#And then we have the Darkling that not only kept going but also held himself back

[aleksanderscult]

Antis: "The Darkling was a cruel monster!!"

Yes. And he should be crueler.

#believe me. the amount of self-constraint he displayed was immense #for a creature who has lived an unhealthy amount of years he was okay #it was alluded by Baghra that near immortal Grisha eventually committed suicide #And then we have the Darkling that not only kept going but also held himself back #the darkling #pro darkling #aleksander morozova #pro aleksander morozova #shadow and bone #grishaverse #grishaverse trilogy

[rubysunnday]

rooftops

A/N: The finale to my part in Olive's (@lxncelot) , writing challenge! This is fic 3 out of 3 (congrats if you made it this far, well done!) Again, prompts are all from Olive's dialogue and song prompt list) : 3) “I’ll miss this — us.” | 17) “Are we friends?”`| 26) “I could be in love with someone like you.” | rooftop kiss — james horner

Fic 1 | Fic 2 | Fic 3

The wind was howling outside the whaling hut. It was so harsh the windows and doors were rattling in their frames, fighting to stay put. But the two occupants inside didn't notice. They were both too cold and uncomfortable and pointedly ignoring the other to do much more than sit by the fire, bundled in furs, wearing someone else's clothes underneath.

Of course, they were both as far apart from each other as physically possible whilst also staying within the warmth of the fire. Matthias was silent. Y/N was silent. Neither said a word.

Matthias leant forward and poked the fire with the poker, nudging the logs around. They sparked and crackled as fresh wood was added, feeding the fire. Matthias glanced over at Y/N, barely visible under the furs. "You need to eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"That does not matter," Matthias said, leaning back. "Because you're so cold it means you don't feel hunger. Your body needs to eat."

"I'm fine. I just want to sleep," Y/N muttered, tightening the furs around her, trying to block him out.

Matthias looked back at the pot that was simmering over the fire. "If you sleep, you'll likely not wake up again."

"Oh, good, that saves you from having to kill me," Y/N said, refusing to look at him.

"If I was going to kill you, I would have done it by now," Matthias replied, rolling his eyes as he spooned the soup into two bowls. "Now, eat," he said, holding the bowl out to her.

Y/N reluctantly reached out a hand from underneath the furs and took the bowl, putting it on the floor in front of her. "And if I don't want to eat?"

"Then you'll succumb to hypothermia and pass out," Matthias said, shrugging. "All Drüskelle learn that mistake in their first few months. Most recover. Some don't. Brum always says that a Drüskelle-"

"If I eat the damn soup, will you shut up?" Y/N snapped, turning to glare at him.

Matthias nodded. He watched Y/N intently as she picked up the bowl and took a small sip of the soup, letting it digest before taking another sip.

"It's good soup," she reluctantly admitted, dipping her spoon back in. "If you've poisoned it, I won't mind dying this way."

"For Saint's sake," Matthias muttered, swearing in Fjerdan under his breath. "I haven't poisoned it! I am eating it too."

Y/N raised her eyebrows but returned to her soup.

Silence fell in the whaling hut again.

"You can have the bed."

Y/N looked over at Matthias as she finished her soup. "Don't be ridiculous, there's room for two of us." Matthias was silent so Y/N looked at him again. "Oh, don't tell me little Matthias is scared of sleeping next to a woman."

"I am not..." He paused, forcing himself to calm down. "I am not scared."

"Good, then we will before sleep in the bed," Y/N said, standing up, setting her half-eaten soup aside.

Matthias reluctantly stood up too. He watched as Y/N clambered onto the bed, wrapping herself up in the furs and getting comfortable.

"Oh for Saint's sake, stop being such a prune and come here," she snapped. "You're the one going on about hypothermia and yet you're over there, freezing."

"I'm fine."

"Oh, look how the tables have turned," she muttered.

Matthias climbed into the other side of the bed and lay down on the very edge - as far away as possible from Y/N.

"Drüskelle," she said, turning her head to look at him. "Do you want to freeze to death? No? Then move closer."

He shuffled closer.

"Closer."

Mattthias shuffled even closer. Y/N could feel his cold skin against her back and shivered slightly.

"There, now neither of us will die in the night and we can go back to hating each other in the morning, happy?"

Matthias grunted, burying himself under the furs. Y/N turned onto her side and pulled the furs up over her shoulder, tucking them around her. She closed her eyes and wriggled down a bit, getting comfortable.

The wind kept on howling.

Matthias awoke suddenly as something jolted him. He sat up, expecting to see Y/N standing over him with a knife, about to cut out his heart. But the room was empty. It took him a moment to realise that someone was crying and that the someone was lying next to him.

He looked down at her and could see the tears falling down her face, the terror clearly written on her face as she relived something. Matthias wasn't sure why, but he felt his heart ache for the girl. He wasn't immune to nightmares - no one was.

Part of him wanted to leave her. A Grisha deserved to live through the terrors they had seen as punishment. But he couldn't believe that this girl - barely younger than him - could be so heartless and brutal. at such a young age, what could she have possibly experienced and seen that would have traumatised her in such a way.

Matthias reached out a hand and put it on her shoulder, shaking her gently. "Roëd," he said, for he didn't know her true name. Neither one had decided to share that information.

Y/N let out a panicked yelled and sat up, almost falling out of the bed. She pushed Matthias' hand away, flinging back all of the furs until she was just in the shirt and pants she'd found in the corner of the hut. Y/N pushed herself up from the bed and bolted from the room and out into the cold, cold night.

Matthias quickly got up and followed after her, not wanting her to get lost in the Fjerdan landscape or end up being attacked because, despite the death threats and the mutual hated, he did care for her. She'd saved him from the shipwreck and, somehow, they were still going.

Y/N fell to her knees in the snow - in the dark - and plunged her hands into the cold, wet snow, needing it to ground her and wake her up from her nightmare. Matthias stood in the doorway, watching warily in the background.

"Sorry," Y/N said quietly, her voice almost being lost in the wind. She sniffled and ducked her head, hiding her face. "I'm sorry."

Matthias approached cautiously. He hovered behind her for a moment before kneeling down behind her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Don't be sorry for something you can't control."

Y/N chuckled, a shiver wracking through her body. "You surprised that Grisha have nightmares too?" She asked, turning to look at him. "That we're human?"

Matthias was silent. Y/N scoffed quietly, knowing she was right.

Their silent argument ended abruptly when a wolf let out a loud howl, only a few feet away. Both Y/N and Matthias looked up, struggling to see the animal through the dark and blinding snow.

The wolf stalked forward, baring its teeth at Y/N. She didn't move.

"Don't attack it," Matthias said quietly, slowly rising to his feet.

"No offence, Drüskelle, but I'm not going to let a wolf attack me because it's a sacred animal to you," Y/N hissed.

"Just wait," Matthias insisted. "Let him move first. If he attacks first then we know."

"And if he just stands there?"

"Then we wait."

The wolf snarled, taking another step forward. It howled. And then turned around and walked off.

"Get up, slowly," Matthias said, holding a hand out to Y/N.

Y/N reached behind her and took his hand, letting him pull her into his side. Matthias wrapped an arm around her shoulders, trying to warm Y/N up, as they watched the wolf walk off into the night.

"I've never seen a wolf just leave before," Y/N said quietly, shivering under Matthias' arm.

"They're mainly peaceful if not provoked," Matthias replied.

"As are Grisha."

Matthias looked down at her, his eyes finding hers. He looked at her for a moment in silence. Y/N looked up at him. She met his gaze for only a few seconds before she swayed against him, her knees giving out and plunging her back into the snow.

Matthias fell to the snow with her, pulling her into his side and putting an arm under her legs, another around her back, and lifting her up out of the snow. He carried her back inside, sitting her in front of the fire.

He grabbed the furs off the bed and piled them onto her, wrapping them around her shivering form. Y/N didn't protest, her eyes closing involuntarily as she tried to stay focused on the fire.

"Now who's dying of hypothermia," she muttered, her teeth chattering as she gave Matthias a half-hearted smile.

Matthias sat down next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, rubbing her shoulder as he tried to warm her up.

"For a man who hunts Grisha for a living, you are very determined to keep me alive," Y/N said quietly.

Matthias sighed to himself. "It was Grisha who killed my entire family. They set the village on fire and let it burn. My mother, sister and father all died. Because of Grisha."

Y/N was silent. Eventually, she spoke, her eyes focused on the fire. "Not all Grisha are good, Druskelle. Not all Grisha are bad. Like people. The Grisha who murdered your family are the minority. We are not all like that. And we are certainly not witches. We create from elements that already exist in the world."

"Such as?"

Y/N pulled her arm out from under the furs. She looked up at Matthias. "Are we friends?"

Matthias nodded. "We are."

Y/N nodded. She held her hand palm up and then made a scooping motion, her eyes closed. She felt Matthias stiffen as fire appeared in her hand, orange flames dancing around her fingers.

"It's not magic. I simply summon all the combustible gases in the world, for there are thousands, and fire appears." Y/N waved her hand and the fire vanished. She pulled her hand back inside the furs. "That's all it is. Small Science, as we call it. No magic."

Matthias nodded. He didn't seem to be able to speak. He eventually decided on what he wanted to say. "What was your nightmare about? Only if you want to tell me."

Y/N shifted closer to Matthias. "I'm sure you've heard of General Kirigan - or the Darkling."

"I think it'd be impossible to find someone in all of Ravka, Fjerda and beyond who hasn't heard of it."

"It?"

"It was not a man, nor a human. It is simply it."

Y/N smiled to herself. It slowly faded as she returned to her mind. "I was a Grisha under his orders when Sankt Alina first appeared. I was fresh out of school - a young Grisha desperate to prove herself. And he used me like he used hundreds of others. I was trapped under his control until King Nikolai broke us out.

"But the Darkling had done enough by then. Being used by him - controlled by him is something I do not wish to repeat. Sometimes in the night, I think I see him. I know he is long dead and burnt but... I hear his voice in the wind, I see his shadows in the darkness and all I can think about is what he did to me."

Matthias was silent. He knew about the Darkling. Everyone did. But very few knew about what it did to the young Grisha under its command.

"My name is Y/N Y/L/N, by the way," Y/N said quietly. "I feel like since I'm pouring my heart out to you, we should know each other's names."

Matthias smiled. "I'm Matthias Helvar."

Y/N nodded. She dropped her head onto Matthias' shoulder. "Nice to meet you, Matthias."

Matthias sat there, an arm around her shoulders, watching the flames dance away until morning came.

It took them five days to find civilisation. The snowstorm passed after three days and it took them two days of walking - and almost falling off a cliff - to reach safety.

The inn wasn't much - it was full of Fjerdan sailors on their way out or back from long trips out at sea. But it was warm and it was safe - for now.

"I don't know how I feel about stealing," Matthias said as Y/N unlocked the door to their room.

"I didn't steal, I borrowed," Y/N corrected, walking inside.

"Are you going to give it back?"

"Indirectly, yes."

Matthias laughed. Y/N stared at him.

"Saints, Matthias, I didn't know you could laugh!" She exclaimed.

Matthias chuckled as he took his coat off and sat down on the bed, stretching his legs out.

"It appears we have learnt a lot about each other this past week," he said softly, smiling at her.

Y/N approached him and sat down on his right, dropping her head to his shoulder. "You know, I have no idea what Roëd means."

"What?"

"The other night, when I was having a nightmare, you called me Roëd..."

Matthias' smile grew. "It means red in Fjerdan."

"Red? Why red?"

"Well, when we first met -"

"When you kidnapped me, you mean."

Matthias rolled his eyes. "You were wearing a red skirt, like the one you're wearing now. Since I didn't know your name... I thought Roëd was subtle."

Y/N nodded, a smile working its way onto her face. "I like it."

Matthias put his arm around Y/N's shoulders - an action he'd found himself doing numerous times over the past week. He ran his thumb up and down her arm, gently following an imaginary line.

"What will you do now?" Matthias asked quietly.

The question had been praying on his mind for days now. What happens next. He could easily go back to Brum, resume his training, tell his tale. Y/N could easily return to wherever she came from - carry on leaving her life. Nothing would change.

Except something had changed. The world had shifted. Just a bit, but enough to know that there was no going back to the before.

"Find a ship back to Ketterdam," Y/N said softly. Her left hand was entwined with his, her fingers playing with his. "Tell my boss what happened and hope he gives me my job back. What about you?"

"I don't know."

"Have I changed you that much, Druskelle?" Y/N asked, tilting her head up to look at him.

Matthias looked down at her. "Perhaps. What is... Ketterdam like?"

"First of all, excellent pronunciation," Y/N said, looking back down again. "Second of all, it's shit."

"Then why would you want to go back?"

"Because it was the only place to welcome me after I left Ravka. I fitted in seamlessly there. No questions were asked about me or my powers. I got a job and they treat me well. It works for me."

"I cannot imagine what it must be like to be... persecuted everywhere you go."

"Saints, I have changed you!" Y/N said, looking back at him. She smiled. "It's hard. Trusting people is harder. I haven't used my power in years as a result but... I prefer it that way, oddly. I was used and wanted for my power in Ravka. In Ketterdam I am just me. I'm just Y/N."

Matthias stared at the wall for a moment. "I'd like to go somewhere like that. Where it is simply just... you and I. Simply Y/N and Matthias."

"No prejudice."

"No hatred."

"Just us."

Matthias looked back at her and leaned down, capturing Y/N's lips in a kiss before she had a chance to move. He leant back and pressed his forehead to hers.

"I'll miss this," Matthias said quietly, knowing deep down, that it would inevitably end as all good things did. "Us."

Y/N closed her eyes, pressing her lips together. "You know, Matthias, I could be in love with someone like you."

"I know. As could I."

And that was the truth. She could love him and he could love her. Despite the ways they'd been raised. Despite what they'd lived through and experienced at the hands of their people, both of them, Grisha and Druskelle, could and did love each other.

It was the truth and the pain of it. Knowing that their love was never meant to be.

And that it was never destined to last.

#shadow and bone #shadow and bone imagine #shadow and bone imagines #shadow and bone x reader #six of crows #six of crows imagine #six of crows imagines #six of crows x reader #angst #oliveswc #matthias helvar #matthias helvar x reader #matthias helvar imagine #matthias helvar imagines

[cheekygreenty]

Hi, I just saw your prompt list for Shadow&Bone!! could you possibly do No. 2 from Angst, but like with a happy ending? Like reader n Kirigan are togeather but then Alina's comes along.. just, please let be happy at the end. I like angst, but my heart can't handle sad endings 😢😢 thank you!!! ❤❤

Future- The Darkling x Reader

(Very very angsty with a happy (?) ending. It made me cry a lil bit writing it ngl)

You trusted him, wholeheartedly. At least that's what you told yourself every day since she came to the Little Palace; the place you had always called home, where you felt safe from the prying eyes of the public.

Yet now, the place was fueled by harsh rumors of him and her. Everywhere you went you could hear a whisper, nobody tried to hide it anymore, the words were always entirely devoted to your crumbling union;

'I thought they were happy'

We were.

'How can he and Alina not be together, it's destiny.'

I'm starting to think so too.

You didn't acknowledge it. Just put on a sweet smile and a brave face. Don't let them see you're hurting. Even in your own home, you had to pretend and lie, which at the end of the day, when you laid in an empty bed, made you exhausted.

He told you she meant nothing more to him than a mere weapon. But that was when she first came and when he still managed to make it to your shared chambers and would whisper sweet nothings as you fell asleep.

It was different now, on more than one occasion you caught a glimpse of them together, him looking at her the way he always looked at you. However much he claimed to be a good actor and manipulator, there was something there and he couldn't deny it either.

You hadn't confronted him about it yet fearing that if you did, the truth would hurt and sting and make all those rumors true. In addition, you haven't seen him in days and the last time you did, he told you to stay away from the wonderful Sun-Summoner.

The truth was you knew deep down in your heart that she wasn't at fault. That she was not the root of the problem. You constantly fought with yourself to stop any hatred you felt towards her. She was lovely, kind compassionate, and innocent. She didn't deserve to feel your wrath.

But with that came the confusion of who to blame. You or Him. It made you tired and weak. The smallest of tasks made you drained and tears would well in your eyes at the thought of having to live another day like this, a day full of questioning yourself and the man you loved more than anything in the world.

No matter how much of a strong person you swore you were, this was taking a substantial toll on you. He had become your support network and he knew it, he loved it. He always said he finally felt appreciated when you came around, that he wasn't alone anymore. He had conditioned you to be this way. When times got tough, he was always your shoulder to cry on.

No doubt that shoulder was now next to Alina. Perhaps they went on a horse ride, visited the Black Heretic fountain, or were enjoying a rendezvous next to the lake.

You didn't want to know, all that mattered was that he wasn't there with you when you were falling apart. Maybe you relied on him too much.

You wondered if he noticed the whispers too, or the way you'd been missing crucial meetings, or even if he noticed you wearing your red kefta more often, ditching the black once you'd heard Genya speak of making a golden-black kefta for Alina, per the Darkling's request.

That was a punch in the gut. It hurt more than him avoiding conversation with you or even his deterrence of touching you. He had bestowed his colors to her when not even three months ago he didn't know she existed. It had taken you a long time to gain his trust and don his signature black yet all she had to do was waltz in and show up. And it hurt.

And now here you were, training the next generation of heartrenderers, as you did almost every day. You had given your life to the Little Palace and its Grisha and this is how you were being repaid. Not even Ivan, who you had shaped into an excellent soldier, had looked your way lately.

'Excuse me Ms. Y/L/N I have an urgent request from the General' You whipped your head around to the young Grisha boy with an obviously hurt look on your face which he couldn't understand.

'Of course' you choked out and took the piece of paper from his hands and watched him in sorrow as he left.

Ms.Y/L/N? what happened to moya sovereignny? You were never one to uphold the formality, but this was just another blow to your confidence. You were no longer referred to as his other half which only meant your position in the palace was quickly dwindling.

You opened the wax-sealed envelope and took out the thick sheet of paper. There was a time when he himself would deliver the news to you himself and use it as an excuse to spend extra time with you.

'I cannot make it to the meeting with the King this evening, attend and report back to me anything relevant, no horse business'

You scoffed loudly, drawing attention from the young Corporalki around you and leaned on the table in front of you. Not even a please or thank you. With the note clutched in your hand and tears of frustration in your eyes, you stormed out of the Corporalki room and towards his war room.

You peeked through the open door and seen him. He didn't look at all busy as he chatted with Zoya, Ivan, Fedyor, and some other Squaller you didn't recognize. Zoya threw her head back in laughter at something Fedyor said but Aleksander kept his stony expression. You threw the door open dramatically and everyone froze.

'Leave us' you cautioned as Aleksander's onyx eyes looked right into your own.

Nobody moved but Zoya was the first to speak ' Y/N, we're actually in a meeting if you couldn't tell' while everyone nodded along, except him.

You never had anything against anyone in that room, but in that moment you couldn't help yourself and used your small science to bring everyone to their knees in front of you, except him.

'Leave us' His voice rang out in the midst of their sharp breaths and chest-clutching. They scrambled to their feet and left one by one, Fedyor quietly muttering 'moya sovereignny' as he passed you which filled you with some courage. The door shut and the sound echoed over the walls.

You threw the note across the room and let it hit his arm. 'Did you forget your manners General? Or does it only apply to the people you claim to love?'

'Funny you should say that Y/N, you haven't attended any meetings in weeks without providing a reason. You're making me look like a fool'

'I'M MAKING YOU LOOK LIKE A FOOL?!' Your tears were now streaming down your face, falling quicker than you could wipe them away.

He stayed silent and that broke your heart even more, he could've said something, anything.

'Aleksander, I'm trying to keep myself together for everyone, I'm trying so very hard to appear normal and happy but I don't think I can do this any longer. The whispers and the rumors, watching you and her-' You slid down the door and sat on the floor, head resting on your knees. '-It's getting to me.... and it's killing me.'

You thanked the Saints you didn't see his face, for the silence spoke for itself. He didn't deny anything or reach out to comfort you. I've lost him.

'All I wanted was a happy ending.' You laughed a sad laugh that pulled at his heartstrings. With your eyes still facing away from him, you didn't see his hand go up to wipe the lone tear that fell down his face or the slight shake in his hands as he did so. He had no words that would comfort you. He knew what he'd done. He'd been avoiding you ever since he realized it. He didn't want to see you cry or see how his actions affected you.

Telling you that it means nothing to him was of no use. You had it in your mind now, forever engrained around his name, the rumors wouldn't stop and Alina was still around. He truly felt nothing of importance for her. All she meant for him was a key to a better future with you.

He approached you slowly, getting down on his knees next to you. He took your hand in his and held it up to his lips. He never prayed, but right now he silently muttered words to all the Saints. Don't let her leave.

'I'm so sorry Darling. Y/N I love you so much.'

'But you love her more' You yanked your hands away.

'NO. no. Y/N. I swear it. You are everything to me' He had grown serious now, he wanted you to look at him. He missed you.

'Then explain why you're parading her around like a Queen, letting her wear your colors, probably sleeping in her bed'

'I have never toucher her in that way. I'm yours Y/N.' Please look at me.

You lifted your head and looked at his beautiful face. He too looked tired, exhausted. His eyes were red and puffy. Saints, I've never seen him cry.

'You will have a happy ending. I promise Darling' He took your face into his hands and connected your foreheads together. 'I promise. I'm doing everything I can to make sure you will, and even if I can't, I swear you will you and our children-'

Children. Aleksander never spoke of them to the point where you had settled with the idea you'll never have them. Something about the desperation in his voice made you believe him, Aleksander was strong, he never gave up but he also never sacrificed himself for anybody. Up until now, you didn't think yourself worthy enough to be saved in exchange for him.

'-I would give up everything to see you and them safe, away from harm's way. Right now, the world doesn't deserve them, but once I do what I have to do, I'll give you children. However many you want, Just stay. Please'

You were borderline hysterical as you melted into his embrace. Weeks of frustration and hurt disappeared into thin air. Aleksander held you so tight you were having trouble breathing but you didn't care. He held you all day and all night. All meetings and tasks forgotten.

He explained everything in detail, from the stag and firebird to what happens if things don't go to plan. He kept nothing from you, not even the stress and pressure he felt. You comforted him as he always does to you. You fell asleep together and dreamed of a life with a happy ending, one where you never had to doubt his motives, you dreamed of your future.

Taglist (if you want to be added, plz tell me!)

@theonelittleone @searching-for-gallifrey @lostysworld

@0-artemis

#shadow and bone #grisha #imagine #the darkling #the darkling x reader #alexander #alexander morozova #alina starkov #fanfic #ben barnes #general kirigan x reader #black general

[light-yaers]

Fools in the Darkness: Chapter Two

Darkling x Reader

Warnings: Death, violence, drugs (Parem), NSFW and sexual content. This content is explicit and 18+ at some points.

A/N: Once again I am showing off how I have zero self control when it comes to creating stable fic uploads! I simply write another chapter and then upload it immediately. I’m so sorry when this will eventually start to die down, but for now let’s enjoy the start of the story, I guess? I’m astounded at the immense love this got! Thank you all so much!

Fic Masterpost

Word Count - 4k

Chapter Two

Inej returned with three glasses of whiskey. Kaz was sat opposite you at his desk, crow-headed cane secured in one of his leather gloved hands. Inej put the glasses on the desk, before picking up and handing one to you.

“Thank you,” You said politely. Despite the few weeks you’d had to acquaint yourself with the types of people that Ketterdam housed, Inej seemed different. She was a fighter, you could see that clearly, but she also seemed... soulful. Like she had a heart, bursting to the brim with kindness and care, despite the Wraith she had to become living in a place such as the Barrel.

“So, what, the Darkling took you in?” Kaz asked, impatience all over his voice. He grabbed his glass sternly, tapping the sides with his covered fingers.

“This is only the beginning of this story,” You replied.

“Well, get to it,” He said quickly.

“I told you it was a long story, Mr. Brekker. It’ll probably take us most of the night. Can your business wait that long?” You raised a brow at him knowingly. There were men such as Kaz in the Little Palace—impatient, to the point, needing answers immediately.

“Listen, Kaz,” Inej spoke up. “I have a feeling we’ve only skimmed the tip of the iceberg,”

You regarded Inej, taking in her petite frame, the glint of the knives on her body; you counted them quickly, efficiently, until you’d added up fourteen in total. Knives for days, and you’d wager a bet that she knew how to use each one to its full advantage, as if they were an extension of her body.

