Chapter Text
“ Lumina Morozova!” Her father roared over the chaos. “ I have given you everything! A roof over your head, a bed for you to sleep on, a place that you would be safe, and this is how you repay me? Conspiring against me?”
A sense of tranquility washed over her.
Despite all of the chaos going around her, the volcra tearing up anyone they could get their claws on, Grishas fighting, people screaming and guns going off, Lumina felt calm. The skiff had crashed into the ground, chunks bitten and ripped off from the volcra, and a fire was slowly spreading. Still, Lumina felt calm, and she allowed her appearance to morph into her original look, her dark eyes glinting underneath the pale blue light, and she stood up straighter.
For the past while, she had lived with guilt. With shame, for betraying the man she called her brother. With anger, for betraying the very same man who gave her everything she had today. She had lived with the gnawing feeling of shame bearing down her shoulders, choking her every word and consuming every aspect of her life. She couldn’t understand why she felt like this, why she couldn’t agree with what her father thought, what her father did, what her father said, just for the sake of not having to go against him.
But now, as she stood here, her father cowering over her with a hand wrapped around her throat, the tip of her feet so close to the floor yet unable to touch it, Lumina felt a sense of calm.
She couldn’t care less about Ravka or any other nation. She couldn’t care less if the Fold stood or not, if it was there or it was destroyed. However, the people she loved did, and she cared about them.
“ All I have ever wanted,” She gasped out, the air in her lungs escaping her as he continued to hold her off of the ground, her fingers clawing at his arm to let her go. He stared her down, his dark eyes narrowing, and she choked out a little droplet of black blood. “ Was for you to love me like a father should.”
A knife whizzed past her and embedded in his shoulder. Stumbling backwards, his hand lost the grip around her throat and she swung her leg forward, kicking him in the chest and pushing herself away from his grasp. Lumina stumbled backwards, finding her balance by bumping into someone, whose arm wrapped around her to keep her up.
She looked to her side and found a small Suli girl, dressed in a signature color of green with various knives and daggers stuck to her small body. It was clear that the dagger currently embedded in her father’s shoulder was from her, and the Suli girl let go of her when Lumina finally gained her balance.
“ About time you all came up.” She wheezed, sticking her palm to her throat and amateurly healing her raspy throat. “ Help me stop him.”
She nodded. Lumina braced herself, and looked at her father, who slowly pulled the small dagger out of his shoulder.
“ You think,” He dragged his words out of his throat. “ A small knife would stop me? I am eternal. I have lived for years, I have killed and destroyed.”
The love for her father still burned in her chest. Lumina curled her hands toward each other, and killed a volcra that nearly came down and picked up the girl beside her. She could feel the sudden excessive use of her powers, one that she kept hidden for years, weighing her down in the form of the exhaustion clinging to her bones, but she stood tall, her shoulders heaving with every breath.
“ You think you can kill me, Wraith?” He shouted, his voice rising with every word. Lumina immediately noticed his hands curling towards each other, and warned the girl beside her — Wraith, she heard — to jump out of the way before he could strike. “ Do you think I need special powers to end your life?”
In the midst of the battle, both Lumina and her new comrade, the Suli girl, quickly escaped her father’s wrath by jumping out of the way. They both quickly got distracted by other threats, and whilst she fought the volcra and the remaining Grisha on her father’s side, she also made a note to constantly look out for the Suli girl and Zoya.
She wrestled with a Squaller, the exhaustion that was settling in her bones slowed down her movements. Still, she quickly defeated him with a flick of her hand and seeing the shadow suffocate him to death. She ran back to where Zoya had stood to man the main sail, though she had now moved to the lower deck for her safety, and overlooked the whole skiff.
Ivan was knocked unconscious again by someone whom she recognized as the sharpshooter from Kaz Brekker’s crew. The Wraith was also there, supporting Zoya, and she could spot the man himself, Dirtyhands, knocking someone off the skiff and to the sandy ground of the Fold with his infamous cane.
“ Shit–”
Her feet lifted off the ground. A volcra’s claws wrapped around her abdomen and picked her up, flying through the air with a shrill scream, and Lumina coughed out blood as their claws dug into her body, tearing through the kefta and digging into her skin.
“ You fucking—” She groaned, her hands clutching each other as the volcra flew her away from the skiff. “ You are so annoying!”
Panic raced through her veins. She was going to die, Lumina was positive of her imminent demise, if she didn’t do anything right now. However, if she somehow managed to kill the volcra that was flying her in it’s claws, she was fifty feet into the air. If the fall wouldn’t kill her, then her injuries will. She could heal, yes, but she was not equipped to deal with wounds that ran deep, deep below the surface of her skin.
Or maybe another volcra will.
“ Oh, Saints.” She gritted her teeth and gazed up at the volcra, being carried rapidly throughout the air. Inhaling a sharp, ragged breathe that filled her lungs with her own blood, she pressed her palms together and closed her eyes.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
The volcra are demons, but they were also people. Men, women, children, contorted and transformed into these monsters that die underneath the sunlight. Yet, neither do people nor volcra could go without a heart that pumped blood and kept them alive.
Her eyes flickered open. She focused on its heartbeat and quickly slowed it down, more blood spilling out of her lips as she listened to the heartbeat of the volcra, whose grip slowly loosened around her, pulling it’s claws out of her body.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Lumina’s weak body slipped out from its clawed grasp. The young Summoner plummeted through the air, falling down with no sign of stopping. Her eyes found the sight of sunlight peeking through the clouds of the Fold, and her ears blocked out the sounds of shrill screeches of the volcra, burning to death underneath the light.
Her eyes shut. Exhaustion creeped through her body, and she finally allowed herself to relax.
Lumina wonders if Nikolai has answered her letters yet.