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Inej lays in her and Kaz’s shared bedroom, shy morning light filtering through their window.
He is still deep in sleep, laying uncharacteristically peaceful by her side. He lets her eyes wander from his long, black eyelashes to the splatter of freckles, to the scar near his eyebrow.
He’s sleeping bare chested, and Inej is definitely not letting her eyes wander there too, flushed cheeks and gleaming eyes. She shuffles closer.
The thing is — there hasn’t been a lot going on lately. Since they left Ketterdam, their life has been filled with slow mornings and lots of spare time, the benefit of people not recognizing the Wraith and Dirthyhands on the streets. She had never thought of anonymity as a gift, and yet.
They both had to get used to this life.
Tending to the garden and the farm they now have in the Kerch countryside, Inej feared Kaz would grow restless. Angry. Bored.
The thing is, he didn’t. He’s spectacularly good at riding horses and cropping tall grass, although he still hasn’t told Inej the whole story behind it. She just knows bits and blurred pieces from it, but hasn’t been able to put it together.
She asks him to tell her — refusing to plead, but asking impatiently all the same — and he always refuses to give her the final piece of the puzzle, to tell her everything and then some.
One day I will, my love he always promises.
It’s honestly infuriating, and Inej has never been a patient person. But there are some amends with their past that they will never be able to make, some ghosts forever dragging them down. So she nods, because in some way, she understands. She still can’t talk about the Menagerie without feeling blinding anger. Not only towards Tante Heleen but towards herself, too.
Kaz doesn’t ask about those years, anyway.
He asks her about the child she had been, about tightropes and wild geraniums and her mother’s favorite recipe, her gentle hands while she kneaded dough. Her father’s proud smile. Her favorite cousin, the old grannies who would give her kisses for good luck before her performance.
Inej always tells him, laying in bed much like they are now, starstruck and nostalgic for her childhood, for the time when the only thing that mattered was to bring a smile on her father’s face. Kaz never gets tired of asking, though.
On good days, they even go to the market, buying fruits and vegetables for the day. Kaz is awfully good at choosing what to pick — better than Inej, even — and what an infuriating thought that is. Dirtyhands is a farm boy, she sings-songs once they reach their kitchen, and he always kisses her, always looks at her with loving eyes.
Sometimes, they stroll by the stream hand in hand, Inej picking flowers for their home — and oh, the water is much clearer than in Ketterdam. Kaz still doesn’t like bathing that much, so he watches her with attentive eyes as she gets in the water, rope clinging close and revealing to her body. Those kind of days often end up with the two of them breathing heavily, exchanging the softest of touches with hungry, longing eyes.
Sometimes, she wants to buy new dresses, pretty silks. Saints, she hadn’t worn a proper dress in ages, and had forgotten how more comfortable it is.
On those mornings, they take it slow. Kaz tends to the animals, Inej tends to the garden. And then, when the sun has risen enough for them to step outside of their property, they walk, and they walk, not as wary and guarded as they once would have been.
No one knows them here anyways. No one knows their past life; who they’ve been, what they’ve done. And maybe it’s better this way. A fresh start, Kaz had said. If you want to marry me, I want to offer you the life you deserve. A life where you can be free.
Kaz Brekker has always been a calculating man, never giving anything without expecting something else in return. But with Inej, he’s been nothing but generous. A ship. Her parents. Freedom.
Now, Inej has the freedom to be just a girl — and isn’t that what she’s always wanted to be, in a way? — to make a life for herself, a family. A life where she doesn’t have to just survive anymore. A life where she can kiss her husband in the town’s square. A life where her husband can kiss her back. A life where their ghosts leave them space to breathe, after years and years of agonizing restraint.
And oh, what a blessing it is, being kissed by Kaz Brekker, not twitching or jerking or crying when something’s too much. She thinks back to the previous morning, the crooked grin on his face as he leaned closer and briefly pressed his lips against hers. She felt giddy, invincible — like when the crowd clapped her in awe, or her father gave her the brightest of smiles, or her mother kissed her forehead in pride.
