#drüsje

[illusioninfnty]

fuck me like you hate me ↠ day 22 ; hate fucking

↠ matthias helvar x reader

fandom: six of crows word count: 607 warnings: nsfw 18+, light choking, unprotected sex, rough sex, slight degradation, creampie

kinktober m.list || read on ao3

“Filthy,”

Thrust.

“fucking,”

Thrust.

“Drüsje.”

Matthias ruts into you with all the vigor and passion of a man starved of flesh. He hates you, he made sure to let you know, but that never stopped him from taking you in the dark hours of the night when no one was around to see.

He holds you close, his strong arms encasing your body. Your bare breasts rub against his broad chest, heat encompassing you from the friction.

His hands wrap around your throat, putting pressure but not depriving you of your breath. He is always so angry when he fucks you, relieving himself of his anger and his stress in the pleasure that you bring him. 

You clench around his lengthy cock, sucking him deeper into you. Witchcraft, is what he called it the first time he bedded you, a curious yet driven man weighed down by the responsibilities of a Drüskelle.

Seduction, you had answered him.

Yet now, he comes back again and again just to fuck you. Strips you bare and pounds into you until you take in all that he has to give you.

“I thought the mighty Drüskelle were better than this.” You smirk as his cheeks flush with anger.

His nostrils flare and his hands flex tighter around your throat. “I could kill you right now.” Your own hands travel up along his arms, resting upon the hands around your throat, rubbing them with your thumbs. “But then you wouldn’t be able to fuck your little Drüsje, hm? Must settle for another hole.”

His empty threat dissipates in the air as he pounds his cock into you harder, shifting you up on the makeshift bed. You notice the way his jaw clenches harder and his cheeks flare as he ignores your comment.

Matthias would never admit to it, but you know that he had caught feelings for you. Within the past couple of months, he came to see you more frequently, and he would always hold you more tenderly in his arms.

You run a hand along the nape of his neck, tugging at the ends of his cropped hair. He growls deep in his throat, turning your head to the side and stuffing it into the fabric beneath where you lay.

“You need to learn to shut your mouth,” he growls out through clenched teeth.

Muffled laughter escapes your lips as your face is forced into the pillow below you. Matthias rams into you even faster, his balls slapping against your pussy. You relish in the force of his thrusts, digging your nails into his broad back, leaving crescent marks in his pale skin.

One of his hands digs into your hip, squeezing the flesh. The only sounds in the room are his quiet grunts and your skin slapping.

He buries his face into his neck when he cums, concealing his moans in the crook of it. But you can tell—you’ve always been able to. His body starts to tremble, and one of his hands unconsciously caresses the back of your head, as if cocooning you.

The action never fails to make your heart skip a beat.

When he recovers from his peak, he’s like a whole new man. His eyes become darker, and he lifts himself off of you. His cock falls out of you, stained with your blood and dripping in your juices and his own cum.

He pulls his clothes back on, giving you one last look. A look of longing, you can tell. But then his eyes narrow.

“I hate you,” he grits out.

You bite your lip to hold back your smile. “I hate you too.”

[igotanidea]

Reindeer: Nikolai Lantsov x reader

christmas bingo day 11 : reindeer

***

„Did I ever tell you-”

„You did.”

„You didn’t even let me finish!”

„It’s the beginning of December, Nikolai. Christmas is coming. You tell me the same story over and over and over every year at this time.” Y/N rolled her eyes and Nikolai only chuckled at her teasing. They were laying on the bed in his chamber, her head on his chest, his hand running up and down her arm, with the fire crackling in the fireplace and whole room illuminated by giant Christmas tree standing outside the palace.

„guilty!” Nikolai smirked „but you love this story, don’t you?”

„Hmmm....”

„Oh come on, sunshine, you love this story.” he leaned a little bit forward their faces inches apart.

„I don't know if you're trying to convince me or yourself....” she muttered

„You're such a cruel woman Y/n! Cold as ice. Breaking my heart.” He grabbed his chest in feigned offence and sighed melodramatically.

„You’re such an attention seeker, Nikolai. Besides, as a heartrender-” she started but he cut her off

„Are you trying to tell me you used your grisha skills to bewitch me?”

„This is not what -”

„Are you admitting defeat now?” He leaned even closer to her, raising an eyebrow.

„I'm not-- wait - what? This is not we were talking about!”

„Oh, you're right. We were talking about my adventures while being Sturmhond.

„How did you turn this around like this?!” she exclaimed, jumping and sitting on the bed feeling the leverage slipping from her.  

„Got you distracted by my pretty face, love.” He pecked her lips „don’t worry though. You’re not the only woman to fall for my charm.”

„Saint!” she rolled her eyes, but deep down she was enjoying this little banter. It was like their own Christmas tradition to tell/listen to Nikolai Christmas adventure from a few years before.

‘So.” he sighed and leaned on the headrest pulling her to his side. One time, back when I was a -”

„pirate!” she chuckled

„privateer!” her teasing got her a pinch of her waist in return „I travelled to Fjerda-”

„good thing you were undercover, cause if they knew you were from the Grisha country they would burn you on the stake!”

„Y/N!”

„Yes?” she asked sweetly, batting her eyelashes innocently

„You’re interrupting me.”

„Am I?” her smile only grew wider as she tilted head „I’m more like.... emending”

„We’re not living in a XVI century, no one is accusing anyone of being a witch!”

„tell that to Nina” Y/N was way too familiar with the love story of her fellow heartrender. And even if the girl was teasing Nikolai, he was her treasure.

„Hm? You were saying?”

„Nothing, nothing. Please, continue”

„As I was exploring the wild, harsh land-”

„You met Santa Claus.” she finished nodding her head

„Y/N!”

„And you became best friends”

„Y/N!”

„and you rode a reindeer-” she continued casually but something changing on his face caught her attention „what?” her frown was as much an expression of confusion as of concern. It was not every day you could see Nikolai Lantsov distressed. „Kolya?”

„That one’s actually true-”

„what?!” she laughed falling on her back on the bed „you never told me that!”

„Maybe it’s because you keep interrupting me Lapushka.”

„sweet words will get you nowhere, sobachka. You only got one chance on distracting me and used it before. But seriously, you actually rode a reindeer?! How was it?!”

„Oh, now you are interested, huh?”

„come on! You already got this far Nikolai! Tell me!” she rolled on her belly, propping her head on the elbows and looking at him with eyes shining with curiosity.”

„it’s very different from riding a horse, let me tell you that.”

„Is that why you never visited Fjerda since then? Was it really such an embarrassing experience that you fear they might still remember?”

„I don’t visit them, cause that would mean being away from you, drüsje. Couldn’t stand that ever again.”

„I see some hidden language talent here.” obviously the part where Nikolai confessed to missing her while being on the sea was left without notice on purpose. For now at least.

„What can I say?” the prince brushed a strand of hair from his forehead and threw his hair back playfully „I am both handsome and gifted.”

„Is that why you couldn’t find way back home for so many years?” this was only a half-joke

„Y/N... love” he grabbed both her hands and squeezed them lovingly „milaya-”

„I know Nikolai, I know.” the way she cupped his cheek and rubbed his suddenly reddened skin make him even more remorseful about leaving her alone for so long on the mercy of Darkling and his family, who never accepted her as Nikolai’s future wife and queen of Ravka.

„I won’t leave you ever again, love.”

„You’d better not, tsarevich! And definitely not for another female!”

„What are you-?” he gave her a shocked expression, laced with hurt „Are you questioning my loyalty and affection for  you? I never-”

„did you know that Santa’s reindeer are actually females? Apparently the males loose their antlers for winter, so-”

„Are you telling me that-?”

„All the childhood stories are fake!” she made a face and waved her hands around with a eerie sound before laughing wholeheartedly „we were raised in a lie!”

Nikolai shook his head and grabbed her chin forcing her head slightly up, their eyes meeting and her laugh dying in her throat.

„I know there was at least one truth in my life since the day I met you.”

„Oh- um- I -. What was it?” she blushed involuntarily at the fire blazing in his eyes

„My feelings for you. the realest in the world.”

„Maybe that’s what brought you back to me?”

„Maybe you did bewitched me after all, my little heartrender, cause it always felt like my heart was calling your name, Y/N.”

„Since when are you a romantic?” she smiled lovingly even though her words were a bit sarcastic.

„Blame Tolya. Saints! He’s hopeless. Did I ever tell you about the time when he tried to quote poetry to Zoya?”

„I think I’m done with listening to stories-”

Well, she was wrong after all, cause they were whispering another tale to each other that night. The tale of longing and romance. Of heartbreak and being apart for too long. The novel of two lovers being reunited again.

But words were not needed while doing so.

[stromuprisahat]

I've been reading a lot of criticism about Alina lately, and while I agree that she is a shitty protagonist, but the main problem I have with saying that she is the true villain of the story is that... no one told her? No one talked to her about Grisha persecution? Yeah, we hear about it vaguely in TGT, but it isn't until SoC when they find the burnt corpses and the kefta mural that it truly starts to sink in. It's not until you read DitW that you realize how desperate the situation was (and still is, in some ways). It's not until the Nikolai Duology that the true horror of the Shu experiments is brought to us. We see nothing of it in TGT, so maybe... Alina just doesn't know?

Yeah, sure, she has been around Grisha and is one of them now, but hear me out, it's like white people who say they don't have a problem with POC but they don't realize that it doesn't negate the fact that POC still face racism from others. Add to the fact that nowhere do we see newspapers and as an orphan Alina is definitely less aware of social justice situations than your average white guy- how is she supposed to know? All that she sees is the luxury of the Grisha- their tents their bulletproof clothes, etc.

Just a thought about how the story might have gone different if instead of the crows, it was Alina who found the three burnt bodies while chasing the stag and had to put one of them out of their misery. And how the story might have changed if Alina truly understood the situation.

I'm almost halfway through Siege and Storm, so I’ll talk from this perspective.

I’d say it’s the same issue as anything with Alina- she doesn’t want to know.

She’s almost murdered by a guy yelling “witch” in her face. Funnily enough- at this point it’s still in English (Ravkan), not drüsje, but witch:

I twisted and kicked as the yellow-bearded man grabbed hold of my legs. I looked desperately down to the glen, but the soldiers and Grisha below me were fighting for their lives, clearly outnumbered and unable to come to my aid. I struggled and thrashed, but the Fjerdan was too strong. He climbed on top of me, using his knees to pin my arms to my sides, and reached for his knife.

“I’ll gut you right here, witch,” he snarled in a heavy Fjerdan accent.

She gets safely to Little Palace, mentiones this whole experience twice and that’s it. It wouldn’t even take that much to get back to this topic- next chapter she learns such attack isn’t anything unusual for Grisha:

“ ... Other countries don’t treat their Grisha so well as Ravka,” he said grimly. “The Fjerdans burn us as witches, and the Kerch sell us as slaves. The Shu Han carve us up seeking the source of our power. ... ”

Alina sees there’s a difference made between Grisha and other Ravkans, but never connects the dots. It doesn’t concern her, she’s doing the same after all.

She isn’t interested in situation, not only the wide picture, but more personal perspective- we don’t see her ask her “not-friends” anything about them. Their lives, families... You won’t hear a scary story if you won’t ask or listen...

She got study materials on Grisha history, but that's just that. Words on a paper. Something she repeats when she remembers she's supposed to be hunted, although the reasons don't quite click.

She goes from being prejudiced herself to staying that way. Why would she change? She went from denying being Grisha to being Saint and that’s a completely different thing. The only person she truly cares about is an otkazat’sya, so why would she consider wrongness of slurs and disdain?

She was told, but the Darkling "never tells the truth" and she doesn’t feel the need to ask anyone else.

She hears First Army soldiers insult Ivan for refusing to share information with them, and doesn't blink an eye.

She hears about First Army slaughtering Grisha, and thinks "good, I'd do the same".

She only cares about Grisha being potentially mistreated as long as it's the Darkling harming them (Genya's punishment, Grishenka in R&R).

When forced to face other harm partially caused by Grisha status of slaves in Ravkan society, the circumstances allow her to ignore that aspect (Genya's abuse).

I don’t think she needs anything more explicit. She’d just find the way to blame the Darkling, or forget it ever happened as soon as it was out of her sight.

Burned Grisha corpses?

Some foreign tradition. Or barbecue gone wrong...

Just look at her reaction to Harshaw's story in R&R:

I thought of the dream the Darkling had once had, that we might be Ravkans and not just Grisha. He’d tried to make a safe place for our kind, maybe the only one in the world. I understand the desire to remain free. Was that why Harshaw kept fighting? Why he’d chosen to stay? He must have shared the Darkling’s dream once. Had he given its care over to me?

Zoya's the one, to note how fucked up it is. Alina's concern is possible responsibility. There's no horror, there's no resolution to take over Aleksander's efforts. The goal remains the same- hunt down the Firebird, kill the Darkling, destroy the Fold.

Even when talking as Grisha, Alina doesn't act like one.

[atlabeth]

another day - aleksander morozova

part 2

summary: general kirigan saves you. but nothing comes without a price.

a/n: yes this is me in my shadow and bone era. what do you have to say about it

wc: 2.2k

warning(s): canon levels of violence, drowning + murder, but mostly in mini flashbacks, typical darkling manipulation. probably ooc but this is my first fic for the grishaverse so give me some grace pls

drüskelle = witchhunter

drüsje = witch

strymakt fjerdan = fjerdan might

You were drowning. 

You were drowning in a storm of your own creation, water filling up your lungs, salt stinging your eyes, screams echoing all around you, you were killing them—

A shuddering gasp tore out of you as you surged up, and haggard breaths ripped through you. You weren’t in water, you were alone, but you still couldn’t breathe, your chest rising and falling as quick as your heart beat. 

Your hands found purchase in the sheets below you, clawing at the rough linen as you pulled your legs up to your chest, each breath quicker in succession. Your eyes darted around, taking in your surroundings—far too nice to be a prison cell, far too warm to still be in Fjerda—and slowly, you began to calm down. 

Perhaps that wasn’t the correct phrase. You’d managed to control your breathing to a respectable level, but you certainly were not calm—last you remember, you were in a fight for your life against some lovely drüskelle, and now you were in… 

Saints, you had no idea where you were. 

But you were not dead, and that counted for something indeed. 

Carefully, cautiously, you stood up from the bed. Your quarters could be considered a room in the barest sense of the word, consisting of a small bed shoved in the corner and little else. You shivered slightly, and you glanced down at your clothes. At least they hadn’t taken the tattered rags you’d been traveling in for ages, you thought wryly. 

Nicer than a Fjerdan prison cell, true, though that didn’t mean you were not a prisoner. Wherever you’d ended up might treat their captives slightly better than your home.

You were dry, though. Both of water and blood, which you realized no longer stained your arms. Your injuries had healed as well, scabs and thin white lines in place of cuts and slashes. 

You could certainly mark Fjerda off your list, then. There wasn’t a single soldier who would have treated you with such kindness. 

That was the strangest thing. You were not dead. 

You were just about to try the door when you heard the lock click, and you stumbled back as it opened. Your heart hammered in your chest at the sight of a man in the doorway, though he had the decency to pause when he saw you. 

“Ah,” he said, his lip curling in the smallest of smiles, “you’re finally awake.” 

“Where am I?” you asked, and your voice was raspy from disuse. How long had you been asleep? 

“I believe introductions should be our first order,” he said, and he closed the door. 

You took a step back, hands clenched at your side. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said softly. “It would be rather foolish of me after all the work I put in saving you.”  

Screams. Your screams, faltering in beats as you fought with everything in you. Ragged, from your very core, because you were going to die. 

“You saved me,” you repeated, little more than a whisper. 

“Do you remember?” the man asked, gaze unmoving from your face. His irises were of pure darkness, black as the loneliest night, and you felt wholly and completely bare in front of him. Another shiver ran down your spine. “You were hardly alive when we found you.” 

Wrenched out of the water, limbs leaden and heart thundering as you were forced to your knees. Exhaustion tore through you, black spots dotting your vision, and the dead men in the shallows gave you no satisfaction because soon you would join them. 

You nodded shakily. 

“Good. That will make this easier.” 

“The drüskelle,” you managed. “What happened to them?” 

“I killed the commander with the knife to your throat, but he was the only one left. The rest of the lot were drowned.” Again, the beginnings of a smile, morbid for the conversation. “By your hand.”

He knew. Saints, he knew, and you were locked in a room with him with no way out, and you’d gotten away from the drüskelle just to die here. 

“I didn’t do anything,” you said. He could hear the beat of your heart, surely, how it wanted to pound out of your chest. “Fjerdan waters are dangerous on their own, nevermind in a storm—” 

“There is no point in lying,” he interrupted pointedly. “You’re a Tidemaker, and a powerful one at that.” 

Your heart sank. You couldn’t escape, not from here, not in your state, not in the driest Saintsforsaken room you’d ever been in—

“I already told you,” he said, “I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe here. You’re in Ravka. Os Alta.” 

You frowned. “Ravka— how?” 

“You’re Grisha,” the man said. “You belong here.” 

And like lightning, it hit you. 

“The Darkling,” you whispered. The step you took back was one of instinct, but your legs hit the side of the bed and they nearly buckled. 

You weren’t the most educated on Ravka and its government, but one learned some things about their homeland’s fiercest enemy. You knew of the Second Army and their Grisha, of General Kirigan— the man that now stood in front of you, the man that had brought you back from Death’s door. 

Sënje Magda, save you now. 

“You have no reason to fear me,” Kirigan said. “Truly, I do not want to hurt you. I’m only here to help you.” 

You huffed a mirthless laugh. “What could you possibly want with me?” 

“You’re Fjerdan,” he said, “correct?” 

