Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
They froze.
“Lay down your arms.” As one they obeyed her.
“Sleep,” she commanded. Nina swept her hands in an arc, and the soldiers toppled without protest, row after row, stalks of wheat felled by an invisible scythe.
The air was eerily still. Slowly, Wylan and Inej climbed down from the tank. Jesper and the rest followed, and they stood in stunned silence, all language dissolved by what they’d witnessed, gazing out at the field of fallen bodies. It had happened so quickly.
There was no way to reach the harbor unless they walked over the soldiers. Without a word, they began to pick their way through, the hush broken only by the faraway bells of the Elderclock. Matthias laid his hand on Nina’s arm, and she released a little sigh, letting him lead her.
Beyond the quay, the docks were deserted. As the others headed toward the Ferolind, Matthias and Nina trailed behind. Matthias could see Rotty clinging to the mast, jaw slack with fear. Specht was waiting to unmoor the ship, and the look on his face was equally terrified.
“Matthias!”
He turned. A group of drüskelle stood on the quay, their uniforms soaked, their black hoods raised. They wore masks of dully gleaming gray chain mail over their faces, their features obscured by the mesh. But Matthias recognized Jarl Brum’s voice when he spoke.
“Traitor,” Brum said from behind his mask. “Betrayer of your country and your god. You will not leave this harbor alive. None of you will.” His men must have gotten him out of the treasury after the explosion. Had they followed Matthias and Nina to the river beneath the ash? Had there been horses or more tanks stationed in the upper town?
Nina raised her hands. “For Matthias, I will give you one chance to leave us be.”
“You cannot control us, witch,” said Brum. “Our hoods, our masks, every stitch of clothing we wear is reinforced with Grisha steel. Corecloth created to our specifications by Grisha Fabrikators under our control and designed for just this purpose. You cannot force us to your will. You cannot harm us. This game is at an end.”
Nina lifted a hand. Nothing happened, and Matthias knew what Brum was saying was true.
“Go!” Matthias shouted at them. “Please! You—”
Brum lifted his gun and fired. The bullet struck Matthias directly in the chest. The pain was sudden and terrible—and then gone. Before his eyes, he saw the bullet emerge from his chest. It hit the ground with a plink. He pulled his shirt open. There was no wound.
Nina was walking past him. “No!” he cried.
The drüskelle opened fire on her. He saw her flinch as the bullets struck her body, saw red blooms of blood appear on her chest, her breasts, her bare thighs. But she did not fall. As fast as the bullets tore through her body, she healed herself, and the shells fell harmlessly to the dock.
The drüskelle gaped at Nina. She laughed. “You’ve grown too used to captive Grisha. We’re quite tame in our cages.”
“There are other means,” said Brum, pulling a long whip like the one Lars had used from his belt. “Your power cannot touch us, witch, and our cause is true.”
“I can’t touch you,” said Nina, raising her hands. “But I can reach them just fine.”
Behind the drüskelle, the Fjerdan soldiers Nina had put to sleep rose, their faces blank. One tore the whip from Brum’s hand, the others snatched the hoods and masks from the startled drüskelle’s faces, rendering them vulnerable.
Nina flexed her fingers, and the drüskelle dropped their rifles, hands going to their heads, screaming in pain.
“For my country,” she said. “For my people. For every child you put to the pyre. Reap what you’ve sown, Jarl Brum.”
Matthias watched the drüskelle twitch and convulse, blood trickling from their ears and eyes as the other Fjerdan soldiers looked on impassively. Their screams were a chorus. Claas, who had drunk too much with him in Avfalle. Giert, who’d trained his wolf to eat from his hand. They were monsters, he knew it, but boys as well, boys like him—taught to hate, to fear.
“Nina,” he said, hand still pressed over the smooth skin on his chest where a bullet wound should be. “Nina, please.”
“You know they would not offer you mercy, Matthias.”
“I know. I know. But let them live in shame instead.”
