Burning Brightly (a grishaverse story )

Chapter 4

I stood with a group of twelve other Grisha. Out of the seventy other students in our year we were the only ones good enough to stay in the Little Palace. We had been told not to bring anything to the Little Palace, but I had several letters from Viktor hidden in my sleeves. 

After moving to the Grisha school my parents had stopped writing to me. I think they wanted to completely forget about their freak of a daughter. Viktor hadn't forgotten about me though. He still wrote to me even though he had grown up and was now 25. He was in the First Army and made sure to tell me about all the interesting things he saw. Viktor's letters were the only things connecting me to my old life. 

Sometimes I wondered what would have happened if the Grisha Examiners hadn't found me. Would I tell anyone? Or would I keep it a secret my entire life?

Our instructors lined us up according to our abilities. I got clumped with the other Etherealki. Darya stood to my left and a Tidemaker named Rebekah. She often worked with Darya, but other than that I didn't really know her. The other Etherealki in our group was Nathaniel. I had seen him while we practiced and I knew he was powerful, but that was pretty much all I knew about him.

We walked into the Little Palace and everyone gasped. I smirked remembering how I reacted when I had walked in yesterday. 

We walked up a large staircase and were each shown to our rooms. 

I threw myself onto my bed. We had been told that dinner was in a few hours. I glanced around the room. There was a large window that gave me a a great view of the lake and the Summoner Pavilons. 

I set the letters down on a dresser and took a deep breath. I was part of the Second Army now. Suddenly I heard knocking on the door.

A servant to opened the door a crack.

"Miss. You have a letter."

I jumped of the bed and thanked the servant.

Viktor hadn't sent me a letter in a long time and I was anxious to hear from him. Turning it over I realized that the letter had been sent by the General of his regiment.  With a sinking heart I opened it. 

To the family of Viktor Ivanov,

It is with a heavy heart that I must inform you that the regiment your son and brother was in was attacked by a flock of Volcra while crossing the Fold. Out of the 50 men only 4 survived. 

                                                                     - General Gretski

I stared at the paper in shock. Viktor was dead? My brother who let me sit on his shoulders when I was little and teased me wasn't alive?

It's not true  I told myself even though I knew it was. With a shaking hand I summoned a flame and held the paper over it. I didn't want anything to tell me that he wasn't alive. The burning paper fell out of my hand and onto the pile of Viktor's letters. 

"No no no no no!" I tried to put them out, but the flames were out of my control. They burned my only remainder of Viktor to a crisp. They consume every that could be burned.

Try not to burn the Palace down

I heard the Darkling's voice ringing in my head.

I honestly tried to contain the flames, but there were too many. They were out of my control. Eventually I stopped trying to contain the flames. I slid to the ground shaking. The room burned around me as I started to cry.

A/N  awww poor Valerya. For some reason this reminds me of the song Pity Party by Melanie Martinez. I hope you liked this chapter. Please vote and comment. It makes my day. ❤️