Echo • Six Of Crows - Kaz Brekker

23

(I've been revived from my pit of hell by the season 2 trailer. Here's a new chapter. I need to finish reading the books before I write more. Enjoy.)

Mavka had never felt more uncomfortable in her life.

In and amongst an entire nation of men and women who would, at the snap of a finger, happily see her blood spill across the ice like flowing water and not even blink at the sound of her suffering because of what she was. The dress was so light on her frame it almost felt as though she was wearing nothing, and she had probably never shown as much skin since the day she was born.

It took everything in her power to keep her hands from trembling and her eyes from falling to the floor in an attempt to hide away; every pair of eyes felt like an itch she couldn't scratch, a spider crawling across her skin set to encase her bones in a web that would leave her frozen in place.

But she had no choice but to carry on, faking the confidence; head up, shoulders back, ensuring that every step was meticulous and elegant and that she did not trip in the heels that made her taller than she was comfortable with. (Never in her life did she think she would be grateful for being small - it kept her hidden, less noticable - and she only realised it now.) She wanted to jam her heels down the throat of the next man who came to talk to her.

Man after man would come up to her, even shy Fjerdans who liked what they could see and wanted to try their shot with a menagerie girl, and each left when she whispered in their ears, leave me alone.

After the first one, it was a whisper. Nothing more. A command. But as more came to try their luck, hands placed on her hips or on her arm or her collar, too close, too much all at once, her whispers became more and more desperate. A plea.

Please, leave her alone.

She could not do this like Nina could - she had split ways with her easily, sauntering through the crowd of people dancing and chatting and laughing with confidence in her step, ready to prise whatever information she could out of whoever she needed to.

But Mavka was slowly losing her resolve. She could feel a tingling along her back where her thick scars had been covered, and it filled her with anxiety knowing that at any moment they were becoming more and more visible to any prying eyes. And there were plenty of those.

To keep her composure she maintained with her back to a wall, sweeping some hair behind her ear while telling herself to keep her back straight and chin up. Fake it. Do what you have to do to get out alive. That was what she kept telling herself.

She was a grisha, or something worse, perhaps, surrounded by Fjerdans and that thought alone if she pondered for too long would make her seek out the glittering glasses of alcohol to her left on the tables.

One man had told her she was beautiful, had muttered it in Ravkan against her ear, and all she could think was she would never have described herself as such - especially not now - she was not herself, she was like a peacock flaring her feathers to disguise what was beneath, put on a show - not the sparrow that she was.

Beautiful.

She had thought to herself, what a lousy way to describe someone. And he wasn't the first to call her such. All she could think was was that all they could come up with?

One man, a wealthy merchant, she had actually told him to 'tell me about your wife.' She had spotted the ring and withheld her disgust. He had spoken and she pretended to listen, bored to death and wanting to leave, all the while thinking what a poor woman. Truthfully, she did it to pass the time so she wouldn't have any other disgusting men come up to her. And she also did it to keep even a single extra pair of eyes away from Nina, who was best at playing spy.