Her Balance | Nikolai x Reader x Darkling

~ Chapter 1 ~

First chapter of the second part!!!!

Let's get into it.

First Person - Y/n

Every night I would wake up questioning whether I had made the right decision. I am engaged, or more accurately, was engaged. Leaving your fiance to fend for himself in a dark place filled with monsters might not have been the best way to celebrate it. 

He had it coming, I would tell myself but that never escaped the guilty feeling that seemed to preoccupy every part of my body. As much as I hated him, I loved him just as much and no matter what I tried nothing seemed to diminish it. 

We had been in Cofton for about two weeks, and it was on a side of a country that I had never been to. Thus, I was getting lost. The town lay inland, west of the Novyi Zem coast, miles from the harbor where we'd landed. Soon we would go farther, deep into the wilds of the Zemeni frontier. Maybe then we'd begin to feel safe.

I checked the little map I'd drawn for myself and retraced my steps. Mal, Alina, and I met every day after work to walk back to the boardinghouse together, but today I'd gotten completely turned around when I'd detoured to buy our dinner. 

With a sigh of relief, I turned onto the city's main thoroughfare. At least now I knew where I was. Cofton still didn't feel quite real to me. There was something raw and unfinished about it. Maybe it was because I was used to Ravka. The other side. 

I continued walking, and as I passed a gin shop, I caught a flash of crimson out of the corner of my eye. Corporalki. Instantly, I drew back, pressing myself into the shadowy space between two buildings, heart hammering, my hand already reaching for the blade at my hip.

I waited, my grip slippery on the dagger's handle, then finally dared to peek around the wall. I saw a cart piled high with barrels. The driver had stopped to talk to a woman whose daughter danced impatiently beside her, fluttering and twirling in her dark red skirt.

Just a little girl. Not a Corporalnik insight. I sank back against the building and took a deep breath, trying to calm down.

This was the fourth time that I had done something like this just in the last week. The Darkling had infinite resources at his disposal, and considering the show in the Fold, he had other countries bowing down to his feet as well. 

He could find me in a heartbeat if he truly searched. So why hasn't he?

I pushed my way back into the bustling street and clutched at the scarf around my neck and half of my face, drawing it tighter. A week ago, a woman had recognized me not as Grisha but as one of the generals for Ravka's army. Mal and Alina had forced me to cut my hair a little bit to make myself more unrecognizable and I wore scarfs only revealing the bridge of my nose, my eyes, and my forehead. 

If that wasn't enough, beneath the scarf lay Morozova's collar, the most powerful amplifier ever known. I could play it off as a necklace if someone were to see parts of it, but eventually, it was the biggest identifier of who I was. 

I wasn't sure what I would do when the weather turned. I couldn't very well walk around in scarves and high-necked coats when summer came. But by then, hopefully, our situation would be different.

I crossed the street, dodging wagons and horses, still scanning the crowd, sure that at any moment I would see a troop of Grisha or oprichniki descending on me. Or maybe it would be Shu Han mercenaries, or Fjerdan assassins, or the soldiers of the Ravkan King, or even the Darkling himself. 

So many people might be hunting us. Hunting me, I amended. If it weren't for me, Mal and Alina would still be a tracker and cartographer in the First Army, not deserters running for their lives.