She hesitated.
“Nina, you taught me to be something better. They could be taught, too.”
Nina shifted her gaze to his. Her eyes were ferocious, the deep green of forests; the pupils, dark wells. The air around her seemed to shimmer with power, as if she was alight with some secret flame.
“They fear you as I once feared you,” he said. “As you once feared me. We are all someone’s monster, Nina.”
For a long moment, she studied his face. At last, she dropped her arms, and the ranks of drüskelle crumpled to the ground, whimpering. She released the other soldiers, and they fell back into their slumber, puppets with their strings cut. Then her hand shot out once more, and Brum shrieked. He clapped his hands to his head, blood trickling between his fingers.
“He’ll live?” Matthias asked.
“Yes,” she said as she stepped onto the schooner. “He’ll just be very bald.”
Specht shouted commands, and the Ferolind drifted into the harbor, picking up speed as the sails swelled with wind. No one ran to the docks to stop them. No ships or cannon fired. There was no one to give warning, no one to signal to the gunnery above. The Elderclock chimed on unheeded as the schooner vanished into the vast black shelter of the sea, leaving only suffering in her wake.
42
INEJ
They’d been blessed with a strong wind. Inej felt it ripple through her hair and couldn’t help but think of the storm to come.
As soon as they were on deck, Matthias had turned to Kuwei.
“How long does she have?”
Kuwei had some Kerch, but Nina had to translate in places. She did it distractedly, her glittering eyes roving over everyone and everything.
“The high will last one hour, maybe two. It depends how long it takes her body to process a dose of that size.”
“Why can’t you just purge it from your body like the bullets?” Matthias asked Nina desperately.
“It doesn’t work,” said Kuwei. “Even if she could overcome the craving for long enough to start purging it from her body, she’ll lose the ability to pull the parem from her system before it’s all gone. You’d need another Corporalnik using parem to accomplish it.”
“What will it do to her?” asked Wylan.
“You’ve seen for yourself,” Matthias replied bitterly. “We know what’s going to happen.”
Kaz crossed his arms, “How will it start?”
“Body aches, chills, no worse than a mild illness,” Kuwei explained. “Then a kind of hypersensitivity, followed by tremors, and the craving.”
“Do you have more of the parem?” Matthias asked.
“Yes.”
“Enough to get her back to Ketterdam?”
“I won’t take more,” Nina protested.
“I have enough to keep you comfortable,” Kuwei said. “But if you take a second dose, there is no hope at all.” He looked to Matthias. “This is her one chance. It’s possible her body will purge enough of it naturally that addiction won’t set in.”
“And if it does?”
Kuwei held out his hands, part shrug, part apology. “Without a ready supply of the drug, she’ll go mad. With it, her body will simply wear itself out. Do you know the word parem? It’s the name my father gave to the drug. It means ‘without pity.’”
When Nina finished translating, there was a long pause.
“I don’t want to hear any more,” she said. “None of it will change what’s coming.”
She drifted away toward the prow. Matthias watched her go.
“The water hears and understands,” he murmured beneath his breath.
Inej sought out Rotty and got him to dig up the wool coats she and Nina had left behind i
“One hour, maybe two,” Nina said without turning.
Inej halted in shock. “You heard me approach?” No one heard the Wraith, especially over the sound of the wind and sea.
“Don’t worry. It wasn’t those silent feet that gave you away. I can hear your pulse, your breathing.”
“And you knew it was me?”
“Every heart sounds different. I never realized that before.”
Inej joined her at the rail and handed over Nina’s coat. The Grisha put it on, though the cold didn’t seem to be bothering her. Above them, the stars shone bright between silver-seeded drifts of cloud. Inej was ready for dawn, ready for this long night to be over, and the journey, too. She was surprised to find she was eager to see Ketterdam again. She wanted an omelet, a mug of too-sweet coffee. She wanted to hear the rain on the rooftops and sit snug and warm in her tiny room at the Slat. There were adventures to come, but they could wait until she’d had a hot bath—maybe a few of them.
