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Nina had been taught in the Little Palace of power that mere fabric could imbue upon the wearer: had seen it firsthand when she’d been gifted her first real Heartrender kefta at fifteen. There was a sense of belonging as she shrugged on the crimson fabric, bear-fur lining soft against her skin, a mark of her people. She knew clothes could work like talismans, like superstition, that they could lay claim to your soul just as easily as blind faith. That they could make you feel like a soldier, like a home, that they could make you feel whole.
And now she could see it in Matthias’s heated gaze. The way his eyes grew dark, predatory, tracing the seam of her ugly, Fjerdan-made knit vest. The embroidered blue flowers that touched the curve of her breasts, the full skirt that clung to her hips. Could see it in the way he watched as she’d braided her hair like a peasant girl, pinning in loose strands as she dressed for a part in an elaborate play to debut in the streets of Little Ravka.
Had seen it all afternoon as he trailed helplessly after her, stumbling on his feet in her wake, his heart clenched in his teeth.
The thing about Matthias was that he was constantly watching with those honed hunter-eyes; the Fjerdan had an endless supply of steely expressions, and Nina was only just beginning to piece them apart. And he’d looked at her before with brazen, interminable lust, whether he knew it or not—in those cold seaside cabins, the fire low in the hearth, embers glowing hot, just the two of them so close. His flushed cheeks at being caught staring at her cleavage or a glimpse of leg had been nothing new, not unexpected from her ever-pious, soldier-monk companion.
Before it had felt controllable. Nina had the upper-hand; endless bickering, a petty dance as she teased him until he snapped, feeling his heart flutter when she gave him the barest excuse for bedroom eyes. The utter absurdity of their situation after the shipwreck had convinced her that it had not been real. Blasted right off the gameboard into uncharted territory—and thus no conceivable consequences for antagonization disguised as flirtation with a druskelle. Zoya and Brum and Honor and Duty had been miles away, and Matthias’ eyes so bright.
It had been easy to rile him in those moments, that strange journey they made up the coast; the witch and the witch-hunter slogging through the brutal white of snow and ice. The knowledge that they would either make it together or not at all was the only reason they had survived without turning that pure canvas of snow slick with blood.
But now—in this room, wearing his people’s clothes— Matthias’ stare is a tangible, burning thing, and it spears straight through her, better than any Grisha magic she’s ever known.
They are supposed to be changing into proper clothing. She is supposed to be preparing for the infiltration of the sugar silo. But instead, when the door shuts, they are left with only the tension built from days and months and years of dropped gazes, parted lips and a myriad of sinful daydreams.
Fifteen minutes, she thinks, maybe twenty before someone knocks.
Smoothing a hand up the vest, Nina catches the small tie that lay at the centre of her breasts and twists it between her fingers until his eyes flicker down towards the movement, caught in a snare. The resulting flash of smugness in her belly is familiar, almost comforting—Nina wears it well, her smile turning calculating. “I’d make a pretty good Fjerdan bride, don’t you think?”
The Heartrender waits for his inevitable blush; for his exasperated sigh, a stomp of his foot. If she’s lucky, he’ll cross his arms across his chest, a muscle ticking in his jaw. He looked even bigger when he puffed up with righteous anger, a distraught little bird confused by his own instinct.
Hiding out in the catacombs had been Kaz’s idea, she was pretty sure. She’d kill him later—the dusty room that had been designated for them to change out of the Fjerdan costumes was the size of a shoebox. Moments ago it had surely been big enough for Nina and Matthias and all their looming, pent up frustration.
Clearly that was no longer the case.
Not when he was looking at her like—
“No, Nina,” he rumbles, merely watching her with an intensity reserved for…she didn’t want to think about what. For fucking and hunting, she supposed. Matthias takes another step closer—Nina had always been tall, but with him it’s an effort not to make the tilt of her head too obvious as he comes within reach. “You’d make a terrible Fjerdan bride.”
“Right,” she waved a hand. “The traditional courting nonsense. I think we have shared three meals with family, if the Crows count.”
Matthias stays silent instead of offering a quip, which almost encourages her propensity to babble. “You took me on a walk earlier—though we weren’t chaperoned.” She lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you think anyone will question my virtue? Left unsupervised with a boy, imagine the talk—“
He gives her a dubious look. “Now you’re concerned with virtue, Nina Zenik?”
She mock-gasps. “What are you implying, Matthias?”
