CHAPTER TEN
too good at goodbyes / karine

— four years ago —

The classroom inside the Corporalki workshops is silent as Karine bounces up and down in anticipation. Lyssa gives her a look over her shoulder. "Would you please stop that?" She mutters before she turns back to the samples. Pursing her lips, Karine goes still.

It only lasts a few moments.

"And?" Karine asks, craning her neck to catch a peek over Lyssa's shoulder at the two samples.

"Shh." Lyssa makes, not even looking up at the girl. Her whole attention is on the blood samples Karine had been working on today. The samples she's currently inspecting to see how Karine fared in modifying one of them.

She's trying her best not to let herself get distracted by the young Healer at her back, basically vibrating with her nervous energy. Instead, Lyssa draws her eyebrows together slightly, a small crease appearing between them as she compares the blood samples for what feels like the hundredth time. Even with Karine hanging on by a thread, she wants to make sure that she's been thorough.

At last, Lyssa leans back, nearly knocking into Karine's chin with how close the girl is hovering over her.

Karine jumps back in surprise at Lyssa's movement. "And?" She asks again.

Lyssa gives her a look full of pride. "Well done."

"Really?" Karine squeals, her eyes widening.

Lyssa nods. "Really."

The young Healer lets out another loud squeal, a bright grin spreading across her face. Before Lyssa can react, Karine has thrown her hands around her neck and pulled her into a near bone-crushing hug. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

A surprised laugh escapes Lyssa's lips. "No need to thank me, this was all you." She replies, patting Karine's back.

Karine's grin only widens, nearly blinding with her happiness.

A knock at the door makes the two of them look up. "Yes?" Lyssa calls out as she untangles herself from Karine's embrace and stands up.

One of the high-ranking officers puts his head into her classroom, his eyes finding the two of them. Visser, one of their Healers who sits in Kirigan's councils and usually was the one who assigned the final destination of a Healer in the war.

"Golubeva, Litvin, there you are." He says as he steps inside. "I've been trying to catch you all day."

Lyssa draws her eyebrows up in surprise. Officer Vissier looking for you usually was not a good sign at all.

"What's wrong?" Lyssa asks, trying to keep her voice even as the older Healer closes the door behind himself.

"We've just finished up assignments on who'll join the group going down to Kribirsk later this week." Vissier says, nodding at them. "The two of you'll be among them."

Karine goes deathly still. Slowly, she sends an uncertain glance at Lyssa.

More out of instinct than anything else, Lyssa places a hand on her student's shoulder. Beneath her touch she can feel the shudder going through Karine's body. She knows her well enough to see the fear in her posture, and the relief coming with the small comfort Lyssa's touch gives her.

"Alright. Thank you, Officer." Lyssa replies. It's not anything to worry about, she reminds herself. Since there's always a need for them in Kribirsk, they are always taking a handful of Healers to the Fold whenever a group from the Little Palace goes there. Lyssa has been in Kribirsk a few times now and yet she has never entered the Fold. It's nothing unusual.

When he doesn't leave, Lyssa's heart sinks slightly.

He sends Karine a glance and Lyssa knows. She knows even before he opens his mouth what he'll say.

"When?" Lyssa asks quietly before her superior officer can say anything.

Vissier looks at her. "Morning after arrival. The west has requested more Healers to be brought over."

Lyssa presses her lips together and nods. "Thank you, Officer." She says at last.

With a nod to them both, Vissier leaves the room again.

For a very long moment, the two of them stand there in silence. Then, Lyssa forces herself to push her own fear and worry down, locking it away in a place deep inside her heart until it is not detectable anymore for anyone but her.

She turns to Karine and finds pure panic in her students' eyes, staring at the door. She turns to Lyssa. "I..." She breaks off, her eyes wide as she looks at her. Looking for help and reassurance Lyssa cannot give her without lying to Karine. Something she'd told herself she would never do.

Still, all that Lyssa can think of when she looks at her wide, fearful eyes is protecting her student.

She gives Karine the brightest, most encouraging smile she can muster.

"You'll do amazing, I know it." Lyssa tells her as she brushes one of the curls out of Karine's face. "And when we're back here, I'll invite you to Nicolo's to celebrate your success with your studies. How does that sound?"

