TWENTY ONE â HEARTRENDER
ORDER OF THE LIVING & THE DEAD (CORPORALKI)
Sheâs been running for as long as she can remember, a girl born for leaving and a penchant for staying gone. For the better half of her young life, she was little more than a memoryâwind-loved and sun-worshipped, a bramble rose that never truly took root, and she owes it to her family, to her people, for instilling within her the grace that allowed her to survive so long. They were a peaceful people, the Suliâa band of men and women whoâd been spared the curse of desperately wanting to belongâand she was their blessing, their gift, the closest thing to a saint theyâd ever had in their midst. Rebe, they called her: daughterâof the wind, of the earth, of their hearts. She and her brother were treasured among them where they mightâve been shunnedâguarded where they mightâve been given up, and as such, they were spared from discovery and conscription into the Second Army, tucked into the back of a wagon when the hooded strangers came in search of their kind. It was there, pressed against her sibling beneath a pile of moth-eaten blankets, that she grew fearful of what she truly wasâa weapon, elusive and dangerous and deadly enough for an Army to seek out. They were safe, the child of the sea and the girl who spoke the language of hearts, and for a time, she tried to let herself believe they always would be. But her days of hiding and hoping and praying to saints she wasnât sure were listening were far from over that warm spring morning; theyâd only just begun.
They were by the sea when the world came crashing down on their heads, and no amount of powerâno twisting of heartstrings and no calling of tidal wavesâcould save them. What once sustained them had set them apart; Aarvasâs asking the tides to dance had captured the attention of a slaver moving into port, and Neysaâs moving to defend him with little more than her bare hands, outstretched and shaking, had sealed their fate. Life as theyâd known it ended on a hot summerâs day, with no mourners to speak of but the whisper of the waves and the cries of a lone seagull, as is expected for two children with no home but each other; the girl sheâd once been died on her knees with her head held high, her hands tied behind her back and her pinky finger entwined with her siblingâs, and the girl she became never spoke of her againâout of fear, out of respect, out of longing. Time moved not in days and minutes, but in dreams and memoriesâa braid of raven feathers falling down her motherâs back, the sway of prairie grasses in the warm light of dawn, the heaviness that came with leaving a place and the lightness that came with knowing there would always be another. A girl taught to interpret dreams found herself utterly lost when she could no longer distinguish between nightmares and waking, and for years, this was her life: a shadow of what it once was, a never-ending night under a sky devoid of the stars sheâd known by name.
But hope has a funny way of finding its way through the cracks, and against all odds, the two Suli children found a friend in the city theyâd come to loathe. The streets of Ketterdam had long been a hostile place for Grisha to roam, pockmarked as they were by the scars of gang rivalries and anti-Grisha sentiment as thick as smoke, but each year, as the leaves turned from green to gold to dust, they became a haven of anonymity, a home to every figment of lonely childrenâs imaginations and every poor fellow who longed to join them. But this particular autumn, they were an escape for a pair of Grisha indentures that had never been indentured at all, a sharp set of blades on which to cut their bonds. They ran in plain sight, two masked figures fleeing the crowds after the outbreak of a liquor-fueled riot, and robbed of the opportunity to do so when theyâd been captured, and safely aboard a Ravkan trade ship Aarvas had volunteered to guide, they watched the one place theyâd never been able to make a home of fade from viewâbut never, it seemed, from their memories. The nightmares theyâd lived haunted her nightly even after they were once again on Ravkan soil, and they only worsened when she and her brother enlisted in the Second Army as both a penance and a priceâshadowed figures strangling her in the dark, the bodies of innocents strewn about at her feet. In her dreams, she forgot how to tell the difference between a monster and a man.
In the months since sheâs arrived at the Little Palace, sheâs learned that sometimes, there isnât one. Having escaped one noose only to entangle herself in another, she doubts sheâll ever outrun her ghosts, memories of the life she was forced to leave behind, but every sin has its recompense, and perhaps this is hers: to become, bit by bit, a woman she doesnât recognizeâa weapon in the hands of a king not unlike the masters she once served. She doesnât remember what it feels like to be truly free, and as long as there are wars to win and empires to topple, perhaps she never will. All the more reason, she supposes, to soldier on. One day, sheâll reconcile the image of the war-torn girl in the mirror with the hopeful child she once was. One day, sheâll convince herself that everything sheâs done has been just. But until then, she fights, half-blade and half-girl. When is a monster not a monster, you ask? Oh, when itâs given no other choice.
AARVAS RAI: Her father once told her that when they were young, a prick of her siblingâs finger would draw tears from her own eyes, a tether few understood and none dared to sever. She was made to protect them, body and soulâin this life and the next, and sheâd sooner return herself to the chains theyâve been freed from than see them suffer. They are two halves of the same whole, the push and pull of the tide against the shore, and where one goes, the other will surely followâthrough hell and back, into the thick of battle, home. Let this war take her pride, her morals, her hopes, her dreamsâbut saints save the one who tries to take them.
STASYA BELOV: They are gentleâa breeze where they mightâve been a twister, kind where they mightâve been cruel, and she finds solace in them, in their courageous sort of sweetness. Sheâs found something akin to a kindred spirit in the squaller, a soldier to call friend, and no stranger to shame herself, sheâs offered her own weathered shoulders to share the burden of their storms. The world has made martyrs of them both, but she knowsâperhaps better than anyoneâthat martyrs often come in pairs. In her smile lies a promise: youâll never have to go it alone.
VALERIAN PETROV:Â She sees in him everything she desperately hopes to never becomeâa fanatic, a killer, a fire raging out of control. He wasnât always this wayâat least, thatâs what sheâs been told; it was the war that made him the inferno he is, and it will be the war that burns him for all heâs got, a candle melted down to the end of the wick. Never one to be a savior for anyone but her own flesh and blood, Neysa might be content to let him burn up in his own flames, had he not reached out and tried to drag her in with him. âLeft your backbone in Kerch, did you?â He sneered once, voice haughty and words blistering. âPerhaps you shouldâve left your heart, too.â He doesnât know what heâs asking for, this man of ash and fire; he mustnât know what a death wish it is to tempt a woman who could burst his heart in his chest. But sometimes, as she watches him raze whole cities to the ground like a man in search of something heâll never get back, she thinks, perhaps, he might.Â
NEYSA IS PORTRAYED BY NEELAM GILL & IS TAKEN BY MEL.
