Stars ― Kaz Brekker

08. damn the world

ESTERA WOULD HAVE KILLED FOR A DECENT NIGHT'S SLEEP, but there's too much to do before Hringkälla begins. 

Nina is sent out to chat up the locals and try to discover the best place to lay their ambush for the wagon. After the horrors of Gestinge's herring, they've demanded Kaz provide something edible, and are waiting for Nina in a crowded bakery, nursing hot cups of coffee mixed with hot chocolate, the wreckage of demolished rolls and cookies spread over their table in little piles of buttery crumbs. 

Inej is talking to Matthias about home; Jesper is teasing Wylan about his flute expertise. When Estera stands to go and get another cup of coffee, she isn't surprised when Kaz follows. He is as allergic to displays of comradery as he is to discussing the past.

"The last I checked, Anatol and Irsia Moers were alive and well," he says, his voice low enough for the Kerch not to draw suspicion from the worker as she makes Estera's coffee.

Estera takes a deep breath. "They are," she says. "You would know if they weren't before me, I'm sure." 

Kaz squints just a little at her. "Then who died?" 

"That's none of your business," she says, echoing his own words from years ago back at him. 

"I believe it is," he says. "If I'd known you had a personal grudge against the Fjerdans, I would have rethought bringing you on this job." 

"You don't have any other Squallers," she reminds him. 

"I could have just left you on the boat." 

She scoffs. "Like I would have listened to you." 

He narrows his eyes because he knows it's the truth, and he loathes it. "Can you get through this job without compromising it?" 

"Of course I can," she says stiffly. "I don't care for vengeance." 

"Then what do you care for?" 

The question's a loaded gun, her answers coming to mind fast and sharp like bullets. For a day I don't spend haunted by her. For the memory of her scream to be fade. For the cowardice to forgive myself. And then, like a prayer from a nonbeliever facing death—You.

She takes her finished cup of coffee, setting down a few notes as payment. "Damn the world and damn my lover; I care for myself above any other," she quotes. 

"We both know you aren't the selfish one out of us." 

You don't know how selfish I've been, she thinks. 

"And yet," she muses, taking a sip of her coffee. "What about you, Kaz? What do you care for?" 

He takes a moment to answer. His gaze feels like gravity, pinning her in place. When he answers, his tone is as light as air. "Money. Vengeance." He takes the cup from her hand and takes a sip, not bothering to hand it back. "Good coffee." 

She narrows her eyes at him. She takes back her coffee, careful not to spill it onto her skin. "Get your own, then." 

There's the faintest smirk on his lips. She fiercely ignores what it does to her. "But it tastes so much better stolen." 

"You're a scavenger through and through, Kaz."

"I'll take that as a compliment."  

✯

It takes Nina less than an hour to discover that most of the prison wagons pass by a roadhouse known as the Warden's Waystation on the route to the Ice Court. They have to trek almost two miles out of Upper Djerholm to locate the tavern. It's too crowded with farmers and local laborers to be useful, so they head further up the road, and by the time they find a spot with enough cover and a stand of trees large enough to suit their purpose, most of them are close to collapse. Jesper and his seemingly limitless energy is a relief as he cheerfully volunteers to continue on and be the lookout. When the prison cart rolls by, he'll signal the rest of the crew with a flare, then sprint back to join them.