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Inej watched the swaying of the lantern with dull eyes. Side to side, side to side. Creak…creak.
There was nothing else to do.
Twelve days had passed since the capture of the Wraith. Her ship had been boarded and commandeered just outside Kerch Harbor. Another hour and her and her crew, the four women slaves liberated from slavers would have been within Ketterdam’s harbor. Not necessarily a safer place to be, but less open to attack on the high seas.
The Wraith was far from defenseless. Her crew was excellent, hand-picked from the prime recruits of the Dregs. They’d fought valiantly. But they’d been surrounded by four ships disguised as Kerch traders and guided into position by what could only have been Squaller-made winds, and a powerful one at that. There was nothing that they could have done to prevent capture. Nothing she could have done. Nothing that came to mind anyway, and she had been turning the matter over in her head round and round. How she could have fought, escaped; how she could have saved her crew—the crew who’d trust had been hard-won but well-earned. After five years at sea they trusted her battle instincts. And she’d rewarded them with imprisonment or death.
“Away from the bars.”
A gangly young crewman, a lowly one, if looks were to be trusted, banged his way into the slave galley where they were being kept. She and Bierro, one of her crew, were the only ones down there, though there were cages and shackles for plenty. Shackles held one of her hands tight, but with one leg still bleeding and useless she wasn’t going anywhere regardless.
The man slid a misshapen bowl filled with rather dry bread atop a dark brown stew through the bars. Unappetizing, but more than expected.
She ate, not hungry but not willing to let herself waste away. The young crewman and the guard on duty watched her suspiciously.
“Thank you,” she said. “May I have some water?”
The guard stiffened at the sound of her voice and put a hand to his sword. As if her very words could maim.
“I’ll be back round in an hour with water,” the crewman said shortly. “Pass the plates back, if you please.”
“And your leader,” she said. “I would like to again request a meeting with whoever commands this ship.”
No answer as the crewman bent and retrieved her bowl. She’d asked every day, and received the same.
Bierro, somewhere behind her, threw his bowl through the bars hard enough to shatter it to bits with a howl.
“Oy!”
“Calm yourself,” Inej hissed. But too late. He was up on his feet, bellowing, and the guards were on him.
While she’d been watching the lantern sway, Bierro had been stewing. His brother was another crew member of the Wraith. But neither of them had seen him since their capture, and Bierro was not a patient man.
They had received no answers about their imprisonment. Who it was that held them hostage, and why they had not yet murdered them in their shackles. The loss dealt them aboard the Wraith was unforgivable--Inej would make them pay for every slain member of her crew--but the treatment they’d received aboard the Kerch vessel had been more than what was afforded to mere slaves. Which was to say, they were given ample food and water, and not casually beaten upon the hour.
There was no way to know who was alive and well or who was captured and awaiting justice at the hands of unjust men in Ketterdam’s piss-poor legal system. For certain she had seen some of her men and women fall on the deck of the Wraith as the enemy’s ropes had bound them in tight, as the cannons had rendered anything but limping away off-kilter to sink in the harbor a possibility.
Shame on her. Her crew had been swallowed whole by the rush of sailors from the Kerch ships. Beautiful, dangerous Aika, who’d been struck to the ground before Inej could do a damn thing. She’d rushed onto the deck in broad daylight, no attempt at secrecy as she’d fought to Aika’s side. It was exactly what they had been watching for. A Suli girl with knives flashing in the sun was their first target.
Inej watched Bierro taking his beating with a hole deepening in her heart. She prayed to her saints, and pulled at her shackles, and shouted curses at the guard. But once again she was stuck, no longer Master of her own fate, as her world crumbled around her and Bierro’s blood flowed in tiny rivers on the floor. Back and forth, back and forth, in rhythm with the lanterns.
**************
It was full dark outside and had been for hours. The swaying lantern was growing dim. Needing oil. The new guard was fresh on his post, and alert to every movement.
They didn’t slack on this ship, whoever was in charge. Not a single moment of privacy had been afforded to Inej, not even to relieve herself in the large bucket tied by rope to the corner bars. He had been decidedly professional, no leering or staring when she’d been forced to give in to her body’s needs. But she hated giving them even an ounce more of vulnerability than she was already forced to feel.
Bierro was long asleep. Ragged breaths let her know he was still alive, though probably only had use of one nostril. And one arm. He had fallen into a fitful slumber broken by coughing spells that produced more and more blood. Her requests for medical treatment had been denied. Her only consolation was that this would keep him from mouthing off any further. If she could keep him alive just a bit longer--if they could speak with anyone in charge--
Someone had to be coming. They wouldn’t be left alive as they were otherwise. But why the long wait?