Karine gives her a smile, brittle and wobbly. It's nothing compared to her blinding sunshine smiles, but she's trying. For Lyssa. For herself. And it only makes Lyssa want to keep her safe even more. "Deal!"

🕊🦂🕊🦂

Anxiously, Lyssa makes her way onto the skiff the moment it docks back in Kribirsk. They're a later than their original schedule, but she reminds herself it's nothing unusual. There are always unexpected things that could occur when it came to crossing the Fold that the other side had no way of knowing of until the skiff arrived. It could mean nothing.

Instinctively, her eyes search for Karine's wild curls as she walks onto the skiff, trying to find the young Healer among the chaos of the crew as they unpack the skiff.

Lyssa's heart sinks at the absence of Karine's familiar figure. Panic clawing up her throat the longer she stands on the skiff, and the emptier it gets.

When she can't stand the wait any longer, her hand shoots out and grabs the first kefta-clad arm she can see. "Where's Karine?" She asks one of the Grisha who'd been in the crew to Novosibirsk and back here. Who'd been in Karine's crew.

The Grisha gives her a look of so much sympathy, Lyssa's stomach sinks.

She knows. She knows even before he ever opens his mouth.

"There was an ambush," he slowly says as Lyssa's world tils. Tips over. Comes crashing down. "Drüskelle had heard about the student of a Healer who's able to perform a special sort of witchcraft and that the student would be travelling to the west."

A student. A student of a Healer who's able to perform a special sort of witchcraft.

Lyssa feels sick.

"By the time we got there she... she was already gone. We were able to interrogate one of the attackers. He said they'd gotten special orders to find and kill every Healer in our crew. He said..." he breaks off, giving her an unsure look. Lyssa isn't even looking at him anymore. Not really. She can't see anything in front of her, despite her eyes being firmly trained on him. "He said they could not let Ravka keep a witch with that kind of power."

He takes a step toward her. "Is there anything..."

"That will be all, thank you."

The Squaller looks behind her at the deep voice, giving the speaker a nod. With a last, concerned look to Lyssa, he makes his way off the skiff.

Lyssa doesn't say anything for a long time.

"Miss Golubeva?" The same voice says at last.

She doesn't reply. Doesn't even really notice the echo of the steps as he walks over to her, or as he repeats her name. She doesn't jolt, or flinch, or react at all as he lays a hand on her shoulder.

The touch makes her want to recoil. It reminds her of humid air and dirt and sand. It reminds her of blood and corpses and such a vast, painful void in her chest it threatens to tear her apart.

"Miss Golubeva?" He says again, quieter this time. Then, after a moment, "Lyssa?"

A question and a command all at once.

A student.

Lyssa nods, numbly.

They had gotten special orders.

They'd gone after the Healers. To find Karine. They'd killed Karine because of her. Because Lyssa had taught her. And Karine had died because of it.

A small noise escapes Lyssa as she pushes his hand off and lurches to the side of the skiff. She barely makes it in time before she vomits over the railing.

Only when her stomach is empty, and she is heaving nothing does she notice her hair is being held back. That a palm is drawing slow circles over her back. That the skiff is entirely empty safe for the two of them.

She lets out a whimper, her lips trembling.

Karine is dead. Karine is dead.

Because of her.

They'd killed Karine because of her.

Tears blur her vision as her body starts to shake. Lyssa wants to sob, to scream, but no sound escapes her. She wants to tear the world apart the same way it is tearing her apart. She wants to lie down and never get up again.

She wants anything but this all-consuming pain inside her.

The hand that held her hair back lets the strands fall on her back, pushing them behind her ears as Lyssa lets out a guttural sound. Something like a wail. Like a wounded animal. Then, the arm wraps around her, pulling her against a warm, hard chest.

He doesn't say anything as Lyssa falls apart in his arms.

🕊🦂🕊🦂

"Miss Golubeva?"

Lyssa doesn't answer. She is leaning against one of the trunks in her tent, a glass of whiskey in her right hand. It's her second one. And it isn't nearly enough to handle her own mind.

