IT HAD TAKEN the rest of the morning for them to get to a Ravkan military encampment and the next day they were off with Freya seated in a coach. There were only two people in the coach with her: the Zemini woman and the man that had healed her arm. She knew their names now, Imani and Erik. It turned out that Erik truly was from Fjerda, though she had not had any doubt about that. Imani, in turn, was not actually from Novyi Zem, but her mother – who was also a Grisha – was from there. She had been born in Ravka and had never seen her mother's homeland.

Freya might have found that upsetting had Imani not had a hand in the burning of her village and the subsequent death of her father. She could never imagine not seeing her parents' homeland. She had been gone from Fjerda for only a week at most, and already she missed the tall pine trees surrounding her village, the hardness of the permafrost and the soft cold of the snow.

Throughout their journey, Erik tried to teach her some more about Ravka. The language, the customs and everything about Os Alta. She learned of the different coloured robes – keftas, as she had been told – and the Grisha who wore them. She learned about the classes she would take, and the examinations she would undergo. Everything Erik said was just an estimate of his, as she was something entirely new. That's why when they arrived at the Little Palace, she would be taken straight to the Darkling.

Erik called him General Kirigan and spoke of him with respect. It was strange for Freya to hear. No one from Fjerda spoke of the enemy general with any sort of fondness. They all spat his name in disgust, cursing it, or whispered the word 'Darkling' with fear. But Erik, born in Fjerda, in Djerholm itself, did not seem to fear him, nor hate him.

"You will address him as moi soverenyi when you are brought to him," Erik said on the twelfth day of their travel. They were close now to Os Alta and had been travelling along the main merchant road known as the Vy for a few days. Their travel had been greatly hastened, as the road was much smoother and wider than the paths they had taken up until that point. "You will know him by his black kefta. He is the only one who wears one."

"The only one?" Freya asked in confusion. She had learned quickly during the journey to allow herself to be interested. It was better than being afraid. Erik nodded and shifted in his seat slightly. He looked tired and annoyed, not that Freya could blame him. Being a coach with her and Imani must've been exhausting in and of itself. The nearly two-week journey where they rarely stopped to rest would only add to it.

"For now, yes." Freya raised a brow questioningly. Erik sighed. "The General has a son, but his Grisha powers have not manifested yet. He is perhaps a year or two younger than you." That made sense, Freya supposed.

"And if his Grisha powers manifest and he isn't in the same order as the General?" She didn't know where the question came from, but the words barreled past her lips before she could think to stop him. Erik froze, earning a concerned nudge from Imani at his side who did not understand Fjerdan. Why she was stationed at the Fjerdan border if she did not speak the language, Freya did not know. Perhaps so she could not understand her victims as they pleaded for mercy.

"Grisha children whose parents are both Grisha have a high chance of inheriting their powers," Erik explained, but that only raised more questions in Freya's mind. She huffed and leaned her head back against the wall of the coach behind her. The wood let out a soft thud.

"And who is the boy's mother? Is she human or one of you?" One of us, but she refused to say the words. She had been raised by a retired drüskelle, the mere idea of her being a drusje, demon, or Grisha, whatever one chose to call it, made her sick to the stomach. It was easier to think she would return home eventually. To the calm village not far from Halmhend with pine trees surrounding it and snow covering its lands. To her mother's gentle touch and her sister's melodic laughter and her brother's bright smile. And her father's funeral, so she may see him buried as a true drüskelle would be.

"She is our most senior Durast and teaches young Materialki," Erik told her, choosing to ignore the obvious insult she had thrown his way. She had to wonder if in his youth he was just like her. Craving home but knowing he could never return, lest they burn him at a stake and not bury him properly – as Grisha were not human, and therefore did not deserve a ritual meant only for the children of Djel. Freya's skin crawled as she realised the same fate would befall her if she was ever caught.

The rest of that day's journey was silent.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The Grand Palace was an overly gaudy and ugly thing. Too much gold decorated everything and it all felt too big for a country whose citizens were starving. Freya had never seen the royal palace in Djerholm, but she doubted it was as grand as this. Instantly, Freya despised it. Luckily, their coach only rode past it. If she had stepped foot inside, she would've most likely been disgusted even more.

