A YEAR AT the Fjerdan front had taught Freya Helvar a lot about the cruelties of war. She had lost count of how many deaths she had witnessed. How many deaths she had caused? It was the cycle of everyday life this far to the northern border, a habit that became imbedded into her bones as surely as her summoning. And yet, nothing could have prepared her for how utterly wrong this mission had gone.

It was meant to be a simple rescue mission. In and out, kill a few Fjerdan soldiers if they got in her way. A group of young Grisha had been taken hostage. They had just been discovered by the Grisha testers in a border village, awaiting an escort to be brought to Os Alta when the Fjerdan struck. The village was burnt to the ground, and the young Grisha were taken. Freya had seen the ruins of the once prospering town. Despite the war raging around it, it had gone untouched until then.

The young Grisha had been taken to Mosava, another town even closer to the border, where only old women and young children remained and no one dared to fight the Fjerdan soldiers, lest they lose their own life. Freya had been chosen for the rescue, alongside a few other Grisha and a few First Army men.

In and out.

Except they hadn't gotten out.

Freya's back was pressed to the cold stone wall of the fountain that sat in the centre of the village. A rather rich structure surrounded by huts of decaying wood. It stood out vividly in its surroundings. Utterly out of place. The water was freezing, turning her legs numb where she sat in it. She could barely remember how she had gotten there. Only the burn of her thighs as she sprinted towards it and towards the child huddling inside it, hiding from the gunfire.

She had been so sure that she would get to him. So sure she would save him. She had just jumped the edge when a bullet split the boy's skull and he collapsed, turning the water red with his blood. His head rested in her lap now, the skin morbidly pale already.

The last of the gunshots were going off now. How had the information they had been given been so wrong? There were only supposed to be about twenty Fjerdan soldiers here. Instead, there had been forty, and their guns were much better than that of the First Army soldiers in the group.

A bullet whizzed just above Freya's head, but she did not even flinch. They were not aiming at her, she knew that. She had taken a bullet too, just as the boy had collapsed. Her kefta had snagged on something in the chaos of the fight. It tore open and left her chest and abdomen completely exposed. The thumping pain in her belly where a bullet had ripped through her was enough proof that she should've been more careful. A wheezing breath escaped her lips. Blood seeped between her fingers where they were tightly pressed to her wound.

She thought about crying out, to see who was still alive. Perhaps one of the Healers they had taken with them, or even a Heartrender. They would be able to staunch the bleeding, at least a little. But both of the Heartrenders had gone down first and a Healer had met his end soon after. The Fjerdans knew who to target.

No, there was no point. She doubted anyone would answer her even if she did shout. Her eyes remained caught on the gaping bullet hole in the young boy's skull. Tears threatened to fill her eyes, but she found that there was no strength left in her.

An ambush. That's what this had been. The Fjerdans had not cared about the Grisha children. They were simply bait to draw the First and Second Army out. It had worked. Djel, it had worked. Freya had been on the other side of an ambush plenty of times and had helped orchestrate plenty. She should have seen it. She should have known. She should not have been so caught off guard.

A hysterical laugh bubbled in her throat. She was now paying the price for it, bleeding in a fountain with a dead boy in her lap. He couldn't have been older than twelve.

One last bullet fired. A thud followed, surprisingly close to her. The finality struck her with a sudden nauseating wave of dread. Who won? She could not be certain. Now she should call out, see if the answering voice would be one she was familiar with, or if her answer would be the reloading of a rifle. If that was the case, she could at least prepare herself for the cold embrace of death – dark, painful, and terrifying.

When she went to find her voice, the sound died away in her throat. The irony of the Sound Bender not being able to speak did not escape her. The names of the soldiers that had come on this mission with her ran through her mind.

Cillian, a Tidemaker with such a sweet voice that she could listen to him sing all day. He was one of the older Grisha, but certainly still fun to be around. He knew every song there was to know, whether that be a mournful ballad or a cheery sea shanty.