She aims to slap his arm lightly, but her fingers have their own plans: they fall limp at his generous bicep, curling into the corded jacket he’s still wearing. The muscle beneath tenses at her touch, and Nina’s mouth goes dry.
Her instructors at the little palace had occasionally shared a sentiment among lessons—one that had shadowed their expressions, like they did not want to admit the truth of it. Wanting makes us weak, an older Heartrender had reminded her when she’d been found sniffling in an empty hallway over an unrequited crush. Wanting had brought Ravka to it’s knees: even Nina, young as she was when the Civil War happened, had memories of a man in inky-black kefta with ancient eyes. Depending on who told the story, he’d ravaged an entire empire for wanting .
Relationships between Grisha were not discouraged, of course. Quite the opposite: it was inevitable that teenagers kept in close quarters would eventually find themselves...distracted. Needing an outlet. But nothing came before Ravka, before her position as a cherished soldier for the glory of King Nikolai. Nothing came between Nina and her powers. Except—
Matthias takes another step forward; Nina’s back scrapes rough stone as it hits the wall. Since the parem she’d been unable to sense his moods the way she used to—by feeling his pulse jump, his blood quicken.
Now, with him crowding her in, she doesn’t need to be Grisha to know how hot he burns.
“If you were my bride,” he says slowly, accent thick like the words are costing him. “I’d make love to you for the first time in our home , not a cemetery. I would’ve built you a house in a field you chose, and brought you piles of furs, and I would’ve fed you as many blackberry cakes as you wanted before I stripped you naked by the fire on our wedding night.”
The sincerity of it is startling, the words soaking into the tomb. Nina is afraid he might raise the dead with the brazen, crystal-clear surety of his tone laid bare between them.
“Well,” she breathes after a moment, voice embarrassingly ragged. “Unfortunate that I am neither Fjerdan, nor a bride.”
“No, Nina,” he shakes his head, raising a finger to brush against her jaw, to slide behind her ear, cup the back of her neck. She can feel the warrior-born callouses on the pads of his fingers as he strokes up into her hair. “It is fortunate that the only thing I want is you .”
It is a confession and a peace offering about things she is already sure of but they are not ready for. She will not pretend to be unaware of the question lurking behind his words; of what he is suggesting they do here, now, in the last few moments they’d have before a battle in the streets of Ketterdam.
We could die tomorrow, her traitorous heart sings, we could die tonight, and you’d never know his touch, your bodies side-by-side on the corpse barge by sunrise. Or worse: he could die and you’d live the long life you were destined for, the long life of a Grisha soldier, and carry the ceaseless weight of his love with each step, grief your companion, your confidante.
His other hand brushes her hip and squeezes. “Please, Nina,” Matthias begs, lips parted as he sways towards her. Her name sounds impossibly tender on his lips, like a prayer higher than Djel . “I would give anything to take you away from here right now, if I could. I’ll give you all that and more until my bones give out—but I need—“
It’s Nina who finds pity and closes the space between them, leaning up on her toes and jerking his head down so she can kiss him like they’re going to live forever. Like she can stay here, leaning against him, time stalling the inevitable just for the two of them. Like love was not a sentencing she would be unable to bear.
When he whimpers into her mouth, hands rough and untempered as he paws at her curves, Nina cannot imagine ruining her heart so exquisitely for anything less.
He follows her lead when she coaxes his mouth open—nothing like the stolen kisses they’ve shared when the crows look the other way. This is heat and desperation boiling over, spilling into her veins until all she can hear is his urgent panting, the wounded noise he makes when she pulls away to scrape her teeth at his neck.
“Matthias,” she buries her hands in the faded-blonde silk of his hair. “In another life, promise? You find me and marry me without all this mess.”
Nina wishes she was stronger—wishes that she wouldn’t want to change a thing, or regret her mistakes, but she doesn’t have time or the wisdom to make peace with it.
“After,” her steadfast monk lies easily, brute fingers yanking at the hem of her shirt, pulling it down to bare a shoulder to kiss. “After this, we’ll do it all. The cabin, the ring. Whatever you want, little bird.”
“The druskelle who married the witch,” she giggles, letting him bend her back until her long hair tumbles free of it’s pins, peasant braid unraveling as color crawls up her cheeks. “I don’t think you’re going to do well in your performance review, Helvar.”
“Not a druskelle anymore ,” he growls into her collarbone with conviction, lifting her up to sit on the stone ledge built off the far wall. Her stomach flips pleasantly at how easily she goes, how effortless he makes it seem.