Kaz breathed out shallowly, shooting Inej a stare. She accepted it gracefully, not even flinching from the obvious tension that had begun to float between them.

“Your sister,” Kaz spoke, his eyes still on Inej, until he finally turned to you once more. He nodded once, sternly and quickly, but you got the message loud and clear—I’m sorry. You swallowed uncomfortably, thankful for the small comfort the tumbler of whiskey gave you as you gripped it in your hands.

“Right, where were we?”

The Little Palace, 1 Year Ago

You woke in a bright room, unrecognisable from where you’d been before—in the snow, the ice, shrouded in a darkness that the Darkling seemed to gravitate towards himself involuntarily. You looked at your hands as they shook; dirt was under your nails, dotted with dried and muddied blood��your sister was still on your very skin.

That’s when you shot up, your heartrate exploding suddenly. She wasn’t here, her body wasn’t on the floor at your feet, nor in the bed next to you. You were trapped inside four walls of creams and golds, with décor that you’d only dreamed of ever seeing.

It was unmistakable—you were in the Little Palace, the one place you’d begged the Darkling not to take you to. He’d done it anyway, after you passed out from your extreme exhaustion.

Now you started to panic, as you looked out of the grand windows of the room. A courtyard was down below, empty of people and carriages. It was still early morning by the sun placement; the palace was quiet. The Grisha lay sleeping in their rooms, the General was in his own—

You were alone.

And saints, you weren’t going to stick around. Not with your sister’s body still lying in the Fjerdan snow, waiting for wolves to find her.

You jumped out of bed, ignoring the way your muscles were screaming at you to return to the pristine sheets. Your feet were bare, and one glance at the floor showed you your shoes had been taken. What for, you didn’t know. Maybe they thought that would be enough to prevent you running.

You almost laughed, imagining the spoilt Grisha deciding to remove your boots—She won’t run with bare feet. She won’t. Little did they know, you’d run with bare feet before. And you’d easily do it again.

You tiptoed to the bedroom door, making as little noise as possible. At the last second, before your fingers curled around the handle, you decided to drop to the floor. You lay on your stomach, shoving your skull to the floor and shutting one eye—there were two feet shaped shadows under the door.

One guard, stood on watch.

This complicated things just a tad, but you were already hatching a plan by the time you stood up again. You gave yourself a few moments to stretch your poor limbs, feeling the adrenaline course through your blood and spur you forward. Without hesitation, you curled your fingers around the handle to your room, and yanked it open—

The guard whipped his hatted head around to you immediately, but he wasn’t quick enough to get into a defensive stance. You grabbed him by the collar, pulling him aggressively into your room, before you twisted him round and placed him in a headlock.

The two of you flopped to the floor, but that allowed you to secure his body to the ground with your legs, wrapping them around his torso so he couldn’t wind his way out of your grip. That’s when you tugged—hard against his windpipe.

He struggled and flailed like a freshly caught fish, but you knew it wouldn’t be long until he passed out and went jelloid. You kept your grip on him tightly, keeping him glued to the ground and his neck secure between your chest and forearm, being pulled taut by your other arm.

Eventually, he stopped fighting. His eyes fluttered closed slowly, his body slipped into a state of sleep.

You left him on the bedroom floor then, opting not to take his uniform in case he woke up while you did, and left the room. You clicked the door shut behind you, before beginning a tiptoed journey through the winding corridors of the Little Palace.

Saints, if you had the time, I’m sure you’d have appreciated the décor. It was splendid; all bright whites and creams with accents of shining gold. There were golden curls on blank white walls, intricate designs of Grisha imprinted in the wallpaper and grandiose windows that let the light flood inside.

You felt that, perhaps, the décor made up for the fact this was effectively an army base. The Grisha brought here were trained non-stop. They couldn’t leave, they didn’t have a choice. You’d heard horror stories of this place, back when you used to be safe in Novyi Zem.

“Zowa adawe,” Your neighbour had said. She was an old woman, living a quiet life on her farm. You called her Nana.

She was stern, but often times soft spoken, with her glorious Zemeni skin and gorgeous personality. When you’d found asylum after an unfortunate incident in Kerch, you and your sister had settled in her barn; parentless. She was kind, she ran the farm and let out the barn next door.

She became a grandmother figure immediately, up until the day she died.

Zowa adawe—Grisha fight. Grisha had to fight if they were sent to the Little Palace. There was no getting out it. Nana had said that your powers were beautiful, but she’d always said it with a hint of distain on her lips, as if you were running out of time.

You turned corridor after corridor, praying that no one would see you creeping around this early in the morning. All you had to do was get outside, and then you’d be able to run—run like Hell. Not stopping to look back or even worry if General Kirigan was on your tail. You’d outrun him, even if it killed you.

When you heard voices and footsteps, you flushed yourself against the corridor wall. You didn’t know where they were coming from, or who they were, but with the rags you were wearing the mud dotted over your skin, they’d know you weren’t supposed to be wandering around.

You held your breath, praying that they’d leave, that you’d get out of this fortress unscathed; and then you started moving again. The next corner you turned welcomed you into a large landing. A spiral staircase was before you to your left, only a few metres ahead of you. You lunged quickly, ducking down as not to be seen through the large windows out to the acres of land that surrounded the palace.

“You,” You stopped, swivelling round as your eyes laid upon two Grisha—one in a purple Kefta and one in white. The lady in white had yelled, but neither got into a defensive stance as you faltered backwards, constantly creeping back to the staircase as your heart threatened to bombard out of your chest. The lady in white shot her gaze down the staircase quickly, while the man in purple next to her all but looked confused.

That’s when her gaze tracked back to you once more, her jaw clenched. “Kirigan!” She boomed. You raised your hands quickly.

“Please—just—,” You pleaded in a whisper.

“Kirigan!” She yelled once more, and as the bash of doors sounded from down the stairs, you knew he’d heard loud and clear. The smack of boots ascended the spiral staircase, until the fresh face of General Kirigan hit your own. He slowed on the stairs, overseeing the commotion, before his expression softened.

He raised his hands calmly, widening his eyes in some kind of silent language, meant just for you.

“Now, just calm down,” He said calmly. You shot your gaze from the two Grisha at the end of the corridor, back to the General, before taking in your surroundings. You were blocked in from both ways; there were no doorways on your side of the grand landing.

But, there was an empty corridor, dotted with closed doors, and at the end—

A window.

It was as if Kirigan could sense the cogs in your brain whirring. As soon as your eyes lay on the window at the end of the free corridor, he began bounding up the steps. “No!” He yelled, reaching out for the flowing fabric of your blouse, but you were already running.

You pumped your arms and moved your legs as quickly as you could, storming towards the window at full pelt. Your heart was in your throat, your limbs screaming for relief, but all you could think of was your sister—alone, cold, left in the snow in a land that had never been kind to her.

That’s when you jumped, flying with all of the momentum you’d charged up from the run up, crashing straight through the window with all of your force. You ignored the sting of shattered glass as it ripped through your clothes and skin, the pain of the wood panelling breaking apart as your body slammed through the window—

And then you were falling, falling, falling—but you never hit the ground.

You brought your hands together with your eyes clamped shut, mustering your remaining energy into creating a cushion of wind to land on. It circled beneath you, spiralling around your body and stopping your free fall comfortably, until you balled your fists and the winds dissipated.

You landed in a large courtyard outside, shaking shards of glass out of your hair as you stood. You dared to look back at the mess you’d made, staring up at the broken window—

Kirigan stood above you, gazing down at you eerily.

You thought he’d be more frantic at the fact you’d just smashed through a window and were still standing. You thought he’d be rushing to get you back inside, but he wasn’t. He was calm and collected, looking at you as if he’d already worked you out completely. And that was the scariest part of this entire ordeal.

You broke into a run, not looking back as you pumped forward. You could feel his stare on your back the entire time, but you chose to ignore it—even if it all felt too easy.

Before you could make it to the tree line, you started to wane. Your limbs felt like lead, your heart felt like a bowling ball in your chest, and all of a sudden it was far too difficult to suck air into your lungs.

You collapsed to your knees, clutching at your chest as you glanced around the clearing. Before your vision began to blur, the unmistakable colour of red hit you. Red and black, with hands dancing before them. A Grisha—a Heartrender.

You struggled against the obvious magic that he was using upon you to slow your heartrate, to stop your muscles working properly. That’s when a blob of black strolled up beside the Grisha, placing his arm upon his Heartrender.

“Enough, Ivan,” Kirigan said, but you could hardly hear him.

“Heartrender...” You stuttered out, as Kirigan began to approach you slowly. “Playing dirty,” You said, as the rest of you collapsed to the floor. The sky above you circled sickeningly, your vision seeing double. Kirigan stepped above you, his face distorted as you fought against the power of Ivan.

“You’ll soon learn that I’m not the enemy here,” He said softly, as he descended to one knee. He slipped his arms beneath you, before rising. You were cradled in his arms, to incapacitated to fight against him.

“Darkling,” You muttered. You would have added more, but even talking was too much to handle.

General Kirigan carried you back inside, as the doors of the palace were bolted shut by his Heartrender. There was nothing you could do—you were powerless, and you were stuck.  

You didn’t fall asleep, but everything felt like a dream. The walk back inside, being carried to a room that wasn’t the one you awoke in, feeling the strength of Kirigan’s arms holding you up without as much as a grunt of exertion.

Kirigan gently dropped you into a large armchair, letting your head fall back against plush leather. He straightened himself, going to sit in a chair opposite you. He picked up a small bell from the table between you, ringing it once, before putting it back down and leaning back in his own chair.

You blinked away the double vision, trying to gain back your composure.

“It’ll ease. Ivan slowed your heart into a death state,” Kirigan said calmly. You were getting annoyed at the way his voice filled the air around you, floated into your ears smoothly. You didn’t want to listen. “That was quite a show,”

You think you scoffed, or maybe you tried too, because the corners of Kirigan’s mouth upturned ever so slightly.

“I told you not to bring me here,” Your words were slurred, almost as if you were drunk. You fought against the want to drift into a sleep, but he was right—it was easing with every passing minute.

“You never told me why,” He replied. You forced yourself to look at him, as your eyes adjusted. There weren’t two of him anymore; just one man. One man who’d dragged you here against your will, leaving your sister alone on Fjerdan soil.

“You left my sister there to rot,” You said, stronger this time. “How could you think I’d stay here when you left her?” Kirigan’s expression didn’t change, but he did look around when someone entered the room, carrying a pot of tea with two cups and saucers. The tray was placed on the table silently, before the attendant left immediately, clicking the door shut.

Kirigan poured two cups of tea, pushing one set towards you and taking one for himself. He didn’t take a sip yet.

“What do you have against the Little Palace?” He asked. You couldn’t help your scowl from devouring your entire face.

“The King hoards Grisha here like he owns them, like they owe him something. It’s a prison disguised as a lavish life. It’s no worse than the whore houses in Ketterdam,” You replied bluntly.

“Yet you were trying to get to Ravka, weren’t you?” Kirigan was quick to the mark, leaving nothing unturned.

“For my sister,” You said, clenching your jaw. “She’d be safe with the First Army,”

“And you?”

You finally looked in his eyes. They were dark, piercing your very skin, but the way they reflected the light gave them the illusion of warmth. You didn’t want to ever admit that the Darkling was a warm individual, not from the stories of his bloodline that you were taught from a young age.

“I was going to lie and stay with her. My abilities have never offered me much,” You said honestly, but you didn’t know why you were being truthful with this man. You swallowed uncomfortably, telling yourself to stop being so open.

“You killed those druskelle. You protected yourself,” He said. He was right, but you felt sick to your stomach. You saved yourself, but you couldn’t save her. You didn’t. “Your power is unrefined, unpredictable, but strong. I’ve never seen a Squaller summon a storm such as what we saw from the Ravkan border. It’s what lead us to you,”

The General finally took a sip of his tea, daintily rising the cup to his lips, before setting it down slowly on the saucer. You glanced at your own cup, wanting to take a sip too, but you couldn’t make yourself reach for it; not yet.

“We train Grisha here for the King, you’re right,” He continued, when you kept your mouth clamped shut. “But we also allow them to refine their abilities and hone their craft. This is a safe place for Grisha, when there are many out there who would try and take advantage of such power,”

“I never asked for this power,” You said quickly.

“No. But you can control it,” He replied, stronger this time. He had a smile on his face, leaning slightly forward, as if he truly wanted you to know why the Little Palace was good. “Wouldn’t you feel better? If you could truly harness your power? Bend it to your exact will?”

You swallowed once, frowning as you looked in his eyes. You wanted to say that you didn’t trust him—and never would. You wanted to splash scolding tea across his treacherous face, but you did neither.

“I’d feel better if I’d buried my sister, before you gave me a life sentence,”

Kirigan stood then, turning his back to you to stand before the window behind him. His hands were together behind his back, his chin high and shoulders broad. He wore all black, but you’d expect nothing different from a man who went by the Darkling.

He thought in depth, calmly, quietly, while you debated having some of your tea. It was steaming and warm and calling out to you. You knew it wasn’t poisoned because he’d already taken a sip, but you were still wary.

“How about a proposal?” He said then, turning back to look at you. You scoffed.

“I’d rather marry a horse than you,” You let out. It was an obvious joke, but you hadn’t expected the words to spill from your lips. Kirigan raised his brows, almost boyishly, taking you by surprise.

“We have fine horses here, I’m sure we could find you a great husband,” He hit back with. Saints forbid, he’d joked back. You hated to admit it, but your shoulders relaxed then, as a small giggle burst from within your gut. He came to sit opposite you once more, taking another sip of tea.

This time, you mimicked him. You picked up your own cup, bringing it to your lips and sipping heartily. Warm tea cascaded down your throat, bringing more strength back to your muscles.

“You train here,” Kirigan began. “You train here and learn to fully control your powerful Squaller abilities, with the help of myself,” You frowned slightly as he mentioned himself, but nevertheless let him continue. “And then, when you’re ready, I’ll... let you slip out undetected,”

That’s when you choked on your tea. You placed the cup back down on the saucer messily, spilling tea on his table.

“You’d let me out?” You stuttered. “No. No fucking way would you let that happen. I know the stories, General. The stoic man, damaged by his bloodline and his image,” As you spoke, Kirigan’s jaw tensed. “You wouldn’t let a Grisha slip out of your ranks,”

He cleared his throat slightly, straightening his shoulders. “I will, if it means you’ll let me train you first,”

You furrowed your brows at him, the cogs in your brain whirring. “Why are you so interested in my abilities? I’m no Sun Summoner, General. I can’t destroy the Fold—,”

“This isn’t about the Fold,” He interrupted you. “This is about you,” He said it with such surety that it almost took your breath away. You were silent, pondering what to say from your rapidly firing thoughts. “Squallers are never as powerful as you have proven to be,” He leaned forward on the dark wood table, coming in close to you. You were too frozen in place to move, too stubborn to back away from him. “I want to see what else you can do, with the right training,”

You stood abruptly, after he’d finished talking. You ignored the disastrous way you looked, with shards of glass still in your hair and small scratches all over your bare skin. Your feet were bad; you could tell just from the way your soles felt; but you pushed through.

“This is a deal,” You said strongly. “A proper deal—a vow,”

Kirigan stood then, too, strolling round until he was face to face with you.

“I’m a man of my word,” He said plainly, before he stuck out a strong hand. You stared at his wrist, his fingers, before slipping your own hand into his. You both shook on it, cementing the deal that he’d offered. If you felt he was lying at any moment, you wouldn’t hesitate to break out of the Little Palace and slip through his fingers.

“Fine,” You said, pulling your hand from his grasp. He looked down at you with an air of knowledge, but his eyes showed you something else; a softness, excitement, sadness. It was so intense that you simply had to look away.

“Your sister,” He said then, causing you to flinch as you scowled back at him. “Men have already been sent to the border to collect her,” He said it so plainly that you were sure he was making it up, but your heart panged as he kept talking. “They’ll bring her here in two days’ time. She will have a proper burial,”

You could have cried, if your body wasn’t on fire. You would have screamed and sobbed if you weren’t stood in front of someone such as General Kirigan. In this world, crying was always a weakness. Emotions were meant to be felt in private. Pain was only to be felt behind closed doors. You wouldn’t give up that ingrained way of life so quickly, as much as you wanted to collapse on the floor when you thought of your sister.

You tried to find the words to say something in response to General Kirigan, but nothing came out. All you could muster was a curt nod, to which he reciprocated with his own.

“Rest. Eat. Drink. You have today to recuperate,” He said sternly.

“Before the Grisha here eat me alive,” You whispered. Kirigan let out the smallest huff.

“Show them your power, and they’ll leave you be,” He said, before his hand curled around your forearm tightly. You gasped at his touch, expecting it to be cold, dark, hostile—but he was just a man. He was just... a fucking man.

With eyes and a nose and a mouth. With shining hair and stubble and broad shoulders. With hips that dipped to his thighs and knees that met his calves.

It was scary, to say the least. You knew what this man was capable of. You knew what he could do, but instead he promised you freedom. He promised to train you, to bury your sister, to keep you safe here while he could.

But that didn’t mean you trusted him. That didn’t mean you weren’t wary—

If only you’d stayed this on edge, this untrusting. Maybe things would have been different.

Tag list: @callitdreamland @bxnnywxtts @elleatrixlestrange @stargirl76 @tartiflvtte @musicconversedance @eprilin @luminous-99 @brynthebulldozer @katedrexel @blackbirddaredevil23 @auggie2000 @not-so-quite-human @notawritergettingtherethough @thinkingth0ts @gabbien @tarkanelima-blog​ @astrosmayhem

I’m sorry if your tag doesn’t work-- I don’t know why they do that sometimes!

#darkling x reader #darkling x you #the darkling #the darkling fic #smut #darkling smut #aleksander morozova #shadow and bone #six of crows #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #kanej #update #ben barnes #shadow and bone fanfic #fanfiction #ao3 #smut and angst #alina starkov #grishaverse #grisha trilogy

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Am I well aware that Baghra gave birth to Alexander out of self-interest not love? And she want to he be a powerful man? What she was the purpose of this? And what about Ulla? Why did she leave her alone? Because she didn't have enough power?

Yeah we don't get much information on why Baghra decided to have a child or become a mother at all really. In fact the only thing we are told about the circumstance of Aleks' birth is this:

Baghra gave another harsh laugh. “You want a love story too? There’s none to be had. I wanted a child, so I sought out the most powerful Grisha I could find. He was a Heartrender. I don’t even remember his name.”

We can guess at why she wanted a child but we are never told in the text itself the true reasons. My theory is that she just felt lonely, she was the only one of her kind so she decided to have a child, someone who would be powerful like her and someone who would always be with her. She wanted him to be powerful in the hopes that not only would he be able to protect himself but because she hoped he would understand her. At least this is my best guess for her motives.

As for Ulla I haven't read the full novella just excerpts so most of what I know about the character is from the wiki page and what others have told me. From what I understand the reason Baghra gave her daughter up is because she was half sildroher and was born with a fish tail so Baghra gave her to her father to raise amongst the other Sildroher. Again I am speculating here but it would have been pretty hard to keep a baby with a tail hidden and seeing us Baghra and Aleks moved around alot keeping Ulla with them would have made it more difficult. I don't think it was because Ulla wasn't powerful enough because from what I understand she was very powerful, this is what we are told about Ulla's birth and Baghra giving up her daughter in the novella where it also talks about Ulla's power and how her voice is strong, suggesting this was unusual for a sildroher:

"Do you know why your voice is so strong?" the apprentice asked. "Because you were born on land. Because you took your first breath above the surface and bawled your first infant cry here. Then my mother, our mother, took up the bell your father had given her, the bell he'd placed in her hand when he realised she carried a child. She went down to the shore and knelt at the waters and held the bell beneath the waves. She rang it once, twice, and a few moments later your father emerged in the shallows, his silver tail like a sickle moon behind him, and he took you away."

From this passage it also seems to me, based on her father giving Baghra the bell to call him, that maybe it had been arranged when Baghra first discovered her pregnancy that the best thing for Ulla was for her to go live with her dad. I kind of get the impression that it was all prearranged. We are also told quite a bit that mortals cannot have children with Sildroher so its possible that Baghra didn't realise she could get pregnant and it was an accidental pregnancy thus part of the reason why Baghra parted with her daughter but kept Aleks who was a planned pregnancy.

As for whether Baghra loved her daughter well this was the exchange that happened between Ulla and the Darkling when she posed the same question:

Ulla felt the hurt inside her winnow to a hard point. "And did your witch mother care at all for the child she abandoned to the sea?"

But the apprentice didn't look troubled by her harsh words. "She isn't one for sentiment."

It seems like the darkling felt like Baghra didn't particularly care about having to give up her child. It's also worth noting that the darkling went searching for Ulla summer after summer hoping to reunite with her but Baghra never did seek out her daughter. So as for what the purpose of Baghra having children was, we really never do get an explanation but those are my best guesses. Aleks was to serve as a balm for her loneliness and unfortunately Ulla was a mistake that she didn't have time for so she just gave her to her father out of practicality, though of course I could be totally wrong on all accounts.

#baghra morozova #aleksander morozova #the darkling #ulla morozova

[why-not-a-tickle-blog]

I was wondering if you could do something where Virgil gets stuck somewhere and the twins find him and team up to take advantage of the situation? Thank you in advance, your work is amazing!

Warning: Intense tickles, maybe you could say bondage? It’s just the rope trap and Virgil’s own shirt

Of all the things to happen in the imagination. And of all the people for them to happen to, it happened to be Anxiety, caught in a trap.

It was a simple rope trap, snagging his ankles and jerking him upside down, hidden well enough that even with all his wariness he hadn’t seen it.

“I don’t even hardly go in the imagination and then the one time I do I get stuck,” Virgil grumbled.

He’d tried to get out, twisting and thrashing and grabbing, but it didn’t do any good. He was lucky he wasn’t human, or the blood rush to his head would’ve become painful. As it was, he was just exhausted from thrashing and very very bored of being stuck.

And then he heard footsteps.

His heart beat faster, worried that the Hunter had arrived. He wasn’t sure what the imaginary hunter might do, but he was still more than nervous.

“Ohhh~ look what we have here~” a very familiar voice said.

“Remus,” Virgil sighed, relieved. “I’m glad you’re here, can you let me down?”

Remus walked around in front of him. “But I caught you~”

Remus made a summoning motion, and Roman rose up. “Look what I caught, Ro~ weren’t you just saying earlier you wished you could find someone a little stuck for a few pokes~?”

A few pokes… Virgil’s face went red and he covered his stomach.

Roman grinned at his reaction. “I did say that, didn’t I? Maybe there’s a reason this little Stormcloud let himself get caught, hmm?”

“I-I didn’t! Not for— not on purpose!” And he hadn’t, truly, had anything of the kind in mind when he’d wandered into the imagination. Now though, presented with two grinning Lers, butterflies were growing in his belly.

Remus sat down in front of Virgil’s face, tugging surprisingly gently at his arms. Virgil had already spent his energy on thrashing earlier, and didn’t have much fight left in him to resist. His arms were pulled down, so they dangled straight, which made his shirt flip up over his face.

Roman moved his shirt so he could look him in the eyes, more serious now. “You can say no, now or anytime.”

Virgil blushed at having to admit he wanted to be tickled now, even just by not saying no. “Thanks,” he mumbled, biting his lip.

Roman grinned, evil and hungry looking, dropping Virgil’s shirt to cover his face again.

Virgil squirmed, the skin on his exposed torso tingling in anticipation. Remus held both his wrists easily in one hand, leaving three hands and a whole imagination’s worth of tools ready to tickle Virgil at any moment.

Fingers lightly touched his ribs, and Virgil jolted and squeaked.

There was a dark chuckle from one of the twins.

The fingers scribbled lightly, and Virgil burst into giggles.

“I want to keep him forever~” Remus said. “He’s mine, I caught him, and I get to tickle him for ever and ever, hours at a time~”

Virgil squealed as the scribbling fingers reached one armpit and scribbled even faster.

“I love the idea~ so long as you share your prize sometimes~” Roman teased.

Virgil felt two hands grip his hips, and squirmed hard, his giggles ratcheting up to laughter just from the anticipation of tickles on his hips and belly. The two hands held him still as a long, loud raspberry was blown directly onto his bellybutton.

Virgil squealed and laughed helplessly, already his squirming not working to help him, as tired as his muscles were and weak from laughter.

