XIV / She is a Weapon

TERROR IS COURSING through Alina Starkov's veins. Terror and the unexplainable grief for the possibility of a freedom she had nearly given up; so close and yet so impossibly far away. She'd barely had time to even grasp the fact that Sturmhond actually had gone against the Darkling, that his men had come to free her and not keep her caged. Never mind that it was a dead man's mission. No person who went against the Darkling made it back out alive. And yet, Sturmhond still had made the choice.

She isn't entirely sure if she should call it bravery or stupidity, but it is most definitely madness.

Her mind is still reeling from the display of Heartrender powers both twins clearly had shown. From the fact that they'd been right there, under their nose and the Darkling hadn't seen.

And now... now Ivan is standing above them, squaring off against Tolya. Over before it even had a chance to really begin. What did it matter if Sturmhond had two Heartrenders or a Squaller guiding the longboat with the sea whip away from the whaler? What did any sort of army even matter against the Darkling and his power?

Then, an arm snakes around Ivan's form from behind and Alina watches as one moment, Ivan is squaring off against Tolya, the next his throat is slit by a familiar dagger in a slender hand, the wrist adorned by a set of scars whose sight sends a vicious throbbing down her shoulder. Where the monster had injured her.

For a moment Ivan is still standing there, a look of incomprehension on his face. Then his body topples over and collapses on the deck.

Behind him stands Vera, staring down at his dead body.

With a shudder, Alina sees the absolute passiveness in her eyes. There's nothing to indicate that Vera just committed treason, just killed a fellow Grisha, just ended the life of the Darkling's second in command. She might've just as well been reading a book on Grisha theory in Os Alta's library.

Vera's glacier eyes slit to Tolya in front of her. Almost imperceptivity, her heat tilts to a side. What are you gonna do now, pirate? Her eyes seem to say.

Tolya doesn't do anything for a moment, clearly trying to figure out if Vera, Vera out of all Grisha, had actually gone over to their side, or if it's a trick. And whether he should risk it or just end her right there on the spot.

Behind them, a sob draws Alina's attention to Genya looking down to Ivan, her hands covering her mouth.

"Stop them!" The Darkling's command rings out, but Vera had seen him only moments ago and he'd been busy grappling with sailors throwing herself at him to keep him as busy as possible to delay him from using his Summoner powers – or worse, call the nichevo'ya. There's no way to tell whether he means Sturmhond's men or Alina and the twins. Or Vera, who'd just slit Ivan's throat.

He might've not even registered the latter.

Slowly, Vera turns to find Genya pulling out a pistol from her kefta; half a miracle in itself considering how much her entire body was shaking.

The sight feels so at odds with the eerie silence that's spread in Vera. It might be shock. It might be resolve. It might just be that ugly, wolf-shaped thing in her at last beginning to take control after pushing it down and down for twenty years of her life. Maybe, this is just her. Maybe, killing a man she might not have liked but still spend the past six years of her life around, just didn't matter to her heart and soul.

Or maybe, it's the fact that she's been chipping away pieces of herself for all her life. The years of making herself a mouse in front of kings, of Lords, of her father, of the Ravkan court. Leaving Livia and Willa. Vaugn's death. The possibility of what might've happened to Fedyor with the fallout of Novokribirsk. All pieces she's been cutting off for as long as she can remember, silently bleeding out. Maybe they took the other part; the part that might've wept for Ivan, no matter how she'd disliked him simply for the fact that a life had ended without warning, at Vera's very own doing.

Is she going to feel something when she slits Genya's throat? Ivan deserved what was coming for him. Genya does not.

Vera turns fully to the Tailor just as Tolya tenses and behind him, Alina says, desperately, "No."

When Vera doesn't react, Alina moves in front of her, grabbing the sleeve of her kefta. "Vera," she says softly, begging with her eyes for something Alina doesn't even know if it's there. "It's Genya."

She says it like it should mean something. Like it should mean everything.

And to Alina, she supposes it does. Don't, her eyes are begging Vera. Don't do this. Not to her.

It's not a promise Vera will make to anyone, for anyone. But she doesn't make the flames of the laterns come down and swallow Genya alive, either, as Alina turns to her friend. Vera's sleeve still in a tight grip by her iron-bound hands as if afraid that Vera might slip through her hands for better or worse if she lets go.

Vera's eyes narrow on Alina before she winds her arm around her grip. You deal with her or I will, her flat look answers to Alina's silent plea before she moves past her and away from them.

"Genya, are you really going to shoot me?" Alina whispers behind her as Vera spots a familiar figure with ruddy red hair and a teal coat a few steps away from her, their eyes locking.