Rain, the Healer that had been found at an orphanage that gave its residents most peculiar names. Freya remembered how she used to speak about the orphans that had lived there with her. Silver, Echo, Bay, usually something to do with where the orphans – too young to remember their names and no relatives to tell it – were found. Rain had been among the first to go when they walked straight into the ambush.

Anastasia, the only Squaller in Freya's regiment that had not yet met her end at the Fjerdan front. Until now, that was. Freya was almost certain she had heard her cry out a few minutes ago. Right after a rather nasty spray of bullets had fired in the direction of one of the huts.

Harshaw, the Kaelish Inferni that seemed to toe the edge of insanity at times. Freya liked him. He was fun to be around and kind on most days, if not a little snarky. His hair was such a bright red that it reminded Freya of blood or the colour of poppy blooms. He always seemed to be a little obsessed with the fire he summoned.

Denali, the second Healer that had joined them. Freya hoped her fate was not the same as Rain's. The Suli girl had such a talent for drawing, it would be a shame for it to be lost to the world.

The world was enveloped in silence for a moment that stretched on far too long. Anyone that had survived the skirmish was probably waiting. Seeing if anyone else would make the next move. The tinge of smoke filtered into Freya's nose. Something was burning close by. She did not have the energy to lift herself and look over the edge of the fountain.

She lifted her gaze from the dead boy in her lap, instead staring at the moss-covered statue that stood in the centre of the fountain. It was a depiction of Sankt Demyan of the Ryme. Patron saint of the newly dead. How fitting.

The sound of scrambling feet across gravel came from close by. Freya's muscles involuntarily tensed, pushing the bullet in her belly deeper into her flesh. Tears of agony welled in her eyes. The pain was so blinding that she could barely focus on whoever it was that was approaching the fountain. She thought about moving, but her legs were so so numb and she was just so tired. Her eyes felt droopy and her muscles languid, as if she had hauled a thousand tons of stone up a perilous mountain.

Pale hands wrapped around the edge of the fountain's stone basin. A head of blood-red hair peaked over, carefully, as if the person was afraid of what they'd see. Something eased inside Freya when she realised she knew the man. She squeezed her eyes shut in relief as Harshaw vaulted himself over the side of the basin.

"Freya, are you alright?" The question died in his throat when he saw the blood seeping from between her fingers. He knelt in the frigid water of the fountain, hands carefully wrapping around the dead boy's skull. Freya almost protested when he moved him from her lap, but before she could utter a single word the boy's corpse was floating away from her in the water.

Harshaw's arm wrapped around her waist, the other hauling the hand she wasn't clutching to her wound over his shoulder. He smelled of burning wood and Kaelish rum, but Freya did not know whether her mind was just conjuring it up. It was something she had associated with him for so long that it could simply be a figment of her delirious mind. A symptom of her blood loss.

"Come on," said Harshaw as he hauled her to her feet. A sharp cry was ripped from Freya's lungs at the sudden movement, flesh and muscle moving and scraping around the bullet. She thought she heard Harshaw mutter an apology, but she couldn't be sure. The world swayed and for a moment she was certain she was falling, but then Harshaw's strong arms situated themselves beneath her kneecaps and around her back and her head hit his shoulder.

The last thing she was aware of before her world darkened was that the sky was a rather pretty blue.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

"Matthias! Wait for me!" Freya cried out to her brother as she pushed through the crowd at Halmhend. Matthias had always been so much faster than she was. She would find it unfair had he not stopped and held out his hand for her so she would not get lost in the crowd. His hold on her hand was firm and gentle, guiding her through the marketplace.

The annual fair had always been Freya's favourite time to visit the city, if not for all the foreign goods that were brought forth, then for the plays that were put on and the music that was sung. Father and mother had agreed to take them both this year without any fuss.

"Stay close, rëv," Matthias told her as he tugged her along. Rëv. Fox. Freya never did feel as sly as a fox or as tricky as one, but the nickname had stuck somewhere along the way. The fox had been Freya's favourite animal since the moment her father had gifted a carving of one to her during the festival of Vinetkalla.

"I will."

