold sweat coats Lyssa's body and she is trying her hardest to keep the tremous and panic at bay. "I don't know," she says. Who would've alerted the others about the ambush? They'd had no time to send anyone out. Would their delay be enough to raise suspicion and make them come looking for their group?

Lyssa didn't even know how long they'd been here. Ten minutes? An hour? Time felt like a fleeting concept. There was only death breathing down their necks in this hellhole.

This was the second mission they were on alone. Their second mission. When they'd left the surperior officer, Volkov, had clapped on her back and said it was her turn today. Her turn to take the lead. All those Grisha, her friends, were her responsibility and she had no idea what to do. She was failing them and they were dying.

A scream draws her attention back to Zorah. Lyssa finds her cowered against the tree, holding her left arm. Blood seeping between her fingers.

Shit.

"Alexei!" Lyssa calls out, praying to all the Saints that he's still alive. "Alexei, cover me!"

She doesn't wait for a reply as she pulls her kefta over her body and launches herself out of her hiding place, running towards Zorah with her back hunched as much as possible.

Lyssa doesn't let herself pause to catch her breath or look around or stumble as she grabs the other Grisha and practically drags her with her back to the rock she'd been using for cover.

Only when they are back behind it and no bullets have hit them, lets a small tendril of relief trickle through her. She looks up. Between them and the Shu a cloud of dust and sand has grown, rendering Mikah practically unable to take down any of them but also putting the aim of their attackers off. Enough to keep the two of them alive.

Lyssa sends a silent thanks to whoever might've listened to her prayer. If anyone did at all.

Quickly, Lyssa leans forward to mend the wound on Zorah's arm.

Zorah had gotten lucky - it's only a shallow graze and within a few small motions, the wound has knitted itself back together. Zorah sends her a look. "Thanks."

Lyssa shakes her head. Zorah didn't need to thank her. Not for this.

A look over the edge of the rock tells her that the dust is starting to dissolve again and she turns, looking back to where Irina and Mikah's voices had come from. "Mikah, can you try to -"

"I already am!" Mikah calls back, strain in his voice.

Lyssa has never felt more useless than she did in this moment. Waiting to be picked up by Shu soliders. Waiting for death to come take her with no means to defend herself. If only she had chosen to become a Heartrender and not a Healer.

"We just need to hold out until they notice we didn't make it to the meeting point," she tells them, a desperate hope in her voice that's long since left her.

Volkov lets out a grunt, holding the leg of the other soldier. They'd been ten First Army soldiers and ten Grisha from the Second Army. And now all that was left of them was them.

Six where once twenty had been.

"Even if they're coming, or if your general's with them, we'll never make it." Volkov says, his battle-worn eyes steady when they find Lyssa's wide ones, panic playing across them. "We'll be dead long by the time they arrive."

Lyssa hates him for the truth in his words. Lyssa hates Kirigan, too, in that moment. He'd been scheduled to arrive at their rendezvous point earlier today. So close to them and yet unreachable. If he were here, they'd never be in this situation at all. They'd reached the others long ago. All of their group, still alive.

A small sniff escapes her at the hopelessness of everything. At the inevitable end coming their way. At death getting ready to greet them with open arms.

She had thought she knew what being a member of the Second Army meant. She'd known that even Healers got involved in fighys and conflicts. But Lyssa never had thought she would die like this. In an ambush on the Shu border. So far away from the Little Palace. Being squashed like flies, when help is so close she can almost see it.

With a trembling hand, Lyssa wipes one of the stray strands of blonde hair out of her eyes. They burn with unshed tears.

"Girl, look at me." The officer says.

Lyssa doesn't have it in her to do do. Her vision blurrs as tremors rock her body.

"I said look at me, girl." The officer commands, his tone harsh and at last, Lyssa obeys.

"Look around you. Those are your men. You owe it to them to keep it together." He says and Lyssa's throat bobs.

She wishes she could. She wishes she could for Volkov and the young soldier in front of him, whose name she doesn't even know. Who can't walk properly anymore because he has injured his leg and Irina hadn't dared to heal more like this out of fear she'd cause permanent damage. Which he might have anyway, and Lyssa is too far away to see if she can do anything about it.

She wishes she could for Alexei and Mikah and Zorah, who'd been her best friends for so many years now. For Irina, who'd come to her that day when she arrived at the Little Palace and had lunch with her despite Lyssa's silence and fear. Who was the first friend she'd ever made. Who was like a sister to her. The four people she loved more than anything else in this life and she was failing them.

"You're a soldier, girl." Volkov says. "We all are. And we're not gonna go down cowering in a corner, do you hear me? If today is the day death takes us, we'll go standing and heads held high and without letting out fear overrun us."

She wonders how many times Volkov has cheated death. How many times she'd come to take him in a fight or a skirmish or an ambush. And how many times he'd slipped out of her fingers.

