Chapter One: The Belly of the Beast

Nina

Song: 'Nina Cried Power' by Hozier

And I could cry power

Power has been cried by those stronger than me

Straight into the face that tells you to rattle your chains

If you love bein' free

The ship heaved again with the sway of the ocean and Nina doubled over, clutching her stomach. She was thinner than she had been two weeks ago when the Fjerdan convoy departed from the port in the Wandering Isle and her hip bones jutted out and her cheek bones were sharper, skin taught over them. Her skin, which was usually creamy and smooth, flushed with Grisha power, was pallid and tinged green with sea sickness.

Another ferocious lurch and she clapped a hand over her mouth, trying to swallow back the nausea that rose in her throat. Surely she couldn't be sick anymore? It wasn't like there was anything in her stomach to throw up. Ever since she'd puked through the bars of her cell, aiming at the guards out of spite, they'd been sure not to give her anything to eat. Food was a distant memory Nina tried, and failed, not to dwell on.

The memory of soft waffles and sweet honey cakes at the Little Palace made her stomach clench with homesickness and hunger.

She craved the warmth of her bed, the steadiness of solid earth beneath her feet and the brush of her smooth silk kefta against her skin. That had been the first thing they'd taken from her.

The scarlet robes; tailored by the best Grisha fabrikators in the Second Army. She felt like a phoenix in them, suffused with the power of blood instead of fire as she rose from the ashes of Ravka to fight for her wounded country.

Now in the cell, stripped down to a roughspun smock and shivering in the corner of a dank Fjerdan cell, she was back to being the scared little girl who had been bullied in a grey Ravkan orphanage. She closed her eyes and dreamed of the rush of Grisha magic, the pulse of a human heart at the tips of her fingers, the feeling of a thousand years of ancient power uncoiling in her chest.

Then she would open her eyes and her hands were cold and chaffed raw from Fjerdan bonds. Nina felt nothing in the air except a miserable hopelessness that writhed in her stomach like a parasite that fed on the darkness.

There was a clang of a door opening and her head snapped up.

It wasn't an unexpected sound.

Before anything, she was a spy and the first thing she had begun taking note of after being locked in her cell was the changing of the guards. It happened every four hours. Or so she estimated.

Pushing back the tangled mess of her dark her, she watched the guards exchange places.

The breath caught in her throat and her vision flared red.

It was him.

The Drüskelle all looked the same to her; offensively tall, pale hair, cut features and cruel eyes.

But he was different. Sometimes she saw him when she slept, and when he flickered into focus her dreams fractured into nightmares.

It was the soldier who captured her, tightened the rope on her wrists and pressed his cool blade against her throat before she could run. It was because of him that she was trapped in the belly of this black iron ship and bound for the gallows in the Ice Court.

She'd learned his name when he'd first been assigned to patrol her cell.

Helvar.

She'd muttered it to herself, accompanied by every foul word she could think of in every language she knew. The name was sour on her tongue.

Like the others, Helvar was tall. Nina herself was a good five foot eleven but he still towered over her. He was broad-shouldered, with arms corded with muscle and one of his strong hands permanently gripped the gleaming pistol that was issued to all the Drüskelle.

It was his eyes, however, that she remembered the most.

Like chips of clear blue ice.

"Good luck, Helvar," said the guard Helvar was replacing and clapped him on the back with a grin. "She looks like she's going to be sick again. Give her a good slap if she does. Mikhail says that will shut her up."

Nina could attest to that. After hurling on one of her guards— Mikhail— he'd open the bars to her cell and smacked her with the back of his palm so hard she'd seen stars and tasted blood from where her lip split.

Helvar glanced from the guard speaking to Nina huddled in the corner of her cell. She pushed back her shoulders and tilted her chin up, offering him a smirk worthy of Zoya Nazyalensky herself. For the first time, Nina was thrilled to have been a victim of Zoya's; only from the queen of storms and lightning herself could Nina have learned how to perfect cold superiority.

Helvar's gaze slipped to her face. Her heart quickened, but she held his ice-blue stare. His eyes flicked down to her bruised lip and his jaw tightened imperceptibly.

"We aren't supposed to touch the prisoners, Vidar," he said, turning back to face the other soldier. The timbre of his deep voice filled the dark cell.

The other guard, Vidar, shrugged. "They're Grisha. What does it really matter?"

A prickle of hot anger shot down her spin and she pressed her lips together. It would have been easy to snap, to call them bigoted pigs who only sought to punish what they did not understand… Her lip throbbed with the memory of the slap.

