Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Matthias remembered the darkness of the water, the terrible cold, the silence of the deep. The next thing he knew, he was spitting up salt water, gasping for breath. Someone had an arm around his chest, and they were moving through the water. The cold was unbearable, yet somehow he was bearing it.
“Wake up, you miserable lump of muscle.” Clean Fjerdan, pure, spoken like a noble. He turned his head and was shocked to see that the young witch they’d captured on the southern coast of the Wandering Isle had hold of him and was muttering to herself in Ravkan. He’d known she wasn’t really Kaelish. Somehow she’d gotten free of her bonds and the cages. Every part of him went into a panic, and if he’d been less shocked or numb, he would have struggled.
“Move,” she told him in Fjerdan, panting. “Saints, what do they feed you? You weigh about as much as a hay cart.”
She was struggling badly, swimming for both of them. She’d saved his life. Why?
He shifted in her arms, kicking his legs to help drive them forward. To his surprise, he heard her give a low sob. “Thank the Saints,” she said. “Swim, you giant oaf.”
“Where are we?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied, and he could hear the terror in her voice.
He kicked away from her.
“Don’t!” she cried. “Don’t let go!”
But he shoved hard, breaking her hold. The moment he left her arms, the cold rushed in. The pain was sharp and sudden, and his limbs went sluggish. She’d been using her sick magic to keep him warm. He reached for her in the dark.
“Drüsje?” he called, ashamed of the fear in his voice. It was the Fjerdan word for witch, but he had no name for her.
“Drüskelle!” she shouted, and then he felt his fingers brush against hers in the black water. He grabbed hold and drew her to him. Her body didn’t feel warm exactly, but as soon as they made contact, the pain in his own limbs receded. He was gripped by gratitude and revulsion.
“We have to find land,” she gasped. “I can’t swim and keep both of our hearts beating.”
“I’ll swim,” he said. “You … I’ll swim.” He clasped her back to his chest, his arm looped under hers and across her body, the way she’d been holding him only moments ago, as if she were drowning. And she was, they both were, or they would be soon if they didn’t freeze to death first.
He kicked his legs steadily, trying not to expend too much energy, but they both knew it was probably futile. They hadn’t been far from land when the storm had hit, but it was completely dark. They might be headed toward the coastline or farther out to sea.
There was no sound but their breathing, the slosh of the water, the roll of the waves. He kept them moving—though they might well have been paddling in a circle—and she kept both of them breathing. Which one of them would give out first, he didn’t know.
“Why did you save me?” he asked finally.
“Stop wasting energy. Don’t talk.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Because you’re a human being,” she said angrily.
Lies. If they did make land, she’d need a Fjerdan to help her survive, someone who knew the land, though clearly she knew the language. Of course she did. They were all deceivers and spies, trained to prey on people like him, people without their unnatural gifts. They were predators.
He continued to kick, but the muscles in his legs were tiring, and he could feel the cold creeping in on him.
“Giving up already, witch?”
He felt her shake off her exhaustion, and blood rushed back into his fingers and toes.
“I’ll match your pace, drüskelle. If we die, it will be your burden to bear in the next life.”
He had to smile a little at that. She certainly didn’t lack for spine. That much had been clear even when she was caged.
That was the way they went on that night, taunting each other whenever one of them faltered. They knew only the sea, the ice, the occasional splash that might have been a wave or something hungry moving toward them in the water.
“Look,” the witch whispered when dawn came, rosy and blithe. There, in the distance, he could just make out a jutting promontory of ice and the blessed black slash of a dark gravel shore. Land.
They wasted no time on relief or celebration. The witch tilted her head back, resting it against his shoulder as he drove forward, inch by miserable inch, each wave pulling them back, as if the sea was unwilling to relinquish its hold. At last, their feet touched bottom, and they were half swimming, half crawling to shore. They broke apart, and Matthias’ body flooded with misery as he dragged himself over the black rocks to the dead and frozen land.
