"In the night I hear them talk, coldest story ever told."
"Ivan wasn't the Generals first heartrender, no one knows what happened to Mashka. It's like she disappeared into the shadows and took his heart with her."
shadow and bone season...
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Turning in quick circles Mashka takes in a shuddering breath. It's gone just as quickly as it came, shadows retreating back to where they were before. Baghra's hands resting in front of her, casually looking up to Mashka as if this were not some sort of revelation.
"Only his bloodline can summon shadow." Mashka whispers, slowly descending back into the chair.
Baghra nods. "Good, you're catching up."
"You're Aleksander's mother?" Mashka stares at her then.
Maybe in how they hold themselves she can see it, the darkness in their eyes, the tilt of their head, the lilt in their voice.
"You will do well to listen to me very carefully Miss Lavna. Aleksander is not some wounded hero, or a wounded boy for you to patch back up again, he cannot give you a life, a child. If you go on he will grip your mind in a way you cannot be released from." Baghra is sincere, Mashka finds no lie in her words, but it doesn't stop her own heart from pounding inside her chest.
Placing her head in her hands she runs them over her face. "Baghra, we're to be married in a short matter of months. What- you don't want me to marry him?"
"Do you want to marry the black heretic Mashka Lavna?" Baghra's words cut into her like a knife.
Mashka shakes her head in disbelief. "That was centuries ago he, he can't be-"
"I know you have just suffered a loss, and I don't mean to spin your world on it's axis but you must know. I watched him, watched him turn men, women, children into monsters. But he has no remorse, he'd expand it if he could. Exploit it for his power, all in the name of Ravka."
A shuddering tear escapes Mashka's eyes, not being able to breath. It was the lack of lie that concerned her, some people could out smart a heartrender, but not Mashka. Closing her eyes she refuses the tears that spill out from her eyes.
A scrape against the ground causes Mashka's eyes to open, Baghra rises from the seat, passing Mashka a letter. It's Aleksander's handwriting, though not his name signed at the bottom. But the words, they're his none the less. Speaking to his mother, about Mashka, about monsters, about himself.
"No, he can't- we mourned together I have to believe that was real I-" Mashka tries to not let the air be sucked out of her lungs but she can't seem to stop.
Baghra's hand rests on her shoulder. "I know you have, and perhaps a part of him did mourn with you. But you need to leave this place, I can't watch you go down this road. I've watched him for centuries create new names, hide, come back stronger. You are a child compared to him, he could have never raised his own. Not without a selfish intent anyway."
"How can I leave? He'll find me, I know what he does to traitors Baghra." Mashka knows because it's the same thing he's taught her to do. How to coax them into telling the story, letting them fail, letting them die, watching them die, kill them if he desired it. But this time it would be her.