Win the war not the battle, she reminded herself, though her fingers itched to grab hold of their heartbeats and crush them to nothing in her fist. Her bonds had rarely felt so heavy.

"Anyway," Vidar said, holstering his gun. "Just make sure this bitch doesn't cause anymore trouble or Commander Brum will have our heads. She's a Heartrender and the Grisha value blood witches. It is our duty to make sure she burns."

Nina raised an eyebrow, the Nazyalensky smirk still curling her lips, but on the inside fear clawed up her throat at the thought of the pyres. She had seen enough of them when the Second Army had not reached endangered Grisha in time. The scent of charred flesh and burnt bone prickled at Nina's nose as frantic Grisha screams rang in her ears.

"The pyres are illegal," Helvar said, his voice disdainful. Vidar frowned at him and shouldered his way past. The enormous blonde watched him leave with the glowering expression that seemed a prerequisite of a Drüskelle.

"If I'm not sick on you, I swear it's not from lack of effort," Nina said, unable to stop herself. "You haven't given me anything to eat in almost a week otherwise I assure you would be covered in chunks of—"

"Be quiet," Helvar snapped, eyes flashing in warning. "You do realise you are the prisoner and I am the soldier?"

"I'm a soldier too," she said indignantly. "Isn't that the whole reason I'm in this cage in the first place?"

"You are a Grisha. And it's a cell, not a cage."

"And you are a playground bully. You and all your little friends." There was nothing little about them. All the Drüskelle were at least six and half feet but she relished in the insult that burned in his bright blue eyes.

"Playground bullies don't carry guns."

"Depends on the playground."

"Quiet, witch."

"That was not politically correct," she muttered, stretching out on the rotted bench like a queen lounging on a gilded throne.

Helvar ignored her, his brows drawn tight with irritation.

Inwardly, her heart was racing from fear of punishment. What would it be this time? Another blow to the face? Another week without food? During her training at the Little Palace, she'd heard stories of the Fjerdans cutting off fingers and wearing them as trophies. Though admittedly, she had a strong suspicion Baghra had started that particular rumour to scare the youngest Grisha into working harder.

Though she might be able to avoid arguments with Vidar and the other soldiers, Helvar was different. He was the reason she would die in a few days surrounded by ice and cold Fjerdan judgement.

"How far are we from Djerholm?" she asked. "I'm trying to work out how many days I have left to live. It's certainly one of the more morbid party games. Though I suppose you play pin the broadsword on the Grisha or something like that."

Silence.

Annoying him was less fun when he didn't accept the bait.

Nina sighed and lay across the bench. She closed her eyes and recounted stories of the saints. Sankta Margaretha, Sankta anastasia, Sankt Kho, Sankta Neyar, Sankta Vasilka, Sankt Felix, Sankt Demyan…

She had just reached Sankt Juris, the patron saint of soldiers, when a groan issued from the opposite corner of the cell.

Nina raised her head to watch the ball of rags stir and released a moan.

When she'd first been locked in the cell, the first thing she had done was try to talk to her cellmate. The man was Fjerdan with a weather-beaten face and crinkled black eyes like a scarab beetle. He'd talked to her for the first few days. He'd been kind to her, telling her stories of his life as a cabbage farmer on the south west coast. He told her about his wife and how she pickled spiced peaches in cloves and thick syrup that they ate during the long winter months. There was something comforting about his stories.

Nina couldn't remember the last time she had truly relished life in that way. Her mind had always been so fixed on the next battle, the next struggle, the next loss that she had never taken the time to sit back and savour the simple delight of the first flower of spring or the flush of sunrise or the glimmer of starlight against a dark winter night.

But after almost two week stuck in the dark, roiling belly of the ship the farmer, Einar, had slowly spiralled. He stopped speaking three days before and now only sat in the corner of their shared cell with his head hanging between his knees.

"Einar?" Nina asked, her voice losing the venom she'd shot at Helvar. Now she spoke with all the warmth and gentleness she could muster. "Einar, can I help?"

The farmer's frail shoulders trembled with tears and a sob loosed from his lips. The sound was gutting. A raw, painful sound drawn from his chest that made her own throat tight with the need to cry with him. She would not give the Fjerdans the satisfaction.

"Oh, Einar," she murmured and slid down beside him.

