Blood Soldiers: The Second Army - Grishaverse Prequel

7 - Yelena

Yelena paced around, watching as Ilya led their recruits through a series of punches, kicks and steps that looked something like a dance.

Only eight brave souls had volunteered to join their army. The eldest was Elitza at 25, while Marko, the youngest was only 15. Apparently, his parents were not happy about his decision at all, but he had already proved that he was a powerful Inferni, and they needed all the help they could get.

Yelena wasn't unhappy with the variety of Grisha that had volunteered though. They had four Etherealki – a Squaller named Eryk, two Inferni's Marko and Irina, and a Tidemaker named Sonya. Two Corporalki who Yelena would help train into a Healer and a Heartrender, and two Materialki who Yelena's mother would work with.

Yelena almost winced thinking about her poor mother, hunched over her workbench as she created eight more kefta's. The two Materialki, Dima and Elitza spent their mornings helping her, but while they trained in combat in the afternoons, she continued her work.

The Grisha went through the manoeuvres again and Yelena saw her father watching them from afar. She knew he still wasn't completely happy with her Heartrender abilities, but he had apologised to her for being angry. He understood why she wanted to learn those things, why she didn't want to feel weak, but he warned her to always remember that it was a person she was doing those things to. A human being with a family, with hopes and dreams and goals of their own.

She'd taken on his advice, but she also knew deep down that if it came down to it, she wouldn't hesitate. She would build a new world, and she wasn't afraid to break a few eggs...or bones to do it.

He'd gladly helped her in training the two Corporalki to heal people. They worked together in the mornings, sometimes Yelena would split her skin or create sores on herself for them to heal. They were both pretty young, Pavel was only 16 and Yeva was 20, but they listened intently, and worked hard in their lessons.

Some days she watched in on Galina training the Etheralki. They grumbled and groaned as she whacked and berated them into shape, but their powers grew quickly, and they were soon practicing using their powers together. Eryk used his Squaller winds to lift the flames high into the air, and the Inferni practiced heating the water to create steam for cover.

In the evenings, Yelena, Ilya and Galina would pore over maps of Ravka, identifying potential places the Grisha might be hiding. Galina also taught her about the ways to spot a Grisha who was suppressing their powers. They would look sickly, weak, and frail. They didn't have an appetite and found sleeping difficult.

Despite herself, Yelena couldn't help feeling a sense of sadness at her people being forced to suppress their true nature and suffer such grave consequences for it. Not for much longer...

They also planned further down the line too, though they mostly did it when Galina wasn't there to laugh at their ideas. While travelling, they would move as inconspicuously as possible, as a group of humble travellers, displaced from their homes on the Fjerdan border. In each town they visited they would search for potential Grisha and listen for rumours about them. They'd recruit any and all able-bodied and willing Grisha into their ranks, and train them to be weapons.

Once they had a significant number of Grisha trained and ready, the planned to show the King and his army what they could do. They would pick a battlefield on the Fjerdan or Shu Han border and show the whole world what a trained army of Grisha could do.

They laughed and joked about what they would do after they'd been welcomed by the King as true citizens of Ravka.

They'd declare all Grisha to be free from persecution and harm. They'd continue to seek out Grisha children and train them as children. They'd build a palace as grand as the King's for the Grisha to grow up in and learn to use their powers in. They'd remake the world.