𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐄'𝐒 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑

                                                 ━━ ❛ 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐀𝐒 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐕𝐀𝐑. 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐒𝐈𝐗. 𝐇𝐄 / 𝐇𝐈𝐌.                                                                      written by abby. ( 23 , she & they , est )

he’ll say it was the light in the street that woke him, though sleep had not yet come to the shoebox room above the tavern. he’ll say it was for the shouts and pleading that he descended with his rifle, though it was in his hand before any noise had reached the window. he will have a dozen excuses for himself and the body at the end of his barrel. the truth of the matter is that matthias has war in his veins and he is tired of running.

somewhere near the slat — @deadhelvar

everywhere she looks, chaos. aleni hasn’t learned yet how to be a real fighter, all she has is the pistol in her sweaty hands and the grit she’s built from years in the barrel. she weaves through it all, focused on her destination, on reaching safety as quickly as possible. there’s not much she can make out through the haze anyway, until a familiar face comes into her path: the intruder she’d apprehended at the crow club. what had he said his name was?

matthias helvar, if he even told the truth. but why is he here now?

“you’re with them,” aleni realizes, anger spiking her voice. of course. where else would he have learned to fight her off the way he had at the crow club, if not as a druskelle? everything he’d said about a debt, it was probably a lie to cover for the fact that he was there doing reconnaissance for this henrik man. aleni was right not to trust this fjerdan; and this time, as she raises her pistol, she tells herself her shot won’t miss.      

smoke flows through the streets like water, presses up against doors and windows like hands and mouths, begging for entry. matthias coughs again and again, throat raw and eyes red from it. his head is spinning, tangled in the overlay of memory and the wolf howling, GET OUT! GET OUT! his fingers trace knots in the wood until they reach a doorknob, until his feet feel the uneven cobble instead of smooth plank. 

he can’t be sure which street he’s ended up on. even in the day, they all share the same slant of sagging storefronts and sea-bleached signs. but there is no wind today to send them whining on their post, only panicked foot traffic and distant, distorted screams. 

there’s a crow in front of him, which is a good sign, matthias thinks. his mind is still fogged, spinning. he attempts another step forward to her – the one from the crow club. aleni. belatedly, he realizes she is holding a gun – at him. matthias puts his hands up on instinct. you’re with them. 

the world unfolded strangely without sound. she watched the birds call to each other, but did not hear their song. she witnessed ordinary people shout for safety, hurl curses at soldiers from the top of their lungs, but was left to guess at what words their venom might contain. the world was different without a sense, as if she were a child, learning to walk again. there was newfound hesitancy to her every action. she hated this feeling, of fragility, like a waif who could be blown away at any moment.

zenik, a voice snapped. it sounded like gravel. no time for self pity. you’re as solid as solid gets. flesh and bone. the voice brought her some comfort.

as did he.

she found him on a hail mary, her voice distant to herself even as she put the weight of the world into it, every anguish, every hurt and every right and every wrong. everything she had ever felt - into that one name. because she needed to find him, needed to touch him, needed to know they could consume each other again. needed to know his nightmares had not caught up to him. 

and then she found him, or maybe he found her - or maybe they just found each other, that was usually how it went. she was in his arms at once, guiding his hands to her waist, wrapping her own around his face and nuzzling his forehead with hers. “i’m here.” the words were ghostly to her, all she could hear was the ringing. her forehead came away sticky, marked with his blood. “let’s leave this hellish place.”

.

it could have been anyone – a friend, a stranger, a thief looking to take advantage of the chaos. anyone might have found matthias and laid hands on him, but it was more than touch that guided him to nina. what they shared was bone-deep, thicker than blood and sweeter than marrow. the needle of a compass, spinning and spinning until it found its true north. he would recognize her touch anywhere, the feel of her pressed up against him no more stranger than his own hand. matthias wanted to kiss her, but tasted blood in his mouth. he didn’t even know if it was his. 

“nina,” he gasped, at once a plea and exaltation. clumsy with the last dregs of his adrenaline, matthias’ hands moved from her hips upwards, tracing the shape of her until at last he reached her face. he was going to make a bloody mess of both of them, he knew, and found that he didn’t much care. there would be time to think about the blood and the smoke, of her skin, hot under his hands when he swore she’d been bundled earlier, time for all of it when the ground under their feet didn’t shake with every step.

“i can’t – nina, i can’t see you.” one breath. another. matthias was flirting dangerously with panic. the edge of it ebbed with the sound of nina’s voice and her palm and against his cheek, but it remained a near thing. if he focused he could make out most of her face, but it took the better part of his concentration to remain upright. “do you know where the entrance is?” 

From the hush of fabric shifting as he settles into position, the click of hollowed steel against wood, to the controlled cadence of his breathing, Sigyn remains vividly aware of Matthias. Of every small motion and subtle change, of every stretch of silence between them as they assess the weight of new variables introduced into the night’s work.  She keeps a white-knuckle grip on her sense of calm, conscious effort pouring into her focus on the target, trying to ignore how profoundly on-edge his proximity was making her, his hands gripping the rifle, eyes gazing dangerously down the barrel. 

They were two frost-furred beasts circling the same prey. Teeth gnashing, snarling behind predator’s eyes.  She couldn’t help but wonder if when the trigger squeezes and gunpowder plumes into the air between them, if their target wouldn’t simply slip away beneath their instinctual collision, each other’s opened throats the true prize of the night.

