Occasionally the ship would drop anchor, and the drüskelle would return with another captive. The Fjerdans would stand outside their cages, eating and drinking, mocking their filthy clothes and the way they smelled. As bad as it was, the fear of what might await them was much more frightening—the inquisitors at the Ice Court, torture, and inevitably death. Nina dreamed of being burned alive on a pyre and woke up screaming. Nightmare and fear and the delirium of hunger tangled together so that she stopped being certain of what was real and what wasn’t.
Then one day, the drüskelle had crowded into the hold dressed in freshly pressed uniforms of black and silver, the white wolf’s head on their sleeves. They’d fallen into orderly ranks and stood at attention as their commander entered. Like all of them, he was tall, but he wore a tidy beard, and his long blond hair showed gray at the temples. He walked the length of the hold, then came to a halt in front of the prisoners.
“How many?” he asked.
“Fifteen,” replied the burnished gold boy who had captured her. It was the first time she had seen him in the hold.
The commanding officer cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back. “I am Jarl Brum.”
A tremor of fear passed through Nina, and she felt it reverberate through the Grisha in the cell, a warning call none of them were free to heed.
In school, Nina had been obsessed with the drüskelle. They’d been the creatures of her nightmares with their white wolves and their cruel knives and the horses they bred for battle with Grisha. It was why she’d studied to perfect her Fjerdan and her knowledge of their culture. It had been a way of preparing herself for them, for the battle to come. And Jarl Brum was the worst of them.
He was a legend, the monster waiting in the dark. The drüskelle had existed for hundreds of years, but under Brum’s leadership, their force had doubled in size and become infinitely more deadly. He had changed their training, developed new techniques for rooting out Grisha in Fjerda, infiltrated Ravka’s borders, and begun pursuing rogue Grisha in other lands, even hunting down slaving ships, “liberating” Grisha captives with the sole purpose of clapping them back in chains and sending them to Fjerda for trial and execution. She’d imagined facing Brum one day as an avenging warrior or a clever spy. She hadn’t pictured herself confronting him caged and starving, hands bound, dressed in rags.
Brum must have known the effect his name would have. He waited a long moment before he said in excellent Kaelish, “What stands before you is the next generation of drüskelle, the holy order charged with protecting the sovereign nation of Fjerda by eradicating your kind. They will bring you to Fjerda to face trial and so earn the rank of officer. They are the strongest and best of our kind.”
Bullies, Nina thought.
“When we reach Fjerda, you will be interrogated and tried for your crimes.”
“Please,” said one of the prisoners. “I’ve done nothing. I’m a farmer. I’ve done you no harm.”
“You are an insult to Djel,” Brum replied. “A blight on this earth. You speak peace, but what of your children to whom you may pass on this demonic power? What about their children? I save my mercy for the helpless men and women mowed down by Grisha abominations.”
He faced the drüskelle. “Good work, lads,” he said in Fjerdan. “We sail for Djerholm immediately.”
The drüskelle seemed ready to burst with pride. As soon as Brum exited the hold, they were knocking each other affectionately on the shoulders, laughing in relief and satisfaction.
“Good work is right,” one said in Fjerdan. “Fifteen Grisha to deliver to the Ice Court!”
“If this doesn’t earn us our teeth—”
“You know it will.”
“Good, I’m sick of shaving every morning.”
“I’m going to grow a beard down to my navel.”
Then one of them reached through the bars and snatched Nina up by her hair. “I like this one, still nice and round. Maybe we should open that cage door and hose her down.”
The boy with the burnished hair smacked his comrade’s hand away. “What’s wrong with you?” he said, the first time he’d spoken since Brum had vanished. The brief rush of gratitude she’d felt withered when he said, “Would you fornicate with a dog?”
“What does the dog look like?”
The others roared with laughter as they headed above. The golden one who’d likened her to an animal was the last to go, and just as he was about to step into the passage, she said in crisp, perfect Fjerdan, “What crimes?”
He stilled, and when he’d looked back at her, his blue eyes had been bright with hate. She refused to flinch.
