When I had woken up and gotten dressed I pulled back the curtain to reveal my father slaving away through piles of paperwork, the large pile now split in two as a new one grew taller as he added freshly signed papers to it.

"Morning," he greeted me without looking up, "Your breakfasts infront of the fireplace."

Silently I walked over and picked away at my cooling breakfast, I was never really a morning person.

I was the type of person who could wake up at midday and still get everything I need to get done, done.

I read as I was eating, not interrupting my father as he continued with his work. If I was I'm the middle of doing something and I was interrupted while I was in my groove, I wouldn't have been very happy, so I wouldn't risk that with other people.

Eventually as I finished eating he signed off on the last paper, finnaly putting down his pen and stood up.

"Are you ready?" He asked, walking over to me.

I nodded while I drank some water from my canteen. He went outside to converse with someone while I put my book back and strapped my knife to my thigh.

I came out of the tent and thanked a soldier who handed me my horse, it was the same horse that I had rode here.

When the Darkling finished talking, a soldier handed him his horse too, the black one that he always seemed to ride.

We both mounted our horses, although it did take me a bit longer and I was considerably less graceful, and rode out of the camp towards the village.

When we arrived at the village I had to press my hand to my mouth to stifle a small scream.

It was completely abandoned, all signs of life had been completely exterminated, there were no bodies littering the floor, unlike in my nightmares and the grass... oh my Saints the grass, it was burned to a crisp, and what was left was slowly withering away.

"I'm guessing it didn't look like this before," the Darkling commented. I had genuinely forgotten he was there, lost in my train of thought.

I shook my head, "Did- did I do this?" I asked mostly to myself, but also to him.

"Not all of it, the grass, most definitely, but the houses, I don't think that was you," he gestured to the small buildings around us.

I had to silence yet another gasp as I looked up for the first time, most of the houses were slowly collapsing or falling in on themselves, the thatch roofs singed from where fires had obviously broken out.

I jumped off my horse quickly tying it to the half destroyed well.

Memories started rushing back to me, some welcome and others not so much.

I remembered playing tag around the well with the other kids when I was younger on the fine summer evenings. I remembered how scared I had been, running to the forest every time the Grisha came, desperate not to get caught. I remembered my adoptive parents telling me the story of how they had found me on their doorstep, these and so many more memories came flooding back as I ran, trying to find my old house.

It looked as if most of the damage to the houses were done mostly to the ones by the main square, finally I stopped at my old home and a sigh of relief left my lips.

It was in better shape than most of the buildings but not untouched, the door was ajar, hanging on by the lower hinge, most of the windows were broken but ultimately, the outside just looked like it had been caught in a protest turned violent.

I heard the Darkling come up behind me and ask, " Is- Was this your home?" I nodded, not trusting myself to respond, "It's very, quaint," he commented.

I rolled my eyes and brushed past him into the house. The kitchen was ransacked, probably from the few people who had escaped, they had most likely came back, took everything that they needed and left, after all, food was useless to a bunch of dead people.

I opened the door to what was previously a closet until we had renovated it to make it my room. It was small, barley able to fit more than three people, but the familiar smell was still there and I breathed it in.

I lifted the floorboards underneath my old mattress and started digging, and digging, and digging.

"Did you have to put whatever it is so far underground?" The darkling asked from over my shoulder.

"Did you have to get your Grisha to search our houses for every valuable thing we owned?" I retorted. He didn't respond.

Eventually I stopped digging, dirt underneath my nails, but I smiled wildly, it was still here, I pulled out a long thin wooden box, from the ground and dusted it off, the top had the word Feadóg carved onto it, I opened it and there lay the gift that I had been given on my 10th birthday.

"What is it?" He asked me. I stared at him in disbelief.

"So the mighty Darkling doesn't know everything after all," I commented dramatically, "It's a tin whistle, a gift from my 10th birthday, a popular instrument from the wandering isle, and I think I remember.." I put down the box, closed my eyes and put the spout to my lips and started to play.

The music that left her tin whistle was impeccable, the general just stared at her in disbelief, it wasn't that he didn't think she was capable of producing anything quite so beautiful but this was something that if you played it at a funeral everyone would forget everything and immediately be in a trance of pure joy or start dancing around.

She finished playing and opened her eyes to see the general staring at her, "You've never heard a Polka before, have you?" I asked him, he shook his head.

"You never told me you could play music," he commented.

"You never asked," I replied, I put the instrument back inside the box and hugged it tightly to my chest, I wasn't going to let anyone take this away from me, no one.

My father then led me out of the house and we rode back to the outpost where Ivan came up to us and whispered something that I couldn't hear, although it must have been important as my father stopped in his tracks and stared at Ivan, "Are they sure?" He asked, and Ivan nodded, the general dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

He turned to me, "You are to go back to the little palace with Fredyor tonight, I have some unexpected bussiness to attend to."

I sighed heavily and looked down at my boots, "Fine."

"Unless you would rather file through casualtie reports," he commented.

I turned to go fetch my pack, "I'm already gone," I shouted back.

And this is where I slowly sneak back into the main plotline of the books, like a fucking ninja. I'm going to be going around the start of siege and storm for those of you that want to know, so if you haven't read it yet, you have been warned, there most definitely will be spoilers

Feadóg = tin whistle