Kaz Brekker and his crew - criminals, thugs, murderers, the scum of the Barrel - they'd heard it all. But wanted by the Black Heretic was one they were eager to avoid at all costs.
It was a deal gone bad and now the Dregs are wanted by the most pow...
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Inej stared listlessly into the flickering fire of the hearth. Her deep brown eyes followed the snaps and crackles of the sparks as they danced over the flames. Her fingers brushed over the refuses of ash littering the floor, clearing a space big enough for her to kneel. With a heavy sigh, she bowed her head and began to pray.
Inej had a deep reverence for the saints. Kaz called her foolish and Jesper made fun of her but it did nothing to sway her from her beliefs. Now, as she offered penance, she was forced to realise that Kaz's plan involved plenty of sin, sin that perhaps penance didn't cover.
Her hands had been folded in prayer, now they were fingering the many blades that she kept hidden within the folds of her clothes. She had named them, one for each saint, and found that saying their names, over and over, helped quell the restless and uneasy thoughts of her heart.
But this time it was different. Those thoughts didn't go away.
Damn it, Kaz. You and your impossible jobs.
Inej shook her head and opened her eyes. Her mind was running in circles and she couldn't think in complete sentences.
Their relationship had always been like that though...confused, complicated, tense. There was no easy way to describe the two trickiest criminals in the Barrel, fighting everything and everyone around them, especially their feelings for each other.
They had had many conversations about it but they had all ended the same and nothing changed. Kaz wasn't easy to talk too at the best of times and emotional Inej trying to explain why she cared about him so much was basically a recipe for disaster.
Inej ground her teeth together in frustration as her mind flitted back to the days of cold, damp rooms, stale tasting bread, and fake scented silks. She shivered. That's what Kaz had saved her from and maybe that's why she felt so deeply for him. He had rescued her from the clutches of slavers and saved her from a dreaded promiscuous lifestyle. He had paid off her indenture to the Menagerie, a pleasure house deep in the evil clutches of mistress Tante Heleen. He had brought her under his wing and taught her how to fight, to fend for herself, to be deadly, to be vicious, to be feared, to be like him...
Or maybe it boiled down to the same old typical thing - he was the first one who showed her broken fourteen year old self a tiny shred of love and she had clung to it, become dependent on it, and oh, how she despised it; despised the fact that she felt so much for a man who would never look at her the same way.
Kaz - stupid, brilliant, selfish, remarkable Kaz. People saw the monster, she saw the gentle lamb. They saw the murderer, she saw a good man covered in scars. They saw the bastard, she saw the flawed heart of gold.
Jesper was right. There was no denying it for she, too, would follow Kaz wherever he went whether it be on this ludicrous job or the next one.