Her head shakes then, a twitchy motion that runs down her neck to between her shoulders, as though her body were physically rejecting that line of thought and trying to shake it off. That’s not what this is, focus, she reminds herself. 

His words come almost mercifully, grounding her back into the task at hand. To them, however, her eyes narrow in disagreement. “Shoot him in the stomach. We need him down, not angry and inconvenienced. Nobody limps away when they think their guts might spill out. With his friends in tow, we may need the extra time.” As for the escorts, they weren’t supposed to be a part of the picture in the first place, so as far as she was concerned, “just kill one.”

The men stop walking, lingering in the middle of the alley. Sigyn moves, just a little, to better conceal herself from them against the wall. “Whatever you do, Drüskelle, do it quickly before we’re noticed.”

matthias lines up the first shot and wills his heart to slow. he wonders if sigyn can hear it, a war drum beating down between them. he’d never met a healer before her, not in a way that mattered. for all matthias knows she could feel the rush of blood in his veins, hear the pound of it in his ears. he hates the imbalance of it. the thought that even now she could be reading him, the parts in a language written by grisha hand, while he remained unawares to her true intentions. she must be skilled enough for it. heartrenders were the soldiers, but only for their training. a healer could be just as deadly, just as practiced in the arts of violence. the job was counting on it. 

another deep breath. matthias angles the barrel to the targets stomach. they don’t have time to spare, not for him to argue that an inch too far and the target will be dead before their feet hit the cobbles. not enough time to tell her the thigh is better, too much pain to just be carried off. not enough time to explain that one non-fatal shot is enough to explain, but followed by a fatal means the whole street will scream sniper. not enough time to untangle the dozens of thoughts that thrash like a riot in his head, that try to shake at his hands. matthias takes a third breath, and pulls the trigger. 

the first is easy enough. the target drops, but matthias isn’t close enough to tell how much time he’s given sigyn before they’re dragging back a corpse. it could be minutes before the target’s critical, or he could be dead already. matthias doesn’t wait for the screams to start before he empties the chamber of its second bullet. the escort to the left was closest. by all accounts it should have been the obvious choice. except, of course, for the flash of silver at the right’s hip. if they were lucky, no one would think to grab it off his body. 

There was something beautiful about how places found a life of their own. A wreckage turned home, a burnt place reframed. It never really ceased to amaze him. The way people built something out of nothing. If Manu had to choose one definition for Ketterdam, this would be it. The power to rebuild. Even if the result was ugly, twisted and painful. It happened here. Belonged in these canals and blossomed in its people. This was a reality he could grow found of. Unlike any other place he had ever been. And it could be found in the smoke rising from what remained of fifth harbor, in how many colors and faces Manu had seen in his walk from the slat to this place. It wasn’t quite home, but it got close. Reached dangerous levels.

He shuddered. To realize that much was to acknowledge how he would miss Ketterdam. From all the sickness it brought, all the torment from being land locked, it had grown on him. More than Manu cared to admit. Enough to make him wander through its streets, half lazy, mostly urgent. For he realized he was late. To a meeting he still hadn’t decided to be wanted or not. And it only grew ever more confusing when Manu saw Matthias standing a few feet away, vicious bites destroying the pastry he had in hands. Maybe this wasn’t exactly the best day to lose track of time contemplating things he wasn’t even sure were worth contemplating. “And hello to you too,” he smiled, a touch of shyness mixed with discomfort as he approached the other, hands shoved in his pockets.

It was unnerving. The colors that made Matthias who he was. All fair and familiar. They belonged to his father, his captors and himself. A brand of cruelty and pain and past. Manu didn’t like it. Prejudice staining his judgement as he went from wary to grateful to curious and to careful. He needed this, Manu reminded himself. This opportunity to understand the heritage he would never recover. The history his father had failed to deliver. “I’m sorry, I got out of the slat later than I planned,” Manu conceded, an apologetic shrug as he accepted the food. Matthias wasn’t the enemy. He had to repeat it again, to reassure himself. If Manu had seen his father with unconditional love and understanding, if he was willing to give it a go with Sigyn and her level of eeriness, Manu could open a little place for Matthias. Could accept kindness with more than distrust.

If only he didn’t loved Fjerda that much.

“I grew up on a ship, man, a hot meal is a luxury. Besides, I don’t really mind what I eat as long as it isn’t rotten,” and he chuckled, somewhat apologetic. He should’ve gone earlier. Should’ve made an effort. Because Matthias certainly did. And it wasn’t a small one. Manu took a deep breath, another look quickly taken at the other before the pastry found its way to his mouth and a temptive bite was taken. It was wonderful. The smoked cheese, the way it dissolved in his mouth even though it wasn’t hot. No wonder Matthias found it worth of his culinary education. This was pure magic. “For all that is sacred in this world, what is this?” he asked, mouth still full, smile bigger. “Where did you find this? How can I get more if I want? Is it even fjerdan?”

.

matthias flushed scarlet. he was being unfair, taking out the last licks of his anger on the least deserving target. they were not so unlike, the two of them. a likeness that amounted to more than just the cut of their cheekbones and the color of their hair. matthias and manu were victim of circumstance, lost boys washed ashore in ketterdam where they might be built anew. if they weren’t ground down into the mortar slapped between bricks, first. matthias thought it surprising, at first, that kaz would take someone so green. but, of course, they had all been pink-cheeked once, even brekker. maybe brekker. they’d all run late, spoken too loudly, not spoken enough. he ought not begrudge manu his youth, fleeting as it was between sea and canal. 

it was easy to sweep aside his anger at the sight of manu’s reaction. too easy; perhaps the anger hadn’t been real at all. or if it had, without substance or reason, only rage. matthias thumbed at the edge of his own pastry wrappings as he watched manu’s expression shift and transform. scalding pastry was not, unsurprisingly, especially delicious. he thought of the first time the smoked cheese had melted in his mouth beside the buttery pastry flakes, the way his mother laughed when he managed to get crumbs just about everywhere. on his shirt, his chin, somehow even in his hair. a bittersweet memory. once the taste of memory receded, all that remained was ash. 

