✓ SALVATION | the darkling

01;

chapter one,     the little discovery

𝕯arkling

            LOSS GETS WEAKENED WITHIN TIME. Coexisting with grief and guilt, it starts to fade away. The human brain is always evolving, adapting to the traumatic events that needed to be erased from the memory, in order to keep on living. Numerous losses, painted with bitter grief and sorrowful cries, become blurred. They become a norm.

            War gives birth to people with emotional disarray, problems that aggravate the perception of good and evil. Both sides of the war believe in their motives, in their justification to leave corpses behind them. Sacrifices are necessary for a war to continue. Therefore, to sacrifice a fellow ally or an innocent weakling didn't seem like a loss, with a need to grief. It was a necessity.

            No one prepared him for the war that was going on for centuries. Written treaties were broken, stomped on, and ignored. The fighting sides harmonised with the new term of humanity. Always on a brink of another tiresome battle, countless mercenaries doing their job to remind everyone that they were still enemies, no matter if they repeated that humanity was important in order to have peace.

            Four centuries for him and even more before him. He believed in purpose, dreading his weak moments, the limitation of his power and knowledge, but he had something others didn't – time. Without the burden of passing time, his perception of life became dull. If sacrifices were necessary for a war to continue, he believed that only with sacrifices he could once and for all win this war.

            And he already had a sacrifice in his mind.

            The woman who was taken into his office piqued his interest as soon as she walked in. Fedyor was leading her by holding her arm. It wasn't the first time he has seen a Grisha in that kind of condition – with a variety of bruises, pierced lips and eyebrows, a black eye and a limp. It was the effect of being caught by Fjerdans and if she was here, she was lucky she survived.

            The Darkling raised from his chair, going around the table and leaning to the table with the back of his thighs, crossing his hands over his chest that was covered with the silk kefta, loosely pressed against his body. His dark gaze looked at Fedyor, who as always, seemed ready to comply with any mission thrown his way. Only this time, he seemed a little bit nervous.

            "I found her at the Northern side – a Fjerdan camp in the forests beside the border. We managed to eliminate the Fjerdans and she was the only one left alive," Fedyor informed, gently tapping the woman's hand in a soothing manner.

            The General hummed as a response, taking a minute to look at the survivor. Apart from her shaking body that was covered in a dark cloak, she seemed nervous. Her gaze was on the polished floor, her free hand gently extended to her side as if she was feeling where she was. The woman was leaning a little bit to Fedyor, knuckles white.