In The Name of Shadows - A Darklina Story

Chapter 4: The Black Heretic is Back

--Video which is put above was made by me personally, as it is my own edit--

Publishing date: 02/20/2022

A small vial of soil was trembling in Katya Nemerov's hand.

Even though the gray sand seemed to be completely devoid of the scarlet color of blood, the strange energy emanating from the inside of the glass bottle indicated something opposite.

His blood really was there.

Katya Nemerov, as one of the few people in this world, knew best what to expect from it and how to recognize it. Every day she had been touching the body of the Black Heretic, and even though he was now completely dead, the dark aura hovering over his corpse was unparalleled and could not be mistaken for anything else. The same feeling was floating above this inconspicuous handful of sand which had been blown long time ago by the wind blowing in the dunes of former Fold. This soil kept more power than many of living Grisha could even imagine.

It was, after all, the blood of Aleksander Morozova.

The Darkling. The King of Shadows. The Black Heretic.

"So here you are." The Healer smiled to herself. "Hello, my dark lord, I was missing you a bit."

To find the last of dark amplifiers, Katya Nemerov had had to return to the Fold again and start a final search. She must have gone to the place where Lizabeta had found Aleksander's body some months ago. The inferno ritual required extremely powerful amplifiers, so it couldn't be just any random Darkling-related items. There had to be items that could bring him back from the afterlife where the Shadow King had been now trapped.

And with Grisha as powerful as he was, there was still a risk that the whole plan would fail. That the Healer and the Saint would waste this one chance for Aleksander Morozova to save all Grisha, ​​to save their kind.

But the chestnut-haired girl didn't even want to think about something like that.

Katya did not understand why Lizabeta had not finally decided on the obisbay ritual. From what she had managed to read from the forbidden book, when the Saint hadn't been watching her for a while, the Healer considered it a much simpler rite to perform. Lizabeta, however, had insisted on giving it up. This woman was very tenacious in her convictions and Katya did not have the power to argue with her.

According to the Saint, during the obisbay ritual Aleksander's soul could enter the body of first person he met, for example her or Katya, because it was very difficult to control such a rite by someone conducting it. And they couldn't afford to take such a risk when the fate of Grisha kind was at stake.

Not that the young Healer did not want it at all. But on the other hand, she preferred to see the Shadow King alive and in his own body. In that beautiful outer shell that the girl just loved to touch.

Oh, I hate her to death.

At the thought of Lizabeta, Katya felt a surge of power under her fingertips. The Healer could not even express in any proper words how much this self-righteous Saint irritated her. She shouldn't have had such emotions towards another Grisha, since logic dictated that they should stick together and help each other. But Katya felt only like a pawn in Lizabeta's hands, like an object that would be thrown into a corner when it was no longer needed to carry out the Saint's plan.

"Over my dead body. You won't let that happen, will you, my dark lord?" Katya raised the vial of Darkling's blood to her eye level to feel a soft whisper of power emanating from there. "I know you can reward someone's loyalty. This was the case with Ivan, and it will be also like that with me. This idiot can say what she wants. But I know the truth anyway."