A sharp scream tore through Freya's throat and she shot awake. She did not know where she was, but there was a roof above her and the room smelled vividly of herbs. A large hand pressed down on her chest, pushing her back down onto the floor.

"Don't move, you'll make it worse," Harshaw ordered. Freya looked down. His fingers were in her belly, covered in her dark red blood. White-hot pain shot through her entire body and there was a piercing sound thrumming somewhere in her head. Harshaw grimaced suddenly and the hand on her chest shot up to cover one of his ears. Alright, maybe it wasn't in her head.

Freya did her best to quell her subconscious summoning and gritted her teeth against another scream, but it seethed out past her teeth anyway. She let out numerous curses, Fjerdan and Ravkan alike, as Harshaw scavenged through her gut for the bullet.

"Is there not a Healer who can do this?" Freya sobbed, throwing her head back with a painful thud against the floor of whatever hut Harshaw had carried her into. A grimace flashed momentarily across his face.

Freya did not need him to say the next words, she already knew. "Everyone else is dead." Fuck, Freya cursed inwardly. How had it come to this? How had she managed to overlook all the signs this badly? Something screamed at her inside her mind that it wasn't her fault, she was not the one leading the mission. But she should've seen. Should've known–

Harshaw's fingers finally gripped at the bullet inside of her and he carefully pulled. The pain was searing like a brand pressed hard onto her skin. Black spots dotted her vision.

Her small bare feet padded across the short distance of the room she shared with Matthias and Skadi. Her brother had long fallen asleep, his shoulders rising and falling with each breath he took. The night sky was pitch black save for a few stars that dotted the canvas, casting barely enough light for Freya to see where she was going.

"Matthias," she muttered when she reached the bed her brother was curled up on. He let out a groan and for a moment it looked like he would just turn around and continue sleeping, but then his eyes cracked open the slightest bit. She felt a bit sorry for waking him. "I had a nightmare."

Matthias shot her one short look of sympathy. Wordlessly, he lifted his blanket and shimmied across his bed until his back was pressed to the wall on the other side, making sure there was enough room for her to crawl in. She scrambled onto the bed and below the blanket, pulling her knees up to her chest.

Her brother wrapped an arm tightly around her waist and pulled her to his chest. "What did you dream about?" he whispered so quietly that she barely heard him.

"About a demon in the woods," she muttered back, burying her face in the blanket that was pulled up to her chin. "He was tall and had ghostly pale skin. And he dragged little children off into the shadows and returned them with limbs missing."

"You listen to the stories of the kärringa far too often," Matthias told her. Freya supposed he was right. She did listen to the stories of the old women in their village often. But what else was she supposed to do? Winter evenings were long and dull without their tales. "You need not worry, there is no demon in the wood."

This time when Freya woke, it was to the smell of pine branches burning. Her head lolled to the side. A fire had been lit in the small stone fireplace of the hut and a heavy wooden blanket had been thrown onto her. Freya did not even realise how cold she was until then. A shiver coursed through her body.

"Harshaw?" she croaked, trying – and miserably failing – to push herself up into a sitting position. Some was shifting on the other side of the hut, but the person who came into Freya's view certainly wasn't Harshaw. Her entire body tensed and she prepared herself for a fight, only to realise that it was just a girl, no older than thirteen. Freya's mind swam and her eyes squinted suddenly uncertain. "Who are you?"

The girl knelt in front of her, a cup in her hand. "Here drink," she offered, and Freya barely had enough time to react before the cup was at her lips. She inhaled slowly, trying to discern if the liquid in it was poison or not. It did not smell like anything and there was no colouring when she looked down, so she took a sip. "My name is Leanne."

Golden brown waves tumbled down the girl's back, tied loosely with a strip of leather. Some stray hairs fell loose, framing her youthful face prettily. Big green eyes looked up at Freya, slightly wide.

"Leanne." Freya tasted the name on her tongue. It was a pretty name, uncommon along the northern border. It was a name Freya would expect from someone in the south, perhaps around Caryeva. "Are you one of the Grisha children?"