You nodded. 

“You’ve survived there all your life as a Grisha without anyone realizing,” he said. “You made it across half the country on your own with drüskelle tracking you for a quarter of it. And when they finally caught up to you, you destroyed their camp and killed the lot of them with nothing but your power.” 

You raised your arms and the sea erupted around you. A tense second of silence hung in the air before you threw your hands down and roared, guttural and primal and broken, and brought the world down upon them. 

Blood pounded in your ears. “I did what I had to do to survive.” 

“And I do not malign you for it,” the Darkling said. “What they do to our kind is barbaric. I took pleasure in ending their commander.” 

“You call us the monsters and then murder all my men,” he spat, wrenching your head backwards by your hair to bare your neck. The blade rested threateningly against your skin, but you were numb to the cold. “I should have ended you long ago, drüsje.” 

Your fingers ghosted up to your neck. You could feel the slightly raised scar. “I thank you for it.” 

“Believe me,” he said with a slight chuckle—you were surprised a man such as himself was able to laugh— “it was the easiest part of my day.” 

“How long was I out?” you asked, the question clawing at your mind. 

“A week,” Kirigan said, and your eyes widened. “It took us time to get from the coast back to the Little Palace, and you hardly even stirred the entire carriage ride. You truly pushed your abilities to the limit against the drüskelle. You were like ice, freezing and unmoving—I believe my Heartrender was the only reason you made it back. You’ve been resting here since then. I’ve been waiting for you to awaken.”

Your throat bobbed. He truly was responsible for your life, for getting you out of your wretched homeland. 

You shivered. You didn’t like the idea of being in debt to the Darkling. 

Kirigan looked at you for a moment more then shed his coat, fabric as black as his eyes pooling around his hands as he offered it to you. 

“Oh,” you began, “no—” 

“Please,” he interrupted. “I want you to be comfortable. You deserve that much after what you’ve been through. I do not know if it’s from your being a Tidemaker, but you are always frozen.” 

You hesitated, but you took it and slipped it on. Your skin was indeed cold to the touch—the rags you called your clothes weren’t much aid—and you had to admit that it helped. 

“You will have clothes of your own soon,” Kirigan said. “And you will get a kefta as well, fit to your measurements.” 

Your brows knit together. “What are you talking about?” 

“You know of the Second Army,” he said, “how the Grisha serve Ravka.” 

“I— but— I’m not—” you stammered, unable to form a full sentence, embarrassing as it was. 

“Yes?” he said, almost patronizing. Your cheeks burned. 

“I’m not Ravkan,” you managed. “I have no place in your army.” 

“That is of no matter,” the Darkling said. “We take in Grisha from all over—Shu Han, Novyi Zem, Fjerda. Many willingly serve, especially from your homeland. I’ve worked with many Fjerdan Grisha and they all prefer honorable service to persecution.” 

“So that’s why you rescued me,” you said stiffly. “So I could serve you.” 

“Officially, you serve the King,” Kirigan said. “But in time, I would like you by my side.” 

You shook your head, tightening your grip on his coat if only from instinct. “I don’t see how I can help you.” 

“Then you clearly know nothing of yourself,” the Darkling said. “Surviving in Fjerda as a Grisha is no easy feat, nor is the journey you’ve made. Alone, at that.” 

“Strymakt Fjerdan,” you said dryly. “That’s what my brother always told me.” 

His lips quirked upwards. “Of course. But you know what you’ve done, the power you hold. You raised the sea and ended those men without any training. Imagine what you could do with Ravka’s resources at your hands.” 

“I don’t want to fight,” you said weakly as you sat back on the bed. “I don’t want this power— I never wanted to be a Grisha. I just want to live a normal life without looking over my shoulder every second.” 

“We do not get the chance to live normal lives,” the Darkling said softly. We, he kept saying, like he could understand what you were going through. As if he was like you, like you had any similarities beyond Grisha blood. “You are a Tidemaker—there is no running from it. Your only choice is what you make of it.” 

The Darkling moved closer in your uncertain silence, taking a seat beside you. He carried an aura of power with him, not just in his abilities but in the way he moved. His assertions, his statements, it all seemed true just because of his demeanor. It was hard to think around a man like him, but you forced through it. 

“You have the chance to be truly great,” Kirigan urged, and it bothered you how much it sounded like he believed it. “You were born Grisha for a reason, with your strength and resolve and bravery for a reason. A Tidemaker forged through the fire of Fjerda. You belong here, at the Little Palace, in Ravka—with me.”

He looked at you with such intensity that it took your breath away. You hardly knew him, he hardly knew you, and yet Kirigan spoke as if he would lay down his life for you, as if he expected you to do the same. 

“Join me,” the Darkling murmured, “and you will never lay at the foot of another again.” 

You stared into his eyes, a lingering abyss that called to you. Your skin itched just looking at him, discomfort and intrigue and a desperate need to know more boiling over inside of you. 

You had no choice. Kirigan knew that as much as you did, no matter how much he presented it as one. 

You didn’t want to fight Ravka’s wars. You didn’t want to serve a king who’d done nothing to help you, to be part of an army that waged terror against your homeland. 

But what else was there for you? You had nothing, no one waiting for you back in your homeland. No family, no lover, not even a bed to your name. If you stepped foot in Fjerda again, you would be hunted to extinction. 

The Darkling was offering you life itself, a chance for another day. Wasn’t that what you’d been fighting for all along? Clawing through Fjerdan winters, surviving at the barest margins every day, losing more of yourself with every body you left behind you—all so you could escape the brand of drüsje and live like any other woman. 

The life of a Grisha was not the life you wanted, but it was life. Only a fool would pass it up, no matter what it entailed. 

You were many things, but you were not a saintsdamned fool.

“Okay,” you rasped, and your throat bobbed. “Okay. I’ll join you.” 

The Darkling smiled, dark eyes crinkling at the side, and you had the strangest thought of his beauty. “Excellent.” 

He placed his hand on your forearm, his surprising warmth shocking against the cold of your skin as he pulled you towards him. Power swelled up inside you even at the slightest touch, and you gasped at the feeling of it, icy fire erupting inside of you. The temperature plummeted inside the room and the frozen chill creeped through your veins. 

“My Tidemaker,” he whispered. "We are going to do marvelous things together.” 

-

perm tags: @dv0412 @siriuslyslyslytherin @maruchan77 @simonsbluee @kwyloz @masteroperator @louderfortheback 

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

Prompt: “You’ve been strong your whole life, it's okay to feel weak for a moment.”

Song: Carry You - Ruelle

For Tolya x Reader pls!!

Almosts - Tolya Yul Bataar

Trigger Warning on this one folks, I wanted something that felt closer to book content, so I leaned into the Kanej scenes that lead to Kaz plucking out a dudes eyeball, so given that context, strap yourselves in okay?

Grisha Reader, Order Unspecified.

Trigger Warning On This One Pals.

Content Warnings: Kidnapping. Torture. Ideas Of Self Sacrifice. Plans/Thoughts/Ideation's Of Suicide In Context Of Mercy In The Face Of Captivity, Exploration Of The "Better To Fall On Your Own Blade, Than Be Held Prisoner," Mentality. Not Beta/Proof Read.

Part 2

Wherever you are is dark, but it's not cold, if anything it is a little too warm and at times you wonder if they're trying to sweat you out, slowly bring up the heat until you're delirious. There would definitely be more efficient ways to get to you, but you don't know who is holding you, or the extend of their motivations, so their tactics are beyond your comprehension.

You have no doubt what they are after, information you will not willingly give them. You had been trained for these kind of situations, but they were behind you, your days of playing spy for a country that barely noticed if you lived or died were over. You were working for your heart now, and your heart alone, it just so happens that your heart is so closely attached to the Ravkan royalty. A fact which is likely the culprit in your containment.

They think they know something, things they could use, and you might, you probably do, being as close as you are to the Kings Guard. Being as close as you are to Tolya, you know a lot more than you would want anyone to be aware of you knowing.

The visit you get is shortly after you hear the ringing of bells, you think you count three, but in the space you are in you have no way of telling if it day or night. You cannot see the face of the man asking you questions but his accent is easy to place, clearly Fjerdan. You don't like that knowledge, it makes you aware of a pit in your stomach that your heart threatens to fall into.

You are asked questions and you reply in long silent stares, the threats pass you by, and you do not react to them. It never really matters how long ago you stopped being a solider, Baghra had once told you, because the training sticks with you. You doubted her, hoping that having severed yourself from your duties and with enough time passing you could become something more, something outside of the spy you were trained to be, the deceiver and the devoted. But you were grateful for the truth of her words now. All the old teachings bubbling up like they were fresh lessons you'd taken only yesterday, allowing you to not as much as flinch in the presence of your captor. Though you know the threats are not empty, not hollow persuasions and there was no pleasant time to be spent in this prison of their making. They wanted answers, and if you did not give them the answers they wanted, they would extract them from you by whatever means they deemed necessary. You weren't considered human to them after all. You being grisha made you nothing more than an abomination to them. The man talks low, in Fjerdan, and you never were the most apt at language but you recognise one of the words as clearly as in your own tongue, drüsje.

You don't appreciate the man talking words you couldn't understand, and you appreciate less the way he was talking about you. So you sit up, trying to remember anything you could about the language he is using. After all, nothing is more likely to rile up a Drüskelle like hearing their own language in the mouth of a grisha. "Wanden olstrum end kendesorum," you say, and you're sure you're butchering the translation, but you don't have it in you to care, you can barely even remember what the saying means, something about ice not being merciful. "Isen ne bejstrum."

That gets a rise from the man in the shadow. "Tig!" He yells at you. "You have no right to our words, in our tongue."

"Like you have no right to hold me, or is that simply because I am what you consider to be wrong?" you ask.

"I will return soon," he warns you, "and next time I will not be so kind, so consider your options, witch."

"My options," you lean back against the hard wall, "die slowly or die quick?"

"Exactly," he says and closes the door. You hadn't expected him to be so forward, but you knew that was what the situation was. No Fjerdan was going to let a grisha captive go just because they cooperated. There was no making this out alive if the Fjerdan's could help it. Your only real chance was escaping which given every angle you have considered seems nigh on impossible, or to be rescued. You didn't doubt Tolya, or the others for that matter, you know he would try, nothing could stop him trying, but you're not sure that will be enough. You're not sure exactly how much time you can buy yourself to allow him to get to you.

When you're sure you are alone again you shake your arm against your restraints and hear the gentle sound you were hoping to find.

The blade concealed in the fabric of your sleeve, so thin that they wouldn't notice it if they didn't know what they were looking for. An old habit from the work you did for Ravka before, an old habit that your generals used to call 'insurance.'

The blade is durast made, and needle sharp. It's not a blade for fighting, it's a blade for when you're out of options, backed into a corner and have nowhere left to go. It's a blade designed for mercy over the torture you might endure at the hands of your captives, mercy before you can betray what is close to you, and then die for the privilege.

The weight of the blade in your hand is almost non-existent, light as a feather, or a hope. You let your mind run away from you, thinking about home, thinking about card games with Tamar, and arguing over the colour choices with Genya, watching the way David scribbles additions to the list he has that helps him with reminders of ways to bring his wife joy, because she deserves it more than almost anyone you've ever known. You let your mind think of Nikolai looking for any excuse to be less official, leaning over balconies and smiling at the distance, like a boy who's heart is still somewhere out on the ocean. You let yourself think of Zoya and the way she rolls her eyes in a filled room, but somehow never lets you make it through a meeting without a warm drink in your hand, you'd never once asked her, and she had never once asked how you took it, she just knew, she noticed you guess. For all her cold exterior, Zoya had an unintentional tendency to love, even if she couldn't recognise that was what it is. The hardest part is when you let your mind wander to Tolya, you can see him in your mind as clearly as if he was beside you, the version of him you hold close to you, in your memories is kissed by the morning sun, smiling in the morning light, looking far too large to be sitting in the window, but he is doing it anyway, legs against the outer wall, like he could jump down if he wanted, disappear into some adventure, like some hero you'd framed him as in your mind. Your hero. Tolya Yul Bataar, the best part of your history, the thing you'd always be the most grateful for.

You feel the blades weight now as you let yourself think of him, and you force yourself to think of what it means for him if you decide to use it. Losing him, the idea of it alone is the cruelest thing you could experience, and you know that he would not feel dissimilar. But what they wanted from you, the blood they were going to spill in the search for answers, answers you could not give without giving up everyone you cared for, Tolya most of all.

You stare at the blade, wondering, what choice would be more painful, to betray or to leave them alone to preserve what you know. You would rather die than turn on Tolya, you know that as surely as you know anything, you would take his promises to the grave and nothing would stop you from doing that. Even if it means falling on an old insurance policy created by a loyalty you were sworn to without choice, to protect the only thing you would always be loyal to without even asking.

You slip the blade back to where you had found it, not ready to make that choice yet, not ready to give up on the idea that Tolya might just be the hero from all the stories and get here just in time.

You lose track of all sense of time as it passes, creeping by. The third time the Fjerdan visits you're left with a threat you cannot ignore, and the resounding copper taste in your mouth.

You move your arm the best you are able, between your injuries and the tightened restraints and you feel the blade slip out of its holding once again and fall into your hand.

You press a finger to it's tip, and you don't feel it cut into you, you're only sure it has when the blood wells up in a bright red bud on the end of your finger. So thin, so sharp a blade that it might as well slip between nerves at it's finest point. After all, the blade was designed for mercy, designed for moments when you know you're going to die but want to do it on your terms, not theirs.

You try not to think of Tolya. Knowing there is no kindness for him in this. If they kill you, or if you fall on your own blade his loss is the same, and they're matching wounds that only heal slightly differently. You'd hope he would know why you'd choose this option, but lingering on the thoughts of all the things he might feel when he finds you, if he finds you, only makes a pain worse than any torture bleed into your system. Thinking of him makes you want to live more than anything else, but that is becoming less and less of an option.

You hear the movement outside, and your instincts kick in. He shouldn't have been returning so quickly, time may not be real to you but you can still follow the sounds of routine. It doesn't make any sense, but you cannot risk him finding the blade without a chance to use it, losing your only merciful out is not an option. You grip the blade tighter in your hand, which is unsteady, so unsteady and you point the blade towards yourself, pointed end resting against your chest above your heart. You take in a deep breath, eyes on the door. If he wants to come early, you can let him watch his failure.

The door opens and you ready your pressure on the blade, but the eyes you meet in the darkness are not those of your captor, but familiar golden eyes of home.

"Tolya?" you ask and drop the blade, it clatters on the hard floor and he doesn't have time to process it before he is beside you, checking you over, assessing your injuries. "Tolya," you smile, "you came."

"Did you not think I'd come for you?" Tolya asks, gesturing for someone else in the doorway to come in and help with the bindings.

"I didn't know if I was strong enough," you say. This is when he lets his awareness come back in, at first he was too overwhelmed by the sight of you, by the knowledge he had found you, that you were alive, that he could keep you safe, and get you home. That he hadn't had a moment to process what he had been seeing when he opened the door. Zoya steps from the darkness and picks up the blade without saying a word, she recognises it instantaneously, and the look on her face causes you a type of pain you cannot describe.

"You devoted idiot," Zoya whispers to herself, giving you a glare before she storms back out.

"Did you not think I'd come for you?" He repeats. His eyes searching yours. He helps you to your feet, and you can hear Tamar down the hallway, in some fight, cursing in more languages than you know.

"I knew you'd come for me," you say honestly, "but I did not want to betray you before you had the chance. Tolya I would rather die than betray you. They wanted me to betray you-"

"Then betray me," he says, your heart stills in your chest, "if it keeps you safe, it keeps you from harm, betray me, always betray me. I can forgive betrayal, but I cannot forgive the loss of you. I could overcome betrayal, but I can not overcome the loss of you."

"Tolya..." you cannot find words, you're exhausted and in pain and you had been coming to terms with the idea you were not making it out, and yet he found you, and so many different feelings are surging through your body you feel fit to fall down. But he holds you, not letting you fall.

"I," Tolya ever the man of words, the poet, cannot find the right thing to say.

"Tolya, get your sister, make sure we can get out of here, I will take them back to safer ground," Zoya says, more of a command than a suggestion.

Tolya's eyes are blazing, like the idea of letting you out of his sight is the biggest insult Zoya could have said. "If you think I am leaving-,"

"Tolya, take that rage, make it useful," Zoya says, "do you think anyone in this place is capable of stopping me?" She moves her hands together and everyone in the room can feel the static, we all know what she is capable of, Zoya Nazyalensky the grisha who learned to control lightening. "No, so you be useful and I will handle this, we got this far do you think I would allow things to go wrong now?"

Tolya's eyes are on you, the idea of leaving you seems so far from right to him, but you manage to give him a nod, against what you want, against your instincts. You want nothing more than to stay at Tolya's side, at his side you feel stronger, you feel safe, you feel like nothing could happen. But you know Zoya is right, you cannot recall a time she was wrong... the one glaringly obvious one aside.

"It's okay Tolya," you tell him.

"We are not done talking about this," he says. You give him a knowing nod, and he pulls you in for a hug, his grip is so tight you're convinced your bones might snap if he wasn't careful, but he is careful, he is always so very careful with you. "I am so glad to see your face again."

"Not as glad as I am to see yours," you tell him before he disappears down the hallway to find Tamar.

Zoya wastes no time, in the hand she isn't using to support you she holds out the blade. "I am not returning this to you," she says. "This was from a time when Kirigan was in charge, and for all his talk about loving the grisha he used us just like the rest of them. This is a relic from a time where we were worth more dead than as hostages, why do you still have this?"

"You say relic like it much longer ago than it was Zoya," you say, "you don't forget that training so easily."