Remus seemed to understand how incapable he was of protecting his weak points, and let go of his wrists, attacking both armpits at once.

Virgil cackled and laughed, squealing again when Roman blew another raspberry on his belly.

Roman squeezed and scribbled at his hips, blowing many small raspberries all over his belly. Remus’s hands crawled up to taze his ribs, and Virgil was lost in laughter, tears of mirth leaking from the corners of his eyes.

Then they stopped, both at the same time, letting Virgil catch his breath.

“I have a game for you~” Roman said. “Guess correctly where we tickle next, and you get a little break. Guess incorrectly, and we tickle you till you squeal~”

Virgil wouldn’t know. He couldn’t see past his shirt. He was going to get so tickled, he knew it. Excitement bubbled up in him, nearly making him giggle even without any tickles.

“My turn first then!” Remus said, sounding as excited as Virgil was. “Where am I gonna tickle, giggly darkling~?”

Virgil’s mind went to the sensation of Remus’s fingers in his armpits, and on his ribs, and his sides, and each spot tingled, nearly tickling already. He didn’t know. Didn’t have a way of knowing.

“Come on, you can guess~” Remus teased. “It’ll only tickle so much when you get it wrong~”

Virgil could barely keep the giggles at bay. “A-armpits.”

“Wrong!” Remus said gleefully, tazing and scribbling at Virgil’s ribs.

Virgil laughed and squirmed, jolts of tickly sensation running through him. And then Remus started nuzzling, his mustache rubbing against the sensitive skin on one side, while both his hands were free to taze into the other. Virgil squealed, trying to push Remus away, but his arms were far too weak.

A few more seconds that felt more like hours later, Remus stopped, rubbing soothingly as Virgil hiccuped and giggled, trying to get his breath back.

“Where will I tickle you~?” Roman asked, before Virgil had gotten his breath back.

That was right, the correct guesses were for breaks. He was glad they still paused for a little, rather than Roman asking while he was still laughing his head off.

“Behehelly,” Virgil guessed.

“Nope~!” Roman said.

Virgil wasn’t sure then where he was going to go. Belly was a wide guess, even sides and hips were sort of counted in it.

And then a hand squeezed at his thigh. Virgil yelped embarrassingly loudly.

“Surprised you with a tickly spot~” Roman cooed. “Get ready to squeal~”

Roman scribbled lightly along the backs of Virgil’s thighs, and Virgil couldn’t help laughing. But then he squeezed again, just above his knee on his left leg, and finding that awful horrible amazingly ticklish tendon on the right.

Virgil squealed and shrieked in laughter, his body jerking with more energy than he thought he had left. Roman kept going a bit longer than Remus had after the first squeal, and when he finally stopped Virgil went nearly limp, gasping for air.

“You ready to be done?” Remus whispered in a more serious tone.

“Can—“ Virgil gasped. “After a break… can I have more belly tickles.. before done? A— a lot?”

He was glad for the shirt hiding his face, as he blushed dark.

Remus hugged him suddenly. “We’d love to.”

“Awwww~” Roman cooed. “Such a tickle-hungry lee~”

Virgil blushed even darker.

“Since the lee wants a lot, I want to use tools!” Remus said excitedly.

“Oh yes~” Roman agreed. “Brushy tools particularly~”

Virgil squirmed, barely biting back the whine.

“What if one of us tickles the belly, and the other gets to focus all their attention on the button~?” Remus asked.

Roman’s chuckle was pure evil. “Yes.”

Virgil did whine that time. “Don’t tease!”

“Don’t tease~?” Roman asked. “Us, not teasing our sweet captured lee? Impossible~”

“It makes all the tickles tickle more, doesn’t it~?” Remus said knowingly. “So when we scribble at your belly it’ll be all tingly and ready to burst with laughs and giggles~! It’s so perfectly stretched out for us too~ with no way of getting away or curling up~ just waiting for us to play with it just how we like~”

Virgil whined and squirmed.

“I think if he’s able to whine he’s able to be tickled, don’t you?” Roman asked.

“Oh yes!” Remus agreed, and suddenly Virgil could hear the sound of buzzing.

He squirmed and whined, twisting back and forth.

Hands grabbed his hips again. “I guess I’ll have to use some magic to tickle the button, if I have to hold you still~” Remus teased.

Something liquid touched his belly, and Virgil gasped. A hand spread the oil slowly over his belly and poked into his bellybutton, making him squeak.

“You ready for a lot of tickles~?” Roman teased. “Actually wait~” he bent down and tapped Virgil’s chest and his throat gently. “Don’t want you running out of air, and now you can’t!”

They were going to tickle him till he went insane!

“The little button gets the first tickle~” Remus said, brushing circles around Virgil’s bellybutton with an electric toothbrush as Virgil shrieked with laughter.

Roman scribbled around the rest of his belly and sides, often blowing raspberries.

Remus quickly went from circling to dipping the brush into Virgil’s bellybutton.

Virgil couldn’t stand it! It tickled so bad! It was like his brain floated away from his body, leaving only sensation and laughter. Squeals and shrieks were pulled from him by the two tormenting his belly. He never wanted it to stop. Nothing mattered in the slightest except the fireworks of tickles constantly being set off. He didn’t even have to worry about catching his breath.

And then Roman decided it was his turn to start using electric toothbrushes, far more than two hands could hold, and Remus was also squeezing sporadically at Virgil’s hips.

All his laughter became a silent scream, the sensations starting to blend together, his whole belly a tickle spot.

He managed to bump one arm against Roman’s leg.

The two stopped immediately. Remus rubbed his belly gently, and Roman helped to very gently and carefully get him down.

The forest faded away, replaced by a cool, dim room and a very soft bed.

Virgil felt all glowy, still riding the high from all the tickles. One of them offered him some water, and the other laid beside him, rubbing gently up and down his arms.

“Did you have fun?” Roman asked quietly, his tone hesitant and almost worried.

“So much fun,” Virgil said, a grin still on his face as he hugged Roman.

Remus hopped into the bed behind him, hugging also and running his fingers through Virgil’s hair.

“If I get this kind of treatment every time, I’ll start looking for traps in the imagination…” Virgil said sleepily.

“I’ll make some just for you,” Remus said immediately. “Anytime you want.”

Virgil leaned his head into Remus’s hand, weakly tugging Roman a bit closer. He could barely keep his eyes open.

Roman’s knuckles brushed against his cheek. “You can sleep, Emo.”

Virgil drifted off, still floaty and happy. “You two are the best…”

#my fic #sanders sides tickling #tickle fic #lee!virgil #ler!remus #ler!roman

[in-my-feels-probably]

INEFFABLE - Kaz Brekker

Prologue - Before

If you would like to read this on Wattpad, it’s on there as well, my @ is in_my_feels_probably and there’s a few visuals and better descriptions and stuff on there. otherwise, enjoy, let me know what you think, and you can check out my masterlist for updates and more.

INEFFABLE -- Kaz Brekker

ineffable (adj.) 

too great to be expressed in words, utterly indescribable; too sacred to speak of.

Prologue - Before 

Elham Creed had never known what it was like to be part of a family. From a Ravkan orphanage, to the Little Palace, finally landing in Ketterdam, the Barrel, she had never felt the sense of safety and security she had longed for as far back as she could remember. She wouldn’t find it in Ketterdam.

At 13 years old, with nothing but a collapsable sword belted around her waist and the clothes on her back, she had spent the first few days in the Barrel stalking around, stealing scraps of food where she could, trying to get her bearings. The frigid air sweeping over the harbour into the edge of town at night where she slept was enough to make Elham almost miss her room at the Little Palace.

Almost.

She wouldn’t go back, not after her mentor, Baghra’s, warnings. All she could do was push forward and move on. She spent nights alone ducked away into abandoned shacks, using her powers to spark warmth and light, practicing control. Being an inferni had its perks, but Elham was special. She didn’t need a starter, or a piece of flint to create a spark she could turn into a flame. She could create the flame all on her own. She kept this and her powers a secret, however. If the Darkling had taken interest in her abilities, there’s no doubt one of the Barrel bosses would bait her into doing their bidding.

And Elham Creed would do no one's bidding. She would be no one’s puppet.

---

Elham remembered the first time she killed a man. Coincidentally, it was also the first time she met Kaz Brekker. She was now 14, making her way towards the harbour, working on one of the odd jobs she could scam her way into. She headed past the White Rose on the way, one of the most frequented brothels in Ketterdam.

She headed down the alley behind the sorry excuse for an establishment, when she heard a scream. She rounded the corner, to find a man with his hand wrapped tightly around one of the employed girls' wrists, the other hand making its way up her hip, pinning her against the wall.

It’s a shame. Maybe if he had heard her coming, he could have avoided the sword held up to his neck. He could have avoided his death.

Most men in the Barrel, as Elham had come to realize, were not good men. While the “pigeons,” as she had come to know the tourists as, would have tucked tail and ran, this man did not. He only scoffed.

“A sword?” The man had slurred at her, clearly drunk. “You do realize I could have you shot and dead in a second, and get back to this lovely girl you so rudely interrupted me from. Although, you’re a pretty thing. Exotic. Maybe I’ll have you instead,” he had said, reaching for the pistol strapped to his hip.

Big mistake.

With her eyes glossing over, and a rage building inside her, she quickly removed the sword from his throat, and ran it through his back. He sputtered, and fell to his knees, choking on his own blood, or maybe his last words, Elham didn’t take the time to figure out which. She walked around to face his front as he gazed up at her, clutching his stomach with wide eyes. She breathed heavily, eyes wild.

“Good riddance.”

She lifted her foot and sent him sprawling back against the street, blood pooling around him. She glanced back at the girl who was still frozen against the wall, and her eyes softened.

“Thank you,” she whispered, before hurrying back into the White Rose.  Elham only nodded, taking a breath, before turning to head towards the harbour.

That’s when she saw him.

A boy, no older than 14, dressed in black, gloves fitted to his hands. He seemed to be analyzing her, gears turning in his head. Kaz hadn’t mastered his pokerface yet, and Elham was good at reading people. She was unsure why she didn’t feel threatened by his presence, especially since he had just witnessed her kill someone, and she had no idea what his intentions were.

“You just killed a Dime Lion.”

Elham had heard of the gang before, and their leader, Pekka Rollins. She knew she was going to regret interfering with gang business, but her head was beginning to cloud, tears forming in her eyes. But she had saved that girl, she had saved herself, it was a split second decision. Unable to form words, she met the boy's stare.

She only slowly nodded in response.

After pondering for a moment, he had offered to take her to his boss, claiming that she’d be a valuable asset to the team. He’d never admit to her that it really was because he couldn’t bear to see the Barrel swallow up and harden another innocent kid, and maybe it was the way her eyes had glazed over, or how tattered her clothes were, or simply because she didn’t look at him like he was some sort of monster, but he took her in.

It was true, Haskell had been needing a new asset to the team, someone young and quick who could take care of themselves. Bringing a girl back to the Dregs was a risk, and Kaz was in no position to make himself look weak around the gang, but he just couldn’t leave her there in the street. That part of the Rietveld in him hadn’t died yet.

To this day, Elham isn’t sure what made her accept his offer to come with him. After almost a year in Ketterdam, she trusted no one, got close to no one. She had no business getting involved with a gang, she could have walked away, continuing to the harbour for the job assigned to her. There was something about him, though. And going with him was arguably the best decision she has made, she had decided.

---

Elham had been part of the Dregs for a few months, slowly gaining a reputation for herself. Kaz had taken a liking to her, almost admiring how fast she had taken to a life of crime, to the rigidity of the Barrel. He found a secret comfort in her presence, and in the fact that her story was similar to his. She hadn’t revealed much about her past to him, just enough to keep him intrigued.

And he was, despite his brain demanding he think otherwise, intrigued. She was ambitious, and cunning. Most interestingly, however, she was ruthless.

She had killed many men since the day she met Kaz. Barrel men were not good men. Elham made it a point to seek out the men who only caused pain. Men like the first man she had killed, men like Pekka Rollins and his Dime Lions. Men like them didn’t get to cause all the pain and suffering they did, and live.

Kaz had dubbed her, “The Valkyrie,” once, while on a job. The other Dregs took a liking to it, and it stuck. She asked him many times what it meant, why he would call her that, but he only smirked to himself, amused by her new found reputation, much to her annoyance.

He finally explained it to her, the night he broke his leg. They had been paired on the job together, and it had gone disastrously. They were sprinting along a rooftop, when Kaz made a bad landing, completely breaking the bone in his leg.

It was the first time she touched him.

When she first joined the Dregs, she had quickly picked up on the fact that he didn’t want to be touched. She could sense his unease when they had to be close together on jobs in tight spaces, or when one of the drunken Dregs would pat him on the back for a job well done, or during a brawl with a rival gang. She always kept her distance, respecting his space.

But this time, she had no choice. Kaz was crying out in pain, and Elham knew she had to get him back to the Slat to get his leg reset, and out of harm's way. She clicked the button on her belt and grabbed for the hilt of her sword, and with a flick of her wrist, it unfolded into place to its full length. Kaz had pulled himself to a kneeling position, desperately trying to hide his vulnerability, eyes frantically looking for an escape. She offered the hilt of her sword to him.

“Kaz, you have to let me help you. I’m sorry, but you have to let me. Hold onto the hilt, and on three, I’m going to tug under your arm to get you standing. We’ve got to get you back to the Slat before you pass out from the pain or we get ourselves killed out here.” He only gave her a pained look, before nodding, and they slowly made their way back to the Slat, with him putting as much weight on the hilt as he could, Elham trying her best to make sure he couldn’t feel her fingers through his jacket as she dragged him along.

Hours later, while he lay unconscious on the cot in his room, Elham had anxiously waited in the chair in the corner of the room. She hadn’t realized how much she had grown to care for Kaz, for him and her life with the Dregs. She knew she would have killed for him that night if it came to it, no doubt about it in her mind. Kaz only awoke for a few minutes that night, and had mumbled a few words to her.

“Do you know what Valkyrie means? It means ‘chooser of the slain.’ It seems like you choose who lives and dies around the Barrel. Killing men, making sure I don’t die. It’s fitting, isn’t it?” He had joked to her, the faintest of grins tugging at his lips. Elham had sucked in a breath, and offered a small smile at him, standing to leave as he drifted off, knowing he was going to be alright. Broken, as she knew he would think of himself, but alright.

---

It had been a few years in the Dregs, as the Crows slowly formed. First Jesper, then Inej. The Dregs had become a force to be reckoned with in Ketterdam. Despite their ages and newness to the life of a gang, The Sharpshooter, the Wraith, the Valkyrie, and Dirtyhands were well known identities around the Barrel.

They had hardened over the years, Kaz more so than any of them, the Barrel being a quick teacher in offering harsh life lessons.

Elham remembered the first time one of them uttered the words, “no mourners, no funerals.” Inej had been interested in what Elham’s name meant, Elham meaning inspiration, Creed meaning belief or law. A particular favorite member of the Dregs, and a friend of Rotty’s, had been killed on a job. Elham took this particularly hard, he was one of the men that had made her transition into the gang easier.

They sat silently in her room together, when Jesper spoke softly. “You know, I’ve been thinking about your name. Creed. Maybe, ‘no mourners, no funerals’ could be our creed.” Elham had let a tear roll down her cheek at that, and she nodded at Jesper, letting him grab her hand, while Inej, perched on the window ledge, laid her hand on Elhams shoulder. Kaz had lifted his eyes from the floor when Jesper spoke, his eyes landing on the girl. He slowly slid his cane towards her, softly tapping the end at the base of her ankle, before returning to his original position.

It was one of Elham’s favorite memories of them. Of him.

The Crows were chaotic and an odd group, but they were Elham’s family, as close as she would ever get to one. Saint’s forbid she ever told them that, it would go straight to Jesper’s head. But they were enough for her. Her Crows were enough. And they were about to raise a little bit of hell.

---

A/N - hi everyone, omg im so excited about this book, i hope you liked the prologue, im working on the first few chapters and will have them up soon. let me know what you think so far, and thank you for the support!

#kaz brekker x reader #kaz brekker #six of crows #shadow and bone #wattpad #prologue #original character #ineffable #in_my_feels_probably

[doorsclosingslowly]

They've Made of Our Bodies a Bleeding Stair

Jesper and Kaz try to retrieve Inej from Ketterdam without being recognized and murdered—and without Kaz getting ransomed back to Ravka as the the wayward Sun Summoner.

11k | Sun Summoner Kaz AU pt. 2 | Jesper/Kaz, Inej, past Kaz/Darkling content note: non-linear narrative, explicit sex, roleplay of past rape

“I want you to be him.”

“Of course,” Jesper replies. Then, articulately, once his brain’s caught up, “Uh. What?”

“The Darkling.” Kaz has turned his face away. He’s looking at the ramshackle marriage bed that takes up the bulk of this room he’s lured Jesper into. He unerringly picked the right closed door, too; he skipped the squeaky floorboards, as if he knew the exact layout of this—but it’s Kaz. He knows everything, even some dilapidated house in the Kerch countryside. The bed was probably a masterpiece of craftsmanship, when it was carved from some dark wood, a thousand years ago or whatever. The way it looks, it must’ve been old already when the previous owners of this farmhouse got it, and from the state of the house, they abandoned this place decades ago. Quite a lot of the furniture’s missing, either sold off when the place was left or stolen afterwards, but that bed was too worthless already.

The mattress is still there too. Probably fucking teeming with moth larvae and maggots and their combined accumulated shit, so it doesn’t bode too well for Jesper, how forcefully Kaz is staring at it.

“Please say it doesn’t involve the bed.”

“You said yes,” Kaz rasps, which is all the information Jesper needs to start gagging. Fake-gagging, for now, but if he sees even one wriggly little worm he’ll…

Bed. Darkling. That still doesn’t really… Want you to be him—oh—

“Yes, Jesper.” And how the hell with his ramrod tense back still turned towards Jesper—Jesper, who’s done nothing at all, hasn’t said anything except to register his displeasure at the idea of bathing in insect faeces and their squirming little manufacturers!—how the hell Kaz has realized that Jesper’s figured out what he probably means—it must be a confidence trick. Kaz likes those. But how—yeah, it’s not the point, but trying to understand whatever magic Kaz is using on him right now is much, much better for Jesper’s sanity than dwelling on the fact that Kaz might just have insinuated that he wants Jesper to pretend to be the Darkling, specifically the Darkling from that time he told Jesper about back in the Little Palace, the time he threw up after. The time he thought he could suppress his discomfort with touch long enough to seduce the Darkling into a partnership—seduce seduce, which means he wants—to flirt with Jesper? To sleep with Jesper? Is he actually saying he—

Oh. There’s a cracked mirror on the wall above the bed. That’s how Kaz saw his face.

Jesper would chalk the hallucination up to a hangover, but he’s not even drunk. Neither is Kaz, unless this old ruin of a farmhouse they broke into this morning is hiding barrels of wine the local youth haven’t made off with yet. Also, if he was hallucinating Kaz propositioning him he would—well, Jesper at least hopes he’d have enough self-respect not to make himself a stand-in for the man who bought and imprisoned Kaz for two years, controlled him by using his fears and modifying his body and cutting him off from every other person in the whole court, taking every single object he could have used to protect himself, and whatever those weird spines in Kaz’ chest are he’s probably responsible for them too. Jesper would not, actually, like the first and probably only time he’s allowed to kiss Kaz to be some kind of revenge-by-proxy thing where he recites the Darkling’s lines while Kaz swallows back bile, and then Kaz beats him up. Or murders him. It’s pathetic, but Jesper always imagined that kiss a little sweeter. Kissing over Haskell’s corpse. Kissing over the Darkling’s corpse. Kissing over the corpse of some other piece of shit who’s stupid enough to try using Kaz as their possession.

“Just warning you, I don’t have the costume or the script, so don’t expect something worthy of the Komedie Brute,” is what Jesper says instead.

Kaz’ eyebrow quirks. “You’re acted before, haven’t you? Improvised. You can flirt your way into anything. That was the main reason I kept you around.”

“You kept me around because I’m gorgeous, funny, and an incredible shot. I just play myself, if it’s seduction! Why would I improve upon perfection?”

“This isn’t seduction. He’s already locked me in the Little Palace for months at this point. Two escape attempts have failed. This is… speeding up the process,” Kaz says, nonchalantly enough it makes Jesper want to puke.

Which won’t help anything. He’s already agreed. And Kaz doesn’t care about moral objections, only practical ones. “I need more info. I haven’t actually met the Darkling.”

“You’ve met powerful men. You’ve met men who believe their righteous cause entitles them. You’ve met men mired in greed and vengeance—you’ve met me.”

“I like you.”

“Pretend you don’t, then. You used to complain about me in the Slat—of course I know, I knew everything that went on in the Dregs. You hated the way I seemed to know everything, and held it over you—so does he. You disliked my single-minded focus, the way you all seemed like pawns to me, my mockery. The way I held myself as something far superior to you. That’s a start.” Kaz limps a slow quarter circle around Jesper, and his dark eyes are burning with loathing. Jesper would hold him if he could. “You’re not asking why?”

“Uh, now that you mention—”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

Jesper sighs. Of course. He’s never expected anything else. Then he stands up straight, assuming his best the stick in my ass is so long it’s knocked the word fun from my brain pose that hopefully may pass for authoritative and slimes out, “What business, Mr Brekker?”

“Sun Summoner. Or Sunshine. He figured out Brekker’s a fake name on the first day.”

“Kaz Brekker’s a fake name?!” Jesper should have seen that coming, really… what does he even know about Kaz Brekker, truly? Except—

“It’s a name. It’s real enough. It’s feared. It’s mine.” Kaz’s eyes travel over the cobwebbed wall of the farmhouse bedroom, as if he was searching for the next lie to spin. Except that isn’t one of Kaz’ tells—Jesper’s seen him bamboozle and convince marks of the most stupid tales, and when Kaz wants them to believe him, he looks earnest. Young, depending on the role he plays, old, eager, stupid or wise. He doesn’t bother lying to Dregs, or rather: he doesn’t bother convincing them, usually. All his words are backed by the brutality of his cane. Who could be stupid enough to question even his weirdest utterances. “It just happens not to be one I was born with.”

“So what you’re saying is, the Darkling’s just not Kerch enough to get you?” Jesper grins. “Ketterdam, really—you know, I always really liked that about the Barrel, that healthy dose of ‘You are who you want and we don’t give a fuck to correct you.’ Anyway. Got it. You’re Kaz Brekker, but he’s a dick. Mr Sunbeam, what brings you into my office this evening?”

“The fete, Aleks.” Kaz shrugs off his coat, and then the purple kefta, too. He holds out the kefta in front of him, like he’s expecting Jesper to put it on. Well. That’s as good a start as any, and so Jesper turns and lets Kaz dress him into the robe he never wanted to wear.

“Then he says, ‘You must be nervous. After all, there are few gatherings in the Ketterdam slums that involve such spectacle.’” Kaz has sanded down his rasp somewhat, sounding almost smooth and seductive. He goes into a spiel of the Ravkan court and the inferiority of the Barrel that thankfully, he carries all by himself. Jesper wouldn’t even know what to say, except ‘Stop talking shit about the Barrel, you prick’ and that’s not exactly in character.

Kaz’ eyes periodically dart down to Jesper’s hands, and he realizes he’s fidgeting with the hem of the kefta’s sleeves. He stops.

“I am ready,” Kas says in his normal voice. His normal talking to a mark voice. “I realized what this demonstration represents—that I belong to something greater. It is as you said—we can offer Grisha and Ravkans hope. We. Together.” He stands up straight. Equally on both his legs. He winces. He’s not holding his cane, Jesper realizes. He’s not wearing his gloves. “I am ready to stand by your side. We should be partners. The Sun and the Dark.”

“Uh… great. We’ll be great together. Do great things. Better partners than enemies. Some of those rumours even freaked me out, you know—that kid with the wind-up toy in his throat—”

“Think before you speak, Jesper,” Kaz hisses. “Never let me lead. Never give me control. Every word is a cue to corral your prey where you want it—whether a compliment or a barely-there hidden threat.”

“Is that what you do?”

“Sometimes.” Kaz meets Jesper’s eyes. The tense mask of his face breaks into a smirk. “To be honest, I find the subtle craft of manipulation is wasted on you. You’ll obey anyway. Let’s go back to the start, and focus.”

