Chapter Text
Kaz Brekker was born into a world of saints and belief. A world where people throw every bit of their trust and love into something that is not a physical thing they can control, but instead something that controls them. He does not understand this desperate need for something else to be in control, to give up what little power one has to something else.
Kaz does not like the saints.
If anyone asks why, they get the answer Dirtyhands should give— he hates the saints because they aren’t something he can bribe or threaten. He hates them because they don’t bleed. In reality, he hates the saints because if the saints are real, it means they let Jordie die. If the saints are real, that means the happy afterlife they promise, the happy afterlife Jordie surely went to, exists. If the saints are real, Kaz will never see Jordie again.
Kaz cannot believe in saints, but there is a saint staring at him. No, not a saint— a scared young girl. A girl his age who is supposed to save the world.
Maybe this is the role Kaz was always meant to play. Every story has to have a villain, and what better villain than a sinner kidnapping a saint? Because that is what he was sent here to do. He is to kidnap Alina Starkov, the Sun Summoner and Ravka’s savior. And that is his plan, until he looks to Inej for guidance.
Inej is staring at Alina like she hung the stars in the skies.
Kaz may not believe in saints, but he does believe in Inej. She is the first and only religion he truly believes in; Dirtyhands bows to no god, but Kaz Brekker will worship Inej til the end of time.
In the end, that’s all that really matters. The bounty on Alina’s head could keep him in riches for the rest of his days, but Inej would always resent him for it. So he lets her go, and as the Sun Summoner smiles at him, all he can think of is Jordie’s warm laugh as he runs through the streets of Ketterdam with Kaz.
He was only nine years old when Jordie died, when his hands burned from the sensation of his own brother’s flesh rotting away under cruel waves. From that day on, he has always known that he is nothing more than an omen of death, the epitome of every dark thought, the shadow at the end of beds each night. But Alina is staring at him, and she is smiling. She is smiling because she thinks he is good, and he does not know what to do with that.
Kaz thinks he may be falling in love with a saint.