Our Fractured Souls | Kaz Brekker

[09]

9

Matthias

In a windowless room draped in black crimson, Matthias listened silently to the strange words coming out of the pale, freakish boy's face.

Matthias knew monsters, and one look at Kaz Brekker had told him this was a creature who had spent too long in the dark - he'd brought something back with him when he crawled back to the light. He could sense it around them.

The redheaded girl too, she had that same terrible dark aura about her. Matthias knew others would laugh at the Fjerdan superstition, but he trusted his gut.

Or he had until, Nina.

That had been one of the worst effects of her betrayal, the way he'd been forced to second-guess himself. That doubt had almost been his undoing at Hellgate, where instinct was everything.

He'd heard Brekker's name in prison, and the words associated with him - criminal prodigy, ruthless, amoral. They called him Dirtyhands because there was no sin he wouldn't commit for the right price.

He had heard the name of the redhead as well, and the two Suli girls staring daggers at him from their seats at the bar.

The Reaper, the Viper and the Wraith.

The Viper and Wraith were sisters. Two beings that slunk and crept around the Barrel, stealing secrets and taking lives. They were impossible to predict, they couldn't be seen or heard, not even noticed until the damage was already done. They moved as though they were one with the shadows.

The Wraith was far less brutal than her sister, the Viper. She was ruthless and cruel, much like the prisoners had described the Reaper. But even she was kind enough to be human. Mercy was a thing in her vocabulary. But, the Reaper.

The Reaper was a demon, much like Kaz. She was as brutal and feral as that wicked smile full of the promise of death that she'd given Matthias back in his cell at Hellgate. He'd seen the hate in her eyes. Hate for him and for his people.

Even her weapons were wicked. Two jagged swords that bore the names of two Ravkan saints engraved into the blades. He'd been keen enough to see them when she'd taken them out as they were escaping.

Sankt Ilya and Sankt Kho.

She was Ravkan. Her attitude had shown that much about her. That same unnatural spunk that made Nina so...Nina.

And now this demoness and her compatriots were talking about breaking into the Ice Court, about getting Matthias to commit treason.

Again. He corrected himself. I'd be committing treason again.

He kept his eyes on Brekker. He was keenly aware of Nina watching him from the other side of the room. He could still smell her rose perfume in his nose and even his mouth; the sharp floral scent rested on his tongue as though he was tasting her.

Matthias had woken bound and tied against a chair in what looked like some kind of gambling parlour. Nina must have brought him out of the stupor she'd put him in.

She was there, along with the taller bronzed girl he suspected to be the Wraith, thin bodied and sly. Jesper, the long-limbed boy from the boat, and a boy with ruddy golden curls doodled aimlessly on a scrap of paper atop a round table made for playing cards, occasionally gnawing on his thumb.

The table was covered with a crimson cloth flocked with a repeating pattern of crows and a wheel similar to the one used in the Hellshow arena but with different markings, had been propped against a black lacquered wall.