Mavka was a Corporalnik like no other, a theif like no other, and a little sparrow among a murder of crows.
Her safe haven was with the boy with the cane and the pretty eyes, despite the two seeming like opposite ends of a live wire, and now they h...
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Matthias froze. Nina faltered. Even the Shu boys head lifted. For a brief moment, all of them stared at the girl who, up until then, they had not heard speak nearly a word.
The rocks scraped at Mavka's shins and bare feet as she frantically lugged herself to a stand to get to the unconcious boys side, fighting away the numbness dragging her limbs down. She trembled and shivered from the unforgiving cold setting into her bones, but not enough that she couldn't crawl her way to Kaz Brekker's lifeless body.
Her throat clogged up as she stared down at his blue tinged lips, abnormally pale skin and unopened eyes, and it was like she was drowning beneath the waves again. But the fear grasping at her throat had a tighter grip than the icy water had.
Mathias got to quick work pumping up and down on his chest, all the while gritting out, "I. Should. Let. You. Die."
Maybe it was the fact they were alive despite everything, or the fact that the small, sparrow girl looked as though her heart had been torn right out of her chest, that had him continue pressing down on the demjins sternum.
Nina breathed, "does he have a pulse?"
Mavka, knelt beside the boys head, pressed her trembling, numb fingers to the side of his neck, eyes glossed over. She swallowed, struggling through the pain and the tingling in her fingertips to feel anything, scared that if she did it would just be her imagination playing tricks on her.
But she felt it and nodded quickly, eyes lifting to Nina who looked quite pale, too.
Her words failed her. She tried to tell them it was weak, that it was fading, but all she could do was feel his dull, thudding heartbeat against her fingers and think so he does have a heart between choking down the urge to cry and hit something.
Matthias helped tear open the shirt of the druskelle uniform away. Nina placed one hand on Kaz's pale chest, focusing on his heart and forcing it to contract.
Mavka could hardly force herself to do anything, so stricken by emotions that she didn't even feel the tear rolling down her cheek as she placed her trembling hand on his shoulder.
She wanted him to swat it away and threaten her for doing it.
But he didn't.
"Will he live?" The Shu boy asked, stood behind them. His voice was small.
Nina worked for what felt like an age trying to get his heart to work again, but with every torturous second that passed, her expression became more and more wilted.
She met eyes with Mavka's glossy ones, the girl practically catatonic in state.
"I'm doing my best," she breathed, pleading with the girl across from her. "He needs to cough up the water, but he's not- he's-" her eyebrows knitted together as she closed her eyes in concentration. "Stubborn bastard!"