Whatever small hope Freya might've had was squashed when Leanne shook her head. "I am a Grisha, but I am not one of the ones you came for. Those children were taken away long before you arrived." It had been a trap then. Nothing to protect, nothing to lose, just soldiers with their guns aimed and awaiting whatever rescue would come. She couldn't help but wonder what would happen to those children now. They were in the hands of Fjerda. A trial was all that awaited them. A sentence of death for the crime of existing. Freya felt the pressure of tears behind her eyes, but could not find the strength to cry.

Everything hurt and ached and burned. She could barely move without a hindrance to her breathing.

"Where is Harshaw?"

"He went out to look for something to eat. The food stores were burned down in the fighting."

"Were you not tested?" she asked, looking Leanne up and down. "You look far too old to have only now discovered your powers."

"My mother hid me when the testers came." Leanne shifted away from her slightly, standing up again with the cup still in her hand. "She already knew I would be Grisha. My father came from a long line of Corporalki, you see. He was stationed close to Ryevost, where my mother lived when she was young. They met there." She shook her head mournfully. "They are both dead now."

Alone at such a young age. Freya felt the ache of long-buried loss resurface. She shoved it back down as quickly as she could, but it did little to chase away the feeling of emptiness that always accompanied the memory of her father's death. There was no room on the front to mourn or to reminisce. It had been over a year since Freya had allowed herself to think of her father and home. The realisation struck her hard, and she had to stare off into the flickering flames of the hearth to calm the sudden urge to curl up into a ball.

"The Fjerdans?" Freya asked, even though she probably shouldn't have. She could not look at Leanne at that moment. The girl reminded her a bit too much of herself. A huff came from where she was standing by the window of the hut.

"You talk of them as if you are not one of them." There was a light accusation in the tone of her voice, an echo of whatever pain Leanne harboured. Freya let out a short and dry laugh.

"I am not though, am I?"

"I would not know," Leanne answered, and the sound of her retreating footsteps as she returned to where she had been sitting before Freya woke followed. "You all look the same to me. Especially with that pale hair of yours. You look just like the man that threw my brother to the floor before he put a bullet in his head." Freya shut her eyes, exhaling deeply. "He was a Grisha too and they found out. My mother hid me beneath the floorboards after that, and when they came to question her she told them I had run away. They murdered her too because she had given birth to two Grisha and that made her the devil's messenger in their eyes."

"I am sorry," Freya said weakly. The image of her father's burnt corpse shot through her like lightning. Her father had been killed for the opposite reason that Leanne's mother had. He had tried to kill Grisha, instead of nurturing them. He had a hand in creating you, though, a voice whispered in her head, and he was trying to protect you, when he was killed. Just like Leanne's mother was trying to protect her daughter. Unlike her father, she had succeeded.

"I do not need your apologies," Leanne snapped, the tell-tale anger of a grieving child-rearing up like a snake ready to strike. "They are both dead regardless of what you say. And it was your people who caused it."

This time, Freya shook her head and looked directly at Leanne. "No, it was not my people who caused it. My people are miles from here at the military camp at Ryevost and even farther than that at the Little Palace, at the Fold, at the border of the Shu Han." She knew she should not have spoken in such a sharp tone, but the girl needed to hear it. And Freya needed Leanne to not think of her as the enemy, to not want to slit her throat when she slept. "The men that killed your mother and brother are not my people. They would have put me to death just the same had they had the chance.

"When I first arrived at Ryevost, my regiment was caught in a drüskelle ambush. One of them almost killed me. Four months ago one of them tried to feed me to his ice wolf. A week after that they tossed a grenade at me. When I came here, I took a bullet shot by one of them from one of their rifles. So no, Leanne, I am not one of them. I may look like them and I may speak their language, but I am not them."

There was no more talk after that. The silence was heavy and suffocating. Freya fell asleep again nonetheless.

"I cannot climb that!" Freya exclaimed and crossed her hands over her chest. "It is far too large!" Matthias laughed from his perch on top of the boulder, leaning his elbows on his knees. He swung his legs slightly, looking down at her with a challenge in his eyes.

