Warning! This chapter will contain sexual assault! It will not be rape but forced groping and general perverted behaviour by exploiting someone in a vulnerable position. Do not read if triggered!
In the prison wagon, Kaz woke to a sharp jab against his thigh. He was ice cold and in darkness. There were bodies all around him, pressing against his back, his sides. He was drowning in corpses.
"Kaz." A whisper.
He shuddered.
Another jab to his thigh.
"Kaz." His dove's voice. He managed a deep breath through his nose. He felt her try to grab his hand but she was unable to because of the chains.
"Keep talking," he rasped.
"What?"
"Just keep talking."
"We're passing through the prison gate. We made it past the first two checkpoints. I was worried about you."
That brought him fully to his senses. They'd gone through two checkpoints. That meant they'd been counted. Someone had opened that door – not once but twice – maybe even laid hands on him, and he hadn't woken. He could have been robbed, killed. He'd imagined his death a thousand ways, but never sleeping through it.
He forced himself to breathe deeply, despite the smell of bodies. He'd kept his gloves on, something the guards might have easily taken note of, and a frustrating concession to his weakness, but if he hadn't, he felt fairly sure he'd have gone completely mad.
Behind him, he could hear the other prisoners murmuring to one another in different languages.
Despite the fears the darkness woke in him, he gave thanks for it. He could only hope that the rest of his crew, hooded and burdened by their own anxiety, hadn't noticed anything strange about his behaviour. He'd been sluggish, slow to react when they'd ambushed the wagon, but that was all, and he could make up some excuse to account for it.
He hated that Adelaine had seen him this way, that anyone had, but on the heels of that thought came another: Better it should be her. She had seen him like this a hundred times before, helped him get past the same feeling when it came to her touch, and he knew that she would never speak of it to anyone. She would never use this knowledge against him, never betray him. Though he'd trusted her with his life countless times, it felt much more frightening to trust her with this shame.
He just hated that she saw him this weak, he was supposed to be strong for her, take care of her. But at the same time, he knew what she would say to that: We take care of each other.
The wagon came to a halt. The bolt slid back, and the doors flew open.
He heard Fjerdan being spoken, then scraping noises and a thunk. His collar was unlocked, and he was led from the wagon down some kind of ramp with the other prisoners. He heard what sounded like a gate creaking open, and they were herded forward, shuffling along in their shackles.
He squinted as his hood was suddenly yanked free. They were standing in a large courtyard. The massive gate set into the ringwall was already being lowered closed, and it struck the stones with an ominous series of clanks and groans. When Kaz looked up, he saw guards stationed all along the roof of the courtyard, rifles aimed down at the prisoners. The guards below were moving along the rows of shackled captives, trying to match them to the driver 's paperwork by name or description.
Matthias had described the layout of the Ice Court in detail, but he'd said little about the way it actually looked. Kaz had expected something old and damp – grim grey stone, battle-hard. Instead, he was surrounded by marble so white it almost glowed blue. He felt as if he'd wandered into some dream-like version of the harsh lands they'd travelled in the north. It was impossible to tell what might be glass or ice or stone.
Adelaine was a few feet away from him, arms being held roughly by a guard. It made Kaz's jaw clench and that familiar murderous feeling grew in his stomach.
"If this isn't Fabrikator craft, then I'm the queen of the woodsprites," muttered Nina in Kerch.
"Tig! " one of the guards commanded. He slammed his rifle into her gut, and she doubled over in pain. Matthias kept his head turned, but Kaz didn't miss the tension in his frame.
The guard holding Adelaine said something in fjerdan that Kaz couldn't understand but it made the other guards snicker. It clearly wasn't anything good as he could see both Nina and Matthias tense up.
"Pretty one," the guard said in rough kerch, finger stroking over her left cheek. Adelaine flinched back but she could not get very far with the chains and the strong hold the guard had on her.
Kaz could see the panic in her eyes, but what he feared the most was that he could see the beginning of an episode. This was not the time nor place for that.
