Of Crows and Eagles // Grishaverse

Forever

Kaz

Kaz didn't want to think of how long he'd been waiting for this moment. Inej's letter had arrived over a month ago, and every day since, he had stood at the window of his attic room at the Slat, trying to see the harbor, as if the Wraith would just appear at his very will.

They had seen each other, in brief snatches, plenty of times since Inej had first left Ketterdam, nearly three years ago, but Kaz found that he could still never manage to suppress the rush of anticipation, and beneath it, desire, that flooded through him whenever a letter from Inej arrived.

Now, Kaz limped slowly down East Stave, his cane tapping on the cobblestones with each step that he took. Beneath the brim of his hat, he could see, just barely, the Wraith's  masts, soaring above Berth twenty-two as it pulled into the harbor.

There were days when Kaz had to remind himself of the look on Inej's face when she first saw the Wraith, the way her breath caught and her eyes lit up, her smile so raw and genuine it had felt as if he were the one watching as his dreams came to life. When he lay awake at night, reflecting on the time they'd never had, the future that would always float just in front of their faces, taunting, it was her smile, in that moment, that kept him from losing whatever was left of his sanity. Kaz was selfish, a quality he was well aware of, and yet somehow, despite all else, he, Dirtyhands, legendary thief and Bastard of the Barrel, had been able to let the one thing he'd ever really wanted go. He'd let her go.

As the sun climbed higher in the sky, shining down on Ketterdam's many run down brothels and gambling houses, Kaz peered down at the harbor. As he came ever nearer, he could see the silhouettes of figures running across the Wraith's deck, unloading cargo, and calling out to workers on the docks below. Kaz raised an ungloved hand to his forehead, brushing the hair out of his eyes. If Nina were here right now, she'd surely be teasing him about it, not that he cared much. She still couldn't pick a lock to save her life, and that was a skill far more likely to come in handy some day.

At that moment, a short figure stepped out onto the deck of the Wraith, hair flung out behind them in a loose braid. Even from this distance, Kaz could see the warm bronze of Inej's skin, darker from weeks spent at sea. Inej turned, spoke a few words to Specht, her first mate, and then preceded to walk down the gangplank, towards the dock.

Towards him.

Inej

Inej didn't tell Specht where she was going, but she had seen the glimmer in his eyes as she glanced frantically down at the docks, looking for a certain black-clad figure. As she reached the dock, Inej scanned the crowd, trying once again to spot Kaz's thin, crooked frame among the throngs of tourists and immigrants alike. 

Finally, she located a tall figure, dressed immaculately in a suit and hat, with a familiar cane clutched between his hands. 

His bare, ungloved hands.

Inej stood up on her toes and waved a hand through the air. As she caught Kaz's eye, he gave a brief nod, and, though his face was mostly in cast in shadow from the brim of his hat, she was sure, for a moment, that he smiled.    

Inej shoved her way through the mass, her eyes never straying from Kaz's face. He quirked an eyebrow as she reached him. "Wraith."

"Brekker."

Kaz grinned. It was one of those rare smiles that seemed to light up his whole face, from the curve of his cheekbones to his harsh, coffee colored eyes. The kind of smile he reserved solely for her.

They stood there for a moment, in comfortable silence, as they always seemed to do when Inej first arrived back. As if they both needed a second to appreciate the other, themselves, what had brought them to this point, anything.