The drüskelle opened fire on her. He saw her flinch as the bullets struck her body, saw red blooms of blood appear on her chest, her breasts, her bare thighs. But she did not fall. As fast as the bullets tore through her body, she healed herself, and the shells fell harmlessly to the dock.
The drüskelle gaped at Nina. She laughed. “You’ve grown too used to captive Grisha. We’re quite tame in our cages.”
“There are other means,” said Brum, pulling a long whip like the one Lars had used from his belt.
“Your power cannot touch us, witch, and our cause is true.”
“I can’t touch you,” said Nina, raising her hands. “But I can reach them just fine.”
Behind the drüskelle, the Fjerdan soldiers Nina had put to sleep rose, their faces blank. One tore the whip from Brum’s hand, the others snatched the hoods and masks from the startled drüskelle’s faces, rendering them vulnerable.
Nina flexed her fingers, and the drüskelle dropped their rifles, hands going to their heads, screaming in pain.
“For my country,” she said. “For my people. For every child you put to the pyre. Reap what you’ve sown, Jarl Brum.”
Matthias watched the drüskelle twitch and convulse, blood trickling from their ears and eyes as the other Fjerdan soldiers looked on impassively. Their screams were a chorus. Claas, who had drunk too much with him in Avfalle. Giert, who’d trained his wolf to eat from his hand. They were monsters, he knew it, but boys as well, boys like him – taught to hate, to fear.
“Nina,” he said, hand still pressed over the smooth skin on his chest where a bullet wound should be. “Nina, please.”
“You know they would not offer you mercy, Matthias.”
“I know. I know. But let them live in shame instead.”
She hesitated.
“Nina, you taught me to be something better. They could be taught, too.”
Nina shifted her gaze to his. Her eyes were ferocious, the deep green of forests; the pupils, dark wells. The air around her seemed to shimmer with power, as if she was alight with some secret flame.
“They fear you as I once feared you,” he said. “As you once feared me. We are all someone’s monster, Nina.”
For a long moment, she studied his face. At last, she dropped her arms, and the ranks of drüskelle crumpled to the ground, whimpering. Her hand shot out once more, and Brum shrieked. He clapped his hands to his head, blood trickling between his fingers.
“He’ll live?” Matthias asked.
“Yes,” she said as she stepped onto the schooner. “He’ll just be very bald.”
Specht shouted commands, and the Ferolind drifted into the harbour, picking up speed as the sails swelled with wind. No one ran to the docks to stop them. No ships or cannon fired. There was no one to give warning, no one to signal to the gunnery above. The Elderclock chimed on unheeded as the schooner vanished into the vast black shelter of the sea, leaving only suffering in her wake.
They’d been blessed with a strong wind. Inej felt it ripple through her hair and couldn’t help but think of the storm to come.
As soon as they were on deck, Matthias had turned to Kuwei.
“How long does she have?”
Kuwei had some Kerch, but Nina had to translate in places. She did it distractedly, her glittering eyes roving over everyone and everything.
“The high will last one hour, maybe two. It depends how long it takes her body to process a dose of that size.”
“Why can’t you just purge it from your body like the bullets?” Matthias asked Nina desperately.
“It doesn’t work,” said Kuwei. “Even if she could overcome the craving for long enough to start purging it from her body, she’ll lose the ability to pull the parem from her system before it’s all gone.
You’d need another Corporalnik using parem to accomplish it.”
“What will it do to her?” asked Wylan.
“You’ve seen for yourself,” Matthias replied bitterly. “We know what’s going to happen.”
Kaz crossed his arms, “How will it start?”
“Body aches, chills, no worse than a mild illness,” Kuwei explained. “Then a kind of hypersensitivity, followed by tremors, and the craving.”
“Do you have more of the parem?” Matthias asked.
“Yes.”
“Enough to get her back to Ketterdam?”
“I won’t take more,” Nina protested.
“I have enough to keep you comfortable,” Kuwei said. “But if you take a second dose, there is no hope at all.” He looked to Matthias. “This is her one chance. It’s possible her body will purge enough of it naturally that addiction won’t set in.”
“And if it does?”
Kuwei held out his hands, part shrug, part apology. “Without a ready supply of the drug, she’ll go mad. With it, her body will simply wear itself out. Do you know the word parem? It’s the name my father gave to the drug. It means ‘without pity’.”
When Nina finished translating, there was a long pause.
“I don’t want to hear any more,” she said. “None of it will change what’s coming.”
She drifted away towards the prow. Matthias watched her go.