014. ALESKA MOROZOVA

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   "No! Stop!"

   Mischa and Baghra drew to still as they heard Alina's panicked scream. Not giving the other another thought, they ran into the workshop where she was, Mal joining them upon hearing her scream.

   Alina was stuck to the wall, her blue cascading around her body in spirals. It was obvious that Kirigan was the invisible force keeping her against the wall.

   Baghra pushed Mal back when he made a move to go help her. "Leave her. Don't break the connection."

   "You said she's not strong enough to face him!"

   "Exactly." Mischa didn't question Baghra's response because Alina's ripples of energy she sent from her body began to shake the ground and room around them.

   Baghra took a lit torch off the wall. "I will end this once and for all. Once I've killed my son, my time here is done. All this goes with me."

   Mischa snapped her head towards the older woman she recently found out was kin with her eyes wide. "What? Baghra, no —"

   "My time has come, my child." Baghra grabbed Mischa's hand forcefully before shoving the piece of paper of a wedding invite in her grasp. Baghra looked back to her granddaughter with an apologetic glint in her eyes. "Know that I've always loved you, even when I was not in your life. Goodbye, granddaughter."

   No, not after Baghra had told her she was Aleksander's daughter, she couldn't leave her now. Mischa still had so many questions but so little time. She need to know more. How is it Baghra knows she's a Shadow Summoner without any indications she actually is? Why did Aleksander nor Baghra never told her the truth? Is her mother still alive?

   Time was running out, Baghra knew that. That's why she had decided to tell Mischa of her true heritage before her time in this world came to an end.

   Mischa was afraid. She was afraid that someone from her family she had just reconnected with was about to die and that her Father is a murderer with no thoughts about anyone but himself.

   Maybe this was what her Mother wanted to keep her away from — her father's madness and his thirst for vengeance, and the losses she would grieve over.

   Baghra ripped her hand from Mischa's pleading grasp, begging her not to sacrifice herself. Baghra ignored the girl and threw the torch into a box filled with parchment paper. The box lit a flame.

   "You know what you have to do." Mischa didn't question when Baghra told Mal that. The dark haired girl had rushing tears streaming down her face. "Take Mischa with you, force her if you have to. And close the door on your way out."

   If Mischa wasn't clouded with grief and sorrow, she would note this was the first time Baghra called her by her given name. Although as it turns out, Mischa wasn't her birth given name, it was a disguise from who she really was.

   Baghra approached Alina, grasping her arm through the light and Baghra had used her strong Small Science to get into the connection between Alina and Aleksander. Mischa's eyes grew even wider when Aleksander appeared for her as well.

   Aleksander grunted as he turned to his Mother in shock. "How? How!"

   "Have you forgotten who taught you all your tricks, boy?" Baghra tilted her head mockingly to her son who's energy burned with fiery hot anger. "Amplifier or blood, it's all connection."

   Alina shook her head, Aleksander's tight grasp on her throat making her words strangled. "No, wait."

   "Run." Baghra simply smiled at the girl before forcing Aleksander to let her go. As Aleksander stumbled back and Alina joined Mal and Mischa, Baghra called to the darkness and summoned the shadows around her before striking them towards Aleksander.

   "Alina." Mal caught the coughing girl into his arms. Mischa was too focused on Baghra's dreaming state where her body was physically hear but her mind was not. It was with Aleksander, wherever he was.

   The fire began to spread on one side of the room, causing Mischa's skin to heat up.

   Mal grabbed onto Alina and Mischa's arms, trying to tug them towards the open door.

   Mischa shook her head in protest, attempting to rip her arm from his grasp but it was too tight for her to. "No! We can't leave her!"

   "She's not coming —"

   "I will not let one of the last of my family to sacrifice themself!" Mischa feverishly whipped to face him with a determined and ferocious look on her face.

   "There's nothing you can do!" Mal succeeded in dragging Mischa and an also protesting Alina out of the workshop.

   The last thing Mischa saw was the fire consuming the room with Baghra in it, presumably Aleksander too. The last of her family, the one she never got to know, was gone.

   Alina and Mischa stumbled out of the crypt and into the fresh air of the forest coughing from the smoke engulfing inside the crypt. Mischa didn't question how Mal got the door to shut behind him sense only a Morozova could open and close it with their blood.

   "We have to go, now!" Mal ushered them towards the horses. Alina was going to follow but she noticed Mischa standing still, her eyes focused on the closed door.

   Alina, for a quick second, saw the tear stains on her friends cheeks with fresh tears clouding in her irises before forcefully pulling her friend who seemed to be in an induced state towards the horses with her.