The guard let his hand slide down from her cheek, down her throat before cupping her breast. Inej and Nina let out a gasp and Matthias, Jesper, and Wylan clenched their fists. Nothing could compare to the absolute thunder that passed Kaz's face. His eyes darkened with murder and his lips pulled into a snarl.
To most people, it would appear that Adelaine had no reaction to the assault but Kaz could see how her eyes glossed over as she fell into a catatonic state. It saved her from what was going on around her but haunted her with the traumas of her past.
The other guards laughed crudely at his actions, some making comments in the language that only Nina and Matthias understood. However, one angry voice cut through the laughing comments and the guard immediately stopped his assault, back straightening.
"He said that they do not have time for this," Nina whispered the translation to Kaz. The boy they called dirtyhands gave her a look as he noticed that there was something she was not telling him. "He says that it will have to wait for later."
The guilt was tearing him apart, chewing him up from the inside, burning a fire unlike anything he had ever felt before. Kaz was the reason that she was in this position, that she had to go through something like this again. All because he wanted more gold.
The Fjerdan guards were gesturing over their papers, trying to make the numbers and identities of the prisoners match up to the group before them. This was the first real moment of exposure, one Kaz would have no control over. It would have been too time-consuming and dangerous to pick and choose the prisoners they'd replaced. It was a calculated risk, but now Kaz could only wait and hope that laziness and bureaucracy would do the rest.
"I don't think we have to worry about Pekka Rollins' team any more," Nina whispered.
Kaz tracked Nina's gaze to the top of the ringwall, high above the courtyard, where five men had been impaled on spikes like meat skewered for roasting, backs bent, limbs dangling. Kaz had to squint, but he recognised Eroll Aerts, Rollins' best lockpick and safecracker. The bruises and welts from the beating they'd given him before his death were deep purple in the morning light, and Kaz could just make out a black mark on his arm – Aerts' Dime Lion tattoo.
He scanned the other faces – some were too swollen and distorted in death to identify. Could one of them be Rollins? Kaz knew he should be glad another team had been taken out, but Rollins was no fool, and the thought that his crew hadn't made it past the Ice Court gates was more than a little nerve-racking. Besides, if Rollins had met his death at the end of a Fjerdan pike ... No, Kaz refused that possibility. Pekka Rollins belonged to him. For Jordie, for her.
The guards were arguing with the wagon driver now, and one of them was pointing at Inej.
"What's happening?" he whispered to Nina.
"They're claiming the papers are out of order, that they have a Suli girl instead of a Shu boy."
"And the driver?" asked Inej.
"He just keeps telling them it's not his problem."
"That's the way," Kaz murmured encouragingly.
Kaz watched them go back and forth. That was the beauty of all these failsafes and layers of security. The guards always thought they could rely on someone else to catch a mistake or fix a problem. Laziness wasn't as reliable as greed, but it still made a fine lever. And they were talking about prisoners – chained, surrounded on all sides, and about to be dumped into cells. Harmless.
Finally, one of the prison guards sighed and signalled to his cohorts. "Diveskemen."
"Go on," Nina translated, and then continued as the guard spoke. "Take them to the east block and let the next shift sort them out."
Kaz allowed himself the briefest sigh of relief.
As anticipated, guards split the group into men and women, then led both rows, chains jangling, through a nearly round archway fashioned in the shape of a wolf's open mouth.
They entered a chamber where an old woman sat with her hands chained, flanked by guards. Her eyes were vacant. As each prisoner approached, the woman gripped his or her wrist.
A human amplifier. Kaz knew Nina had worked with them when she'd been scouring the Wandering Isle for Grisha to join the Second Army. They could sense Grisha power by touch, and he'd seen them hired on at high stakes card games to make sure none of the players were Grisha. Someone who could tamper with another player 's pulse or even raise the temperature in a room had an unfair advantage. But the Fjerdans used them for a different purpose – to make sure no Grisha breached their walls without being identified.
