When I was ten years old the Darkling came to watch over my Squaller lessons. In a month, I was having private meetings with him. In two, I was being gifted to the king every couple of nights. It didn't happen all the time, maybe 2 or 3 times a week. When he was done with me, I would go to see Kirigan.
For the first year he let me cry into him. He reminded me that it was okay to feel used. That it was a terrible thing the king was doing to me but that I was being helpful. That he couldn't save me until I was stronger. He would help me train right there in his chambers. I could almost make a tornado with the wind at only eleven years old. It was addicting, the feeling of power that would creep into my gut.
I could almost eliminate his darkness with my winds before I left. I was thirteen when I decided to get out. Three years of being used and abused by the king, of my innocence being wiped away. Three years of being isolated by the other Grisha, only having Kirigan on my side. Telling me how much he loved me.
'Treasure, do you know why they hate you?' he said one night.
I had shaken my head.
'They're jealous. Jealous of your power. Of us.'
'I don't want them to be.'
'It's power, Natalia. You have power. And together we cannot be bested.'
Treasure. The little nickname that he gave me. No matter how isolated he tried to make me I always had one friend. Prince Nikolai didn't know when to keep to himself. He didn't know when to stop. Prince Nikolai never stayed where he was supposed to. He sneaked in and out of the little palace. Liked it more, said it had better books. He always seemed to find me, by myself, reading. We would talk, he would sneak me around through tunnels. He was my best friend, and it broke my heart when he left. I was only ten, he was sixteen.
I lasted three years before I begged Nikolai to come back.
And come back he did. Under the name Sturmhond. He picked me up, helped me sneak out of the little palace through the tunnels, and off we went. I was thirteen and he was nineteen. We got close. I was the only one in the crew that knew the truth about who he was. It was a childhood crush that I developed on him.
I couldn't do anything about it though. Every time he put an arm around me, every time he patted me on the shoulder, touched me in any way, I had to fight off the instinct to kill him. To push him down in front of his own crew and see how he likes it. Because he was simply Nikolai, but when he touched me, he had his father's eyes. And he would never hurt me, but that's what I said about the Darkling. And that's why I had to leave.
'I need you to take me to Ketterdam.'
'What?' He asked.
'I need to go to Ketterdam. Figure out who I am, what I'm good for. Heal.'
'In Ketterdam? You'll get eaten alive.'
'No, I won't. I've got skills, skills even you don't know about. Nikolai, I love being a part of your crew, but I can't. I can't stay in the first safe place I find. I want to make something of myself.'
He had sighed. 'We can be in Ketterdam in four days. I'll let you off. Just don't die.'
He had dropped me off in Ketterdam, four days later, a sword in my hand. I spent two weeks fighting to figure out the barrel. Spent money to buy things for poisons and took jobs killing. When I ran out of money, I would spend my night in a brothel or being picked up on the streets. I knew the sounds to make, the way to make a man feel good. I got the money I needed. That's when Kaz found me, crawling out of a window after poisoning an ambassador.
