A child, a mystery, a powerful Etherealnik... and perhaps something more. Even Saoirse has yet to uncover all of her own secrets. But maybe it starts with the ominous black bird that haunts her windowsill and the space between her collarbones.
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somewhere between ryevost and kribirsk, east ravka
— SAOIRSE DREAMED OF A YOUNG WOMAN WITH DARK HAIR.She wore only a simple dress, but somehow, she knew the woman was Grisha. She dreamed of her father too, though he looked different in her dream; younger. She saw the two of them together. She saw the woman die. She saw her father cut through the king's men to try to save her. She saw a great ruin, filled with Grisha in hiding. She saw Baghra with black hair and a throat-tearing cough. She saw an old journal in her father's hands. She saw him face the King's men outside, buying time for the other Grisha. And then darkness boiled out around him. It slammed into her.
Saoirse woke with a gasp. Sitting sharply upright only to feel a sharp pain and be forced to remember her wound with a hiss.
"Careful." Spoke a voice from the seat across from her. "You'll make it worse." Kaz and Jesper must have swapped places while she slept, as Kaz was the one now watching her carefully as she slowly pulled herself into a sitting position.
"Where are we?"
"Closer to Kribirsk than we were when you fell asleep."
She chuckled. "Yes, because that was difficult to guess."
His lip twitched. "We'll stop when we find a place to rest for the night. Then we'll have to leave the coach behind. We're too close to a major city and it's too recogniseable."
She sighed, peeking out the window to get a better look at their surroundings. "You'll hear no complaints from me."
The sun was just starting to fall in the sky when they stopped at a ramshackle old barn well off the Vy. Inside, Kaz dropped his broken cane, some limited currency and a roll of parchment on a broken cart that now served as a table. Saoirse added the small pouch of money she'd brought. It wasn't enough to continue a job on; only enough to have gotten back to Ketterdam from Os Alta with the Sun Summoner.
"Is this all we have left?" Inej frowned.
Saoirse winced, taking a step back to lift her shirt. The burn was somewhat less painful, but looking about the same as it had before. "Saints." she hissed as Jesper made a gagging noise. "It's not going to heal on its own." she leaned back to lay half on the mound of hay behind her, pursing her lips.
The streets of Ketterdam were always rough, but Saoirse couldn't stand by and watch those boys torment that poor cat. She fended them off, leaving bloody noses and broken wrists in her path. When they were gone, she scooped the poor black feline up in her arms and sat on the steps of a nearby establishment. The streets were nearly empty at the moment, so no one bothered her. The cat offered up a pathetic mew, and Saoirse gasped softly, realising that its eye had been cut out. It wouldn't survive something like that, and she was not a healer. She set her jaw with determination. She would do something. Without really knowing what, though, she just gathered shadows from the air. Maybe she could use them to clot the wound... but then what? Slowly, the shadows began to solidify, like a piece of shining silk in the air, only it gave the appearance of something sharp. She lowered the shadow towards the cat's eye and watched it sink in. Slowly, the blood stopped and the cut was nothing more than a glimmering black scar. The animal stood and stretched, as though nothing had happened. It rubbed up against Saoirse, who smiled. "There you go."
