#like damn. good job. if you weren't up against Me you would have sailed on by with ease. too bad you got Me though lol

[columboscreens]

[thatfangirlofsb]

T/W: Spoilers of the grishaverse.

Your highness (VII)

That boat trip seemed to her the worst thing she had done in her entire life. She didn't know how many times she had threw up, but now the stern had become her pedestal; the best place to be around when the nausea came back to her.

"Are you okay?" The Wraith's voice sounded behind her. How could she move so easily without being heard by anyone? Was returning to the ship on which she had spent several months hunting slavers the cause? "You seem..."

"Very pregnant and dizzy?" The suli's smile approached her from the right, also leaning on Zoya's particular pedestal.

"I was going to say only dizzy, but pregnant too."

"How does it feel for you to go back to the sea?" Zoya knew about her adventure hunting slavers after the war. But she never knew why Inej had returned to Brekker, what did the Raven Club have that her mission didn't? "I thought that..."

"That I was never going to return to Ketterdam?" The suli seemed to read her mind, and she wasn't going to deny it. "Kaz made fun of my charity for not collecting pay for turning in a slaver, and in the end he was right." Her hands entwined and she placed them on the railing, watching the sea. "The ship's coffers were getting empty, and then he offered me this job."

"Looking for a etherealki grisha with the belly of a pregnant elephant?" A laugh played on Zoya's lips, and the girl to her right echoed it. "Because then, the Wraith had it too easy, very easy."

"I was going to start your search that day, but you got to us before."

"I like to get ahead of myself." She let out a little groan, during that first week on the ship the kicking had hardly stopped. It seemed that the baby wanted to bother her as much as their father, who kept hanging around her to see if she needed anything. She was pregnant, not invalid. "Saints."

"Again?" Inej's worried look made her smile slightly. That kind of concern, unlike Nikolai's, was what she needed right now. The suli received an affirmative nod from the squaller, if she opened her mouth she thought the dizziness would return to her. "My mother always said that when the baby kicks a lot, it's because wants to get out."

"Or because they hate me." Zoya carefully removed the blue headband, letting her hair blow in the breeze. She received a hidden look from the king in the distance, who was at the other end of the ship reviewing some maps with Mal, the current Sturmhond. "They haven't been born yet and I'm already a bad mother."

"After all you've done and lived through these months?"

"Yes..." Zoya's hands interlaced like the Wraith's ones, fixing her gaze on the sea as she switched to suli. "My parents... well, they weren't parents. And I'm afraid, afraid of repeating what they did to me."

She didn't need more words to understand what the grisha wanted to say. Although she had good parents, she knew that there were many more not so similar. Even several of the people she had brought out of slavery had been sold by their parents; most grisha, but there were also otkazat'sya.

"If you take care of the baby the way you fought with me against the nichevo'ya... if I were Kaz, I would be very careful not to harm them." It was very difficult, but Inej had already made the blue-eyed girl smile several times. And Zoya was grateful for each of those moments. At least she didn't treat her like a plate of the most expensive porcelain, but like a common one. "And you have Nikolai..." She rolled her eyes, a gesture that was not lost on Inej. "Like it or not, he's the father, and he wants to be with the baby."

"Like it or not, he's driving me crazy too. Look what I found in his cabin."

Before taking the object out of her pocket, she looked up at the sails, which were being driven by a few squallers from the new corsair's crew. Mal, by Nikolai's orders, had forbidden everyone to let her help them. Damn king. Her thoughts quickly returned to the object she 'borrowed' from the king's cabin. She grabbed it and pulled it out into the light, so that the Wraith could see it perfectly.

"It's a ring, very expensive." Inej said noticing the diamonds that surrounded the large gemstone in the center.

"And very similar to the Lantsov emerald." When she heard that name, the suli's mind recalled the stories about that well-known jewel in Ravka, used by the kings of that country to ask for the hand of the future queen. "But now there is not an emerald in the middle, but a sapphire." Zoya saw Inej's confused face, so she decided to add the last piece of information. "My favorite color is blue."

"That means...?" The grisha returned the jewel to her pocket to put it again in it's place, although she was very tempted to throw it into the sea.

"I can pass that he's stuck to me like a barnacle, I can pass that I have to be close to him for the baby, but this… no." Zoya felt the nausea come back to her. She no longer knew if it was because of the sea or because of the person to blame for the kicks, but she just wanted to lie down on the floor and rest. "I'm never going to put that on, I'm not even going to let him near it. I'd rather be dead than with him."

"But you love him." Zoya almost jumped in her place, Nina's voice in perfect suli startled her. "You're in love, you're going to have a baby and he's going to ask you to marry him. What else do you want?"

"A grisha that doesn't spy on me." She only had time to look at her before the heartrender walked over to her and took the ring from her pocket. "Nina..."

"I have to show it to Genya." Nina said with her gaze fixed on the precious stone. Was she making puppy eyes to the sapphire? "You with your king and I with my drüskelle, happy."

"You're not going to end up with a drüskelle and I'm not going to end up with Nikolai." The heartrender's smile disappeared, giving way to a mysterious look. "What...?"

"I didn't say that the king was Nikolai." And at that moment Nina turned, ready to run to the tailor. But she didn't have time, two guns were pointed at her head in a too strange turn of events. "Riot, right?"

"This reminds me of a poem..." Everyone rolled their eyes at hearing Tolya, who could only sigh in response. "It's the only thing I can do now, my hands are tied."

"Please, someone, cover his mouth too." Tamar was at his side, who turned her gaze to the three of them and whistled in surprise. "That's a big stone."

"You found it?" A Nikolai in the same situation fixed his gaze on Zoya, and smiled as if his life depended on it. "Do you think now is a good time to ask you?"

"It's never going to be one if you end up dead."