That day was one of the first few in weeks where the sun had stopped hiding behind the blanket of grey clouds. A fresh layer of snow covered the ground from the snowstorm that passed over their village merely the week before. It had lasted for almost four days. The most boring four days of Freya's life.

The snow had finally stopped just the night before, freeing Freya from the confines of their home at last. She had dragged Matthias outside as soon as their mother permitted that morning, dressed in their warm furs and gloves.

"I have seen you climb a tree twice as high as this, rëv," Matthias called down to her, his grin so wide it must've hurt his cheeks. "You can climb this too." Freya shook her head.

"A tree is not the same as a big rock!" A slight frown tugged at Freya's lips. She was disappointed that she couldn't climb up with Matthias, but her slippers were not made for scaling boulders and she had already slipped twice. Mother would surely berate her if she came home with cuts and bruises. She already said she played too much like a boy and that she should start learning how to be a woman. Knitting, sewing, cooking, all things Freya thought were impossibly boring.

Matthias raised a brow. "If you cannot climb this rock, how will you come with me on the adventure I have planned?" Freya's bottom lip stuck out in a pout. She tilted her head questioningly to the side.

"What adventure?"

"Father says there is an old abandoned observatory high up in the Elbjen. I wish to go see if that is true." Freya looked in the direction of the distant snow-capped mountain range to the East. Father always said the mountains there were enormous, but they seemed so small from where she stood now.

"What's an obsertory?" she asked.

"Observatory," Matthias corrected, "it is where people can watch the stars." Oh, Freya thought. She supposed she had always liked the stars. She didn't know if she wanted to climb the supposedly gigantic mountains to see them though. She saw them well enough from their small village. She did not need great travels.

"I do not think I wish to go on your adventure."

Matthias' grin widened. "That is fine. I'll just take Skadi instead." Their sister was a year younger than Freya. A five-year-old child could barely do anything without their father's or mother's help. Freya knew that Matthias was jesting, but her frown still deepened. Matthias gestured to the boulder. "Now come, try again."

Freya supposed it could not hurt to try.

The third time she woke, Harshaw was back in the hut. His kefta was half undone, showing the plain white linen shirt all Grisha wore beneath their kefta. The blue fabric was torn at his shoulder in the shape of a bullet hole, blood that she had not noticed before caking the edges.

When Harshaw noticed she had woken, he sent her a small tired smile. "Who is Matthias?" he asked, and Freya felt a small wave of unease course through her. She must've pulled a face, because Harshaw shrugged and said, "You keep saying his name in your sleep." Freya allowed her shoulders to relax slightly and pushed herself to sit up.

There was a thick sheen of sweat on Harshaw's forehead and when Freya looked closer, she noticed he was shivering. The ghostly whiteness of his skin was even more unusual, far more pale than his usual complexion. Sickly, corpse-like.

"He is my brother," she answered him after a few moments. "Are you alright?" She jerked her chin in his direction. Everything still hurt, as if she was getting shot over and over again. She wished they had not lost all their Healers in the fight. Harshaw's rough stitching could only do so much in their circumstances. "You look sickly."

Harshaw let out a laugh, but it was weak and humourless compared to the one he usually showcased. "Grisha do not get sick." It was true, Grisha were naturally more resistant towards diseases. But some things even being Grisha could not protect you against.

Freya pushed herself up onto her knees and shuffled over to Harshaw. The blue fabric of his kefta was even dirtier up close. She saw dirt and mud smudged on the lower panels of fabric, probably dirtied during the skirmish where they all had to toss themselves to the ground to avoid gunfire. There was gunpowder residue on the cuffs of his sleeves. Darkened blood coated the front – most likely from when he carried Freya out of the fountain seeing as he had no injury of his own there – and the top of his sleeve on his shoulder.

With careful fingers, she seized the collar of the kefta and pulled it down to reveal his injured shoulder. Sure enough, there was a bullet hole that started on one side of it and ended on the other. It went clean through, leaving only the torn flesh and hot blood. The injury had been roughly patched up. Harshaw had most likely done it himself. The thread that pulled the skin back together haphazardly tugged at the flesh.