Inej’s thoughts drifted, long and dreary in the dark. She prayed for patience. She prayed for Kaz to come.
Kaz Brekker. Her savior time and time again.
She hadn’t seen him in a year and a half. They wrote to each other, often. Every time they made landfall in Kerch Harbor she could expect a cramped letter of spidery handwriting full of clues to her next quarry on the seas. People to avoid, places of unusually high activity. But being the unofficial boss of the Barrel meant Kaz was busy. Very busy. He spent more than his fair share of time expending energy on her own venture of rescuing slaves and diverting trader’s vessels. In exchange, she often ran small transports for his many schemes.
Their...relationship, if that’s what one might call it, was constantly teetering on a knife’s edge. Too small and tender to blossom without more attention; yet they were too deeply ingrained in each others scars to ever abandon whatever it was they had.
And now they might never get the chance to watch it grow, were she to get herself killed or locked up in Hellsgate. Though she had no doubt he would come for her there too, if he knew that’s where she’d gone.
She ached for her knives. To feel that polished steel power under her fingertips. Of course they’d been taken away after they’d hit her from behind and sliced her hamstring. The pain had been bright and fierce enough to bring her round quickly, being carried into the hold of the ship surrounded by foreign men and the screams of her companions. If she only had the knives, Sankt Alina and Sankt Elizabeta, Sankt Vladimir. Her hands felt raw and empty.
Sleep did not come that night.
************
Two more days passed. Bierro was ill and feverish, and they did not talk at all. It was pointless, with the guard there, and also pointless because there was nothing to say. They were beaten. Her leg was in agony. It had been perfunctorily treated her first day in the hold, and twice they’d given her fresh bandages. Inej knew it was a lost cause. Her days of sneaking and spying were over--this was an injury one did not come back from without repercussions.
But she was Inej Ghafa, and she did not succumb to the world’s plans for her. She would wait and bide her time, and if she could not escape this dank hell-hole they’d thrown her in, then she would bring it burning down around them all.
The crewman, a new one, stocky and red of hair and face, brought water for the prisoners and snuck a sip of whiskey in a small brown bottle to the guard when they thought the prisoners weren’t looking. They spoke low, laughing between themselves. Old buddies. Their very happiness offended her. She would end it.
“Bierro,” she whispered. “Your cup.”
Bierro lay insensate on the floor, chest heaving too fast. He was not long for this world. The cup placed beside his cell had gone untouched only inches from his fingers.
She watched him, sizing him up. It was unfortunate. She would have to hope she could make do with only her own, and send Bierro on to meet his gods in peace.
Another low chuckle filled the room.
Inej clutched the tin cup, white-knuckled, and prayed to her saints. Calm filled her heart. She had done what good she could offer to the world. If the end of her life came now, she would accept it with honor.
She stood abruptly, hanging on the shackles bolted to the wall, swaying with blood-loss and fiery pain from her leg that refused to support her. Before the guards could say a word, she hurled her cup as hard as she could. The lantern shattered, dropping the light and oil to the floor. Flames shot up from the floor.
No replacement for a knife, but she was glad to see her accuracy was deadly even with the mundane.
“Quick!” She shouted. “Your drink, put out the fire!”
The crewman stumbled on drunken legs, eyes wide.
“The bottle, pour it out!”
“Oh!” Cried the man. “Yes--”
His hand shot out, ready to pour liquor over a roaring flame.
“Fool,” snarled the guard. He grabbed the bottle just as it began to tip. “Now to the deck, sound the alarm!”
Sputtering and fumbling, the crewman ran up the stairs. Inej heard his cries as soon as he threw the door open.
Too bad. She had hoped to add a bit of fuel to her flames. But the floors, though damp, caught the fire surprisingly well. It licked up the sides of the wall.
“Bitch!” Roared the guard. Stripping his cloak, he beat at the flames furiously in an attempt to smother them.
The smoke was rising thick now. Inej held her sleeve over her face to block it. Watched the flames take an unprecedented path across the floor, separating the prisoners from the exit. She would not get out that way.
Coughing and hacking, the guard abandoned his cloak to the flames and staggered up the stairs. Yells could be heard--the rest of the ship had been roused, but how quickly were they moving?
A minute creeped by. Inej felt unease blossoming in her belly. What was taking so long? Surely the crew would be prepared to put out any fires--she’d seen a pump on her way in, just outside the door. What were they doing?
