Natasha Van Doren is a shadow summoner. She bides her time and resides in darkness, feared and esteemed by Ketterdam's civilians, a ghost . She cons Kaz Brekker into joining a heist he can't refuse and with thirty million kruge on the line, the crow...
" I don't go looking for trouble. Trouble usually finds me, "
- K.B
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The night is fresh, warm and young. The sky is a swirl of darkness, lovely stars bulleting their way through a midnight canvas. I can feel the sea spray lashing at my ears, drying my skin, and leaving me feeling dirty. It's horrid. Salt slithering down my arms and legs like insects trying to burrow beneath my skin.
The tea is cold in my lap, the dregs stuck at the bottom, in a pit of brown tea leaves. There is no sugar, and every breath on the ocean feels sour. My stomach hurts, burns and twists like snakes in a fiery pit. My head pounds with an iron fist, rocking my body and leaving me dizzy.
My hands long to embrace the darkness, feel its powers in my palms and set the world on dark fire. I feel weak, stupid, powerful. I think the ocean has done something to my mind.
The schooner is damp, the food dry. The wind whistles like a crack - all of Wylen's vanilla crackers are gone. My blouse is sticky against my chest, my trousers too short and tight for my legs. My hair is a tangled mess of raven curls, sticking to the sides of my face like plaster.
I long for home, but I don't know where it is. Ketterdam, with the crows? Ravka, with Nikolai and Zoya? Noyvi Zem with mama and papa? I feel lost, surrounded in darkness, but no matter how hard I try, it won't disappear.
I am stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. There is nothing special or worth loving in me. My soul is an abyss of darkness, where monsters curdle and multiply until there is no part of Natasha Van Doren left. I am where people throw roses, honouring their dead and how they will not end up like me.
I am not worthy of love. Not from the Ketterdam, Ravka or the countrysides of Noyvi Zem. I am damned, for eternity. To live beneath the stars, to wallow in hopes and misery. To see others live what I could not. The night is my captor - the darkness my curse.
E'ya razrusha'ya.
- Natasha Van Doren
___
TWO DAYS AND NIGHTS SWEPT BY IN LONELY SILENCE. Waves lapped against the schooner, the mast coasting through the gentle breeze of the wind. The violent lash had calmed, the sky a blanket of pale blue.
Natasha had stolen a leaf of parchment from Wylen's stock, hiding her entries beneath her pillow. She thought it might make good fun to read them when this all washed over. A saucer of bitter tea was cold in her lap, the pale murky liquid slopping over the sides.