“you sound so surprised.” matthias could not help the laugh that escaped him like a breath of air, short and gasping. he shook his head. “i’m telling you the merchers don’t flock to elling on the summer solstice for nothing. smoked cheese and seasonal jam. usually some sort of fleshy fruit – apricot, i think the kerch word is? but they’re not in season, so i don’t know what they’ve put in instead. the traditional cheese is aged 18 months before its ready.” matthias shrugged, “who knows here, but it tastes as good as i remember.”

matthias paused, then, as the unwelcome thought arrived that perhaps manu was just being kind. perhaps he did not want to eat any of it, or meet for breakfast, or talk about summer holidays in a country that had not been kind to either of them. matthias paused. “do you like it?”

“Where is your sense of humor?” A soft voice tugs along each syllable in a growing whine, as feet ascend into a small hop from the entryway of the bakery onto the cobbled streets, the heartrender’s eyes pinned over her shoulder in an exaggerated pout. She’d only squeezed the boy a little, not even enough to warrant a squeak, let alone the unraveling fit he’d put on to usher her out the door with a chorus threats of words to the dregs. 

Her arms were full with paper-wrapped bundles of steaming pastries, body too preoccupied with the task of breakfast to spend much longer on company no logner welcome to her. Marlaina’s features settle for a glower, long enough to silence any murmuring of threats, before continuing on her path. She liked the mornings. The wee hours before the brunt of Ketterdam oozed into the motions of the day had opportunity in their own way. One such dawddling down the streets that very moment.

Matthias. Picking up her pace to meet his own, she arches into his sharp turn with little, freely invading the few inches of his own space. “Boo.” Brows crawled skyward in emphasis. “I wasn’t aware cockroaches were diurnal.”

more than once matthias’ instincts have betrayed him in ketterdam, turning on friend when his body screams foe. this is not one of those times. marlaina steps into the space between them and he does not crush the revulsion beneath his boot. so djel does not smile on him today, putting her in his path. he could take a step back, put some distance from the witch, but she would see the concession for what it was. no, matthias keeps his feet planted and his gaze steely. 

he shrugs off the insult. worse have been leveled at him, and worse will likely be again. marlaina’s words are nothing to him, not worth air she takes to say them. he casts a glance over her shoulder, brows raised back. 

like oil on the ocean, smoke poured from the smoldering remains of the slat and into the street. the already darkened windows stained deeper, as if kissed by shadow, and doors were sensibly shut. matthias coughed and struggled to stay upright. smog aside, his vision was blurring badly, a side effect of the blood running into his eyes. he assumed it was blood; his hands felt wet to the touch and trying to clear his sight only obscured it more. he cut a path by touch instead, fingers jumping over the stones set into canals.  

he thought he heard his name and snapped to attention, but if it had been called by someone close the stale wind quickly stole it and the drowsy shapes of taverns tossed it between them.  but there it was, again. matthias. matthias! there was something wrong with the sound of it, the way it bounced of the glass, swallowed by the chaos around him and spat back out. he swung a hand around, searching, but only met air.

“nina!” his voice was rough, rubbed raw with smoke and hacking. if there was a reply, he couldn’t hear it. “nina!” he tried again, hoping. praying. what god might answer, he didn’t know. “nina,” he reached, blindly. “nina –” 

a debt can mean a host of things, many of which aleni is more than familiar with. she supposes, like this stranger, she owes kaz a debt too, a debt she’s paying by offering her continued services to the dregs. in this case, she does not trust that the man’s intentions of paying off his “debt”– if the words he speaks are even true– are entirely pure. she does not trust the rage etched clearly in his expression, and although she has no intention of killing him, she is grateful for the security of the gun between them. aleni just hopes her cowardice is not as clear in her own face as fury is in his.

it takes her a second to place the accent, but she’s spent enough years in ketterdam’s melting pot to recognize a fjerdan. her suspicions flare. could it really be a coincidence that a fjerdan fleet was due to arrive in ketterdam at any moment, and this fjerdan stranger was trying to find kaz? i owe a debt. she recalls the dead fjerdan aboard the verglas. could the “debt” this man speaks of be retribution for his fallen brethren?

“i’m not in the mood for vagueness,” aleni replies, matching his anger with what she hopes is an authoritative edge. “what kind of debt?”  

matthias hesitates. the rivers he might paddle down and out of this situation are rapidly narrowing. he can’t ask for kaz. at best she’d deny him, at worst alert others for reinforcements. it’s a good sign she hasn’t put a bullet in his brain, but that might still be an issue of when and not if. damn brekker and his games of cloak and dagger. if speaking with him were less like holding water in your hands they might have avoided this entirely. as it were, matthias let his expression fall slack. more anger would only put the girl on edge. 