Walking was impossible at first. Both of them moved in fits and starts, trying to get their limbs to obey, shuddering with cold. Finally he made it to his feet. He thought about just walking off, finding shelter without her. She was on her hands and knees, head bent, her hair a wet and tangled mess covering her face. He had the distinct sense that she was going to lie down and simply not get back up.
He took one step, then another. Then he turned back. Whatever her reasons, she’d saved his life last night, not once, but again and again. That was a blood debt.
He staggered back to her and offered his hand.
When she looked up at him, the expression on her face was a bleak map of loathing and fatigue. In it, he saw the shame that came with gratitude, and he knew that in this brief moment, she was his mirror. She didn’t want to owe him anything, either.
He could make the decision for her. He owed her that much. He reached down and yanked her to her feet, and they limped together off the beach.
They headed what Matthias hoped was west. The sun could play tricks on your senses this far north and they had no compass with which to navigate. It was almost dark, and Matthias had begun to feel the stirrings of real panic when they finally spotted the first of the whaling camps. It was deserted—the outposts were only active in the spring—and little more than a round lodge made of bone, sod, and animal skins. But shelter meant they might at least survive the night.
The door had no lock. They practically fell through it.
“Thank you,” she groaned as she collapsed beside the circular hearth.
He said nothing. Finding the camp had been mere luck. If they’d washed up even a few miles farther up the coast they would have been done for.
The whalers had left peat and dry kindling in the hearth. Matthias labored over the fire, trying to get it to do more than smoke. He was clumsy and tired and hungry enough that he would have gladly gnawed the leather off his boot. When he heard a rustling behind him, he turned and almost dropped the piece of driftwood he’d been using to coax the little flames.
“What are you doing?” he barked.
She had glanced over her shoulder—her very bare shoulder—and said, “Is there something I’m supposed to be doing?”
“Put your clothes back on!”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to freeze to death to preserve your sense of modesty.”
He gave the fire a stern jab, but she ignored him and stripped off the rest of her clothes—tunic, trousers, even her underthings—then wrapped herself in one of the grimy reindeer skins that had been piled near the door.
“Saints, this smells,” she grumbled, shuffling over and assembling a nest of the few other pelts and blankets beside the fire. Every time she moved, the reindeer cloak parted, revealing a flash of round calf, white skin, the shadow between her breasts. It was deliberate. He knew it. She was trying to rattle him. He needed to focus on the fire. He’d almost died, and if he didn’t get a fire started, he still might. If only she would stop making so much damn noise. The driftwood snapped in his hands.
Nina snorted and lay down in the nest of pelts, propping herself on one elbow. “For Saint’s sake, drüskelle, what’s wrong with you? I just wanted to be warm. I promise not to ravish you in your sleep.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” he said irritably.
&n
He stayed crouching beside the fire. He knew he was meant to lie down next to her. The sun had set, and the temperature was dropping. He was struggling to keep his teeth from chattering, and they would need each other’s warmth to get through the night. It shouldn’t have concerned him, but he didn’t want to be near her. Because she’s a killer, he told himself. That’s why. She’s a killer and a witch.
He forced himself to rise and stride toward the blankets. But Nina held out a hand to stop him.
“Don’t even think about getting near me in those clothes. You’re soaked through.”
“You can keep our blood flowing.”
“I’m exhausted,” she said angrily. “And once I fall asleep, all we’ll have is that fire to keep us warm. I can see you shaking from here. Are all Fjerdans this prudish?”
No. Maybe. He didn’t really know. The drüskelle were a holy order. They were meant to live chastely until they took wives—good Fjerdan wives who didn’t run around yelling at people and taking their clothes off.
“Are all Grisha so immodest?” he asked defensively.
“Boys and girls train side by side together in the First and Second Armies. There isn’t a lot of room for maidenly blushing.”
“It’s not natural for women to fight.”
