Her Balance | Nikolai x Reader x Darkling

~ Chapter 25 ~

Hi! I am so so sorry that I disappeared for a month. It has been a very hectic time for me. I was exposed to COVID multiple times and continuously had to get quarantined and tested and one of those times I came down with a cold and freaked everyone out. 

Hectic month. 

But I am back and ready. I have a few days left in my winter break and plan to update as much as I can. 

Let's get into it.

First Person - Y/n

For a long while, we drifted in the black, the Grisha Squallers driving the skiffs forward over the sand.

Then, the Darkling's voice rang out, "Burn."

Huge clouds of flame burst from the Inferni on the sides of the skiff, illuminating the sky. The ambassadors and even the guards around me stirred nervously. The Darkling was announcing our location, calling the volcra directly to us.

I hesitated. It was now that I was supposed to get ready to use the light, but all I could think about was Bagrhra. She had told me my mother was turned into a volcra years ago, who knew whether she was still alive. 

What if I had killed her? What if I used my powers, and I did kill her?

"Y/n, what are you doing?" whispered the Darkling. "Use the light."

"I-I can't," I mumbled as the volcras' shrieks split the air.

They had all been men and women, victims of the unnatural power unleashed by the Darkling's greed. It might have been my mind playing tricks, but I thought I heard something not just horrible, but human in their cries.

"I won't," I said firmly, and I could see the Darkling confused. 

"Y/n, use the light. Now, or we will all die."

When they were almost upon us, the Darkling gripped my arm and simply said, "Now."

That invisible hand took hold of the power inside me, and I felt it stretch, reaching through the darkness of the Fold, seeking the light. It came to me with a speed and fury that nearly knocked me from my feet, breaking over me in a shower of brilliance and warmth.

The Fold was alight, as bright as noon, as if its impenetrable darkness had never been. I saw a long reach of blanched sand, hulks of what looked like shipwrecks dotting the dead landscape, and above it all, a teeming flock of volcra. They screamed in terror, their writhing gray bodies gruesome in the bright sunlight. 

"Stop," I said but he ignored me, "Stop!"

He pulled his hands away looking troubled, and the light died a little but I threw it back out again, against my previous wishes, to ensure that we all wouldn't die. 

"What happened?" whispered the Darkling.

"I...I don't know," I replied. 

"Are you alright?" asked the Darkling. 

"I know the truth about who I am," I told him, "Sankto Cherno, Orelan, my mother. All of it."

"Baghra..." mumbled the Darkling shaking his head. 

"What if my mother is really out there? How do I-"

"Your mother was born 500 years ago," said the Darkling, "Volcra can't live that long. So, make a path...please."

A part of me wanted more confirmation but at the moment, I couldn't do anything but believe him. So I did as he asked. 

I let the Fold close in around us as I focused the light, making a channel through which the skiff could pass, bordered on both sides by walls of darkness. The volcra fled into the dark, and I could hear them crying in rage and confusion.