“i’m not sure that’s your information to harbor.” a dozen curses spring to mind, but the cool press of metal soothes them. matthias’ gaze remains steely, though tempered by the knowledge that if she’d wanted to kill him, or was capable of it, she likely would have pulled the trigger by now. it’s clear her patience is running thin, so he gives her some version of the truth.

he’s still all gold and marble, and their plea goes heard, only to be sent back. there’s was never a relationship of angst, of challenge, of tears. it wasn’t one of questioning, or working through failures, but of action, of snipes and levity. still, it had been seven fucking years.

“ i most certainly haven’t missed your scowling, nor your shite taste in weaponry, but i’ve missed you, mate. “ the smile on their face is as bright as ever, if softer, warmer. what else can they say? i’ve missed your smile, the way you learnt, your focus, your hard-headed practicality? i’ve missed the way you blushed when nina flirted with you, the flint in your eyes when you first started working with us, the way you clung to your faith and made it grow like inej, the wit when you started to joke with us, the strength of your arm and the warmth of your conviction.

“ who would have thought it? you got both mourners and a funeral. “ a barge and a send off, a cemetry plot a continent away, and people who remembered his name. jesper reaches out, punches the other in the arm. “ you always were better than the rest of us dregs, what can we say. “ a melancholic twist to the grin, before they shake their head, wave away the lingering sadness, swallow back the grief. “ where’ve you been then? what’s the best thing you ate? worst place you slept?”

he knows jesper doesn’t mean to show it, but matthias falters at the frayed edges of grief, hanging still like threads from an unfinished tapestry. he could tug on them, the barest pull, and watch the whole thing come undone. but he doesn’t need to. it is enough to know the grief was there at all, a wound they all felt for him, real as the scar on his belly. matthias doesn’t need to press down on the bruise to know it where it was, that it hurt, that it can be felt still. 

he collects himself in a matter of heartbeats and counters jesper’s smile with one of his own, edged in mischief. “i told you, my ghost wouldn’t associate with your ghost.” he tilts his chin up, a challenge. it hides the raw truth: matthias is not quite ready to merge the parts of himself, to step fully off the ice and onto the cobbles. to give words to his hauntings was to make them real, no figment or specter. to tell of the time that had passed between them felt like giving it weight and importance, a presence heavier than this one. 

The chime of her laugher cuts off as abruptly as it had begun. Silence hangs heavy in it’s stead as Matthias checks the rifle’s chamber, his position intentional to allow her tilted head a clear view of the two bullets sitting in wait within. What he thought that proved, she wasn’t entirely sure. Sigyn was, if nothing else, intimately aware of what a drüskelle was capable of. Better than most she knew that their lethality wasn’t dependent on the number of bullets they had.  Matthias was no exception ━━ if he had the inclination to shed drüsje blood tonight, an empty chamber wasn’t going to stop him. 

When he speaks again she meets his gaze critically, his words with the weight of an olive branch; the offering of a truce, of sorts. Her lip curls into a snarl in response, more so out of habit than anything as it was distinctly lacking in some of it’s former hostility from earlier. Unlikely though it was that she possessed the capacity to trust a drüskelle at her side, maybe, with wary eyes, they could at the very least accomplish the night’s task. 

Sigyn steps away from his back then, a concession of her own, her arms crossing as she moves to instead lean against the frame of the window. Matthias remained in her periphery, where she was intent he’d remain until they could finally part ways, but allowed her eyes to peer downwards into the trickling traffic of people coming and going below them. 

Entirely disinterested in his musing, wanting only for the job to be done so she could leave, she ignores his statement with a snort. It was just then that she catches sight of the man who would be their target; gaudy green coat, a scar bisecting his upper lip, mole under his eye. Except… he wasn’t traveling from the direction she’d been told to expect. Nor was he alone, with another man in pace at his side, the two of them speaking together.

“Something’s wrong,” she shares, her brows inclining with concern, certain he’d have seen the same inconsistencies as she had already.

matthias watches sigyn glide through the room, gaze sharp. this is a delicate dance of wolves and he makes no sudden moves. but who is the predator, he wonders, and who might be the prey? which of them will snap first, and whose blood will be drawn in the stone. he hadn’t been entirely truthful, and it seemed sigyn knew it. it would take less than a bullet to level her if he wanted, but he has no doubt the same held true for her. they both of left red in the snow behind them, that he knows. no one’s hands in the barrel were clean. he wonders if some, if theirs, were born dirty.

he settles back against the windowsill to maintain a wide berth even as she draws closer, the only sound between them the slide of the bolt returning home and the weight of knowing that they will, in some part, have to work together in order to see the night through. matthias is content to wait in the silence, to wear it like a blanket or thick furs. they have struck as much peace as might be expected until the work is done. here, the unshakeable fjerdan sensibility. here, the common ground matthias is unwilling to acknowledge.

the first flash of gaudy green and matthias has the rifle nocked against the bleached wood. he doesn’t recognize the face under the brocade and ridiculous ornament, but he doesn’t need to. he likely isn’t meant to at all. it isn’t his job to know the sins of a stranger or what dirtyhands means to gain from them. his is the easy part in brekker’s elaborate play. pull the trigger. injure, but don’t kill. exeunt, pursued by a witch.

he lines up the shot, the last steadying breath already in his lungs. what does another body or two matter? he has the second bullet, enough to drop one of them and cause the scene they need for the target. barely a readjustment; a few inches at most to put them back at the end of matthias’ barrel. 

