Better The Devil You Know (Zoya Nazyalensky)

Sixteen

Baghra Morozova knew lots of things, some would say she knew too much. She knew that her family were cursed from the very first day they ever produced black vapour from their traitorous hands, she knew that no one with power could ever truly be innocent and that it was pointless to pretend otherwise. But, she also knew that her son had been on the path to no redemption for far too many centuries; the day Aleksander had ripped their nation in half with merzost, she had known (however deep down), that there was no coming back for him.

Still, she tried, as any good mother is want to do. Again and again, she pushed him towards the 'right path', tried to undo the ideology that her own younger self had inbedded in him.

However much she had denied the trail of her boy into the black depths of the Styx - denied that he was no longer in hopeful purgatory  but a fully fledged ruler of his own Hades - Baghra could turn a blind eye no longer. Not after she had been presented with a shivering Fjerdan girl, looking like oversaturated paper she was that pale, and asked to begin her descent into weaponhood before she had even been taught how to speak Ravkan.

"She is a child Aleksander."

The petulant boy - now a man many times over, but still a boy to her - watched her with pitying eyes, believing that her relative age prevented her from having a grasp on their reality. "She's a miracle mother."

"No. She is a ten year old girl who grew up learning that people like her are an abomination. The true miracle is that they didn't kill her!"

The eyes had turned into a scowl then; a toddler throwing his toys out of the pram.

"In a few years, the people will be calling her a saint. What good is hiding her away to live a normal life in a back corner of the palace, when she could be learning to fight?"

In her mossy cave, surrounded by the few necessities she required, she had leaned in to capture his full attention. "You think they would call her a saint? Hah! Like they called you a saint, the Black Heretic?"

It had been a deliberate snub, true nonetheless.

"Our powers are different, there is nothing to compare."

Old woman she was, her back complained as she had leant in further, as though a physical threat could penetrate his ignorance more than wisdom.

"Anything new is seen as a threat eventually. Let the girl have a childhood before you fill her head with falsifications and ridiculous promises. Give her some chance to settle in here before we throw her into the deep end. She clearly isn't ready, not mentally."

But her son refused to believe that she could be right, that the little grisha who had been discovered drenched in blood (not all her own), might need time to recover. Thus, the conversation had been concluded before it had truly begun, her son striding out of the cavern, black kefta spilling behind him.

"If you refuse to start her tuition yet, then I will simply take care of it myself."

So, of course, Anastajia Børn had begun lessons with the elder Morozova the following day. If the darkling was to mentor the child, then Baghra would be damned if she didnt work overtime to compensate for it; she would not repeat the mistakes she had made with her son.

That had been three years ago. Three years in which Aleksander had frozen her out even more than he had already strived to do, long before the fold had even been created. He had never stopped suspecting her aid in the escape of the Børn girl, rightfully so. And now, what was her son doing but repeating his mistakes? This time with the prophecied sun summoner who, although older than Anastajia had been when she was brought to the palace and not free of her own burdens, had not lived in a land where suspicion became second nature.

Where did I go wrong?

Truthfully, the daughter of the bonesmith had never wanted to be a mother, it was just what one did. That didn't mean love for her son came with effort, not at first; the boy had been her only pride and joy for many decades. The simple truth was that it was hard to know how to love someone when you had to prioritise their safety over their happiness. How did you explain to a four year old that they were hunted simply for something that nature had granted them, for the mistakes of their ancestors? In trying to protect him, teaching him caution and self worth - that being grisha was a gift - she had instead poisoned him.

The day was coming when Baghra Morozova would have to make a choice: blood or principles? How long could she try and offset his harms with her own, outmatched, powers? Perhaps it was time to ask whether the Morozova line was due a culling.

-------------------------------------------

No one could tell Alina who the girl in dreams was. The little time - five minutes in the dream so more probably only thirty seconds in real time - was marginal: a woman just slightly younger than herself, hardened face and distrusting, almost maroon eyes; the slightest hint of a Fjerdan tongue had slithered from her words. Still, that was more than nothing. The problem, it seemed, was that those she asked (Genya, Baghra, even Kirigan), knew, or at least suspected, the girl's identity - they just didn't want her to know.

Who are you?

Even more disconcerting was the fact her nameless visitor seemed to be at an advantage, having clearly recognised her. Though, she supposed that wasn't hard these days. Everyone seemed to know who she was - who she was supposed to be - apart from herself.

Head ensconced within the marshmallow eiderdown of her bedding, she willed herself into a dreamless slumber. But it did not come, her thoughts a blight upon the brain: Mal, the deepening affections of Aleksander, and the mysterious figure that Alina was sure she had not seen the last of.