"You might make me a better man."
"And you might make me a monster."
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising
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"I could not see it at the time," I told the Darkling. "I was too blinded by your half-truths and seduction to see clearly. You claimed m...
ⓉᕼE ᑕᗩᖇᖇIᗩGE SᑕᖇEEᑕᕼEᗪ to a stop and the doors opened, waking me up from my restless slumber. My fatigue was beginning to show as I had bags under my eyes and it was getting harder to move my creaky joints from being crammed in the cab for nearly four weeks after the drüskelle attack. Luckily, we lost the group of Fjerdans near the Petrazoi Mountains and there have been no other incidents. Nonetheless, I woke up many times each night in fear of being attacked.
"We are close to the outskirts of the Fjerdan Forest, sir," Ivan announced to the Darkling. "We will need to start walking from here to remain undetected." I groaned internally at the thought of tracking the Stag Saints know how deep into the Fjerdan Forest on foot. If there were such things as Saints, let them be on our side during our journey. We would need all the help we could get.
"Thank you, Ivan," the Darkling replied. Before Ivan had appeared, Aleksander and I had been talking in the carriage. He seemed to soften and relax when he was around me, but it could change with the blink of an eye when someone else was present. His face hardened and he spoke in a formal, emotionless tone. I wondered what happened to make him so guarded. "Gather all of our equipment and meet me at the beginning of the procession." The Darkling waved his hand to dismiss him.
The Heartrender bowed and scurried away. I just sat there awkwardly, not knowing where I was needed. Aleksander observed me as he always did until he broke the silence with a sudden question that caught me off-guard. "Have you had any recent dreams of the Stag?"
I had never been open about my dreams of the creature. When I brought it up to Mal, he would always laugh and say it was just a myth, my imagination, a fable. But then again, wasn't the Sun Summoner all those things too? Now, there was a panic amongst regular people and grisha because all of the fairytales and lore were back on the table.
"I only had one recent dream a few nights ago," I explained. "It was... different than the other ones I've had." The Darkling listened to me attentively, unlike Mal. "With the others, it felt like the Stag was calling to me, but this one—the look in its eyes—it seemed to be warning me of something. Then it started to walk away from me. After it disappeared into the fog, I woke up."
I fidgited uncomfortably as Aleksander scrutinized me, pondering my dream. Something about hiz gaze made me feel like he was dissecting me to discover some great unknown knowledge. "Well, let us hope the Stag does not disappear before we track it in the woods." He offered his hand to help me out of the carriage with an warm smile, but his eyes told a different story. He was worried about my dream and its meaning. "Shall we?" he asked. I nodded and chose to ignore his concern about my dream. After all, it was just a dream... right?
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I ᖇOᗪE ᑎEᗩᖇ TᕼE ᖴᖇOᑎT of the procession on a white mare alongside the Darkling who had one of his large, black steeds. As soon as we entered the forest, it became hard to tell time. The trees blocked sunlight from reaching the ground. The occasional sunbeam snuck through, but otherwise, it was eerily dark. When we entered the forest, the sun was low in the sky, so I guessed that it was getting close to sunset. It seemed odd that it was sunny in Ravka, while here, the earth was blanketed in thick snow. The snow muted nature sounds that usually livened up a forest, but animals' footprints were silent, and the birds remained too frigid to sing their tunes. It was as if we were in a secluded bubble that sheltered us from the rest of the world.