something ashen and sick settles over her face for a moment, gaze shifting over him and the tentative memory of a smile lingering at the edge of his mouth. “if i was capable of hurting you, i would have done so instead of tripping you.” it’s too honest, brutal and torn from her throat in a voice that is little more than a scraping murmur against the inside of her mouth. her own lips quirk as if swallowing something bitter at the admission she should not have offered ; WANTS TO TRUST HIM SO BADLY, cannot let herself fully. it’s a slip caused by the skip in her head that had occurred at the sight of his familiar enough expression.

it was too true. astrid wonders if she could have sent him to the ground unconscious even if he had come at her with a gun, with a net, with chains. how she would love to be able to give a simple YES ; that it would have been as easy as a stranger ( enough of those left for dead in her wake that their hands grasp her sleeves and their scratchy voices tangle in her ears in her dreams ), but it does not FEEL true. little does, but this - this is different. this is matthias. this is the smoldering ruins of a village and families turned to the ash that floats thick in the air, the two of them running, feet slipping on snow and ice as heat burns at the back of their heels and urges them onwards. astrid doesn’t let herself think about the past, but there are some things you cannot outrun. it seems matthias helvar is one of them.

“i know some clubs,” ones that know her coin is good and know to leave her be or deal with kaz brekker ; a good enough threat that she is cornered less often than some others, “ - let’s get out of the street.”

matthias thinks of flagpole trees and the creak of wood in wind. he thinks of dead limbs collecting snow, sharp as a pike. he thinks of wolf pups left wild. reared together, their survival depends on which is willing to give the killing blow and lead the pack. he thinks of of a rifle’s barrel, smooth and imperfect steel. the pups were weaned too early, left out in the cold with only the other for comfort. the wind will howl and their stomachs go empty, they bare their teeth in the flat winter light. but to kill the other is to damn them both. 

there is an admission here from the both of them, a map of the years neither is sure how to chart. a language lost, left too long to collect dust, uncomfortable in the mouth. a bridge with its boards rotted, screaming with every step. slowly, matthias begins to cross. his first step is the slowest, the heaviest, weighed down by snow and shame and instability. they haven’t killed each other, but that means little. the second is a little more sure, the third steadier even than that, and before matthias has taken two breaths astrid is close enough to touch. ten years, since the distance between them has fallen so short. ten years since he looked at her over a barrel and told her to run. he is at once boy and man, at once covered in ash and snow and smog. 

in shu han, the poets carved their artistry onto stone tablets, knowing that their words would outlive them. she, girl with borrowed face, girl with tear-stained cheeks, girl with curls whipped straight by the mountain air, had thought it would be beautiful to create something that lived longer than you did. in shu han, she, girl who puppeteered the dead, girl who survived jarl brum’s torture, girl who bested storms, learnt that according to poets, all soulmates are connected by a thread. what happens when that thread severs? the stone was silent, but the dead who lay under them were not. they awakened, alive by her command. re-tie it. 

so she did. nina wrapped a coil around her own frame. girl was tied to corpsewitch. girl used corpsewitch as rebirth. girl used corpsewitch to create a legacy that echoed through time.

hearing that name on matthias’ tongue was an act of beauty. it also felt a little like heresy, abnormal and strange. those two periods of her life were separate in her mind. she had never expected them to touch. a part of her wondered whether matthias was capable of loving the corpsewitch, if he would bless the brutal things she had done. forced drüskelle soldiers to dismantle their legacy. stolen state secrets from scientist’s lips. enacted bloody revenge. at his words, at that name, nina searched his eyes; hunting for fear.

are you scared of her? she longed to ask. does she haunt your nightmares too? she searched for fear - and found none. that did not surprise her. he had never been afraid of her powers. her other captors had cowered when grisha’s cuffs came together, but not he. he hadn’t been afraid on the ship. or the ice. or in ketterdam, watching her spread plague like it was kisses. his fear had been reserved for who she was - the carnal temptation she promised, the swing of her hips, the promise of her tongue - not what she was. 

the canal lapped against its manmade walls. the birds squawked in the night. far, far away, she heard punters giggles. the world thinned out - and nina thought she saw it all, or at least, enough to be certain about what came next.

“that makes us allies.” said not in resignation, or apprehension, but with a tinge of inevitability. they were allies before they were lovers, a partnership born of dread of death, then strengthened on the ice. she sighed. “i’m here for her. to protect her. to save her. to drag her to ravka if needs be.”

the sage move was to walk away, or shake hands perhaps. cement their partnership and call it a day, wait until dawn broke to negotiate a stable peace. impulse control had always been a flaw of hers.

the distance was nothing between them. a gap easily breached. close, closer, closest - and then there really was nothing, just her hand resting on his chest and her arm wrapped around his shoulder, tracing patterns on his collar bone. she felt his heart, his steady fjerdian heart, beneath her palm. the sound brought tears to her eyes. i love you, she wrote. but language did not serve them well, had betrayed them tonight. in his words, she found sorrow. in her actions, they would find - what? promise? hope? peace?

matthias was close, mere inches away - but when she kissed him, he became a part of her. he was everywhere. she was everywhere. they were tangled, becoming one. she kissed matthias because she loved him. she kissed him because she hated him. she kissed him because she had thought there were no more kisses to be had, because she was sick of aching over the same memories, because he had died searching for a last kiss - and this was the best way to bring him back to life. 

nina kissed him dearly, as if he might be stolen away at any moment. they both knew that feeling well.

time lapsed. the city slowed. they were the only two souls in the world. nina felt her thread loosening, drawn towards him. she pulled it back, a tight coil choking her heart. and then, she let him go. lips severed, but close enough to see his breath escape into the night air. the sight brought her comfort, reminded her of when his body was hers to read.