Nina buried her face in her coat’s woolen collar and said, “I wish you could see what I do. I can hear everybody on this ship, the blood rushing through their veins. I can hear the change in Kaz’s breathing when he looks at you.”
“You … you can?”
“It catches every time, like he’s never seen you before.”
“And what about Matthias?” Inej asked, eager to change the subject.
Nina raised a brow, unfooled. “Matthias is afraid for me, but his heart thumps a steady rhythm no matter what he’s feeling. So Fjerdan, so orderly.”
“I didn’t think you’d let those men live, back at the harbor.”
“I’m not sure it was the right thing to do. I’ll become one more Grisha horror story for them to tell their children.”
“Behave or Nina Zenik will get you?”
Nina considered. “Well, I do like the sound of that.”
Inej leaned back on the railing and peered at Nina. “You look radiant.”
“It won’t last.”
“It never does.” Then Inej’s smile faltered. “Are you afraid?”
“Terrified.”
“We’ll all be here with you.”
Nina took a wobbly breath and nodded.
Inej had made countless alliances in Ketterdam, but few friends. She rested her head against Nina’s shoulder. “If I were a Suli seer,” she said, “I could look into the future and tell you it will be all right.”
“Or that I’m going to die in agony.” Nina pressed her cheek against the top of Inej’s head. “Tell me something good anyway.”
“It will be all right,” Inej said. “You’ll survive this. And then you’re going to be very, very rich. You’ll sing sea shanties and drinking songs nightly in an East Stave cabaret, and you’ll bribe everyone to give you standing ovations after every song.”
Nina laughed softly. “Let’s buy the Menagerie.”
Inej grinned, thinking of the future and her little ship. “Let’s buy it and burn it down.”
They watched the waves for a while. “Ready?” Nina said.
Inej was glad she hadn’t had to ask. She pushed up her sleeve, baring the peacock feather and mottled skin beneath it.
It took the barest second, the softest brush of Nina’s fingertips. The itch was acute but passed quickly. When the prickling faded, the skin of Inej’s forearm was perfect—almost too smooth and flawless, like it was the one new part of her.
Inej touched the soft skin. Just like that it was done. If only every wound could be banished so easily.
Nina kissed Inej’s cheek. “I’m going to find Matthias before things get bad.”
But as she walked away, Inej saw Nina had another reason to depart. Kaz was standing in the shadows near the mast. He had a heavy coat on and was leaning on his crow’s head cane—he looked almost like himself again. Inej’s knives would be waiting in the hold with her other belongings. She’d missed her claws.
Kaz murmured a few words to Nina, and the Grisha reared back in surprise. Inej couldn’t make out the rest of what they said, but she could tell the exchange was tense before Nina made an exasperated sound and vanished belowdecks.
“What did you say to Nina?” Inej asked when he joined her at the rail.
“I have a job I need her to perform.”
“She’s about to go through a terrifying ordeal—”
“And work still needs to get done.”
Pragmatic Kaz. Why let empathy get in the way? Maybe Nina would be glad for the distraction.
They stood together, gazing out at the waves, silence stretching between them.
“We’re alive,” he said at last.
“It seems you prayed to the right god.”
“Or traveled with the right people.”
Inej shrugged. “Who chooses our paths?” He said nothing, and she had to smile. “No sharp retort? No laughing at my Suli proverbs?”
He ran his gloved thumb over the rail. “No.”
“How will we meet the Merchant Council?”
“When we’re a few miles out, Rotty and I will row to harbor in the longboat. We’ll find a runner to get word to Van Eck and make the exchange on Vellgeluk.”
Inej shivered. The island was popular with slavers and smugglers. “The Council’s choice or yours?”
“Van Eck suggested it.”
Inej frowned. “Why does a mercher know about Vellgeluk?”
