For Grisha, for Ravka (a Darkling prequel)

Chapter 13

Blinded by her new bloodthirsty hobby, Alyssa hadn't been prepared to go back to Askerk on her own.
Jase, Ronan and their escort couldn't be a proper replace for Aleksander.

The void opened again in her heart when she stepped alone in her apartment.
Just few weeks had passed since she had come back home with her General and he had kneeled to help her out of her boots.
Just one year earlier she had married him and felt the most powerful and the happiest woman in the world.
There would be no more springs for her to enjoy, no more summers to spend under the sunlight next to the man she loved, enjoying the baths in the pond and lying on the carpet of grass, their minds and souls flying lightly like the few clouds above them.
Alyssa was just a killer now, suffering the loneliness of the cold nights, disturbed only by her nightmares.
Sometimes she felt there were living shadows around her. Probably demons attracted by the stink of her spoilt soul.
Alyssa kept trying to keep the flame of a candle as her lone companion through the night.
But those shadows always blew it off.

After few days she was impatient to leave that curse apartment once and for all.
She felt confident that she wouldn't come back alive from her mission in the Southern Lands.
Soon she would visit the afterlife. And maybe reunite with Aleksander. Or face his wrath.

Alyssa shivered, her cold meal in her stomach menacing to come up and make her sick again.
An unexpected knock on the door made her jump in fear.
She stood still, her noisy heartbeats beatraying her. She hoped the servants would just leave.
Instead the banging on the door just grew louder and more insisting.
Alyssa grabbed a knife and stifly approached the door.
She was ready to use any words to humiliate anyone who dared to disturb her evening, when she halted at the sight of an unfamiliar face at the other side of the door.
A mature woman peered fiercily at her.
Alyssa felt confident that she had never met her before nor she had spotted her somewhere.
Could she be the mother of the emissary or the other soldiers she killed?
So truly spies had filtered into the palace.
But then Alyssa noticed the stranger's clothes. They looked Suli.
And Alyssa's heart sank even more.
If she knew...

"Are you Lady Alyssa?" the stranger asked with no politeness in her voice, her eyes scanning her from head to toe.
Alyssa just nodded.
It was her home, so she shouldn't look intimidated by a stranger, so she lifted her head and felt ready to slam her door to the face of that insolent woman.
But what she said next kicked the air out of her lungs.
"I'm looking for Kiril" the stranger said bitterly "I've been told he has been made General here".
Alyssa swallowed hard and looked down at her own black dress. A mourning dress.
"He passed, madame" she whispered defeated, not lifting her head "About two weeks ago".
"My son passed?" the stranger snapped incredulously.
Alyssa's legs almost gave up.
She looked at the stranger with new curiosity, with hunger of knowledge.
"You are Aleksander's mother?" she asked breathlessly, looking for any resemblance. She should have noticed that black hair, the details of her features. Although Alyssa grew used to search for such small resemblances in everyone around her.
That woman should have been very beautiful in her youth. She could still be, if she wasn't so filled with hatred.