Freya's nose scrunched up and she inhaled sharply. The injury was swollen. Far too inflamed to still be the residue of the actual injury. There was pus leaking from it in places as well. Harshaw's heavy laboured breathing and clammy skin were suddenly far too urgent to dismiss. Quickly, she put her hand on his forehead. He was burning up.

"They are not immune to infection, though," Freya told him, pushing carefully at the kefta so it fell fully off his shoulder. "Get this off. You need to rest." Harshaw shook his head, but his body followed her instructions and he started to pull his arms free of the sleeves.

"I have to keep watch." Freya's own injury still thrummed with pain in an even, stabbing rhythm, but she was nowhere as bad off as Harshaw currently. She had already recovered slightly from the blood loss – she had to suddenly wonder how long they had been in the hut for that to happen –, no longer dizzy or cold.

Infection could kill as easily as a knife.

Freya helped Harshaw take the last bits of his kefta off, tugging it off his forearms and pushing it away from him. There was already a pile of blankets close to the fire, undoubtedly where he had slept while she had been out. Leanne was sleeping in a small cot on the other side of the hut. This must've been her home then, if she decided to stay with them instead of somewhere else. She suddenly felt bad for invading the girl's only safe space, but desperation had forced them there.

"Lie down," Freya commanded Harshaw, and with only a soft huff of protest he proceeded to flop onto the pile of blankets and furs. Freya pulled the remaining furs over his shoulder and watched as he shivered.

The dread hit her harder than a hammer. What would she do if Harshaw's fever did not break? She did not think she could handle watching him slowly succumb to death. They were not in the same regiment, but they were both stationed at Ryevost and they often saw each other. She would go as far as to say he was a friend, though with someone as aloof as Harshaw, one could never be sure. She enjoyed his sarcasm and his arrogant humour and even the slight threads of insanity that made up his person.

For the first time since they had walked into the ambush, Freya felt her eyes burn with actual tears. She quickly blinked them away. Now was not the time to show weakness. All too quickly, she had gone from the most vulnerable person in the hut to the only one capable of protecting them if anything went wrong.

Harshaw looked like he would barely be able to lift a finger and Leanne was a child. Sure, she might have been Grisha, and she might have been using her abilities at least a little bit, seeing as she was not perishing from wasting sickness, but how much could a girl as young as her do if met with the barrel of a rifle or the gleaming blade of an axe?

Freya hoped that she would not find out.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Three days stretched into four, then five, six, which turned into a week. A week of nothing but attempting to nurse Harshaw back to enough health that they might try and make it to the nearest military encampment fifteen miles away. The people that had lived in the village had met their ends at the hands of the Fjerdans either before Freya's group had arrived or during the skirmish itself. There was no one to help. On the eighth day of their stay, a storm struck so violently that it threatened to tear the roof off of the hut that they were staying in.

Harshaw's fever had not broken and the chill that managed to set into the home – despite the roaring fire they kept going all day and night – did not help at all. It was coming to the point where Freya did not think he would make it. Subconsciously she found herself hardening against it. Her own form of preparation for what she was beginning to see was inevitable.

Every time Harshaw woke and whispered that he was cold, despite the high fever that seized his body in the clasp of its tight fist, she found herself more and more detached. Harshaw, the Inferni with his strange obsession for fire, would die of a fever, burned alive from within.

There was nothing to do but keep him covered with as many furs as they could and provide him with food and water. Leanne had eventually agreed to try and ease the fever using the Corporalki powers she inherited from her father, but an untrained Grisha could do little against the ways of infection. Sealing a small cut was one thing, fending off infection with no training in anatomy or medicine of any form was another. The only thing the girl proved to be good at was gathering herbs from the nearby forest to create poultices.

The girl's mother had apparently been good at making concoctions and salves from whatever she could gather. Freya did not trust Leanne enough to allow her to pour anything down Harshaw's throat, lest it be poison or just a badly made mixture, but even her own wilting knowledge of plants told her that a linseed poultice was harmless to him.