Jesper shrugs off the kefta again and then lets Kaz dress him, again. He does his best imitation of Kaz, of that early Kaz before Jesper learned how he takes his coffee and before he saw the brutal twist of his face, that one time when the Dime Lions had Jesper on his knees and shoved a gun in his mouth. He plays the imperious tactician in his office who told his goons to drag Jesper up four flights of stairs with a bag over his head, ready to be shot for his debts, and then sold him on the one thing that gave his life meaning.

He insults Dirtyhands’ father and mother to his face, and gets really into it, too: Ketterdam’s full of idiots who’d miss the love of their life because they were busy trying to pry cobblestones off the streets to sell for half a sausage, and the harbour’s so filthy even the fish won’t fuck in it—keeping the brothels in good fish-ness, haha. Because the fish rent rooms so they don’t get fishy sex diseases from the water. Do fish get diseases from sex?

“Kill me now,” Kaz moans, and that one’s probably deserved.

“Anyway, my Sun Summoner, I’m sure you’ll perform well,” Jesper says with just the tiniest hint of slime.

“I am ready. I realized what this demonstration represents—that I belong to something greater. It is as you said—we can offer Grisha and Ravkans hope. We. Together.”

Jesper moves slowly, idly: not caging him in against the bed yet but definitely implying he can and will.

“I am ready to stand by your side. We should be partners. The Sun and the Dark.” Kaz swallows. “‘That means a lot to me. You mean a lot,’ is what you say now.”

How come the Darkling’s not constantly slipping on his own slimy slime trail?

“That means a lot to me.” Jesper gives Kaz a deep, smouldering look. The pockmarks on his cheeks. The jumping muscle in his jaw. The hint of a pained grimace from standing unaided. The boyish grin when he’s totally fucked over another gang boss and gets to gloat. The vicious hatred when someone touches his Crows. Licking powdered sugar off his gloves. “You mean a lot.”

And that’s it. The way Kaz looks at him—this is when the Darkling makes his move.

“I have been waiting for you for so long,” Jesper purrs smarmily, closing his eyes, moving in for the kiss, and—Kaz isn’t there anymore.

It was a single step backwards, because Kaz has hit the edge of the bed already, face blotched with humiliation, and the way he looks at Jesper is—angry is the least terrible interpretation. If he backs out now, Kaz is going to kill him for pitying him or catering to a weakness that honestly—how is not wanting this weak? But Kaz is Kaz, and Jesper’s just Jesper, and—

“Focus,” Kaz hisses. “You own Ravka. You will own the Sun, too. You have waited for this triumph—take it.”

“Why don’t we take this to the—” fuck you, Brekker, for making me say this— “bed, then? Take off your clothes. Don’t be scared.”

That’s a good dig. The kind of insult that looks super caring, unless you know Kaz enough to understand he sees any crack in his image as a dangerous failure. Jesper’s getting the hang of this malicious flirting thing, finally. When this is over, he’ll need to scrub the slime off himself twice.

Kaz looks at Jesper while he disrobes. At him, Jesper hopes against hope, at the real person he’s roped into his worst scheme yet with a goal that’s still totally obscure; at Jesper and not the asshole he’s imagining in his place. Kaz’ eyes trace his cheeks, dance over his shaved head, catch on the lips.

Jesper takes off his boots and gun belt, and the kefta. He undoes the fly of his trousers, pulls his dick out, and stops. He glares at Kaz, daring him to object to the attempt at making this slightly less miserable—Jesper’s the Darkling, he’s in charge, so Kaz can fuck off with his masochism. He’s done undressing. He’s not taking off his shirt or trousers. That layer of cloth stays on.

But Kaz doesn’t object. He stands up straight, naked, brittle, wincing, and then glancing away he mutters, “Ignore the antlers. He hadn’t done that yet.”

Fucking Darkling.

The antlers stick out of Kaz’ collarbones, uneven tines of—possession, mutilation, and Jesper’s eyes catch on a tiny set of grooves on the left one. The scabbed-over cuts underneath. The bruise from the gunshot. And even despite that horror, Kaz has a nice chest. Serious muscle, a street map of scars and a smattering of dark hairs—it feels weirdly improper to stare at him, so Jesper’s eyes dance down to his knobbly left knee and the softly twisted right thigh with its knots of scars, up to the face where he’s biting his harsh pretty mouth, and down again. His dick is nice, fat but not too long, rooted in a tangle of dark curls.

It’s utterly limp.

It’s pathetic, how much that hurts. Of course he isn’t into this. Of course he doesn’t find Jesper remotely attractive. Of course this is just some weird masochistic proxy powerplay for him, some attempt to prove he’s stronger now and can bear it or whatever the fuck, and Jesper’s just the sad stupid body he’s using to enact it.

And of course not even that is enough to make Jesper bow out. Kaz asked.

“Do you want me to suck you off first? Get you in the mood, even a little?” It’s not just for Kaz, that offer, though the whole thing will probably be less painful and awkward if he manages to coax out some arousal. It’s not for younger Jesper, who fantasized about being ordered to blow his boss as penance more often than he likes to admit. No, this is so Jesper can bury his face in Kaz’ pubic hair for a minute. And cry.

Kaz raises an eyebrow. He sounds arch and ice cold when he asks, “Jesper, do you think the Darkling would suck my dick?”

“He should have. Saints, what an asshole,” Jesper shoots back before he can think. “You need a better class of lovers.”

“By which you’re of course implying that you are much better than Aleksander Morozova, the General Kirigan, the Black Heretic, eternal Conqueror and crowned Emperor of Greater Ravka, Salvation to Grishadom, Master of the Fold and He who chained the Sun, et cetera and so fucking on and so fucking forth the Darkling himself?”

“Given I just offered you a blowjob without bringing useless power shit into it, yes.”

“Wrong data, incoherent formula. Correct answer.” Kaz’ grin is crooked. Inordinately fond, and Jesper would have settled for no longer desperately hiding terror but this is—

Yeah.

“I’m going to try to make this roleplay as realistic as I can, but I don’t know if I can forget enough about how to have sex to sink to the Darkling’s level. Also, you don’t happen to have the address of that Grisha Tailor who mutilated you back there? I need them to make my dick look weird. Corkscrew, maybe. Some warts. It’s probably green. I’d peg him for advanced neurological syphilis but I am about to sleep with you, so— ”

“Did you know, Jesper, that the Darkling always wears a gag when he has sex?”

“Shutting up now, boss.”

“Don’t shut up,” Kaz replies instantly. Very, very instantly. “Just keep your disparagements somewhat plausible. And… rare.”

Only to jolt me back, he’s asking. “Got it. So I guess I’m supposed to loom over you a little? How close do you want me?”

“I’ll need to—” Kaz turns around and bends over to root around in the pockets of his coat, and it’s even weirder, worse, looking at his ass when Jesper knows Kaz doesn’t like him back. Kaz tosses over a tiny bottle. Oil. “Give that to me. Tell me to prepare myself.”

“Just saying it once more, boss. You don’t have to go through with—”

“Stop thinking about the Kaz Brekker you know,” Kaz hisses. “Stop anticipating my reactions. Stop caring. You are the Darkling. You have been waiting for the Sun Summoner for decades. You’ve formed your picture of them. This delinquent flinching little rat you bought doesn’t quite fit, not his limp, not his fear of touch, not his pathetic need to assert himself, but, well… you have time. He’ll learn how to make himself fit into the space you provide him. He’ll become your Sun Summoner.”

“Have I told you yet that I’m going to kill that piece of shit?”

“You’ve mentioned it, once or twice. In the last hour.”

Jesper bares his teeth: a grin, but not. A promise. “Good. I’ll hold his mouth open while you stuff him full of black powder and set him on fire.”

“Stop stalling, Jesper. That won’t make it any easier.”

That won’t make it not have happened.

“If you’re sure this will help.”

Kaz nods.

“Lie down on the bed, then. Is there a—no, no pillows here, roll up the coat and slide it under your hips.” Jesper turns his face away, listening to the timid, stuttering squelches of Kaz stretching his asshole. Jesper doesn’t know what would be worse: if, after everything, he can’t get it up… or if he can.

Well. He’ll have to. His dick will just have to obey the dictates of the situation, just as Kaz’ body was made into the Sun Summoner. He’s young. He’s still looking at Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, naked, who asked Jesper to sleep with him, and that’ll have to be enough. They’ve gotten this far. They’ll force their way through. That’s how you do it. That’s how you gamble. How you lose big. Kaz might have once tried to explain to him something about sunk costs and throwing good money after bad, but Jesper ignored him that night and lost a hundred and twenty kruge to Specht, and he’s never looked back.

“Okay, Mr Sunshine. Let’s consummate our fucking partnership,” he grinds out when Kaz has gone quiet, takes the bottle to slick up his own uncooperative dick, and carefully, he climbs on top of Kaz. The clothes were a good decision: Kaz barely flinches when he kneels in-between his legs and pulls the sleeve over his hand to carefully guide his right knee to rest on Jesper’s thigh.

Kaz is staring up at his face, breathing, just breathing. The antlers in his collarbone frame his bright face—brighter than the candles should allow, like maybe—and his focus is rigid and he’s breathing, breathing quickly—

“Is this teaching you anything yet?”

“Not really,” Kaz rasps, after too long. “Or—I think—maybe it was—” he glances at Jesper’s pathetic, unhappy limp dick. His face twists. “I thought you were into me.”

This is— “I love you. Kaz Brekker, whoever you are. I don’t give a fuck about this Sun Summoner bullshit. I love you. I love you,” because this is—Jesper can’t do this. He can’t. His elbows are locked: he can’t drop his body any lower. He can't go lower than this. “I love you,” until it’s finally over. “I love you. I love you.”

☼

“And I’m telling you again, I don’t know what he does Tuesday evenings,” Jesper hisses.

“You were still with the Dregs, three months ago!” Kaz is wiping his cane clean. It didn’t even really get dirty—they mostly used kitchen knives to do the deed, and in the case of a maidservant who unwisely came to work in the middle of the night, a bullet that Jesper’s already collected and reshaped into something functional, because he might not get to buy new ones. Desperation. Frugality. The Kerch are rubbing off on him. It’s good, though. The fact he’s cleaning the wood is all the confirmation Jesper will likely ever get that Kaz does like the new cane Jesper made him from a cute straight rowan sapling, reinforced with the metal scavenged from all but the most essential buttons on their hodgepodge of clothes. At least there’s one thing of Jesper’s he values. “How can you not know the behavioural patterns of your boss? Are you that brainless?”

“No-one knew what he was up to! He barely came by the Slat. He wasn’t that interested in us.”

“You worked for Per Haskell, Jesper; you worked for that man for years—for nearly as many as I did, when you ran off to Ravka—and now you attempt to convince me you barely know his name?” Kaz still doesn’t look quite as harsh as he used to, or maybe that’s just Jesper hankering for their past. Well, he didn’t used to explain his plans to Jesper as if he was an imbecile—but then, he didn’t used to need Jesper. He had more stooges back then. Now, he only has one. Ally. Friend.

If it’s as weird for him, though, as it is for Jesper being back in Ketterdam after he didn’t die on his revenge suicide plot and the city didn’t, either—well, he might still get murdered for stealing the Sun Summoner or skipping out on debts or something completely unrelated, and Ketterdam’s… well, she’s weathering having her ruling class torn apart twice in short order, once by the Darkling’s conquest and now, by the slow collapse of the Darkling’s overstretched realm after he’s lost his saint/weapon/doll.

The Barrel’s fine—as glary and miserable as it ever was, anyway, but though Kaz would probably insist most of the Mercher’s Council had their hands in gang business one way or the other, their reach was indirect, mediated and secretive enough for the chaos tearing up the Geldstraat not to trickle down as quickly into the slums. And anyway, the involvement of the merchers only ever made life worse for most people. The plight of the rich can only be a blessing.

Right now, they’re inside a nice place in the Zelver district. Close enough to power to feel the death throes, and even disregarding the political manoeuvring and debris and panic everywhere, just looking at the house from the outside made Kaz twitchy, somehow.

His energy almost matched Jesper’s trigger finger.

It’s Haskell’s house, so that unease makes sense.

Haskell’s expensive secret new house far outside the Barrel that they’re despoiling now. They looked as out of place in the beautiful Zelver district as any Barrel rats, with their heads shorn close to the bone so they’ll look different enough to not get recognized and faces wiped with dirt, dressed in a melange of Ravkan clothes they haven’t found a chance to replace yet and tawdry Barrel flash for everything else.

Kaz was wearing two coats when he entered the house, an old rose and amber paisley trench that even Jesper admitted is hideous, though now it’s splattered with blood that actually really ties the colour scheme together. Still gross though, and luckily slung over the chair. Along with the purple kefta Kaz hid underneath, the one he still hasn’t given back. Or burned, which is what they did to the other Ravkan overcoats. On the streets his two coats bulked up his frame so much he looked like a kid that Jesper’s never met, dressed up to play a gangster’s role. He looked nothing like the Sun Summoner anymore, and only somewhat like Jesper’s imagined baby Dirtyhands crawling out straight from the harbour, fifty kilos sopping wet and ready to kill a man and feast on his entrails.

Now, he’s stripped down to a ruffled red shirt over a green undershirt—he conspicuously shunned the yellow one next to it on the washing line—and light blue pinstripe trousers. The shirt is a little large in the shoulders, and he’s cuffed the trousers. They stole everything from a cottage on the edge of Ketterdam. Not quite Barrel flash, but almost—alike in style but with better fabric, something a town edge kid probably bought to look like a cool gangster. Or something Jesper would have bought to look special for a very special date. If he squints, he can almost imagine—it’s the morning after, and—

Ever since the Little Palace the idea of Kaz naked has totally lost its lustre. The idea of his muscular but scrawny, scarred chest, his wiry tattooed arms, his ambiguously demonic hands—it’s all overlaid now with a flimsy ugly sleeveless yellow paper taffeta gown. With normal hands, kept bare as humiliation.

But maybe—maybe they sat together, not on a log in a forest but on a sofa this time, and then in the morning Kaz was cold and he stole all of Jesper’s clothes to wear over his own. That’s much better. (Maybe he just wanted Jesper naked all day…)

Jesper won’t let the Darkling steal his fantasies, too. They’re—

Ouch. Fucking ouch.

Jesper really shouldn’t have added tiny spiky worms to the side of the cane, but Kaz’ indignation was just too funny.

“Let me make this clear—” Kaz rasps, once he’s regained Jesper’s full attention. Half-full. ‘Like he’s plundered Jesper’s wardrobe’ is still such a good look on him. “We are both hunted. Neither of us can afford to be caught outside on the streets of Ketterdam and let whoever saw us live. If we’re going to make Haskell’s house our temporary base of operations, we need to make his death as inconspicuous as possible. We cannot safely anticipate which of his visitors to eliminate and which to fool unless we know whether they, in turn, may be missed.”

“Well,” Jesper mutters. “Mitki might come by. If the neighbours don’t chase him off.”

Kaz raises a single, dirt-encrusted eyebrow.

“Mitki’s the newest lieutenant. Might have made it this—”

“Not Anika? I can understand why a flake like you didn’t rise in the Dregs ranks, but she—”

“Ambush. Dime Lions, five weeks after you disappeared.”

“Rotty?”

“Slit throat. Still no clue who did it.”

“Specht? Pim? Neeta? Big Bol?”

“Razorgulls, knife, last year. Bullet to the head, same day. Hellgate. Hellgate.”

“Muzzen? Ruk? Keeg?”

“Another ‘Gull stabbing, just before I left. Hellgate, again. Keeg just disappeared, though. Might still be alive somewhere over the True Sea, if he’s clever. Not that he was, he’s probably floating, poor sod.” Jesper shrugs. After a while, it just gets too much: the beginning of the Dregs’ end is seared into his brain, but there aren’t enough synapses for the tenth—or fiftieth—dead friend to hurt as much. “There’s a reason why I didn’t think twice about running when I lost those fifty thousand. Like I said, boss, it’s been a shitshow since you left. Haskell never wanted for new ones, since he got his kids fresh off the street, but he just stopped giving any shit whatsoever, and since you weren’t there to pick up the slack… well, I can see why he didn’t care, now.”

Jesper spares a bitter look for the mountain of kruge next to Haskell’s foot, the mountain he offered Kaz as soon as he saw him, long before Kaz even tried to hack off both his hands and feet with a dull meat cleaver. Long before Kaz had to settle for cutting down to the bone and then wrenching Haskell’s extremities from their sockets by sheer force of hatred, while Jesper puked into the kitchen sink. The mountain he’d never have amassed as the boss of a gang as shambolic as the last years of the Dregs.

The mountain that’s going to pay off Inej’s indenture tomorrow.

Haskell allowed her to rot there. It’s only fair he pays for her freedom with his life.

“Everyone we could use is gone. And you…” Kaz tips Jesper’s chin up with his cane. The world shimmies a little. “You, of all the old Dregs, survived.”

Jesper shrugs again. This is too much to confess to Kaz, of all cruel bastards, probably far too much, but—they’re sitting in the living room of Jesper’s former boss, the man who sold Kaz out to the Darkling and used the prize money to live in luxury, while letting his gang die on increasingly pointless ill-planned errands. The other end of the table is still flecked and puddled with slow-drying blood—not to mention the corpse, or corpse-pieces, laying there—but over here, they have a bottle of expensive whisky they found in a cabinet and they’re trading swigs from the bottle, all bitter and clean.

“I didn’t take it too well, when you and Inej just disappeared, and then my friends kept dying. Might have gone on a couple of benders. Might have lost some games. Might have lost some fights. Might have had some sexual encounters with people who turned out to be massive creeps. Consequently, I may not have been technically around to be asked to go on some of these errands, or perhaps I just didn’t notice because I was drunk.”

“Jesper.” Kaz doesn’t even sound surprised. Wow. Thanks for having faith in me, boss.

It’s not really that humiliating, though, now he’s said it out loud. He spent two years making bad decisions and occasionally braiding Inej’s hair. Kaz spent that time getting turned into a doll. Who can say what’s worse? He takes another deep gulp and grins. “You know me, boss. I need some external structure in life. I really need a commandeering asshole dragging me into his schemes to be my best self.”

“And yet, you outwitted the Darkling.”

“That wasn’t difficult, to be fair. Tell them I’m Grisha, search the Little Palace, shoot Kaz Brekker in the head, get executed…” Jesper trails off. When the silence grows teeth, he takes a pull of whisky that’s so desperate it makes him cough, but Kaz is still letting him stew.

They don’t really need to talk about it, though. No value in going over what happened in the Little Palace. No value in discussing anything. Everything is fine now. Yes, Jesper did want to kill Kaz. Yes, he’ll die for Kaz.

And they both know why.

Kaz steals the bottle. It’s incredible, actually, Jesper was just holding it—well, maybe he’s a little more drunk than he thought, but Kaz would probably like being complimented on his pickpocketing. “I didn’t even see you steal that bottle,” Jesper says.

“I’d be angry you’re drunk,” Kaz rasps. “But you’ve been completely useless at all stages of the current plan so far. And the previous one, by your planning—I always forget, in my amazement at what you accomplished, that you failed.”

He says that, but his cheeks are flushed pink with alcohol. His pupils are wide when he looks at Jesper. He raises the bottle to his lips and tips his head back, swallowing what should have easily been ten more swigs of whisky. Thieving bastard.

☼

When Jesper awakes on Haskell’s second softest chaise longue in the receiving room—neither of them was particularly eager to climb into Haskell’s bed, and, in Jesper’s case, not particularly still able to walk up the stairs either—his mouth is dry, his bladder full and the light is poking his brain even through closed curtains and eyelids. And Kaz—he searches the whole house after finishing his business, but yes, it’s true—Kaz is gone.

So are his cane and his current Barrel flash coat and the kefta, which means Kaz is probably safe. Well. As safe as the escaped Sun Summoner can be. Not kidnapped, at least. More alive than anyone stupid enough to cross Kaz’ path.

He’s taken Haskell’s kruge, and left a note.

In Kaz’ sharp hand, the note reads, “STAY.”

It’s underlined three times, and on the back side Kaz has written, “or you will die,” which to be fair is pretty ambiguous.

‘Die’ as in, ‘I mistrust your competence and assume you’ll get yourself killed if you move a finger?’ Or as in, ‘I’m warning you I won’t go out of my way to save you?’ Perhaps it’s a straightforward ‘Disobey and I am going to personally murder you and piss on your corpse?’ All are very real possibilities, knowing Kaz.

To really understand the message, Jesper needs to get into Kaz’ mood when he woke up—hungover, but how much? Enough he hates the entire world, or so much he hates Jesper more? Also, his current way of thinking. Jesper’s usefulness. A point in favour is the fact that Jesper saved him from a fate worse than death, but on the other hand, Jesper forgot to extract a deal from him and Kaz is so Kerch it hurts, which means he’s pared down solidarity and reciprocity and love into exchange, into deals, and all Jesper’s offering are the first three. They shared a bottle of whisky next to the corpse of their old boss, though, and in general Kaz looked like he was having fun more than once on their dirty, miserable long trek out of Ravka. Way more fun than he had in the majestic Little Palace. Also, Jesper’s incredibly likeable. He’s beautiful and funny and stupidly in love with Kaz without asking anything in return, so really it only makes sense that Kaz has finally succumbed to his charm.

(He dug his hand into Jesper’s hair, that night on the fallen tree and twice afterwards, but—maybe that was only to make Jesper squirm.)

Well, he enjoyed Jesper’s company while they fled from Ravka to Ketterdam, at least. That’s the crux of it.

So why would Kaz anticipate that Jesper might want to run anywhere? There’s a well-stocked kitchen here. A far more sensible assumption would be that Jesper might want to make some waffles or go on a morning jog. No, not that one. Enjoy a lavish breakfast. Have a bath, perhaps, after spending two weeks crawling through the Ravkan forest and the Shu countryside and stowed in the belly of a wine cargo ship and then countryside again, this time Kerch. Jesper’s feet hurt just thinking about it, and that Kaz managed to get here, even at the half-speed they settled on, speaks to—well, the same bull-headed masochism as always, but the fact he still refused to even consider stealing a cart or horse or approach any larger settlement before Ketterdam means he must be even more terrified of the Darkling than Jesper can imagine. He refused to leave any trace whatsoever. (And yet he’s back in Ketterdam, the one city in the world he was connected to before the Little Palace, because…?)

Ketterdam is the only city, village, collection of buildings and people they’ve been to for weeks, which means it’s the first chance Jesper has to gamble, but—even he knows not to stake anything on the possibility there’s someone left in the Barrel who doesn’t know about Jesper Fahey, he who owes Pekka Rollins fifty thousand kruge and just skipped town, kill immediately with extreme prejudice.

Well, Rollins is dead now—the only gang boss courageous or aggrieved or hungry enough to try and covertly resist the Darkling, go figure—but whoever’s head Lion now probably won’t even let Jesper try to spin an argument about how he really owes that money to ‘Pekka Rollins’ Dime Lions’, not any successor organizations. No such luck, and anyway, people stupid enough to bounce on their debts are fair game to any gang in the Barrel. They don’t cooperate on much, not even for mutual benefit, but murdering dishonest gamblers? That’s a team sport.

Jesper’s last recklessly suicidal plan worked out fantastic, so maybe he should find a card table. His luck’s turned. He could win millions.

Which Kaz definitely would anticipate, and warn him away from. Kaz is a buzzkill. Just because Jesper’s going to get murdered on sight in the Barrel…

Because Jesper’s gonna get murdered on sight in the Barrel.

If Kaz wants to rebuild his status in the Barrel, there’s no bigger liability than Jesper. And Kaz wants to, surely. He worked his way up inside the Dregs carefully and diligently, spent more time than anyone sane would inside a tiny attic office adding up numbers, and sucked up to an utter piece of shit like Haskell, just so he could one day become a Barrel boss. And now, to rise again, he has to cut off the dead weight.

Which means Jesper.

That’s why he left.

It’s not even a betrayal. They don’t have an agreement for life after reaching Ketterdam, let alone one that says Jesper can follow him forever and ever just like in the good old days. Inej—but Inej’s actually useful to a new Barrel boss, as soon as her indenture’s paid. Jesper’s the weak link here. Jesper’s screwed.

