𝐈𝐅 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐄𝐋𝐒𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐈𝐋𝐒- ᴋᴀᴢ ʙʀᴇᴋᴋᴇʀ

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍

The ride to Novokribirsk was silent in all the wrong places. Town through town that they had passed through, the sights became hauntingly familiar. Children out in the streets, bathed in dirt, begging for scraps, for a place to stay for a night.  Bones, of animals, of saints, sold to those who wanted to believe in something bigger than themselves. There was no lack. Saints, she reminded herself, don't exist. They're nothing but a fable.

Ravka needed a saint. They needed hope, something to grasp onto like they did the lies they were being sold. The turmoil from Shu Han and Fjerda had beaten them down. Although, it could not compare to the politics that were tearing them from the inside out. Shivani could feel it, this was only the start.

Beside her, Inej dipped her chin in silent prayers as if that might bring food to their plates or if the Fold might magically disappear after all of these grueling years. If it did, she better still be getting paid. This job had cost her too much to leave empty-handed.

"I didn't hire you simply to get us across the Fold." It was Kaz's voice that brashly interrupted Shivani's thoughts. She forced herself to tear her eyes away from the depravities that had occupied her mind for the last couple of hours and to the self-proclaimed Conductor who supposedly could get them across the Fold.

"You're with us because you smuggle Grisha out of the Little Palace and that's our target."

"Sun Summoner," Inej interposed.

"Alleged."

"For their sake, I hope we're just ignorant, Kaz," Shivani muttered it beneath her breath so only he could hear, sparing a fleeting glance back to the corruption and gauntness on the other side of the glass. She only earned a singular nonverbal in response. Something between a hum and a grunt of simultaneous agreement and disinterest.

"They wouldn't keep a fraud in the most secure location in all of Ravka," Inej continued, she was certain, but certainty doesn't make a savior.

Kaz, in his stubbornness, ignored the girl, once more interrogating their living ticket of passage. "You said you have a contact who can get us inside. A Heartrender?"

He exchanged a skeptical glance with the girl at his shoulder. She had shared her suspicions early in the trip and had made him aware of her clear distrust. A member of the second-army deserting their loyalties to Ravka, Kaz? And a Heartrender nonetheless, the Darkling's most-favored order. Shivani told him it would be a set-up, for who she was unsure, but she was secure in the belief that they were walking into something bigger than what they originally had in mind. He might've argued, but unfortunately, she was yet to lead him astray.

"How do I know we can trust her?"

"Nina grew up there," The Conductor began as if was a factor that gave his claims any truth.

Shivani, could not contain the scoff that had risen harshly from her throat. She was quick to shift in her seat, her hands, still faintly painted with stale bruises, gripped onto the edge of its cushion, and her head tipped in a contemptuous manner.

"All of the tested Grisha grew up in the Little Palace, so if that was supposed to make us believe otherwise-" she gestured impudently around herself to Kaz on her right, Inej beside her next to the window, and Jesper across from her who was still contemplating the scene in front of him, "you've failed."

"Nina," the Conductor pressed once more, "is a radical. She thinks Grisha should get to choose if they serve the Crown. She despises involuntary service more than she does Fjerdans."

Shivani hummed almost mockingly, sinking back into her seat, her shoulders remaining tense, a single tell of her unease. Crossing her hands gently in her lap, despite their begging itch to be placed on the comforting edge of her familiar blades, she turned back to him one more time.