"You sound like Baghra," Zoya scoffs.

"I know," you admit. Zoya looks at you, and for all the sternness in her face you see a concern behind those eyes.

"I am not giving you this back," she says, "but I understand." She places it back into her pocket and puts her attention on keeping you up, and getting you out. “You’ve been strong your whole life, it's okay to feel weak for a moment.”

"I thought it was strength it took to be a soldier," you say, repeating Zoya's own words back at her.

"I've said many things," Zoya admits, "and although I have meant all of them, there are a few on occasion, that I regret." She looks at you, and you look back at her and for a moment you see past the beauty and the fierceness, you see past the Zoya she always shows, the one you've always known and you see something else, you see a Zoya you suspected was always there but doubted you'd ever see. "You're perfectly strong, but your strength comes from your love more than anything. I've not known you as strong as you've become since you've known him. And as much as I would like to say there are stronger motivators for the fight inside you, I saw the way he fought for you, and I see how badly you fought to make it long enough for him to get to you, and I doubt you could get a stronger fight than that."

[ruins-and-rewritez]

Drüsje,

I'd curse you if it were worth the breath left in my lungs. I'd loathe you if I had the energy left in my blood. I'd miss you if not for the way you linger in my dreams like a phantom in the night.

You are my sun. My star. My days begin and end with you. Thoughts of you chase me into the dark.

A piece of the heavens I'll never escape.

You'll never know how I yearn for even the briefest eclipse.

Loathedly yours,

M. HELVER

[lotusqueens]

Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

Korol Rezni. Roëd Drüsje.

The King of Scars and the red witch.

They had become a symbol of hope for their torn and drowning county and a scary story for young Drüskelle boys to shudder at.

Nikolai sometimes wondered what it felt like for Vera: to be hated and feared by the country she loved so dearly. If Ravka was the drowning man Nikolai planned to drag to shore with his last breath, then Fjerda was her’s. Despite all her words and her determination, he knew Vera would die for her country. Even if it was at Fjerda’s own hands.

[we-are-made-of-stories]

& turn the tower did

Kuwei Yul-Bo grows up like every other child in Shu Han: with the knowledge that to have power is to be a miracle, acknowledged and praised by the Tabans themselves. His father, Bo Yul-Bayur, is lauded as Shu Han’s greatest, the uncrowned king of the royal labs, and Kuwei wants nothing more than to be like him. But when the appearance of Ravka’s new Sun Summoner sparks a nation-wide testing spree in Shu Han, Kuwei quickly discovers that the price of miracles is not one he’s willing to pay. Or: On being more and less than human in a country that would devour you whole. Word count: 16.8k Fandom: Six of Crows; minor references to The Lives of Saints and The Grisha Trilogy Note: so pleased to have written this kuwei backstory for the @grishaversebigbang this year! it was an honor to have art made by @fricklefracklefloof (x), @kuwei-yul-arson (x), @doorhandle16 (x), and @soupdreamer (x), and to be beta'd by @poeticor (whose banger of a fic is available here). best gang fr! this is cross-posted to ao3 but you can read it under the cut!

In the time before the six nations came to be, when they were less than soldiers gathered under one banner, when they were simply ideals and nothing more, tales of powerful individuals spread far and wide. They crossed land and ocean and, some liked to say, reached the heavens, though at first they were dismissed as rumors of madmen seeking to sow chaos. What else would a rational individual accept? Power is only safe to trust when you hold it in your hands. Easier, then, to doubt stories than to confront an uncontrollable reality. But doubt does not change the truth.  More and more evidence rose, from all corners of the world, and soon it was fact that such magics existed. That those who wielded it were capable of feats no ordinary person could achieve: they could call on wind and lightning, sea and flame; they stopped hearts just as swiftly as they compelled them to beat; they made unbreakable blades such that one could triumph against a ten thousand-strong army.  Some said they were more than human.  (Some said they were less.) Ravka dubbed them Grisha in honor of a Saint who would become the first teacher of their fabled Second Army. Fjerda named them drüsje, witch, and set to eliminate their unholy sorcery from the world. Kerch saw what it could stand to gain from such power, and so they were known as the winstgevend, the profitable. Blighted by sickness in the body and land, in the Wandering Isle, they were welcomed and hailed as slánaitheoir, saviors.   In Shu Han, they were called sheng ji. Miracles; holy relics.  No one knew where the first sheng ji came from, only that they brought blessings wherever they went. In those days, Shu Han was little more than a dozen villages scattered across the land, each one eking out a peaceful life. Peace, then, was sustained by power, by protection. In those days, sheng ji were the deciding factor between affluence and ruin, conflict and security.  Some could call on the sea and wind, while others could summon flame. Some were masters of fate, cradling life and death in their hands, while others crafted marvelous inventions, that their people would know an age of prosperity. Little by little, a settlement of a handful of families turned to villages turned to walled city-states. And so the sheng ji were named as such, for much of their effort contributed to each city’s success, and they were beloved of their people, for they brought blessings when sometimes none could be found.  The most famous of the sheng ji became Saints: Sankt Kho of good intentions, for the clockwork soldiers he created to defend his people, and Sankta Neyar of blacksmiths, for a sword she forged that could cut through shadows and laugh at steel. It was their actions that paved the way for the first queen of what would become Shu Han, the Taban yenok-yun, the storm that stayed. And so the sheng ji, who were known as miracles, became known as holy, though not all were Saints, and were venerated throughout the land as such. The sheng ji then entered the service of the Taban queens and pledged to bring miracles to Shu Han forevermore. 

That was the story that stayed. Like all children of Shu Han, Kuwei grew up listening to it, believing it. He wanted to live it, too. But Kuwei would come to learn, as all the sheng ji before him once did: it was one thing to know a story. 

It was another entirely to know the truth. 

Kuwei knew there was something going on, because everyone was either too loud or too quiet. Or, at least, everyone was too obvious about their secrets because they’d stop talking about it if they saw him approaching. 

But it was the adults specifically who were hiding this secret, because none of the children on his street knew what they were talking about. The whole morning, there had been whispering tongues, and not one of them belonged to his friends. It was weird: new stories always got to them somehow, so it meant the adults were hiding it on purpose.

Usually, they weren’t very good at that. It was annoying that they decided to be today. 

That was okay. Kuwei knew he was better. 

Kuwei’s Mama and Baba were out for the day — Baba had to go to work, and he was frowning in a way that really did mean something was wrong, because Kuwei had never seen Baba look so unhappy before. He didn’t know if Baba being upset had anything to do with the secret nobody wanted to talk to him about, but he knew that Baba did really important work, so maybe he did. Mama was at the docks, preparing for her next trip to Kerch; she didn’t seem happy to leave either of them that morning, right when Kuwei first started seeing the gossip, and though she never did, looking back Kuwei thought that maybe Mama knew, too. Maybe they both did. They’d definitely hear about it at work. 

They weren’t around for him to ask, but Kuwei’s Yeye and Nainai were visiting, anyway, so he tried his luck with them during lunch. 

“Where did Baba go?” he asked them, as his Nainai dumped hei jiao ji ding on his plate. 

“Your Baba is a very busy man,” Nainai replied. “He had to finish important work today.” 

“What kind of work?” 

“He’s a sheng ji,” Yeye said, with an edge to his voice Kuwei always hated: it made him think he never knew enough, and that Yeye was looking for something that wasn’t there but should’ve been. Baba told him that it was because Yeye knew so much and was very wise, so sometimes he forgot that he was so smart that others could have a hard time keeping up sometimes, but Baba himself made interesting expressions when Yeye spoke to him like that, which happened a lot. 

“What do they do?” Kuwei asked. Baba could make medicines that made Kuwei hurt less, when he got sick, and he always helped their neighbors, too, when they asked — that was what being sheng ji meant. Was there more? 

Yeye made a quiet sound that sounded a little mean, then explained, still with the edge Kuwei hated. It was a long few minutes of him just saying things; Kuwei sometimes wondered if no one could keep up with Yeye because he kept rambling, not because he was too smart for everyone else. 

Being sheng ji sounded… complicated. Or maybe Yeye was just making it sound complicated. From what Kuwei gathered, they helped the people of Shu Han and they worked for the Taban family, which, on reflection, was simple enough to understand but that didn’t change the fact that something happened today. His Yeye and his Nainai rarely came to visit, after all, so there must’ve been a reason for them to be here. If it had anything to do with Baba, Kuwei wanted to know. 

When he tried asking about it, Nainai’s mouth pressed into a thin line and she piled more rice on his plate. Yeye said he was too young to know or understand — it was an adult’s business, not a child’s. 

So there was something. Something they did want to hide from him. But eight was old enough! Maybe not old and wise, like his Yeye was, because no one could ever match yeye’s wisdom, according to Baba, but Kuwei could still understand everything he needed to. Nobody needed to hide anything from him — he’d get it. 

Still, Kuwei already knew when he could keep pushing, and he didn’t see a good opportunity now. Baba always told him Yeye and Nainai were strict, after all, and Kuwei figured that Baba knew that better than him, what with a lifetime of living with them. 

So after lunch, Kuwei excused himself to go play outside. Yeye scoffed; Nainai waved him out with a stern reminder to be back before night, or he wouldn’t get any red bean shaobing. 

Kuwei learned more on the street than he did from his grandparents. There were so many people talking that it was just so hard to choose what to listen to first! They went quiet when they noticed him approaching, so he learned to sneak, carefully hiding in the right spots. 

What he learned: soldiers brought Zhou-nushi to the palace early that morning. They went to her house to— arrest her? That didn’t sound right. That didn’t sound like the Zhou-nushi he knew. 

Because Kuwei did know Zhou-nushi. She set up a food stall in the market, and he always visited her when they bought groceries. Her tang hu lu was the best he’d ever had. 

Zhou-nushi was very quiet when Baba and Mama were around, but she was nothing but kind to him. She was always spoiling him, Mama liked to say with a fond smile, which was maybe true: whenever Kuwei went to the market and approached her stall, Zhou-nushi would grin at him, like they were sharing a secret, and she’d always sneak him an extra skewer of tang hu lu, just because she could. And then Kuwei would smile at her, all crooked, and say, “Thank you, Zhou-nushi!” 

It didn’t seem right that they brought her to the palace. Arresting someone that nice didn’t add up, but neither did the gossip about her. 

“It was very selfish of her,” one auntie said, rather loudly. Kuwei didn’t even have to hide when she was talking like she wanted the entire street to hear. “Hiding that skill from the Tabans. From Shu Han.”

“Sheng ji have great gifts,” another agreed. “Miracle — what a joke. It clearly didn’t apply to her.”

Nothing made sense. All the conversations just made things more confusing, no matter how much Kuwei listened, which was a little upsetting. Maybe he really didn’t know as much as he thought he did. 

It was okay. He’d just ask Baba. 

“Is it true you work for the Queen, Baba?” Kuwei said that night over dinner. 

Baba raised his eyebrows, looking like he found something funny. Mama watched them, her mouth a thin line. “And where did you hear that?”

“Yeye told me,” Kuwei said, because it was true. And because Baba and Mama always told him to learn as much as he wanted, he added proudly, “I asked him! I re— resea…?”

“Researched,” Baba offered. 

“ — researched on my own!” Kuwei beamed. “And then I asked the aunties about what happened — they didn’t want to tell me, but I heard them talking about Zhou-nushi. Is that why you went to work today?”

“It is,” Baba said, slowly. 

“They said Zhou-nushi didn’t want to go to the palace. But aren’t all sheng ji supposed to help Shu Han? How come she didn’t want to?”

“Well,” Baba said after a beat, “sometimes people just want to live quiet lives. They want to live for themselves, and that’s not a bad thing.”

“They called her selfish, though.” Kuwei didn’t think that was anything but bad.

“It’s true that Zhou-nushi could have done more for Shu Han, if she went to receive training,” Baba conceded. “Still, I understand why she didn’t approach Her Imperial Majesty.”

“But you work for the Queen, too, right? Like the other sheng ji? You help Shu Han?” 

“Yes,” Baba said, not quite smiling, but he ruffled Kuwei’s hair anyway. “I do.” 

Later, Kuwei learned: 

Zhou-nushi never made it to the Imperial Palace. Neither did the soldiers. They ran into an accident on their way; it killed them all. 

When a messenger arrived at their house calling for Baba, out of breath and wide-eyed, Baba’s expression tightened, even as he invited them in for a cup of lapsang souchong. Kuwei hadn’t been asked to leave outright, but he saw Baba’s face, twisting with strange, foreign tension, so he stepped away. 

It would be all right. Baba could do anything. 

Baba would do anything. Ten minutes later, Baba and the messenger swept out of his office in a swirl of silk and cotton. Their tea was still steaming on Baba’s desk. 

Baba didn’t return until late the next evening, dark bags under his eyes. 

Mama took one look at him and ushered Baba to bed with her particular brand of fussing, which sounded so practical it didn’t seem like concern at all, and Kuwei crept into their room to steal under the covers. 

“Hi, Baba,” Kuwei said. 

Baba tugged the covers around both of them. “Hello, my nhaban,” he murmured, dipping down to kiss Kuwei’s head. “How was your day?”

“Good!” Usually, after Baba asked, it was the part where Kuwei would start rambling about what he did — and there was a lot, after two days — but Kuwei’s curiosity burned bright. He wanted to know more about Baba’s day; Baba didn’t usually talk about his work, now that Kuwei thought about it, which seemed unfair. Baba always listened to Kuwei and Mama: it was only right that Kuwei listened to him too. “How was yours?”

“Tiring,” Baba said. It showed in his smile. “But seeing you and your Mama always gives me energy, did you know?” Another kiss to the top of Kuwei’s head. “I’m very lucky to have you both, nhaban.”

And Kuwei knew not to press, so he just curled into Baba once more, Baba’s arms coming around him. Mama joined them soon enough in that large, long hug, and it was the quickest Kuwei had ever fallen asleep in a long time. 

The next day, the Queen made a public appearance. Kuwei didn’t attend the event, but he knew it was important; the Queen didn’t go out much these days, except for very special, important occasions.

There was nothing else discussed that day. Some of his neighbors talked about his Baba, about how regal and elegant he must’ve looked, which Kuwei supposed was true; others talked about what his Baba did. The uncrowned king of the royal labs, they called him, and Kuwei put it aside for another time. 

The Queen looked tired, some commented. Unwell. They talked about her daughters, Makhi and Ehri, and how it seemed that Makhi might become Queen soon. 

It would make sense to Kuwei much, much later. What would stay with him, years after the fact, was this: it was said that the Queen spoke at length about the terrible tragedy, the loss of new talent, someone who could have helped bring Shu Han to greater heights. Most agreed. 

What Kuwei would think of, years after the fact: the tragedy should’ve been the loss of the people and not just their potential. 

When a knock echoed through their house just before lunchtime, Kuwei hadn’t expected it to be Haoyu-furen. He knew her, of course; Baba was polite with her, and she was polite to them all in turn when she saw them out in public or at the work-related functions that Baba would sometimes bring Kuwei to. Kuwei privately thought she was one of Baba’s few tolerable colleagues because the others looked at Baba with such horrible jealousy when his back was turned and at him like they wanted to take something from him, but Haoyu-furen always held actual conversations with them. 

Still, she wasn’t close enough to visit them out of the blue like this, and she’d never said anything about even wanting to. 

“Enya,” Baba said, surprised. “I wasn’t expecting you today. What—”

“Greetings, Bayur-gong,” Haoyu-furen interrupted. She bowed low, stately and solemn in her dark green robes. When she straightened, her silver belt gleamed in the noontime light. “Enya Kir-Haoyu,” she said, “on behalf of Her Imperial Majesty. I am here to test if your son, Kuwei Yul-Bo, is sheng ji. The palace would be honored to accept him into its elite training program if he proves to have any powers.” 

Baba went very still. “I wasn’t aware Her Imperial Majesty wanted to begin the testing again,” he said slowly. 

“The news hasn’t reached the labs?” Her eyebrow raised. “I thought you’d be the first to know, of all people, Bayur-gong.”

“I’d heard of their new sheng ji,” Baba said. “The girl who can command riguang.”

“Reports say that she’s from an orphanage in Keramzin.” The Ravkan word sounded strange on her tongue, but Kuwei didn’t think he’d be any better. “That she was born in Rebe Dva Stolba.” Rebe Dva Stolba… That was along the border they shared with Ravka. Kuwei didn’t quite understand the significance, but Baba clearly did.  “Hence Her Imperial Majesty’s reinstatement of testing.”

“In her infinite wisdom,” Haoyu-furen agreed, then smiled, sharp. “For the longevity of Shu Han, of course.”

She said it like a threat. 

“For the longevity of Shu Han,” Baba echoed, a defeat, and let her in. 

Baba’s office was usually off-limits to Kuwei — not because Baba didn’t want him there but because Baba never wanted Kuwei to be restricted by the formality of his work, especially when he had visitors over — but Baba opened the door. His hands shook just the slightest bit, a faint tremor Kuwei would’ve missed if he hadn’t been looking so intently. If Haoyu-furen noticed too, she said nothing. 

The door had barely closed behind them when Haoyu-furen withdrew a vial from her large traveling bag. “Drink all of it,” she said, offering it to Kuwei. Baba’s expression turned stricken. “It’s perfectly safe.”

“What is it?” Kuwei asked more for Baba’s sake than his. If Haoyu-furen said it was safe, it was, but Baba looked so terrified that Kuwei might have laughed if he wasn’t as bewildered as Baba was worried. 

“The labs developed it decades ago,” Haoyu-furen explained. “In layman’s terms, it’s meant to put you in such a focused state that you’ll be able to call upon dormant powers.” 