Which doesn’t mean he won’t go down fighting. He knows the way to the Menagerie—the quickest way, the scenic route, the paths least commonly trafficked by Pigeons and the ones usually avoided by staadwatch or gangsters. He knows Kaz well enough to guess which one he’s taken. If he hasn’t woken too late—and by the sun’s position, it’s still early in the morning—then he has a chance to pass Kaz off and… insult him? Beg? Cry? Sell his father’s soul for a position in the new Dregs? Maybe he’ll just have to wear a Komedie Brute mask for the rest of his life and it’ll be fine. He’ll figure it out later.

Jesper draws his shoulders up to his ears while he scurries through empty alleyways, the collar of his fancy pseudo-Barrel flash coat turned up. He’s almost glad that Kaz made him go hatless and shaved bald—thoroughly unstylish and un-Jesper enough he might survive the morning—but there are drawbacks to the disguise in the damp chill.

Also, the disguise isn’t good enough. After some minutes, Jesper notices that some clusters of metal stay at roughly the same distance to him. Eight clusters of—round, small, definitely mostly kruge with a few Ravkan coins thrown in. Thirteen guns. A rifle. Two of the coin clusters are fairly close together and move in unison. Jesper’s dealing with seven shadows, then.

That’s—a lot.

Jesper’s had a little more training being a Durast now, but what he could really use now is combat training. He hasn’t even been in a battle in over a month, unless you count handing Kaz knives while he carves up Per Haskell, and since Jesper had to puke right after, you probably shouldn’t. He’s fought rabbits. Jesper’s sure fought some rabbits in Ravka. Two deer, too.

He could probably escape his pursuers. It would take time, though, time Jesper doesn’t have when Kaz is leaving him behind without a word. He’ll just have to kill them quickly.

At least there’s one of his favourite surveillance detection routes nearby. One of the rare aboveground tunnels in Ketterdam, not used by Pigeons for obvious reasons of creepiness and also because it just leads to a big courtyard behind a factory: a courtyard that’s easy to escape, when you know the gate’s lock is broken. Kaz showed it to him, just weeks after Jesper got recruited, after the second time the ‘Gulls got the drop on him and beat him to a pulp. In the courtyard, he made Jesper shoot some sparrows and some pigeons to prove his worth. Not crows, though, and for a year Jesper believed that detail was just thrown in to test whether Jesper would obey nonsensical orders. It’s still a plausible explanation.

He’ll just have to ask Kaz, after he begs him for a role in the new Dregs. After he kills these seven pursuers.

If.

He catches the first man off-guard and blows his head off when he exits the tunnel, but after that, it’s a stand-off. Jesper, hiding behind a massive wood barrel for cover, against six men ducked into the mouth of the tunnel.

Jesper manages to pick off another man by firing into the tunnel and blindly redirecting the bullet into the first nook, but the second attempt at using that trick doesn’t hit anything, and neither does the third. He has eight bullets left now, and five enemies. Even Jesper can tell that’s bad odds.

Retreating across the courtyard, though—the first few meters are fine, there are enough wine barrels and he can just dash from one to another, slightly nudging bullets off their course so none hit him.

Those guys have far too many bullets left, though, by the time Jesper’s forty meters away from the gate. Forty meters without cover. His pursuers aren’t bad shots either—likely Dime Lions, because there’s no way a Liddy would ever get so close that Jesper has to redirect their bullet—and they’re cautious enough that only two of them are crouched behind that barrel next to the tunnel, now, while the rest are still hidden inside.

This might get a little tough—but if Jesper starts manipulating bullets more obviously, will that information travel to the Little Palace? They know the Sun Summoner escaped with a Fabrikator. Is he painting a target on Kaz’ back?

Is he—

Bloodcurdling screams and groans, and Jesper’s too far away to hear any thwacks but his senses have expanded and he knows that metal coating intimately. Knows that cane.

Kaz emerges from the tunnel opening, Inej behind him, and—

Boom.

The Dime Lion’s shot him.

Right in the chest, and Kaz stumbles, falls to his knees.

Keels over.

Jesper shoots wildly while he runs over, whirling the bullets around the barrel that the Dime Lions are hiding behind—two left, Kaz wouldn’t have let any of the ones in the tunnel escape—desperate to hit something or at least keep them distracted and scared long enough to get there, or for—Inej’s pulling Kaz back by his coat, and she’s still wearing a sheer Menagerie dress, she probably doesn’t have any knives to protect—nothing’s hit yet, nothing’s hit, and all Jesper’s bullets are in the air whizzing around but he’s not hitting anything and Kaz is down and Kaz—

Kaz pushes himself to his knees, and then he stands up.

He’s breathing hard, and in the ugly rose/amber/bloodstain trench there’s a hole above his heart, sooty and burnt, but he’s still alive, Kaz is alive, he’s—

“What are you?” a Dime Lion gasps. Jesper’s finally got a bead on her. He sinks three bullets into her head.

“I just killed…” The other one is less lucky, and Jesper only manages to hit his stomach before he runs out of airborne bullets. He’ll die, but it won’t be quick.

“I crawled out of the harbour before. I’ll do it again,” Kaz rasps, and before the Dime Lion manages more than “Dirty—” a wet squelch informs Jesper of his demise.

That’s all of them.

“Kaz, you—” Inej’s much quicker at Kaz’ side, but he moves away before she can touch him to check his injury. Moves quickly enough he’s probably not on death’s door. He is a good actor, though. She looks at Jesper, and he’s about to join her in begging Kaz to get some medical aid, at least, but then Kaz shrugs off the ruined trench coat.

“Those kefta aren’t entirely useless,” Kaz rasps, grinning like an amused fucking asshole who almost gave Jesper a heart attack.

And then, Inej wraps herself around Jesper.

“You’re alive! I was terrified,” she shouts against his chest, slapping his back and grabbing as if she can’t decide whether to kill Jesper or never let go. “I thought you got yourself killed! You just disappeared, no word, I thought—”

“I may have lost a game where the stake was fifty thousand kruge?”

“You—Jes—” Inej squeezes him harder. “I told you to stop. I’d rather have you, with me, than have you die trying to pay me off.”

“I almost won! But there was no chance I’d get out of it, without indenturing myself, and—it all worked out, didn’t it? You’re free! Which reminds me…” Jesper takes off his own coat—blue and green and purple wave patterns, very fancy, a bit on the small side for him—and lays it onto Inej’s shoulders. It suits her, too—it drowns her a little, sure, but the way the coat reaches down to her ankles looks regal, and anyway, Kaz is a good sewer. He’ll fix this. “Can’t have you catching a cold.”

Before she can reply—tell him again she wasn’t worth risking his life and freedom in every card game he could for two years, when she definitely is, she’s Inej, he’ll do anything for her—he runs away and searches the dead Dime Lions for a new coat for himself, all their money, the rifle, and picks up the used bullets too. Knowing Kaz, he’ll want them to leave this place soon, and Jesper can’t very well try to convince his boss he needs to keep his sharpshooter around when he has no bullets left.

Speaking of—Jesper saunters over to Kaz when he’s done. With his most careless grin, he says, “I want my goodbye kiss before you ditch me.”

“I left you a note,” Kaz rasps. “I should have remembered you can’t read.”

Which as good as counts as a promise that Kaz didn’t intend to leave him behind: that, and the adrenaline of an easy gunfight has Jesper grinning widely. This is the life he wanted. The life he yearned for during the last two miserable years. The Crows are back, baby. He asks, “What now, boss?”

“We leave. Before anyone comes to investigate those gunshots.”

“Novyi Zem?”

“No,” Kaz rasps, just as Inej says, “They’ll let us drown.”

“They what?”

“Move.” Kaz starts limping past the factory, and then doubles back one street over—in the general direction away from the sea. Jesper and Inej quickly flank him. “I went to the Fifth Harbour before I paid off Inej’s indenture. It’s near empty. Old man there said no boats go to Novyi Zem or Eames Chin right now, and no boats come back. Because nothing gets unloaded. Kerch ships can’t dock there. They all get stranded at sea.”

“People started running when Ravka cut us off from the continent,” Inej mutters. “Before the invasion. And now the Darkling’s gone, the Kerch Grisha are either running or dead.”

“Too many refugees, apparently. Something about culture and scroungers and economic migrants. Novya Zem’s closed its ports to Kerch.”

“But I’m Zemeni—”

“You’re just a person. Those borders don’t exist to help you. The harbour watch don’t exist for you, the government doesn’t exist for you—if there’s a choice between cementing their power and your life, every bureaucrat worth their salt will choose the former.”

Jesper wants to argue, but actually, he’d trust Kaz over Novyi Zem a million times. Kaz saved his life when Ketterdam and Kerch would have swallowed him whole. Novyi Zem isn’t any different. “So we’re stuck in Ketterdam, then, where I’ll get shot on sight and you’ll easily get tracked by the Darkling. I only remember one safehouse that’s still uncompromised, as of last month anyway, unless you think we should go back to Haskell’s, boss?”

“Inej,” Kaz rasps. “That shop over there. Buy us a cart. We’re going to Lij.”

“What’s in Lij, boss? Why Lij? Where is Lij, anyway?”

But Kaz doesn’t answer him. Even aboard the cart, directing their new donkey with a seemingly perfect grasp of the roads leading to a small southern Kerch town none of them have ever been to, he refuses to elaborate. He looks tense, though. Jesper reshapes his many new bullets while he walks alongside. If there’s a fight waiting for them in Lij, they’re going to win.

☼

Kaz paces the length of the room. Window, door, window, door—there’s not much space beside the marriage bed, and the air draft of his passing caresses Jesper’s shorn head.

He’s put back together now, dressed in his socks and his boots and his underpants and his trousers and his gloves, though his torso’s only covered by the open purple kefta. Despite the cane, he limps more heavily than before he trekked for weeks through the Ravkan forest. He’s not fully recovered yet, if he’ll ever be.

Jesper’s on the floor. He climbed off the bed—off Kaz, after he ruined Kaz’ stupid get proxy-raped by the proxy-Darkling again plan. He said what he said, and the silence that followed was all the answer he’ll get, and then he sat down on the floor. It’s as good a place to wait as any. Probably more hygienic than the bed, anyway. He watched Kaz dress, until he almost looked like the Barrel lieutenant they both wish he was still allowed to be, and now he’s watching Kaz Brekker Dirtyhands the Sun Summoner pace holes in the old dusty floor of an abandoned farmhouse an hour’s walk outside of the small Kerch town of Lij.

He’s not getting murdered, though. Not for what he almost did. Not for what he said. That’s as good as this was ever going to go.

“It was worse this time.” Kaz directs his rasp towards the floor. He doesn’t stop moving. “I froze. Why was it—it was you. I knew you were—you’d never—with you it should have been more tolerable. Not worse.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, boss.” Jesper still can’t decide whether he should be ashamed that he was too squeamish to go through with it. Kaz doesn’t seem as angry as he could be, that Jesper totally fucked up this whatever-it-was-supposed-to-be. Not the mocking disappointment he doles out at Jesper’s predictable failures—gambling, distractibility, lateness, no impulse control and so on—and not the seething hatred when Jesper does something he hasn’t anticipated.

“I turned it over and over in my mind. For a year. What I did wrong. How I could have turned this to my advantage. How to excise this weakness. I thought I’d found—but there’s nothing.”

Jesper would offer to brutally desecrate the Darkling’s corpse again, but it clearly doesn’t help. Kaz won’t let this go. Never mind that he was a teenage thief imprisoned in a palace. Never mind it was him against the whole entourage of the most powerful Grisha. The man who crowned himself Emperor.

Sometimes you’re just fucked. And there’s nothing you can do. Life isn’t fair.

“There is a way to beat him,” Kaz hisses. “And I will find it.”

“You did. Sort of.”

“What—”

Jesper grins a shark-grin. “You’re not in Ravka now, are you?”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Why doesn’t it? No, boss, listen—he didn’t beat you alone, either, right? He had his Tailor making you into a doll. His Fabrikators locking your cage. His soldiers. Hell, Haskell selling you out—so really, it’s your victory that I found you.” Now that Jesper’s trying to explain his gut reaction, it just seems more and more logical. “Why can’t you have your own gang? You practically rescued yourself. You took a look at a boy who’d have gotten shot in a few weeks because he couldn’t pay is debts and he couldn’t stop fucking gambling—you had me dragged up to your office. You took that chance. You saved my life so I could save yours. That’s… planning ahead. Planning years ahead. Well done.”

Kaz finally, finally stops pacing. He sinks into the mattress just slightly to the right of Jesper, so he can sprawl out his legs without making contact. He looks at Jesper, but he’s silent, and his face isn’t giving anything away.

At first, that makes it feel like he’s actually listening. Actually considering what Jesper told him, and agreeing. Kaz is a quick thinker, though. He doesn’t need this long to realize that Jesper’s correct, which means he’s coming up with counterarguments—arguments why actually, he’s still weak or whatever and needs to force himself—and Jesper really, really can’t watch him do this to himself again. Why this, anyway? Why is this the weakness he fixated on?

“Why is that creep so obsessed with making you touch people, anyway?”

“Because it’s easy. Necessary. Even a child does it. Touch is what makes us human, and the Sun Summoner is human, whatever lies he tells himself,” Kaz recites. His eyes are bright. Wet.

“Bullshit. You terrorized the Barrel for years and it didn’t matter at all that you never touched anyone. It was just you. It didn’t even really sink in for me, that you don’t touch people, until I saw the way he dressed you up, how miserable you were.” That’s probably a good place to leave it, but Jesper’s livid. Jesper could mince and mangle fifty Darklings with the pure force of his loathing, and there’s not even a single one around here. That energy has to go somewhere. “You’re trying to tell me the Ravkan fucking palace couldn’t change protocol a little and adapt? If it never mattered in the Barrel, it never mattered at all. He just picked something. If you’d been allergic to shellfish, that’s the only food he would have served you, and he would have said you’re weak for your windpipe swelling up. He wasn’t able control you because touch made you weak. When you’re in control, it doesn’t matter. Because you fucking kill whoever touches you. You don’t bow to them. They bow to you.”

Kaz doesn’t reply. He doesn’t look away from Jesper, though. He just stares down at him, with his eyes still wide and still wet. He mutters, “You’ve turned quite opinionated in my absence, Jesper.”

“In your presence. I’m quoting your words back to you—sort of, it was about the cane, and I’ve forgotten half of it. But you were right. You were always right.” Jesper laughs. “See? Now you’re teaching yourself through time and space! Your masterplan is incredibly fucking elaborate!”

“My—I’m not falling for it.” Kaz is grinning, though. “If I agree now—by this time tomorrow you’ll have done something incredibly stupid and you’ll throw the whole Everything I do is your triumph because you saved me thing in my face. I’m not responsible for your awful jokes!”

Pretending to wipe tears from his eyes, Jesper wails, “My plan! My ingenious plan! Foiled by the dastardly Dirtyhands, oh no!”

Kaz laughs at him. Kaz laughs, and laughs, and Jesper joins him.

It takes a while before Kaz stops, gasping for breath. No-one in Ravka’s ever told a good joke, Jesper decides, because he’s made way funnier jokes before that Kaz didn’t even chuckle at, but gift horses and mouths and so on. Colour’s returned to Kaz’ face: his cheeks are blotchy and red, even after his breathing’s evened out. Kaz mumbles, “You know, that’s exactly how I imagined it.”

What? Oh. Jesper’s sprawled on the floor, leaning back on his elbows, his shirt pulled out of his trousers—his trousers, which are open, and he still hasn’t tucked away his dick. He forgot. There were more far important things to do, and now… well, he probably looks more debauched than Kaz in his purple kefta, with just his prick exposed to the chilly night-time Kerch air while he lounges on the ground. He ghosts a finger over it.

“Do you want me to—do you want to watch, boss?”

“I’d—” Kaz swallows. “Saints.”

Jesper turns a little, so Kaz can get a better view. He doesn’t undress, in case that’s an integral part of the fantasy, just gently trails his fingers down his still-limp dick—though it’s definitely waking up now—and looks up at Kaz.

Kaz doesn’t meet his eyes anymore, but that’s fine: more than fine, when he’s alternately looking at Jesper’s cock and at Jesper’s lips. Jesper darts out his tongue, and Kaz’ pupils blow even wider. Jesper licks down his palm and starts jerking off in earnest. “Hey, boss,” Jesper mutters, and when the head jerks up Jesper blows him a tiny kiss.

“What do you think about?” Kaz rasps.

“I just look at you. That’s enough. I like your face.” The tiny quirk of his lips, the way his eyes dart back down. “What are you thinking about, boss?”

“I didn’t expect you to enjoy this as much.”

“Seriously, boss, I know you’re not that stupid. How many times—”

“Not me,” Kaz mumbles. He gestures obscurely at the room. Jesper. The wall. The floor. The floor again. “This. It’s—not proper. Demeaning.”

“I wasn’t feeling demeaned until you started talking—”

“I was going to make you my right hand, once I took over the Dregs. Not my whore—”

“You were?” slips out, small and breathless, before Jesper remembers that this is for Kaz. This for him to enjoy. The warmth expanding in Jesper’s ribcage can wait. “There’s nothing bad about this. You like it. I like it. I don’t see anyone else in this room, and even if—a very clever guy once told me that you don’t bow to the world. You make the world bow to you.”

☼

It’s scratching that wakes Jesper. Scratching like the sharpening of a knife, quick, impatient, desperate—but it’s Kaz who’s on watch right now, Kaz who found this shallow cave they’re spending the night in, and Kaz wouldn’t let any danger come this close unnoticed. Unfought. Kaz wouldn’t just leave Jesper to his fate—would he?

He wouldn’t. At least not yet.

Kaz is sitting at the mouth of the cave. The moon drenches his matted dirty hair in its white glory, his handmade trousers, his naked wiry chest. His chest which he hasn’t bared for a second since Jesper gave him the kefta, even pulling off the Sun Summoner chemise that they tore into threads while still wrapped up in both of his coats: but now he’s half-naked, head bending down to look at those tines sticking out of his clavicle. Those antlers, those keratinized tumours, those bone cancers. Whatever those mutations are, he wants them gone.

In the right hand, he’s holding the knife that Jesper made from buttons so they could cut the blanket into trouser-shapes. In the left hand, he’s holding one of the protrusions growing from his body.

And then, he starts hacking again.

Viciously, helplessly, like a sick rabbit mutated into its own trap. He misses, once, and the knife sinks into his collarbone: but silently he tears it out again and cuts at the cancerous bone, and the knife’s sharp but the only dents that Jesper can see are tiny, glowing, lighting up the knife that’s flecked with his own blood.

☼

Jesper stirs the potato chunks. Thankfully, the old hearth still works, at least after he and Inej fed it with firewood they brought from the market, and so he’s cooking potatoes in butter and water. He mashes them up with some heavy wooden implement he found in a cabinet, once they’re soft enough—he washed it of course; he doesn’t want to eat moth shit—and then Inej passes him a wooden board of carrots in neat small identical pieces. Show-off. Jesper loves her so fucking much.

“Careful, don’t let it burn,” she says, twirling her knife, and Jesper—well, he meant to stir the pot of what’s apparently becoming stamppot. He did. He didn’t mean to think of how he’ll get Inej and Kaz out of Ravka—

And that’s when Kaz limps into the kitchen. He wasn’t still asleep when Inej and Jesper went into town to get some food—as if the Bastard of the Barrel ever sleeps in, even when he’s far from his titular Barrel—but he begged off the trip. He told them to say they’re working for Johannus Rietveld, if they’re asked, who’s apparently inherited this farm, but—they weren’t asked a thing, anyway, and who knows what Kaz did in the meantime. Who knows what weird cover identity he’s cooked up that they haven’t yet had to invoke. And whether it’s weirder than the one Jesper just created.

Jesper gives him a tender little smile. “Had a good morning?”

“No.”

“Because of last—”

But Kaz can read Jesper at least as well as he can read himself. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he rasps. “You’re the least terrifying person I’ve ever met.” Which probably means Yes, I’m rattled, but I won’t take it out on you. Too much.

“Thanks, darling.” And obeying Inej’s sharp elbow, he goes back to stirring the potato mash, and the slices of rookworst smoked sausage she’s dumped into another pan as well. “We decided Inej needs a proper homecooked meal, now she’s free, and we both haven’t eaten anything worth eating for ages, either.”

“You cook?”

“I grew up with my Da. It was either him or me. We traded off, if you want to know, and I’m pretty good apart from when it mysteriously turns into charcoal. And we didn’t find any Zemeni spices in the Lij market—this isn’t Ketterdam, and this old trader I talked to, she said it’s because maritime traffic to Novyi Zem is down to trickles at this point there’s a real dearth of spices, she couldn’t get them at any reasonable price—”

“Don’t burn the stamppot,” Inej orders.

“Anyway, we found a recipe tacked to the wall behind the oven, so that’s what I’m making now. Something super Kerch. Stamppot—you’ve ever eaten it?”

Kaz makes a sound that’s deeply indecipherable. Jesper can’t even tell whether it’s mournful or happy.

“Anyway, we’re almost done. Spinach now, please—Inej made me stick to the recipe, you know—and then the fried sausage and some salt and… you’ll stay with us for lunch, right, even if it isn’t royal Little Palace fare?”

“We ate unseasoned burnt rabbits in the forest,” Kaz replies curtly. He’s gotten over whatever strange emotion took hold of him, then.

“Yeowtch, they were awful. Why didn’t you remind me to take them off the fire. I know how to smuggle us into Novyi Zem,” Jesper says, carrying the deep pot over to their chosen clean bit of floor. Next to the windowsill, so Kaz can sit down with a little less discomfort—the house has been cleaned out apart from the marriage bed, really, and making Kaz go in there now… Making Inej go in there now, when it’s where last night he and Kaz had sex… And it’s not like they were loud, but who knows what Inej read into them pacing around each other for an hour. This is much less awkward. Besides, Jesper’s recently had some great experiences with floors.

Inej doesn’t stop playing with her knife, even after she balances her stamppot served on woodboard on her knees and digs in with her slightly bent spoon. She hasn’t set it down all morning, even carried it into town when they went looking for something to eat, and while she’s been supervising Jesper’s cooking—making sure he’s reading the recipe, keeping him on-track, bickering with him over unclear or illegible instructions—she’s been twirling it around her fingers. A truly remarkable feat, given that it’s the piece of shit knife that Jesper cobbled together from coat buttons, and he didn’t know what he was doing at all except that it should probably be sharp. Inej really needs to talk him through the finer points of balance if she wants him to overhaul the thing.

“They’re not letting in any more refugees from Kerch, you said,” Jesper starts setting up the explanation for his ingenious plan, while he passes over Kaz’ portion and another spoon he dug out from the bottom of a cabinet and small-scienced back into shape.

“The rich Kerch started running first, when the Darkling advanced. Anyone who’d ever had a Grisha indenture… They probably got in. They had the money. As for the rest… well, we’ve all heard of what happened in Fjerda, unless we’re Jesper and too busy drinking and playing Makker’s Wheel—”

“Hey! I was trying to pay off your indenture,” Jesper complains, while nibbling on his surprisingly decent if underspiced potato mash. “I’m Zemeni. They’ll let me in.”

Kaz still hasn’t touched his food. He hasn’t put it away either though, hand cradling the board instead of throwing it at Jesper. Maybe it’s because he’s too curious about the plan. Jesper should have waited, but he was too excited, and now Kaz is frowning as he replies, “So you keep saying. How does that help us? I assume you wouldn’t leave the two of us behind, after all that trouble you took.”

It feels good, to hear him say that. Almost good enough to forgive that Kaz doesn’t like his lunch. “That’s where my plan comes in. I’ve finally figured it out. If we’re married—”

“We can’t marry each other,” Kaz rasps. Before Jesper gets too sad about that, he continues, “In case you haven’t yet learned to count, we’re three people now.”

“I know. That’s why I’ve been thinking it over for so long. But divorce exists, you know so I was thinking that our story should be—and I’ll write to Da, but I thought you should probably agree first—I married one of you and then fell in love with the other but I still loved both, so I was trying to—”

Inej coughs. Laughs. Yeah, she’s definitely laughing at him, and then she says, “You’re going to tell your father about your marriage in a letter—your multiple marriages, because not only did you get married without inviting him, you already traded in your wife for a younger, prettier model. You lothario!”

“If you think that Kaz—actually, are you younger than Inej?”

Kaz, spoon in mouth, glares down at him.

“I’m trying to save our lives here. I’d appreciate some cooperation! And Da will forgive me, when he sees how happy I am with my new bonebreaking gangster wife and my old knife-twirling gangster wife who I had to divorce for petty bureaucratic reasons. Do you like it?”

