The Starry Sky - A Darkling/General Kirigan Prequel

18

One thing after another, that's how it always went in the Little Palace. Periods of calm were short lived, soon enough some unseen event would strike, and it would usually affect Anna the most. The day had just started when Anna and Aleksander began running to the school. He'd hastily shrugged on a Kefta, but she was still in only her nightdress, the white cotton trailing after her like a cloud. Between them, silence hung. Their conversations had dulled since he returned from Krisbirsk, as if he hadn't just created a tear through Ravka, but also through their relationship. He tried to ignite conversations, but often Anna only gave him a single answer and pulled away. She couldn't fathom what he'd done, and the hurt he'd caused. The Fold, as it had been coined, spread from Ravka's southernmost border just past its northernmost, licking into the Fjerdan ice, meaning that the growing war between the two countries only escalated in tension. Thousands upon thousands had died, and Anna couldn't help but feel that she'd enabled that.

Autumn had settled over Os Alta, staining the trees bronze and beginning to wither away at the flowers. With it also came chilling weather, swinging indeterminably between hot and cold, and making it impossible to tell the extent to which the Grisha could work outside. Usually, Anna stayed out of the cold, unless she was wrapped up tightly, but that morning they'd received an urgent message from the teachers saying that both Anna and Aleksander had to get there immediately. Anna was off in a flash, shoving her shoes onto her feet without a care in the world if Aleksander was following. Her head throbbed with the worst possible ideas, one of the children was deathly ill, someone had gone missing, the place was burning down. There'd been too much loss in the last few months, she wouldn't let it happen under her nose again.

There was such desperation in the way Anna opened the door to the school, Aleksander noted. He too was panicked, but not as much as Anna. She spent most of her days with the children, reading to them or playing with them, he just saw them as more Grisha to be trained. He'd never built an emotional connection with them. In the main room the three teachers were all huddled together, surrounded by a flurry of children and adult Grisha alike, the sea of bright Kefta startling to look at. How the Grisha had gotten there before her and Aleksander, Anna would never know. What she did know, however is that they were all talking frantically, shooting curious glances towards the teachers.

Anna pushed into the throng, Aleksander following behind her, yelling for everyone to get out of the way. Much like Anna, most of the Grisha were startled by what the Black Heretic had done, and now moved quickly out of his way and followed every order he gave seconds before he gave them. Nobody wanted to ensue the wrath he'd proven he could reap. People moved the second Anna appeared in their sight, she was being driven by fear and fury, praying that the Grisha weren't there because a call had been made for Healers and everyone had just followed. It was times like that when she cursed being average height, especially as everyone around her seemed so tall; she couldn't see who was in the centre of the room except for the teachers.

When Anna crested the group, she let out a heavy sigh of relief. There were no packs of scarlet-robed Grisha, just the odd Corporalki hanging around, much like every other group. But, there was something else, and Anna could finally see what everyone was so curiously looking at, although to Anna it seemed little more than a wicker basket. The three teachers turned to Anna, to them she wasn't a leader but a colleague.

"Oh, Anna." One of them sighed, placing a hand on her heart. "Look." Warily, Anna leaned over the basket, feeling the weight of Aleksander's hand fall on her lower back as he peered over her head. Normally, she would have brushed him off, but was then trying very hard to be calm and not act rashly.

"How?" Anna asked, dumbstruck.

"Left it at the Palace gates." Another teacher chimed it. The room had gone quite, even the smallest children eager to hear what was going on. "The guards thought it was a trap, but something made them send it to us." Aleksander was growing suspicious, he didn't trust the King's men on a good day, but even less so when they dumped things into the Grisha's hands at daybreak.