Blood Soldiers: The Second Army - Grishaverse Prequel

39 - Aleksander

Aleksander gritted his teeth as Alexei made a face, whining, "The Commander wants to speak to him again? Whatever will the poor little darkling do with all this attention?"

The jeers and taunts made his blood boil, but he could endure a few more years. The time he had spent 'training' to use his powers had not been in vain. He and his mother had worked together to improve his skills with the Cut, and he was becoming faster with it too. He practiced summoning shadows that would blind only the faces of his opponents and working to bend the light so he could hide within the shadows too.

Now, a few months after he had arrived home, he was being summoned to see the Commander. Like Yelena had done when she was his second, Stefan Orlovesky was in charge of running things within the Little Palace and attended meetings with the king.

In his short time at the Little Palace, Aleksander had heard more than enough stories about the Commander to know he was somehow more ruthless and bloodthirsty than Yelena, and that he did not hesitate to dole out punishments where they were due. As far as he knew, they ranged from having to wash up all the dinner dishes each night for a week, to being assigned to cross the Fold. There was one thing all the Grisha agreed on: Don't mess with Commander Orlovesky.

It had been difficult to learn about who he had been before his quick ascension to power, but from what Aleksander knew, he had been a spy. One of the first to go out, he had been sent to Ketterdam first, before later being assigned to Fjerda. He had only been outed when the Drüskelle had captured a Grisha amplifier and used her to test all the other new members of the court. His seven-year term there had been brought to an abrupt end.

His skills were said to be in tailoring, though he was a talented Heartrender and Healer too, able to hold his own in battle against multiple opponents. Others said he could impersonate anyone and hear a heartbeat from a mile away. Aleksander wasn't entirely sure about that, but he was certainly not going to try and find out the hard way.

Aleksander had also learned that Stefan had a daughter, the gorgeous Heartrender girl who had been with Feodora when he first arrived. Alyona Orlovesky was hard to miss, and impossible to forget with her stunning good looks and her incredible power. Rumours about who her mother was were tricky though. Some said she was a Fjerdan noble, others a Ravkan peasant, while others still claimed it was in fact Yelena Lebedev. Most laughed at that third option though, Yelena was a mother to them all, of course she treated Alyona as her own, as she did Feodora, and Christov and every other child of the Grisha council.

Alyona gave him a wide berth, though he didn't miss her stolen glances his way. If nothing else, he intrigued her, as she did him.

The thought of Yelena and Stefan being together though was...impossible. They were clearly close, as any General and their second-in-command would have to be, but he had never seen them be particularly...affectionate.

He was escorted through the halls to is old rooms, and into one of the offices. Stefan sipped tea at the desk while he signed reports.

For a long while, he didn't look up, and Aleksander clenched his fists at being forced to wait like some ordinary peasant.

Finally, the Heartrender looked up, leaning back in his seat. Aleksander wondered if he had tailored himself to look as handsome as he did, or if he had been born like that. Jealousy twinged in his gut as he remembered how Yelena had made him look far less attractive in her rush that day on the fold. Still, he supposed, it was better to be alive than good-looking.

"The King and the General want a report on your progress," he said slowly. "Tomorrow I will be at Anna's hut and I expect a demonstration, and a plan for how you intend to remove the Fold."