“wanden olstrum end kendesorum.“

she had heard his explanation. she understood the self-imposed exile between them.

matthias knew how the phrase ended.

matthias knew she did not forgive.

if nina wanted an ally she would have it. if she wanted a rifle at her shoulder and a sword at her side, matthias would lift them, bullet and blade guided by her hand. if she wanted a solider he would stand a step behind her, ready and willing for command. if she wanted a shepherd for the girl, he would take the staff in both hands, steer the ship to the shore of witches and heresy. he would see it through. if she asked him to go, he would, too.

the grace of their understanding was this: matthias would be what nina asked of him, nothing more and nothing less, and she knew it as well as he. in life and death, he was as she made him. a soldier, a traitor, a lover, a spy, a ghost. a man on the cobbles, waiting for the woman who whispered death. 

he could feel the ice shifting underneath them, each groan and crack, a single wound like a knife threatening to splinter and give way. matthias could not catch her this time, she was too far. and then – she wasn’t at all. nina was on him in the space between breaths, the moment between nightmares and morning light in streams, on furs and pale skin.

matthias did not have the air in his lungs to speak, and if he had, what would he say? there were no words for the feel of nina against him, the press of her fingers and the warmth of each breath on his cheek. no words for the ease at which he might bend down to close these final inches, or the way his heart stops when she does it first. what had they said on the cobbles, the blood staining the both of them, ugly and red? i ought to do this more often. there was no surprise left in him, that even that nina would take for herself. but it was a delight to be led by her, her grasp firm in his, and so matthias followed. willingly, eagerly, heartbeats thick with wanting.

he was not about to let them stop at one. matthias stole a second between breaths, a third at the corner of her mouth, before the sharp edges of her words land. a fourth, light and quick, to steal time before an answer. but whatever he might say, it’s stolen by the wind, and the footfalls stampeding down the alleyway. 

djel, he’d done it again – let nina ensorcel him from his senses, until the only thing he could thing was her, and not the bodies a few feet from them. not that grisha slavers never worked only in pairs. not that when they showed with nothing, or never showed at all, reinforcements would come. and certainly not that they’d be carrying lanterns and torches to illuminate the way. 

“saints.” he kept nina close to him just a moment longer before he drew away. he refused to look at her, see the hurt or confusion that might be there. or worse, the anger. “saints, nina, i can’t – they can’t see me.” he slipped his fingers once around her wrist for pressure and let go. “i’ll find you.” and like the ghost he should have been, matthias disappeared into the dark.

Aris had had quite the night. Out early, he had run into an old acquaintance and spent the night with them at a table laden with food and drink, gotten a promise of another meeting, and eventually they parted after Aris had kindly alleviated him from the weight of his purse. He came back to the Crow Club pockets heavy, head set on one last drink before bed. That was when he ran into another old acquaintance. The evenings in East Stave were getting repetitive. As Matthias met him between the gambling tables, blocking his way, Aris stopped, and then took a step back. He was impressed. Not to see Matthias, his name had been mentionned before by the crows, though  in a evasive way that had kept Aris from asking more questions without revealing they were acquainted. But to see him like this -Hellgate Matthias had just been normal Matthias to him. Emaciated, smaller, irritable…he was still irritable, but had returned to a shape that seemed more coherent with his skills as a fighter. -You would know, Aris finally said with a smile. I would not be here had you not been such a good investment. Though he was proud of the retort, Brekker’s words did taste sour in his own mouth. Though Aris’ thoughts often echoed similar sentiments, he disliked talking about people this way. Especially in their presence. Matthias had seemed wound-up before this. It would not help pacify the first conversation they were having as free men. Aris was convinced he had done his best to get along with Matthias in Hellgate, but then again, maybe his best was not as good as he’d hoped, and either way things had not ended well, and Aris had been quite offended to learn the Fjerdan had ran away without him. They had not been close friends in any shape or form, but still. But there was no need to go back to these animosities. Aris didn’t think so. But he knew Matthias tended to hold onto grudges like a dog with a bone. It was so tempting, though, to tease him, test him again, and the only dynamic they knew. Even though the chances of him getting beat up were much greater now, with no wardens around, Aris could not resist it. -You would not believe how much I’ve missed you, Aris said to Matthias with his own voice. It came back naturally -it was one of the first voices he’d learned to put on. Before bunking with the Fjerdan he had not spent a lot of time with foreigners and had no idea how much of a knack he had for accents. He had at least that to thank Matthias for.

a good investment. the words sunk deeper than aris would know, a wound unclosed and left to fester. matthias’ freedom will always hinge on his utility, a debt unpaid until the bastard of the barrel deemed it so. he would not have expected aris jong of all people to understand that burden – new shackles for the old and rusted – but if he was here, in the crow club with no fear beading at the back of his neck, than aris had chains around his ankles, too, and brekker with the key. brekker always with the key. matthias wondered if he ever jingled as he walked over the cobbles, laden with secrets like coin. 