Flames ate up the walls, eating through. She had no idea what was on the other side. A powder room, an armory, the ocean--
Footsteps thudded on the stairs. Two men raced down, one the guard from before and another thickset man in naval regalia. Relief flooded in. Perhaps the man in the coat was the grisha Squaller, here to suck out the air and smother the fire...perhaps they would have the pump, primed and ready…
Inej realized her serious miscalculation when the man in the naval jacket pulled out a pistol and aimed it straight for her head through the wall of flames.
Falling flat to the floor and rolling saved her from the first bullet. But not the second.
It ripped through her shoulder and ignited flames in her body.
Inej screamed.
It took her several minutes through her haze of pain to realize she was not the only one screaming.
************
“Don’t come back until you have something that will fix her leg. And if you talk back to me one more time, my men will hang you from the drawbridge so the sharks can be the ones to rip your tongue out. Understood?”
A door slammed. There was no reason she should be surprised at hearing Kaz’s threats. But she smiled anyway, heart glowing.
“Inej.” Movement, rustling at her side. She felt the familiar rocking, lulling movements of the sea-on a boat then, but a new one.
“Can you hear me?”
His presence was solid and real and as bright as the stars over the sea. His rasping voice, breath hitched, just a little.
“Inej.”
No one else would hear it, that softness that underlined her name. Tears were forming behind her eyelids before she opened them. Kaz was a blur through a misty haze, but it was Kaz. He’d come for her.
She moved, needing to hold him, touch him, forgetting he hated such things, it was Kaz. But she stopped, bit her breath and gasped at the hurt blossoming under her skin.
“Don’t move,” he said. Hands--his hands, though gloved--touched her shoulder, her side, not holding her down but clenched and prepared to keep her still if she shifted any further. “You’re hurt.”
It sounded like an accusation, and she laughed despite herself.
“You’re here,” she breathed. “Kaz. How--” She stopped. Her head was spinning, and not just from pain. Dimly she recognized that she’d been sedated or tonicked. Right now her head was spinning on another axis from her body.
“I’m here,” he said. “And like I said, you’re injured. Rest. We can talk about it later.”
Her hands gripped the linens underneath her. “No. No, Kaz, what...how are you here?”
He had that look--that look of slithering out of an answer, where he passed off a snide comment inside of a riddle that would leave her dazed enough to forget her question. She knew what was coming.
“I will throw myself on the floor,” she hissed. Then coughed violently. Her lungs did not want to obey, but she demanded and they gave in.
“I will rip off the bandages and scream. Kaz--”
“Calm yourself, Inej. I don’t do hysterics. I’ll be back after you can sleep for a few more--”
Perhaps he thought she was far more medicated than she felt. Maybe he truly didn’t want to answer her. In either case, Inej was done with men ignoring her questions.
She jolted upright, pain screaming through her shoulder. Kaz didn’t even try to fight to keep her down. As it turned out, he didn’t need to. She was left so lightheaded it was impossible to stay sitting, so she slumped over the side of the bed and allowed gravity to pull her down towards the floor.
“Stop it, Inej--!” He caught her, hauling her back, but it was too late to reign it all in, she had so many questions and so many fears and they were all piling up, filling her mouth and spilling over.
“My crew,” she sobbed. “My--my people. Are they alive?”
“Yes,” he said harshly. “Some. Most were still being held prisoner until yesterday.”
“Who. Who was killed--”
“Dietrich. Bronnen. Floris. Emiel. Aika and Matthieu.”
She hung from Kaz’s arms, letting the weight of their deaths fall on her shoulders like bricks, gasping.
“And Bierro,” he said. “So. Seven.”
She turned her head into his shoulder and cried.
************
When she had no tears left, some minutes later, he hadn’t moved a muscle save to wrap his right arm around her waist. His left hand held firm to the elbow of her bad arm, anchoring it to avoid her twisting and turning. I was shot, she thought distantly. But this was nothing, nothing compared to the loss of seven souls under her command. Nothing compared to a ship full of fire and dying men.
Nothing compared to the cold comfort of Kaz Brekker, wrapped about her like metal armor shielding her from the world.
Her head still spun, no longer from the tonics.
“Kaz,” she whispered. His breath huffed in her face in reply. He was so close. She wondered if he knew how close he was, his lips at her temple and head bowed over her, as if he might protect her even from above. But this was Kaz, and he knew everything.
“How did you get here? How did you save me?”