"Kriga," he hiccupped and turned his face to hers. His eyes were red-rimmed and his papery skin mottled with tears. "My cat, Kriga. There'll be no one to feed her. She will be hungry. She needs me—" The old man made to stand up but weakened by the time spent in the cells, collapsed back to the floor. Tears welled in her own eyes and her hands flexed instinctively, as if she could sap the hurt from his prone body. If her hands were free she could soothe his heartbeat, calm his nerves.

What was she really without her Heartrending? Just a girl who didn't know how to comfort a grieving man.

"My wife," Einar wept. "Ilsa. She… she needs me, too. So beautiful, she is. I do not want to leave her. She will be all alone. I cannot leave her." His panicked eyes cast around the cell wildly. "Ilsa! Ilsa, I am coming, hjäanskär!" His desperate pleas reverberated through the cell.

It broke Nina's heart knowing that they would never be answered.

Fury burst through her sadness with the force of a bullet. With a furious hiss she whirled around and stormed over to the bars of the cell. Helvar's eyes were downcast, a slight crease between his brows.

"Are you proud of yourself?" she shouted, the blood roaring in her ears. "Look at him! He is a scared old man who just wants to sit by the fire with his wife, yet you and your comrades feel the need to torment him and put a bullet between his eyes just for living!"

His fists tightened at his sides, his knuckles blanching snow white.

"Get him under control," he gritted out.

Nina wanted to scream.

"No. Fetch me some water." Her voice was superbly contemptuous.

Fury flashed across the drüskelle's face. "You do not command me, witch."

"You told me to get him under control. The poor man is dehydrated and delirious. You want him under control? Fetch me some Saints-forsaken water, or are you as stupid as you are tall?"

His eyes darkened to the fierce bruising blue of an encroaching thunderstorm. "Do not attempt to provoke me, Drüsje. You will stand trial in the Ice Court for your crimes against Fjerda. Speak to me like that one more time and I will be more than happy to testify against you in that courtroom and teach you the hard way that it would be better for you to hold your tongue." His voice was as dark and cold as the dark northern waters that rocked the ship.

Zoya Nazyalensky had once scolded Nina for her recklessness. You need to learn to be less… big. You're too loud, too effusive, too memorable. You take too many risks, she had said.

It was only those words of derision from the girl Nina had idolised that prevented her from spitting in the Drüskelle's face.

"Water," she muttered. "Please."

Helvar's eyes still burned, but he turned on his heel, opened the door and shouted for another guard. Moments later, Vidar reappeared and smirked at Nina.

"I'll give you your water, Drüsje." Helvar said, his eyes flickering over Einar's crumpled form. For a split second, Nina was certain that something like regret flashed over his face. But a heartbeat later he vanished from the door.

"I see Helvar is at your beck and call," Vidar said. "Any reason for his special treatment?" His eyes dragged over her body suggestively and she gritted her teeth but kept her face blank.

"My wit, my charm, my addictive charisma?" she suggested.

"If you are Helvar's whore you should just tell me," Vidar said, carelessly flicking dust from his gleaming sword.

Outrage and shock froze her in place. Helvar's whore? Her blood heated in her veins like molten lead at the implication. The thought of bedding a Drüskelle made Nina want to be sick all over again.

Don't let him see how he gets to you, she reprimanded.

"You mean Helvar? Enormous and blonde boy? I know the description matches every other guard here but even so."

"Yes, Helvar."

Matthias Helvar. His name matched the man; broad, powerful, formidable.

"Jealous?" she asked, tilting her head mockingly. "Of me or him? No shame either way," she added with a wink.

His lip curled into a sneer. "I wouldn't let a Grisha warm my sheets if you were the only creature alive. Was that confirmation then?"

"No. But even if it was, why would I ever tell you?"

"If you say that Helvar tumbled you, you can take him down to the gallows with you. Consorting with Grisha is a sin in Fjerda. A capital offense. If you really want payback for him turning you over, you'll tell the authorities when we dock."

Nina had never so badly wanted to kill a man so badly before. No, she wanted more than that. She wanted to crush his heart and wear the bloody remains as a necklace. Nina wanted to hurt Helvar. She wanted her revenge. But she would never sink so low. She didn't believe you had to love someone to spend the night with them, but there was still something so intrinsically intimate and sacred in enjoying the closeness of another person.

It was a sanctity she would never violate.

But the spy in her refused to leave this well unplumbed.

"They would never believe a Grisha. All he would have to do was deny it and the case would be closed."

"Ah, but you see, I would testify with you. Your confession certainly wouldn't be enough. But the combination of it and my word would be sufficient for a Fjerdan jury."

"And why, Saints help me, do you want to see your brother swing?"

