Time Can Heal (But This Won't) A Darkling Series

Chapter Two: False Names for False Faces

The knowledge gnaws away at you like a rat. He's here. The Darkling is here. After all this time, all of the years you've spent trying to get away from him, he is here once more. It appears that your paths are intertwined- no matter how far you run, he follows. He leaves, you're pulled after him by an invisible string. There is no escape, not really.

If you try, you can sense him now. His power has always called to yours, it's part of the reason you worked so well with him in the first place. He's in his tent now, the encampment with the array of black flags in the centre of the Grisha living quarters. He's probably listening to his usual array of Heartrenders and Etherealki, overseeing preparations for the upcoming trip across the Shadow Fold. If you wanted to, you could walk over there yourself. He would know you if you really wanted him to. Do you?

No, you remind yourself, you don't. The Darkling is not the boy with dark hair and flashing agate eyes, or the man who covered for you in the middle of drüskelle attacks and promised he'd never leave you, even when the centuries bled dry and everyone around you grew old and died. You two were as close to immortal as anyone else could ever get, and he swore that you were all he ever looked for. How wrong you'd been to believe him.

You hadn't wanted to leave, not at all. He was intoxicating like your mother's spells, a kind of magic that hinted at promise and cloaked your senses in smoke so you'd never see the warning signs until it was too late. You've grown to despise his arrogance, the way he yearns to topple the world, but you'd be wrong to say that you haven't wanted the same thing. It was especially true when you were still smarting from the wound of watching Hellas crumble away into nothingness, forgotten by time and all who walked its waters. The only one left was you, so why shouldn't the others feel your pain? Why shouldn't your land have its vengeance? The stories always favor the heroes who were bold in their goals. You know that your gods would support you. They were never perfect, and they wouldn't want perfection for you now.

Surprisingly, it was the Darkling who convinced you to stray from this path. Why burn down the world if it meant burning away those like you? There were Grisha out there, Grisha with powers and names who had likely suffered in the same way as you. He certainly had, would you damn him with the others? He convinced you to lay aside your rage, to tend it by the fires and keep it sharp for when it was necessary, but to focus on the future instead of the past.

That's why you had believed him. He had fought for you, for a legacy you might share with him. When you had gone to visit him late one night, crept into the shadows of his quarters, he hadn't seen you at first. The Darkling had been talking with his men, intent on finishing his midnight plans. There was an air in the room that troubled you, so you caught up the darkness around you, pulling it over your arms and throat to hide you from view. It was there that you heard him speak, and from there that you ran.

The Darkling had told you the stories of his forebears many times, the making at the heart of the world and all of the lessons the Grisha swore by. What is infinite? The universe and greed of men. Why should he be content with just his power, his shadows and shades alone? He knew what you could do, the worlds you could create and destroy with a single word. He wanted it too.

He had taken the time to get to know you, to keep you by his side until you gave over your heart freely instead of forcing him to rip it from your chest. Why risk damaging his greatest weapon? He stood before the few people he pretended to trust, speaking of how he planned on killing you and taking your power for himself. He knew you could do far more than you let on, and he intended to taste the full extent of your spells for himself. Grisha could have more than one amplifier if they fought to take it for themselves, and he was the greatest of them all. He would have your vocal cords tied around his throat, your bones curled around his wrist in a fetter if he felt it would give him what he wanted.