That… sounded like nonsense. But Kuwei wasn’t his Baba, wasn’t Haoyu-furen; it wasn’t as if he knew enough to argue with them. He accepted the offered vial and downed its clear liquid in one go.

It took effect immediately. It was as if a mental block was lifted from Kuwei’s mind, some strange barrier he hadn’t noticed before, and behind it was something he ached to hold, possess, shape to his will, bright and flickering—

Fire flashed in his cupped palms. 

Behind him, Mama screamed.  

Baba ushered them to the living room almost immediately after, and his hands really were shaking this time, in a way they never had — I do plenty of delicate work which requires my hands to be steady, he’d once said to Kuwei. So it’s very important that I keep myself calm. That they were shaking now was a sight so foreign that Kuwei couldn’t tear his eyes away from Baba’s hands, unless it was to look at Mama’s stricken expression or his own hands, which were now perfectly normal.

If anyone else was looking at them, if they hadn’t seen the way flames leapt to life in his palms, they wouldn’t be able to tell Kuwei was sheng ji at all. 

The lights flickered open in the living room, even as Mama drew the curtains shut against the sun. This was usually the part where Baba or Mama offered their guests something to eat, something to drink, but they were ashen-faced. Kuwei, unsure of what to do and still feeling rather unmoored by the vial’s contents, sat himself on the couch. 

Baba broke the strange, tense silence, saying, “Haoyu-furen,” only to cut himself off at the end. 

“I know,” Haoyu-furen said. She picked up a metal toy Kuwei had left on the table. It was a kongming lock, already taken apart and yet to be reassembled. Under her fingers, the wooden beams slid into place, interlocking like Kuwei had never dismantled it. 

Oh. Oh! 

She took out a small notebook from her pocket and wrote his name, the latest in a list of many others, on a page about halfway through. “Fanren,” she said as she wrote it down. 

Kuwei frowned. Ordinary? He wasn’t, though. Spraying fire out his hands wasn’t ordinary. If that was ordinary, some of the current sheng ji shouldn’t have been considered at all. 

Kuwei started to protest the label, but then Mama folded him into a tight hug; her expression, when she turned his hands over to look at his palms, looking for the bright flames, was so grave that he didn’t have it in him to fight her. Not that he would ever fight Mama in general, especially after she had screamed like that. 

Mama never liked being scared. Mama, if it came down to it, always wanted to do the scaring.  

“I trust that I have your discretion,” Haoyu-furen continued. Kuwei watched the motions of his kongming lock, entranced, confused. Haoyu-furen served on the administrative staff, not as part of the sheng ji; but the law required her to report herself and to work for the Tabans as one. 

So she must’ve hidden it all these years. But why?

Baba inclined his head. “As long as we have yours.”   

“Of course.” That same sharp smile flashed on Haoyu-furen’s face, but there was something more defiant now, something bitter and angry. “For the longevity of Shu Han.”

Baba’s expression was still strained, pinched, but when he echoed, “For the longevity of Shu Han,” it lacked the naked fear he’d displayed in his office. For Kuwei, it was enough. “Thank you for your service,” Baba said to Haoyu-furen, and he showed her out the door. 

Mama, who had said nothing since she let out that horrible scream, kissed Kuwei’s forehead. “Kuwei,” Mama started to say, then fell silent. Finally, she shook her head, and offered him her hand. “Come,” she said, pulling him to his feet. “Let’s have lunch.”

“What about Baba?” he said. 

“He’ll follow us, nhaban,” Mama said. “He’ll join in his own time.”

“Okay,” Kuwei said, not quite believing it, and they left his Baba there, looking out the window for something neither of them could see. 

After Haoyu-furen left, and they finished washing up the plates, Baba and Mama brought Kuwei to the outskirts of Ahmrat Jen and flew kites with him. Kuwei laughed at the bright patterns fluttering against the pale blue sky, climbing higher and higher. When the afternoon grew too hot, they returned to the city limits and found shade in a plum orchard near their house. They came home with a basketful of plums which Baba made into sauce to go with their roast duck, while Mama presented Kuwei with a knotted thread for him to untangle. Kuwei was halfway through undoing a bogtsnii uya when Baba called them for dinner. 

There was even boortsog for dessert. Boortsog! Kuwei had his pick of syrups, jams, honey, and cheese, and nearly an entire bowl to himself. 

They tucked Kuwei in, and Mama told him folk tales from around the world — Mama picked up plenty during her time at sea — and Baba taught him a little more about chemicals and compounds and the human body. At first, Kuwei asked all sorts of questions (why did the wolf obey the horse? why did humans have organs that weren’t vital? why did chemicals have such complicated names?), even about his Baba’s lessons, which he usually didn’t find half as interesting as his Mama’s legends or even as Mama’s personal anecdotes, but eventually he couldn’t keep his eyes open. 

It was almost sad, Kuwei thought. He didn’t want the day to end. 

But Mama and Baba joined Kuwei in his bed, and he was warm and safe between them, and they stayed until his eyes closed, and for a while longer after that, Mama’s fingers stroking his hair and Baba humming an old lullaby. Then they left, because they thought Kuwei was asleep, but he wasn’t. 

They were both very upset today. Kuwei didn’t think they knew that he knew, but he loved them more than anyone, and at eleven, he was old enough to tell when something was wrong. He wasn’t stupid. Even if he was, they were too obvious about it. All afternoon, when they’d been outside, Mama’s gaze kept darting around like she was waiting for something to go wrong, and — this, Kuwei knew he wasn’t supposed to know — she had her lu jiao dao hidden in her clothes the entire time. He thought Mama might’ve also brought her saber, though he couldn’t be entirely sure unless he asked. Baba wasn’t any better: his face didn’t completely lose its tension, and his posture was as tense as a rope pulled taut. He didn’t quite meet Kuwei’s eyes, either. 

Their smiles were all wrong, too. Mama's smile was really more like a frown pretending to be a smile but not doing a very good job of it, and Baba’s was sad and strained at the corners of his mouth. It was the worst; it hurt a little to see. They shouldn’t ever look so unhappy. 

Did Kuwei do something wrong? He… He thought today was the best day. They had so much fun! It had all his favorite activities and his favorite food, and while they did it often enough, it was never really all at the same time like that. Mama and Baba even tucked him in like he was a young child again, wanting to curl into his parents forever and ever. 

Kuwei learned he was a little like his Baba today, a sheng ji. Today was supposed to be special. Today was special. Wasn’t it? Baba and Mama wouldn’t have lied to him, right? Kuwei knew they would never—

“What will we do about Kuwei?” Mama said. Even muffled by the wooden walls, there was still sharp urgency in her voice. Curious, Kuwei crept to the wall he shared with the living room, placing his ear against it. He’d never told them but it was, and had always been, too thin for him to ignore anything that went on. 

“Enya swore she wouldn’t report him,” Baba soothed. “She’ll keep our secret.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“It will be her word against mine. She has no proof of Kuwei’s abilities.”

“Then the labs will send someone else to test him. We won’t be so lucky twice, and I still don’t trust that she won’t find some way to turn this against us later.”

“I have enough leverage to stop further investigation. No one will believe that I willingly hid Kuwei from the labs.”

“Surely immediate rejection wouldn’t work? Outright denial would just make it look like we have something to hide.”

“I could say that I would know if he was sheng ji. Who would dare challenge me on something sheng ji-related?”

“Until the Tabans step in!’ Mama’s voice was like thunder, and Kuwei almost fell over himself in his scramble to get to the door.  

Kuwei hadn’t heard Mama this angry before, her voice sharpened like one of her knives, fury roiling like Mama was the sea in a storm. Maybe he shouldn’t have gotten up at all, but Mama once sat with him during a bad thunderstorm after he’d run to her shaking and taught him to count the seconds between the flash of light and the crackling sound that followed; she told him dangerous things could be learned, too. Baba, returning with suutei tsai, said that knowledge was the greatest weapon. When you understand what you’re scared of, you won’t be scared again. 

They were right (though Kuwei did drift off in between them that night): that was the last time Kuwei flinched at storms. 

And Kuwei couldn’t ever be scared of Mama. 

Kuwei slipped out of his bedroom and tiptoed to the living room, paying close attention to Mama’s angry retort: “Your only feasible excuse would be to say there’s no point in testing him, since he’s not sheng ji to begin with, but they could just as easily claim that the controversy would blow over if it was proved in public. Then what? Have Kuwei demonstrate his powers in front of Shu Han’s top scientists, and prove him sheng ji and us liars?”

It would have been easier to sneak around if Kuwei could command mu instead of huo, but he could get by just fine. Avoiding the creaky floorboards was second nature, after a lifetime of sneaking by his parents’ room when Baba returned from a long day at the labs or Mama arrived from her latest voyage. If nothing else, the rest of their conversation covered any of his slip-ups. 

“It can be hidden,” Baba said. When Kuwei peered around the doorframe, he saw them standing in the middle of the living room, Mama’s brows drawn together tightly as Baba tried to negotiate with her. “With enough time, I could teach Kuwei to control it properly.”

Mama stared at him. “We’re staking our son’s life on something as tenuous as control? The Ravkan soldiers train for years to attain mastery, and he’s so young. What if he can’t? The lab’s drugs can— how did you put it? Call on dormant powers? He won’t be able to resist.”

Baba’s shoulders slumped. “It’s all the protection I can offer him.” It was wrong to hear Baba sound so defeated, his words tilted with world-weary exhaustion. It was worse than how he was at the end of a bad work day. 

They lapsed into silence. Kuwei glanced between them, uncertain. Was it so bad to be sheng ji? Baba was celebrated throughout Shu Han for his work. If they were worried Kuwei wouldn’t be able to handle the work, he could. He would. If they didn’t want him to work — why? It was for the good of Shu Han. Everything the sheng ji did was to build a peaceful, prosperous country. 

Then, finally: 

“He could come with me,” Mama blurted out. Kuwei had to clamp a hand over his mouth to muffle his astonished yelp. Him, leave? With Mama? They all agreed that he should finish his education just to give him options other than being a trader. And still, that same question: why? “My next trip is in a few weeks.”

“What?” Baba said even though he clearly heard Mama. He never asked anyone to repeat themselves even if they were mumbling their words, and he somehow always understood perfectly. Once, Kuwei held an entire conversation with Baba while he was buried under the pillows, and not only did Baba play along like it was completely normal, but Baba quoted Kuwei back at himself, enunciation and all. (Before Kuwei knew what really made Baba sheng ji, he used to think it was that.)

Baba especially listened to Mama, mostly because he really did love her, but partly because Mama was a force of nature who wrecked havoc when someone denied her the respect she was owed. Kuwei had seen her raise hell a couple of times, and Baba would probably know better than Kuwei just exactly what kind of hell Mama could and would raise. He should, at least. 

“Kuwei could come with me,” Mama repeated, more confidently this time. “I could get him out of the country.”

“You would risk his safety out at sea?” Baba said incredulously. Kuwei winced at it, the rare, foreign bite of anger in Baba’s voice. “He’s eleven, a ship is hardly the place for him.”

Mama shook her head. “Do you think I haven’t thought of that? I wouldn’t have suggested it if I wasn’t desperate.  He’s most useful to them dead, we both know this.”

Dead? Shu Han loved their sheng ji. He wasn’t— he wouldn’t— but if they thought that it didn’t—

“What if he wasn’t? If we reported him now, and falsified a story about the drug failing, I would be able to protect him from the worst of it. He wouldn’t have to experience the labs. They’d make allowances for me, surely.” Baba paused, then added, quieter, “It’s the only one I’ll ever have cause to ask. for”

“It won’t last forever. You know that. You know that better than me.” Mama said it with horrible certainty, as if it was the unerring flight of an arrow to its target. 

“How is smuggling him out to sea any better?” Baba demanded.

“I would rather gamble on the seas than this inhuman excuse for a government!”

The arrow flew true. Kuwei could see the exact moment it hit its bullseye: Baba’s eyes went wide with hurt before, all at once, his expression shuttered to eerie calm. 

“If you thought it was so inhuman,” Baba said, voice cold, “perhaps you shouldn’t have married me at all. You knew the nature of my work. I told it to you, plainly. Or am I inhuman to you as well?”

Mama scowled. “Stop that,” she warned him, but Baba continued on anyway. 

Does Baba have a death wish? Kuwei thought, horrified, halfway to retreating back to his room entirely, ready to clamp his pillows over his ears until he was sure it was over. But the possibility of spectacle kept him rooted where he was. (Understand, and you won’t be scared again. Kuwei had to know. He had to.)

“Is that all that it was? Tolerating my work because you reaped its benefits without experiencing the hardships? You know I do it to survive, but you loathe  behind my back?”

Kuwei wasn’t scared of Baba, either, but he still winced, ducking back behind the doorframe. Maybe he’d been premature in wanting to stay. Mama got impatient and annoyed often enough, though never with them; on the other hand, Baba’s calm was like the mountains of Sikurzoi. He didn’t want to see this.

Mama’s rage really was the sea, all-encompassing and unpredictable. Baba… Baba went for weak points.

“Enough,” Mama snapped. “Enough! You’re picking the wrong battles, you know better than to argue with me about this. Of course I know you’ve never taken pleasure in it.”

“Then you should know as well that it’s Kuwei’s best option,” Baba retorted. “You’ve never told me to leave; why bring him elsewhere when we could protect him here?”

“I never told you to leave because you never would!” Mama cried, throwing her hands up. “I wanted to run away with you. I would’ve gone anywhere with you if I knew you’d take my hand.”

Kuwei sat on his heels, reeling. Mama loved Shu Han. She always spoke so fondly about her family, living so far east that he only saw them twice a year if he he was lucky, and whenever she came back from her trips, she said that nothing would ever compare to Shu food; Kerch, Fjerda, the Wandering Isles, and Ravka just didn’t have flavor, she told him. Novyi Zem was a second favorite location but even then, she said, it was hard to not look for her home. And… Mama built an entire life here. He didn’t know the full story, but he knew it was difficult, and she spent many years getting to where she was now. It was why Baba got so upset whenever someone implied Mama only achieved what she did because their marriage opened doors for her. 

Baba must’ve felt the same, because he opened and closed his mouth several times, saying nothing. Finally, a little helplessly, he said, “But it’s home.”

“I used to think your work kept you alive,” Mama said, rather abruptly. “That it was the best option you had because there was nowhere you could go, but that was never true. I would’ve taken us far away from this place the moment you said you wanted to go.”

“Her Imperial Majesty—”

“— is keeping you trapped here. Your choices have always been compliance or death.” Mama tilted her head, looking at Baba so sharply that Kuwei thought he could feel it like a cut across his own throat. “Do you want the same for Kuwei? This country is eating you alive, and it will eat him alive, too. You know this.” 

Baba shook his head, but his mouth thinned. “It will not kill him,” he said. “Shu Han will not kill our son. I will not let it.”

“One year down the line, do you think he will thank us for throwing him into the lions’ den?” Mama said coldly. 

“One year down the line, do you think he will thank us for leaving him in a foreign country by himself?” Baba snapped back, and oh, Kuwei never wanted to hear Baba this angry again.

“I would never leave him—” Mama began to snarl; Baba talked over her, unrelenting. 

“You’ll have to. Surely you don’t plan to have him on your ship forever. He deserves a normal, stable life. He can’t have that at sea.”

“Better the sea than the labs,” Mama retorted. “Unless you plan on challenging the Tabans for their thrones.”

Baba’s expression contorted in rage, surprise, terror, grief, a dozen other emotions Kuwei couldn’t parse. “We cannot challenge them,” Baba finally said. “Shu Han prospers. Its citizens would never understand why.”

“Then what?” Mama asked. Suddenly, she seemed very tired, all the fight drained from her. “We keep going in circles. Kuwei cannot leave. Kuwei cannot stay either. What else can we do?”

“Qin ai,” Baba said softly, and then he held his arms out to Mama. When Mama accepted, Baba folded Mama into a hug, and Mama yanked him close. They held each other tightly, until it looked like it hurt, with a sort of— of desperation Kuwei had never seen before, even when Mama was about to leave on her months-long journeys. “I’m sorry. We’ll find a way. I promise you.” Mama murmured something Kuwei couldn’t hear, and Baba kissed her hair. “I know. I know.”

Kuwei swallowed hard and went back to his room.

Strange dreams haunted him that night; Kuwei floated from life to life, like some strange voyeur of possibility all the while being trapped in his own body. In one, fire lit him up from inside out, only for gloved hands to take him in their palms and squeeze tighter, tighter, until he couldn’t even see himself in the suffocating dark. In another, the sky burned dark above the smoking piers of Ahmrat Jen, and a third saw the sea swallow his mother’s ship. Zhou-nushi turned to ash, scattering at his feet, her expression frozen halfway between terror and rage. Baba stood bound in chains, the way Kuwei knew the soldiers had bound Zhou-nushi before bringing her away, except that his chest was a bloody cavity, and where his heart should’ve been was just empty space that shapeless shadows kept digging into. 

Kuwei startled, waking from that last dream with a muffled yelp. His heart pounded. His throat stung with held-back tears. It was still dark outside, earlier than he’d ever wanted to get up, but his being awake was less a choice that he made and more one his body forced on him, and it didn’t want to change that, no matter how stubbornly Kuwei kept his eyes closed. He lay curled in his bed instead until he heard footsteps creaking outside his door — Baba rising to make breakfast, and Mama following behind him, still half-asleep herself. 

This was the only time of the day Mama was anything less than lethally graceful. Kuwei had a lifetime of memories of Mama shuffling after Baba, quietly grumbling that the bed was too empty when he left, of Mama pressed close to Baba even while he set the table or cooked. If Mama wasn’t with Baba in these early hours, she would spend time with Kuwei, reading to him from one of his books. Mama always loved them, Kuwei knew, but this was when she was at her softest. Her work trained her to be anything but, so Kuwei also knew Baba treasured these moments, even if he never quite said it aloud. 