"Simple." Vidar smiled like a cat about to pounce. "He's Jarl Brum's prodigy. The rest of us get scraps. Remove Helvar from the equation and problem solved, Djel rest his soul. Now, do we have a deal? I'll put in a word for you at your trial. I can make sure you don't hang."

Nina paused, staring into his smoke-grey eyes like she was looking down the barrel of a gun, which, she reminded herself, she might as well be.

"Helvar is not a guiltless man, but he is innocent of what you accuse him of," she said. "You Drüskelle may have no spine, but us Ravkans, us Grisha, we value integrity and rectitude. I only hope that one day you pull your head out of your arse long enough to find some." And she spat at his feet.

For a moment, time stood still.

Vidar watched her, his face. A muscle feathered in his jaw and she swallowed, hands clammy and clenched into fists. He let out a sudden, feral roar and wrenched the cell door open.

"How dare you?" he bellowed and stormed towards her.

With her hands bound tightly by the ropes she had no way of defending herself. Fear rolled over Nina like an icy wave breaking on rocks. She backed away but in the tiny cell there was nowhere to run to.

Einar whimpered on the floor and Vidar kicked him hard in the face. Blood spurted hot and dark from the old man's mouth.

"No!" Nina screamed. "Don't—" but her words were cut off when Vidar seized her by the throat and swept her up off the floor.

He held her with a vise-like grip, his broad fingers bruising her throat as she scrabbled fruitlessly at him with her bound hands.

"This is how you and your fellow Grisha heathens kill fine Fjerdan soldiers, isn't it?" he hissed, his breath sour and hot on her face. "You crush our windpipes, pulp our hearts and collapse our lungs. Let's see how much you enjoy having the air choked out of you."

His fingers tightened and Nina tried to suck in a breath but her throat was tight as he gripped her even harder. Black spots blurred her vision and the back of her neck felt hot with panic as she writhed and struggled in his death hold.

Not like this, oh Saints, not like this, she begged inwardly. She wanted to die on a bed of Kerch waffles with a glass of strong kvas and dressed in her finest crimson kefta.

This could not be the end of Nina Zenik.

Surely it was not in the stars for her to be choked to death by a lecherous drüskelle in the bowels of the enemy? Surely her Saints were kinder than that? Surely after all she had given to Ravka, to her king and her country? Surely—

But there was nothing she could do.

As the cell grew darker and darker, her eyes rolled back into her head and her flailing arms became slack.

At least you didn't beg.

With a bone-jarring thump, she fell to the floor. Air flooded into her lungs and she took deep gulps of air like a madman stumbling upon an oasis after a week in desert sun. She coughed, eyes watering as she staggered to her feet and fell back against the bench.

It had come so close. The darkness, the fire in her lungs, the iron grip around her throat—

Her vision swam back into focus in jerky flashes.

Vidar had been pulled off of her and was pinned against the bars of her cell by a familiar figure.

The breath caught in Nina's throat again when she realised it was Helvar.

His hands were fisted in Vidar' grey acolyte tunic, holding him against the bars as the latter fought to seize Nina again.

"Stop," Helvar shouted, his booming voice shuddering through her bones.

After several more moments, Vidar's vicious attempts to reach her stopped and he wrenched himself out of Helvar's grip and straightened his robes. His neck and cheeks were scarlet and mottled with rage as he breathed deeply.

Nina's own chest rose and fell quickly as she made up for all her lost air.

"Go back to the Drüskelle quarters," Helvar said to Vidar. Not a question, a command.

Vidar scowled at him. "A true patriot would have let me finish the job. You must really want her in your bed," he spat out, pushing past Helvar before he had time to reply, and stormed from the cell.

She had never known a silence as heavy as the one that followed the soldier's exit.

Nina's bound hands drifted shakily to her throat. Raised lacerations streaked her skin and her body still felt giddy with adrenaline, as if Squaller lightning had fried her alive. It wasn't a good feeling, like being burned slowly from the inside.

Nina was dangerously close to tears.

"Are you alright?" Helvar asked after an interminable silence.

"Don't talk to me," she whispered, not trusting her voice not to crack like broken glass. "Just… I don't know, Fjerdan. Alright? I don't know!" She screamed the last three words at him, hurled them at his chest like throwing knives. Their serrated edges seemed to land because he took several steps back, though his eyes remained stony and his jaw tight.

"The water," he muttered, and held out the bucket to her. "It's clean."

She looked up at him through her dirty hair and damp lashes and shook her head slowly.

"Nothing here is clean."