Lyssa looks at the young soldier next to Volkov, barely her age. At Zorah at her side. At where she knows Alexei and Mikah and Irina must be hiding.

For them, she can try.

Lyssa swallows and gives Volkov a small nod

"Good." There's grim determination in his voice.

Behind him, Lyssa can see two Shu soldiers move through the woods and her stomach bottoms out. They'd found the last piece of cover they still had and successfully breached it. Leaving them utterly exposed. Mikah!" She calls out, instinctively, before she even registers what she is doing.

In the corner of her eyes she can see him move for a clear line of sight. She can see him spot the Shu soldiers. Just as they raise their rifles at them, Mikah's hands curl into fists. The the two Shu soldiers crumble to the ground, dead. The small relief Lyssa feels turn laden when a bullet pierces his skin. Then another. And another.

"MIKAH!"

She isn't sure from which of them the scream comes from. Her? Alexei? Someone else?

"No!" Lyssa screams as Mikah's legs give out and he collapses on the ground.

A roar escapes Alexei, and Volkov barely manages to lunge for him and hold him back. Before he can go to Mikah. Bleeding and dying and utterly exposed.

A sob escapes Lyssa as tears streak down her face. No. Not Mikah.

She cannot lose anyone else today.

"Let me go!" Alexei screams, eyes trained on the bleeding Heartrender only a few feet away from him.

Irina sends Lyssa a look of horror. Lyssa doesn't even really see it. She doesn't really see anything beside the blood starting to pool around Mikah.

If they don't get to him now and heal him, it'll be too late.

But, it is already too late. Mikah was their only chance at making it out alive. Without him, without a Heartrender, they've lost the last advantage they had in this fight.

And unless the Shu soldiers are out of the picture everyone who makes it to Mikah is in perfect sight of them. Without cover and on a silver platter.

Lyssa closes her eyes, more tears streaking down her cheeks.

"Lys." The voice is so low, she can barely hear it. Her eyes snap open and find Mikah's trained on her. He coughs quietly, a rattling sound. "It's okay... Lys."

A sob escapes her.

Then, a fragment of a memory coming through the haze of her mind. Through the panic and the pain holding her chest in an iron grip. To kill or to cure. Her teacher had said when they'd first specialized as Healers after two years. Healers and Heartrenders are two sides of the same coin. Every Corproalnik can burst a lung, but not every Coporalnik can mend it back together.

Lyssa goes impossibly still.

Two sides of the same coin.

If she wants to get her friends out, to get what is still alive of her group out, she knows what she has to do. If she wants to save Mikah, it's the only way.

Nausea roils in her stomach, but Lyssa forces herself to push it down. To close her eyes and focus.

Finding the hearts is easy. One after the other, Lyssa picks out the heartbeat, the organisms of everyone around her. Shu and Ravkan soldiers alike. Pushing the feeling of the Ravkan's aside, she streches her senses out, reaching for that invisible cors tethering another's body to her. Reaching for the Shu soldiers.

Lyssa has never killed someone in her life. And she has never done this. Taking her Healer's gift and turning it inside out. Making it that of a Heartrender. She doesn't even really know if she can. And, on an instinctual level, she knows this is a line she can never uncross again.

And yet... she thinks of the others. Of Zorah and Irina and Alexei. Of the two First Army officers still alive. Of Mikah, dying on the floor.

It isn't even a choice at all.

For them, she'll gladly do this. Even if it destroys an integral part of her soul.

Lyssa raises her arms, letting the hum of the life around her, of those tethers to the Shu soldiers, flow through her. Grabbing those familiar cords, she does the opposite of what she has been taught. Instead of mending them, of fixing them, Lyssa takes them in a steel grip.

And curls her fingers into fists.

Immediately, she can feel those tethers going dark as death takes the soldiers. The next moment, the gunfire stops and at last, silence envelops them.

Lyssa's ears are still ringing when she opens her eyes and finds the others staring at her.

Volkov is the first to speak. "I thought you needed line of sight." He slowly says, eyeing Lyssa. The red kefta. And the grey, not black, embroidery on it.

Lyssa doesn't even hear him. Instead she scrambles for Mikah, uncaring that she's scratching open her palms as she does.

Alexei and Irina reach him at the same time as she does and, immediately, Alexei pulls Mikah into his lap, cradling his head.

Mikah gives him a small smile, looking up at Alexei with unfocused eyes. His teeth are stained red with his blood.

Nausea crawls up Lyssa's throat at the sight of Mikah. Of his battered and bloody body. Of the barely-alive rasp of his breathing. She doesn' need her training to know. Even if she'd never set a foot into the Corproalki workshops, if she never had a single lesson, she would know.

She can feel death standing next to them, breathing down their necks.

And there's only one thing that can save Mikah.

Lyssa wipes the tears from her eyes and looks up to Alexei.

"There's still something I can try to save him," Lyssa says desperately.

