2 | flatline [darkling]

three

SHE LETS OUT A HEAVY SIGH AS she waits patiently for the nurse to finish up wrapping up her wound. This one would leave a scar, unless she went to a Healer, which she never did much to her friend's distaste. Those said friends were currently in front of her, pacing or glaring at her wound.

It had been inevitable, it always was. She couldn't go on the battlefield and expect herself to not come back wounded. Especially since they still hadn't made their Keftas bulletproof. Which meant every bullet shoot at her, would pierce right through her skin. But she'd never let it stop her, she would simply keep control of her blood flow and heart rate.

Keeping her wound untreated for so long, while on the battlefield, meant that it would scar unless she went to a tailor, which are one of the rare Grisha. But she wanted to keep the reminder, the reminder of her having kept continuing even when they tried to bring her down.

"General? We have a problem." A soldier says as he walks into the tent, where all patients are meant to rest. Nyx looks up at the solider and she raises an eyebrow.

"What is it?" She asks, trying to not wince as the nurse continues to disinfect her wounds. Zoya glances towards the soldier, curious to what he would announce.

"The frontline has been pushed back to fifteen meters away from the camp." He says and Nyx clenches her jaw in anger. They frontline had been three kilometres from the camp, last night.

"What happened?" She snarls, waving the nurse away to stop being distracted. The nurse grumbles as she walks away. Nikolai and Adrian had straightened up at the news, while the twins looked ready to go to the front lines themselves.

"The Darkling was there. He killed twenty of our men and we are styling counting the number of injured. We had no option but to backdown." The soldier says nervously as the tension in the tent becomes suffocating. It was clear to the soldier, that his superiors were extremely angry.

"You're dismissed." Nyx huffs, making him nod and run out the tent without hesitation. She closes her eyes in frustration as the others turn to look at her.

"We have no choice but to move camp back. We can't stay here. He'd butcher us all." Nikolai points out, receiving hums of agreements from David and the twins.

"We should get started on that immediately." Nyx sighs as she opens her eyes and looks at them. She knows they're awaiting for her orders, but she wasn't sure what to do. If Aleksander was going to start coming on the battlefield, things would become dangerous for them.

"Tamar and I will go start announcing our movement." Tolya says, making Nyx nod appreciatively before they make their way out.

"We can't go up against the Darkling. Especially if he uses the cut." Zoya points out as she sits on the bed across from Nyx.

"He wouldn't hurt me." Nyx says, but David frowns in response.

"No. But you can't go and fight his whole army by yourself. And for how long will he be patient and not start getting angry?" David asks, making her sigh.

"There must be a reason why he appeared today. We hadn't heard from him since a year ago and now all of a sudden he is there." Adrian says, looking at everyone and Nikolai tilts his head slightly in thought.

"He must have heard about the King's interest in making a deal with us. He wants to prove the King he still can lead the Second Army and win." Zoya suggests, but both Nyx and Nikolai shake their head in denial.

"No. If he knew about the deal, he'd directly go to the King and do something about it. He has some other plans." Nikolai hums and Nyx frowns.

"There is only one way to find out." She says, glancing up at them. And it doesn't take them long to realise what she had in mind, receiving exclamations of protest in return.

"There is no way you're going to go see him. It's been a year, Saints only knows what he'll do if he sees you. Especially after you nearly killed him." Adrian protests, making David nod in agreement.

"He could behead you. Even if you were his closest friend, after everything you've done now, he must be angry to a certain level." David says firmly and bites her lip in thought.

"What else should we do then? Move back? Until when? If it continues like it went today, we'll be cornered in the Fold. Nowhere to go. Crossing the whole army would be impossible, we're too many now." Nyx reminds them.

"At least us seven can cross, rethink our plan of attack and when we figured something out, we come back." Nikolai suggest, but she shakes her head.

"No. I will not spend the rest of my life fighting him. I'm going to go talk to him and try to figure out his plan. It's the best we can do right now." She says firmly, not leaving room for disagreement. Reluctantly, they all agree with her plan.