It was early on the ninth day, when the storm was still raging rampant outside the windows of the hut, that Freya sat and watched as Leanne changed the poultice on Harshaw's shoulder. Her fingers were quick and nimble and her work precise.

"You should come to the Little Palace," she told the girl. They had come to a sort of understanding in the first three days of Freya waking up completely from her blood loss-induced dreams, and after that, the girl seemed to have opened up more and more. She had never mentioned Freya's heritage again, something that she was undeniably happy about, and seemed genuinely curious about Freya and what she did, liked, and the way her power worked.

There had hardly been any more friction between them again, but when Leanne heard those words, she stopped in her work for a moment. "It was my mother's wish that I do not go. She did not want me to join the army."

Freya almost laughed at that, but forced it down quickly. It would do no good to laugh at Leanne's dead mother. Regardless of how foolish the choices she made were. The poor woman had probably wanted to protect her children, but keeping them in a village bordering Fjerda probably put them in more danger than they would have faced in the Little Palace. In Os Alta, they would have had enough food, a bed to sleep in, friends with abilities like theirs and people to teach them about them. Here, the only thing that awaited them was death. Leanne's brother was proof enough of that.

"You would have been drafted into the First Army anyway," Freya said, shaking her head slightly to emphasise her point. "And trust me when I say wearing bulletproof clothing is better than wearing the First Army uniform." Freya turned to look out of the window at the grey angry skies. In the distance, lightning flashed and moments later, thunder rolled over the village. "You could be a Healer. They are usually kept away from the fights."

Leanne's eyes flicked towards the door. "The two Healers you brought with you certainly weren't." No, they weren't, Freya agreed in her head, biting back the lump in her throat. Because the Commander believed that the Grisha children were where the intel said they were. He thought that they were not as greatly outnumbered as they ended up being. And bringing Healers on a rescue mission seemed like a good idea. It would have been, had the intel been correct. Had there been someone to heal, and not someone to fight?

Rain's and Denali's bodies still lay in the mud outside, as did the rest of the Grisha and First Army soldiers. Freya had tried to at least pull them all together and attempt to burn them on the fifth day, but the strain of the bullet wound in her abdomen had been an obstacle she could not overcome.

As if reading her mind, Leanne looked down at Freya's abdomen, directly at the spot where old rags were used as bandages for the wound. "Your kefta certainly wasn't bulletproof either. Neither was Harshaw's. The rest of your Second Army soldiers died too." Freya nodded. That was not something she could deny.

"Harshaw was unlucky. I was foolish and ran out directly into the enemy's line of sight despite my kefta being undone. The rest..." Freya sighed. "I do not know what happened to the rest. I think Rain took a bullet to the head. A kefta cannot protect you from that. Cillian to the throat, from what I saw of his injuries, but well- his entire body was covered in mud and blood."

"You ran to the fountain to try and save Boleslaw," Leanne said. Was that the boy's name? Freya felt bad for not asking before. She had held his bleeding skull in her lap and tried to give him a few moments of peace, even though he was already dead. And she had not even asked his name. "I do not think that is foolish."

Freya's smile was meant to be comforting. "It is when you have a battle to win. I took myself out of the fight when I could've gone on. Not everyone had to die. Second Army, First Army, the people of your village, some of them might've lived." Everyone's bodies still littered the ground. The rain battered down on them in a way that made Freya sick.

"How does a Sound Bender even help in a fight anyway-" There was a shout that came from the south of the village. Freya's muscles tensed and her eyes snapped towards the southernmost huts of the village. Leanne had frozen too, eyes wide as she stared at Freya. After a few bated breaths, another shout came. It was not a cry for help or a scream of terror. It sounded more like a command.

Freya did not wait to see who came from between the houses. She had spent long enough in the army to recognise the shouting of soldiers. She dashed towards the bucket of water they kept in the house and tossed the liquid at the fire, dousing it quickly. She hoped the soldiers wouldn't notice the smoke from it in the rain.