“It’s not natural for someone to be as stupid as he is tall, and yet there you stand. Did you really swim all those miles just to die in this hut?”
“It’s a lodge, and you don’t know that we swam miles.”
Nina blew out an exasperated breath and curled up on her side, burrowing as close as she could get to the fire. “I’m too tired to argue.” She closed her eyes. “I can’t believe your face is going to be the last thing I see before I die.”
He felt like she was daring him. Matthias stood there feeling foolish and hating her for making him feel that way. He turned his back on her and quickly sloughed off his sodden clothes, spreading them beside the fire. He glanced once at her to make sure she wasn’t looking then strode to the blankets and wriggled in behind her, still trying to keep his distance.
“Closer, drüskelle,” she crooned, taunting.
He threw an arm over her, hooking her back against his chest. She let out a startled oof and shifted uneasily.
“Stop moving,” he muttered. He’d been close to girls—not many, it was true—but none of them had been like her. She was indecently round.
“You’re cold and clammy,” she complained with a shiver. “It’s like lying next to a burly squid.”
“You told me to get closer!”
“Ease up a bit,” she instructed and when he did, she flipped over to face him.
“What are you doing?” he asked, pulling back in a panic.
“Relax, drüskelle. This isn’t where I have my way with you.”
His blue eyes narrowed. “I hate the way you talk.” Did he imagine the hurt that flashed across her face? As if his words could have any effect on this witch.
She confirmed he’d been imagining things when she said, “Do you think I care what you like or don’t like?”
She laid her hands on his chest, focusing on his heart. He shouldn’t let her do this, shouldn’t show his weakness, but as his blood began to flow and his body warmed, the relief and ease that coursed through him felt too good to resist.
He let himself relax slightly, grudgingly, beneath her palms. She flipped over and pulled his arm back around her. “You’re welcome, you big idiot.”
He’d lied. He did like the way she talked.
* * *
He still did. He could hear her yammering to Inej somewhere behind him, trying to teach her Fjerdan words. “No, Hring-kaaalle. You have to hang on the last syllable a bit.”
“Hringalah?” tried Inej.
“Better but—here, it’s like Kerch is a gazelle. It hops from word to word,” she pantomimed. “Fjerdan is like gulls, all swoops and dives.” Her hands became birds riding currents on the air. At that moment, she looked up and caught him staring.
He cleared his throat. “Do not eat the snow,” he counseled. “It will only dehydrate you and lower your body temperature.” He plunged forward, eager to be up the next hill with some distance between them. But as he came over the rise, he halted dead in his tracks.
He turned around, holding out his arms. “Stop! You don’t want to—”
But it was too late. Nina clapped her hands over her mouth. Inej made some kind of warding sign in the air. Jesper shook his head, and Wylan gagged. Kaz stood like a stone, his expression inscrutable.
The pyre had been made on a bluff. Whoever was responsible had tried to build the fire in the shelter of a rock outcropping, but it hadn’t been enough to keep the flames from dying out in the wind. Three stakes had been driven into the icy ground, and three charred bodies were bound to them, their blackened, cracked skin still smoldering.
“Ghezen,” swore Wylan. “What is this?”
“This is what Fjerdans do to Grisha,” Nina said. Her face was slack, her green eyes staring.
“It’s what criminals do,” said Matthias, his insides churning. “The pyres have been illegal since—”
Nina whirled on him and shoved his chest hard. “Don’t you dare,” she seethed, fury burning like a halo around her. “Tell me the last time someone was prosecuted for putting a Grisha to the flames. Do you even call it murder when you put down dogs?”
“Nina—”
“Do you have a different name for killing when you wear a uniform to do it?”
They heard it then—a moan, like a creaking wind.
“Saints,” Jesper said. “One of them is alive.”
The sound came again, thin and keening, from the black hulk of the body on the far right. It was impossible to tell if the shape was male or female. Its hair had burned away, its clothing fused to its limbs. Black flakes of skin had peeled away in places, showing raw flesh.