   Back with Baghra who stood across the room from a collapsed Aleksander on the ground back in the Palace where he had overrun and now stayed.

   He panted, using his elbows to hold him upright so he could look at his Mother, not wishing to harm his own blood. "We have lived through an eternity together. There is no need for this. Have some faith in me!"

   "It can't go on, boy." Baghra began to creep closer, her stare unwavering and turned unreadable.

   Aleksander stumbled as he struggled pushed himself onto his feet. "Then let me end it. Tell me where to find the Firebird."

   "It's too late for the Firebird and for bargains."

   "Please don't threaten me." He sent her a look of warning. "It will be worse for you."

   Baghra blinked back the tears threatening to form in her eyes, now closer to him and with a look of pity flashing across her expression. "Know that I loved you, Aleksander. Know that it wasn't enough."

   Aleksander shook his head pleadingly to her as he screamed to beg her to stop once she began to summon her shadows. But, he wasn't just pleading for her to stop, his nichevo'ya appeared behind. "Stop! No! Stop! No! Don't!"

   One of the nichevo'ya grabbed him from behind to prevent him from running to aid his Mother that had the other nichevo'ya grab her into his arms and hug her so tight you could hear her bones cracking.

   The nichevo'ya disappeared once accomplishing their kill and let them go.

   Aleksander immediately rushed towards his Mother who laid on the ground, barely surviving with just a few strangled breaths. He wrapped her into his arms and sniffled, beginning to feel the very thing he was afraid of. Loss and guilt.

   Aleksander shook his head in denial at her, his sniffled becoming constant as tears formed. "I...I never meant for this, I swear."

   "Shush, child. Shush now." Baghra whispered through her dying breaths, unknowingly to the boy, began to use her shadows to form a small version of The Cut around his right wrist where the residue from The Stag still inhabited. "It's already happened. She will be the end of you."

   Aleksander screamed loudly in pain when his hand was decapitated from his arm. Taking in long deep breaths, he turned back to his Mother in his arms to see her eyes shut and her chest leveled, no sign of life any longer within her.

   He cradled her to his chest, sobs wracking his body as he pressed his forehead to hers. Her body slowly started to turn into the very thing she could summon and vanished into thin air, leaving Aleksander with no one in his arms anymore, kneeling on the ground by himself.

   "Sorry." He mumbled through his violent cry's wracking his body, regretting everything that came with her death, one of the people most important to him, gone like his family before him. Guilt ate him whole.

   One of the people most important to him. The second and last still breathed and she vowed justice.

•••

   The three friends now clouded with grief for all three different reasons rode their horse to Zvedya where Nikolai and everyone rallied for the on coming battle against Kirigan, now with the fourth horse being empty.

   They dismounted their horses and left them with some solider's before walking to the courtyard of the large building greeting them where Nikolai, Genya and a new face dressed in First Army attire stood waiting for them.

   They noticed their sulken faces and Nikolai's eyes immediately drifted to the dark haired girl mindlessly following behind Mal and Alina, arms hugged around herself and her cheeks no blotchy from all the crying. But, the tears had stopped half way on their journey here and all she felt was now numbness.

   "We lost Baghra." Alina answered their wordless questioning expressions. Mal nodded as he added, "It's true. She's gone."

   Genya, now sporting an eye patch over her permanently altered eye, sighed out in sadness. "She saved my life."

   "Mine too." Alina's eyebrows pinched together as if she were about to break down before she wrapped her arms around Genya and sniffled into her shoulder. Alina shook herself back together once they pulled away. "Before she died, she broke the connection between me and Kirigan. I no longer feel him."

   "Does that mean he's dead?" Mischa already knew the answer to Genya's question.

   "Safest to proceed as though he's alive until we hear otherwise." Nikolai said, for the first time his concerned gaze shifted away from the quiet girl and to the other two women.

   "And The Firebird?"

   "Mal knows where it is."

   "Alina, I—"

   Mal was cut off from trying to speak to Alina by Nikolai who nodded at the news. "Tell us what you need to find it. Everything I and Vertov have is at your disposal. It's appears Kirigan's on the move. He...He destroyed the First Army camp at Keramzin. Our scouts say there are no survivors."

   Alina kept her head held high although the news broke her. "He knows my weaknesses."

   "Two teams, then. One go with, uh..." Vertov trailed off, looking at Mal. Mischa remembered Nikolai telling her of his friend Dominik Vertov before she left.

   "Oretsev, sir." Mal shook his extended hand.

   "Dominik." The solider introduced himself. "One team go with Oretsev to get the Firebird, another goes straight at the Darkling to stop him advancing."

   "That's if he is alive." Genya stated softly.