“How do you come to speak my language? Did you serve on Ravka’s northern border?”
“I’m Kaelish,” she lied, “and I can speak any language.”
“More witchcraft.”
“If by witchcraft, you mean the arcane practice of reading. Your commander said we’d be tried for our crimes. I want you to tell me just what crime I’ve committed.”
“You’ll be tried for espionage and crimes against the people.”
“We are not criminals,” said a Fabrikator in halting Fjerdan from his place on the floor. He’d been there the longest and was too weak to rise. “We are ordinary people—farmers, teachers.”
Not me, Nina thought grimly. I’m a soldier.
“You’ll have a trial,” said the drüskelle. “You’ll be treated more fairly than your kind deserve.”
“How many Grisha are ever found innocent?” Nina asked.
The Fabrikator groaned. “Don’t provoke him. You will not sway his mind.”
But she gripped the bars with her bound hands and said, “How many? How many have you sent to the pyre?”
He turned his back on her.
“Wait!”
He ignored her.
“Wait! Please! Just … just some fresh water. Would you treat your dogs like this?”
He paused, his hand on the door. “I shouldn’t have said that. Dogs know loyalty, at least. Fidelity to the pack. It is an insult to the dog to call you one.”
I’m going to feed you to a pack of hungry hounds, Nina thought. But all she said was, “Water. Please.”
He vanished into the passage. She heard him climb the ladder, and the hatch closed with a loud bang.
“Don’t waste your breath on him,” the Fabrikator counseled. “He will show you no kindness.”
But a short while later the drüskelle returned with a tin cup and a bucket of clean water. He’d set it down inside the cell and slammed the bars shut without a word. Nina helped the Fabrikator drink, then gulped down a cup herself. Her hands were shaking so badly, half of it sloshed down her blouse. The Fjerdan turned away, and with pleasure, Nina saw she’d embarrassed him.
“I’d kill for a bath,” she taunted. “You could wash me.”
“Don’t talk to me,” he growled, already stalking toward the door.
He hadn’t returned, and they’d gone without fresh water for the next three days. But when the storm hit, that tin cup had saved her life.
* * *
Nina’s chin dipped, and she jerked awake. Had she nodded off?
Matthias was standing in the passage outside the cabin. He filled the doorway, far too tall to be comfortable belowdecks. How long had he been watching her? Quickly, Nina checked Inej’s pulse and breathing, relieved to find that she seemed to be stable for now.
“Was I sleeping?” she asked.
“Dozing.”
She stretched, trying to blink away her exhaustion. “But not snoring?” He said nothing, just watched her with those ice-chip eyes. “They let you have a razor?”
His shackled hands went to his freshly shaved jaw. “Jesper did it.” Jesper must have seen to Matthias’ hair, too. The tufts of blond that had grown raggedly from his scalp had been trimmed down. It was still too short, bare golden fuzz over skin that showed cuts and bruises from his last fight in Hellgate.
He must be happy t
o be free of the beard, though, Nina thought. Until a drüskelle had accomplished a mission on his own and been granted officer status, he was required to remain clean-shaven. If Matthias had brought Nina to face trial at the Ice Court, he would have been granted that permission. He would have worn the silver wolf’s head that marked an officer of the drüskelle. It made her sick to think of it. Congratulations on your recent advancement to murderer of rank. The thought helped remind her just who she was dealing with. She sat up straighter, chin lifting.
“Hje marden, Matthias?” she asked.
“Don’t,” he said.
“You’d prefer I spoke Kerch?”
“I don’t want to hear my language from your mouth.” His eyes flicked to her lips, and she felt an unwelcome flush.
With vindictive pleasure, she said in Fjerdan, “But you always liked the way I spoke your tongue. You said it sounded pure.” It was true. He’d loved her accent—the vowels of a princess, courtesy of her teachers at the Little Palace.
“Don’t press me, Nina,” he said. Matthias’ Kerch was ugly, brutal, the guttural accent of thieves and murderers that he’d met in prison. “That pardon is a dream that’s hard to hold on to. The memory of your pulse fading beneath my fingers is far easier to bring to mind.”
