The Death of Duty | The Darkling

chapter v

I RIDE THE REST of the way to the next Ravkan camp on the Darkling's horse, his body pressed behind me. Eero trots beside us, staying as close to me as he can. I'm surprised that the Darkling let my wolf live and can't help but ponder his motives. I am always wondering what angle he's playing at, what way he's trying to manipulate me.

Seeing all those Fjerdan bodies haunts me. Those men died trying to save me.

I remember once, when I was young, overhearing my father speaking to my brother.

"Sending men to fight and kill for you is part of being King. Where they are disposable, you are irreplaceable. Your job is to lead them. Their job is to die for you. It's just how it is."

I shiver at the thought of that mentality. My father has always been a hard man, but hearing him say that changed how I saw him. It's a callous ideal to hold toward your own people, but perhaps it's a necessary one. How else am I supposed to live with the fact that those men would likely still be alive if I had just stayed away from the Ravkan border?

When we arrive at the camp, smaller than our previous one and filled almost exclusively with Second Army soldiers, the Darkling dismounts and holds out his hands to help me down. My head still throbbing and everything slightly blurry, I take his help and let him lower me onto the ground.

Eero comes to my side, brushing against me. I sink my fingers in his fur, his familiarity welcome.

"I'll have a healer come to tend to you," the Darling tells me. "Go and wash up. Then, I want to see you."

I am escorted into a tent, larger than the one I had at the previous camp. A Grisha healer soon comes to treat my wounds. At first, I shy away and Eero growls faithfully at my side. But my head is throbbing and I'm still seeing spots. To face the Darkling again, I need to be at full strength and I can't do that if I have a terrible head wound.

The Grisha magic works flawlessly. What would take weeks for me to recover from on my own is gone in a matter of minutes. I glance over to a small mirror sitting atop an oak dresser and look at the smooth skin of my forehead, marvelling at how the cut has completely vanished.

"He'll see you now," the healer tells me in a curt voice and then spins on her heel and marches out of the tent.

I crouch down in front of Eero and brush my hand over his head. "You went and got the Drüskelle, didn't you? Led them to me?" Led them to their deaths. But that's on me, not my precious wolf. He whimpers and lies down. Exhausted, probably. "Me too, Eero." I rub his ears before straightening up and scanning the room. This is very different indeed from my last tent. A warm rug, an actual bed and a large wooden chest tucked away in the corner. I wander over to it and haul it open. Rich mahogany silk, sleek black velvet and intricately detailed satin dresses are folded neatly on top of each other. The satin is the silver of my eyes, the silver of the pendant necklace my mother gave me when I was young. I touch my throat as though I'll feel the weight of that necklace around my neck, but its bare; I feel only warm skin.

Wearing the beautiful, silver dress and feeling more myself than I have in days, I am taken across camp and into the Darkling's tent. He is shrugging on his shirt when I enter, a flash of firm muscle visible before it's covered by black fabric. His own healer is finishing up and walks past me with a customary glare.

Adjusting the sleeve of his shirt, he glances up at me. "Are you alright?" He asks and, surprisingly, it doesn't feel condescending. The genuineness in his voice unsettles me.

"I'm fine."

"Good." He stares at me a moment, as though checking to make sure I'm really ok, then takes a few steps toward me. "The Drüskelle are trained to kill Grisha. Their primary objective is to kill me, we both know that. But today they only wanted you. Naturally, of course. You are their princess. I need you to know though...You aren't going back to them, back to Fjerda."

I swallow my fear and disguise it with a haughty tip of my chin. "I know that."

"You think I intend to kill you," he says and it bothers me that he would presume to know what I think, even if he is right. "But that couldn't be further from the truth."

This confuses me. My eyebrows furrow, my mouth sinking into a frown. Somehow, the knowledge that he doesn't want me dead is more haunting than if he did. We are mortal enemies, him and I. Wishing for the other's untimely demise should be our most base instinct.

He walks closer to me till he is barely a hair breadth away and I have to tilt my head back to meet his dark gaze. His hand reaches out... and grasps a small knife from the glass table at my hip. I inhale sharply, acute fear rushing through me as his fingers shift around the hilt of the knife. For a world-tilting moment, I think he is going to slit my throat, despite his previous declaration of not wanting me dead.

Instead, he presses the tip of the blade against his palm and pushes. A bead of blood trickles out and at the same time, I feel a sharp pain in my hand that makes me gasp. I look down and see, in the same exact spot where he holds the knife to his skin, a cut on my own palm.

"What...?" I shake my head, staring at the small amount of blood that leaks from my skin and not understanding at all.

He puts the knife back down and picks up a black cloth. His other hand slides beneath mine, long fingers curling around my wrist and he gently presses the cloth against my wound. His touch, warm and startling, evokes a visceral reaction from me that has my head spinning again. I rock forward, my body tilting into his and then I jerk back, pulling away from him. The black cloth flutters to the floor between us like a territory marker.

"What did you do?" I demand.

"I didn't do anything. Somehow, we've been linked. Which means what happens to you, happens to me. And vice versa."

I can't believe this. It's not possible. Their bloody Grisha magic, I think. "Why? Why would you do this?"

He sighs, aggravated. "I just told you, I didn't do this. I don't know who did. Why would I want this? It only makes me more vulnerable."

"If not you, then who? And more importantly; how do we get rid of it?"

His hesitation makes my stomach knot. "To create a bond like this...it doesn't come from Small Science. This... This is something else."

"What does that mean?" I sound desperate and I am. The thought of being linked to him is sickening. I am repulsed by him, repulsed by myself. Because there is a small part of me, buried deep beneath layers of patriotism and blatant hatred, that is captivated by him, attracted to him. It would be so easy to fall into a fantasy where he touches me, where his lips brush against mine and his hand is warm on my skin, fingers pressing in all the right places...

I glare at him and I hope my contempt hides any underlying desire. But I think he can feel it, feel what I'm feeling, or at least a semblance of it, because his eyes go molten black and his lips flatten together firmly.

"It means that undoing this bond is not easy. There's only one person I know of who would be able to use dark magic like this."

"And who is that, exactly?"

He turns away, walking back toward the table. "It's of no concern to you. I'm going to take care of it. But for now, you're to tell no one of this. And you'll be staying here, by my side, until it is fixed."

My thoughts are a cacophony of confusion and fear. I feel cursed, dirty, broken...yet captivated. I sit in his big, wooden chair and watch him as he plots and plans over his large map. People come and go from the tent - soldiers and advisors - and he speaks to them freely despite my presence. It all reaffirms that he has no plans to let me go. There will be no ransom negotiations between my parents and the Darkling. I am his permanent hostage, in more ways than one.

But, as I sit and think and as it grows darker outside, I realise that perhaps he is my hostage too.

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Author's Note: Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy! Would love to hear any thoughts in a comment :)