Sure, there are nights when they still wince and cry, when Inej unknowingly touches his wrists too roughly, when she feels so crowded that she can’t breathe. When he struggles for air, and drowns in black water. When she forgets that pleasure is something meant for her, too, and slips back into old habits.
She’s not sure they will ever completely get rid of their ghosts, and sometimes she wonders who they would be, if nothing had happened. If they hadn’t been faced with a city far too cruel and ruthless for their age.
Each of them has had to keep bits of their own armors to survive — even though now Inej doesn’t see it as an armor, but a gentle concession to each other’s weaknesses.
They will never be completely free, but she thinks that maybe, maybe they’ve found some peace for themselves.
Inej sighs, waking up from her reverie. She touches her own stomach, although there isn’t a bump yet. She wonders when it will start to appear. She wonders whether she will have mood swings and weird cravings like Nina had written in her letter.
Her heart always grows excited when thinking of that, when thinking of growing a family. Of bringing a child to this world. Old ladies used to whisper about overwhelming pain when she was little, and she peeled oranges for them near the carts. Excruciating hours of labor, they used to tell her, as if it was a scolding. Inej used to giggle while peeling oranges, thinking they were absolutely hilarious.
She wonders if she will be a good mother. If she will teach her child the same things her Mother taught her, deft hands braiding flowers in her hair. She wonders what it feels like to become the Mother in someone else’s story, to shed your old skin and welcome a new creature into the world.
Years and years have passed, but she still feels like the girl who laid on Ketterdam’s rooftop feeding the crows, smiling under the hopeful morning sun. She wonders how that girl can become someone’s mother, and teach them love instead of the fear she’s been put through.
She feels a gentle touch on her arm, but she doesn’t jerk. Not anymore.
She just turns her head, presented with the sight of Kaz Brekker still dazed from sleep, running a hand through his hair.
She laughs, bright and surprised, endlessly teasing him. She knows he doesn’t mind it by now, though.
“Good morning, my love,” he murmurs, voice still croaky and raspy from his nap — not like Inej minds it. Quite the contrary, to be honest.
“Morning, husband,” she answers, and her lips quirk in an involuntary smile.
Kaz shuffles closer and closer still, until his face is mere inches away from Inej, taking her in with those endlessly attentive eyes.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers.
Inej isn’t very proud about the fact that he can still make her blush, after all these years.
“Come kiss me then,” she breathes.
Years ago they would have argued. Maybe she would have said that out of spite, out of pettiness, because she knew too well that he couldn’t — in fact — kiss her. Maybe she would have cried, begged, pleaded at the world to bring justice. To just let a girl and a boy be able to touch each other, be able to love each other. To be freed of what felt like a curse.
Now the only thing they do is lean closer — gently, side by side on their shared bed, husband and wife. The kiss is a mere brush of lips, slow and soft. Not because they have to or else it will be too much — but because they can. Because they’re allowed to.
And how freeing is that, for two people who have had to worry about survival for half their lives?
Inej hums when Kaz runs a hand through her hair, and laughs when their noses bump together in a messy attempt at locking their lips.
“How long have you been awake?” He asks, once they part for breath.
“Not long, but enough to think a lot. You’re growing soft,” she murmurs, “now that you’ve discovered the pleasures of a good night sleep.”
Kaz groans. “I can’t recognize myself anymore,” he rasps, small smile twitching on his lips. “Do you want me to bring you breakfast to bed?”
“You’re spoiling me,” Inej smiles.
“You’re a pregnant woman,” he reasons.
“I hardly need to be pampered right now,” she laughs.
Kaz leans down, kissing her forehead, and then her nose, and then her stomach.
“It is my utmost pleasure,” he replies, looking up at her with thorse gorgeous, dark eyes.
Inej sighs.
There are lots of kisses now, and not only for the two of them to witness.
In the garden, slow and warm, in the town’s square, brief and freeing, in front of their friends, embarrassing yet soft.
But the ones Inej prefers — and will always prefer, she thinks — are the ones behind closed doors. The ones in the lingering space between staying in bed and waking up, the ones that are slow, and soft, and just theirs. The ones where they can be just a boy and a girl, where privacy doesn’t mean hiding anymore, and where bare hands can finally meet bare skin.