ECLIPSE, grishaverse

after

                     THIS TIME, THE GIRL didn't dream. She had nightmares with big dark creatures that resembled bats who chased after a clever-eyed fox. In some of them, it got away but in most, the little animal was torn apart by the shadows. She woke up screaming and crying, crimson pouring down her nostril. No one held her, no one came to the side of her bed or her door to tell the bad dreams to got away.

She was all alone again.

Long before word reached her, she knew the Darkling had survived. He'd been rescued by his Grisha and now sat on Ravka's throne, ruling the country with his massive shadows. He turned villages upside down looking for two peculiar girls. Rewards were offered, threats were made.

She'd sat for hours thinking if what happened at the chapel had weakened him as it did with her, or if he also felt an incredible and untamed hunger for vengeance, as she did. The girl didn't have that many things to do anyway, the priest said the pilgrims were praying for her sister's and hers health, but she doubted it was true. Dead martyrs were less trouble than living ones.

She'd barely seen the other's after the first day. The priest insisted on her staying in the room, then he spread a rumor she was sick. They locked her in at nights, the guards assigned by him kept her away from the rest of her group, and to be honest she was tired to keep on fighting the priest's restrictions.

But she wasn't going to sit down quietly. Not this time.

The Darkling had told her she was destined to rule by his side. He had claimed the throne and was probably waiting for her to pop up somewhere so he could take her and lock her up in a tower. But she was her own. If she was meant to sit in that throne, she would be doing it on her terms, and not on anyone's terms.

For the living, the death, the one's coming and the one's miles away, she would make a reckoning. She would rise, higher than ever, and end it once and for all.