note: spoilers for crooked kingdom!
do you ever think about what happened after matthias died? crooked kingdom might end on what is, essentially, a hopeful note, but i don’t think these kids recover that cleanly or that easily. kaz brekker and his court nurse their grudges. they don’t forgive and forget. matthias helvar haunts them for the rest of their lives.
they don’t wage a war. they don’t hunt the young fjerdan drüskelle and cut out his heart. but nina, on her voyages in ravka, looks into the eyes of the fjerdan boys she wants to spare—the same as matthias’, but with none of the warmth—and remembers what his blood looked like on her hands. imagines that the blood of these boys would look the same against the snow. listens to the strange new power churning murkily at her fingertips and thinks, it would be so easy. in the darkest parts of the night she wraps herself in furs and imagines he breathes next to her. smiles through her tears and vows revenge not in the form of flesh and bone but in forgiveness —it’s painful, but she tries for him. there has been enough.
wherever she is, she pretends the lights are for him.
inej remembers the boy who had been taught hate and remembers the kindness he learnt instead. the boy who treated her with respect from the beginning, who found she was a storm and admired her for it. inej thinks of his strength; his unwavering presence and calm in the face of peril. remembers him whenever the ocean breeze brings the scent of snow and ice to her, and when she nestles in the roots of the tree in the garden of the van eck mansion, wondering if he found his god. sees cherry blossoms and thinks of him.
when the sun rises, and she is the only one on deck, she whispers a prayer. keep him safe.
the sight of matthias’ corpse is burned into jesper’s memory, awkward and ungainly, lying too still in the barge. he holds wylan a little tighter at night. brushes hair away from inej’s face, tucks his arm against nina’s shoulders, teases kaz. tells his father he loves him with more seriousness than the situation probably deserves. is left feeling hollow and slightly off-balance. jesper thinks of the conversation that seems an age away. ‘my ghost won’t associate with your ghost,’ matthias whispers. first he laughs, but this time, he’s not surprised by the fierce, sudden ache of tears. jesper doesn’t sleep that night. finds solace in a gambling den.
later, he pushes away the cards and storms out. let’s the rain fall on his face. strangely, it tastes like salt.
wylan finds his hands tremble at strange times. he sees a flash of blond hair and a long stride and whips around, blindly hoping that he defied everything just one more time—but every time it’s a member of the stadwatch, or the appleseller’s son. he knows how many times matthias saved his life, saved jesper’s. saved everyone. he holds it in to the point of breaking, before it rushes out in a flood—i wish i knew him better, he didn’t deserve to die, we were all supposed to make it jes, we were all supposed to make it—
of everyone, wylan thinks matthias deserved to be happy a little longer.
and kaz sits alone in his old office at the slat when everyone else is asleep or face-first in their cups. pours himself some whiskey and lets it burn down his throat. drinks a silent toast. an apology. because it’s his fault, isn’t it? they had believed they had won. he had believed. more fool you, he thinks bitterly. watches the birds veer and turn in the sky. knocks ink bottles over another forgery and finds himself standing amidst the wreckage of a broken room. thinks he should have fought a little harder. thinks he shouldn’t have let go so fast.
no one dares to comment he looks too tired for someone so young.
far away, on the shores on fjerda, the snow begins to fall heavier and thicker. the wind picks up.
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