A WET RIPPING sound tore through the air. Hot droplets of blood fell on Freya's body by the thousands, coating her in red and gore. The drüskelle died in an instant, body dropping to the ground in a nauseating mangle. Freya couldn't tear her eyes away from the corpse, her hands shaking. So this was what she could do. She'd known she was powerful, that she could be dangerous. She just never expected it to be this loud. This vivid.

A long silence spanned through the storage house as everyone paused for a long while. The other two drüskelle glared at her with fear and disgust. She suspected that if she turned around, the prisoners would be terrified. She didn't think she could blame them.

"Demon!" the tall drüskelle seethed, preparing to strike. But by then Freya was already moving, feeling her power surge through her veins, her bones, her flesh for the first time in months. And it felt freeing like her wings had come unbound for the first time in her life. She didn't think as she repeated the same attack on the tall drüskelle, relishing in the way his chest collapsed in on itself and ruptured. She laughed like she was mad as his body hit the ground. Her promise came true sooner than she'd expected. She had half the mind to spit on his body, but there was still the third drüskelle she had to deal with.

The last drüskelle wasn't charging at her. He kept his distance, his arm stretched between them. A slight glint of steel and Freya found herself glaring down the barrel of a pistol. She froze, keeping her hands raised. She could also burst this man's heart, but when she tried to focus on the sound of his heart, she felt nothing at all.

The drüskelle's mouth tilted up on one side. "Corecloth," he said when he saw her surprise. "Did you think you were the only ones with Fabrikators?" The implications of his words were lost in the sudden flurry of movement. A loud bang sounded as the bullet flew from the barrel and shredded through the air. Freya threw her body to the side, but the bullet still grazed her arm. It burned sharply and her eyes instinctively filled with tears.

Footsteps neared her, and then there was a wet crunch. Freya waited for the pain of a blade cutting her open. Held her breath as she waited for the drüskelle to gut her and leave her bleeding on the floor. Instead, nothing was at all, and something heavy hit the ground.

Freya breathed in slowly, turning to look at where the drüskelle had been moments ago. He was splayed out on the floor in a big burly heap. Blood bubbled at his mouth, and he choked on it wetly.

"Djel," Freya cursed. Above the drüskelle stood Henrik, one hand wrapped tightly around the axe's handle raised in the air, blood dripping from the sharp. Before Freya could say anything else or even move, he struck the drüskelle again and again. A sharp, rage-willed cry left his lips.

Freya flinched with each squelch and thud. She realized she hadn't even noticed that Henrik had moved. He lifted the axe like it weighed a thousand stones, but when he brought it down, it was with a surety she hadn't ever seen before. During those two months in the ship's hold, he'd always been so frighteningly calm, so quick to resort to humour. All traces of that were gone now, and all that was left was a bone-chilling sort of calm stretched across his face as each strike of the axe splattered more droplets of blood over his grimy face and hair. It was nothing compared to the painting of red that Freya was, but he would soon be covered in it completely.

"Henrik," she breathed, scrambling to her feet. He didn't seem to realise that he spoke, nor did he register anything else around him. Sympathy clamped around her heart like a vice, and she approached him slowly. He was about to strike again when she placed a hand on his shoulder. The touch tore him back from wherever he'd gone like a chain attached to his back being reeled in, and the falling of the axe faltered and stopped, though his arms remained raised. "Henrik, he's dead."

Henrik blinked a few times, his eyes staring down at the ugly canvas of wounds littering the drüskelle's back. His next inhale stuttered and the axe slipped from his hand, clattering dully on the ground. Taking a step back from the body, he didn't tear his eyes from it.

Freya knelt down beside the corpse, rummaging around his pocket. They were empty, and there was nothing around his neck, so she moved towards the other two bodies. The tall drüskelle had a ring of keys in the pockets of his jacket, and Freya held them above her head triumphantly. A way of murmurs sounded from the other prisoners. Some sounded relieved, others fearful. She found a key that looked like it could fit the cuff around her wrists, but she couldn't quite reach far enough to use it. She exhaled roughly.

"Clever," she said. "No one would be able to get out of these cuffs themselves." She supposed that was the point, especially for Grisha prisoners. It was no wonder their cuffs were attached directly to their wrists like another layer of skin. Normal prisoners would receive looser cuffs, and they'd be connected by a chain instead of a firm pole. Not firm enough, she laughed under her breath.

Henrik was slowly coming back to himself, and he quirked one corner of his lips upwards. "Kaz would be able to do it." Freya raised a brow. He'd rarely admitted anything personal to others if she didn't ask. If he was offering it so freely, he must've still been in shock. Or maybe he was riding the high of an adrenaline rush, but Freya thought the difference didn't matter.

"Who's Kaz?"

"It doesn't matter." He shook his head and offered his cuffs for her to unlock. When they were taken off his wrists, she saw the blistered red skin, chaffed from months of metal against it. She winced in sympathy as he hissed. Henrik didn't let whatever pain he might've been feeling stop him, grabbing the keys from her and freeing her as well.