“don’t.” matthias knew better to lay hands on anyone under the dregs’ protection. it didn’t stop him from rising to his full height over aris. he’d been a shadow of himself in hellgate, sanded into something thin and sharp, a blade to slip under sleeves or between rib bones. even he had not recognized himself in the skiff’s fogged mirror, hair shorn and eyes wild. he wondered what aris saw, an old stranger with a new face.

a memory took form in her mind; unwarranted, unwelcome and unforgiving. a ship. a man. a woman. the taste of parem. in the memory, she became the making at the heart of the world. she felt every inch of the ship, every wood chip and crack. if she touched it, she swore she could hear the sound of a forest slowly dying, choked by human civilisation. she saw every inch of the man - the true colour of his eyes (how had she allowed herself to assume they were one thing, when they were really another?), the steady tempo of his heart, how concern took seed until it grew into dread. she heard every part of herself, painfully aware of her own becoming. stay, the girl had whispered, every part of her breaking as she touched the man. stay until the end. in his innocence, he had promised. in the thrall of her demons, she had exploited his affections, spat his name, threatened to return him to fjerda, swore she’d never set eyes on him again.

she had taken everything he loved about her and used it as a weapon against him.

cringing at the shade of shame, nina faced up to the present, to the man and to the woman. the ship was far, far away. if he had forgiven her then, if he had brushed aside her manipulation and her threats, if he held her as she broke and stood by her as she repieced herself back together, couldn’t she do the same? couldn’t she offer that same forgiveness, extend a hand in peace? parem had been a choice too, taken to save the crows. she should respect his choice to stay away.

but why? 

he still hadn’t told her why.

“why matthias?” her voice was softer now, catching on her own words, like an anchor. “why didn’t you try to find me?” if he had tried, all could have been forgiven. but intent was a dagger. it rubbed her raw. every moment they had been together was another paper cut, wounds piling up. was it love? or an illusion? 

“a sacred ash tree would make a better spy than you helvar. you wear everything you feel on that darn face of yours.” if nina dared look now, what would she see? no longer an innocent girl, but a warrior carved, she forced herself to stare. it was like diving into the eye of a hurricane. love. regret. sorrow. anger. pride. matthias was consumed by them, and so much more. she saw the conflicting impulses inside of him, the urge to reach out, the urge to recoil. hadn’t that been their tale as old as time?

at his speech, nina wanted to give into fury. she wanted to shake him bloody and yell at how useless he was, how his talent for reading the whims of women hadn’t grown, how hurt she was that he couldn’t come close to puzzling her out, all this time later. instead, she clenched her fist, nails carving half moons into her skin. an illusion of calm then, if not the real thing. “it’s not natural for someone to be as stupid as he is tall.” hesitantly, she took a step closer. “i only ever wanted you to be you.” - well, after he had gotten over the whole “grisha are evil seductresses” thing - “that was always enough for me. it will always be enough.” 

if they could ever repair their severed bond.

resisting the urge to reach back out to him, to sink into his grasp and reconcile in bursts of passion and fury, nina forced herself to look away. “why are you here then? if not - “ the end of her sentence went unsaid. if not for me. that thought hardened her melting heart. “did kaz snap his fingers?” the urge to make a crude dog joke nearly seized nina, but she tied her tongue at the last moment. perhaps she was learning after all. “i remember how much you hate it here.”

matthias could withstand the storm of nina zenik. he’d borne it before, through metal bars, in frozen whaling huts, in the belly of a skiff, hand in hers. he had been the stone-set seawall she threw her waves against, her howling to match the wind screaming in his ears, and he had not broken. he hadn’t even shuddered. the drüskelle had forged him stronger than that, tempered in rage and cooled with a hilt in his hand. so when nina called the wind and the water, when she screamed thunder and lightning cracked overhead, splintering the sky like thin ice, matthias did not falter. he held her as she trembled, as she begged, as she bartered. as she touched him in a way he longed for, in a way he only dared give thought to in his dreams. 

so it was not the smell of ozone fresh in the air that gave him pause, or the scorching cobbles between his feet where nina cast down her accusations like lightning strikes on wood. it was the quiet thereafter, the silence once the storm fell away, the destruction standing between them like a pyre. it was, in simpler terms, the warble in her voice he nearly missed. a softness he’d only heard when she was breaking, or newly forged. gentleness was not a luxury they afforded each other; it was not something the world had allowed them much of at all. now faced with it, matthias felt the weakness in himself. he felt the places nina’s absence had hollowed out, unfilled and empty. 

she would not look at him, but matthias could not tear his eyes away. she was as she had always been: the sun, blinding on the ice. the crash of waves on rock to a man who had never seen the sea. a thousand blossoms in bloom. he longed to be closer, to count the freckles on her face, the flecks of gold in her eyes, close enough to feel the shape of her, to chart the places they had both changed. he wanted her to pull him under, ice giving under way, a rip current wrenching him from shore. nina zenik was a knife’s edge and matthias wanted to curl both fists around the blade. 

but was that really what nina wanted? an anchor at the bottom of the ocean, unmoving and drowned all the same. maybe – maybe matthias hadn’t needed to become a spy; he’d been pretending his whole life. like wet sand, he took on shapes molded by stronger hands. maybe nina was in love with someone who never really existed, someone she made. she must know how his heart would always beat for her, how matthias was made to refract her own light. 

he let his eyes close and imagine it was by her hand, fingers smoothing over his lids, cheeks, lips. he allowed himself two slow breaths before he looked at her again, gaze finally clear. 

“i can’t stand it.” matthias shakes his head. “the smell. it lives on you, worse than smoke. it doesn’t matter how many times i bathe, i can never get it out.” ketterdam left something on him, not wholly unlike nina. he could still feel the first press of her hands on his arms, on his chest. those brands would never wash out.

he had the gall to tilt his head at her, as if something she’d said was worthy of laughter.

