Ligeia, for the Darkling 👀
Have 800 words of the Darkling being awful. (Also posted on AO3!)
Ligeia: loss of love, mourning, delusion.
After a week it was clear that Genya Safin would live. Good. He hadn’t meant to kill her.
For months he’d weighed over his options of what to do with her. The Darkling kept her close, no longer trusting her—if she could let the Sun Summoner escape then she could spy for Alina, or anyone else who caught her sympathy. And of course Genya didn’t mind. She’d always wanted to belong, and to be shown the reverence she knew she deserved, so where was better than at her commander’s side, in her new red and blue kefta?
It had been hard to see her smile and know what he had to do. To hear her laugh and remember how she betrayed him. It couldn’t be helped. She was young, and he could see his mistake letting her grow up as she had. So lonely. So set apart. He thought that she would be stronger than to fall into the arms of the first person to share a laugh with her—that Genya would remember why he’d trusted her to do the right thing, when it came to Alina—but evidently he’d been wrong. He couldn’t let her get away with that, but still. It was a shame.
“We leave for the Little Palace tomorrow,” he said. From her bed Genya didn’t move, which was… disappointing. He’d hoped that she would choose to let him see her face once more, when it was just the two of them. To look into her eye and find a hint of remorse. To find an echo of the love she once had for him. But she lay as still as she could, breathing as silently as possible. The Darkling pressed on. “I regret that we have to part in this way. You always showed so much potential. There was really no one else like you. To watch you throw that all away in just one stupid moment… it’s disappointing, Genya. But tomorrow you’ll be back with your people. We’ll show the summoner what happens to anyone who tries to help her.”
“Please,” Genya whispered. He would not have heard if he’d not drawn up to her bedside.
“Yes, Genya?”
“Just kill me,” she said. “Don’t make me hurt Alina.”
The Darkling sighed, sitting beside her. “This again. Don’t pull away. I want to look at you.” He pulled the covers away from her and rested his hand against her cheek, turning her face up so that he could see what was left. Past all the black crescents of teeth marks he still saw her alabaster skin, her high cheek bones. Everything that once made her so beautiful was still there, beneath all the layers of mutilation.
She shuddered. A thick liquid streamed from her eye socket, although not as continuously as it had during the first days. From the eye that remained the Darkling saw a clear, silver tear stick to her lashes, then trace a line down her desecrated face, and without thinking he brushed it away.
Genya froze, as if torn between pushing him away and leaning into the comfort. She knew better than to pull away, though, or to try; had learned that the first night after her destruction, when he’d come to inspect the damage and traced the black lines all over her skin, and she’d begged him not to touch her and finally lay still while waiting for him to rape her. He didn’t, of course. Sadism like that was too banal and impersonal. No, the punishment had to fit the crime and by that point she’d already paid, in a way far more appropriate.
Besides, it wasn’t as though that was anything she hadn’t experienced before.
“Don’t use me like this,” Genya said.
“Is that really all you were?” he asked. “Some good looks? I thought it would take more than that to break you.”
Her breath caught, and he pushed her hair away from where it stuck to the gaping wound that was once her eye. “I thought more of you. I admired you.”
I loved you.
The words almost passed through him. And for a moment, he was furious. At Genya, for making him do this to her. At himself, for still seeing the girl she’d been at sixteen, when she’d begged his help escaping the King’s advances before instead agreeing to help him. She’d had so much potential shining out of her with radiance and defiance, and whatever she’d been reduced to now, he had to concede that he would always still see the girl that destroyed the King.
He pulled away from her abruptly enough that she flinched, and the show of weakness disgusted him.
“I suppose you should thank me,” he said, and when Genya finally looked at him he clarified. “No one will ever try to touch you now.”