   "He's alive."

   Every head snapped towards the broken and frail voice of Mischa Romanov who spoke up for the first time since being here. She never looked up from her determined gaze on the ground.

   She didn't spare anyone a glance as she turned around on her heels and walked the opposite direction, feeling the burning gaze of worry and concern from everyone one of them.

   No one knew yet. Mischa barely even knew.

   After being directed to her quarters designed for just her, she walked into the room, closing the door gently behind her. It wasn't like the Palace room but it still fit her low standards. Anything that was a roof over her head would do just fine.

   In a chest was fresh clean clothes for her to change into. It was a woman's version of a First Army uniform, a replica of what Genya was wearing earlier.

   Mischa didn't feel like changing out of the soft and comfy Inferni Kefta she was still in. She didn't feel like anything. She shrugged off the heavy but light kefta off her body, leaving her in the undergarment of a sleeveless blouse and brown long skirt that stopped an inch above the ground.

   She took her shoes off and set the kefta and the shoes down by a table in the corner of the room.

   Her mind still hasn't wrapped around the new news of her heritage, nor the aching feeling in her chest at the realization her father wasn't all she had dreamed about.

   When she was younger, she would dream of her Father being a merchant perhaps, he could charm anyone and he had the kindest soul in all of Ravka. He would gift coins to the child without a home on the streets and help the older women carry heavy loads of crates.

   Much to her great disappointment, her Father revealed to be the opposite of her little girl hopes and dreams. He was the dirtiest, cruelest, selfish, manipulative and callous man the world has ever known. He only desired his own pleasures and goals, not anyone else's.

   Aleksander killed Baghra. Her grandmother.

   And nothing was more scary than a girl with blood stained hands, underlying power quaking through her veins and eyes filled with vengeance.

   Mischa's eyes couldn't help but glance down at her hands as she took a seat on the edge of her made-bed. Her hands were stained with soot and dirt but underneath all of that, they had a power the world has only seen from two people. It was the last name that gave her her Small Science, what made her a Grisha. One man caused the rest of their line to suffer from the creation of his abomination.

   But, it occurred to her, how could her Grisha powers be hidden for so long? If Alina hid it for however long she did before it came to life, what would trigger Mischa's own to reveal itself? But, did she even want this power? Mischa saw what it did to Morozova, Aleksander, what would it do to her? Could she spiral down into madness just like them?

   She didn't want to find out. She didn't want to wield the power of shadows. She didn't want anything of this, she never asked for this. She wished Aleksander never saved her for the orphanage. Mischa would rather deal with the torment and bully from the other kids than be involved in this revolution.

   But, then she would never have the people she had met along the way. She would have never met, Mal, or Alina, or Zoya, or Tamar, or... Nikolai. She would've never faced the hardships she had and still stayed on the same path with a brave face.

   Baghra had seen the courage in her, the desperation for rightness in the world, for a better future for Ravka. Baghra sacrificed her self not only for Alina to take down the Fold and defeat Kirigan, but also for Mischa, so she could rise up on her feet again and fight for her beliefs.

   Aleksander may have raised a killer he could control, but Mischa Romanov turned out to be the very thing that will be his downfall, his deepest mistake in life of creating the thing that will destroy him.

   With her Anger for her estranged Father in mind, she began to think of how she called out to Aleksander through their connection. It made sense, Baghra had said it herself, that's how she was able to save Alina in the first place, by a connection by blood.

   Mischa had somehow did it before. Maybe she could do it again, face the man who created her in more ways than one and killed her Grandmother. If it was blood, she could find him.

   She slowly let her eyelids drift closed and inhaled a deep breath. She didn't know what she was looking for, a tether or string that connected them perhaps. Anything.

   And when she thought all hope was lost, she saw it. A white string that was connected to her and the other end led her to him.

   Just like that, her eyes flew open and she stood in the room where she presumed he had taken residence in the Palace after overrunning it. He sat in a chair, his head in his hands and she heard sniffles leave him.

   It took her a moment to think of what to say to alert him of her presence, sense he seemed to be in such a state of emotion he couldn't sense her presence.

   "Hello, father."

   Aleksander slowly lifted his head up and out of his hands to see his daughter standing across the room before him like Baghra had just a couple hours ago. As he rose to his feet cautiously, his surprised eyes met her steel furious ones, they were narrowed in on him.

   "She told you?" His voice came out hesitantly as his shoulders dropped in defeat and his bottom lip quivered as he remember his Mother's death on the very floor she stood upon.

   "Yes. Among other things. Things she thought I ought to know, the truth." Mischa stated, letting the darkness of the shadows in the corner of where she was half-camouflage her body. "The truth you so clearly tried to hide for your own purpose, resulting in my Grandmother's end."