Before she realizes what she is doing, Vera walks towards the captain, only stopping right in front of him. He goes still as she steps into his personal space. So close their bodies are almost touching. She can almost feel his breath fanning over the skin of her face. "What a stupid fool you've grown up to be, Sobachka," Vera says softly, the clamor on the whaler drowning out her words for anyone but him.

Nikolai doesn't even try to deny it.

Somewhere on the ship, a familiar crack splits the air and Vera knows the Darkling has gotten free. That his darkness is coming.

Vera doesn't break eye contact with the Prince of Ravka as she reaches skims one of her hands along the side of his abdomen. To his hip. Searching without looking.

"Vera...," he begins, staring at her despite the chaos. The muddy green of his eyes has little to do with the lovely blue she'd liked years ago.

Then again, she supposes her eyes have little to do with that sixteen-year-old, either, nowadays.

Vera's fingers find what she'd been looking for and, with a single yank, she pulls one of his revolvers from where he keeps them at his hips. Then she moves past him, the familiar click of the safety coming off.

"Vera." Now his voice is more urgent, demanding.

She can hear him move towards her as she raises her arm, aligning the barrel with her target. To do what, she doesn't know. Make sure she isn't blowing a hole into the head of his sailors? Drag her off the ship before the darkness gets her and the Darkling knows about her actions for certain?

Saints, he doesn't even know where they're at. Is she here to hep them or end his entire crew?

Before either of them get a chance to find it out, Vera pulls the trigger and a familiar shot rings out from the revolver as it kicks back, and for a brief moment, the bullet flashes in the air.

Then, it hits home and Vera watches with immense satisfaction as the Darkling jerks at the impact of a bullet imbedding itself into his arm and the shadows dissolve like they've been blown away into nothing by a wind.

A grin spreads on her lips.

She only gets a heartbeat of enjoying the view as the Darkling clutches his arm before somebody grabs her and begins dragging her with him. "Run!" Nikolai yells as Vera staggers for a moment, more from the unexpectedness of the fact that he was pulling her along than anything else before she falls into step behind him.

Not that she really has a choice – Nikolai is clutching to her like his life depends on it.

In front of them, Genya stands like a statue as Tolya hauls Alina over his shoulder and he, Tamar and Mal behind making their way to the railing, Genya watching them go.

Vera doesn't think she needs to remind Genya that her letting Alina get away will have repercussions. The Darkling would personally make sure of it. She doesn't get the time to do so either, because as soon as they close in on her, they're past her, Nikolai setting a pace that'd be likely to make her slip on the deck and break her neck if the man wasn't so familiar with ships.

When they reach the railing, Nikolai basically throws her over and her eyes flash in anger. What does she care that he's a prince or the guy who's mere presence threatened to bring the most embarrassing blush to her face? Or that he apparently had set it into his stupid, idiot head to give her no choice but survive and come with them? He's gonna be sorry for manhandling her like this.

If they survive, that is.

It only takes a few moments. First, they fall, then a wind catches them and pulls him on board of the other ship.

With a grunt, Vera lands on the other ship in a teeth-rattling collision.

Vera sits up a little disoriented, rubbing the side of her head which she'd banged against the wood of the ship upon impact. Already, a splitting headache is exploding across her temple, worsening at the touch and she drops her hand.

"Give the signal!" Sturmhond announces from her side in response a whistle is blown.

Vera might've let out a quiet whimper at the high noise. Wavering slightly, Vera gets up on her feet as another body lands on the ground next to her and Vera recognizes Yelena.

"Privyet, how many do we have?"

"Eight men down, four remaining on the whaler. Cargo is on its way."

"Saints," Vera hears Nikolai mutter to himself, his eyes turning back to the whaler. "Musketeers! Lend them cover!"

She can see the warring conflict plainly in his eyes; four of his crew were still fighting. But waiting for them to get on the ship might be what seals all their fates.

As some of the crewman, and Mal, begin to line the railing, gunshots ringing out once they do, Vera takes a step deeper into the center of the ship. It might not make a difference at all in the end, but it is all she can do to soothe the instinct lodged into her very being to get away from this place. Away from the railing. Away from the Darkling's monsters.

"Sea whip is secured, kapitan!" The same sailor Nikolai had talked to – Privyet – calls out and Vera turns to the captain just as two more of his men make it over the railing of the whaler.

When their eyes meet, Vera can see the wild desperation in them. There's only one choice he can make, and Nikolai know it, too. Even if it goes against his heart, his head already knows.

Still, she can see the refusal to give the order and for a moment the need to step towards him rises in her so sudden and so viciously she nearly considers doing it. Considers crossing the distance to him and saying his name like a stupid fool. His real name, not the one he'd chosen to disguise his identity on sea, so that he might look at her and see reason. So that he might listen to her.

