Nataliya was not a normal child.
By age one she could hear the whisper of the True Sea, the call of the wild ocean wishing her off to sleep.
XX
By the time she was three, and she played in the shallows, she could not understand why everyone became so alarmed when she threw a tantrum about going home at the end of the day.
Storm clouds had been summoned above her head.
They began to call her Inna, from divine water, which was not her name. They called her a Saint.
She did not like it.
It only made the clouds grow, along with her mother and father's worry.
XX
When she was five, her parents had learned enough to keep her out of the village, to hide her from the eyes of those who wanted to take her away. The Grisha looked for power, and if they knew of what was only a few miles north of Os Kervo, they would take what they claimed to be theirs.
No one in her family shared Nataliya's power, and she wondered if the stories that the neighbors had told were true. They claimed that she had washed ashore after a great storm, that she belonged to the ocean itself, or perhaps some beast within it. She figured it was folly, but could not ignore that her hair was light when her family's was dark.
X
When she was six, the old king was beginning to falter, the one with a grey beard and a sour heart, one who lowered the draft age so that her father now had to take her only brother with him to fight.
And the king's son, one with a weak chin and a disinterested attitude would not be any better for her older brother, would not be able to save their broken country.
On the night that he left, she knew that they would not return, and a terrible storm hit West Ravka, one that they had not seen the likes of in a hundred years.
X
By age seven, food was scarce, and villagers stayed away, but all of Nataliya's sisters agreed that she was more beautiful than anyone who they saw in the village.
She asked the sea what it thought, and it responded that it did not care for beauty, so she decided not to either. She began to listen more closely.
X
By age ten, Nataliya began to ask the water nearly every question that she had, and it responded. She learned things many trained Grisha did not know.
It told her of ancient things, merzost. and Odinakovost and Etovost, the thisness and thatness, and how the sea did not end where her eyes thought that it did.
That its water was in the very air she breathed, that it was in the blood of men.
That Nataliya could do what she wished of it.
She daily walked from her hut to the sea shore, alone, felt the ocean in her veins, and summoned like no Etherealki before her had dreamed of, taking the water from the air when she was thirsty, learning to see with closed eyes, from where the water in the atmosphere was or wasn't. Sensing life, feeling death.
XX
At eleven years old, she had never been happier. Her father and brother came home to visit, had remarked on her power, on her beauty, on her wisdom.
She asked the sea what it thought, and it replied that it did not care about wisdom or power. That it wanted to do what it wanted, and such things as power simply came to it. Nataliya realized that those things had come to her as well, but that she could not really bring herself to care. She would have been proud, if were she not too busy learning to take the time to become so. Her father and brother left again, but this time Nataliya didn't shed a tear.
XX
At age twelve, Nataliya had stolen the letter from her mother's desk that had made the woman fall into mourning, and discovered that her father was dead, killed by a Shu Han raiding party. She cursed the army and their failings at keeping her family safe.
X
When Natalia was thirteen, the wasting plague came to Os Kervo, and from there to her doorstep. She watched her mother and sisters die at her feet.
Grisha didn't get sick.
It rained that summer like it had never rained before, and most crops were ruined by the cold weather that the country could not seem to shake.
When nothing had been left for her, Nataliya had run away from the people who had come to take her to an orphanage, for she was no Otkazat'sya. Not abandoned. Not yet. Her brother was still out there somewhere. She left a note on her old kitchen table for him to find, and lived in a sea cave, where she waited for news of his comings.
Her cave was warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and very homey. She had as much fish as she could eat, and whatever water she needed. There was no light, but she didn't need any.
Because her mind was gone.
It went to dark places, where the thoughts of a young girl should not have to go.
She learned how to cut things in half, finding the water inside of sea slugs, and forcing it into a line that could sever flesh. She could drain the water from plants and animals, killing them faster than they could blink. She could hold her breath for longer than an hour, and often took to diving in the night, even when the water was as dark as pitch, as she could still see by feeling without touching.
After a long time in solitude, she would often get lonely, and speak to the sea. It became harder to hear its voice as she aged, but it was now humans that it spoke of. Everything that was wrong with the world. How the sea always knew the truth. How to find it.
But more than that, it spoke of all of the foolish love that it contained. Couples walking on beaches, swimming in its shores, sitting in boats along its surface. Nataliya knew that her parent's story was one such as these, and when she looked at how it ended, she swore to the sea that she would never love.
She felt that she didn't have to.
But she grew to miss the taste of bread, the sweet cakes her mother would bake for Saint's days. She missed the sound of human voices and the soft smiles of their faces. She grew weary of the dark, longed for any conversation, and in her dreams, she would wish for friends to join her in her solitude.
None ever came.
She was alone, but she had herself. She sang to quiet her bleeding heart, and her voice brought even the sea near to tears. The ocean grew to love her like a child, and she felt it was her only family left.
She never knew if the rumors of her parentage were true, but half wanted them to be, wanted to have anyone left in the world who loved her, wanted to belong to the sea like she had belonged to her own family; the way she now belonged nowhere.
XX
Once a year, Nataliya would return to her old cottage to tend to it. When she had been away from civilization for long enough to forget what year it was, she finally found that her former home was occupied by a half-dead drunk who wore the face of her brother.
He was a wretch, and immediately tried to seduce her, not recognizing her face at all. She was repelled, but could not blame him completely, for the kvas on his breath showed that he was not himself, and the words on his tongue said that he too had gone too far into the darkness.
She chose to stay in her old room alone for a night, to see if she would find him sober in the morning.
On her nightstand, she saw herself in the mirror for the first time in a long time.
What had gone into the cave was what must have been a beautiful girl, but what had come out was a saint-like woman, perfect in her ways, graceful as the sea, with a face that shown the way only one of a Grisha using her powers could. Her hair was long and light, her face pale from hours spent hiding from the sun. Her skin was as soft as silk, and her eyes bluer than the sky when it happened to be in a good mood.
Any sailors who she had chanced upon had called her a mermaid, and now she understood why.
She awoke at sunrise to find her brother already drinking, and spent the day arguing with him to stop. He never relented, and still he pressed her in ways that she did not want to be pressed.
Fighting back with muscles made strong by swimming and skills learned by watching sailors brawl from afar, she turned him out into the snow. When he continued to pound on the door, she opened it again and severed his fingers with a stroke of the Cut, sending him to the nearby city of Os Kervo for help, as she was not about to give him any.
Nataliya knew that they would come for her now. The ones she had hidden from for all her life.
She didn't care.
Let them find me, she thought. None of them can match my strength. None of them can contain me.
How very wrong she was.
Hey guys! I'm pretty much just posting this so that I can send the link to one of my friends (as soon as she finishes Ruin and Rising*cough cough Taylor cough*). It takes place about forty years before Shadow and Bone, the new king who's about to ascend the throne is Vasily's father, and I have some big plans for this. I'm so excited! Also, disclaimer, my spelling sucks and my writing is still a work in progress as I'm still in school, and have nearly no time for anything beyond getting words on paper. Additional disclaimer, there will be blood and guts and torture and (as mentioned in the title) lots of scars, so don't pass out on me here. Also, it will include Ruin and Rising spoilers. Watch out! Finally, I'm a huge fan of this series (and Six of Crows tbh) and also Leigh Bardugo in general so I hope I can do it justice.
PS: I love Nikolai, and I swear we'll get to him soon.
Thanks for reading and reviewing!