"Do it, there's no problem." Zoya said in response to the crew member who was pointing a gun at her. "If you kill him, you can keep the ring."

No one answered her, but they did keep the jewel while they tied the hands of the three behind their backs. Zoya hoped that Mal would have the same loyalty from his new crew, just like Nikolai did as Sturmhond, but it seemed that he didn't.

Now Mal, Nikolai, Zoya, Genya, Tolya, Tamar, Inej, Wylan, Kaz, Nina, Matthias, and Jesper were all in a line where each had at least one gun pointed at him. Although the grisha group, except for the gunman from The Crows, had one more.

"We want information, your highness." One of the crew members said with a mocking tone, taking out a dagger from his belt. "And we have a safe method for you to give it to us." That dagger slashed lightly Zoya's belly, and she flinched with a slight pain because of how sharp it was.

"In verse or in prose?" Nikolai asked, giving up as soon as he saw how a small drop of blood left a tiny mark on Zoya's blouse.

"In fast."

And so he did.

[°°°]

"If we get out of this alive I'll kill you."

"I would prefer that, in that case, we get married."

"You are already married."

"That can be fixed."

"Yes, killing you and leaving Alina as a widow." Zoya replied to Nikolai, who still felt like joking after telling all to the crew members. "Maybe I'll marry her."

"Guys..." Mal looked at them, and then shifted his gaze to Matthias so they would take notice of him. "I think we have a problem."

The drüskelle was staring out at the sea, not reacting to any punch Nina gave him on the shoulder. In those moments, if his hands weren't tied, he would have grabbed her by the neck again like that time in Hellgate. But his body and mind didn't react.

"Zoya!" Nina looked at her, and the squaller sighed upon receiving that look.

"Nikolai was the one who spoke."

"They said to tell them everything."

"But not that." The blue-eyed grisha tried to break free of her bonds, but it was impossible. "No one is going to talk about this, no one."

"I think there is a slim chance." Jesper got up and threw his chains to the ground, adjusting the plaid jacket he was wearing. "Because we're going to get out of here alive." Mal looked at the zemeni in surprise, ready to ask him how he did it, but Jesper stepped forward. "Do you want me to free you or not?"

While the gunsman untied the grisha from their chains specially for them by the crew's durast; Mal, having been freed, proceeded to do the same but with the otkazat'sya's ropes. When they were all free and on their feet, though the drüskelle did it with some difficulty, they were silent as their gazes fell on Zoya and Nikolai.

"What?" The squaller asked them furiously, and they all lowered their heads muttering apologies. Except for Kaz Brekker, who was just smirking. "And you, Dirty Hands?

"I have new information that I can use against Ravka." Inej stared at him, trying to make him notice. "Money is money."

"But it was a good plan." Nikolai said, with the calmest smile in the world as he carefully grasped Zoya's hand so she wouldn't notice. "They have had to leave because of shame and now we can escape."

"Escape?" Zoya questioned him, loosening his grip with a swipe. "We are in the middle of the sea. How are we going to escape?"

"We'll find something." Jesper's voice sounded, and at that moment everyone noticed a boat that was hanging over the sea with some ropes. "Who wants to help me?"

"First you have to plan everything." Zoya said, feeling like a general again. And she liked that, too much. "Nina, Tolya and Tamar, keep an eye out; and if any of the mutineer decide to leave, don't hesitate to kill them if you must. Jesper, check if that boat is in good conditions and repair it if is necessary." The zemeni didn't need any more glances from the squaller to discover that she knew, and as much as it worried him, he now had more important things to occupy his mind. "Wylan, look in your bag for any bombs or something you can make them with. Genya, tailor faces for Nikolai, Mal, Wylan, Kaz, and Matthias."

"Why us?" Nikolai asked, saying out loud the doubt that everyone had. But Genya wasted no time, starting to use her powers on everyone, and Wylan carefully leaving all the bombs he had in a small bag on the floor.

"The unique heir of the Lantsov line; a tracker who will serve more well on your way back to Os Alta; a boy who, though he knows how to make gadgets and explosive things, knows almost nothing about fighting; a cripple and a drüskelle who now seems be more in his world than in this one and with which one his fidelity cannot be trusted." Zoya's hands rested on her hips, her gaze fixed on all of the aforementioned. "In a life or death battle and against a lot of grisha... you better be on the boat heading to the Grand Palace."

"I'm not leaving you." And at that moment, she knew that Nikolai wasn't talking about everyone. "If I have to be in that boat because I am the sole heir to the Lantsov line, so do you." He carefully approached her, and Zoya didn't move away. His hand reached out carefully to the squaller's belly and, for the first time, she let him. "Because you, Zoya Nazyalensky, have the next in line of succession."

"Technically they're a bastard." She sighed slightly, resting her hand on top of his, feeling an instant kick. "But now you only need me for that? Not the ring?"

"Guys, this is not the time to get romantic." Jesper looked around in great surprise; no one told them anything. "We're short on time, and that's what we need the most. Kaz, why don't you say anything?"

The blue-eyed grisha turned her head to The Crowd's boss, copying his smirk before turning her gaze to the king before her.

"Nikolai..." Her lips parted slightly, and the blond closed his eyes waiting for a kiss. What he didn't imagine was the blow of air that was going to launch him to the boat. "Your highness, it has been a pleasure doing business with you." She quickly turned to Wylan, Kaz, Mal and Matthias and blew another gust of air that brought them to the same place; next to the confused blonde. "Oh Kaz, you can't imagine how much I enjoyed seeing your face." She yelled, calling the wind again and snapping the ropes that held the boat to not fall into the water, before turning to the sails and summoning her power again to move away the ship of that boat so they couldn't be find by them during the battle.

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You can see the list of fanfics with all the chapters of this one so far HERE.