Another spoonful of stamppot disappears into Kaz’ mouth. His eyes are closed while he chews, and then he looks away. His voice is hoarser than normal when he mumbles, “It tastes exactly the way I—it’s good.”

“Better than unseasoned rabbit charcoal. Anyway, it might throw the Darkling off our scent some more, if we disguise Kaz as a woman—and don’t be sexist. Women come in all shapes and sizes, no-one’s going to suspect a thing. Also we’re from Ketterdam. If any woman like Kaz can marry anywhere, it’s here. It’ll be a scandal, if they refuse to honour our marriage. Letting a few poors drown outside Zemeni borders, sure, but breaking the mutual recognition of administrative documents?”

Jesper is actually pretty proud of his reasoning here. That makes it even more annoying when Kaz rasps, “No-one will ever believe I’m your wife. I can’t even touch you.”

“No-one’s going to believe I love you? Are you sure?” Jesper flutters his eyes up at Kaz.

“He has a point, Jesper. You won’t be the first desperate refugee forging a marriage to leave.” Inej twirls her knife again. “You’ll need to act the part.”

“We’ll just tell them the truth.”

“Which is?”

“You don’t want to be touched, and if they have a follow-up question, they’d better direct it to the barrel of my gun. I’m not letting anybody non-consensually grope my beloved Kerch wife. Never again. Not over my dead body.”

“Won’t they think it’s weird if Kaz—sorry, your beautiful Kerch wife doesn’t let you touch him?”

“I don’t care. I told you. Let the world bow to us. I love my ingenious, vicious Kerch wife, completely independent of any physical contact we may or may not ever have. I respect my stubborn loyal deadpan Kerch wife far too much to cross those boundaries just for social custom. Also, my sweet murderous Kerch wife has a mean right hook.”

“Thankyou for the demonstration of your acting skills,” Kaz rasps drily, scratching his spoon on his serving board for the last flecks of stamppot. “We’re not going to Novyi Zem, though. There are more amplifiers than just the Stag he forced into me, and we’re going to find the rest. I’m going to tear apart every miserable molecule in the Darkling’s body, cell by fucking cell.”

“And you just let me keep talking?”

“It was entertaining.” Kaz licks his spoon, and then the board. Any second now, Jesper will tell him there’s more left in the pot. “Write your Da. We’ll keep your plan as a backup, in case everything goes horribly wrong. You’ll need a ring, though, to make it official,” and Kaz starts rooting through the kefta pockets.

Jesper can’t breathe. Is Kaz really…? He can’t breathe until he looks at Kaz’ stretched-out, gloved hand, and—

“How the fuck did you steal that one?! I was just wearing it!”

#jesper fahey #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #kaz x jesper #dimtraces makes things #shadow & bone #shadow and bone

[lambicpentametre]

i just Tore through reading the grishaverse books (shadow and bone all the way to king of scars; i haven’t gotten my hands on rule of wolves yet) after finishing shadow and bone on netflix, and of course (of course!) it was enough to distract me from either of the two fics i’m supposed to be working on right now and actual schoolwork. so! :/ sorry to those of you who might be hoping for more elle alle voir content, this is decidedly Not that. whoops. 

be warned: spoilers for the shadow and bone trilogy and nikolai’s duology are ahead!

INTRO: this is a king of scars/ruin and rising AU wherein alina performed her “miracle” on the fold but then... disappeared. mal, unfortunately, is dead, and so is the darkling; his body was burned on a funeral pyre as in the book, but alina’s body was never recovered. all they found of sankta alina was the fetter of the sea whip’s scales in pieces. morozova’s colllar (and alina herself) were nowhere to be seen. instead, alina was subsumed into the phantom fold body and soul when she killed the darkling just like elizaveta stealing the darkling’s corpse and she’s been living in the fold for the past three years with the rest of the saints, most of whom scoff at her “sainthood” and belittle her whenever they get the chance (looking at you, elizaveta). i do like to imagine that eventually, alina and juris have a tentatively okay relationship, somewhere between alina’s relationship with botkin and her relationship with zoya by the end of siege and storm, i.e., i am going to hit you but only because i like you and i want you to get better at fighting but i can’t tell you that to your face so instead i will show you with this super awesome punch i learned, isn’t that cool? 

SET-UP: like sankta lizabeta and sankt juris, alina has also been performing miracles, specifically at keramzin and at her altar in the fold, showering the people in meteor showers every day at noon, bright falling stars that you could see even at the highest point of the sun. nikolai and zoya (and yuri) still make their pilgrimage to the various places that claim miracles on their way to the rosewood, and at keramzin they witness sankta alina’s miracle of light. of course, it only makes nikolai think of another night he watched the stars fall from the heavens with alina, and when he finally pays homage to the saint who saved him and his country, he’s blinded by a star heading straight for him. when the light finally disappears and nikolai lowers his hands from his eyes, he’s shocked to find he’s holding something he’d thought he’d never see again: the lantsov emerald, last seen in the possession of one alina starkov. this only lights an even brighter fire under nikolai’s ass to get to the fold, wherein he, zoya, and yuri are taken by the saints into the phantom fold. 

so with that super long intro/set-up, here’s a scene i wrote of alina and nikolai’s reunion, set right after nikolai et al. arrive in the fold. 

Nikolai watched nervously as Juris led Zoya away, leaving him alone with a woman he’d thought long dead.

“She’ll be okay,” Alina said, watching as he fiddled with the dirt-stained cuff of his jacket. “If Zoya can survive Baghra and the Darkling, Juris will be a piece of cake.”

“It’s not Zoya I worry for,” Nikolai said, thankful for the reprieve she offered him. “My general is a capable woman. I fear for Sankt Juris’ life.”

Alina smiled wistfully. “It’s nothing but a half-life we live here. A facsimile of existence.” She wrapped her arms around herself, staring out across the empty sands of the phantom Fold. 

She looked so sad and alone in that moment, it was all Nikolai could do to not sweep her into his arms, steal Zoya away, and spirit them all out of this dreadful place, wherever they were.

“Saints, Alina,” he said after a moment. “I missed you.”

When Alina looked back at him, he could see the tears shining in her eyes, and before he knew what he was doing, he’d crossed the room and gathered her into a crushing hug. That was all it took for the dam to break, for the second he’d pulled her to his chest, Alina began sobbing with a grief he could barely imagine. He held them both up as she trembled, petting her bone-white hair. 

As she finally quieted down and her cries subsided, Nikolai tucked her head under his chin and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. Alina took a deep breath, and he found himself following her. 

“I’m sorry it took me so long to find you,” he whispered. “If I’d known—” 

Alina turned in his arms, staring up at him. “You couldn’t have predicted this would happen. None of us knew what to expect. But you came when I called, and you’re here now, and we’ll get out of this together, us and Zoya and that twig of a priest you dragged with you,” she said, disdain for Yuri evident in her voice.

“With Sol Koroleva and Zoya so firmly against him, I’m not sure I’d want to bet on Yuri right now,” he laughed.

Alina pouted but then straighted up in his arms. “Well, when Zoya and I agree on something, we’re usually right.” 

Nikolai reluctantly let Alina go. The inherent warmth of the Sun Saint felt enough to banish the demon for a moment, and as soon as she stepped away he could feel the monster rising to the surface, as if to follow her. Like calls to like, didn’t the Grisha say? He could never be sure who it was, himself or the monster, but one of them grabbed her hand, and when she looked at him again, it felt like the sun breaking through the clouds after a violent storm.

“Nikolai?” she asked, worry perched on her brow.

“I… have something for you,” he said lamely. And though he did, the truth of it was he didn’t want her to leave him alone with the monster just yet. So he tugged her arm until she was standing before him and with his free hand reached into his pocket for the object that had sat there since he’d received it.

Slowly, gently, he pulled out the Lantsov Emerald and watched Alina’s face light up with recognition.

“Of course, it was already one of the flashiest pieces in the Lantsov collection, but now it’s been blessed by the Sun Saint herself,” Nikolai teased. “So I’m not sure I should give it back to you just yet, since you seem so intent on losing it.”

Alina was holding her breath. “I wasn’t sure it would work,” she said finally. “I didn’t know if it would— if I could—” 

Nikolai clasped their hands together. “Anything worth doing—”

“—starts with a bad idea,” Alina finished with a sad smile. 

“I love it when you quote me.”

She stared at the ring. “I was so afraid,” she began. “That it wouldn’t work, that you’d finally come all this way to see me and I’d fail. But it was the only way I knew to show you it was really me, that I was still here.

“To give it up, to give it back… It was the only thing I had left, and it felt like if I’d lost it—” 

Then I had lost you. 

Nikolai didn’t need to hear the words fall from her lips to know them. 

Alina looked away, but Nikolai brought their hands up to his lips and pressed a light kiss to her fingers to make her look at him again. 

“I kept it safe for you,” he said softly.

#grishaverse #king of scars #nikolai lantsov #alina starkov #nikolina #alina x nikolai #shadow and bone #show and tell

[siderealxmelody]

That's Enough

@xdarklingx

Alina watched in horror as the glass shattered and Grisha stormed through. She braced for impact, for more death - but none came.

All around her runes flared to life - green and vibrant. Ivan had frozen and looked - was that fearful? What did he have to fear? Not even the combined effort of Tamar and Tolya had kept him down for long.

"That's enough."

The voice was new and they all turned to the elevator as a man stepped out. Alina dimly remembered him from the Winter Fete, he'd smiled at her and offered a warm handshake.

"The Sun Summoner, we've been waiting for you. Welcome."

He wasn't smiling now, in fact he looked like a completely different person.

"Hans, what - how dare you switch -"

"I haven't abandoned you Ivan, I haven't abandoned anyone. But this Civil War is over, it will only serve to kill us in the end. I cannot abide by that - I refuse to."

The Darkling hovered outside but even he looked grim - as if this was something he'd wished to avoid. But that couldn't be right...could it? Hans was just a healer wasn't he?

Hans swept past her and faced Ivan a few feet away.

"Bring them to me."

Alina stared around her in confusion, no Grisha moved to follow Hans command. Some even snickered at the orders. Who was Hans to order anyone?

But then she felt it, invisible hands grabbing her wrists and tugging her forward. She dug her heels in and tried to summon but the runes flared around the room.

Alina felt a panic as she realized why Ivan hadn't bothered to try to kill anyone, why none of his Grisha had moved - the runes kept their powers out.

Hans finally glanced at her as she was forced to her knees. Rope appeared from seemingly nowhere bandaged her hands together. Only when she had been bound did the pressure release and like a ripple the invisibility of the person before her lifted.

It was a Grisha she had never seen, a woman, the runes on her bare arms pulsed softly. Alina guessed whatever magic this was she was immune to the effects of the room. What was happening?

She looked up as she heard a cry and Aleksander was slammed to his knees. The same rope bound to him as he was walked and placed to his knees as well. They were across from each other but he didn't even look at her.

Alina tried not to focus on the hollow pang in her chest at that. She should be worrying about whatever Hans had planned, she should be -

"I'll save everyone the speculation. 500 years ago we had a kingdom, 500 years Grisha had a Sanctuary to go to where they were safe. 500 years ago Aleksander Morozova payed a terrible price for wanting to change things, for daring to want more than the life we had. We had a kingdom but no land, a Sanctuary that was little more than a farce of what should have been. Aleksander dreamed of an empire, of a land united safe and glorious under Grisha rule."

Hans's voice carried, a hushed silence descended as he spoke. Even she was struggling hard not to listen to this. Judging by the faces of her fellow Grisha no one knew this either. Even Nikolai had paused his orders to listen. But Ivan, Genya didn't react - their eyes held...was that sorrow? What price had this Aleksander payed?

Hans took a breath and continued.

"Aleksander asked to mete out justice for the price he was forced to pay for his dream. He sold my brother and I on a simple promise: no more running, no more hiding. If they saw as monsters, well make bigger ones so they have to rely on us to save them. We will become their savors not their monsters."

Hans stared at The Darkling who hadn't looked away as he spoke. He sneered up at the healer.

"Finish the tale Hans."

"Aleksander released The Fold, Maven made him his monsters and I helped him sway the kings and queens of the land to help us. We made this war, we made this world, but I told him from the beginning that I was doing this for my people, for The Grisha. It was my great-grandfather who created the Sanctuary, who founded the Grisha Kingdom. I was continuing that promise - as long as it benefited the majority of Grisha The Darkling and his Fold stayed."

There were gasps and shouts as people slowly put the pieces together. She shook her head, no, no this - they'd wanted this was one thing. But to say the world they wanted was this? How dare they -

"But this Civil War benefits no one, not you, not my people. So your time has come to end -"

"We need the Sun Summoner to end The Fold!"

Alina wasn't sure who spoke but she felt a rush of relief at that. That was true, they needed her to stop this, to end the wall of shadow and it's horrors.

"No, he is connected to The Fold we just -"

"Do you expect me to watch as you kill him Hans?"

The room fell silent again as Ivan spoke, there was a coldness she'd only ever heard directed at her. Hans to her surprise only smiled and shook his head.

"No, no one is dying Ivan. I - but this needs to stop. It ends here."

He turned to the Grisha who had bound her and held his hand out. She dropped two dark jagged things in his palm. As Hans held one up Alina realized it was a thorn like one that would come from a rosebush. Only it was as long and thick as her middle finger.

"This is Thornwood, just like from the Ravkan fairytale. It can posion as you know, but it can also heal. Ivan, which of them would you like to do?"

Ivan looked from the thorns to Aleksander and her. Alina noticed his hands shaking and he shook his head. He stepped backward and shook his head again.

"N - no, I - no don't make me -"

"Do her then. You were right, the light doesn't belong to her, take it from her like you've wanted to since you met her."

Ivan wavered, he looked to The Darkling - to Aleksander. But Aleksander hadn't looked away from Hans. Ivan turned back to Hans and held his hand out and took the thorn from him. Alina briefly wondered if he'd use it on Hans, take his power from him.

But Ivan didn't get closer, he just knelt before her and pushed the shoulder of her kefta away. She flinched, flushing at the sudden intimacy of this. He gripped her shoulder finally looking at her.

"When this is all over Alina...maybe I'll tell you the story of our family. Maybe I - it's the only gift I can give you, the only one you deserve. Now, hold still."

No one moved to her aid, no one stopped Ivan as he pushed the thorn just above her heart. Her mind was reeling but she was in awe as the thorn began to glow with a light - her light.

He hadn't let go of her shoulder and watched with her as the light drained from her. As she finally got what she had wanted since this whole ordeal began.

"You won't be an Otkazat'sya you'll have another power. Aleksander was a Durast before - before everything happened. Perhaps you'll be too, or perhaps you'll be a healer like -"

He cut himself and looked away, blinking away tears, his nails dug into her shoulder. In a moment that surprised her she reached for his other hand on the ground. She layed them on top of his and to her shock he laced their hands together, gripping them tightly.

"It was never about you Alina."

----------

Hans sat back watching the thorn fill with darkness. He didn't offer Aleksander any soft words of comfort - that wasn't their relationship. More importantly he wouldn't insult him further by doing such things.

He instead offered a fuller explanation, bearing the inside of his wrist to him. The red x was slowly fading as the thorn filled with darkness.

"Your mother demanded a blood-vow from me when the Fold went up. She ordered me to finish you when and if you ever became a danger to Grisha. I supposed she thought I was going to kill you - I thought about it. But I - we both know I could never kill you."

We both know who would hurt the most if I ever tried.

He didn't look at Ivan, he didn't dare try to touch him. Ivan had given him this, he'd done this. He'd never asked Ivan to change, to deny what he felt - but he'd done this for him.

If Hans had ever questioned if Ivan had truly loved him, this put those worries to bed. It was reassuring in a bittersweet way. He had hoped to never test such things.

Hans swallowed and looked from his wrist to Aleksander. Pulling his sleeve down as the mark fully faded and he pulled the thorn free.

"Now, where is my brother Aleksander?"

#book r&r verse before baghra dies :) #would love zoya and genya reactions to all of this but this is mostly for alek :) #xdarklingx

[the-pen-and-the-stethoscope]

So while Six of Crows has been on my to read list for a while now when I saw that Shadow and Bone was coming to Netflix and realized they were all part of the same little universe I was like *rolls up sleeves* K guess it’s time to read five books in one month to prepare for this new series drop. (special shout out to @darklesmylove​ because it’s mostly your blog posts that convinced me I had to read this series...I give you this as a gift...) 

And now I present to you (in the order which I read them) the events in the Shadow and Bone/Six of Crows books that made me go ABSOLUTELY FERAL (wow there’s a lot more of these than I thought there were). 

- “The problem with wanting,” he whispered, his mouth trailing along my jaw until it hovered over my lips, “is that it makes us weak.” (unfortunately the last time I was seduced by the Darkling - NEVER AGAIN BAD SIR! But this was fucking hot) 

- THE. FIGHT. OVER. THE. STAG. (Just...Alina not killing it, the Darkling is here, now he’s going to kill it. NOW ALINA IS IN FRONT OF THE STAG SAVING IT. NOW SHE WANTS MAL TO SACRIFICE HER. NOW THE COLLAR IS AROUND HER NECK AND NOW SHE’S UNDER HIS POWER AHHHHH) Bonus: “Shhhh. Quiet now, or I will let Ivan kill him. Slowly.” 

- When Alina figures out the dream and TAKES THE POWER BACK!!! (yaaaaasss queen!)

- When the Darkling finds Alina and Mal in Cofton and that whole fight scene and her getting bit and then I had to WAIT UNTIL THE REST OF THE BOOKS CAME IN THE MAIL

- “From what I know of the Ice Court, whoever stole my DeKappel is exactly who I need for this job.” “Then you’d be better off hiring him. Or her.” “Indeed. But I’ll have to settle for you.” (I’m 50 pages in and in love with Kaz Bekker, someone help me) 

- “Not just yet, Inej.” The rasp of stone on stone. Her eyes flew open. Kaz. (ugh my cold cold heart is awake and beats only for them!) 

- Because I’ve been looking for an excuse to talk to you for two days. (literally like......)

- When Jordie and Kaz get tricked. (I mean all of Kaz’s back story but that was...ugh..........)

- It was because she was listening so closely that she knew the exact moment when Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, the bastard of the Barrel and the deadliest boy in Ketterdam, fainted. 

- When Nina runs into the guards and the alarm goes off and I realize that I’m an idiot and OBVIOUSLY THINGS WERE GOING TO GO WRONG. 

- WHEN INEJ TOUCHES KAZ’S FACE. His eyes were nearly black, the pupils dilated. She could see it took every last bit of his terrible will for him to remain still beneath her touch. And yet, he did not pull away. She knew it was the best he could offer. It was not enough. 

- He slammed his fist against the window. “Do not speak my name.” Then he smiled, a smile as cold and unforgiving as the northern sea. “Welcome to the Ice Court, Nina Zenik. Now our debt is paid.” (like FUCK MATTHIAS GOT ME TOO. WHAT A GOOD ACT!)

- I have been made to protect you. Only in death will I be kept from this oath. It was the vow of the druskelle to Fjerda. And now it was Matthias’ promise to her. (OMGGGGGG) 

- “This is going to sting a bit,” said the druskelle holding the whip. His voice was rasping, familiar. His hands were gloved. “But if we live, you’ll thank me later.” His hood slid off, and Kaz Brekker looked back at them. 

- The sun was out for once, and Inej had turned her face to it. Her eyes were shut, her oil-black lashes fanned over her cheeks. The harbor wind had lifted her dark hair, and for a moment Kaz was a boy again, sure that there was magic in this world. (YEAH OKAY. AND THIS IS HIS LAST THOUGHT BEFORE DROWNING.) 

- WHEN THEY STEAL THE TANK. THE TANK. AND THEN DRIVE IT THROUGH THE FUCKING TOWN. 

- Nina on parem. 

- “I will have you without armor, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all.” (SCREEAAAAMS. BANGS HAND AGAINST BOOK. DIES.) 

- “Kaz knew the instant he made his mistake...in that moment of threat, when he should have thought only of the fight, he looked at Inej.” (asdlfkasgkjasglk;sdfjl) 

- I’m going to get my money, Kaz vowed. And I’m going to get my girl. (YEAH BITCH!) 

- When Alina first sees the Darkling while they are traveling the fold (I froze, I read it like four times, I couldn’t believe what was happening)

- When Mal suggests they go to that stupid party and then Alina actually agrees (I literally was like...well something bad is going to happen and I hate it here) 

- When the Darkling shows up after Alina and Mal kiss. “Another otkazat��sya, Alina?” the Darkling mocked. (sdflkajd) 

- “I can’t decide if you’re an idiot, or an idiot.” (ugh Nikolai, marry me) 

- two pages later: “You’re a spectacular actor,” I said drily. “Do you think so?” he asked. Then he leaned in and whispered, “I’m doing ‘humble’ right now.” (FUCK ME)

- “I want to kiss you,” Nikolai said. “But I won’t. Not until you’re thinking of me instead of trying to forget him.” (Am I the only one who found this cute??? Why did Alina get upset??? Do I have Nikolai-colored goggles on??? Maybe...) 

- When the Darkling came to Alina in her sleep and then PRETENDED TO BE MAL SO HE COULD HAVE HIS WAY WITH HER?!?!?!?!?! (ahhhhhhhhhh) “I missed you too, Alina.” That voice. Cool and smooth as glass. (AHHHHH)

- Nikolai stood up, his chair scraping loudly against the parquet floor. “When did you lift the blockades? How long have the roads been open?” (LSDAKLFSDLFDKASLDKLSKLKLL) 

- “Not bad looking?” said another voice. “He’s damnably handsome.” Luchenko scowled. “Since when - “ “Brave in battle, smart as a whip.” Now the voice seemed to be coming from above us. Luchenko craned his neck, peering into the trees. “An excellent dancer,” said the voice. “Oh, and an even better shot.” (And then I damn near died.) 

- There’s a whole three pages (that I will not re-type here) after they arrive at the Spinning Wheel of Nikolai just being *chef’s kiss* flawless. Some great lines include: “Everyone needs a hobby.” “I thought yours was preening.” “Two hobbies.” “Should I be offended that he doesn’t want to dine with us? I set an excellent table, and I rarely drool.” “What a filthy mind you have. I was referring to puzzles and the perusal of edifying texts.” “Last chance to run.” 

- “Alina, I’ll be back to fetch you for dinner, but should you grow restless, do feel free to run screaming from the room or take a dagger to her. Whatever seems most fitting at the time.” (asldjkasl;dkfs;lkd NIKOLAI) 

- Okay gunna skip ahead - you can assume any time Nikolai said anything I screamed. 

- Nikolia’s second proposal (THE EMERALD!!! JUST HOW HE PUTS IT ON TOP OF THE WALL) 

- Nikolai’s third proposal. Nikolai’s skin was warm, his grip gentle. I’d wondered if I would ever feel something so simple again or if the power in me would just keep jumping and crackling. (THIS is why he is perfect for her - no jolt of electricity, just warmth and comfort!!!) 

- SERGEI!!!!

- When Nikolai gets fucking taken over by a nichevo’ya (I HATE EVERYONE)

- When Baghra sacrifices herself 

- When we finally FINALLY find out what makes Mal so special (I mean....his tracking was OTHERWORLDLY I can’t believe people weren’t more fucking freaked out by him) 

- “The Darkling marched on Keramzin.” (Literally screamed: “MY HEART HURTS.” I was crying. I nearly threw the book down. “BUT THE CHILDREN!” I say with my fists in the air. I am become a blade.) 

- Nikolai visiting Alina while he is the monster and trying to make himself better (ahhhhh tears!!! THE EMERALD!!!) The words died on my lips. Nikolai turned my palm over and slid the ring onto my finger. (FUUUUCK. PAAAAIN.) 

- When Nikolai comes back and FIGHTS FOR THEM IN THE FOLD!!!! HE MAY BE A MONSTER BUT HE IS NOT THE DARKLING’S MONSTER, BITCH!! 

- “Please,” I sobbed. “Bring him back to me.” (lkadsflkj this was actually devastating even though I’m not a huge Mal fan)

- “We need more light,” he said. A choked laugh escaped me. I held up my hands, pleading with the light and with any Saint who had ever lived. it was no good. (UGHHHH. MORE PAIN.) 

- Tamar sobbed. Toyla swore. And there it was again: the thready, miraculous sound of Mal drawing breath. (and also the first time I breathed for an entire chapter!) 