The Little Palace was not much better, but at least it was slightly smaller. Its walls were made of dark wood with all sorts of birds, flowers, vines and magical beasts carved into them. When the coach got closer, she noticed the carvings were inlaid with something, but it was not until she had stepped out of the coach and was led inside by Erik, Imani and two other Etherealki that she noticed they were inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

The interior was much like the outside and had built-in hexagonal shapes. They passed through a large room with a great golden dome as its roof. There were four large tables there and a few Grisha were sitting at it. They all stared at her curiously and she wanted to shrink away from them. They called something at Erik and he answered them, but she did not understand a word they said. Noticing her distress, Imani placed a gloved hand on her shoulder and led her into a corridor away from everyone's sight.

As they continued to walk, Freya could not help the fear that grew inside of her. It was like rot setting into old moist wood, into cut-open flesh. It grew like a disease, like something foreign in her. She had never been scared in her life until the day her village was attacked. And this feeling was not much different, except it was all she could focus on now. There were no balls of flame for her to dodge or attacking soldiers for her to run from or to fight. There was only a long stretch of corridor in front of her and a black ebony door at the end of it.

Making their way to it seemed to take hours, or perhaps it was minutes, Freya could not be sure with how the blood in her ears thrummed and disoriented her. She looked down at her wrists – unshackled and unmarred by previous injuries. If she wanted, she could attempt to make the sound implode again, but both she and Erik knew that she would not. She had no idea how. That had been apparent enough since the day he had healed her, the last time she had been shackled.

They stopped before the large ebony door. There were two men in Corporalki red stationed at each side – both of them old and greying. They both exchanged a nod with Imani and Erik. Words were exchanged and just like last time, Freya did not understand. One of them turned around and rapped his fist against the dark wood and cracked the door open. He spoke with whoever was inside, and then he pushed the door open further and let them in.

Suddenly, Freya's limbs locked up and she could not move. The same growing feeling of fear swelled in the pit of her stomach. A rot that consumed all. Her skin felt too tight, too roughly pressed against her rib cage, her arms, her legs, her skull. The blood seemed to rush from her body and everything felt cold.

She had no idea what to expect. The Darkling was known as a monster in Fjerda. An abomination and an even bigger insult to Djel than any other Grisha that existed. His ancestor had created the horrid black mark on the map that separated Ravka in two. The same black mark that even passed into Fjerda. Freya had never seen it, but she could imagine it from her father's descriptions. A shadowy smudge on the world's canvas.

"Move," Erik commanded impatiently, nudging her in the shoulder. Freya could only shake her head the slightest bit, the movement so small that it was barely noticeable. She felt as though she could not breathe, but at the same time, she was inhaling rapidly. She would not – could not – go into that room. Her entire body was screaming at her to run, to hide, to do anything except just stand there and allow herself to be taken. And then Erik's hands were on her and she could feel her heart rate slowing down. "Breath, girl."

She released a slow breath, then another. Then the realisation that he was manipulating her heart and lungs struck her and she jerked away from him. Erik held up his hands in front of him, as if he was calming a frightened horse.

"Calm down," he said. As if she could do that. Her eyes flickered between him, the other Corporalki guards, Imani, and the door that was still open. "The General will not hurt you." She did not believe him in the slightest. She was Fjerdan. The Darkling killed Fjerdans. You are also Grisha, a voice in her head told her. And he protects Grisha.

With the smallest bit of courage she had in her, Freya took a deep breath and walked in.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Freya had imagined the Darkling many times in her life. From the stories, her father told to the plays put on in Halmhend. The books that had been written about him and drüskelle warnings hung up on notice boards around town. The man in her nightmares, in her imagination, was not a man at all. Rather a thing made of shadow and sharp teeth and monstrous tentacles and claws. An incarnation of the devil himself.

