XII / The Real Monsters

The longer Vera is stuck on Sturmhond's whaler as they sail up north, the closer she is to open mutiny. She wonders how long it'll take to burn a ship, including all people on it, to a crisp while that ship is on the open seas.

It's been days since they brought Alina and Mal onto the ship and in turn days since the Darkling had ordered Ivan to put Alina to sleep. Mal had not been given that luxury ━ he'd been dragged into the belly of the whaler and locked in.

Now, Vera tilts her head slightly, her glacier eyes tracking Alina's every movement as she talks to the Darkling across the ship. She stands perfectly still, only her kefta and the few loose strands of red hair moving in the cold breeze. A silent sentinel at attention.

"I'm not entirely positive I like that look on your face."

For Djel's sake.

For a moment, Vera allows herself to close her eyes and let out a long breath as Sturmhond reaches her side, settling into the space. The faintest ghost of a touch between them.

"What look?" Vera hisses when she opens her eyes again, refusing to even acknowledge him with a single glance.

"That look right there," he says, motioning into the general direction of her eyes. "It might unsettle some people down there to see that look in an ally's face."

"But not you?" Vera asks despite herself.

"Oh no," Sturmhond waves her off, leaning towards her. "We both know you'll never harm a hair on my perfect head. You like me too much."

What Vera would like is to throw this egomaniacal sailor overboard, dust her hands off and never think of him again.

Now Vera does look at him. "I wouldn't count on it, Sturmhond," she says quietly, a lethal edge to her voice.

Usually that's enough to send people running the other way. He doesn't even look affected by it. In fact, the hostility in her voice only seems to delight him more.

"And there I thought we were getting closer."

Vera turns to him. "I don't care what you thought."

"You wound me, Vera," Sturmhond says, covering his heart with his palm in an overly dramatic gesture.

But maybe that's just Sturmhond's usual flair. Everything he does feels overly dramatic to Vera.

"Maybe then you'll finally leave me be." Vera replies and Sturmhond frowns, looking around.

"Well, it's not like you're actually speaking to anyone else."

Vera narrows her eyes at him. "I'll gladly speak at your funeral after I have boiled you inside out. I have a few nice ideas for an eulogy already."

"So you do think about me." Sturmhond says triumphantly.

She's not entirely sure how exactly he came to that conclusion from her words. "I am perfectly fine the way it is."

"But who will keep you company, then? The way this is going is more like you're hibernating like a hedgehog."

"A hedgehog ?" Vera asks, her eyes flashing in equal parts surprise and annoyance.

Sturmhond winks at her. "Yes, a hedgehog. Cute, but prickly."

Vera has just decided that this is it ━ this is the point where she kills the privateer, the consequences be damned, when her eyes snag on a commotion down on the main deck and suddenly, Sturmhond and her annoyance evaporate like fog in a Squaller's wind.

"Damn it." She hisses quietly and makes her way past Sturmhond and to where Ivan, Alina and the twins from Sturmhond's crew had gathered.

Where Ivan very evidently was currently choking the life out of the two crewmembers.

After a moment, steps sound behind her and then Sturmhond is at her side.

"You're killing him!" Alina calls out, panic lacing her voice, as she tries to throw herself against Ivan to stop him from using his Heartrender abilities on the taller twin, who's kneeling in front of Ivan, clutching his heart.

Before Vera has a chance to step between them, Sturmhond is there, one of his pistols pointed dead at Ivan's neck. The Heartrender goes very still at the sound of the gun's double click. "I am a gracious host, Bloodletter, but every house has its rules." Sturmhond says, but Vera notices the ease from before is gone ━ replaced by a nervous, grim edge in the captain.

Ivan, for once, does the smart thing and drops his hands.

"That's a good fellow." Sturmhond croons as the two crewmembers get back up on their feet, their breaths labored. "Now, I'll take the prisoner back to her quarters and you can run off and do... whatever it is you do when everyone else is working."

Ivan sends him a furious scowl. "I don't think ━"

"Clearly." Vera snarls and Ivan turns to her.

"You don't ━" He begins again, anger burning in his eyes.

"I don't care who you are on land," Sturmhond cuts him off, leaning towards the Heartrender. On this ship, you are nothing but ballast. Unless I put you over the side, in which case you're shark bait. I like shark. Cooks up though, but it makes for a little variety. Remember that next time you have a mind to threaten anyone aboard this vessel."