“do you think so little of me, nina?” matthias thought of crows and letters, stuffed into his windowsill and under his door, stamped red and gone unanswered. he thought of the whispers in the tavern, the witch in everyone’s mouths who murdered one of their own. their rage when council of merchants remained silent. 

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘  𝐒𝐀𝐘  𝐇𝐄'𝐒  𝐖𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐄𝐃  𝐓𝐎  𝐓𝐇𝐄  𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐄  ,      but  he  was  more  like  a  pillager,      let  in  the  front  door.      &.  he  was  drug  down  into  the  deep,      current  cravings  turned  to  dust  in  exchange  for  fjerdan  documents  scattered  across  desk  surface.      if  it  wasn’t  for  the  burnt  orange  of  jurda  blooms  betwixt  his  teeth,      a  monster  christened  somnolence  would  have  felled  him  days  ago.      𝚋𝚞𝚝  𝚍𝚒𝚛𝚝𝚢𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚜  𝚑𝚊𝚍  𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎  𝚝𝚘  𝚜𝚎𝚎  𝚝𝚑𝚎  𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑  𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔  𝚍𝚘𝚗𝚎.      a  flock  of  crows  floors  below,      kaz  would  see  them  make  it  out  alive,      talons  sharp,      wings  unclipped.      the  verglas’  manifest  left  much  amiss.      partly  in  code      (       partly  charred      ),      singed  texts  inspired  imaginative  results.      he  bore  the  look  of  a  blackguard  :      scowling  &.  severe.      if  there  was  ever  a  time  to  play  dirty,      it  was  now.      all  is  fair  in  war      (       say  your  prayers      /lock  your  doors      ).

but  the  threshold’s  presence  is  soon  altered,      unsanctioned  wolf  come  to  stalk  through  study  door.      he  supposed  djel  didn’t  teach  manners,      too  busy  preaching  of  witches  &.  pikes.      it  was  time  to  sermonize  newfangled  orders.

❛  careful  ,  𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐚𝐫  .  it  was  a  trick  that  brought  you  back  to  zenik  .  ❜      the  malice  is  missing.      like  the  drüskelle,      he  was  exhausted,      resigned,      drawn  out  ooze  of  volume  straining  to  be  heard.      a  stray  strand  slips  from  raven  crown,      obscuring  vision  which  lifts  to  snare  matthias,      like  all  those  years  ago  in  the  depths  of  hellgate.      unlike  his  youth,      he  hadn’t  done  a  bad  thing,      and  didn’t  plan  to  pay  for  it  now.      ❛  𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐤  𝐯𝐨𝐧  𝐝𝐞𝐫  𝐥𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐧  .  ❜      or  have  i  drug  you  back  from  death  for  nothing  ?

matthias meets kaz with a burning gaze, eyes blue fire, and his hands curl tighter around the back of the chair. he draws himself up to full height. the kick in his ribs is matthias knows kaz is right and that this dance helps neither of them. matthias wants to the full set of his teeth, red stained, and hackles raised. but its an energy wasted. he has nothing to prove to brekker and everything to ask of him. he flicks away kaz’s comment like air and levels him another hard look. 

“i noticed you left that surprise for me to deliver.” not a thank you, not a condemnation, but a little of both. matthias had been spared nina’s reaction the first time; brekker would not give him that luxury again. and he had not expected any favors, nor happy reunions. but knowing the blade comes for you does not prevent the pain or even lessen it. 

for a moment, matthias dares to hope. he can see the manifesto from here, its entrails spread across the desk like a showroom cadaver. hendrik von der leyen, at the bottom of the ocean. more necrosis cut from the flesh by fate’s hand. fate, or an inferni. even thinking of it turns matthias’ stomach. but kaz brekker would not have dug a dead man up  for a problem that solved itself. so von der leyen was not dead, as matthias might have wished. no –

astrid had never let her picture it. pale hair fanned across ice, shock of dark crimson blooming like a deadly flower just behind him, the heat of the ichor beginning to melt freshly fallen snow as sightless eyes stare up at the unflinching sky. it had come unbidden in nightmares on occasion, but astrid had bid the thought to perish every time it attempted to breathe. NO. at the little palace astrid had thought of matthias alive, red-cheeked and scaling the walls to come and collect her and take her HOME. after - AFTER, astrid had done her best not to think of him in the current at all. matthias had become a memory ; a fond one, yes, but something relegated to the past all the same. to look back on. to miss.

he was not meant to meet astrid again. she had figured as much years ago. head throbs and she frowns, too, looking at him as though seeing a ghost. will that ever change? astrid feels herself slipping from the calculated near-combat. her hold on the world loosens and she no longer reaches for the clay in the bricks or the grain of wood. IF MATTHIAS WERE THE ENEMY, HE WOULD NOT OFFER THIS INFORMATION.

“fuck.” it’s ineloquent, but astrid has ALWAYS been inarticulate when peril looms on the horizon. the temptation to grab his hand - as though both of theirs are mitten-clad and they will stumble through the trees with laughter spiraling from their lips towards the heavens - and RUN is strong. astrid is stronger. “ - i need a drink.”

matthias can see it. she still doesn’t believe him, not fully, but more than before. that he can solve, with food and drink and truths traded like coin. the air no longer hums the tune of magic and quiet that replaces it loosens something in him, a tension matthias had not realized coiled tight behind his chest. a familiar feeling, but for running or for something else he refused to ponder. matthias sucked in a breath, the threat of a smile hanging off the corners of his mouth.