“Try me,” she said, her anger flaring. She was sick of his threats. “My hands aren’t pinned now, Helvar.” She curled her fingertips, and Matthias gasped as his heart began to race.
“Witch,” he spat, clutching his chest.
“Surely you can do better than that. You must have a hundred names for me by now.”
“A thousand,” he grunted as sweat broke out on his brow.
She relaxed her fingers, feeling suddenly embarrassed. What was she doing? Punishing him? Toying with him? He had every right to hate her.
“Go away, Matthias. I have a patient to see to.” She focused on checking Inej’s body temperature.
“Will she live?”
“Do you care?”
“Of course I care. She’s a human being.”
She heard the unspoken end to that sentence. She’s a human being—unlike you. The Fjerdans didn’t believe the Grisha were human. They weren’t even on par with animals, but something low and demonic, a blight on the world, an abomination.
She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know, really. I did my best, but my gifts lie elsewhere.”
“Kaz asked you if the White Rose would send a delegation to Hringkälla.”
“You know the White Rose?”
“West Stave is a favorite subject of conversation in Hellgate.”
Nina paused. Then, without saying a word, she pushed up the sleeve of her shirt. Two roses intertwined on the inside of her forearm. She could have explained what she’d done there, that she’d never made her living on her back, but it was none of his business what she did or didn’t do. Let him believe what he liked.
“You chose to work there?”
“Chose is a bit of a stretch, but yes.”
“Why? Why would you remain in Kerch?”
She rubbed her eyes. “I couldn’t leave you in Hellgate.”
“You put me in Hellgate.”
“It was a mistake, Matthias.”
Rage ignited in his eyes, the calm veneer dropping away. “A mistake? I saved your life, and you accused me of being a slaver.”
“Yes,” Nina said. “And I’ve spent most of this last year trying to find a way to set things right.”
“Has a true word ever left your lips?”
She sagged back wearily in her chair. “I’ve never lied to you. I never will.”
“The first words you said to me were a lie. Spoken in Kaelish, as I recall.”
“Spoken right before you captured me and stuffed me in a cage. Was that the time for speaking truths?”
“I shouldn’t blame you. You can’t help yourself. It’s your nature to dissemble.” He peered at her neck. “Your bruises are gone.”
“I removed them. Does that bother you?”
Matthias said nothing, but she saw a glimmer of shame move over his face. Matthias had always fought his own decency. To become a drüskelle, he’d had to kill the good things inside him. But the boy he should have been was always there, and she’d begun to see the truth of him in the days they’d spent together after the shipwreck. She wanted to believe that boy was still there, locked away, despite her betrayal and whatever he’d endured at Hellgate.
Looking at him now, she couldn’t be sure. Maybe this was the truth of him, and the image she’d held on to this last year had been an illusion.
“I need to see to Inej,” she said, eager to have him gone.
He didn’t leave. Instead he said, “Did you think of me at all, Nina? Did I trouble your sleep?”
She shrugged. “A Corporalnik can sleep whenever she likes.” Though she couldn’t control her dreams.
“Sleep is a luxury at Hellgate. It’s a danger. But when I slept, I dreamed of you.”
Her head snapped up.
“That’s right,” he said. “Every time I closed my eyes.”
“What happened in the dreams?” she asked, eager for an answer, but fearing it, too.
“Horrible things. The worst kinds of torture. You drowned me slowly. You burned my heart from my chest. You blinded me.”
“I was a monster.”
“A monster, a maiden, a sylph of the ice. You kissed me, whispered stories in my ear. You sang to me and held me as I slept. Your laugh chased me into waking.”
“You always hated my laugh.”
“I loved your laugh, Nina. And your fierce warrior’s heart. I might have loved you, too.”
Might have. Once. Before she had betrayed him. Those words carved an ache into her chest.
She knew she shouldn’t speak, but she couldn’t help herself. “And what did you do, Matthias? What did you do to me in your dreams?”
