─── ❝She was expensive,
like the piece of velvet she was wearing,
but she demanded his heart,
not his money❞
or
─── in which he finds his crow in the most unfortunate t...
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chapter sixteen,the sacrifices and regrets
THE ATMOSPHERE IN THE FEROLIND WAS GLOOMY. The wind was on their side, pushing the ship away from Djerholm as fast as possible, leaving the sorrows behind. They have won. All of them were splattered around the deck, the Shu scientist was aboard and once they reach the shores of Ketterdam, they will get their desired kruge.
Yet there was no victorious mood. Everyone knew that for a plan like this to work, there must be some sacrifices and defeats, but no one was ready for Lavender to end up in the below deck, fighting for her life, making each and every minute for others horribly long, while they waited for the news if she will even make it to Ketterdam.
They ended up on this ship because of the sacrifice Nina has made. She knew well what it means for her to take jurda parem – she has seen the others before and how they died, craving for a bit more of the neon orange powder. Now, she was positioned on the wooden floor of the ship, wrapped in a blanket as the ecstasy was all gone. She already craved for more, but she promised herself that she won't ever take it again, only to keep her comfortable and not addicted.
The Heartrender and the others couldn't believe what they saw the minute Nina was affected by the drug. She killed a few with a single raise of the hand, the others fell asleep with a single command. Even those protected from the powers of Grisha, ended up unconscious, thanks to her kind soul even if she would've rather killed all of those Fjerdan scums.
No matter how powerful she was back in Djerholm, once they stepped into the ship, she was more than ready to help Lavender. However, once Jesper put his sister on the same table Inej was laying on the trip to Fjerda, Nina knew she couldn't help the dying woman. Nina felt Lavender's body too well – the way the blood is struggling the run through her body, the way her lungs were collapsing, the way her heart was getting out of rhythm.
On top of that, the pain coming from Jesper, and the silent cries as he was looking at his sister with pure guilt drove Nina to the edge. If she would start messing with Lavender's heart – she was entirely sure she would kill her accidentally. That's why, Nina couldn't risk it, not when it felt like the dying woman's heart was in her palm, waiting to be squeezed. As strange as it could be, it proved that no matter how powerful you can be, you can't control everything.
Lavender will have to pull through on her own.
Jesper's lanky figure finally appeared from the below deck. His posture was slumped, still in the same clothes, without his carved revolvers – he looked almost naked. The expression on his face told the whole story and he was openly crying without any shame. Inej directed him to sit down beside a table, making him slump down on a chair and release a deep sigh from the bottom of his lungs.
The moment he saw Lavender being carried by Kuwei and Kaz in the harbour, he felt his heart shatter. For the first time in his life, Jesper saw Lavender completely broken. He knew well the difficulties she had as a child – losing her mother, running away, and ending up in an orphanage before she ended up with him. She always was that person who carried some sort of hope in the silliest moments. Lavender was his sister. His baby sister.