“Yes, that much is obvious,” she teases, worming a hand between them, palming his trousers.
Matthias wheezes into the junction of her neck, brows pinched, breath hot. He shudders when her fingers stroke lazily against the solid length hidden away beneath roughspun wool. This power over men is not something she’s unfamiliar with, but Matthias makes it feel shiny and new as he twitches in her grasp.
“What do you want, liubimiy?” Nina turns to press her lips against his forehead.
He groans something that sounds deliciously filthy in Fjerdan—Nina’s education hadn’t exactly prioritized words that would make you blush. She memorizes the syllables, determined to ask him later. “Tell me, Matthias.”
“Inside you,” he chokes out, his hold on her deepening. Heart hammering between her ribs, Nina is helpless to grin. She strokes him more firmly through his trousers as a reward, free hand clenched in his hair. When she lifts his head, his eyes are glazed over with a near-primal expression, throat bobbing along to the tune of his pulse. “Please,” is all he asks, hoarse and grating.
She should make him wait. Put him on his knees—no doubt he’d be a quick study with his tongue between her thighs, legs splayed on broad shoulders. But Nina is tired. She aches. And Matthias is looking at her like she is the sun and he is the moon, like he’d bottle every star in the sky if it meant she’d let him up her skirt. Like they will have eternity to figure this part out.
Maybe they will.
Nina removes the ugly vest and pulls down the hem of her shirt, watching him carefully as it drapes to her waist. The power that thrums in her body from the fight earlier has suffused her skin with a radiant, creamy glow—Matthias makes a pained noise, immediately dipping his head between her breasts.
“Don’t,” she giggles as he plants kisses onto the soft parts of her. “Don’t smother yourself, you oaf—“
The only answer he gives is an annoyed grumble, snatching her wrists up in one paw and stroking his nose along her pebbled skin, lips parting to capture a nipple and do something with his tongue that has her head rolling back with a loud, embarrassing thunk.
“I’ll do what I want,” he mutters with a dark sort of authority that curls her toes. “And I want to make you feel good, sweet girl. Will you let me?” He gives her breast a generous squeeze, thumb rolling over where his mouth had been, smearing his spit across her skin.
“Yes,” she hisses, thighs tightening around his waist. “But I want you to fuck me, Matthias. Now. No more waiting.”
He curses again, letting her slide off the ledge and turn around so her back is to his front, both of them gathering up the ridiculous volume of skirts; Nina makes to unbutton the clasp, but Matthias grabs her hand, aborting the movement. His mouth opens and no words come out to explain, a slow blush merely arcing up his cheekbones.
“You want me to keep it on,” she breathes with another giggle, watching him stutter over her shoulder. “Because it’s Fjerdan. Matthias. You are shameless.”
“When I said you looked nice,” he mumbles shyly, “I meant it.”
“Gonna tell everyone your weakness is ugly peasant skirts—“
Nina muffles a yelp as she’s promptly bent at the waist over the ledge, a hand splayed between her shoulder blades to keep her pinned to the cold stone no matter how she squirms. Matthias is immovable, pressing his hips into hers, bending to whisper in her ear. “No, little bird. My weakness is just you,” he plants a soft kiss in her hair. “Can you be quiet while I make love to you?”
“ Make love,” she teases—mostly because whatever has Matthias nudging her legs apart as he likes, that has him using firm strength to hold her down, feels better than a hundred doses of parem.
There’s a snort behind her as he pins up her skirt at her waist, cool air on her backside eliciting a hiss. “You, filthy thing, would prefer to call it fucking, I assume.”
“Saints,” she gasps as his voice reverberates near her core, “Say that again.”
Ignoring her, his hand slides up her thigh, until it meets the downy hair of her cunt, eliciting a shiver as he slides a finger through the slickness already gathered there. An unpracticed hand glides across her clit with reverence. “Nina, are you always so—“
He fumbles for the word as she bites her lip, shaking her head. “Wet,” she supplies helpfully with a flush. “No. Just for you, Matthias.”
He hums, pausing to part her open. “Here, yes?”
“ Yes ,” she squeaks, spine stiffening as he pets curiously around her entrance, at first too soft and then too hard; Nina nodding urgently as he finds a rhythm that agrees with her.
“You’re very pink here, my love. Pink and soft. It’s very beautiful.”
