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

CHAPTER 8

🧤KAZ P.O.V🧤

Kaz’s first thought when he glimpsed Van Eck moving toward Goedmedbridge was, This man should never play cards .

His second was that someone had broken the merch’s nose. It was crooked and swollen, a dark circle of bruising forming beneath one eye.

Kaz suspected a university
medik had treated the worst of the damage, but without a Grisha Healer, there was only so much you could do to hide a break like that.

Van Eck was trying to keep his expression neutral, but he was working so hard to look impassive that his high forehead was shiny with sweat.

His shoulders were fixed stiffly and his chest jutted forward as if someone had attached a string to his sternum and yanked him upward.

He walked onto Goedmedbridge at a stately pace, surrounded by liveried guards in red and gold—now that surprised Kaz.

He’d thought Van Eck would prefer to enter the Barrel with as little pomp as possible.

He turned this new information
over in his mind.

It was dangerous to ignore the details. No man liked to be shown up, and
for all his attempts at a dignified promenade, Van Eck’s vanity had to be wounded.

A merch prided himself on his business sense, his ability to strategize, to manipulate men and markets.

He’d be looking to get a bit of
his own back after having his hand forced by a lowly Barrel thug.

Kaz let his eyes pass over the guards once, briefly, searching for Y/N.

What he first saw, was Inej, her Knife-edge posture striding confidently amoung the thugs.

Then he laid eyes on Y/N.

She was hooded, barely visible between the men Van Eck had brought, but he would have recognized that delicate posture anywhere.

And if the temptation was there to crane his neck, to look closer, to make sure she was unharmed?

He could acknowledge it, set it aside.

He would not break his focus.
For the briefest moment, Kaz and Van Eck sized each other up from
across the bridge.

Kaz couldn’t help but be reminded of when they’d faced each other this way seven days ago.

He’d thought too much about that
meeting.

Late at night, when the day’s work was done, he’d lain awake, taking apart every moment of it. Again and again, Kaz thought of those few
crucial seconds when he’d let his attention shift to Y/N instead of keeping his eyes on Van Eck.

It wasn’t a mistake he could afford to make again.

That boy had betrayed his weakness in a single glance, had ceded the war
for the sake of a single battle, and put Y/N—all of them— in danger.

He was a wounded animal who needed to be put down.

And Kaz had done it gladly,
choked the life from him without pause for regret.

The Kaz that remained
saw only the job: Free Y/N, free Inej. Make Van Eck pay. The rest was useless noise.

He’d thought about Van Eck’s mistakes on Vellgeluk too. The mercher had been stupid enough to trumpet the fact that his precious heir was cooking in the womb of his new wife—young Alys Van Eck, with her milkwhite hair and dumpling hands.