“Trade is trade. Maybe Van Eck isn’t quite the upstanding merch he seems.”
They were silent for a while. Finally, she said, “I’m going to learn to sail.”
Kaz’s brow furrowed, and he cast her a surprised glance. “Really? Why?”
“I want to use my money to hire a crew and outfit a ship.” Saying the words wrapped her breath up in an anxious spool. Her dream still felt fragile. She didn’t want to care what Kaz thought, but she did. “I’m going to hunt slavers.”
“Purpose,” he said thoughtfully. “You know you can’t stop them all.”
“If I don’t try, I won’t stop any.”
“Then I almost pity the slavers,” Kaz said. “They have no idea what’s coming for them.”
A pleased flush warmed her cheeks. But hadn’t Kaz always believed she was dangerous?
Inej balanced her elbows on the railing and rested her chin in her palms. “I’ll go home first, though.”
“To Ravka?”
She nodded.
“To find your family.”
“Yes.” Only two days ago, she would have left it at that, respecting their unspoken agreement to tread lightly in each other’s pasts. Now she said, “Was there no one but your brother, Kaz? Where are your mother and father?”
“Barrel boys don’t have parents. We’re born in the harbor and crawl out of the canals.”
Inej shook her head. She watched the sea shift and sigh, each wave a breath. She could just make out the horizon, the barest difference between black sky and blacker sea. She thought of her parents. She’d been away from them for nearly three years. How would they have changed? Could she be their daughter again? Maybe not right away. But she wanted to sit with her father on the steps of the wagon eating fruit from the trees. She wanted to see her mother dust chalk from her hands before she prepared the evening meal. She wanted tall southern grasses and the vast sky above the Sikurzoi Mountains. Something she needed was waiting for her there. What did Kaz need?
“You’re about to be rich, Kaz. What will you do when there’s no more blood to shed or vengeance to take?”
“There’s always more.”
“More money, more mayhem, more scores to settle. Was there never another dream?”
He said nothing. What had carved all the hope from his heart? She might never know.
Inej turned to go. Kaz seized her hand, keeping it on the railing. He didn’t look at her. “Stay,” he said, his voice rough stone. ?
She looked down at his gloved hand clutching hers. Everything in her wanted to say yes, but she would not settle for so little, not after all she’d been through. “What would be the point?”
He took a breath. “I want you to stay. I want you to … I want you.”
“You want me.” She turned the words over. Gently, she squeezed his hand. “And how will you have me, Kaz?”
He looked at her then, eyes fierce, mouth set. It was the face he wore when he was fighting.
“How will you have me?” she repeated. “Fully clothed, gloves on, your head turned away so our lips can never touch?”
He released her hand, his shoulders bunching, his gaze angry and ashamed as he turned his face to the sea.
Maybe it was because his back was to her that she could finally speak the words. “I will have you without armor, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all.”
Speak, she begged silently. Give me a reason to stay. For all his selfishness and cruelty, Kaz was still the boy who had saved her. She wanted to believe he was worth saving, too.
The sails creaked. The clouds parted for the moon then gathered back around her.
Inej left Kaz with the wind howling and dawn still a long while away.
43
NINA
The aches set in after dawn. An hour later, it felt as if her bones were trying to push through the places where her joints met. She lay on the same table where she’d healed Inej’s knife wound. Her senses were still sharp enough that she could smell the coppery scent of the Suli girl’s blood beneath the cleaner Rotty had used to remove it from the wood. It smelled like Inej.
Matthias sat beside her. He’d tried to take her hand, but the pain was too great. The chafe of his skin on hers made her flesh feel raw. Everything looked wrong. Everything felt wrong. All she could think of was the sweet, burnt taste of the parem. Her throat itched. Her skin felt like an enemy.
When the tremors began, she begged him to leave.
“I don’t want you to see me like this,” she said, trying to roll on her side.
He brushed the damp hair from her brow. “How bad is it?”