The booming sound of thunder reliefs her of the need to make any decision.

"He's up!" Tamar exclaims, the darkness already racing towards them.

"Free me!" Alina calls out because she is the only one in this world who can stand against the darkness of the Shadow Summoner on the other ship. "Let me help!"

"Do it," Nikolai tells Tamar, already tossing the keys to her as he speaks.

The last thing Vera sees before the darkness fully engulfs them is Tamar bending over to unlock the iron chains on Alina's wrists. Then, it's all gone.

Vera sucks in a harsh breath. At the grotesque familiarity of the blackness around her. At the sheer wrongness of it. It takes her a little by surprise. The Darkling's shadows had always felt safe to her. They'd reminded her that there were no pyres waiting for her anymore. No more hate, no more fear.

Now she knows she'd been wrong. Just another lie a little, foolish girl had believed. She'd traded one prison for another and called it freedom. It'd never been freedom – it had only been an even prettier, even more gilded cage.

Somewhere in the darkness, between the screams, Vera thinks she might hear the dull clank of metal meeting wood and for a moment she thinks it's nothing more than her imagination but then Alina's familiar, bright light splits the darkness, driving it away from them.

Vera whirls to Nikolai. "Get your fucking ship moving!" She yells over the cheer of his crew and, again, that hesitation, that conflict is in his eyes.

She really doesn't give a shit if she's being honest. The likelihood of those two crewmembers already being dead after the shadows had descended upon them is too high for her to risk going down for it. Not when it means her death, Alina's death. The death of the miserably, tiny chance they have to make it out of this fight breathing.

The words have barely left Vera's lips when the familiar clicking sound of the nichevo'ya comes from the whaler and just as suddenly as the cheers had come up, they die off again.

Alina turns to Nikolai. "We have to get out of here, now."

Nikolai's jaw clenches as he looks back to the whaler. But there is only one decision he can make, and so he gives the order. "Topmen make sail! Squallers due east!" He commands, and Vera watches a little taken aback as a row of his crewmen raise their arms and summon the winds, the ship rocking a little as the sails billow up.

Vera lets out a soft curse when they don't move and turns back to the whaler. The squallers had lined themselves up in a familiar formation and were countering Nikolai's Grisha with their own Summoner powers.

"Portside guns!" She hears Nikolai call out from somewhere behind her. "Rolling broadside. On my signal!"

Two shrill whistle blasts follow and then, Vera watches the cannons put holes into the whaler. Not that it'll make much of a difference – but it might just give them a head start, she thinks as the ship at last lurches into motion, moving away from the whaler.

From her place at the railing, she watches as the smoke from the canon clears and a familiar figure in a black kefta steps to the railing of the whaler. For a moment, her pale blue glacier eyes meet granite ones. Vera looks at the man who was her savior, her safe haven. Who is now nothing but another tyrant she is running from.

The Darkling raises his hands, and again the darkness billows out from him and goosebumps break out on Vera's skin as the whirring clicking follows the next heartbeat. And it begins again; the darkness chasing them – and with it, the nichevo'ya.

Vera stands frozen in place, staring at the Darkling as again, the sound of fighting breaks out. But this time, it is to buy them precious seconds. Even Alina's cut will not delay them forever. It feels like an eternity until they descent upon the ship, beginning to pick off sailors one by one. It feels like a single heartbeat.

"Lighting!" Nikolai commands, and it's that words that breaks her trance. Instinctively, Vera backs away into the middle of the deck.

With a violent crack, lighting flashes across the sky and the nichevo'ya scatter, more in confusion and surprise than anything else.

"Go! Squallers at full!"

Vera's eyes find the Darkling again as they sail away from the disabled whaler, the finality of her actions settling into her bones with a familiar, heaviness. It feels a little like grief, like a soul-cutting loss.

For better or for worse, there is no going back anymore. Whatever life she once had; it is gone now.

The nichevo'ya don't catch up with them again.

AUTHOR'S NOTE
so i'm not gonna lie......vera killing ivan with the dagger she gave alina? vera shooting the darkling with nikolai's pistol? kinda hot in my humble opinion

also i would like to say 2 things:
a) yes, if this wasn't looking to be a nikolai fic (i guess that's like almost decided at this point lmao) i'd 1000% let vera end up with alina
b) laurenmichelle posted a sansa stark&willas tyrell vid on youtube and i am now very much on a daniel sharman as nikolai trip bc... i cannot unthink that video okay 😫✋

and not to forget: the obligatory ✨bad meme content bc that's how i cope✨

vera @ literally everyone: