XX / One Step Forward, Three Steps Back

VERA CAN FEEL the distrust and hate towards her almost like it's a living, tangible thing in the camp next to the Fold where they'd set up residence last night after the First Army soldiers had picked them up from the lake and brought them to the military camp. She can feel it in the way they're looking at her, in the way they act. It's in the air, breathing down her neck, building up pressure on her temple.

She knows it, they know it. There is nothing kind, or warm, or fuzzy towards her. It'd been evident the moment the First Army soldiers had seen the kefta she was wearing.

She's willing to bet that the truth about who she was, one of the Darkling's most valued Inferni, one of his most fierce and loyal soldiers, half-girl and half-predator, had seeped through at some point in the night and if not it would soon.

Or at least that's who she used to be.

Now, Vera isn't so sure anymore.

She knows she isn't that girl from a handful of months ago, but she can still feel the ghost of her rattling in her chest. Much like the girl she was before, the girl she was in Fjerda and before the Darkling had saved her, she doesn't think she will ever leave her behind.

Who even is she now? The question pressed down on her mind, on her thoughts and below it echoes another, equally as insistent – who was she before this at all?

If he were here, she might ask Fedyor this question, and wouldn't believe him when he answered. Because Fedyor would inevitably tell her something that wouldn't feel like truth in the very bones of her being. He might call her loyal or fierce or strong or any other positive attributes that came to mind. Brave, even.

At the end of the day, Fedyor had always been better at seeing whatever good is in her than she was herself and Vera doesn't feel like any of them. She just feels the pressure clamping down on her chest, the invisible clock ticking down mercilessly.

It's the same clock that she'd been feeling on the Darkling's ship but... different. Morphed into another thing, dark and with fangs and claws. Now it much resembles the feeling of sand running through her fingers that had choked up her throat from the time she realized what she was to the moment she escaped from the place she'd grown up it, nothing but a home turned tomb.

"Vera!" Mila's voice coming from behind her makes Vera stop in her movements through the camp and turns to find the young Squaller catching up to her, a skip in her step.

She stares at her, not entirely sure why Mila's running after her but having a creeping suspicion she won't be entirely ecstatic when she finds it out. Especially not if it has anything to do with her captain. "Yes?"

"I've been looking for you," Mila says, gasping a little for air as she comes to a stop next to Vera and the Inferni notices that the grin Mila gives her is more open than it used to be; more genuine now.

She stops, giving Mila a sharp look. "Why?" This early in the day, with dawn just beginning to wane and the air still cold enough for their breath to form the ghost of a plume around their lips, it can mean nothing good.

"Because since we're gonna stay behind in Kribirsk, I thought that we could..." Mila trails off when she sees Vera's blank stare, looking a little confused. "Nikolai told you about this... right?"

Disbelief mingles with a hot flash of anger bubbling up in her stomach at her last words. "Told me what?" Vera says after a long moment, too evenly, too calmly.

"Staying behind with me while the others are doing the runs through the Fold the next few days...?"

Mila draws up her eyebrows a little, still staring back at Vera as she is staring at her and the silence streches on for a long moment until Mila shifts awkwardly because of what vera notices weeks ago is her near inability to sit still, to wait, to just do nothing because there's always something to do on a ship.

But Vera isn't even noticing really as the words sink in.

"Excuse me?" Vera says slowly and Mila gives her a half shrug.

"Sorry?"

The girl looks like she isn't really sure what to do; halfway between sympathy for Vera and annoyance with her captain but again, Vera doesn't register any of it. Because she is seething. Looking up, hot, blinding anger spikes through her and she inhales sharply, her nostrils flaring a little as her jaw clenches. She is going to wring Nikolai's little princeling neck.

She barely gives Mila a glance as she marches past her, her glacier eyes flashing. "I'll be right back."

━━━━━

Turns out Nikolai had made sure that he and the rest of the crew he'd selected for the crossings had left before Mila had found Vera– in a clear attempt to avoid any sort of confrontation when Vera had inevitably barged into his tent only to find it vacant. She'd been seeing red and spitting mad by the time she'd hunted down an officer high enough in the ranks to know where their group was at this very moment and actually willed to give her the information.

Needless to say, when the officer had shrugged and informed her that His Royal Highness, Prince Nikolai had already departed for the fold upon a skiff bound for the other side of the Fold on a supply run, Vera had been ready to find him and wring his little neck.

Vera is still ready to find him and wring his little princeling neck, even hours later. As far as she can tell, Nikolai's group – including Mal and Alina – had finished their first run to West Ravka, had loaded their cargo off the skiff before departing for a second run directly afterwards.

She shouldn't even be mad, Vera reminds herself as she stands in the market in the heart of Kribirsk, watching Mila dart around the little stalls from her place a bit away in the shade. She shouldn't be.

Really what had she expected, for them to trust her? A Grisha who'd spend the last years of her life being loyal to nobody but the Darkling? Who'd never made an effort to actually make meaningful bonds with any of them before and after? And now, after what happened in the Fold, what happened to Novokribirsk... Vera had always wanted to make a name in her own right, to have power of her own and not be weighed down by the name of her family. By the blood in her veins.

A bitter laugh escapes her at the thought. In the end, she'd managed to dig her grave all on her own even without the name she'd been born with.

Why would Nikolai, out of all people, trust her? It was the logical thing not to. It made sense.

She just hadn't been expected for how much it hurt. For him not to trust her the way he did Alina. To be cast aside in favor of others. To be left and forgotten and nothing more than a symbol for the monster she'd served with the blind loyalty of a stupid fool.

She knows she doesn't deserve any of it. She knows this is the way it is. But it still cleaves apart something so deep in her chest, the pain nearly makes her double over. Makes her feel like she cannot breathe.

A burst of hot anger and frustration spikes through her heart as she reminds herself again, that she should be happy about this. This is what she wanted. This is better what she had ever dared to plan for.

She is alone in Kribirsk with nobody but a teenage girl who knows who she is. Nikolai and Alina and all those who know anything about her to possibly recognize any peculiarities in her behavior are away. There's no way they could stop her. This is exactly what she has been waiting for this entire time since she boarded the Volkvolny that day. She could easily slip away, especially now that the shadows begin to grow and the horizon is darkening with the end of the day.

Nobody would notice her leave, and by the time anyone would, she would be long gone.

This is what Vera wanted.

And yet, she has been rooted to her spot watching Mila barter with the vendors, and likely lifting little things on the way, too, if she had to guess. No matter how much she has spend the entire day talking herself into it, reminding herself that she didn't just want this, she needed this, Vera cannot make herself move. Cannot make herself walk away.

She should be using this time to do what she did all those years ago as a girl. She should run in the night like a ghost and never be found again.

This is how she survived before; this is how she will survive again. It's the only way.

Instead, she still here– digging her own grave further.

"I got something for you." Mila's voice makes her look up just as the girl stops in front of her with a conspiratorial grin and one of Vera's eyebrows arches up a little.

"Oh?" She asks, humoring Mila before she even really knows what she's doing or saying and Mila nods, her dark her bobbing up and down with the enthusiastic motion before she pulls something from her brown leather jacket and presents it to Vera with a proud sort of expression.

It takes her a moment to recognize the pendant on a simple leather band and then Vera blinks as she takes in the tiny silver wolf head.

"Nikolai said you're from Fjerda and they're all about wolves there," Mila explains. "And I've heard some of the crew call you volchitsa and I thought that'd be kinda cool." Her cheeks redden a little as a blush creeps up her cheeks and it his Vera that is the first time she's seen the girl flustered the entire time she's known her. "You know, if you like."

Something tugs at Vera's heart with a sting before she slowly reaches up and pulls the sleeve of her coat up. "I do like it." She says at last before offering Mila her left wrist in a silent request.

Mila's lips pull into a bright smile as she leans forward before it falters a little. Her breath catches for a split-second and it takes Vera a heartbeat to remember why as the girl's eyes snag on the cuff of scars the nichevo'ya had left on her skin. Then Mila reaches up and ties the leather band around her wrist, tugging in it so that the little silver wolf is looking up to them.

"I'm gonna go and get us something to eat. I'm starving." Mila announces before she turns and bounds through the thinning crowd of people before Vera even has the chance to think of thanking her for the bracelet.

Belatedly, she wonders if she should have done a responsible thing and asked Mila if she'd paid for the bracelet or stolen it, but really, Vera doesn't care.

If a teenage girl could steal from them, they should probably take it as a sign to either up their security or get out of this sort of business.

"I have to admit, I did not expect to find you here," a voice says from behind Vera and she stiffens on instinct, her walls going back up before she turns her head and finds Yelena stepping to her side.

"Why?" Vera demands, suspicion lacing her voice.

But Yelena only shrugs, motioning towards Mila. "She doesn't like crowds much these days."

Her eyebrows draw together. "Why's that?"

Yelena's hazel eyes turn to her, assessing Vera for a moment before she lets out a long breath. "Our parents died back when the Queen Lady's plague hit Ketterdam all those years ago. Mila and I almost died too. Crowds weren't exactly the best thing back then. Ever since those days, Mila hasn't been comfortable in them. She doesn't step into hospitals either. Can't really stand cemeteries or morgues either. Used to be she couldn't see blood without freaking out." She shrugs, a far-away look in her eyes. "It's been getting better ever since we joined Nikolai's crew, but it's still there."

Vera thinks of how she cannot be alone in the dark, of how there are monsters in it now. Of how she used to make herself small for so long in King Alexander's court whenever they were in the Grand Palace and she understands. She wishes she didn't. She wishes she never had.

There's a long pause, the silence stretching between them before Yelena continues, "I think knowing you is good for her."

Vera rears back a little, her head snapping to Yelena. "What?"

Yelena lets out a soft snort. "Don't take this wrong, but you're seriously messed up in a few ways. In here mostly," she taps the space above her heart. "You have scars and wounds that never really healed." She nods to the crowd where Mila has started arguing with a vendor selling food. "She has them, too. So, I think it's good for her in a way."

The squaller turns to Vera fully. "And for you, too."

Vera presses her lips together, her fingers fisting together and uncurling again and again. "I don't know what you're talking about." She says at last, her glacier eyes flashing.

Yelena smiles softly. "You will."

Something blazes in Vera's eyes, maybe horror, maybe defiance, but before she can say anything else, Yelena nods back into the direction of the military camp. "Nikolai's gonna be taking his dinner in his tent now." She says before turning back to watch Mila.

She doesn't say anything else.

Nikolai's gonna be taking his dinner in his tent now. Nikolai, who has avoided her all day. Who'd made damn sure that she wouldn't be able to do a single thing about any of his decisions. Nikolai, who had laid out his plans and tugged on everyone's strings like a grand puppet master.

The burning, raging anger demanding to consume him, to make him pay, to give him back the hurt he'd inflicted on her doesn't come. Instead, Vera is just tired. Her bones ache with an exhaustion and she wants nothing more than to lie down and sleep and never wake up again.

And maybe it makes her a coward, but Vera doesn't seek out Nikolai's tent to fight over his decisions earlier today. Instead, she turns and does what she did all those years ago. She runs.

━━━━━

Kribirsk is a town of graves.

Vera first noticed it when she had made her way away from the military camp at the edge of the Fold and into the town with Mila the first day the two of them had stayed behind while the rest of Nikolai's crew went on supply runs throughout the Fold and back for three days before they departed today. There are ghosts everywhere.

This town is haunted now in a way it never was before the Darkling brought ruin upon Novokribirsk.

She doesn't think it will ever be the same again. She doesn't think it can be.

Now, the town is made of ghosts and shadows lingering over your shoulder. There are stalls with saints' bones and mementos and words scrawled across the walls of abandoned buildings. There is so much hollowness and grief in their eyes. A restless sort of anger yearning to see their hurt returned tenfold.

It's then for the first time that Vera feels somewhat relieved that she'd relented on the matter of her kefta. It made her a coward and a deceiver, but she had given in when Nikolai had appeared in her tent and told her she would have to dress as the other solders did. Vera had refused. Nikolai hadn't budged. They'd spend long minutes arguing about it before Vera had relented more out of her will to end the conversation and send him away because she could not stand his company than an actual agreement. Being around Nikolai hurt these days.

Vera saw the church briefly on the second day. The moment she had realized what the people of Kribirsk had done to remember its sister city, she'd turned and walked away. She'd avoided going anywhere near the structure again. It made her feel sick. It made her hate herself for what she'd let happen.

But now, the path of their procession is cutting straight past the church and Vera can't run anymore. Can't avoid it. Still, she keeps her eyes straight ahead, focused on the road winding down in front of them. She doesn't want to see the flowers or the icons or the prayer candles or any of the other gifts left for the dead.

She does not want to see the names.

But there they are, one after another and each makes nausea roll in her stomach, bile clawing up her throat. This is what she let happen. This is what she believed in. This is what she was part of.

She can't breathe any easier even when they're past the church and moving ahead through Kribirsk, further towards the road. Especially not when she can feel Nikolai's eyes on her, burning into her soul like he's trying to strip away every layer of her until only her raw, blackened truth is left.

And what terrifies her the most is that she knows if anyone just might, it's him.

When they're riding down what Mila told her is called the Peddler's Way, which is really just a line of shops along the road, her eyes tracking from the shops, snagging on the items upon it. Prayer shawls and candles and wooden toys. Her nose wrinkles a little at the assortment of bones between them all as her nausea returns.

She has never quite been able to see eye to eye with Ravkan faith, but this is something Vera hasn't ever been able to stand. The icons, the candles she understands. But bones? Her stomach roils at the thought, at the shouts of the peddlers.

Provin'ye osti. Real bone.

Autchen'ye osti. Genuine bone.

Vera presses her lips together in a tight line as a low voice speaks at her side. "You look like you're going to be sick," Nikolai mutters, his eyes on their surroundings. "It's honestly disturbing considering it's you."

She ignores his comment, her attention still on the peddlers and Alina a short distance away from them, leaning over to get a better look at the tables.

"Alina!" One of the peddlers calls out to them and Alina jolts, horror and confusion etched into her expression.

Cursing mentally, Vera steers her horse towards Alina, snatching the reigns from her hands and leading her away from the table before the Sun Summoner has a chance to stop her.

"Wait. Wait, he knew me," Alina protests quietly as Nikolai closes in on her other side, twisting in her saddle.

"He didn't." Vera hisses quietly, tugging harder on Alina's reigns.

"He knew my name." Alina huffs, trying to wrangle her reigns back from Vera to no avail and Vera lets out a humorless snort, not answering.

"He was trying to sell you relics," Nikolai says instead. "Finger bones. Genuine Alina."

Alina goes still. "Genuine Alina," she echoes after a long moment, a numb quality to her tone.

"There are rumours that you died on the Fold. People have been selling off parts of you all over Ravka and West Ravka for months. You're quite the good luck charm."

"Those were supposed to be my fingers?"

"Knuckles, toes, ribs, whatever they can get their hands on." Vera grounds out, her lips twisting in disgust.

"Of course, if half of those were really your toes, you'd have about a hundred feet. But superstition is a powerful thing." Nikolai adds unhelpfully.

"So is faith," Tolya points out from behind them and Alina turns to look at the Heartrender, her face paling before she glances back at Nikolai, and then Vera. A brief glance, a split second is all it takes f or Vera to see the fact that this is overwhelming her. That this is too much. That right now, Alina isn't willed to continue this conversation about people buying random bones under the pretense they're hers as a good luck charm. She can't really blame her.

Without a word, Vera places the reigns back into Alina's hands and watches as she kicks her horse into a canter, leaving the three of them behind. Then she rounds on Nikolai.

"What was that?" Vera hisses quietly, a dangerous flash in her pale eyes.

"What was what?" Nikolai shoots back, almost looking like he is asking something else. Why are you talking to me now? Why are you like this lately? What are you doing? But that's just her own mind playing games with her. Nikolai couldn't care less why she hasn't been in the mood for their usual verbal sparring lately.

"You couldn't have been a little more sensitive about this thing?" Vera demands, trying her best to keep her voice down so that they won't draw any attention to them. Because that's just what she needs– getting any more negative attention because she's been chewing up their precious prince. "Because I used to think that you actually had some sort of basic understanding how to read other people, but apparently I was wrong about that."

Nikolai blinks at her, looking a little like she's just slapped him as Vera turns and rides ahead to catch up with Alina, all the while telling herself that she's said too much. He's seen too much. She should've never opened her stupid mouth in the first place. She should have never thought she noticed him looking at her that day on the whaler when the Darkling had first enlisted him to track down Alina even when really, all it had been was recognition from their teenage year.

She should have never looked back at him.

But it doesn't matter, she reminds herself. It doesn't matter that she thought he'd looked at her and seen her. It doesn't matter that she will never hold the same value as Alina does to him. It doesn't matter that she is forever cursed to stand in the shadows, at the sidelines. Overlooked, with no true voice wholly her own. In Fjerda, in Ravka. It doesn't matter.

Because once she's brought them back to Os Alta and made sure that Alina got there safely, she'll turn and leave this life behind. She'll strip herself of her name and her heritage and an inheritance never hers to get even long before she was born the same way she had once before.

She'll leave Vera Alekson behind the way she left Vera Kvalheim and she will never come back.

AUTHOR'S NOTE
wrote a little smth smth new for vera for the first time in over like a year (i think) this week! so excited hehe