He steps back, his typical smile spreading across his lips again. "Go on now, shark bait. Scurry back to your master."

"I won't forget this, Sturmhond," Ivan snaps before he turns to Vera, pointing at her. "And you ━"

"That's the idea," Sturmhond says, taking another step towards them.

Ivan turns back to the captain, his nostrils flaring. With a last look to Vera, he turns and stalks off.

"And you wonder why I only seek your company out of all the Grisha." Sturmhond says and gives Vera a what can you do shrug. For a moment, they stare at each other and he almost looks like he is expecting another jab, another snarl.

It doesn't come.

Instead, she eventually turns away from Sturmhond in silence, only to find Alina watching her.

Alina takes a small step towards the Inferni. "Vera," she says quietly.

It feels like a plea; it feels like longing so painful she can barely bear it. It feels like a lifeline and it is slipping from Alina's grasp.

It feels like someone is taking that open, rotten thing in Vera's chest and plunges another dagger into it.

Suddenly, Vera doesn't feel like entertaining Sturmhond and his moods anymore. She doesn't feel like being here, in this place and on this ship at all anymore. But most of all, she does not want to be standing here, right next to Alina. Her face has fallen into an emotionless, unreadable mask. "Take her back into her cabin," Vera tells Sturmhond before she turns and walks away. She doesn't look back to check whether he actually is.

She begins to make her way to the opposite end of the ship in an attempt to get some solitude in the cold the way she used to as a child. When she'd first come to Os Alta. She only stops when she notices the Darkling nearby, his attention on her.

Her legs stop in their movement when her glacier eyes meet his granite ones.

"Vera," the Darkling says at last and it's nothing less but a silent command.

Her fists curl and uncurl as if around his invisible heart in her grip, but she forces herself to keep her jaw unclenched, and her face smooth as she makes her way over to him. "Moi soverenyi."

There's an expression in his face that she cannot quite make out and somehow, it unsettles her to her very core. After years of being part of his Second Army, Vera had thought that she'd begun to grasp the subtle shifts in his expression and what they meant, despite the fact that by nature, the Darkling is notoriously difficult to read.

She's never seen this.

"I once knew a girl," the Darkling says and for a moment his gaze seems as ancient as he is himself. "She used to get that same look in her eyes."

Vera's skin puckers as a chill runs down her spine in the silence that follows before he looks back at her, that unsettling look in his eyes replaced by the familiar, cool stare.

"Be careful to not make the same choices as her. It's not a fate you want to have." He says.

She doesn't want to ask. She really doesn't. But she also knows that there's no other way this will end and she'll be able to leave and be left alone in peace. So she asks. "What fate?"

The Darkling smiles almost bitterly. "What happens to any witch in your country?"

The moment Vera wakes she knows deep in her bones that something is different this morning. It's still early, the sun hasn't yet quite risen above the horizon but the ship above her is already bustling with activity, the sounds seeping through the wood and waking her from the short hours of sleep she's been given.

It'd been days since her last conversation with Alina, and even more since they last docked on land. Instead, they'd headed north through the True Sea towards the Bone Road and soon the air had become cold and the sea interlaced with ice.

Vera tries not too hard to think about the similar landscape.

Instead, she has focused her attention on the Darkling's intentions. She'd found his approach to the situation peculiar until she had begun piecing things together. The harpoons, the way he obviously was looking for some sort of animal. And the only animals that would be of interest to the Darkling were those that made powerful amplifiers. It had taken Vera a short time to connect the dots that a Ravkan Grisha might've already understood. She hadn't grown up with the legends and tales of Rusalye.

But when she realized that, the other pieces began falling together and she knew. She might not have been able to put the dread and horror roiling in her stomach into words but she knew .

Rusalye and the Stag. Two creatures of fables that would make amplifiers beyond all others.

Two of Ilya Morozova's creatures.

In front of her inner eye, a picture of Alina's collar appears and a chill runs down Vera's spine.

She wanted to believe that the Darkling would not do it. She really did.

But she had seen him in the Permafrost. She had seen him in the Fold. She had seen his creatures and she knew. Knew who the Darkling intended Rusalye's amplifier for.