“Matthias,” she croaks. She’s going to ruin her nails, scrabbling at grit of stone. “Please.”
“ Shh ,” he presses inside with one thick finger. “Quiet as a church mouse, remember? Nod your head for me, little witch.”
For once, Nina does as she’s told; Matthias is so pleased he rewards her with another finger after a few strokes, watching as they glide inside, glistening with her own essence. He leans down, tempted to see what she tastes like—
“Matthias,” she hiccups, like the parem had given her the ability to read his mind. “We don’t have the time.”
“Even now, so impatient,” his trousers are undone in the next moment, hand grasping the head of his cock, squeezing to take the edge off. Nina is wet and warm and slick, but he makes a doubtful noise as he begins to press inside—
And she can feel why, because the ensuing tight pressure has her head jerking up, a soft moan caught between her teeth. I don’t know what I expected, she thought, aggravated as her body began to adjust. He’s built like a fridge. Why would this be any exception?
“Nina,” he bends closer, the hand not braced on her back finding her own, threading their fingers together. “Let me in, sweet girl”.
He sounds wrecked, falling over her like a warm, heavy blanket, his forehead laid on the base of her neck. She whimpers when he slides deeper, her thighs trembling. Can't remember the last time she was this scared—because she knows, instinctively that when he moves— it will ruin her.
“Nina,” he repeats when they’re joined to the root, tone gentle. “Would you like me to fuck you, my love?”
There are sparks behind her eyelids, stardust in her fingertips. There is a song in her heart that sounds like a beginning and an end. “Yes. Please. Now.”
“You know, this is the most I’ve ever heard you say ‘please’ since we met,” he thrusts with a lazy movement; Nina isn’t sure what to make of this: how easily Matthias shapeshifts between petal-soft and soldier steel, only for her, her Fjerdan with secrets. “You feel like heaven,” he continues, accent slurred, another kiss to the notch of her spine. “ Djel, Nina, I’m never letting you go, do you know that?”
“S-say it again,” she slides a hand beneath her to catch her clit, determined to make herself come on his cock, to show him what heaven really was. Wants to give him everything she can, even her own pleasure. Because she knows how sacred she is to him.
“Never letting you go,” he snarls, quickening the pace, snapping his hips against hers until she’s shoved tight against the wall. “You’re mine. I’m yours, Nina , my little bird. Going to do this forever—“
It shimmers in her mind: forever with Matthias, this one moment with him becoming all she needs to see it stretching out before her. A tiny pebble dropped in a lake, ripples spreading all the way to shore. The cabin, the rings, just like he said. Pretty flowers in summer, warm food in winter, a distilled lifetime of happiness in their bed at night. Fat babies with blonde curls, a giggling toddler high on his shoulders, blue, blue sky.
There’s even some charm to the ugly Fjerdan sweater.
“Matthias,” she gasps, as he tugs at the mess of her hair. “I’m-I’m going to—“
His broad hand clasps over her mouth, stifling a throaty moan: Nina sobs into his palm, frantic breaths in and out through her nose. Her toes barely touch the ground as he works himself into her body with fervor.
“The others will hear you,” he kisses the back of her head, rocking relentlessly inside, panting at her ear. “Be good for me, Nina. I know you can. Just a little longer, yes? I’ll be quick. We don’t have much time. But we can have this, I promise.” His voice is a deep-rooted, endless oak, calling her higher and higher, calling her home. “And I want to feel it when you come, my love. Will you give me that?”
Nina makes a high pitched sound, arching her back as her practiced fingers carry her over: because he promises, and she believes him, and that is all she needs. She clenches so hard on her orgasm her body nearly pushes him out; the strangled noise he makes entirely too satisfying as he finishes inside her, twitching and jerking and grunting like a bear, biting into her shoulder and mumbling sweet names for her that sound like love, but in other words.
She’ll be bruised tomorrow: her wrists imprinted by the shape of his fingertips, full curves decorated with bruises from stone masquerading as a marriage bed. With each step, there will be a soreness between her hips, and it will be worth it.
When they are cleaned up, after Matthias plants a kiss on her forehead and helps her pull on her coat to ward off the chill of Ketterdam, Nina does not bother to look back. She doesn’t need to.
She will look at her reflection instead and know what they did here, in the dark, together. The marks will fade, but only on her skin.
After:
There is a fairytale. The witch-hunter who fell in love with the witch. In that one, everyone lives.
(Nina Zenik still raises the dead, each night in her dreams.)