A sob tore from Nina’s throat. She raised her hands but she was shaking too badly to use her power to end the creature’s suffering. She turned her tear-filled eyes to the others. “I … Please, someone…”
Jesper moved first. Two shots rang out, and the body fell silent. Jesper returned his pistols to their holsters.
“Damn it, Jesper,” Kaz growled. “You just announced our presence for miles.”
“So they think we’re a hunting party.”
“You should have let Inej do it.”
“I didn’t want to do it,” Inej said quietly. “Thank you, Jesper.”
Kaz’s jaw ticked, but he said nothing more.
“Thank you,” Nina choked out. She plunged ahead over the frozen ground, following the shape of the path through the snow. She was weeping, stumbling over the terrain. Matthias followed. There were few landmarks here, and it was easy to get turned around.
“Nina, you musn’t stray from the group—”
“That’s what you’re going back to, Helvar,” she said harshly. “That’s the country you long to serve. Does it make you proud?”
“I’ve never sent a Grisha to the pyre. Grisha are given a fair trial—”
She turned on him, goggles up, tears frozen on her cheeks.
“Then why has a Grisha never been found innocent at the end of your supposedly fair trials?”
“I—”
“Because our crime is existing. Our crime is what we are.”
Matthias went quiet, and when he spoke he was caught between shame for what he was about to say and the need to speak the words, the words he’d been raised on, the words that still rang true for him. “Nina, has it ever occurred to you that maybe … you weren’t meant to exist?”
Nina’s eyes glinted green fire. She took a step toward him, and he could feel the rage radiating off her. “Maybe you’re the ones who shouldn’t exist, Helvar. Weak and soft, with your short lives and your sad little prejudices. You worship wood sprites and ice spirits who can’t be bothere
“Don’t mock what you don’t understand.”
“My mockery offends you? My people would welcome your laughter in place of this barbarity.” A look of supreme satisfaction crossed her face. “Ravka is rebuilding. So is the Second Army, and when they do, I hope they give you the fair trial you deserve. I hope they put the drüskelle in shackles and make them stand to hear their crimes enumerated so the world will have an accounting of your evils.”
“If you’re so desperate to see Ravka rise, why aren’t you there now?”
“I want you to have your pardon, Helvar. I want you to be here when the Second Army marches north and overruns every inch of this wasteland. I hope they burn your fields and salt the earth. I hope they send your friends and your family to the pyre.”
“They already did, Zenik. My mother, my father, my baby sister. Inferni soldiers, your precious, persecuted Grisha, burned our village to the ground. I have nothing left to lose.”
Nina’s laugh was bitter. “Maybe your stay in Hellgate was too short, Matthias. There’s always more to lose.”
20
NINA
I can smell them. Nina batted at her hair and clothes as she lurched through the snow, trying not to retch. She couldn’t stop seeing those bodies, the angry red flesh peeking through their burnt black casings like banked coals. It felt like she was coated in their ashes, in the stink of burning flesh. She couldn’t take a full breath.
Being around Matthias made it easy to forget what he really was, what he really thought of her. She’d tailored him again just this morning, enduring his glowers and grumbling. No, enjoying them, grateful for the excuse to be near him, ridiculously pleased every time she brought him close to a laugh. Saints, why do I care? Why did one smile from Matthias Helvar feel like fifty from someone else? She’d felt his heart race when she’d tipped his head back to work on his eyes. She’d thought about kissing him. She’d wanted to kiss him, and she was pretty sure he’d been thinking the same thing. Or maybe he was thinking about strangling me again.
She hadn’t forgotten what he’d said aboard the Ferolind, when he’d asked what she intended to do about Bo Yul-Bayur, if she truly meant to hand the scientist over to the Kerch. If she sabotaged Kaz’s mission, would it cost Matthias his pardon? She couldn’t do that. No matter what he was, she owed him his freedom.