“Qin ai,” Baba said softly — not enough, because Kuwei could still hear them anyway, although he could also never not hear them with how thin the walls were — and stopped just outside Kuwei’s door. “It’s still early. You can go back to sleep if you like.” 

Mama huffed. “And go back to that empty bed? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Their footsteps and their banter faded down the hallway as they made their way to the kitchen. 

Kuwei thought back to their argument the night before, about his safety and leaving and the Taban queens. Something in him ached to know that, soon enough, he wouldn’t have any of this at all, and it kept him rooted to his bed. 

Still, he couldn’t stay in his room forever. When it was late enough that Mama and Baba would become suspicious if he didn’t join them soon, Kuwei stumbled into their dining room, feeling cold in a way that had nothing to do with the spring morning. 

Mama looked him over with a critical eye as he sat down. “Did you sleep?” she asked, sounding displeased. 

Kuwei meant to lie, to deflect. To talk about something else until he gathered himself. But what came out of his mouth instead was another question, panicked and confused: “Will I die?” 

Baba froze, his cup of lapsang souchong halfway to his mouth. Mama’s brow wrinkled. “Whatever gave you that idea?” she said. 

“I… I heard you,” Kuwei said. “Last night. You want me to leave Shu Han. It’s not safe here.”

Mama stepped closer to him, squatting on the ground so they were eye-to-eye. “I’m sorry you heard that,” she said. “We must’ve been very loud last night. Did we disturb you?”

“A little,” Kuwei said. “But it’s okay. It’s just… Why— Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?”

Mama went quiet. The furrow in her brow didn’t disappear. Then, at last, Mama said, “We wanted to protect you.” She took his hands in hers, gentle tracing the lines on his palms. “There’s plenty of cruelty in this world, my brave nhaban, and it’s too heavy to carry. We don’t want you to carry it yet.”

“But I will eventually,” Kuwei said. What was the point of hiding it from him, then? “Shouldn’t I prepare?”

“You will not go to the Tabans,” Baba finally spoke up. There was surety in his voice now, where there was none yesterday. His eyes weren’t cold anymore but Kuwei still thought they looked closer to gold than they ever had before. 

“Why?”

Kuwei was old enough to know: Baba held no title, not really, but for the one the people and not the Tabans gave him — the uncrowned king of the royal labs. That had to mean something. It was one thing to be— to be forced, if what Kuwei understood was correct; it was another to be so good at it that you got titles, got respect. If Baba stayed, then there had to be a benefit to it, somehow, and Kuwei could earn it all. He knew he could. So why the hesitation?

“You help people,” Kuwei went on. “Don’t you? I want to help people, too.”

“I was young when I made the choice,” Baba said. “Younger than you are now. But it defines you, for the rest of your life. You will not be able to leave your service, Kuwei, and I do not want you to feel trapped by something you chose as a child.”

“So I won’t die.”

“Never,” Baba said fiercely. “Not while I’m here.”

Kuwei thought of Haoyu-furen’s hiding from the palace in plain sight and another question sprung to mind. “Is that why Haoyu-furen never joined?”

“I imagine so.” 

Well. It made enough sense, Kuwei supposed. They’d had a similar conversation about Zhou-nushi some years ago; he barely remembered it but he knew it went like this. He had another more important question, anyway. “Are you happy with your work?” Kuwei asked. 

Baba hesitated for a long moment. Then, finally, he said, “It’s important to Shu Han.” Before Kuwei could press for more details, Baba squatted beside Mama, and took one of Kuwei’s hands in his. That way, they were all linked together in a triangle. “Kuwei,” he said. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone about your being sheng ji. About Haoyu-furen.”

“That’s illegal though,” Kuwei protested. 

“It doesn’t matter. Kuwei,” Baba said. “Promise me.”

“Okay,” Kuwei promised. “I won’t.”

Kuwei didn’t quite understand it. But Baba and Mama looked relieved when he agreed — and that was worth more to Kuwei than any fame, any title he could gain. He could earn those things, but it wouldn’t matter if he just made them sad while he did. 

It was a heavy burden, to walk with a secret pressed tight against his chest. To see the neighbors that watched over him as he grew up, and the vendors that greeted him with a smile, and the children he’d played games with long into the sunset after classes, and know: 

If I told you, you would want me gone, too.

That night, Baba invited Jiali-dashu to their home for dinner. Kuwei had seen him on a handful of occasions — the first, when he was a few years younger, he had been the one to greet Jiali-dashu at the door with Mama. He had blinked, confused by the tall, stern stranger on their doorstep, before remembering himself and saying, “Oh, you’re Baba’s best friend.”

A complicated expression had twisted Jiali-dashu’s face. “You could say that,” he said, stiffly, and Kuwei had been too young to press for what that meant, but he’d called him dashu, uncle, and was never corrected. 

In the years since, he’d pestered Mama about it, only to be met with a shake of her head, a quiet grumbling about stubborn fools who didn’t want to talk. 

He’d never pestered Baba. 

Jiali-dashu visited frequently enough, but only for work. This was the first time Kuwei could remember Baba extending that invitation to Jiali-dashu for personal reasons, and he was just as stiff and awkward now as he was then. They didn’t have to ask him to go to his room after dinner — Kuwei was just as eager to get away from the clear tension between Baba and Jiali-dashu, who wouldn’t quite meet each other’s eyes, and from Mama, who at first looked torn between amusement and exasperation before shifting very firmly to murderous. 

(“It makes you wonder,” she’d muttered to him once, “exactly how those two fools manage to be heads of the royal labs.”

Looking at them now, Kuwei more than understood.)

“Jiali,” said Baba the moment Kuwei was out of their immediate earshot. “Kuwei is sheng ji.”

The dining room went silent. It would have been nice to have visual cues, but listening in would have to suffice. Kuwei wasn’t going to hide in the hallway again. 

“Is he now,” said Jiali, his voice clipped.

“Enya visited last week,” said Mama. “Kuwei can command huo.”

“Then I suppose you’ll be sending him off to the palace once the program opens for the year,” said Jiali-dashu

“We won’t,” said Mama, firmly. “Enya is seeing to that.” 

“We did, however, invite you here to ask for help,” Baba continued. “We plan to smuggle the lab’s sheng ji away.”

Kuwei did not have to be in the dining room to hear the shattering of porcelain. 

“What?” Jiali-dashu demanded. “Have you lost your mind?”

“I have not,” Baba said. “I have not lost anything. I have found my conscience; I am asking if you still have yours.”

“Sarantsatsral,” Jiali said to Mama in disbelief. “Surely you agree this will end in disaster. Suppose you do smuggle them out of the palace — where would they go that Her Imperial Majesty’s shadow won’t reach?” “Well,” Mama said, “I do have a ship.” “Fool,” Jiali-dashu said, sharply. “Fools, the both of you! Why would you risk everything you have ever built like this?”

“There are some things worth sacrificing,” Mama said. 

“Even your very lives? Even Kuwei’s?”

“Kuwei is why we came up with this plan in the first place.” Mama’s voice was still even but Kuwei thought he could hear the beginnings of thunder rumbling in her words. 

“And so leave with Kuwei,” Jiali-dashu snapped.  “Damn all the rest. Forget them and save yourselves. This is not a country meant for kindness. The most I can do is turn a blind eye when you leave, but I refuse to be your accomplice.”

“Jiali,” Baba said, his voice soft in a way Kuwei had never heard before. He almost wanted to call it tender if not for how cruelly Baba’s next words seemed to land: “Jiali, don’t you ever get tired, too?”

The jugular, Kuwei thought, inanely. Baba and the weak points and the jugular. 

“Do you remember?” Baba went on, when Jiali-dashu didn’t respond. “Our first practical exam. All our peers who we found on the table. You promised me then, Jiali, and you swore that you would never forget. Must I remind you? You said—”

“Bo, enough.” 

Silence fell between all three of them. Kuwei wasn’t sure if they were breathing. Kuwei wasn’t sure if he was, either. 

Then, finally, Jiali-dashu said: “Tell me about your plan.”

And so Baba did. 

But even the sheng ji could only do so much. There was once a king who lived in what is now known as Ahmrat Jen, who was crueler than the sharp peaks of the Sikurzoi mountains and colder than the fierce winds that swept through from the north. The king was a bloodthirsty man, and a greedy one, and so he once set his army out to conquer that which he thought owed to him. Power and glory were the honors he sought, and bloodshed was its price — but not one that he paid. His army, great as it was, tore through city after city after city in service of their king. Some capitulated, and so all their warriors, ordinary or sheng ji, were absorbed into the king’s army, and the king took ownership of the city’s land and resources. Some fought on, only to fall in the end.  But the army grew too large to maintain, to sustain. Eventually, the king’s army wore down to nothing, impaled on the jagged edges of his ambition, with no one to honor them but a king who howled and cursed in rage upon hearing of their failures. It was not grief that drove the king to wrath. It was grief that drove his enemies to march upon his helpless kingdom, their weapons glinting, their losses a bleeding wound with no salve.  And so Sankt Kho, who was then but a simple blacksmith, forged a new army for his kingdom. Sankt Kho had little loyalty or love for the king, but he could not stand against him, for the king had all the resources afforded to him by his station. What he could do was labor, day and night, for years and years, over inventions that might yet save his people whom he loved greatly. He had lived his life forging blades they carried into war; he desired to forge tools that could save them instead: clockwork soldiers that would never rust nor tire.  Sankt Kho had been working on these soldiers for years, and yet, he could not find the right miracle. But with the invading armies approaching, Sankt Kho grew desperate and afraid. He did not wish to see his beloved city pay the price for one man’s arrogance. What makes us different from you? Sankt Kho demanded of an uncaring king. What makes us any less worthy of life? What makes us so lesser that you would sacrifice us without a second thought? The king was cruel, but above all, a coward. He spared no thought for anything but retreat. Sankt Kho was loyal to the kingdom, not the king; Sankt Kho loved the people, not their ruler. He thought of them when he returned to his forge, when he crafted his soldiers, when he dug out a miracle from somewhere deep within him. When his work was at last complete, he brought the soldiers before the king, and they laid waste to the enemy with terrifying, brutal efficiency.  And the king, who once thought to abandon the people he demanded die in his stead, committed the worst of his betrayals: he set the clockwork soldiers to conquer, and conquer, and conquer, indiscriminately.  Some say that Sankt Kho’s fury was such that he stole into the king’s chambers one night to depose him, only for his own creations to kill him where he stood. Others claim that the king, for he was as ruthless as he was selfish, ordered Sankt Kho’s arrest, and that Sankt Kho, unwilling to raise even a hand against the people he so loved, surrendered and languished in prison until he eventually died. More still believe that, ashamed of the cruelty his clockwork soldiers wrought, Sankt Kho disappeared to lands unknown. But the reason for Sankt Kho’s absence mattered little: in the end, he was only legend, language, memory. And so, when even the king grew bored of endless bloodshed, no one could halt the swing of their blades as they tore cities apart, for the king was the soldiers’ owner but not their master.  It is said that the king descended into fury because the soldiers did not heed his commands. He wanted to conquer the continent, and the soldiers fulfilled his desire — but he knew, even then, that he would be helpless to their violence if they one day turned upon him. He knew that there was only one person who could put a stop to the brutality, and that he was long lost to time. 

Mama was not a manufacturer of goods. Mama traded goods, traded materials; she had a knack for sourcing rarities. It was how she and Baba met: Baba had sent out a commission for what was apparently an absurd quantity of chemicals, and Mama was not the only one who was willing to take it, but she was the only one uninterested in gaining a sheng ji’s favor. Sheng ji had always been treated like Saints in their own right, and Baba was no exception, even if at the time he hadn’t yet been the uncrowned king of the royal labs; he grew up in partial limelight and knew how to identify who didn’t care for him beyond his status. 

“Your Mama hadn’t cared,” Baba said sometimes, to tease her. “She just wanted her money.”

At that point, if Mama was there, she would lightly whack Baba. “Excuse you,” she said. “I was being professional.”

If their banter devolved from there, Kuwei would sneak away. 

“It wasn’t love at first sight,” Baba would also say. “But I appreciated that your Mama didn’t see a title.”

“Your Baba listened,” Mama would concede. “I grew up in a village on the far reaches of Shu Han — few in the capital spared me time of day or even really looked at me. Your Baba has never seen past me once.”

Kuwei wrinkled his nose at them each time. They were sickeningly sweet, and as much as he loved them, there was only so much he could endure. But they were good for each other, even he could see that: Baba was always just Baba in their home, nothing to prove, no miracle necessary; Mama stood tall on her own merits, and when her own reputation wasn’t enough — which still happened these days, much to their consternation — Mama was all too happy to leverage Baba’s. No one dared say anything about the flash of her silver pearl earrings; no one said Baba was inhuman. 

Mama humanized Baba in the eyes of Shu Han. Baba protected Mama’s image. It was strange, how it worked, the way others cast qualities on you through association, and they had the weaponization of it down to a science. 

Still, whatever doubts others cast on Mama didn’t apply outside of Shu Han. She had connections in Kerch and Novyi Zem, a little less in the Wandering Isles — the least in Ravka and Fjerda, where tensions still ran high and only few were willing to deal with a Shu trader, but few weren't none. 

Kuwei grew up with Mama leaving periodically: trips across Shu Han, trips overseas. He and Baba always saw her off at the port, and she would kiss them before leaving. They would watch until they could no longer see the gleam of her earrings, her ship fading into the horizon. While she was away, they wrote letters they didn’t send, because there wasn’t much point when they weren’t sure if they would arrive at all, and they exchanged them when she returned: small ways to say, I thought of you while you were gone. Kuwei looked forward to Mama’s letters more than anything else she brought back. 

That was normal. That was routine. 

Until one day, she didn’t return at all. 

An accident at sea, her first mate told them apologetically. 

An accident at sea. 

If Bo Yul-Bayur withdrew from his work, from the public eye, it was only to be expected after the loss of his wife. If his son turned muted, like his mother’s passing extinguished some light in him, it was a mark of filial grief. That they were grieving only meant that they had loved. 

And if Jiali-dashu and Enya-ayi visited more often, it was only to provide support to their friend and his son as they mourned a loved one, who was their friend, too. How lucky one should be, to have such support. 

Kuwei thought he might go insane with it. It seemed that all of Ahmrat Jen knew about Mama’s passing, that all of Ahmrat Jen thought it was their business. But Baba’s reputation was still on the line, despite it all, and they needed to keep it. 

He endured. 

They hung a blue banner over the front door, and they placed orders for blue clothes and accessories of all kinds from a seamstress who looked at them with something between pity and delight at having new customers, enough to last them the three-year mourning period. There was no body to bury, but there was still a tombstone and a funeral, and Kuwei offered the Joss paper. 

“Yeye doesn’t have a lot of sympathy,” Kuwei noted, after, in the privacy of their home. His grandparents stopped visiting by the time he’d turned six, citing health reasons, but they hadn’t changed at all.

Privately, he was glad he didn’t see them much anymore. He was more liable to start arguing with them these days. Yeye might not have approved of Mama’s roots, but it was a completely different thing, to tell Baba, at her funeral, that it was unbecoming of him to be so loud about his grief for her, as if being sheng ji meant Baba should have been as impervious as everyone said he was.  

Baba ruffled his hair in sympathy, then shed his blue outer robe. “Pay it no mind. We don’t need their pity,” said Baba. “We don’t need something that isn’t real.”

That much was true: they both knew Mama was exactly where she needed to be. 

Kuwei was not the only one Enya lied for. All the names on her notebook were fanren and not sheng ji, and they would stay that way. 

What she told them, after Mama’s faked death: a ship would come in two weeks’ time. If they wanted to leave Shu Han, the ship would take them where they wanted to go. She never gave Mama’s name, because news of her supposed death had traveled past Ahmrat Jen and her reputation still carried weight, but they would see soon enough the strength of Mama’s promises. All they had to do to secure passage was to show up at the appointed place and time, and to stay safe until then. 

It didn’t make sense, though, to house them until Mama’s ship arrived — they simply had to maintain their status quo. The more pressing matter was the sheng ji already in the palace.

The first sheng ji Enya-ayi and Jiali-dashu smuggled was Aidana Kir-Qazir, who arrived in their house in the dead of night, when Kuwei was supposed to be asleep. 

He wasn’t asleep. 

Kuwei stood in the silent dark, hidden from view, until they settled her in a spare room. He was old enough to heat water for suutei tsai though not experienced enough to command huo precisely enough to do it well, but it was still drinkable. Even Jiali-dashu, who often declined drinks — Kuwei figured it was because he wanted to leave as soon as possible; Baba looked momentarily wounded each time he was rejected, but kept offering anyway — accepted a cup. 

The next morning, Kuwei brought breakfast to Qazir-furen. He knocked once, and when she opened the door, he didn’t go in, only offered the tray for her to take. 

Her dull gold eyes swept over him, assessing. “Yul-Bayur’s son,” Qazir-furen mused. It was the first time he ever heard her speak, and he found he didn’t like the quiet promise of something in her voice. He didn’t trust it. 

Qazir-furen shut the door before he could ask about what that meant. 

Kuwei didn’t know what she commanded — huo, shui, jin, mu, tu, or mingyun. He decided he didn’t want to find out, because even just speaking with her seemed to cross the invisible lines she’d drawn. 

Still, he was there later that afternoon to collect her tray. Kuwei noted the scratches and bruises decorating her skin, and asked, tentatively, “Do you want Baba to look at your injuries? He can help.”