The cold air hit her freshly uncovered skin in a painful burn, but she relished in it. She laughed out loud when the fetters fell from her wrists and she spread her arms out, spinning on her heels as euphoria bubbled beneath her skin, blooming like wildflowers on the cusp of summer. She touched her fingers together, feeling the fading callouses from where her skin no longer rubbed together often enough from the lack of summoning, and felt every molecule of air moving, vibrating. Every sound crashed into her, not due to hearing, but because of the wonderful power she'd been given.

Never before had she ever felt so wonderful.

"I can pick the lock on the window over there," Henrik told her, but she only nodded and kept on spinning, giggling. All the other prisoners were free, and she could do whatever she wanted for at least a few minutes. But then the door to the storehouse opened, and someone inhaled sharply. She was torn from her giddiness in an instant. Assuming a battlestance was frighteningly easy.

"What did you do?" Matthias hissed, eyes blown wide in disbelief. The door creaked closed behind him and he didn't try to stop it, arms dangling limply by his sides. He wasn't looking at her, but she knew who the words were aimed at. She gritted her teeth, a snake coiling deep in the pit of her stomach.

"What they would've done to me," she answered and knew it was the truth. Her hands remained raised, and she felt revolted that she was aiming her powers at her brother, seizing the beating of his heart as she'd done to the other men. She released a breathless manic laugh when she realised she wouldn't hesitate.

Matthias noticed that too, snapping from whatever stupor he'd been in and reaching for something at his belt.

"Stop, or I blow your heart," she commanded, and she saw him flinch. But listened, sneering at her.

"You're not Corporalki." The Ravkan word sounded strange coming from him. She shrugged, expanding the vibrations of his heart the slightest bit, and his eyes widened as he felt the pressure it must've caused.

"I know you think me cruel, Matthias," she said, and she wished she could stop, but she needed him to understand. "But I am doing this to survive, and I will not subject myself to sham trials and a cruel death because you believe me to be a monster." She didn't know how she could've been so obedient, so accepting of her situation. She suddenly felt guilty for a dozen things at once. For her mother and father, for her sister, for Matthias, but most importantly for her friends back home, because she'd been so willing to give up, to stop fighting, even when she expected them to not do the same. She swore to herself she'd never do that again, even though she already felt the exhaustion of the past few months pressing down on her.

"So you will kill me?" he scoffed. "Does that not make you a monster?" There was a different sort of hatred creasing his face now than the one she'd grown so used to, and it made her heart ache in a way she didn't think she'd ever be able to forget. He thought she was proving him right, that all Grisha were horrible and cruel and lacked morals. Heartless, cold creatures made at the devil's fingertips. Something deep inside her cried, because he did not understand.

"If you let us go, I will let you live," she said, taking a slow step back. "But can't let you kill them." Matthias stared at her, a storm raging in his eyes even when his face remained unchanged. His eyes snapped to the corpses on the ground, and then to the other prisoners behind her. She hoped they weren't watching this happen. They had to get out before any of the other drüskelle arrived.

Matthias' face twisted painfully, brows furrowing and lower lip quivering, and he looked down on the ground. His eyes squeezed shut and he inhaled deeply a few times. When he opened his eyes, a decision was made, and she waited painfully for him to voice it.

"Go," he commanded, and it was the only word he said. She wanted to scream. It wasn't enough.

"Why?" she demanded. He furrowed his brows.

"Do you want to go or not?" But then he fell silent and shook his head, scoffing a dry laugh. "Because you are my sister. And therefore one half of me." The admission mangled her heart into a dozen pieces. "I swore to protect my family. If you die, what is left?" She had no answer for him, but her eyes burned with unshed tears. There were a dozen things she wished to say, all filled with the gutwrenching grief and melancholic drifting she'd felt for so many years.

"They will know you let us go," she said instead. He shook his head.

"Not if you hit me," he said. "I will say you took me by surprise." He walked towards her carefully, eyeing her still-raised arms. She nodded as he approached, and when he was close enough, she swung her fist so quickly he had no time to back out.

A loud crunch sounded through the air, and she almost felt sorry. Matthias crumpled to the ground. Freya pivoted on her heels, preparing to make her escape. All the other prisoners were gone now, including Henrik. All she had to do was clamber atop those stacked boxes by the window and pull herself through, and she would be free.

"Wait," Matthias wheezed, struggling back to his feet. Freya hesitated, faltering in her step. Maybe he changed his mind, and he was going to kill her after all. No, she shook her head slightly, he wouldn't do that to her. Surely... but she didn't know him anymore, not really. So when she turned around, it was with the knowledge that she still might have to end her brother's life. But when she turned, Matthias didn't look angry, only saddened, and he wasn't preparing to attack her. He was reaching to his side, and for a moment Freya tensed, ready for him to draw his weapon.

His hand disappeared into a pocket in his thick jacket – how he could wear it in the blistering heat was beyond her – and rummaged around for a bit. When he pulled his fist back out and relaxed his fingers, showing his upturned palm, tears gathered in her eyes. She was helpless against the onslaught of them.