That thing was not what stood in front of her when she entered the room. Instead, it was a man, dressed in the same black kefta that Erik had described. His hair was dark and pushed away from his face. His beard was carefully trimmed, not too long and not too short. Striking quartz eyes fell on her, assessing her. And there was a child held in his arms. A child that was not afraid or crying, but was holding onto him tightly and hiding its face in the high collar of the man's kefta, barely looking out at Freya.

It would have been a wholesome sight, had she not been so scared. The child – the General's son, it had to be – snuggled closer to the Darkling's warmth. The General placed a hand on his back, and stepped forward, not even bothering to put him down as he stared Freya down. It was not a harsh glare as she had been expecting, but rather a look of intrigue. She supposed she should've expected that if what Erik said about her was true.

"This is the girl I wrote to you about, General," Erik said, surprisingly in Fjerdan. He wanted her to understand then. Good, she thought, fighting the need to scratch at the dry skin around her nails. The Darkling raked his eyes over her again and she was suddenly all too aware of everything. Of her slightly messy hair, the dark circles under her eyes and the borrowed clothes that hung loosely on her body – too large for a girl of seven.

"Moi soverenyi," she quickly muttered, dipping her eyes to the floor when his stare became too heavy to bear. Boots scraped across the hardwood floor as the Darkling stepped forward.

"And she truly is what you say she is?" he answered, also in Fjerdan. "Look at me, girl." Freya quickly did as she was told. "What is your name?" She gulped, shuffled on her feet and commanded her thoughts to become coherent.

"Freya Helvar," she answered, voice overly quiet. The boy in the General's arms shifted, turning his face so he could look at her more clearly. His face did not seem to bear any resemblance to his father, though the colour of their eyes and hair was the same. He took mostly after his mother then, Freya assumed.

"Is it true?" the boy asked, surprisingly not as shy as Freya had assumed. His fists still held tightly onto the black fabric of his father's kefta. "Can you bend the sound?" She felt her face twitch as the question. No one had actually said the words aloud before. Erik had only referred to her powers vaguely, and never addressed them properly, and neither did anyone else. For the existence of her ability to be acknowledged so openly – so easily, as if it had not routed her from her home – seemed like a hand grenade tossed right at her feet.

"I don't know," she said instead of accepting it. She did not wish for it to be true. Maybe if she denied it long enough, she would wake up in her bed in her home and none of this would be real. The General's son tilted his head in confusion.

"You don't know?" he asked, his Fjerdan shaky and spoken with a heavy accent, but still good for a boy that could not have been older than five. He turned his head to look up at his father, brows scrunched together and mouth pulled into a tiny frown. Freya supposed a child that grew up around Grisha would not understand the war going on inside her head and heart. The General smiled – and Djel was that not a strange sight – at his son before setting him down.

"Go and find your mother, Luca," he told him, ruffling his hair with a hand that seemed overly large on the boy's head. Without a second thought, the boy obeyed, rushing towards the door and then out of the room. Both Freya and the General were silent for a moment, listening to the boy's retreating footsteps down the hall. When they fell utterly silent, the Darkling once again trailed his gaze over her. "Give me your arm."

Something jumped inside of Freya's belly, a jolt of anxiousness that caused her to step back and pul her hands to her chest. The General held out his hand and raised his brows slightly, though the look in his eyes was somewhat sympathetic.

"No one here will hurt you, Freya," he promised, tilting his chin down slightly so his feathers did not appear so harsh and commanding. "You are safe here." She was not so entirely sure. Ravkan sent their Grisha out to fight in its wars and many did not come back. Freya knew that well enough from her own father's boasting. Dying in a war where she would be fighting against her own people or the Shu did not seem like safety to her.

Still, she slowly held out her arm, because defying the Darkling would surely do her no good. She would find a way to get out of fighting. And if she did not, she would learn to live with it. Because Freya Helvar did not wish to die and did not want to suffer. So she let the man who used to be a monster in her dreams seize her arm between his fingers. Let him rake a claw-like ring down her pale skin.

And when her power surged through her, hot and demanding, she did not fight it.

Author's Note

2K READS IN UNDER A WEEK???? I love you all so much <333333