- “Alina,” he said and kissed the scar on my palm, “I remember everything.” (Literally the last like twenty pages of this book I just gave up and was like actually Mal is adorable and I need to protect him at all costs.) 

- “Really I just wanted to look at the words.” (ughhhhh) 

- Once a man arrived with a fleet of toy boats that the children launched on the creek in a miniature regatta. The teachers noted that the stranger was young and handsome, with golden hair and hazel eyes, but most definitely off. He stayed late to dinner and never once removed his gloves. (NIKOLAI SIGHTING IN THE EPILOGUE MY HEART GOES ON)

- When Van Eck thinks Kaz is coming to get Inej and then he tells Inej and then she is WILLING HIM to not show up and then it is revealed he wasn’t there all along (BOOM BITCH THAT’S HOW KAZ BREKKER FUCKING WORKS.)

- “Those were my mother’s favorite flower.” 

- “Why the net, Kaz?” I couldn’t bear to watch you fall. (POETRY OKAY?)

- Jesper and Wylan going to see Wylan’s mother and just fucking everything about that chapter. 

- When Inej almost FALLS INTO THE FUCKING SILO AND IT’S THE END OF THE GD CHAPTER 

- “Pick up the pace,” Kaz said, eyeing his watch. “If I spill a single drop of this, it will burn straight through the floor onto my father’s dinner guests.” “Take your time.” 

- “We’ll fight our way out together,” Inej whispered. Nina glanced from Inej to Kaz and saw they both wore the same expression. Nina new that look. It came after the shipwreck, when the tide moved against you and the sky had gone dar. It was the first sight of land, the hope of shelter and even salvation that might await you on a distant shore. (AHHHHHH) 

- Wylan’s first thought was that this boy had the most perfectly shaped lips he’d ever seen. His second was that his father had sent someone new to kill him. (Wylan you are so adorable it’s adorable) 

- Inej was moving before she thought of it. She couldn’t just watch him die, she wouldn’t. They had him down now, heavy boots kicking and stomping at his body. her knives were in her hands. She’d kill them all. She’d pile the bodies to the rafters for the stadwatch to find. But in that moment, through the wide slats in the banister landing, she saw his eyes were open. His gaze found hers. He’d known she was there all along. Of course he had. He always kew how to find her. He age the barest shake of his bloodied head. (THESE TWO!!)

- “My leg! My leg!” “I recommend a cane,” Kaz said. (cackling) 

- When Sturmhond (aka Nikolai ***swoons***) showed up in Crooked Kingdom. (What actually happened: me reading a description of a “fox-like” man with Genya and Zoya and screaming and saying to myself “OMG WHEN I TURN THE PAGE IT WILL CONFIRM THAT NIKOLAI IS IN THE BUILDING I CAN’T” (did I mention I’m in love with him??? already??? k))

- When Jesper and Wylan FINALLY kiss FOR REAL (this was a big chapter for me) This was the kiss he’d been waiting for. It was a gunshot. It was prairie fire. it was the spin of Makker’s Wheel. Jesper felt the pounding of his heart - or was it Wylan’s? - like a stampede in his chest, and the only thought in his head was a happy, startled, Oh. 

- CHAPTER 33 - just everything, everything about the reveals in this chapter. The money being funneled to the Shu, not being able to trace even the RANSOM NOTE back to Kaz. WYLAN SHOWING UP!!!! “ARE YOU SURE THEY WERE PEKKA’S MEN?” !!!!!!!!

- “Do something,” Matthias growled at Kaz. “This is about to turn ugly.” Kaz’s face was as impassive as always. “Do you think so?” (bahahahahaha) 

- Nina’s just complete glee over the chaos she creates!!! “She was the Queen of Mourning, and in its depths, she would never drown.” 

- Jesper using his fucking power!!!!!! 

- She stared up at him. He was going to miss that look of surprise. (HE’S GOING TO LET HER GO. HE KNOWS HE IS GOING TO LET HER GO.)

- KAZ’S PLAN BECOMING CLEAR IN IT’S BRILLIANCE AS EACH CHAPTER GOES BY. 

- Inej frowned. “I thought you and Nina chose four outbreak sites on the Staves.” Kaz straightened his cuffs. “I also had her stop at the Menagerie.” She smiled then, her eyes red, her cheeks scattered with some kind of dust. It was a smile he thought he might die to earn again. (AHHHHHHHHHHHHH) 

- “A sedative,” said the medik. “Is that safe for a pregnant woman?” “For me.” (This is just FLAWLESS in its depiction of people who don’t do OB care regularly.)

- Matthias saw the anger there, the rage. He knew it well. But he was still surprised when he heard the shot. (NOOOOOOOO!!!) 

- “Has she at least done it before?” said Kaz. “For this purpose?” asked Sturmhond. “I’ve seen her do it twice. It worked splendidly. Once.” (NIKOLAI I BEG YOU!) 

- When Matthias DIES?!??! (I’M SORRY WHO LET THIS HAPPEN??)

- “You will meet him again in the next life,” said Inej. “But only if you suffer this now.” 

- Wylan getting all of his father’s money because KAZ HAS BEEN PLANNING THIS ALL ALONG??!

- Jesper leaned in and said, quietly enough that no one else could hear, “I can read to him.” (alksdflk;jasfl;jkd that was hot) 

- “Well hopefully the medik will be here to fix my ribs soon,” he said as he headed back into the parlor. “Yeah?” “Yes,” said Wylan, glancing briefly over his shoulder, his cheeks now red as cherries. “I’d like to make a down payment.” (OMG WYLAN?!?!?! IN FRONT OF MY SALAD?!?! IS THIS ALLOWED?!?!)

- At some point, Jesper realized Kaz was gone. “Not one for goodbyes, is he?” he muttered. “He doesn’t say goodbye,” Inej said. She kept her eyes on the lights of the canal. Somewhere in the garden, a night bird began to sing. “He just lets go.” (TEARS.)

- She felt his knuckles slide against hers. Then his hand was in her hand, his palm was pressed against her own. A tremor moved through him. Slowly, he let their fingers entwine. (I gasped so loud i literally woke my cat up from a deep sleep.)

- “Wait,” he said. The burn of his voice was rougher than usual. “Is my tie straight?” Inej laughed, her hood falling back from her hair. “That’s the laugh,” he murmured. (THAT’S THE LAUGH. THAT’S THE LAUGH. AHHHHH) 

Okay done. Gunna go stare at the ceiling until tomorrow night/whenever I finally get King of Scars and Rule of Wolves in the mail (BECAUSE YOU KNOW MY SORRY ASS IS DYING AT THE THOUGHT OF TWO BOOKS ALL ABOUT NIKOLAI) 

#shadow and bone #sab #the grisha trilogy #grishaverse #six of crows #soc #crooked kingdom #seige and storm #ruin and rising #leigh bardugo #thanks to all who actually read this #also thanks to everyone on this site who it is a fan #you all convinced me to read this series even if you didn't know I was stalking #not really sure what to do with myself now #reading #writing #writeblr #kaz brekker #nikolai lantsov #my love nikolai #your honor i love him #inejgayfa #jesper fahey #jesper x wylan #wylan van eck #alina starkov #mal oretsev #the darkling #nina zenik #matthias

[amiramorozova]

Dual Summoner x The Darkling pt. 36

Pairing: Dual Summoner x The Darkling/Aleksander Morozova/General Kirigan

Word count: 1926

Glossary: Sol Koroleva - Sun Queen, Moye Serdtse - My heart

When morning came I was still very comfortable laying here in Aleksander's bed where it was just us. We laid there like that for just a bit longer but then we heard the sound of the door opening. I opened my eyes not moving as I felt Aleksander adjust on his side looking towards the door seeing Zoya there with two plates. The smile that was on her face was soon replaced with a frown as if she'd been set up to see us like this in his bed. Then I remembered that Aleksander had talked with Ivan last night before we'd left.

Did he intentionally set her up to see this?  I thought 

I sat up as I watched her, Aleksander walked, overseeing her shock as he took the plates before she could drop them. Zoya looked like she was going to attack me or something and I couldn't figure out at first why. My hand moved on the black silk sheets and then it dawned on me that he might have kept most women out of his bed. I stood up as I looked at her while I fixed my hair from where I was asleep. 

"You can go Zoya." Aleksander said in a dismissive tone, that caught her attention as she looked at him his back to her as she looked hurt. Most girls knew he was never committed to them but that was different with me. I looked at her wrists out of curiosity seeing both were blank that she hadn't found her soulmate yet. Aleksander might have been hope for those he'd convinced with time to give in to him. "So this is really how it is?" Zoya asked 

Aleksander sighed as he walked over to me and he took my right hand before showing my wrist. I knew she would never understand that his initials were AM but she looked at it. "Those are not your initials." Zoya said, he was without his shirt and he showed his wrist by mine revealing AS. "I don't need to remind you that there are things I don't share with everyone." Aleksander said to her

The hurt among her eyes was pretty clear and I knew that there was just so much I could do. I wanted to just disappear for a few moments but she didn't seem to be wanting to give up. "So when is the wedding?" Zoya asked, "we haven't decided." I said as I wasn't going to rush soon, "Possibly in a few weeks." Aleksander said 

I looked at him knowing that I just said we hadn't decided but then he seemed to be set to send a message to Zoya. "Well the youngest tsarevich is going to be returning." Zoya said as she left. I remember Genya talking about the royals. Prince Vasily was here and the other one that I didn't know his name she referred to as the sobachka which I thought was pretty rude. Looking up at Aleksander he didn't seem bothered by this but he wasn't calm either that I could tell. I got close putting a hand on his cheek which made him look at me as I leaned up kissing him as I felt him kiss me back along with calming down.

"It will all work out." I assured him, he leaned his forehead against mine for a moment. "Moye Serdtse, you seem so confident of this and you haven't even met the sobachka." Aleksander said and I didn't see why everyone referred to this Prince as a puppy. Walking over to the table we sat there just as Ivan came in, setting down drinks and I felt like royalty, not a Grisha engaged to the General but this was normal for him. 

"Ivan, have the fabrikators make something presentable for Amira to meet the sobachka when he arrives." Aleksander said to Ivan, "Of course General." Ivan said as he left.

I ate without saying much after all what was there to say when everything was being decided for me except the wedding details. I hadn't noticed if they had the dress done yet or not. Maybe that was what held me back was my uncertainty of what it would be like. Maybe I wanted to make sure Aleksander was truly what I wanted even though we were connected through the stag's bones. Even when I thought about the stag I couldn't shake that feeling of failing to save it but it was with me. 

"Amira, you control the amplifier a little more than I thought you would. How is that possible?" Aleksander asked, "I am the one who killed it so I should have most of the control." I ate a bit while thinking before I smiled with a slight tilt of my head "I could have killed it, but I chose to spare it. I'm not a killer, I have never killed anything innocent in my life but it chose me. I already had part of its power before you had the necklace." I said as I saw his surprise but I just continued eating my breakfast.

"You have a good heart, something I am trying hard not to corrupt." Aleksander said as he ate from his plate, "You can ease your way into places the royals would never let me go being the Dual Summoner. Also since people call you Sol Koroleva, it allows more places where you are welcomed. " I finished my breakfast but I could pick up He was threatened by that, that there were other options. "Are you threatened that the youngest Prince is heading to Os Alta and knowing what we know people look at me as the solution." I asked

Aleksander didn't say anything right away as he finished his breakfast and his drink. "I won't allow the tsarevich or the sobachka to interfere with us." Aleksander said, I finished my breakfast but I knew that Zoya wasn't going to give up yet. '' Once I was done I walked over and kissed his cheek "I need to go but I will see you soon." I assured him

Going back to my room, I sat there looking at myself in the chair knowing Genya would show up. As if on queue she walked in and started to do her work as I was glad to get back here. Genya seemed to notice I was in a rather good mood and she smiled.

"You look good, what has put you in such a good mood?" Genya asked, I shrugged a bit "I guess it's seeing Zoya's expression when she found out General Kirigan is my soulmate. It was rather amusing but I saw a hint of disbelief that it isn't my initials but someone else's around here." I said to Genya. Genya watched my expression as she had me close my eyes for her to do what she needed with her kit.

"You seem to be enjoying this time with the General, but then you seem very close like there are things only the two of you can talk about." Genya said, "You're no longer a soldier in the army but more than what we could expect. A symbol of the future." 

I questioned those words a bit knowing there was a lot to still do. Then there was a knock on my door when Genya went to open it. There were three boxes brought in as they left. Walking over we opened them, seeing everything inside them, noticing that one was my wedding dress. I blushed a bit. The other is my new kefta for my promotion status once General Kirigan's wife and a new outfit to wear today.

"Well one way or the other they wanted a new Kefta on me." I said

We got me dressed for the way things were going today and I just went about my day as I would. When I walked out to be with the others Botkin looked at me seeing I was dressed in a little better clothes. "Dual summoner, you have the time to grace us with your presence. I heard you were in a fight with Fjerdans and lived. Good for you." Botkin said, I nod as I knew there were so many people I didn't know. 

I almost felt normal for once but then I saw Adrian was struggling and without a Kefta since he wasn't even part of this. "Why is he out here?" I asked, "they saw him using Grisha power, so they brought him out to train." Botkin said as I knew I could say otherwise. "No." I said as I looked over "Adrian over here." I said 

Adrian's fight was stopped as he came over as I put my arm around my cousin "Botkin, he went up against a Fjerdan with me. I don't need him to work so hard when I am going to work to get Grisha back where it needs to be." I said, "Everyone needs to know how to fight, what is he to you?" Botkin asked as I knew Adrian came with me. "My cousin." I said 

Botkin backed up as it was known that Aleksander proposed to me, all of the summoners knew so they were able to tell. I walked away with Adrian knowing that this was not going to be the end. More was coming and I just needed to get us through but I still wanted to wait. My authority would always be questioned until I was Aleksander’s wife.

"Did you need to do that?" Adrian asked, I smiled "yeah, we're going to Baghra, she can help you out a bit more than they can.  I'll work with you on Physical fighting and when you're ready we'll get you your own Grisha Steel weapon." I said leading him down the path

When we reached Baghra's home I was going to walk in with him as we stopped listening to her talking. "She knows how to use the stag, she really is the future." Aleksander said as he was pacing. "You must remember she can change her mind about this whole arrangement if she wants to." Baghra said but it was only him pacing. "I am well aware of everything, mother, but she wants you at the wedding. Look at it like a mercy that I don't do something more." Aleksander said

Baghra was calm from what I could tell "She's more powerful than you if she chose to be. She doesn't want all this and you can't push her into it. If she walks down that aisle I will watch knowing that I prepared her for all your manipulation tactics." Baghra said, I couldn't see but I could just tell from the voice. "Yes, she is perfect because she keeps me from going too far. I wanted to send the fold into West Ravka and she stopped me." Aleksander said as I smiled, even I heard Baghra chuckle "Good for her, maybe she is your redemption." Baghra said 

I opened the door, making our presence aware, surprising him as we walked in "Amira, I had no idea you were coming here." Aleksander said, "Yes, I thought Baghra could train my cousin. Don't you think Aleksander?" I asked with a smile. He didn't say anything, just composed himself and he nodded. "Of course, I couldn't ask for a better teacher." Aleksander said as he started to leave but not before kissing him. "See you later." he said before leaving

he used my words right back at me. I thought

Taglist: @lifeisingrey, @anonymous-storyteller

#aleksander morovoza #general kirigan #shadow and bone fanfiction #grishaverse #shadow and bone #team darkling #darkling x reader #darkling #the darkling #ben barnes #fanfic

[cheekygreenty]

Little Witch - Part 25

The Darkling x Reader

The black kefta hung from the tent hook elegantly, its blue thread glistening in the rays of the morning sun. The night had been swept away from you in the blink of an eye with the bright light peeking into the tent like an unwelcome guest. The big bed was also empty, Aleksander's side cold and vacant with no trace of his signature warmth. His scent still lingered though, the thick sheet soaking in his presence as much as you.

The kefta felt particularly heavy as you lifted it around your shoulders and clasped its belt around your waist. You would be boarding the skiff any minute now ready to play along with whatever plan Aleksander had. Truth be told, you would follow him to the ends of the earth and back. He was your silent stone to lean on, the shoulder you wanted to cry on. His company brought comfort and security to you that nobody else had ever given you, not your parents or siblings, nobody. Whether that be plainly down to Merzost or your love for him, you didn't know and didn't care.

'promise me you'll run and hide'

Aleksander wasn't selfless or humanitarian, he always put his life goal ahead of everyone, ahead of you. But this time he was begging you to run, to save yourself if something happened. But what could possibly happen on the skiff of all places? The words were meant to be reassuring no doubt, but they felt like a goodbye and that hurt. It's just a normal skiff journey to Novokribirsk you kept telling yourself despite that daunting dread pooling in your stomach.

Alina had arrived not long ago, his signature black carriage carrying the cuffed Sun-Summoner and bringing her to her tent. You hadn't yet had time to see her, so now you walked with determined haste, ready to give her a piece of your mind as you whipped the tent flap opened.

She stood dressed in a black gown still void of a black kefta no doubt, her hair neatly styled in a regal updo with glittering jewels hanging from a golden chain. But that wasn't what caught your eye, it was the Stag antler sticking out from her collarbone, the skin red and irritated. Her usually expressive face was blank, no emotion visible on her pale skin. Despite her state, you could basically feel the buzz of her power from where you stood. The amplifier was doing its job.

Her eyes found yours with a sharp glare and anger flooded her whole being. With her quick demeanor change came the clenching of her fists and a slight spark of light, small and pathetic you thought, does she not have an amplifier?

'You betrayed me' She stood up and took a couple steps towards you so you did the same, coming face to face with the living saint.

'I did no such thing. Now sit down before you hurt yourself' You seethed and she faltered, sitting down with a defeated sigh.

'Are you here to take my light too like he did? I'm sure there's enough to go around.... you know if you'd have asked me and told me everything then this never would have happened.'

'What are you talking about Alina?' Your angry expression shifted into one of slight confusion at her words.

'Don't act like you didn't know. I know you're not innocent, Baghra told me as much.'

'Don't listen to a word that wrench says.'

'Then who can I trust? Huh? You? Aleksander?' She threw her hands up in desperation and leaned her head back against the wall. ''I can't trust anyone, only Mal....but his life is being held over my head like a bargaining chip.' Her voice broke toward the end of the sentence but she recovered, squaring her shoulders and looking ahead at the tent wall again. 'Even though I can't physically to anything, you two still have your insurance don't you?'

'You need to stop speaking in riddles Alina, the Apparat has rubbed off on you too much.' At his mention, her eyes squinted at you in anger, seemingly aware of his situation back in Os Alta.

'Riddles? Do you prefer lies?'

'No. I choose to omit the truth and say what one wants to hear.'

'I would know'

'Why do you keep saying we took your light? We gave you the Stag' You circle back to her previous accusation, not caring for her petty allegation.

'No, he took my light with the Stag. I can't do anything, nothing. He took it all and is using it against me. Just like you told him to right?' You pause, what.

'Excuse me?' You stared at the girl incredulously. Aleksander did what? 'Alina if you are lying to me I will burn Malyen to a mere ember.'

'Don't you think I would have done something to you right now?' Her voice sneers at you with a poison you've never heard from her before but then it softens to a pitiful infliction. 'Did you not know?'

'Of course I didn't!' You shoot up out of the chair, knocking it over in the process. She just accused Aleksander of taking her Grisha power, of stripping her from the one thing the Saints gave her, light. What you did was nothing compared to this, you never took it all, that would be immoral, sinful. But he did.

'I was wondering why you didn't just take it yourself, I mean you wouldn't need the Stag in the first place.' Because he didn't trust me enough that's why I didn't do it.

'How did he do it?' You stared impatiently at her, your feet feeling restless and your whole body on edge. The anger started to bubble in your gut, slowly raging fire throughout your body.

'He had David use Merzost to join us together using the Stag antlers. He took everything from me. I swear.' She looked petrified, broken. It made sense now why you could feel the power and she couldn't use it, why the antlers didn't quite fit around her collarbone, they didn't belong there. 'How do I fix this?'

Her pleading eyes stared into yours, begging for a solution you didn't have. You turned your head away, deep in rageful thoughts when a loud voice echoed over the rest, she could be lying. This was Alina Starkov after all, she could very well be lying about it all. But it would fit with Aleksander's hints here and there, his need for your validity of loyalty. It made sense.

You once again looked to her, eyes glaring into her own, and whispered with honesty 'I don't know.'

Just as you said aloud your sorrowful admission, the tent flap opened with a whoosh and the man himself entered donning his signature poker face. You took your steps backward, silently excusing yourself from the situation. You could feel his inquisitive stare on you but you ignored it, instead opting to quickly look at his hand. Saints. There, embedded into his hand was a bone fragment of the Stag. You bit down the gasp of horror and clenched your fists. How did I not see it yesterday?

You averted your eyes to Alina's once again and gave an almost missable nod and left.

What in Saint's name is he going to do and how can I find out before my conscience gets the better of me?

*****

You stared at the skiff and watched as the foreign diplomats boarded, each with a slight sheen on their brow. The Fold was an exhausting fear, one children and adults alike shared.

You looked to your left and spotted Aleksander and his troop of Grisha heading your way. While he spoke to Alina, you chose to stand alone and think, think of all the ways right now could go wrong. There were too many possibilities to count.

As the sea of keftas got closer, you walked on board, ignoring once again the look shot your way by Aleksander and Zoya alike.

Your steps were loud in your ears as your feet dragged on the wooden deck. Your head was still swirling with thoughts and scenarios, Aleksander being at the forefront of all of them. Why did he not tell me? Why is he doing this? What is he doing? It was a never ending turmoil.

The whirlwind of your mind was momentarily broken by the movement out of the corner of your eye. Alina was being chained to the deck, all freedom diminished. Aleksander stood behind her, unclasping her cloak to reveal a stunning golden kefta. You could see their lips moving and you could hear their voices, but your brain refused to process anything. You were shell-shocked, your eyes glued to his hand and the antler sticking out of it.

The skiff moved and jostled from side to side on the sands, the Squallers raising the winds to fill the sails. He dropped his hand but your eyes followed its movements. They flicked a sliver of light momentarily and you swore your stomach turned over and inside out. He must have felt your burning gaze on him because he looked up and searched for the target of your stare but it still wasn't enough to break your eyeline.

He appeared at your side suddenly , the same hand reaching for yours but you moved away on instinct. He moved to in front of you, gripping your chin up and forcing you to meet his eyes. They were cold and disconnected, like they usually were when he was deep in his revenge plans. It scared you, it always did.

'Why didn't you tell me?' You said calmy depsite the storm in your mind.

'It's for the best' He whispered, thumb carassing your cheek.

You roughly shoved his hand aside and walked away, choosing instead to stand next to Alina. You could sense her power on him but you could also hear the Merzost aspect calling out to you, begging to be taken into your grasp.

Before Alina had a moment to register your presense, the skiff entered the glorious sands of the Fold. As the shadows wafted in your hair and loomed between your fingers like water, your worries dissapeared and your head cleared. Your lungs breathed the familiar air in and out, spreading the feeling of home throughout your body.

Your eyes shut on their own accord, basking in the Unsea feeling as long as you could manage before all hell broke loose.

____________________________

Part 26

Heyyyyy besties guess who's back!!!!!!!!!!!

Masterlist

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#the darkling x reader #the grishaverse #the darkling #aleksander morozova x reader #aleksander morozova #ben barnes #kefta #grisha #shadow and bone #alexander #alexander morozova #alina starkov #fanfic #general kirigan x reader #imagine #black general #general kirigan #series

[geekywritings]

Rise of a Queen - Nikolai Lantsov x OC PART 10

"What?"

Taya didn't quite know how to process Nikolai's last words. Surely they must mean something else. Silence hung in the air, as the winds around them began to pick up. It just wasn't clear whether they had come naturally or whether Taya had subconsciously used her powers.

"I said, a Queen doesn't bow.", Nikolai repeated, more seriously this time. What they had was fresh and new and he was probably rushing things, but he wasn't one to wait once his mind had latched onto an idea. Besides, Taya was the right one for the crown, he knew. She had shown intelligence and the willingness to give up everything for her country. At the same time, she could be passionate and understanding. And she was the perfect one for him.

"Stop teasing." She still didn't believe a word he said.

So he closed the short distance between them, grasping her hands in his. "I'm serious.", he insisted. "When we get back to Os Alta, marry me."