"You were wearing this... before," he said, looking away for a moment. Before. When his drüskelle brothers kidnapped her. A silver glittering bracelet lay on his palm. When the rays of the sun hit it just right, the carved fox shapes were perfectly visible. She remembered David's awkward rambling when he gifted it to her. She blinked to chase away the blurring of tears, and a few of them rolled down her cheek. "Was it a gift from your prince?"

Freya shook her head. "No, David is family." She said it before she could bother to think about the implications. Something painful flittered over Matthias' face, but he swallowed thickly and wiped it from his face entirely. She didn't bother taking her words back. Instead, she reached for the bracelet and carefully pocketed it in her torn-up kefta. "Thank you."

"I have never forgotten what I fight for. And I never will." The words seemed random at that moment, but tears glittered in Matthias' eyes, so she listened, even as the bracelet in her palm felt like a dead weight and liberation at the same time. "I fight for our parents and our sister, and even if you have a new family now, I want you to know I fight for you and all those like you. The young innocent girls who are taken by the monsters."

Freya gave him a sad smile. Freya was struck with the realisation of how completely and utterly the same they were. Matthias fought for his family, for vengeance, and justice, and to protect those he thought needed it. She fought because people like Matthias hurt people like her, and her new family were the ones who needed protection. Her gaze strayed to the corpses of the drüskelle on the ground. Maybe there was some vengeance and need for justice in it too.

Matthias called the Grisha who'd taken her monsters, but what were he and the other drüskelle to her? Once, they might've been protection, a father's reassuring touch. She didn't think of them like that anymore, and in some way, she was angry at her father for ever taking the drüskelle oath, for damning her existence before she was even born. He would've hated you.

She didn't think she could blame Matthias for he was. For what he became. If she hadn't been taken that night, or if she hadn't been born Grisha at all, she would've been just like him. The ache in her heart was replaced by a completely different pain as she moved towards him, embracing him for what she knew was the last time. She inhaled the scent of pine and snow. He pressed his face into her shoulder.

"I can't forgive you, Matthias," she admitted as she drew away. She gazed into his eyes, the same northern sea blue as her own. Her reflection danced in his irises, and she saw how truly haggard she looked. A far cry from the glorious Siren dressed in fine silks with sapphires in her hair, or even the village girl with a gap-toothed grin. "But I can try."

Matthias exhaled heavily and nodded his head. The corners of his mouth turned downwards and his jaw clenched so tightly she saw the muscles in it feather. He didn't understand, and maybe he never would, but he accepted her words without a second thought, and maybe that was enough for her. Even when she might not be enough for him.

"I will see you again one day," he said, stepping away from her. "But you must go now." She didn't have the strength to tell him she wished they'd never meet again, because if they ever did, they would still be enemies, and she wouldn't be able to hesitate this time. Not if it meant protecting those who'd become so dear to her. The only things in this cruel world that held her anchored in place and held her heart and soul.

Freya nodded. "Goodbye, Matthias." She turned away before she could second-guess herself, and she could not stop the flow of tears now as she turned her back on her brother for the last time. She would keep him engraved in her mind, a portrait of not only the boy she grew up with but the warrior he'd become. They were both Matthias and the true version of him met somewhere in the middle. Just as she wasn't only the Siren or the unknown village girl, he wasn't only the drüskelle or the bright boy.

She hoisted herself up onto the stacked boxes. The movement took all of her strength and she huffed when she reached the top. Botkin would laugh at her now, but she would get better. Now that she was free, she wouldn't let herself wilt away. Or maybe she would. She would decide when she had time to think, or when the emotions became too much. The window remained open, and she climbed through it without looking back.

Her feet hit the gravel-covered ground with a crunch. Henrik was waiting for, twisting his wrists repeatedly and rubbing the chaffed skin there. No one else was around, the alley between the storehouses was blessedly empty despite the time of day. The air was blisteringly hot, but she didn't want to take her kefta off. She knew she would have to toss it eventually, but for the time being, she could wrap herself in it and imagine it would protect her from the entire world.

"They're all gone," Henrik said, shrugging his shoulders when he noticed her looking around. "It is up to them to find a way home now." Freya hadn't expected any of the other prisoners to want to be with her after witnessing the brutal way she'd killed the drüskelle. She knew she was terrifying, a monster bather in blood. It still stung though, and she stamped the feeling out before it could grow more bitter.

"But you stayed?"

Henrik grinned. "You're too fun to leave behind." And he led them away from the storehouse, and the last remaining echo of Freya's girlhood.

A/N

Ok so this chapter was supposed to come out at the same time as I published Luca's book, but I'm not really satisfied with the way the prologue for that book turned out, so I'm going to try and work on it, but I didn't want to keep you guys waiting too long for this chapter.

Hopefully, I'll finish the prologue soon though, because I can't wait to write about Luca and give you an insight into his backstory/mind that you can't really get when he's not a pov character in this book.

My best girl Alina is the love interest but I might also sprinkle in some Mal in there bc Archie as Mal is bbg.

ANYWAYS we get to see Nikolai VERY soon, I'm giggling and kicking my feet rn.