Her face darkened. “As if I would ever accept help from him.”

“Hey!” Kuwei snapped. Mama didn’t raise him like this, but he couldn’t help it, and anyway, if she were here, she’d defend Baba and Dashu, too. “Aren’t you at least a little grateful for what they’re doing? They’re putting themselves in danger to help you.”

“Grateful?” Qazir scoffed, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “His subordinates were the ones who did this to me.”

Kuwei went silent, stunned, and Qazir’s smile turned cruel. “Oh, you didn’t know,” she said. “Let me tell you, boy, the truth of those damned labs. The Tabans hate the sheng ji. They’re afraid of us. They bring us into their labs and programs with the promise of a better future we can help bring about to Shu Han, but it’s just another way for them to control us. The truth is, they want our power for themselves. All of this is just to keep us docile in the meantime. Your precious Baba and Dashu” — she spit out the titles like they were poison in her mouth — “are part of it. They don’t care about the rest of us. They just want to save themselves. I don’t know what their goal here is, but I’ll not accept anything from the men who want me dead.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Kuwei said. “The labs don’t— Baba wouldn’t—”

“Believe what you will, boy.” Qazir’s face twisted into a sneer. “Tell me, have you ever wondered why our sheng ji number less than Ravka’s Grisha? The Tabans kill the ones who are too useless. Too stubborn. Your Baba and your Dashu experiment on the ones who didn’t make the cut.”

Kuwei huffed, finally fed up with the conversation, and yanked the tray back to him with more force than necessary. He didn’t have to listen to this nonsense. He turned to leave, then saw Baba lingering by the doorway, his expression tight. 

Guilty. 

“Baba,” Kuwei started, then stopped, scared of the question burning on his tongue. Scared of its answer. 

Qazir laughed behind him, high and hysterical. 

Baba began, “Kuwei—”

And he knew. 

The truth Kuwei learned: there was no left to remember it. No one knew what happened to Sankta Neyar, to Sankt Kho; no one knew why Neshyenyer was left unrusting in the halls of Ahmrat Jen. The Tabans were liars, crafting a narrative so convincing that no one knew fact from fiction. 

Kuwei’s truth: his father was a monster. 

Kuwei sprinted out of his childhood home, past the courtyard, past the gate, running blindly. The school was out of the question; his neighbors’ homes were out of the question. He ran until he found himself in the plum orchard he once spent that perfect afternoon in with his mother and father. Less than a year ago; a lifetime ago. The taste of plums rotted in his mouth.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, hidden in the shade. It could have been five minutes, thirty minutes, an hour. Kuwei drifted, unmoored, uncertain, like he’d downed an entire gallon of the drug his ayi once gave him. 

At the sound of footsteps on the ground, he looked up. Anger — betrayal; grief — lit him up from the inside once more. 

“Kuwei,” his father said, his hand extended. “Come home.”

“So it’s true.” Kuwei didn’t recognize his own voice. He sounded like his mother, like his  father during the night of their argument. 

Say it isn’t, he pleaded in his mind. Say she was lying, and that you’ve never experimented on anyone. Lie to me, I’ll believe you, so just—

But his father did not have interest in maintaining the mask any longer, it seemed. 

“Kuwei, please—”

“You lied to me,” Kuwei said. “You said you were helping people.”

“I had no choice—”

“Mama knows,” Kuwei said with cold certainty. He’s most useful to them dead, we both know this. “You both lied to me. You said you would protect me if I went.”

“I would have,” his father said. 

“If it helped the country, why would I have needed your protection?”

His father drew closer, speaking so softly that no one else, if there had been anyone else, could have heard him. “It’s true that the labs experiment on sheng ji,” he said. “Those who they deem too risky. Typically, it is the sheng ji who have control over wuxing rather than mingyun. Especially those who control huo.”

Kuwei paused. Considered this truth, and the story that unfolded before him a few years ago. “It wasn’t an accident,” he said slowly, “that killed Zhou-nushi. She did it on purpose.”

His father closed his eyes as if pained. “Yes. She did.”

“And you would have let me go? Knowing this? Knowing that death is better than whatever would’ve been waiting for me in the labs?”

“I would’ve protected you.” His father’s voice broke. “Kuwei, please believe me. I would’ve protected you. The labs wouldn’t have touched you. You wouldn’t have been a test subject.”

“Okay,” Kuwei said. “Okay. So I wouldn’t have been part, but I still would’ve been in the program anyway if you lied. You wanted me to become like you instead?”

Baba always went for the jugular. 

When he was younger, Kuwei always wanted to be his father’s son. 

Bo looked stricken. Just a year ago, Kuwei would have plied him with blankets, with food, would have curled beside him on the bed and stayed until his Baba felt more human. But all his compassion had burned up and out. 

Why? Kuwei wanted to demand instead. 

How could you? Kuwei wanted to cry. 

I hate you, Kuwei wanted to spit, wanted to scream, wanted to rage. Wanted to let the power in him flare, and burn, and burn, and burn, until Shu Han lay as scorched-black as his heart. But in the end, he couldn’t say it. 

Bo’s expression crumpled like he heard it anyway. 

The truth: Kuwei’s father loved him. Kuwei’s father was a monster. 

The truth: that was the worst part. Not that his father was crueler than Kuwei could forgive — but that Kuwei still loved him, too, despite it all.  

Kuwei didn’t want to speak with Bo more than he had to. He didn’t want to look at him. When Bo asked, again, for Kuwei to come home, Kuwei pushed past him and started the walk back in stony silence. 

It was better than Bo deserved.

“You see?” Qazir said when Kuwei brought her dinner, eager to escape Bo’s presence as soon as he could. Kuwei was, privately, half-surprised she hadn’t run off when Bo chased after him… but then again, there was nowhere else she could go, and that was the entire problem right there. “Boy, there’s nothing charitable about Yul-Bayur. Consider it a kindness that you found out now instead of later.”

Kuwei whirled on her, fire sparking between his fingers. “Don’t pretend,” Kuwei snarled, too furious to be gratified at the shock passing over her face, “that you did it just to be kind. You’re hurt, so you wanted me to hurt, too. Guess what — I am, and it doesn’t change a thing. We’re still here hiding from the Tabans in this house, and I’m still the son of a murderer, and you’re still legally dead, and my father is still the only reason we’re alive, so how about you shut up.”

It was probably unwise to turn his back on someone like her, who felt cornered enough to lash out at anyone, anything given half the chance, but she was probably no more trained than he was. Kuwei snatched up her tray and all its utensils before storming away. 

He slammed the door behind him on his way out. 

It didn’t open again. 

Kuwei ducked out of the house and sat in a corner of the courtyard, thin wisps of smoke rising into the air. Risky, maybe, but the entire plan was a gamble and he could pass this off as something else.

Bo. Sarantsatsral. Jiali. Enya. They were all in on it. They all knew. Kuwei didn’t know how involved Enya was, but the first three—

“Kuwei,” his dashu said. 

Kuwei went still; snuffed the fire. He was a little afraid of what he might do with it. 

“Dashu,” Kuwei said, not looking at him, and they said nothing more. 

Sparks flickered in Kuwei’s veins. His dashu held life and death in his hands. Kuwei didn’t trust that he wouldn’t set himself alight with the force of his own rage; he didn’t know if similar worries were what stayed his dashu’s tongue, but was— relieved, that it did. He would almost certainly fight him then. 

Dashu, he thought, must have been smart enough to realize this. 

When Kuwei mastered himself, it was only then that he spoke. He said: “When my father first told you of his plans, you turned him down immediately. Then he asked you if you were tired.”

In his peripheral vision, Kuwei saw his dashu take a seat beside him, close enough that they could touch but far enough that they had to make the choice. His dashu inclined his head. If he was surprised that Kuwei had heard the conversation, he didn’t show it. “He did.”

“What did he mean by tired? Tired of what?”

“The labs experiment on other sheng ji. Often, they do not survive the procedures.”

“And so you’ve been living off their suffering.” Something bitter curdled in Kuwei’s stomach, twisted his mouth. “Noted.”

“Do not take that tone with me, Kuwei,” his dashu said sharply. “You know nothing of the hardships we endured.

“Then start talking.”

“We were younger than you are now when we were accepted into the program,” his dashu started. “They told us we would ensure Shu Han’s continued longevity and prosperity, and they — other, older sheng ji — taught us how to use our powers. Your Baba and I were sent to work in the labs. Our first test subject was one of our peers who the Tabans deemed too uncontrollable. We couldn’t leave.”

“Couldn’t leave,” Kuwei repeated. “Why?”

“Because we knew we would be put on the receiving end of those experiments,” his dashu said. “And we wanted to live.”

“So all these years, you’ve been killing people?”

“We had no choice,” his dashu said again. “We weren’t arrogant enough to think we could challenge the Tabans and win.”

“There are always choices. You could’ve left the country,” Kuwei said. “ You could’ve run away. You’re the heads of the lab now — at any point did you think of changing the system for the better?”

“Don’t speak of things you have no experience of,” his dashu snapped. “We are not proud of our compliance. But we made them, and we are living with the consequences now. We are always going to live with them.” Softer, his dashu continued, “You’re lucky, Kuwei, that you have never experienced desperation like we have.”

Kuwei laughed. He couldn’t help the bitterness bubbling out of him. “I don’t understand desperation? Dashu, what is this if not desperation? I’m living in the world you and Baba helped build.”

“We built it because we wanted to live. Do you think we’re selfish for living?”

Selfish. What a funny way to put it. No, his father and his dashu had the right to live, but so did everyone else, and to frame those deaths as merely a byproduct of their survival—

“I think you’re cowards,” Kuwei said, “for not finding a better way sooner. Because if my father didn’t tell you about his plans, and it was me lying on that table for you to experiment on, you wouldn’t have hesitated. You would’ve killed me anyway.”

Jiali didn’t answer. 

Kuwei stood and left him in the dark, alone. 

Qazir stayed with them for nearly a month, which none of them were pleased about: she would still sometimes taunt Kuwei, bitter and cruel — though Kuwei offered her only icy ignorance — but mostly, she sat in silence; Bo went through great measures to limit contact with her; Jiali just flat-out didn’t initiate any contact at all. By the end of it, Kuwei had burned through all his anger; what was left was just exhaustion.

“This is not your absolution,” Qazir said to Bo on the night Sarantsatsral’s ship arrived, just before her own departure. The other sheng ji were likely already making the trip to the port.  

“I know,” Bo replied. 

Her eyes narrowed. For a harrowing moment, Kuwei thought she might lash out. Then she straightened to her full height, commanding, imperious, every inch as regal as the Queen even in traveling boots and a plain hemp cloak. “Bo Yul-Bayur,” she said. “May you find what you’re looking for.” 

Kuwei knew better than to wince, so he didn’t. He knew better, too, than to start a fight with someone as caustic and furious as Qazir. So he said nothing, just watched as her silhouette faded into the night. 

“May you travel in the direction of the wind,” Kuwei murmured to no one, and hoped, sincerely, that even if she would not, could forgive Bo for his crimes, their gamble would at least pay off long enough to see her settled in a better place. 

A package arrived for him during the second month, containing books on Ravkan, on Fjerdan, Kerch, Suli, Kaelish, Zemeni. Attached to it was a note that merely read: I’m sorry. There was no signature but Kuwei knew it was from Sarantsatsral. 

He sent no reply in return. 

The years went on. Sarantsatsral went to sea and returned to Shu Han, carrying smuggled sheng ji out of the country. Enya whispered of escape routes to anyone she tested. Jiali brought would-be subjects to their house, and Bo would open their doors to them. Kuwei, more often than not, was tasked with minding them: most couldn’t stand Bo or Jiali to accept even food or water. Most couldn’t trust him either, but wariness was the lesser evil than outright hostility. 

“You don’t have to forgive them,” Kuwei said to some. “You don’t even have to like them. But right now, we’re trying to keep you safe until you can leave Shu Han. Please, just… just accept our help.” 

“It doesn’t undo everything else they did,” Kuwei said to others. “It’s completely valid that you’re angry with them. This isn’t them trying to atone or righting wrongs — this is them doing what’s right, after years of not.”

You don’t have to forgive them. 

You don’t have to forgive them. 

You don’t have to forgive them.

It wasn’t quite Kuwei’s place to offer his forgiveness; he had never been in the crosshairs of their cruelty. But even if it was his place, he wouldn’t have been able to offer it anyway.

The second half of Bo’s plan — he wanted to make a drug that could hide a sheng ji’s powers. The rest of the world was cruel to them, just in different ways, and smuggling whoever they could was only a cure for the symptom and not the source. He spent hours with Jiali in the labs on most days, experimenting, trying to dig deep enough that their miracles would at last produce something good. 

Kuwei saw that point in it. He did. But he didn’t want to hide. Kuwei wanted to be nhaban, the rising phoenix; he wanted to pluck the Tabans and their precious falcons from the sky and set them alight in his hands. 

After Ravka’s civil war ended, riguang and heiying both vanquished, some of the sheng ji who stayed with them were from Ravka, captured by bounty hunters who crossed the border. Not all were soldiers of the Second Army but they spoke of it and how their abilities were not used for prosperity but death. 

This was, in Kuwei’s estimation, in some ways worse than Shu Han. At least in Shu Han, there were sheng ji whose powers went to medicine, to infrastructure, to art, to a dozen other fields. On the other hand, Ravka made no illusions about what their Grisha meant to them, and Kuwei thought he might prefer that honesty — bound by duty but not by lies. 

He could not burn the Tabans yet. But if he received training from the Second Army, there was no limit to what he could do. 

Kuwei learned his languages. Kuwei minded their wards. Kuwei went to school and lied to the public. Kuwei counted the days until he could leave. 

Kuwei endured. 

A breakthrough came in the fourth year of their quiet, late rebellion, when Kuwei was fifteen. Bo was convinced their drug was finally ready for use. Jiali agreed to test it. 

It was far down in the evening, at a time where no one should have been awake. But they all were there: Kuwei, Bo, Enya, Jiali, the three sheng ji who they put up until Sarantsatsral arrived next week. Enya had brought the palace’s testing drugs, vials of it lined up on a counter, which they would use after to check if the drug could resist even that. Bo held Jiali’s hand (Kuwei, despite it all, was convinced of Bo’s devotion; Sarantsatsral was likely privy to whatever development they’d had and gave her consent. He was just glad they’d stopped dancing around each other that much, and it was hard to begrudge them for it when these days it seemed Bo only smiled freely with Jiali), and Jiali himself eyed the vials, took a steadying breath, and downed Bo’s drug in a single gulp. 

“Well?” Enya demanded, after a tense, suspended moment where Jiali didn’t move at all. “Do you feel anything?”

Jiali turned his head to her. His eyes flashed with something that seemed unnatural. Then his hand shot up and forward, clenched, and suddenly Enya and two of their three wards were choking on nothing, clutching at their throats as they buckled to the ground. 

“Jiali!” Bo twisted around and caught Jiali’s other arm, trying to pin him down. “Stop, what are you doing, you’re hurting them!” 

Jiali looked at them with unseeing eyes. His hand clenched once more — and Kuwei moved before his mind could catch up. 

He grabbed Jiali’s outer coat, left discarded on a chair, and hopped up to tie it around Jiali’s head, yanking him backwards. The bounty hunters always tried to blind the sheng ji they caught; they knew they were useless when they couldn’t see, and it was how a number of their wards were captured. It bought Bo enough time to regain control of himself and take control of Jiali: blinded as he was, Jiali could not fight him off when Bo exerted enough of his power to still his hands. 

“Keep the blindfold on him,” Bo instructed, his voice deceptively calm. “Follow me to my bedroom, we’ll keep him there.” 

Kuwei swallowed hard and nodded assent. It was difficult to keep the knot tied securely when at every moment Jiali tried to fight him off, to say nothing of the height difference, but his fear allowed him to do nothing else.

One of their wards followed them to the room, handcuffs glinting. Kuwei wasn’t sure what piece of metal they’d transformed to make it, but it mattered more that they had it at all. Bo settled Jiali on his bed, Kuwei secured the knot, and their ward cuffed Jiali’s hands to the headboard. 

“Are you all right?” Kuwei asked their ward. They’d been on the receiving end of Jiali’s seemingly enhanced powers. It looked painful to see; it must have felt worse to bear.

“In shock, but we’ll be fine.” Their ward hesitated. “Do you need help?” 

“No,” Bo said, still with that forced, deceptive calm. He turned to look at them and smiled in a mockery of comfort. “I can manage from here, thank you. Please rest. I’ll tend to you afterwards.”

Another moment of hesitation, and their ward left, shutting the door behind him. 

“You don’t have to stay, Kuwei,” Bo said, even as his attention turned back to Jiali, howling and thrashing on the bed. 

Kuwei shook his head. “I’m not leaving.”

Bo sighed but didn’t press the point. What he did instead made Kuwei single-handedly question Bo’s cognitive capabilities: he started undoing the makeshift blindfold. 

“Baba,” Kuwei protested. Handcuffed or not, there was no telling what Jiali could do in this state. 

“I’ll be fine, nhaban. I promise.”

“Don’t,” Kuwei started to say, but he was too late, and the blindfold fell off. 

“Jiali,” Baba said softly. “It’s me. It’s Bo. You’re with me, and we’re in my room. You’re safe.”

Jiali-dashu answered with a snarl. Baba’s expression twinged, but he still cupped Jiali-dashu’s face in his hands. “Jiali. You’re here, you’re with me, you’re safe.”

Slowly, Jiali-dashu’s frantic movements came to a halt. “Trust me,” Baba went on. He leaned closer, resting his forehead against Jiali-dashu’s. “You’re safe here. You’re safe. Trust me.” 

