CHAPTER 8
That's Life
The smell of charred flesh was enough to bring back memories Brynn never wanted to remember. But the sight almost made her vomit. The Grishas' blackened, cracked skin was still smoldering, the wind enough to put out the fire that had killed them.
Brynn clapped her hand over her mouth and turned away. She could just barely hear an argument raging between Nina and Matthias, but she couldn't have cared less. That might have been me, all those years ago.
She was never going to escape her nature. Her burning, fiery nature. It was everywhere she looked, everywhere she smelled the burned flesh.
Then she heard it. A moan from one of the figures on the stakes.
Whirling around, Brynn searched for the sound. It came again from the body on the far right, burned beyond recognition. She couldn't even tell if the body was male or female. Brynn felt even more sick than before.
"Saints," breathed Jesper. "One of them is alive."
Sobs tearing through Nina's throat, she raised her hands, but she was shaking too badly. Tears fell from her eyes. "I... Please, someone..."
Brynn thought it would have to be her, but Jesper moved quicker than she did. He shot the figure twice in the head, then returned his regular pistols to their holsters. She felt grateful to him, but not everyone seemed as grateful as she.
As Kaz chastised him, Brynn couldn't stay there. The burned bodies were seared into her mind, right next to the bodies of her parents, the people in her village, and the drüskelle she'd murdered after healing the Zemeni boy. So much death, all because she couldn't control herself.
She needed to get away from everyone else.
Ignoring the shouts of her companions, Brynn lurched away from them in the thick snow, her arms held around herself. She wasn't even cold anymore. Her arms were barely a comfort, they only reminded her of Ma and Da.
She could leave anytime she wanted to. Kaz had no power over her, now. Everyone knew she was an Inferni. So why stay? The money? What could she possibly do with four million kruge? Nowhere was safe for her. In Fjerda, Grisha were hunted and killed. In the Wandering Isle, they were killed and their blood used for drinking. The Shu experimented on Grisha and Ravka would most definitely force her to fight in their war. Novyi Zem was the best option other than Kerch, but then what? What would she do there? Help people? Hide out for the rest of her life?
Brynn was wicked. Scary. Sometimes she didn't even need a spark to control a flame. It shouldn't have been possible. Yet here Brynn stood.
A sudden rumbling brought Brynn out of her own head. The ground shook beneath her and she realized that she never should have walked away. It was a stupid idea. She was being stupid.
Then, Brynn was knocked off her feet. The wind rushed out of her lungs. Someone had a firm grip on her ankle, then started pulling her through the snow.
Brynn kicked at them, but the figure's grip was strong. Then the impossible happened again. She began to fly.
Is this what jurda parem does to Squallers? Kaz had told them about the effects it had on the Grisha he knew about, and Squallers flying was on the list. But... that's impossible!
You better start believing in the impossible, Kaz's voice in her head told her.
The air was even colder twenty feet up in the air. The Squaller was fast and didn't waste time, and even Brynn shrieks were lost in the wind, the only thing keeping her from falling to the ground was the Squaller's hand around her ankle.
The Squaller threw Brynn up in the air, catching her by the back of her collar. The air was like crackling electricity from the hiss presence filled with parem.
Brynn thought through her options. Have this Squaller kill her in the air without so much as giving her a fighting chance, or fight back and risk her chances of a now-thirty foot drop. Neither option seemed very safe. That's life, she thought, before twisting in her captor's grasp and kicking him in the face.
~~~
When Kaz saw the Squaller in the air with another figure in his hold, he squinted through the howling winds and the icicles in the air. Then he caught sight of familiar blonde hair and widened his eyes. That was the same hair that Nina had tailored just days before from red to platinum blonde.
"Brynn's up there!" he shouted at Jesper, who was trying to aim at their attacker. "Don't shoot!"
As he watched, Brynn twisted in the air, landing a rightful blow at the Squaller's chest. The Squaller was thrown backward, but righted himself quickly and grabbed hold of Brynn's falling figure again.
Stop moving! Kaz tried to tell her with his mind.
She clearly didn't get the message. Brynn continued to fight against her captor until she finally pushed him far enough away for Jesper to take the shot. The winds around them calmed as the Squaller hurled towards the ground. But he wasn't who Kaz was focused on.
Brynn plummeted to the icy ground beneath her, her body twisting and turning as she tried to find a way to slow or even stop her fall. But she was too slow. Kaz heard the sound of her thumping to the snow from where he was being trapped by the second Grisha in the distance. He had to get to her. But first, he needed to get rid of this cage and he needed to get rid of that Grisha.
Inej signaled to Kaz. He positioned himself against the nearest slab and cupped his hands at his knee, ignoring the throbbing in his leg. He held as steady as he could against the trembling ground while Inej launched herself from his hands. She vanished over the slab. A moment later, the ground went still.
"Trust the Wraith," said Jesper.
Kaz waited not-so-patiently as Wylan set up an explosive against one of the slabs of ice furthest away from them. He rushed out as soon as the explosive went off, showering bits of ice and rock on their heads. He gestured briefly to Jesper.
"Perimeter," Kaz told him. "Let's make sure there aren't more surprises." Then he set off in the direction where Brynn had fallen.
He found her quickly, in the middle of a circle of melted snow. Her eyes were closed, her limbs splayed out messily. Inej joined him quickly, rushing over to check her pulse. She nodded at Kaz.
"Her pulse is weak, but she's alive," she informed him. "She's got a lot of rib fractures, some of them might even be broken. I think her leg's broken, and she'd bleeding somewhere from her head. Where's Nina?"
The girl rushed in. "I'm here! I'm here! Move, let me work." Nina started with Brynn's head first, carefully making sure the bleeding was stopped before moving on to her leg and ribs.
"Hurry up," Kaz told her.
"Again, I'm not a Healer, I'm a Heartrender. Brynn could probably do this without blinking," she muttered.
His jaw ticked. "We need to keep moving, so hurry up."
Nina rolled her eyes. "I'm going as fast as I can."
"Go faster."
"I have to stitch her broken organs back together, one by one, piece by piece, without so much as a piece of thread," she burst. "And then I have to put her skin back together. Do you know how hard that is, Kaz? And I'm not even a Healer! So, if you don't mind, if you don't have any encouragement to add to my work, please take your brooding self elsewhere."
Kaz huffed, but turned around and limped away. He'd already seen her close to death twice since taking this job. That was the most he'd ever seen her close to death in all the time he'd known her. Maybe bringing her alone wasn't such a great idea.
"She's going to be alright," Inej's voice came from behind him. "Nina might not be as good a Healer as Brynn, but she'll live. And then she'll heal herself the rest of the way when she wakes up."
"I know she'll be alright," he told her. But he couldn't get the sight of her pale face out of his mind, just minutes from death for the second time. Because of me.
a/n— Double update! Also, what do you guys think of Kaz's POVs? There are going to be progressively more as the story continues, and then even more for the sequel. Let me know!