of snakes & crows || kaz brekker

─ 𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒆𝒆

┏━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━┓

[03|| chapter three]
the company you could
have   vs.   that you lost

┗━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━┛

━━━━ EADAZ WAS WRONG.

         It seemed it would take more than the dyeing of her cloak, hair, and the entire makeover of her wardrobe for Kaz Brekker to lose her scent. He was like a blood hound, incessant and thorough, leaving no rock or pebble unturned. However, she was no idiot. The men he sent after her were always obvious, and she recognized a majority of them from a mile away— from fresh faced teenagers to wrinkly old men. Sometimes she slipped through their fingers like sand before they even got the chance to realize it, while others she simply hit with a pair of coated fangs to avoid the hassle.

         But she never killed them.

         Perhaps that's why Kaz continued to persue her, because he knew for some reason she never did a thing to hurt him (in a sense), only tried to warn him to stay away. Ead knew she was being too soft on the man, letting him get away too easily. He'd know this too, and he'd use it to his advantage, like she would.

It was her fatal flaw, the vice of the Viper. She had too much of her heart invested into a man who knew nothing of her until a few days ago. A cruel prince of the forsaken city of Ketterdam in her eyes, a man she needed to stop liking so much.

         However, Eadaz was cursed. It was like this even when she was young. Cursed to love men in ways they would never return.

         There was a boy when she still blooming, handsome as a sunset, with auburn hair and freckles like constellations on his skin. Who shoved her when she admitted she liked him, spit on her and called her a very ugly name. (She wasn't at all heartbroken by this now, but she had been horrified back then.)

         Then there was a soldier in the First Army, a tracker, who hated the likes of all Grisha no matter their title. He wasn't all that bad. She'd gotten closer to him than any of the men that came before him, softened his heart a little without actually using her gifts. But then she'd left before they fully flourished, and he probably thought her dead, but even then, she was pretty sure they'd only been friends. If he even had the gall to call her that, being as stubborn as he was.

        Then there was the General himself. She loved him in a different way. After being dragged to the Little Palace when she was still young, she'd kicked, screamed, cried, and even harmed those who tried to calm her, those who claimed it her new home. They'd never seen a girl from such a poor village with little to her family name that refused to live among the lavishness of the Little Palace.

But she had a mother, and a sister, both of whom were normal. Who'd given her up so easily, and promised she'd be happier at the Palace than with them. Which hadn't been true in the slightest. Her father was the Grisha in the family, the one who'd lost his life in the very war she was being dragged away to fight in. She hated the thought of ending in the exact way he had, afraid of what would happen when they finally let her go after many years of service only to track her down again and force her to fight when the ranks thinned. Just like they had with him.

         Kirigan heard of her anger, of her fire, and promised she'd settle. That she would learn to love the Palace, and all that it had to offer. That they could help her grow stronger, and teach her to harness all of her power— even that of which didn't run through her veins, but through her muscles and bones— so that when the time came her escape would go a lot smoother than her first few attempts as a child.