She regretted the words the moment they left her mouth when he pulled away from her. But his gloved hands remained, keeping her tethered.
“I had word in the last few weeks that the Council was fed up with their disrupted trade. Mercenaries and a few battleships, not just from Kerch, were dispatched to reign you in. It was just a matter of time before they caught you.”
“You could have--”
“How would I have told you? You’ve been away for eight months, there’s not a way to get messages across seas to a country you may or may not be near without having them intercepted except for a few of my sources. I sent all the messages I could. I had to wait for you to come back.”
“Then... when I was caught. How did you know where to find me?”
“I didn’t.” He bristled. A sore subject. “I’ve been...paying for grisha informants, for awhile now. I should have been notified the moment the mercenaries sighted you. They should never have even boarded the Wraith. Ships were prepared around the main harbors... I pay poorly compared to others, it seems, particularly when the Council’s offer includes not murdering their next of kin. An abhorrent mistake, and not one I’ll make again.”
He sighed before she could get the next question out.
“Fortunately one of my other new grisha friends found it convenient to send me a message after your capture. You were tracked en route to the Southern continent. Presumably you’d be executed brutally in front of all the other pirate criminals and slaves thinking of escaping. We came in pursuit.”
He paused. “I thought--the smart thing to do would have been to eliminate you right then and there, in front of your crew. But I suppose your reputation has grown enough they wanted to make sure your legend on the seas died quickly with a show.”
She let his words sink in, sampling only a bit of what he was offering her. There was much more left unsaid that she had not mind nor heart to dive into.
“The men that captured us. Are they all--”
“Dead, yes. I hope you weren’t about to beg for clemency on their behalf.”
“No. But there was a man who came for me, after I’d started the fire.” Kaz snorted at this, but she pushed on.
“He came to kill me. Why? If his ship was under attack. Why bother?”
Kaz’s eyes were dark and dull.
“I suppose he had a deathwish.”
“Kaz--”
“Because I told them to hand you over. I offered a deal. The lives of the remaining crew for yours. I thought it fair, but they did not. And when I made their first officer shoot the crew one by one, to see what they knew, perhaps the good captain thought to spite me.” His gaze was fixed on the door like it might open at any moment and offer him reprieve. When it did not, he turned and caught her gaze again.
“I ran when he did, I heard you scream and saw you fall and stop moving. So I slit his belly and ripped out his innards. I forced them down his throat and strangled him with his own gut.”
Inej watched him utter those ugly words, not a hint of guilt or remorse. Kaz wore the vicious monster inside him like a suit of armor. She looked at him looking at her in that cold dead way and wondered what need was there to hide behind it now.
“You came for me. You saved me Kaz. Again. Thank you.”
“I didn’t do it for thanks.” He stood up from his perch on the bed, and was forced to lurch back to catch her as Inej swayed.
“Lay down, for Ghezen’s sake.”
She did so, if only to save her energy for the battle she truly wished to wage. And there was no denying her weakness. Her body was failing. She was drained and weary, but she could not let up now. Kaz was making to walk away, so she snatched at his hand.
“You need rest.”
“I need you.”
It came out bolder than she’d intended, but she’d lost a lot of blood.
“I need you to...forgive me. If I hadn’t gotten foolish, gone after the bigger vessels... If I had paid better attention, none of this--”
Kaz picked up his cane and hurled it at the side of the wall where it stuck beak-first and tremored.
“Kaz--”
“No,” he said roughly. “Stop. I won’t hear it. You didn’t do a damn thing wrong. It was I who miscalculated. Never am I the one to pay the price. Today your leg and your crew, tomorrow your arm and your head. I’m a fucking fool.”
“Stop it, Kaz! You can’t blame yourself. I can’t say this won’t happen again, but they took us by surprise this time. We’ll take precautions, figure out how to communicate. We’ll play it smart.”
“We won’t. We won’t do any of that, because you’re not doing this any longer.”
“That’s not your call!”
“It is, and there’s not damn thing you can do.”
Incensed and sick as she was, Inej saw him. Kaz the schemer, angry and needling with barbs to distract her. She grimaced as she forced her body to relax. The tension was making her leg ache.
“I won’t stop trying to make the world a better place. I won’t stop trying to save the slaves I’m able to get to. If you won’t help me, there’s nothing I can do about that. But it’s not the end. Not for me.”
Fixed in place and hand on the doorknob, Inej was sure he’d walk away. But Kaz turned and looked her in the eye.