   "A truth that she hid from you as well. We both hid a secret from the one we loved, to keep you safe."

   As he stepped forward to try and console his daughter who has fresh tears threatening the brims of her eyes, he halted when she took a step back. "You must know, There is no greater terror than watching someone you love die in front of your eyes."

   Mischa, in retaliation, raised an eyebrow, sharp as a razor. "I didn't know you were capable of feeling love."

   Her words struck him like a ton of bricks and a hurt expression flashed on his face. He swallowed thickly, blinking the unwelcome tears away. "I loved my Mother. I didn't wish to see her die, I...I couldn't do anything to stop. My efforts were in vain but you are my salvation. My daughter, my beautiful daughter, the only one I love most in this world. The only one who understands me. I'm doing this for you, for us."

   "We can be a family, my little Bird."

   Mischa asked the one question that's been hanging off the top of her tongue since she found out who she really was. "Did you kill my Mother?"

   Aleksander halted, a heartbroken look crossing his features at the mention of his wife. He would never forget her, because not only was he himself in Mischa's face but her Mother's as well. He saw Katia again. "It pains me you think I would kill the woman I loved. I did not. After she fled with you, I was frantic. She took away my child, ripped her from my grasp and once you were put in that awful orphanage, she left you alone. I never found her, my guess is she is back in Fjerda with her family, long forgetting you. But, I, I never forgot you."

   He paused, his eyes filled with sincerity as he took a step closer to her, silently begging her to listen to him. "I couldn't believe she put you in that awful place. You suffered everyday there and I only wished I found you sooner. It breaks my heart to think of the torture those pathetic otkazat'sya put you through everyday for eight years. They do not deserve to live in this world, our world. You have a greater purpose than those a head of you. With me. By my side. We will show everyone this world only brings sorrow and pain."

   Mischa's shoulders slumped and she looked as if she were considering his offer, finally.

   He drew even closer so he was a few feet away from her. "Please, my daughter, let us be a family. Let me show you the world and embrace who you truly are, Aleska."

   Can you withstand the storm, Mischa?

   You didn't just withstand it, you created it. You are the storm.

   I am the storm. Mischa thought in her head after considering Aleksander and Baghra's words in her head. And I am coming for you.

  Mischa eyes that were previously concentrated on the ground in contemplation now flickered up to meet his. He frowned upon seeing the rage growling within them, the storm crackling in her pupils and a wolf barring its fangs at him. Mischa took steps back, her Father's frown only deepening.

   "We may be attached by blood, but I will never, ever stand with you."

   Aleksander eyes widened in fear as her arms spread open as she welcomed the darkness to her, attracting it towards her body so it swirled around in spirals, the shadows dark and fierce. A power that Aleksander thought she didn't have.

   "You have ruined me — this country for far too long, father. I am Mischa Romanov, I am Aleska Morozova, I'm not The Black Bird, I am my own." She would not believe his lies and claims of love towards her.

   Aleksander fearfully turned behind him to see one of his nichevo'ya stalked around him. "No, please! Don't hurt her! Stop, no!"

   Mischa's determined glare aimed towards the encroaching nichevo'ya and with eyes of blaze she turned back to the man who gave her life. "If you'll excuse me, but my real family needs me."

   And just before the nichevo'ya lunged to attack her, she had disappeared and her eyes flew open. She was back in her quarters.

   Aleksander let a howl of a scream out as he sunk to his knees on the ground. He had lot his Mother and now he had lost his Daughter. He had nothing left.

authors note.

   i hope you enjoy some badass girl boss moments from our girl mischa — or should I even call her that? i couldn't wait any longer for Mischa to reach her characters arc and I feel like Baghra's death really triggered something in her that made her craving for vengeance more aware.

CAN WE TAKE ONE MINUTE TO TALK ABOUT SHADOW AND BONE SEASON 3 BEING CANCELLED!!! If you follow me, you'll see I'm pretty upset because this show and the books are my whole being. We didn't even get to see any of the spin-off's which disappoint me greatly and this whole ordeal is just crazy to think about.

I'm sure you're wondering what this means for the future of this fic. But, fare not, this fic will be completed! After I finish writing season 2, I will be going off the script of King of Scars. You might have to bare with because I've never written Fanfiction from a book before and I don't know the first thing about it, plus I don't wanna plagiarize Leigh.

But, yeahhh, that's what I have in store for this book. After season 2 though I might take a little break from this fic to focus on updating my other fics and planning this one out before a chapter onto king of scars is published.

i love you all, don't be a ghost reader!