of snakes & crows || kaz brekker

─ 𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒆𝒏

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[19|| chapter nineteen]
the empty feeling

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━━━━ WHEN EAD WOKE up the next morning, she was surprised to find herself asleep against Jesper's naked chest. Not surprised in the way that meant she had no idea how she got there, but surprised she hadn't done what she always did and left the second their time of fun was over.

Jesper was warm beneath her, and his heart was beating gently against her palm, his head lolled off to the side as he snored gently. Ever since the train, when she used the small science to sooth his panic, she'd been hyperaware of his heart, every way it beat and stuttered— hyperaware of the smallest breaths he took and the way his body reacted with his emotions. It was something rarely talked about, but it was rather intimate to touch upon someones heart, especially if you knew them and had a connection. Ead used her gift almost everyday on various types of people, but the second she looked away from them, the second she got what she wanted, she'd forget that it had ever even happened.

Ead almost felt guilty for having done it now, but it wasn't as if she could ask permission first. She had a suspicion that they all knew, Jesper and Kaz the most, and she had a suspicion about Jesper as well, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Telling them she was grisha was like asking to dig into her brain and unearth all of things she'd tried so hard to hide. All the pain and the guilt and the sorrow, all of the deaths she'd witnessed and all of the hurt she'd felt. Just being in Ravka felt like digging a knife in her side, she didn't think she'd be able to leave the Little Palace whole, but exposing her past and letting her future collide with it would absolutely tear her apart.

In more ways than one.

Eadaz tried not to think of it, knowing that if she began to worry herself sick her night of 'forgetting' would have all been for nothing. Despite all of her inner turmoil, she still felt physically good, a lasting effect of finally giving her body something pleasurable, something that was not knives against her throat or bullets in her gut.

"Good morning, Jesper," She murmured when she felt his heart jump against her palm. She shifted against the bed and rolled off of him.

"How did you know? I haven't made a peep." Jesper's voice was thick with sleep and after he spoke he groaned, stretching his muscles and running a hand across his face.

"You stopped snoring, for one," Ead teased, doing the same. It felt amazing to let her joints pop, the blanket threatening to slip off of her body entirely. She let her head rest against the pillow and her eyes find the ceiling, not very eager to get out and start what would surely be a stressful day.

"It was a good sleep," Jesper chuckled, plonking on his side to stare at the side of her face. "After a particularly wild night."

She felt the corners of her lips twitch. "Was it? I found it to be very..."

"Ah, I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you. It would be a lie. Poor Inej can attest to that."

Ead felt blood rush to her cheeks when she remembered the banging on the wall that occurred around midnight, an angry complaint following. She whipped her gaze to his. "Oh, fuck. She did hear us, didn't she? Saints, she's not going to let us live this down."

Jesper rolled his eyes. "If she says anything, I'll remind her of all the nights she kept the entirety of the Slat awake throwing knives into the walls as practice. She's quieter now, but she wasn't always."