Alexei looks from Mikah in his arms up at her, understanding dawning in his eyes. He looks back to Mikah. Pressing a gentle kiss on the Heartrenders bloody lips before he nods at Lyssa. "Do it."

🕊🦂🕊🦂

There's blood everywhere. It's on her hands, on her clothes. A few speckles are in the strands of her hair that have fallen out of the braid. Her knees are soaked where she is kneeling on them. She can even taste the metallic flavor of it on her tongue.

Still, Lyssa feels numb.

A hand is on her shoulder. Lyssa barely notices it.

As if on autopilot, she tears her eyes from her hands. Soaked in Mikah's blood. From the body still in front of her.

She turns and her eyes meet dark, brown ones in front of her. The familiar face. The black kefta. Somewhere, in the corner of her mind, she recognizes him. His lips move, but no sound comes to her ears.

All she can hear are Mikah's last words. Over and over again.

It's okay, Lys.

He says something again, looking at her with a mix of demanding and concern.

I love you. He'd barley been able to choke out the words. I love you.

That had been when Alexei had broken down. I love you, too.

It's okay, Lys.

Lyssa blinks, and at last, the words register.

"Miss Golubeva, are you hurt?" There's urgency in his tone.

Lyssa shakes her head, her eyes drifting back to her bloody palms. To Mikah. "No." Her own voice sounds all wrong to her.

"That's all of them." Lyssa sees the red kefta first. Then, Ivan's face appears behind Kirigan, still crouching in front of her. A hand on her shoulder.

Ivan pauses in his steps as he looks past the general and Lyssa. At Mikah. At the blood. At the bodies around them. He lets out a curse. "Saints, what did you do?" He gives her a look of disbelief. Of shock.

"Ivan." It's Kirigan's voice again. "That's enough. Make sure that the other survivors are taken care of."

Giving Lyssa a last look, Ivan disappears.

"I..." Lyssa's voice breaks off.

It's okay, Lys.

Dimly, she registers that the hand is not on her shoulder anymore. That it doesn't rest still against her kefta, but is drawing slow circles on her back. A gesture of comfort. Lyssa barely notices.

"I tried to save him." Lyssa chokes out, tears burning in her eyes. Her vision blurrs.

Kirigan glances at Mikah. At the bodies of Shu and Ravkan soldiers alike around them. "I know." He says.

To Lyssa the words sound empty.

A sob wrecks her chest. She feels so utterly hollow. "I tried to save him." She repeats. The tears are falling now, mingling with the blood and dirt and sweat on her cheeks. Down her throat.

"I know." Kirigan says again as he draws her against his chest, one arm around her. The other still rubbing her back as Lyssa weeps in his arms. "I know."

🕊🦂🕊🦂

Zasha Vikhrov stares at the girl, slumped on the chair in her office. Her bleak eyes firmly trained on the ground.

Twenty-four.

That girl was barely twenty-four and had, against strict rules, attempted to do a blood transfusion. In the field and without any prior training. Zasha had inspected the Heartrender's body herself when they'd brough him in yesterday. That girl was twenty-four, fifteen years younger than Zasha herself had been when she first succeeded with a transfusion, and had damn well nearly done it.

She'd known. She'd known since that very first lesson that this child was talented.

Bur this... even in her wildest dreams she could never have imagined this.

"Do you even realize what you have done, girl?" Zasha demands, wondering if she has any idea just how rare this kind of raw talent is. That, untrained and unhoned, she had surpassed many who'd studied Healing. Without even trying.

The girl doesn't even look up. "If you're going to put me into prison for breakimg the rules just tell me." She replies, her voice raw and cracked. As if she'd screamed so long she lost it all.

There's such a vast emptiness in her eyes. Broken, Zasha thinks. That ambush broke her.

She'd heard of what happened. Of how a small party had been attacked by Shu soldiers near the southern border. From what she heard it'd hadn't even been a real fight and instead little more than a bloodbath. Three Grisha and two First Army soldiers had made it out alive.

From the reports those survivors owed their lives to this girl, too.

Another thing Zasha can barely believe. Most Corporalki had the potential to be either, but after their specialisation they were either Healers or Heartrenders. They didn't stray out of those lines. Not really, anyways.

She could count the amount of real exceptions to that rule she'd seen in her nearly sixty years on her hands.

And this girl was worried she would let them throw her into prison for breaking the rules that prohibited Healers to perform a transfusion in the field unless they were trained in them and special circumstances prevailed?

"I'm not going to put you into prison." Zasha says at last. "I'm going to teach you"

For the first time since she entered her office, Lyssa Golubeva looks up at Zasha.

AUTHORS NOTE

i'm issuing a formal apology for this chapter. at least we got a little lyssa and kirigan? that's something positive, right??? even if writing this chapter of lyssa's backstory tore my heart out

also saoirse ronan as baby!lyssa for now