Shadows and The Sea - The Darkling

Mornings & Saints

Percy's POV

I opened my eyes and was instantly blinded by a ray of light that managed to sneak past the dark curtains that kept the rest of the room at a comfortable brightness that didn't make me lose my eyesight. I groaned and shifted to escape the blinding ray of morning sun. I turned over and hugged the warm pillow that was right behind me.

As I settled into the mattress again, I felt the pillow rumble and that's when I realized that I wasn't in my own room.

My eyes shot open and I instantly sat up but my hastiness was halted by a rich chuckle that made a shiver run down my spine. I felt a blush decorate my cheeks and ran the hand that wasn't propping me up on the bed through my messy bed head.

"Good morning," Aleksander said from where he laid on his bed that we shared.

Last night flashed through my brain like a slideshow. After Aleksander and I relaxed from our little shouting match and him processing that I was immortal like him, we were both emotionally exhausted and I didn't feel like walking all the way back to my room so, with much insistence from him, we shared his king sized bed. I took off his kefta and placed it in its spot in his wardrobe and kept on the rest of my clothing since it was comfortable enough.

"Uh...morning," I said back a little quieter.

He was leaning against the pillows that created a backrest for him at a comfortable angle and had one arm behind his head, the other had a book with a red cover.

He kept his eyes on me and I felt my blush travel down my neck and creep up my ears. His eyes flicked down and back up to mine and I took the hint to allow myself to relax and lay back down, using his chest as my pillow. I wiggled under the dark duvet once more and placed my ear above his heart.

Aleksander chuckled once more at my little wiggle into the bed and then turned his attention to his book once more. Since it was right at my eye level, I took a gander to see what he was reading and realized that I recognized this book but since I could only read certain pages, I didn't know what it was called.

"What are you reading?" I asked.

He flipped the page and then answered me, "It's titled The Lives of the Saints. It's a collection of all the Saints stories. There are some that think that the Saints were actually Grisha."

"And were they? You're old enough to know aren't you?" I asked with a teasing tone in the last part.

He brought his hand down from behind his head and brought it behind my back. I let out a squeak that was followed by a deep laugh when he pinched my side.

"Well I'm not certain about all of them but Ilya certainly was," he said as he flipped to the page that the Apparat showed me that one day he found me in the library.

"The Bonesmith..." I whispered.

"You're familiar with him?"

"Well, the Apparat was able to fill me in on who he was. Since I'm a demigod, my brain is hardwired for the language of the gods. I can't exactly read anything in Ravka but luckily, I've always had someone else around I could ask."

There was a slight pause before he replied, "Then allow me to assist. Ilya was a Durast and one of the first Grisha ever recorded. He was extremely powerful and, as you know, he is known as the Bonesmith. The name comes from how he used three of his finger bones and created three mythical amplifiers from them."

That part confused me, "How does someone create an amplifier? That doesn't make much sense. You can't just imbue that kind of power in something out of nowhere."