The ship listed gently. The lanterns swayed. His eyes were blue fire. “Everything,” he said, as he turned to go. “Everything.”
15
MATTHIAS
When he emerged on deck, Matthias had to head straight for the railing. All of these canal rats and slum dwellers had easily found their sea legs, used to hopping from boat to boat on the waterways of Ketterdam. Only the soft one, Wylan, seemed to be struggling. He looked as poorly as Matthias felt.
It was better in the fresh air, where he could keep an eye on the horizon. He’d managed sea voyages as a drüskelle, but he’d always felt more comfortable on land, on the ice. It was humiliating to have these foreigners see him vomit over the railing for the third time in as many hours.
At least Nina wasn’t here to witness that particular shame. He kept thinking of her in that cabin, ministering to the bronze girl, all concern and kindness. And fatigue. She’d looked so weary. It was a mistake, she’d said. To have him branded as a slaver, tossed onto a Kerch ship, and thrown in jail? She claimed she’d tried to set things right. But even if that were true, what did it matter? Her kind had no honor. She’d proven that.
Someone had brewed coffee, and he saw the crew drinking it from copper mugs with ceramic lids. The thought to bring Nina a cup entered his head, and he crushed it. He didn’t need to tend to her or tell Brekker that she could use relief. He clenched his fingers, looking at the scabbed knuckles. She had seeded such weakness in him.
Brekker gestured Matthias over to where he, Jesper, and Wylan had gathered on the forecastle deck to examine plans of the Ice Court away from the eyes and ears of the crew. The sight of those drawings was like a knife to his heart. The walls, the gates, the guards. They should have dissuaded these fools, but apparently he was as much a fool as the rest of them.
“Why aren’t there names on anything?” Brekker asked, gesturing at the plans.
“I don’t know Fjerdan, and we need the details right,” Wylan said. “Helvar should do it.” He drew back when he saw Matthias’ expression. “I’m just doing my job. Stop glaring at me.”
“Here,” Kaz said, tossing him a tiny, clear disk that winked in the sun. The demon had propped himself on a barrel and was leaning against the mast, his bad leg elevated on a coil of rope, that cursed walking stick resting on his lap. Matthias liked to imagine breaking it into splinters and feeding them to Brekker one by one.
“What is it?”
“One of Raske’s new inventions.”
Wylan’s head popped up. “I thought he did demo work.”
“He does everything,” said Jesper.
“Wedge it between your back teeth,” Kaz said as he handed the disks to the others. “But don’t bite dow—”
Wylan started to sputter and cough, clawing at his mouth. A transparent film had spread over his lips; it bulged like a frog’s gullet as he tried to breathe, eyes darting left and right in panic.
Jesper started laughing, and Kaz just shook his head. “I told you not to bite down, Wylan. Breathe through your nose.”
The boy took deep inhales, nostrils flaring.
“Easy,” said Jesper. “You’re going to make yourself pass out.”
“What is this?” asked Matthias, still holding the tiny disk in his palm.
Kaz pushed his deep into his mouth, wiggling it between his teeth. “Baleen. I’d planned to save these, but after that ambush, I don’t know what kind of trouble we may run into on the open sea. If you go over and can’t come up for air, wiggle it free and bite down. It will buy you ten minutes of breathing time. Less if you panic,” he said with a meaningful look at Wylan. He gave the boy another piece of baleen. “Be careful with that one.” Then he tapped the Ice Court plans.
“Names, Helvar. All of them.”
Reluctantly, Matthias picked up the pen and ink Wylan had laid out and began to scratch in the names of the buildings and surrounding roads. Somehow doing it himself felt even more treasonous. Part of him wondered if he could simply find a way to separate from the group once they got there, reveal their location, and thereby win his way back into the good graces of his government. Would anyone at the Ice Court even recognize him? He was probably believed to be dead, drowned in the shipwreck that had killed his closest friends and Commander Brum. He had no proof of his true identity. He would be a stranger who had no business in the Ice Court, and by the time he got anyone to listen—
Six of Crows Page 17