THESE BROKEN VOWS (Kazbrekker x Fem!reader) [ book version]

CHAPTER 3

-✨Y/N P.O.V✨-

Van Eck had sent Bajan to her every day, and he'd been nothing but
amiable and pleasant even as he'd prodded her for the locations of Kaz's safe houses.

Y/N suspected that Van Eck didn't come himself because he knew Kaz would be keeping a close eye on his movements.

Or maybe he thought she'd be more vulnerable to a Suli boy than a wily merch.

But tonight something had changed.
Bajan usually left when Inej had made it clear she would eat no more-a parting smile, a small bow, and away he went, duty dispatched until the following morning. Tonight he had lingered.

Instead of taking his cue to vanish when she used her bound hands to
nudge away her dish, he'd said,
"When did you see your family last? Don't you have a living relative, an aunt."

A new approach.

"Has Van Eck offered you some reward if you can extract information from me?"

"It was just a question."

"And I am just a captive. Did he threaten you with punishment?"

Bajan glanced at the guards and said quietly, "Van Eck could bring you back to your country. Back to your aunt, your family He could pay off your contract with Per Haskell. It is
well within his means."

"Was this your idea or your master's?"

"Why does it matter?" Bajan asked. There was an urgency in his voice
that pricked at Y/Ns defenses.

When fear arrives, something is about to happen.

But was he afraid of Van Eck or afraid for her?

"You can walk away from the Dregs and Per Haskell and that horrid Kaz Brekker free and clear. Van Eck could give you transport to Ravka, money to travel."

An offer or a threat? Could Van Eck have found a way to wiggle her back into Ravkan court?

The Ravkan court and second army were hard to bribe, let alone make belief that one of them, formerly declared dead was alive.

But what if Van Eck had sent men claiming to have knowledge of a lost Healer girl? A girl who had vanished one chilly dawn as if the tide had reached up to the shore to claim her?

"What does Van Eck know about my family?" she asked, anger rising.

"He knows you're far from home. He knows the terms of your trial at court, The Fjerdans, the sum of your Menagerie indenture."

"Then he knows I was a slave. Will he the drüskelle in Ketterdam arrested?"

"I ... don't think-"

"Of course not. Van Eck doesn't care that I was bought and sold like a
bolt of cotton. He's just looking for leverage."

But what Bajan asked next took her by surprise.

"Did your aunt or mother make almond cake?"

She frowned. "Of course."

It was a Ravkan staple.

Y/N could have made almond cake without a recipe and with a blindfold on.

Her grandmother's recipe was the best and she knew it by heart.

"With rosemary?"

"No, I didn't like the rosemary. Ma would replace it with crunchy nuts and smooth almond butters."

"Did she frost it with orange blossoms mixed with marzipan?"

"Yes."

She knew what Bajan was doing, trying to make her think of home.