“And what do you think I do next time? When I’m ten seconds too late, and you’ve been shot in the forehead? What do I do when the news comes in that a slaver’s ship sank the great pirate ship Wraith and took no prisoners?”
“You go on,” she whispered. “No mourners. No funerals.”
“Not for you, Inej.” He stepped closer.
“For you,” he said, “I’d hunt every slaver, slit every throat. I’d kill all of them. Every complicit piece of shit that works the trade. I’d kill them all, I’d burn their ships and their boats. I’d slaughter the whole East Stave, if you asked me to. Even if you didn’t. If you aren’t here, if you die tomorrow, what does it matter?”
He crossed the room, sinking to her side once more. She reached for his hand and he shrank away, pulling his hands over face before facing her again.
“Hear me, Inej, I would slaughter the whole world and watch it burn, because it doesn’t matter if you’re not there.”
Words under words. All the layers of things he was saying but wasn’t.
“Kaz.” How she hated the tremble in her voice. “Promise me you will never do such a thing.”
He laughed, the saddest thing she’d ever heard.
“Promise you what? Not to end the people who’ve made your life a misery? And before you say not all of them did make it miserable, know that all of them would, if it earned them a penny.”
“If I die, Kaz Brekker, early or otherwise, you must promise me you won’t take it out on anyone. No retribution. No slaughtering the world to watch it burn.”
She coughed, the smoke of the ship returning to agitate her one more time. Shaking hands wiped the spit from her mouth. Black clouds were encroaching on her vision from both sides, but they had to be ignored for now.
“Promise me now Kaz, your most solemn vow. If I die, you must leave the world a better place than you find it now.”
“That’s absurd. No, I won’t.”
“Promise me. You alone of any man I’ve ever met could change Ketterdam. All of Kerch.”
“There’s no changing a bunch of bloodthirsty Barrel bastards.”
“Because we haven’t tried.” Something was warming in her chest, a seed taken root.
“Kaz. You could change things, if you tried. You could...overthrow the Council. You could--”
“What, overthrow all of Kerch law? Then the Council of the Tides too?” Disbelief made his voice sharp. “Inej, they could drown us in our sleep, right now, or tomorrow. That’s idiocy.”
“Is it? Or have you just not figured out what it would take to buy them to your side yet?”
He said nothing in response. Inej smiled.
“You said you had Grisha friends...that ought to be helpful.”
Kaz sat in repose for a few minutes; or maybe an hour, Inej was in and out of sleep.
Presently he sighed and took hold of her hand. With pleasure Inej realized the gloves were gone.
“You don’t ask for things by halves, Inej. First a ship, now a country.”
“I don’t have to own the country. I just want it to be a safer place to live.”
“Oh, no, what would be the point? If we’re going to stage a government coup and give up a fleet of anti-slaving ships, we may as well make you Queen.”
She laughed. “Kaz, stop.”
“You’re the one who asked for it.” He tightened his grip, brushed his thumb along her slender wrist.
“Would you help me, if we did this?”
“Of course I would. Whatever it takes.”
“It will take you abandoning your solo pirate trips across the sea. You’ll be in Ketterdam with me, staging a revolution and re-writing the constitution.”
“I don’t know a thing about politics or Kerch laws.”
“You don’t have to know a single Kerch law. We’ll be abolishing them all anyways. I want you to help me write the new ones.”
She laughed, but Kaz did not.
“You mean this?” She said. “Not for me. Don’t do this for me, whatever “this” is or is going to be. Do it for yourself.”
“I am. I’ll make your promise. I won’t exact retribution on the world following your death, if you promise to be my partner in all that’s to come. And stop your slaver hunts.”
“My crew. I want their deaths to mean something...I want whoever’s left to be taken care of. They fought and served with honor, every one.” She took his other hand, warming when he didn’t flinch away. “I want...I want to hurt the slaver’s in a way they can’t combat with guns and knives. I’ve been chasing them down, ship by ship, but if I can stop them with laws and armies...yes, Kaz. I can keep that promise.”
Time slowed down when he reached for her, brushed the hair from her face. Pressed his lips to her lips. Soft and light and with every bit of the weight behind the promises they’d just made. Her skin came to life at his touch, every bit of her crying out for every bit of him.
He smoothed his thumb down her cheek, soft and daring. Inej’s heart wept with pride.
“One more promise.”
“Yes.”
“You must go to sleep now. Please.”
She took the tips of his fingers in her own and kissed them. He let her. She drifted to sleep, mind already fading to black, safe in the knowledge that Kaz sat beside her and would plot their course through the night.