"Quickly," Freya hissed at Leanne, nudging her away from Harshaw. "Under the floorboards." Leanne did not have time to argue with her as Freya plucked the floorboards out from the ground, revealing a hole situation in the earth below. It was moist and cold, but that did not matter now. It was the same place that Leanne had hidden during the Fjerdan occupation of her village.

"What about Harshaw!" Leanne whispered back in urgency. "Should he not be the one to hide here?" Freya shook her head, pushing Leanne down to save as much time as possible.

"He is too big for that. And too heavy to roll into there." Leanne did not say anything after that, simply curled into the hole and put a hand over her mouth as Freya put the floorboards back on top of her.

Freya stood and pivoted on her heels, breaths laboured. Perhaps the soldiers outside were First Army, perhaps they would be safe. Or perhaps they were Fjerdans, coming to check what happened to the forty soldiers they had sent here that did not come back.

Harshaw had kept a rifle hung on a coat hook in case of emergencies. This definitely felt like an emergency, and despite Freya not being that good of a shot, she grasped the rifle quickly into her hands. It was a standard issue for all First Army soldiers. She had held one perhaps twice in her life. It felt heavier than a hunting rifle and it was much harder to hold than a pistol or a revolver. The pistols she had been armed with were all out of bullets.

Bullets. Freya whipped her head around quickly, searching for the few bullets that Harshaw had placed somewhere. Damn it, her head was in too much of a shamble to be able to think. A shout came disturbingly close to the hut. Freya's breath hitched and with a quick flick of the wrist, she cut the sound in the hut. It would be easier to hide if they could not hear her.

Finally, Freya's eyes found the five bullets resting on a rickety table. She was by the table in two quick steps. Her shaking hands grasped the first bullet and she tried to push it into the rifle. The bullet fell from her fingers, falling soundlessly onto the table. A choked sob without any volume forced its way out of her. She was glad she could not hear herself, that Leanne could not hear her either, or the sleeping Harshaw. It was pathetic.

She had faced death many times, why should it be any different now? She clasped the bullet again, this time successfully inserting it inside the rifle.

The door of the hut burst open. That sound she heard – the loud battering of rain, the heavy breathing of whoever was on the other side and the cocking of a gun. Freya's heart stopped beating in her chest. She spun around, lifted the rifle and prepared to shoot.

"I do hope you are better at handling a rifle than the last time I saw you." The teasing lilt of the man's voice filled the room. Freya froze, the sound blanket she had made over the room of the hut falling away.

Golden hair, hazel eyes, and a perfectly charming smile. It was all so familiar, broken perhaps only by the olive green garb of his First Army uniform. Freya lowered the rifle with a relieved exhale.

"Nikolai," she breathed. The relief that washed over her was something she had never felt before in her life. It had been so long. Too long. Two years, in fact. He had grown an inch or two and his shoulders definitely seemed wider. Courtesy of military training, no doubt. Nikolai's grin seemed to widen. Despite the usual arrogance behind it, she could see that there was relief in his expression too. His eyes were as wild as a stormy sea during winter.

She wanted to launch herself into his arms. And so she did. The rifle tumbled to the ground as her fingers loosened around it and she stepped forward. Nikolai dropped his rifle too and met her halfway.

Her body pressed against his so hard her spine curved. She pulled him closer, latching her arms tightly around his neck and digging her fingers into his hair. She could be embarrassed about this later, she decided as she buried her face in his shoulder. Another sob came from her, this time one of such relief that tears gathered in her eyes. She was safe now, she was protected, she was fine.

Nikolai's arms were tight around her waist and his large palm was flattened between her shoulder blades, keeping her as close to him as possible.

"I missed you too, milaya." Milaya, the word made her shiver with something unknown, something she did not think she ever felt. She pressed her face tighter into his shoulder. His uniform was wet from the rain and his hair was matted flat onto his head, but she did not care.

"I was so afraid," she admitted, even though she did not know where the words came from. It felt good to say them, regardless. She had needed to admit it so many times during the last few days. A rumble came from Nikolai's chest. A groan or a hum, Freya wasn't sure.

"It's alright. You are safe now," he told her. The whimper she let out at his words was something she would later deny.

Yes, yes she was.