GRIM REAPER¹, bellamy blake

006 ━━ azgeda roots

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IONA RUSHES through a forest void of any light. Her long black cape drags behind her, gathering dirt at the edges.

It is only now that she allows herself the freedom to think; think about her village, her people, her sister, her commander, and now, the Sky People.

The day of the massacre, Iona should've been there.

It was, after all, her village. She was in control of their safety, their training, and their defense. If anything, this is partially on her for not being there. Yet, Lexa's demands had brought her out of her tent and to a nearby camp, where she wished to talk.

When Iona returned home an hour later, she found the dead bodies of almost the entirety of her small village, her heart dropping. She then had to tell the news to Lexa, putting on a brave facade.

However, Iona has buried her feelings. The feeling of regret and guilt, the pain; all of it, gone.

Iona learned at the ripe age of seven that caring is weakness. To care is to be vulnerable, to love it to surrender, and to show mercy is to die.

When she was little, her father, an Azgeda commander, used to train her secretly. He hoped that when he passed, his daughter would fight for her rights to the throne.

Her mother, however, was against it. She didn't want to lose her daughter in war, and she didn't want to expose her to a side of cruelty that only leaders could understand.

Leaders have to make hard choices, and she didn't want Iona burdened by the consequences of her decisions.

Instead, once she returned home from training every day, her mother taught her the ways of mercy; of kindness and freedom. Of course, Iona has long since abandoned the methods her mother taught her, but she can still remember.

It was like she was living a double life, and one day, that thought became all too real.

A Trikru spy managed to sneak into her camp. A few days later, war was approaching their small village, and everyone that Iona knew was dead before she could think.

Iona and Eyvana were all that remained, and they spent years salvaging what she could and learning to survive in the wild.

At the time, Eyvana was a young girl; a five-year-old without guidance.

Their quality of life was low and Iona felt terrible for her sister having to live in such conditions, but she'd rather that than her sister be dead.

That was when Lexa had stumbled upon her cousins during an outing, bringing the girls back to her camp.

Together, they grew up, and Iona watched when Lexa received the title of commander and helped her on her journey of greatness.

Iona isn't entirely sure when everything went wrong, but something did.

The kindness her mother had taught her disappeared one day, and the girl her father raised had come to the surface. She was ruthless and went on several rampages.

Of course, she typically killed criminals and Azgeda's, but she was becoming a threat with every passing second.

At one point, Lexa had to lock her up for her crimes. Instead of having her executed, she decided to instead place the woman as a commander-in-training, just to see how she would do under the circumstances.

To her surprise, Iona had taken the well very well.

She wielded a blade like it was nothing, swinging the metal effortlessly between her fingers, and she killed without remorse.

Iona was also capable of making the hard choices she was required to make, and so, in a few months' time, Iona had become commander of a small village in the southern valley.

Now, she was here.

And despite everything she's gone through, this was somehow the hardest.

Watching the man she wished dead be killed by someone that wasn't her.

Her blade wished to taste his blood, and she was furious.

"You will pay," she murmurs, scraping her blade against a stone and effectively sharpening the tip. "I will avenge you, Eyvana."

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