And then, when Jiali-dashu had gone completely still, looking at Baba with wide, hazy eyes, looking at him without recognition, Baba clenched his fists and he fell unconscious. 

The sheng ji, too, fell to Sankt Kho’s clockwork creations, who became heralds of death and destruction throughout the land. The king’s wish for annihilation was fulfilled at last, an inevitability.  There was no messenger to warn of the soldiers’ arrival, no possibility of forewarning when all that was left in their wake was ruin. But absence echoed, too, and Sankta Neyar stood waiting by the city walls, watchman to her people’s reckoning. It was only when at last the distant footfalls of metal grew closer and closer that Sankta Neyar left her post. Sankta Neyar was the first and only child of a noble family since lost to time. Despite her status, Sankta Neyar never once thought herself above labor, and she was skilled at forging. She whispered prayers over her sword until it was strong enough to laugh and steel and sharp enough to cut through shadows, and swore to protect her people with all her might.  She could not yet ask her people to retreat when she did not know if the soldiers would attack them or the city first. Better for them to remain inside the walled city limits where she could better protect them. If even her miracle failed, she would stall with all she had until they could escape.  And this was the story that stayed: Sankta Neyar of the Six Soldiers, who forged the unrusting Neshyenyer, who battled Sankt Kho’s clockwork battalion for three days and three nights. Sankta Neyar, who saved Shu Han from the despotic king that ruled over it.   It was Sankta Neyar who paved the way for the first queen of Shu Han, the Taban yenok-yun, the storm that stayed. When the Taban yenok-yun descended from the mountains of Sikurzoi, Sankta Neyar appeared before her throne in Ahmrat Jen: not to depose another tyrant, but to offer her loyalty.  To you, Born of Heaven, Most Celestial Highness, I gift my blade, said Sankta Neyar, and bowed low before the first queen of Shu Han. May you, too, be sharp enough to cut through the shadows and strong enough to laugh at steel. Long may you reign, with the blessing of the heavens upon you.  The Taban yenok-yun, pleased at the show of sincerity, offered Sankta Neyar a place in her court — the first minister of what would become Shu Han.  And so Sankta Neyar was celebrated in Shu Han thereafter. She pledged her life in service to the Taban queens, and together, they united Shu Han from the shores of Bhez Ju to the hills of Koba. Where they went, they mended the destruction the king and his clockwork soldiers had wrought, returning peace and prosperity to the land. Word of their rule spread far and wide, and soon more and more cities willingly accepted the Taban yenok-yun as their Queen. With them, more sheng ji came to swear fealty to the Taban yenok-yun, and Sankta Neyar gladly took it upon herself to lead the sheng ji in guiding Shu Han to a better future.  And so the sheng ji were revered in Shu Han, as integral to the country as the sea and sky and land, such to the point that Shu Han became known as a country of miracles.  It has remained so until this day.

Bo wrote to Sarantsatsral. Bo wrote to the Merchant Council of Kerch. He begged for asylum. 

Jurda parem, he called the drug they had created, without pity, because there was nothing else that could be true. 

The week it took for Sarantsatsral to make port was the longest of Kuwei’s life. They kept Jiali restrained to the bed until the jurda parem ran its course, and even then, they had to always watch him for fear of him sneaking away to take another dose. His strength declined rapidly, his muscles weakened, and maybe worst of all was what happened to his abilities: he could no longer control mingyun. 

They had to leave, soon. That much was clear, however deeply it would impact their smuggling of sheng ji. Enya said she would figure it out, but even if she couldn’t, they would still have to flee the country. Jurda parem was too dangerous to keep in Shu Han, and even Kerch where they revered profit above all, but Kerch had more protection than the Wandering Isles and even Novyi Zem, neutral as it was. 

Sarantsatsral couldn’t have arrived quick enough. 

The night that she did, Kuwei already had on hand what little he could bring with him. Their wards had even less. Jiali borrowed some clothes from Bo, and that was it. They could not afford to bring anything more. 

Truthfully, Kuwei didn’t want to go. It was wiser, yes. It was safer. But just as he had all those years ago, he ached to leave Shu Han, to leave Baba behind. 

The port was always crowded, even at night. Their wards and Sarantsatsral’s crew helped Jiali aboard, despite his weak protests which really only proved their points quite neatly. 

Kuwei glanced around. He made his choice. 

In the chaos, he slipped away. 

No one gave chase. 

Kuwei slid the door to his home open and the back of his head knocked back against the wall from the force of being shoved. There was no weight on his throat or his chest, but he gasped around a weak, strangled breath, thrashing around in the invisible hold, which let up only moments later. He breathed in, deeply, bowled over, and then looked up to see Bo’s wide eyes, Bo reaching out for him. 

Bo pulled Kuwei over to a nearby chair, then silently fetched him a cup of water. When Kuwei felt recovered enough to talk, he inhaled once, straightening his spine. “Thank you,” he said to Bo, whose brows furrowed like he didn’t quite trust that Kuwei wouldn’t collapse if he looked at him the wrong way but ultimately continued the conversation. 

Good. They didn’t have time for sentiment. 

“I’m sorry,” Bo said. “Are you all right?”

Kuwei had to clear his throat once, which didn’t help his case at all. “I am,” he said anyway. 

“What happened?” Bo said. “Where’s Jiali? Did the ship not arrive?”

“It did. He’s on it.” Kuwei canted his head to the side, considering. If he took into account how long it had been since he’d snuck away… “They’re either about to leave or have already to left.”

“They left you behind?” Bo’s eyes went wide. 

Bo wasn’t normally so expressive, Kuwei noted, somewhat distantly, but then again it might’ve been the shock. You normally didn’t briefly choke your son with magic powers the universe had arbitrarily decided to grant you, which the country in which you resided in either killed or literally-and-metaphorically shackled you for, when your son was supposed to be on a ship bound for anywhere here — manned by your wife who had faked her death for the express purpose of smuggling people out of the country — accompanied by several other people who had the same powers with one near comatose because of your experimental drug which you had developed in the hopes of helping your people but went horribly south.

Kuwei should’ve been more upset about this turn of events. 

Oh. 

Maybe he was in shock, too. 

“They didn’t leave me,” Kuwei said past the fog — the wall — keeping everything around him at more than arm’s length. There was no clarity in repression. “When they weren’t looking, I went back here.”

Bo stared at him for a long moment, his throat working as if to say something only to hesitate. 

This was probably not the best way to have this conversation. 

“You were supposed to go with them,” Bo finally said. “Kuwei, nhaban, why didn’t you go? It would’ve been safer for you.”

Safety. What was safe these days? Half the world wanted them dead or otherwise incapacitated. 

Kuwei said, “My entire life, you always fought to give me choices. I chose this.”

And besides, what would Baba do about it now? Kuwei was already here. The ship had left or would leave; that none of them returned suggested they hadn’t noticed or didn’t care. Not for the son of the man whose rank relied entirely on hurting them. 

Strange, the way others’ association cast shadows on you. 

“Choices have consequences,” Baba said. 

“I know. But I couldn’t leave.”

Baba’s exhale was ragged. He was smart enough to know there was nothing else they could do. “Then you must be prepared to live with them. Kerch’s ship arrives in a week. An infinite number of things could go wrong.”

“I know.”

“If worst comes to worst…” Bo trailed off. Kuwei frowned at him. This was not the time for sentiment, or hesitation, or dramatics; there was only forward, forward. 

“Yu yeh sesh,” Bo said at last. Despise your heart. 

The answer was supposed to be ni we sesh. I have no heart. Kuwei opened his mouth to say it, but the words dissolved like ash. Whatever kindling he’d once used to stoke his courage was suddenly nothing more than dim embers, a remnant of another boy from another lifetime, who didn’t know what scales he would have to balance. Who would never understand that, to sustain a flickering flame, you had to burn anything, everything.

But there were some things too precious to burn. There were some things Kuwei would burn for instead. 

“Yu yeh sesh,” his father said at Kuwei’s silence, more firmly this time. There was something like desperation in his eyes. “Kuwei. Whatever happens.”

Kuwei swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. “Ni we sesh.” 

I have no heart, but for all that he needed to pretend, it wasn’t true at all.

On their last night in their home, his father made roast duck with plum sauce, and Kuwei dug up his mother’s recipe for boortsog, even though he didn’t need it when she made sure he memorized it years before she had to leave. But it was nice to have something to do with his hands. It was nice, too, to have something as warm as the suutei tsai his father served after dinner, where they both lingered in the courtyard in silence, trying to find excuses to stay a little longer. 

But they were pragmatic down to the core, and scientists besides. They couldn’t go for the jugular if they couldn’t cast aside all that was useless. When the night grew cold and long and dead, they headed indoors. 

If Kuwei decided to knock on his father’s door and steal under the covers, like he was five again, young enough that his only fears were the storms raging outside the windows and the monsters under his bed and not the monsters on the streets, in his home, and if his father shifted closer, mumbling old stories and recent discoveries — it was desperation, and it was comfort, and it was almost foreign, but above all, it was love. 

After everything. Despite everything. Because of everything. 

Kuwei glanced at his father’s expression. He looked so much older than he had before his mother left, before they started taking sheng ji in, before Kuwei ran off and set a fire just because he wanted something to hurt the way he was hurting. He was old enough to admit it to himself: his father was unforgivable. That did not make his actions unjustifiable.

At their core, they were nothing but pragmatic, and survival fetched a high price in the royal labs. Maybe that was the nature of Shu Han: to burn out everyone’s capacity for kindness until no one could afford anything but necessity. 

Did his father understand that? That even if Kuwei could never forgive him, that didn’t mean Kuwei didn’t love him. Kuwei thought of the silent meals and the late nights, the carefully metered distance and the aborted conversations, all the months Kuwei spent holding his anger like it would fix anything, and rather abruptly came to— not regret it. He wasn’t wrong to be furious. But something in his chest ached at the possibility of his father not knowing Kuwei loved him.

If they died tomorrow, he didn’t want his father to die unloved and sad. Still, Kuwei couldn't take back the years and regret was a waste of time. What he could do was this: he curled up closer, the closest he’d ever been since he learned his father’s truth, enough that they were hugging again like nothing ever changed, and he said, simply, “I love you, Baba.”

Baba stared at him in clear surprise, though his words didn’t falter once. His expression softened. He blinked away tears that Kuwei didn’t mention, and he opened his arms for a proper embrace.

Kuwei drifted off to sleep in Baba’s arms and did not dream of tomorrow. 

It was an ambush. 

Kuwei screamed, a feral, animalistic sound that he did not recognize as his, when a bullet tore through his father. The panic cleaved him in two; it didn’t matter whose bullet it was when his father was crumpled on the ground with blood so much blood he wasn’t moving he wasn’t moving he was dead dead dead—

With another scream ripped raw from his throat, Kuwei lunged for his father’s body, but hands caught him by the shoulders, tight enough that even moving hurt. He thrashed against the grip to no avail, howling curses foul enough that they would follow the soldiers from this life into the next. 

His father died knowing Kuwei loved him. His father died alone with a gunshot clean through his stomach. 

If his father was dead, Kuwei wanted to be—

No. 

Ni we sesh. I have no heart. 

The Fjerdans led him onto their ship in chains. Kuwei yielded; Kuwei amputated his grief the same way his father severed life. It wouldn’t serve him here. 

Kuwei had promised. And his father had sacrificed. Out somewhere in the ocean, his mother was manning a ship of smuggled sheng ji, and his uncle was recovering from jurda parem if he wasn’t already dead. 

Kuwei would survive to see them. Kuwei would survive to reach Ravka’s Little Palace, and find a cure for jurda parem, and train, and burn this wretched system down to the ground. 

He had no other choice.  

The Fjerdan soldiers dragged him to the admiral. Distantly, Kuwei noted that there were still gunshots in the distance, growing fainter and fainter. 

They asked him dozens of questions Kuwei knew he shouldn’t answer, but Kuwei couldn’t stake his life on the value of his knowledge. One day, it would just be easier for them to kill him rather than keep him alive; he had to delay that as long as possible. 

Kuwei answered in broad strokes, his Fjerdan clumsy and halting. Jurda parem was meant to hide a sheng ji’s powers except it amplified them instead. His father had been developing it for years. Kuwei himself only somewhat knew how. 

This was how to survive in a world of tyrants: Keep your head down. 

This was how to live: Resist.

They asked about the chemicals, the manufacturing, the side effects. Kuwei’s Fjerdan was mediocre, but better than conversational; he lied and pretended he understood little beyond the basic questions they originally asked. He especially did not mention the escape route his mother had been maintaining while his father and uncle developed the jurda parem. When they finally grew tired of probing him for answers he feigned incapability on, they locked him in one of the cells, calling him witch, calling him unholy. 

The miracles of Shu Han, witches of Fjerda, saviors of the Wandering Isles, blessed of Novyi Zem, profitable of Kerch — did it even matter what they were called? It all just meant not human. Never human; less than. In the universal language of power, there was only one word: control. 

In that, at least, they were equally fluent.

Kuwei couldn’t stake his life on the value of his knowledge, but these Fjerdan soldiers were the enactors of terror, never the terrified. What would they know of the desperation that overcame fear?

Alone in his cell in the Ice Court, Kuwei shivered, curling in on himself. This was nothing like Shu Han, where it never even snowed during the winter.

He didn’t know how long he’d been here. Months, certainly, but he was no closer to replicating jurda parem, finding a cure for it, or figuring out a way to escape. 

And that was— that was fine. If he was still alive to know these things, then he was still alive to take chances, whenever they arrived. 

The moment he found them, he would burn this wretched place down to the ground. 

Because it was truly wretched. It felt like the Fjerdans had somehow managed to unleash winter in one single room, the food was bland and tasteless, he was never allowed to even step out into the sun—

—and every day, news made its way even to him. The guards spoke of the half-machine, half-human soldiers Shu Han was developing under the orders of Her Imperial Majesty Makhi Kir-Taban, winged machinations that could scent sheng ji from miles away, brass knuckles embedded into their very flesh. 

It didn’t matter if Enya figured out how to continue smuggling sheng ji out of Shu Han if those soldiers were the Tabans’ latest war machines. Kuwei could only hope she’d gotten out in time. 

Kuwei worried at the threadbare blanket they’d deigned to provide him. It really was too cold here, and he wanted bright summer afternoons, flying kites on the outskirts of Ahmrat Jen, picking plums in the orchards. He wanted roast duck and boortsog and suutei tsai. 

He wanted to go home, but home was a place that would turn on him in a heartbeat. He wanted his family, but they were lost to him, maybe forever, and he would never hug Mama again, never have lunch with Jiali-dashu, never talk with Enya-ayi, and it broke something in him to know this. 

The Ice Court was a place for endings and not endurance, but Kuwei would suffer through a lifetime in this hell if only it meant he was by Baba’s side. 

[thatfangirlofsb]

Fake dialogues

Voiceover: What is your body-count?

Jesper: *excited* Oh, my time has come. Is...

Kaz: An exaggeration. Next.

Wylan: What is...?

Kuwei: *interrupts him* The real one or the one I want? *looks at Jesper with love eyes*

Wylan: One, today I'm going to kill Kuwei.

Inej: I would need to count all the times I've killed someone since I started working with Kaz. It would be...

Nina: Oh, Inej. Blessed innocence.

Matthias: Can we forget about the past? I really regret my actions and...

Nina: Yours is one.

Matthias: *angry* I've killed many more! Not just one, that would be...

Nina: Oh, blessed innocence. *whispers to Matthias the definition of body-count*

Matthias: Get your hands off me, you dirty drüsje!

Nina: You didn't say that last night.

[fandomscompilation]

Life over death (The Darkling x Reader) Part Two

Fandom: Grishaverse

Pairing: Alexander Morozova x Reader

Warnings: guns, blood, fights, death, mentions of being captured

A/N: Second part of The Darkling fic! We're getting closer to the part where Reader meets Alexander. I'm so excited for this story, since I'm still figuring out how I want their relationship to evolve. But I can assure you I'll try my best to make Reader the craziest Grisha (if you can call it that) as possible. So enjoy this part and let me know what you think! Remember requests for characters from my masterlist are open.

Gif is not mine!

The snow was covering the tracks fast. Each step made it crunch lightly under the heavy boots. The quietness of the forest disturbed. One would try to keep quiet, unnoticed. But the young woman did not care if someone would see her. Her steps were calculated, a certain target on her mind.

She seemingly blended with the nature around her, but something didn't seem right. It felt like she was a part of it, but at the same time she was like a flaw that should not be. Her entire being seemed perfect, but it was borderline to being imperfect for that same reason. For there was no perfection in this world. And yet she was here, walking like she belonged everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

"Hey!" A masculine voice stopped her stride. "Who are you?"

She slightly tilted her head hearing his steps near her from the side. Her eyes fell on the man that was advancing in her direction with a loaded gun. She turned to face him and he raised his gun stopping. There was no words exchanged, no movement from her side, when the man crumbled to his knees. The gun slipped from his hands. His eyes were wide open in fear. Soon coughs filled the air, blood sipped through his lips. He grabbed at his throat in hopes of saving himself, a futile attempt.

She stepped closer. With each step more blood showed. His mouth, eyes, ears. And when she finally towered over him he was already on the brink of death. Her delicate hand grasped his chin to make him look straight into her eyes. Eyes filled with anger and pain, a gaze of an ageless murderer without an ounce of guilt. Her gaze was the last thing he saw before drowning in his own blood.

Seemingly unmoved she started to walk in the direction he came from. Her decision led her to the encampment she was looking for in the first place. She entered the clearing, standing just barely few steps from the first man. He sensed a newcomer turning with a raised gun.