"Miss Golubeva?" The same, deep voice asks from outside the entrance of her tent.

She doesn't react, staring out into the shadows of the tent.

After a moment, the tent flaps part and a figure glad in a black kefta enters, a frown between his eyebrows. "Lyssa?"

At last, Lyssa tears her eyes from that spot and turns them to Kirigan. "Hm?"

He musters her for a moment, his eyes wandering over her slumped form against the trunk, the class in her hands. The bleak expression in her eyes. He's seen all this before. Eight years ago, in the south. After an ambush from soldiers from the Shu Han nearly evaporated her entire group.

Soldiers from the Shu Han that had been felled by Corporalki powers that usually only were reserved for Heartrenders. In an act that should've been impossible, according to the reports he'd been given. But still, the Shu soldiers had been dead.

And Lyssa Golubeva had been kneeling amongst the carnage, with that same bleak expression in her eyes.

"How are you holding up?" He asks and a small burst of anger bubbles through the surface of that vast emptiness. What does he think she's going to say? That she's great? That she cannot still hear how she had promised Karine that she would be fine? How it is all her fault? For a moment, she contemplates throwing her glass at his head. But then she thinks of the whiskey still inside, of the energy it would cost and decides it is not worth the effort.

Instead, Lyssa watches him in silence as he makes her way over to her and sits down to her right, leaning his back against the trunk.

For a moment, Lyssa thinks he might offer her his apologies or something like that, but Kirigan stays silent.

It's better this way, she thinks. He's a Shadow Summoner. He's a Darkling. His ancestor is the very reason for the Fold, the very reason why the west requested Karine in the first place. She'd been the one that loaded the gun that killed Karine, but the Black Heretic was the one who build it.

She can barely stand the sight of Kirigan as it is, she has no idea what she is going to do with his condolences. They'd be empty anyways. As far as Lyssa can think back Kirigan has never taken on a student. Who would he take on, anyways? The only Darklings in existence come from the same bloodline and as far as Lyssa knows there isn't a child in sight that Kirigan might teach.

So how is he supposed to know how she feels right now? How could he ever imagine the void hollow that is cleaving her apart every moment of every second?

Lyssa takes another sip from the whiskey, staring straight ahead. She barely notices the burn that used to make her wince years ago anymore.

"I killed her." She says quietly into the silence.

Next to her, Kirigan stiffens. "You didn't."

"Maybe. But I was the one who made her my student. I was the one who put that target on her back." Lyssa says. "I might have not been the one who slit her throat, but it's my fault all the same."

She guides the glass back to her face for another taste of the liquor. Before she can put it to her lips, a hand wraps around her wrist with surprising strength, stopping her movement.

"It's not your fault, Lyssa." Kirigan says sharply. "You did not tell those Drüskelle to kill a young girl. You did not end her life. It is not your fault."

He's lying. It's her fault alone. Lyssa knows it, deep in her heart, but she supposes it doesn't matter. Even if the words are a lie, he's at least saying them.

Even if they're utterly empty.

Through the haze of her tears and her pain and her grief, Lyssa looks up to him next to her only to find he is already looking at her, his eyes boring into hers.

And for the first time in hours, she can think of something other than Karine and her own failure and guilt as those dark eyes pull her in.

For a moment, his gaze flickers down before it returns to her eyes.

Kirigan lets out a sharp breath and leans back again, letting go of her wrist. Lyssa blinks. When had he gotten so close? Close enough for his scent, for the warmth seeping from his body to envelop her.

He rises up from the ground and onto his feet. For a long moment, he looks down at her, still sitting on the ground.

"I should go." He says eventually. But, Lyssa notices that his usual surety, the familiar absolute authority that leaves no room for doubt or questions, is absent.

Still, she finds herself nodding. "You should." She says quietly.

With a last look to her, Kirigan walks out of the tent. Leaving Lyssa alone with her ghosts once more.

AUTHOR'S NOTE
part 2 of lyssa's backstory😔✌ there WILL be happy flashbacks i promise lmao

i hope you all are doing well and please consider leaving a comment as it's always really fun to read them and be able to interact with you guys! 💖