These past six days since the Darkling had given Mal the ultimatum, Vera had hoped the Sea Whip would slip through their clutches. The teachers in Keramzin used to say Mal could make rabbits out of rocks , Alina had once told her. The Darkling might be cruel and he might be a monster, but he's anything but stupid. On his own, he would never find the Sea Whip. So, he'd killed two birds with one stone and got himself someone who could find the creature.

She had hoped Mal wouldn't turn out to be as good as Alina had made him out to be. But he had found the Stag in the Permafrost, and he would find the Sea Whip, too, sooner or later.

Vera has just left her vacated cabin, buttoning up her kefta making her way up to the deck and to some air that's at least less nauseating and disgusting than the one inside, when she nearly runs headlong into Sturmhond as he steps out of a room, straightening his teal coal.

His eyebrows draw up and the corners of his mouth tip into that familiar, annoying grin. "Vera, what a lovely sight you are today."

Vera's muscles tense as she comes to a stop, Sturmhond in front of her.

Considering she's just woken up after only a very short time of sleeping and it's the crack of dawn, it's likely a blatant lie. Not everyone can have a smile and look bright and fresh with delight to go around for everyone this early. Not the way Sturmhond evidently can.

She only stares at him and he lets out a sigh. "You know, the way you look at me like you might gut me with your bare hands really does wonders to warm my heart."

Vera smiles at him. "If it's a heartwarming you want, pirate, I'd be happy to arrange it." Literally .

"Privateer." Sturmhond corrects her.

"I don't care," Vera says through gritted teeth before she moves past him.

She's only gone two steps when Sturmhond hand snakes out and catches her wrist, his fingers just on the spot where the nichevo'ya has left their mark and Vera stiffens.

"Tomorrow is the final day," Sturmhond says, an unusual seriousness in his voice.

Vera yanks her arm from his grip, her eyes flashing. "And?"

"And I know that it doesn't leave you as cold as you like to pretend it does. You care. Even if you do a good job at convincing the entire world you don't." He tips his head to the side as if to muster her from a different angle. "What is the story there anyways? Between you and Alina."

There's a silent sort of edge to Vera's eyes as she looks up at him. A different sort of calm than the one she's had before. He thinks it might be the most dangerous he's ever seen her.

"Don't speak of things you do not understand, pirate," Vera says quietly.

Any idiot would see the line in front of Vera and the ease with which just one wrong word, one movement could push her over. And any idiot would keep his mouth shut.

Any idiot but him.

Sturmhond opens his mouth to say something just as a call rings out from above them on the deck, and the noise begins to grow.

Just like that the spell is broken, and Sturmhond leans away from Vera again, creating distance between the two of them and the easy grin is back on his face. "It seems our presence is demanded."

How he knows, Vera has no idea.

Still, a chill runs down her spine, the hairs on her neck standing up. She doesn't want to know what might've caused the noise on deck.

He's already turning to go when he stops and faces her again. "Oh, before I forget." He says more to himself than her and then Sturmhond leans over to her, invading her personal space without even blinking, so close she can feel his breath on her skin. So close that their noses nearly touch.

Vera is about to swat him away with a scowl when captures her hand in his and presses a kiss on her palm.

Not even a kiss ━ more a peck.

Vera gapes at him, dumbfounded as he leans back and winks at her. Winks. At her.

This man is giving her fucking whiplash.

"For good luck." He says like it explains everything and the words, the familiarity of them and the memory, buried so deep in her mind she'd been able to tell herself she'd forgotten all about it, nearly hits Vera over her head viciously.

She stares after him, frozen to the spot as then he turns and leaves. And all she can think is that everything about Sturmhond suddenly makes a lot more sense.

It shouldn't be possible. It doesn't even make any sense. She hasn't seen him in years but she knows with certainty that Sturmhond looks nothing like him. There's no way nobody would realize if it were him. There's no way this is anything but a coincidence.

And yet, a small voice in her head whispers, are you sure?

Vera lets out a harsh breath as the clamor from above grows. " Fuck. "

AUTHOR'S NOTE
so ik this chapter is a mess and all over the place but in my defense i have literally been working on it for 3 months because my brain hates me and has given me like 5 months of massive writer's block for witching hour

bonus bad meme content beacuse thats how i cope:

bonus bad meme content because that's how i cope (part 2):