Time Can Heal (But This Won't) A Darkling Series

Chapter Five: Willing Reveal

Your heels kick up dust where you stand, leaning against the trunk of a tree that seems to crop out the sun with its branches. You think you remember this particular sapling from your time here at the beginning, but you could be making it all up. To be honest, staying here is messing with your memories. Sometimes, it's hard to remember what happened yesterday and what happened centuries before. You wonder if the Darkling ever had this problem, if he ever had troubles keeping track of all the lies he'd told and lives he'd led.

Some things stand out in your memory as being from long ago. The trees were shorter, the buildings still in a state of haphazard construction. The Grisha, which are so numerous now, barely existed here at all. They were still being hunted then, by the drüskelle and the Shu Han and even the Ravkans themselves. Now, they litter the grounds, shaping the making at the heart of the world wherever they walk. You can't help but feel some twinge of pride in your chest when you see it- you caused this, you helped build it. Look at it now.

Much is different, even with the Grisha. You'd seen the school built, the first instructors hired. You'd actually taught a few of the classes alongside the Darkling to the most advanced pupils, the students with enough raw talent to shake a mountain or cleave the earth in two. Now those Corporalki and Etherealki and Materialki have long since died, their bones reduced to dust in their tombs. Their children and grandchildren have died as well, long strings of families erased to nothing or straggling on. Like it or not, history always moves on past you.

A flock of Grisha pass before you, boots stepping in tandem down the paths worn through the grass and dust of the Little Palace. You study their brightly colored kefta, the intricate embroidery. These are new- you and the Darkling had plans for using the Materialki to craft the kefta at first, but you'd never seen them through, as you'd fled before them. The colors, those are new. You'd seen the first few plans for color-coding, although the official shades had yet to be decided when you'd left.

Red and blue make sense, but the purple of the Materialki was something he had decided after you'd gone. Purple hadn't always been a sure color; the two of you had actually been wondering about placing green in either the core color or the embroidering, but evidently he had decided against it. Green had always been your color, for the shade of your magic, just as black has been his color. You can't help but wonder whether he'd forgone using green again because he mourned for you, or because he never wanted another reminder of you haunting the halls of his Little Palace. Or maybe you're overthinking this, and he'd just preferred purple.

The sound of footsteps sounds out of the wooded path behind you, and you turn with a smile to see Alina Starkov picking her way through the branches to meet up with you again. You walk over to join her, noting with a barely concealed laugh that her knuckles are sporadically dotted with freshly risen welts. "Has Baghra not been kind to you?" Alina gives you a look. "She's charming as always. Honestly, I think she should train me in staff warfare instead of how to use my powers. Her aim with that stick is impeccable."

You can't help but laugh at that. You know Baghra from long ago, and even though you already had control over your powers you were certainly victim to her rather brutal tendencies as she wanted to learn the full extent of your spells. No Sun Saint or demigoddess is safe from the crack of her cane. You haven't walked far before Alina clicks her tongue as if remembering something. "Actually, I forgot to mention something. Baghra wants to meet you."

You stop walking, surprised. "What?" Alina turns to face you. "Yeah, she said something about wanting you to stop by her cabin. I can walk back by myself." You start walking again with an indignant glare tossed her way. "As if. I've been hired as your bodyguard, right? The Darkling will have my head if I leave your side for even a second. Imagine what would happen if he found you aimlessly wandering the grounds."