Kaz watched Nina approach. He could see her trembling as she held out her arm. The woman clamped her fingers around Nina's wrist. Her eyelids stuttered briefly. Then she dropped Nina's hand and waved her along. Had she known and not cared? Or had the paraffin they'd used to encase Nina's forearms worked? He had done the same to Adelaine and Jesper, the latter was unaware though.
Kaz watched as a guard pushed Adelaine forward but because of the state that she was in the girl only fell forward, face landing into the cold snow. The guards laughed at her and kicked her lightly in the ribs, but there was no reaction. The only thing that kept Kaz from lashing out was imaging gutting them all, decorating their beloved city with their intestines.
Eventually, the guards gave up on trying to get her to move and instead, one picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. She didn't even react when his hand roughly slapped against her ass.
As they were led through an arch on the left, Kaz glimpsed Adelaine disappearing into the opposite arch with the other female prisoners. He felt a twinge in his chest, and with a disturbing jolt, he realised it was panic. She'd been the one to wake him from his stupor in the cart. Her voice had brought him back from the dark; it had been the tether he gripped and used to drag himself back to some semblance of sanity. She was his saving grace, his dove, his love.
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Inej watched Adelaine, the girl being dragged in front of her as her feet wouldn't move by themselves. Nina had informed her that this had happened before, after the attack at the beginning of the mission Adelaine had entered a similar state, although not as paralyzing as this. The girl had only snapped out of it after Inej had awoken from her short-lived coma. The heartrender had informed her about the state that Kaz had been in during that time. Easily irritable, worried, restless, even more homicidal than usual. He had insisted that Nina watch over her and when he was not busy with scheming he would sit next to her, stroking her hair and whispering things that Nina was unable to hear. Inej couldn't imagine the panic that he was feeling now that he was forced to be separated from her while she was like this, unknowing of what the guards would do to her. If she knew Kaz correctly, which Inej sometimes doubted that she did, it would not be long before he and Adelaine were reunited once more.
Eventually, after having walked through dark walkways with rows of artillery and what Inej could only assume were torture tools, they came upon several cells. Above it all hung a banner in silver and white: STRYMAKT FJERDAN.
"Fjerdan might," Nina muttered the translation to Inej.
Looking through the enclosure Inej spotted a second walkway, where the male prisoners were being marched. Her eyes found their target and quickly she gave Kaz a reassuring nod when she saw the worry in his eyes. It was peculiar to see that emotion in the shark eyes of the boy called Dirtyhands, but no matter what Inej would protect the girl. She owed her her life.
Nina had told her about what had happened that night, the grisha had apparently overheard Kaz and Adelaine arguing over it. Adelaine had risked her own life to ensure that Kaz saved her. For that, Inej would forever be grateful.
They were led into another white room, this one equipped with tin tubs and hoses.
The guard gabbled something in Fjerdan, and Inej saw Nina and some of the others start to strip down. Nausea threatened to take over her but she swallowed it down and started to follow the other's actions.
Inej had almost finished stripping down when a commotion interrupted her robotic motions. Nina was arguing with one of the guards, Fjerdan words spilling angrily from her mouth. For a second Inej was confused but then she saw what Nina was motioning to. The Fjerdan was in the process of stripping Adelaine down, hands wandering greedily in the process.
The Fjerdan gave Nina a hard shove, causing the Grisha to take a step back to find her footing, but it did not stop her words of fury. Harshly she grabbed a hold of Adelaine's skinny arm and pulled her toward her, the blonde girl falling almost lifelessly into her arms. The guard scowled but just a few words spoken from the same guard who had scolded him at his previous groping session caused him to straighten his back and shut his mouth.
Afterwards, the guards dumped their clothes in a bin and roughly searched their mouths. Then they were forced into an ice-cold shower and later handed the standard prisoner uniform. Throughout it all Adelaine remained dissociated from the world around her.