This should be the most joyous moment in her life. She had read about so many proposals in books and fairytales, but the reality of it was staggering. Taya was happy because this wasn't just a political move on his side now, but at the same time unsure, because it had come so suddenly.

"I love you, Nikolai.", she started.

"Oh Saints, this sounds like the beginning of a rejection...", he breathed out with a nervous chuckle.

"It's not a rejection.", Taya clarified. "It's more of an 'Are you sure? You should take your time to think about it'."

But Nikolai didn't need more time. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that this was right. "I know what I want. I want you, Taya. As my wife and Queen."

She was far too susceptible to his charm, she realized. The way he looked at her now, so full of love and determination, while his hands held her securely, had her ready to say yes over and over again.

"I want to marry you.", she finally said. "I want to spend my life with you." His arms flew around her, ready to sweep her up, but she paused him for just a moment. "But first, let's solve the problems we have on our hands now. Your coronation and the Darkling."

Now he did lift her up, holding her tightly to himself and laughing happily. "Anything you want, my Queen."

_______________________________

Although Nikolai would have loved nothing more than to shout it out to the world, Taya convinced him to keep their engagement secret for now. Other things took priority and so their lives quickly fell back into a routine. They needed to continue preparations for a possible attack, while Alina practiced the Cut with Baghra.

During the two weeks that followed, Nikolai and Taya often made the journey to Os Alta and back to initiate Nikolai's reign. As she had expected, the shift of power wasn't that unwelcome at first. Nikolai had proven himself during the last months and so the generals and nobles were ready to pledge their allegiance. A proper coronation would have to wait, however, the event being far too open for an attack.

They celebrated in their small circle of friends, however, toasting to a better future for Ravka. If only the laughter and banter of that evening could have lasted forever...

________________________________

The attack came unexpectedly. They had all felt safe at the Spinning Wheel, hidden away in the mountains. But the Darkling had found them regardless and within minutes, they had Nichevo'ya raining down on them, tearing everything and everyone they could grab into pieces. It was a massacre just as bad as the one at the capital weeks ago.

"You need to get them into safety!", Nikolai had shouted for Taya, as children and injured soldiers and Grisha boarded the one aircraft they had managed to get ready. "Take them to the capital!"

She didn't want to. She wanted to stay behind and told him as much. "Do it for me.", he said, before pulling her into a kiss.

"Please be careful.", she whispered.

"I never am. That's what you love about me." Despite the chaos, she smiled.

As she summoned the wind, she felt a horrible knot form in her stomach. It wasn't right to leave. She turned to look back, seeing Gregori and Alexander standing next to Nikolai. The two Squallers had become fiercely loyal to him and were currently on the lookout for possible attackers. Yet although they had kept Nikolai safe before, Taya had a bad feeling this time. Something in her heart screamed that she would not see him again. Then the clouds blocked her vision, as she continued on to the newly fortified Little Palace in Os Alta.

_________________________________

"We saw the Darkling get close to him... And we haven't seen him since."

Taya sank to her knees at those words, the tears spilling out just a moment later. She was in the Grand Palace, in Nikolai's working chamber, where Genya and David were giving her a report. Or rather a retelling of the things they had seen.

Gregori and Alexander were there as well, one of them sporting a broken arm. They had given their own reports already, including the moment where they had been absorbed in a fight with several Nichevo'ya and had lost sight of their new Tsar.

Taya had never felt so empty. She didn't even hear anything else Genya said at this point. Something about Alina, Dva Stolba and a firebird. But what did it matter? The next thing she consciously realized was Genya by her side, trying to help her up, but she would not budge.

"Nikolai...", his name escaped her in a sob and more tears followed. She should have married him the day he had asked. She should have told him ten times a day how much she loved him. She should have... There were too many things she should have said and done. None of which she would get a chance for now.

"The generals are asking for you.", Sonya announced, as she walked into the room, before realizing the scene in front of her. She was being accompanied by Andrej, who was quick to dash forward.

"She is in no state to see them now.", he announced what everyone clearly saw already.

"Then I will go and speak to them." Zoya had kept back all this time, dealing with the situation in her own way.

"And what will you tell them?", Genya asked.

"The truth. That now is a time for mourning and that we will deal with all matters in three days' time." Head raised high, she turned on her heel and walked out, ready to handle the situation at hand.

"Taya, you need to get up.", Genya spoke gently. "Let Andrej bring you to your room."

No answer, just more tears and sobs. But she didn't fight when the Healer picked her up carefully, carrying her through the hallways towards Nikolai's chambers that everyone knew they had shared in recent times.

"Not a good idea.", Sonya pointed out and instead guided the small group back to the Little Palace, where Taya was placed in one of the empty rooms. They all deemed it better if she was not surrounded by his belongings right now.

Alexander and Gregori returned to their respective rooms, while David and Genya went to check on Zoya. Sonya took it upon herself to get some tea and food for Taya, while Andrej did a quick checkup. She was badly shaken and probably in shock, but there was nothing he could do for her. She was mourning and she would just need time.

____________________

Things got even worse when news reached that her family had died during their escape, leaving her orphaned as well. For three days Taya refused to touch food. Most of the time she would sit in bed, cry and keep her thoughts to herself. She would not push people away, but she wouldn't engage with them either. She was like a shell of a person, existing, but not really alive. The people around her tried everything they could to help her, but nothing seemed to work.

Therefore it was a surprise for everyone when, after a week, Taya suddenly appeared in the war room, where Zoya, Genya and David were speaking with the generals gathered there. She walked in quietly, her head raised high and looking royal in her dark blue dress and Squaller Kefta. All present bowed their head, as she announced: "Tell me what we have so far."

She was all business from that moment on. She coordinated war efforts, continued Nikolai's work on weapon production, and continuously evaluated news about the Darkling's and Alina's whereabouts. She took care of Ravka's finances and wrote letters to foreign diplomats and rulers in his name. Nobody questioned her or asked, whether she was entitled to fill that role. Instead, they all treated her like their acting ruler.

At night was the only time when she would show her true feelings. Maids would always find her pillow drowned in tears in the morning despite the sleeping potion she took every night to find peace in the first place. She also continued staying in the Little Palace, still unable to set foot into Nikolai's old chambers.

One night, when she was working late, calculating expenses, she thought she saw something pass in front of the window, but it was so dark, it was probably her mind playing tricks on her. From that moment on, she worked the nights in a windowless corner of the library.

Days passed, then weeks and eventually, the attack on the Spinning wheel happened more than a month ago. For those who had no one to mourn, life had become normal again in the capital and it showed when nobles suggested social events to pick up again. Taya allowed it, but never attended for more than five minutes to greet everyone. She was still all work and while the weapon production had accelerated formidably, her friends worried about her. Even Zoya, who had come to respect Taya's work ethic and dedication, knew that she was far from alright.

"We have news from Alina.", she announced one day, coming to the desk at the library that Taya had turned into her working corner.

"Good ones, I hope.", Taya said, as she continued to write a letter to a Kerch trader, they owed money to.

"Yes, they found the third amplifier and know where to attack the Darkling."

Those weren't the first good news, but certainly, the best in a while, and Taya even dropped her work and turned around to face the messenger.

"Very good. Make sure everything is prepared for their arrival and the attack. I will go myself as well."

"No." Zoya had never disagreed with her before and it startled Taya. "You cannot go. You are needed here.", the other Squaller continued. "We have lost one good ruler already. Ravka cannot lose another."

Taya should have been touched by such a clear compliment from none other than Zoya Nazyalensky, but it was not her forefront emotion.

"I want my revenge, Zoya."

"And you will get it. Through Alina.", the other said. "Take your revenge in a different way. Create a Ravka that the Darkling would have loved to build on fear and merzost and show him that he isn't needed."

She was right of course, but Taya hesitated. She would love nothing more than to take the dark one out with her bare hands, but that was impossible. Not even improbable, but truly unfeasible. This power belonged to Alina alone.

So eventually she nodded. "But please give the sun summoner any and all resources she may need. Provisions, weapons, men, or otherwise. She has my full support."

Zoya bowed and left.

__________

Don’t forget, you can also read the chapters on Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/story/275585861-rise-of-a-queen

#nikolai lantsov #nikolai lantsov x oc #nikolailantsovxoc #grisha #grishaverse #shadowandbone

[where-theres-smoak-2]

So I was doing a rewatch (yes another one, and yes I am obsessed) and I got to the collar scene, now usually I just skip over this scene because my poor girl Alina having to go through that is awful, not ok Aleksander. But this time I actually watched it again and I noticed something...interesting, I guess you could call it. See I always assumed that Alina didn’t know that having the collar put on her would take her powers because she seemed so horrified when Aleksander did take control of her powers after the collar was put on her. The other thing I always assumed that she didn’t know was that the amplifier would be fused into her collarbone. But when watching again I realised that actually she did know both these things before the collar was put on her. Which made me wonder why she seemed so surprised by it. I mean it could just be down to continuity errors in the writing I suppose but if its not, then what other reason could she have for reacting the way she did? 

In regards to the collar, like I said, I figured she didn’t know it was going to be fused to her because she says to M*l earlier in the episode that she would ‘wear’ the bones which implies its something more similar to what was in the books and its like a necklace. But then in episode 3 the apparat tells her that the amplifiers work by ‘melding a piece of it into their bodies’. This wording does very much describe how the collar was melded into her, so this is information she had. On top of that Ivan was standing right behind her and obviously she has spent a lot of time with him by this point and you can see his own amplifier, the bear claw, is fused into his hand. I mean I guess its possible that Alina just forgot that was how it worked, or my best guess is its a case of knowing that its going to be fused into her and actually experiencing it being fused into her are two very different things and so there was just no way for her to be prepared for it. I mean it was a rather large piece to be melded to her collarbone. 

Then there’s the whole knowing that it was going to transfer her powers. Again I totally missed this the first time around and thought she was so upset because she didn’t know he was going to take her powers from her. But rewatching the scene I realised he tells her that’s what he’s going to do. At the very start of the scene she asks why David is putting the collar on her when Aleksander was the one to kill the stag, that its his amplifier and he gets its power. Aleksander replies ‘you asked for this yourself, when we met. To transfer your gift to someone who could use it.’ What’s funny is I remember the line, I’ve even talked about it in my Darkling analysis post but for some reason never made the connection that this would mean she knew what the collar would do. But anyway, I actually think her reaction is less shock that he’s taken her powers and more something else. The part in this scene that was interesting to me is that Alina in the beginning (as she often is with Aleksander) is being very confrontational and her primary emotions seem to be hurt and anger at him for lying to her. As he approaches her she does show some wariness and kind of flinches away from him, but to me I didn’t read this as her flinching away in fear, more that she was putting her guard up against him because she knew he was about to try and manipulate her and because as angry as she is with him she still feels that draw to him and so she’s wary that he might be able to break down her walls and manipulate her again, she’s worried she’ll fall for it again. What is also interesting is Aleksander reaction to seeing her flinch from him. He kind of pauses for a moment and then lowers himself down to her level. He puts them on the same level and makes his speech about all the things they can accomplish together. You can see Alina struggling with herself throughout the whole conversation where she really wants all the things he is saying, she wants them to work together to end all wars, she wants to be at his side and to work together to make ravkans and grisha safe and she wants them to work together to destroy the fold. She wants to believe him. You can see the moment she sort of surrenders to that desire, right after he says they can do anything. In that moment she chooses to trust him and she takes his hands and stops her struggles. Now I just want to be clear here that I am in no way insinuating that she consented to have the collar put on her, I mean for one thing her hands were in shackles and M*l was being held captive, for another she didn’t know what Aleksander was planning to do with her power once he had put the collar on her. But it is still interesting to me that even knowing that it would transfer her power to Aleksander, she choose to once again trust him in that moment and believed him when he said they would do everything together. Which again brings me back to that question of if she knew it was going to transfer her power to him and she had decided to trust him, why was she so shocked and hurt when he was controlling her power? 

Well like I said up until this point Alina had shown that she was hurt and angry and that she made the decision to trust him and after making that choice she seemed calm. But the fear came in when Aleksander looked away from her. This is something he’s only done before when threatening M*l. I think she knows him well enough by now to know that him looking away is because he is about to do something that he knows will hurt her, that will upset her. This is what makes her afraid, seeing him look away from her. This is when she starts to feel confused and starts asking what is happening and saying she doesn’t understand. It’s not that she doesn’t understand what the collar will do, she just doesn’t understand why he isn’t able to meet her eyes. I think this is further exacerbated by the fact that David also looks visibly upset. She’s realised that Aleksander is hiding something from her and isn’t being entirely truthful and that in turn is making her afraid. I do think that she takes some comfort from Aleksander’s eyes, throughout their whole relationship they had a thing about eye contact, right from their first scene together in the tent in episode 2. So when she seeks out that eye contact for reassurance only to find that he is avoiding her gaze it unsettles her.

 Another thing I noticed is that when Ivan slows her heartbeat at first I thought it was to stop her from struggling, but then I realised she wasn’t actually struggling by that point, she was asking alot of questions but not struggling. It might still have been a little to keep her under control but right before moving away from Alina he looks first to Ivan and then David to indicate to them to carry out the plan. So I think Aleksander arranged with Ivan to slow Alina’s heart rate more as a sedation, I think Aleksander didn’t want Alina to feel pain or fear when the antlers were fusing to her. Of course that doesn’t make what he did to her ok but it does show that he had some level of care for her that he didn’t want her to experience pain, unlike if he was a full on villain who wouldn’t give two hoots if his victim was in pain.  

I also think her shock after the collar had been placed on her, whilst some of it is the horror of feeling the antlers fused into her, its also because she once again trusted him and I think whilst she knew it would transfer her powers to him and that he would be able to use them, I think when she choose to trust him she did so believing he wouldn’t use her powers against her will. She believed him when he said they would do it together. So in my opinion it is less shock that he has access to her powers like I first thought and more betrayal that he is using them against her will, if that makes sense. If he had kept to what he said in his pretty little speech about doing it together and used her powers through the connection but only when she gave permission, and whilst keeping her in the loop of what was happening and what they would be using her powers for, if he stopped when she said she didn’t want to do something, then she would have been ok with it. It’s the realisation that doing it together is not his goal, that despite all he told her he is the one in control and that he isn’t treating her as a partner but as a slave and as a tool to be used in his grand plan no matter whether she wants to help or not. Once again he has tricked her and once again she is left feeling betrayed and like a fool. I think this is why she doesn’t believe or trust him later during the make me your villain scene when he is pretty much pleading with her to understand him, which lets be real is probably a conversation they should have had before he forced the collar on her, maybe then Aleksander wouldn’t have felt that action was necessary and they could have come up with another solution together that didn’t involve making Alina a weapon against her will.       

Anyway think I have waffled on long enough. So there we go end of random thought dump. 

#darklina

[words-writ-in-starlight]

What of the Three Faces of God do you think The Master's generation is associated with? Obviously Tirandys and Bender don't have their Shanir powers anymore but before their fall.

Are you the same anon who sent me the amazing ask about Jame and Tori finding each other beautiful?  I don’t care, but please keep sending me excuses to write essays about obscure bits of this series.

So, first things first, let’s define some systems, shall we?  Based on what we’ve seen, most individual Shanir abilities are aligned with one Face or another, with a few exceptions that appear across the board (binding of all kinds, which makes sense, as well as some aspects of soulwalking), but you can sometimes get a mix of Faces in an individual, depending on their abilities.  The Tyr-ridan are presumably all one thing, sort of the elemental form of Shanir power, and so are all potential Nemeses, who are always Destruction.  Working from that assumption, and other explicitly listed alignments, here are some abilities we know for sure are aligned to one Face:

CREATION: seeing the future, the “overgrowth” stunt that Torisen accidentally pulls in Gates of Tagmeth, forcing the truth from someone (Torisen and Kirien, notably)

PRESERVATION: healing, possibly including resurrection, the more extreme aspects of soul- and dreamwalking, blood-sight (Adiraina, explicitly Preservation-aligned)

DESTRUCTION: claws, true berserker flares, malediction (Brenwyr), soul reaping, tempting (the Tempter, as well as Jame), weakness-finding (as on the Dark Judge)

Side note: Jame’s other primary Shanir ability that we do not see in other people is using the Book.  This isn’t uniquely a Shanir trait (even Theocandi sort of used the Book), but I would posit that either Jame is some kind of Master Rune savant, or the ability to use the Book with any kind of survival rate is the sole prerogative of a very niche kind of Shanir.  The Book can’t be memorized, even by Jame, but Jame can recall and use runes from the very end of the thing!  The “rupture” rune she half-uses in Seeker’s Mask is from the end of the Book, and Jame almost blows out half of Gothregor’s eardrums with it, despite not having the Book within fifty miles of her.  Nominal nod to this ability being a potential fringe artifact of Destruction, or of a Shanir over a specific power threshold.

Other Shanir abilities that we aren’t given a strict alignment for include distance writing, Highborn command (I would posit that this is distinct from but related to both tempting and forcing the truth), hag riding, Timmon’s unnatural charm (said to run in his family, also related to tempting/command/forced truth), soul-carrying, and whatever shade-sight allows Trishien to see Ganth.  Shapeshifting is not listed here because that is gained from changer blood.  Offhand, I’m going to say that hag riding is probably Destruction, and shade-sight is...maybe Preservation?  Kindrie can also interact with Willow far more than your average Kencyr, even Tori.  Soul-carrying and Command are both demonstrably Face-neutral, like binding, and purely for the sake of symmetry I’m inclined to assign charm to Preservation, to match forced truth for Creation and tempting for Destruction.  I usually think of Trishien as Preservation-aligned and Kirien as Creation-aligned, which would also make far-writing Face-neutral.  But that’s just me making stuff up.

Anyway!  That’s what we know for sure about Shanir alignments, so now we’ll go from there to talk about the alignments of the Master’s generation.  God, I hope my read-more is working again.

So!  There are two ways to look at this, one based on narrative evidence and one based on narrative structure, but they have the same outcome.  I’m going to talk about the second one first, because it’s not as interesting to me--it’s just a little chat about cyclical epics and the way the Master’s generation and Jame’s generation mirror each other.

So, if we look at it from the assumption that the Master’s generation is universally a narrative equivalent to Jame’s, Jamethiel and Jame are obviously Destruction.  This is demonstrably true regardless--Jamethiel was definitely the Nemesis in the Fall, even though she wasn’t actually the impetus.  The Master and Tori are also direct equivalents, even Tori draws the connection between them, which makes him definitively Creation.  I’ll talk about how I think this is supported by narrative evidence later.  And then, of course, there is no Preservative aspect of the Tyr-ridan in the Master’s generation, wherein lies the problem--the Tyr-ridan have to be pure Knorth, and Tyrandis and Terribend are half Randir, and Keral yet a further step removed to be half Randir Highborn and half Kendar.  However, I think it’s clear that Tyrandis and Terribend, between them, are a good parallel for Kindrie (the one loyal to the end to a Master who doesn’t want him, and the one loyal to the end to his own code of honor, even at the cost of his soul), implying them to be Preservation aligned by this argument.  And Keral, of course, is Bane’s predecessor, the previous heir to half-Highborn homicidal Shanir madness.  Bane doesn’t actually show a lot of Shanir talents besides blood binding and I think there’s a viable case to be made that he doesn’t have many, and I’m guessing Keral is the same.  Gonna tag them both for Destruction, though, because Bane and Jame are antiparallels, it’s why he’s obsessed with her, that is a separate essay though so just take my word for it.

That’s the narrative structure argument, basically.  The Kencyrath are an epic, and an epic about cycles and patterns--the war fought and lost on world after world, the children fighting to be their parents or be anything but, the ever-diminishing returns on their battles.  We know the alignments of Jame’s generation, and the Master’s generation was Final Battle: Mark I, so by narrative structure we can extrapolate.

In terms of narrative evidence, we actually don’t have a ton--changers lose their Shanir abilities, and Gerridon seems to be operating at a deficit when it comes to Creation powers.  So we’re about to get speculative in this part.  Jamethiel is Destruction, through and through, I don’t think we need to discuss it at length.  Gerridon is either pure Preservation or pure Creation, and I stand by my above theory that he’s Creation--not just because he’s Tori’s narrative predecessor, but because he loses a hand.  Now, it’s possible that he’s a powerful Shanir healer who is, for some reason related to Perimal Darkling, unable to access his soulscape (literally can’t imagine what his soulscape looks like, wouldn’t blame him for avoiding it).  But I tend to think not.  The Master sacrificed his people, his honor, his consort, and pretty goddamn nearly himself for immortality.  You know what that blind, irrational terror of death reminds me of?  Torisen, so half-mad with fear of the nightmare that showed him his father’s death that he nearly killed himself running straight into the Southern Wastes in hopes of getting away.

Yeah, I think the Master is a Creation-aligned far-seer.  Why does he keep getting out-maneuvered anyway?  Because the Master’s House is outside the normal flow of time.  He lives in the past, in the days when the House was well-kept and magnificent, and he pays for it with what could be his best advantage.  Out in Rathillien, though, the Dreamweaver and even the Master both tend to show up in...let’s call them highly coincidental moments.  Partly an advantage of the House, I’m sure, but maybe not entirely.

Now, the changers give up their Shanir powers for immortality, so all of this is guesswork.  I’m prepared to suppose that Keral, half-Kendar, probably wasn’t a powerful enough Shanir to be a going concern, but purely based on his rampant overuse of the deepest rooms and rapid degradation (he can’t hold a form at all, but Tyrandis “can never get the eyes right” despite being exactly the same age, suggesting that they’re at the two extremes of how quickly changers burn through their shelf life) I’m inclined to say Destruction.  As the Dreamweaver demonstrates, Destruction can also be self-Destruction and, lacking further indications, I’m guessing that Keral went hard in that direction.

Tyrandis...Tyrandis and Terribend, we know very little about.  Tyrandis is a changer and Bender lost his soul, and presumably his Shanir abilities with it, so we never see them use anything that would give us an indication one way or another.  Bender taught Jame to read the Master Runes, though, and they’re twins, so we know that they were both strong, as Shanir go, because being able to read and use Runes requires a lot of juice.  It’s possible that Tyrandis held out against the corrupting influence of the deepest rooms through a link to Creation, it’s possible that Bender is able to resist the corruption of the House by the same virtue that Jame can hold out against Rawneth, Destructive snakes of similar venom.  I could probably make a case for any alignment for the two of them, given enough time to cook one up.

Personally I tend to think that they’re both nominally Preservation aligned, as I mentioned above.  This is because they hold out better than anyone save the Master himself, and they don’t have the protection of Gerridon’s deal with Perimal Darkling.  In fact, Bender was so capable of resisting that he didn’t have his soul taken until he “slipped, for just a moment,” and that’s so reminiscent of Kindrie, emerging from the walled garden of his soul for one moment and finding himself locked out, that I tend to think that Bender had to be a soulwalker.  Tyrandis...God only knows what Tyrandis could do before he lost his abilities and his honor to stay loyal to his lord.  But soulless Terribend and corrupted Tyrandis are still the most themselves of anyone in that forsaken dimension, and that says Argentiel to me.

#kencyrath #chronicles of the kencyrath #jamethiel dreamweaver #tyrandis #terribend #A N O N!!!!!! THANK YOU FOR THIS #if you don't know anything about the kencyrath and my readmore is still busted i'm so sorry i just...i couldn't NOT #i have so many long posts languishing in my drafts half-finished right now because i don't know if my readmores work #and like. that taz au of the untamed? yeah that's a long boy. don't want that on people's dash without a cut. #BUT THIS!!!!!! i couldn't not post this. it's like. An Essay. and i loved writing it so much. #please send me every niche Fantasy Lit 406 essay question you've ever idly considered about the kencyrath #ANYWAY i'm really personally obsessed with the idea that terribend is preservation-aligned #...hmmm i'm realizing actually that BANE doesn't have a soul for most of the time we know him #so he may have other shanir abilities not easily accessible to him without a soul #i'm also into the idea of tyrandis as preservation because...well. even poisoning jame is an act of preservation is it not? #he's trying to see to the master's inevitable demise as a way of (hopefully) preserving the chain of creation. #and the idea of the brothers as the passive and active sides of preservation (respectively) is fascinating and tragic to me #ALSO. THE MASTER IS A CREATION-ALIGNED FARSEER. I'LL TAKE NOTES AS I REREAD THE BOOKS BUT SERIOUSLY GET ON BOARD WITH THIS #asked and answered #Anonymous