𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐰 𝐎𝐟 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬

~Chapter 1~

Best Friends

Davina

When I was young, I was afraid of the dark. When I got older, I learned that darkness is a place. And it's full of monsters. I live in East Ravka, but it's never felt like home. Because I'm an orphan, and orphans don't have homes.

The bumps in the road didn't help with my nerves. I was headed to a military camp just outside the Fold. Which was where I was to stay for the next few days.

I didn't like the thought of being merely feet away from the Fold, or the Volcra. But knowing my best friend Alina was just a few carts ahead of me, and our other best friend, Mal was already at the camp, eased some of my nerves.

The man driving the cart poked his head through the curtain. "Soldiers, pack up. We're almost there."

Everyone started to pack away their items in their packs. I quickly scrolled up my piece of paper, and tucked my pencil inside, before throwing both into my pack.

"Writing another silly story, are you Ivanov?" the girl across from me taunted. I scowled at her, but didn't make a sound.

"Shove off Aldrick," the boy next to me said, eyeing her. I looked at him with a grateful smile, but he didn't return it. These people weren't the monsters. They're just people.

As we all packed, checking to see if our rifles were loaded, making sure our hand guns hadn't been stolen, there was fait hissing coming from outside. From the Fold. Everyone stopped and listened. We all looked at each other, exchanging fearful glances. I learned about my true enemy when I was a child.

Alina traced the Fold on the map with her finger. "Is it real?" "Of course it's real!" Ana Kuya, our caretaker at the orphanage, snapped. "The Fold ate your parents. Yours too, Davina."

I looked back at her, muttering. "You don't know that."

"It's the reason for many of the orphans here. People trying to cross, taunting the Saints.

Alina and I looked at each other, taking each other's hand. "Then why cross it?" I had asked. "Why not go around?"

Ana Kuya looked up from her knitting. "Read the map. The north want our Grisha dead, the South guards it's mountains. We have nowhere else to go. Now, work on your shading, Alina. Davina, go practice your cursive. Keep a pencil in your hand. Or else someone will put a rifle in it instead."

That had been good advice for Alina. But for me? A rifle was all I knew. Ever since I left the orphanage, my stories and poems seemed to have deserted me. We'd spent years thinking we'd find a way out. Around the Fold, to go somewhere no one would care where we were from, or what we were.

When the cart came to a stop, we all filed out of the back. As I rounded the back of the cart, I saw the very thing that produced my nightmares. The Fold. Stormy and pitch black. Roaring from the cries of it's inhabitants. Flashes of dark blue lightning danced around the outskirts of it, putting on what should have been a beautiful show.

I felt like I could stare at it forever. But a certain head of long, black hair in the distance caught my eye. I ran forward, walking up next to Alina.

"I'd like to see one person who isn't scared of it," a blonde boy was saying as I approached.

"It's even more scary than in my nightmares," I said, wrapping my hands around the string of my pack. She looked at me for a moment. She had always been scared of the dark too. It's what drew us to become friends back in the orphanage.