He told me I should take it in, listen to every word he's speaking;

[skladka]

Comments

wake up;

[skladka]

[ It's a blur, even for him: he remembers the tracker boy, the fool who brought a gun against a Grisha, the insolent little orphan who decided poetic justice was for the Darkling's own abomination to tear him apart. There had been pain--so much pain, worse than the stag's antler removed from his hand, almost as bad as creating the Fold itself--and he'd done what he could, he'd chanted words and used merzost one last time to do something, anything before he falls into a darkness even he cannot see in. He feels the presence of something, someone, and he's in an impossibly bright room before he falls to the ground, slipping back into unconsciousness.

He sleeps, dreamless and drifting, suspended, caught between awake and alive and asleep and dead, feeling nothing, feeling everything, feeling pain, feeling numb. The Darkling hasn't been unconscious for a very, very long time. He's not sure how long it's been until he wakes up.

When he does, it's with a loud, long gasp, his entire body bolting upright, eyes wide, searing pain at his sides and wracking the rest of his body. It's bright, impossibly bright, impossibly loud--even he himself is improbably noisy, breaths coming in pained, ragged gasps, dark eyes scanning for something, anything, some way to tell what's happened, black blood blossoming on the bandage in his hand as he clenches it, staring at it and then looking at the room, gaze wild and unfocused.

Alina.

He needs to find Alina, he needs to find the girl from Karemzin, he needs to--

He's still breathing heavily, adrenaline surging through him, trying to focus on anything that's familiar, something that's at the very least recognizable, and his gaze falls on something he cannot explain.

The Darkling is looking at himself. ]