"Do not move!" He shouted alarming the rest. They all stood to their feet. Her eyes slowly scanned their group. Eight men, guns raised and pointing at her. She smiled softly before stepping closer. "Stop or I'll shoot!"

The next step caused the first shot. But the bullet never hit the target. While the gunshot still echoed the bullet was hovering just inches in front of her heart. Her eyes moved slowly from the man to the bullet. A spark of fury light up her eyes and before more shots could be fired the bullet went back to the owner. Taking his life.

"Drüsje!" One of them spat out in disgust. It didn't seem to bother her though. The first move was made and while they were trained to kill ones like her, she was made to become the predator. It looked like an intricate dance with the way she moved around the men making them fall one by one.

She did not need weapons for her mind was enough to kill. Her powers reached targets making their organs explode, air sucked from their lungs, body dehydrated turning to bones and skin only. She seemed to wield all the powers needed to turn them into nothingness.

When the blood covered the ground turning everything to red she stopped in the middle of it. Her grey cloak was still untouched, she still looked like she merely went out for a walk.

She turned to face the group of people that were the only witnesses of her doings. They covered lightly when she came closer. She first kneeled in front of those that did not look frightened by her. Her fingers ran over their shackles making them break with the light touch. Soon the group stood looking to her and she ran her eyes over them. Beaten, dehydrated and broken Grisha that were once soldiers. She sighted deeply before nodding and leading them away from the camp. And they followed willingly even though they were finally free.

[aphroditestummyrolls]

Time for a spare prayer WIP game :))

Hiiiii! Chapter 3 has just been posted ❤️ this little moment is from chapter 5.

“Nina is… strong-willed. And outspoken.”

The Fjerdan sat down beside him with a half a smile. He couldn’t tell if he was apologising on the Ravkan’s behalf, or if he was simply stating facts, but Colm didn’t like it either way. There were plenty of things to be said about this place and the people in it without tearing a woman down for having an opinion… even if that opinion was rattling around the Kaelishman’s brain like a stray bullet casing.

“Neither are bad things for a lady to be.” He replied shortly. He had no patience for the Fjerdan culture— reminded him of The Wandering Isle he grew up in all those years ago, in the worst way. Old fashioned, oppressive, discriminatory; it was as if the bad weather had frozen Time itself up in mighty Fjerda. At least the Wandering Isle thawed and grew over the decades. “If you have a problem with that, you ought to go find a nice girl back home.”

The Fjerdan huffed. “Nina is my home. I only meant that she is protective— of all of us, of course. But Jesper, most of all, I think.” Colm looked over at the bar, where the pretty red-clad woman was polishing glasses. Her cheeks were still flushed and she was muttering to herself.

“Because they’re both grisha?” He guessed. It wasn’t a difficult deduction.

D’you have any idea what you’ve done? How unhealthy it is to bury your power inside like that? Her words echoed. He traced his fingertip absently through the condensation on his pint glass. Tell me, is it all grisha who should be made to hide in shame, or is it just your son?

The Fjerdan hummed an affirmative. “Apparently, they were not always so close, before I was freed. But, when Nina discovered he was also drüsje? He came to her asking all of these questions, looking for help in training and directing his power; she immediately took him under her little red wing.” He chuckled. “At first, I was almost jealous— but, of course, Jesper was jealous of me as well! He misinterpreted my closeness with Wylan.”

Colm blinked, wading through the words as though the meaning was getting lost somehow. What was the point of this? It set his teeth on edge.

Freed? Drüsje? Who was this man?

“Of course, Nina explained. To have a fellow grisha among us reminds her of The Little Palace— we’ve all made a home here, yes, but we all have places we cannot return to.”

“Jesper doesn’t.” He immediately replied, feeling a sudden knee jerk defensiveness, meeting the young man’s gaze. He hoped he looked more defiant than desperate. “Jes could’ve come home any time he wanted to. He knows I’d be there whenever he needed me.”

The Fjerdan was looking placidly at him, and Colm got the impression that he was quite a bit more intelligent than his brawn would imply.

“Mr. Fahey, Jesper clearly did not think that.”

I am having so much fun right now just letting the characters chat??? Like, Matthias and Colm? They have so much more in common than Colm knows, but already, Matthias is becoming the first person he’ll come to trust in the crows.

Building a voice for Matthias is also so interesting. Marrying show and book matthias, and bringing he and Jesper together as friends when Kit and Calahan never got to work together? It’s so fun. (I still hope that maybe one day 😭 we’ll see them bond).

Thank you for playing!

[dontlookforme00]

...she was a drüsje, he was a drüskelle......... can I make it any more obvious??

[stromuprisahat]

Sorry to intrude, but since it seems you’re analyzing DitW and it’s about the Darkling’s past, I thought it might be semi-relevant to ask. There’s that theory (not sure if it’s canon, heavily implied, or just a headcanon in the fandom) that Baghra had multiple kids before and possibly after Sasha. If that’s true, why do we not see them? Did she get rid of them/abandon them if they were otkazat’skay or disobedient? I remember having heard that theory, then reading DitW for the first time, and whenever it mentions near the end Baghra being disapproving of Sasha trying to make friends (especially because of how it ended) I thought for sure he was about to get disowned or something. Or worse. But I haven’t heard anyone talking about the theory, so for all I know it’s a figment of my imagination.

Don't be afraid to ask. I sometimes take long to answer, but eventually I will.

Aleksander had indeed many half-siblings. He remembers trying to find some of them once he got too lonely, and likely once it was obvious he and his mother have different wants and emotional needs.

... He’d met his half sister, who had herself passed into legend and Sainthood. He’d searched the world for his mother’s other children, hungry for kinship, for a sense of himself in others. ...

Rule of Wolves- Chapter 33

As for the fate of those children- that's clarified in one of the short stories:

“I remember you,” he repeated. “You were born with a tail. Every summer I’ve come here to study and watch the sea folk, wondering if you might return.” “No,” said Ulla. “No. The sildroher cannot breed with humans. I cannot have a mortal mother.” He gave a slight shrug. “Not entirely mortal. The people of this country would call her drüsje, witch. They would call me one, too. They play at magic, read the stars, throw bones. But it’s best not to show them real power. Your people know this well.” ... Ulla felt the hurt inside her winnow to a hard point. “And did your witch mother care at all for the child she abandoned to the sea?” But the apprentice did not look troubled by her harsh words. “She isn’t one for sentiment.”

The Language of Thorns- When Water Sang Fire

In short any imperfection led to immediate abandonment, and judging from the qualities of the only child she kept, she was trying to make herself a copy. Immortal, Shadow Summoner, maybe even human amplifier to ensure they'll be in the same danger as her, therefore less likely to leave her.

Aside from DitW, we only meet very old Baghra, so perhaps she kept some of the "earlier" experiments until they grew up, and developed codependency only with Aleksander due to his similarity, but as he says- she isn't one for sentiment, to put it mildly. My money's on cold genetic experimentation with clear purpose- creating obedient Baggy 2.0 to share her miserable worldview.

[choistick]

hold on tight - teaser

pairing: yeonjun x fem!reader

rating: 16+

synopsis: as a grisha you always had to fear for your life outside of ravka, so when you get captured by drüskelle and brought to a ship heading to fjerda where trial awaits you, you lose all hope of ever being free again. When the ship gets into a massive storm though, you and a drüskelle manage to survive and swim to the shore. Stuck together in the permafrost you have no other chance then to endure each other, and maybe, just maybe, you develop feelings for the guy you’re supposed to hate.

genre: grishaverse au, nina zenik & mattias helvar au, enemies to lovers, fluff, angst, suggestive

warnings: spoilers to six of crows and the series shadow and bone, profanity, mentions of being executed, witch hunting, old beliefs (witches are bad, women belong to the kitchen), mentions of weapons (not specified), people are put in cages, reader is a heartrender and can toy with the organs, mentions of killing, fainting, people are in bonds (reader included), slapping, reader spits someone in the face, indirect mentions of starving, eating and drinking, feeling of faintness, mentions of excrements, yeonjun says the reader is not a woman, graphic description of experiencing a shipwreck, a dead man, reader almost drowns, mentions of a panic attack, mentions of freezing to death, mentions of strangling someone, they both undress but wrap themselves into coats, cuddling, kissing, yeonjun is stubborn, Y/N is stubborn as well, more to be added

A/N: it's a teaser! I'm actually so excited to finish and post this fic?? I absolutely love nina and matthias sm, my favorite enemies to lovers. 😭 thanks to @kookthief for beta reading !! please remember that this is all fiction and I do not agree with the beliefs in the story. if you liked this fic I recommend reading the grishaverse books by leigh bardugo since it's based on her books!

You had no idea how long you’ve been walking when you finally came across an abandoned whaling camp. It took some effort from the both of you to open one of the doors, but once you were inside the hut he started to collect wood and build a fire. The flames lit up and warmed the hut and you allowed to close your eyes for a moment. When you opened them again you caught him looking at you. “What?” He cleared his throat. “We can’t stay in our clothes. Let’s change into the coats on the wall.” you nodded in agreement and pulled your cold, wet dress over your head. “Wha- what are you doing?!”

“Undressing. Like you said, we can’t stay in our clothes.”

“But not in front of me!” you snickered. The flabbergasted look he gave you was too funny. “You can gladly turn around, drüskelle.” snickering again when he turned around, you slipped out of your underwear as well and dried yourself as much as you could before putting on the coat. It was a thick fur coat, perfect to stay warm in. your wet clothes were put near the fire so they were able to dry. “I’m done. You can turn around again.” he did as told, watching you create a makeshift bed on the floor. Then, slowly, he began to undress as well. You didn’t even try to hide that you were watching him, laughing out loud at his next words. “Turn around, drüsje.” he sounded so offended that you just had to listen to him, still laughing. He grumbled something you couldn’t understand. A moment passed, then another, and then, finally, you heard his voice again. “I’m done.” you turned around again and playfully winked at him before you made your way to the makeshift bed, laying down. The guy laid down as well, with a noticeable distance, and pulled the blankets over you. “If we want to stay warm we need to be closer to each other, you know.”  he growled and pursed his lips: “i’d rather freeze to death.” you rolled your eyes at him. It was clear that he was still freezing but too stubborn to do something about it. You shuffled closer to him and put your hand on his chest to warm him. “You’re welcome, you big idiot.”

He tensed under your touch, just like he had tensed in the water, but after a while he pulled you even closer. “You speak in such a lewd manner. You are nothing like fjerdan women. It’s not natural for women and men to fight together” while pressing your body against his in order to stay warm you scoffed. “It's not natural for someone to be as stupid as he is tall and yet, there you are.” huffing annoyed, you added: “i could take you in a fight, drüskelle,  you know?” Much to your surprise he started laughing at your words. “Sure, drüsje. i‘d like to see you try.” 

“oh please. We survived a shipwreck. I think it’s time you start calling me something else than that.”

“Oh? And what do you have in mind, drüsje?” 

“What about my name?” he looked at you. “I don’t know your name.” you looked back. “It’s Y/N.” a few very long seconds passed before he spoke up again. “Yeonjun.” your eyes widened slightly before a smile creeped on your lips. Yeonjun furrowed his brows. “What?” Yeonjun. You liked the name. “Nice to meet you, Yeonjun.”

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© choistick, all rights reserved. do not copy or translate without my permission.

[bestgrishaversequotes]

longer quotes under the cut!

Genya gave the barest nod. "Think twice before you use the word blessing, monk." She sat and folded her hands. "Proceed."

"Just a moment," David said, planting a finger in the page to mark his place in his book. "What was your name?"

"Yuri Vedenen, moi soverenyi."

"Yuri Vedenen, if you upset my wife again, I will kill you where you stand."

The monk swallowed. "Yes, moi soverenyi."

"Oh, David," Genya said, taking his hand. "You've never threatened to murder anyone for me before."

"Haven't I?" he murmured distractedly, placed a kiss on her knuckles, and continues reading.

(King of Scars, chapter 9)

--------

"Drüsje," Birgir hissed. Witch.

"I don't like that word," Nina said, advancing. "Call me Grisha. Call me zowa. Call me death, if you like."

(King of Scars, chapter 3)

[restlessmaknae]

He was a drüskelle and you were a Grisha. You should have hated each other from the start, and yet…

➳ Characters: drüskelle!Gunhak (Leedo) x Grisha!female reader/you

➳ Genre: Grishaverse!au, fantasy, star-crossed lovers

➳ Words: 1.1k

➳ Warning: mentions of blood, being beaten up, execution, special powers

➳ A/N: This story is part of my '5 words, 5 stories' series for which I wrote 5 totally different stories with 5 different band members featuring the same 5 words "I'm sorry, I love you". If you're interested in the other stories, check out this link! Otherwise, they can totally be read on their own. Dedicated to @dat-town❤️

➳ Check out: my ONEUS masterlist

➳ ONEUS taglist: @wccycc, @dat-town, @i2kittenz, @laaylaazyy, @tranquilpetrichor, @effulgentfireflies, @stories-inbetween-the-stars

When you saved Gunhak’s life, you had no idea how much the act of it would impact you later on. As much as you would have liked to turn back time, you couldn’t. Not when he betrayed you to get what he wanted, and he was oh so excellent at deceiving you - you who just got to know what your power could do.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he handed you over to the other drüskelle, a new prey to be passed along, a new toy to play with, a new hunt to be taken away and eventually executed. His eyes were icy cold like always, but maybe it was your sentimental self or there was actually a hint of guilt in his pitch-black orbs. Not that it mattered…

None of it mattered when you were given away for your death sentence.

“I love you… or I thought I loved you. How could you?” You shrieked at the top of your lungs as two broad-shouldered men dragged you away, your feet lifelessly sweeping the ground as if you had been weightless. Maybe you were, you couldn’t feel anything, except fury, but that fury burned… it burned your tongue, your throat, your gut, your veins and your heart. “I never should have saved your life, you-”

“Enough, drüsje,” one of the men spitted, the word ringing in your ears. Witch. You could believe that these stern men dragging you away would deem you a witch, but to know that Gunhak had thought the same from the moment you had saved him… It stung like an open wound not being properly taken care of.

Those same eyes that you had thought were full of bitterness and hopelessness were now reflecting your own kind of torment, but you could not pity him, not even when he wanted to explain that it was because it was his last chance at being a drüskelle, a witchhunter to put it nicely. If you had known who he was, you would have never even gone close to him, but that part of you (the Grisha part of you)... it always awakened when you saw suffering. You couldn’t just sit by idly, you had to do something about it. If they were suffering physically, you could try to heal their wounds and bones and scars, but even just the sight of a pair of lifeless eyes made your heart churn. You had always had this caring part within you, but not until you had actually saved someone’s life just with the power in your hands, had you realised just how special you were.

Special… It now seemed ironic just how positively shocked you had been when you had realised that you had managed to heal Gunhak whom you had found around the Ravkan border. He had been badly beaten up, burgundy scars painting his rough skin, his left eyelid had been swollen, and he had looked like he had been starving for some time. You had found him unconscious, and when you had seen blood oozing out from his side, you had tried to stop it, to clean it up, to make it go away, and it had worked… but not with any assistance, merely by your hands.

That had been the first time you had discovered you had been a Grisha; before that, you had always thought that you had managed to heal others due to external sources: the bandages, the ointment and herbs, not due to the power in you. You had seen the same kind of surprise crossing Gunhak’s icy cold orbs that you had suspected in your own eyes when he had realised just what you were.

You had thought of that moment as a vulnerable one, one like being bare in front of someone else, and you had falsely assumed that you could confide in him because he hadn’t told anyone around you about what he had seen. You had put your trust in him, helped him heal and helped him put himself together, you had even gone as far as trying to get him a job because he had acted like a Grisha who had managed to escape from the drüskelle.

How ironic it was now that he turned out to be one of those he was supposedly running away from… You should have known that he had been lying when he hadn’t wanted to show you his power. You had let him get away with it because you had also wanted to hide your powers, and he had been physically weak. But to think of all those times you had fed him soup, you had stood by his bedside (your bedside) to tend to his wounds, you had watched over him as he had been sleeping…

You felt sick to the stomach, so sick…

“I’m sorry,” Gunhak mouthed - maybe he spoke up, you couldn’t hear him from the distance - as you were dragged further and further away from him.

How could he be sorry and stand still like a statue? You had never understood how Fjerdans were so damn loyal to their country and their sick ethics because they not only collected Grisha like some sick prizes to be won, but they also executed them for what they were. The saddest part of it was that it was just who he was: he was a drüskelle and you were a Grisha. You should have hated each other from the start, and yet… you wondered if he had ever felt anything towards you other than disgust… Love, what a joke. Having special powers, what a joke. Your ability to heal had once seemed like a gift, but now it turned into a curse. A deadly one.

Now, it was your fate to die in the hands of Fjerdans. You had walked into a drüskelle’s trap, and you knew you couldn’t escape. Despite your special powers, healing someone could not do anything about the fact that you were about to be killed.

Maybe it was true that love and hate were two sides of the same coin, you thought to yourself, a scoff leaving your mouth… As the situation changed completely, as the coin flipped, your love for Gunhak turned into hate, and soon, you found yourself blindfolded, taken away from your home, from your country, from everything that ever mattered, and you couldn’t help but wonder…

Was Gunhak still just standing still, mumbling sorrys?

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this rather angsty fic! As always, you can let me know what you thought through asks/DMs/reblogs.

Also, I just want to say I haven't read all the Grishaverse books (I'm currently reading Rule of Wolves), so there might be some inaccuracies and obviously some plot holes since this is a short fic, but I hope I could do the Grishaverse some justice. *-*

If you want to read more stories of mine, let it be for ONEUS or for other bands, consider signing up for my taglist here.

Hope you have a lovely day/night! Take care! ❤️