A SYMPHONY OF SHADOWS | grishaverse

.xviii.

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eighteen

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Nerezza didn't know whether or not her power was spontaneous or historical.

After saints know how long she spent combing through the library and having stomach churning conversations with the Apparat; Nerezza had found nothing. No explanations of why or how she had become this type of Etherealki. If anything, she was completely and utterly lost.

And that was why she was standing outside Baghra's cave.

Since Nerezza had begun to delve deeper into the limits of her power, her lessons with Baghra had become scarce. Almost as if she didn't want to be in her presence anymore. But Nerezza wasn't the same bruised and bloody girl that had entered the little palace. She was Grisha: not just any Grisha – a darkling.

And she was ready to know why.

Fighting back any misgivings or doubts, the scarred shadow summoner entered the gloomy cave and made her way through the passage.

"Girl," Baghra greeted, almost as if she knew Nerezza would come. She was sitting down with her arms crossed, humouring her.

"I want to know why," Nerezza revealed, "Why I am what I am. And I know you know."

Baghra regarded her and rolled her eyes, "You're becoming obsessed."

"A few weeks ago, you would have gladly had this conversation with me," Nerezza revealed. She let the veins on her hands go black as wisps of shadow formed around her. Not minutely threatening to Baghra, but still hammered her point in. "What changed?"

"What changed is now you want too much," Baghra snapped, she sighed, "Sit down and shut the hell up."

"Does this mean-" Nerezza started.

Baghra held a finger up to silence her.

Nerezza sat down.

"I once knew a boy who made all the wrong choices. Some foolish Otkazat'sya boy who desperately wanted power that was not his to have," Baghra began. "He snuck away into the fold and attempted to use merzost to give himself that power." She looked into a roaring fire in the grate, she'd probably trained an inferni to light it earlier. "But merzost has a cost; and it caused the shadows of the unsea to pollute his very blood. He was granted no power, but a darkness on his heart and blood. A poison. This poison was inherited down his family line," Baghra stared hard at Nerezza for a moment, as if she were looking into her very soul. "Until one of his descendants was born Grisha."

It clicked.

"Me," Nerezza realised.

Nerezza sat still for a moment, trying to comprehend what she'd just heard. She was only a shadow summoner because of her ancestor's stupidity, her power was from the fold. From Aleksander. Her strength was limited and she hated that.

"Does this mean my darkness only links to the fold?" she questioned in a small voice.

Baghra shook her head, "The fold is made of the most potent shadows in existence; if you control them, normal darkness should submit easily to you."

Nerezza nodded but knew that there was a catch. She needed training and practice for that, but she also knew that Baghra wouldn't train her. For fear or whatever else – probably distain, detest for the path that she knew Nerezza would take. A path of hate, vengeance and grotesque violence, crime and anything else she could put her mind to. And Nerezza knew that path was where she would end up going, one way or another.