FREYA HAD NEVER been on the run before, and if she was being completely honest, she didn't enjoy it one bit. Henrik led them through dirty old alleys and less-than-savoury parts of town with ease. She couldn't help but wonder how he was so accustomed to the slums, but she didn't dare ask him. He might've been friendly with her up until that point, but she wasn't so stupid as to think she would be safe from any attacks. For all she knew, he was only keeping her around because he knew she was dangerous, and if she was by his side she would be able to protect him. Though, if she was being honest, he looked much more terrifying than her with his scruffy beard and tangled hair speckled with drops of blood.

She was just as dirty as he was, but there was something about him that radiated power. He walked past entire gangs of men and women who probably weren't the most law-abiding citizens, and they all leaned away from him and didn't bother him. She stayed back while he spoke with some dockworkers, all burly men with heavy accents, but they seemed friendly enough. Eventually, they pointed in a direction, and she was back to following behind him.

"What is the plan, exactly?" she asked, trying to ignore the way people looked at her. She looked so out of place in a Novyi Zem port city. There were people of all races and sizes, but Fjerdans were among the least welcome – only the drüskelle were ever allowed to pass without much trouble, and that was more because of how dangerous they were than because of anything else – and the bright blue and purple tattered kefta didn't make her any more inconspicuous.

"There is a tavern where we can rest. Maybe get some money," he said, hands stuffed in the pockets of an old scruffy coat he'd yanked from someone's clothesline. She didn't like the idea of stealing, but the will to survive had a much stronger pull than her morals. "We'll have to fence something."

"Fence?" she cried out, then remembered where they were and toned her voice down. "Isn't that illegal?" She hated how naive it sounded. But surely, they could sell to a normal vendor. When Henrik's eyes drifted to the silver bracelet around her wrist, she pulled her sleeves further down to cover it. "Not that."

"What else would you have us sell?" he demanded, but there was no real heat behind it. "If you want to find work and stay here like a good little girl for years until you make enough money to return to Ravka, then be my guest. The drüskelle will find you easily though, and I won't be there to help you then. Nobody will." She wanted to argue that she didn't need help, but she felt the weight of the past two months hard on her shoulders, and she realised that she wouldn't be able to take another fight. She couldn't blame him for his words either. She wanted to get home just as much as him. Or a safe distance away from the drüskelle, at least.

"Fine," she hissed and stayed quiet until they reached the tavern he spoke of. It was an old rickety thing with a dirt floor instead of wood flooring, and it smelled pungently of alcohol and the sweaty bodies of sailors.

Henrik approached the woman behind the bar. She was dressed in rich yellow and green fabric, which wrapped around her loosely, and her neck was adorned with thick beads. Henrick didn't even need to say anything, all it took was one look at Freya's run-down kefta and she was gesturing them towards a door behind her.

Freya followed her up some stairs, fingers twitching with the need to be pointed forward and prepared, just in case she needed to summon again. But there was no threat, only a dry room with two beds – the bedding surprisingly good, considering the state of the tavern below – and an adjoining room that served as a washroom. There was a copper tub and a smudgy mirror.

"I will bring up enough hot water for both of you," the woman said with a harsh accent to her Ravkan. Her eyes flitted around anxiously, and she looked away from them. "It is not much, but we help all the zowa we can." Henrik opened his mouth to speak, but Freya beat him to it.

"It is perfect, thank you." She fingered the lapels of her kefta. "Is there a way I could sell this? It's dirty and torn, but it's still made of corecloth." The woman stared at her, and for a moment Freya thought she hadn't understood her, but then she reached out and gestured for her to hand her the kefta. It felt like she was handing off a part of herself as she shrugged it off her shoulders and put it in the woman's waiting arms.

She took it, running her hands over the corecloth pannels. Then she paused and inhaled sharply. "You are the Siren?" Freya hid her gasp by biting her tongue. The woman was looking directly at her, a strange sort of awe in her eyes. This, Freya wasn't used to. Most people looked at her with fear, if not outright terror, or they didn't look at her like she was the most entertaining curiosity. There was only one person who ever looked at her like she was worth something. And he was miles away studying at a university, while she was here, in an unknown Novyi Zem harbour, hiding away like a criminal.

"Yes," she breathed the admission, fidgeting with the sleeve of her white cotton top. The woman's lips spread in a wide grin.

"Some say you're a saint!" Freya swallowed thickly, shaking her head. The word saint tasted bitter on her tongue, like the cheap kvas Ravkans sold during festivals. She didn't feel saintly, standing in front of the woman covered in blood.

"I am far from it." Saints were made to protect, to save, to offer hope. What kind of hope did she offer? She was no powerful Shadow Summoner crafted to shield an entire country or a fabled Sun Summoner who was meant to be their liberation. Djel, she wasn't even a Healer or a proper soldier. She was exactly as her monicker said, a siren, leading men to their doom.

The woman didn't say anything more, only smiled at her as she slipped from the room.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Washing the blood and grime off her body felt like peeling off every layer of herself that was sinful. The warm water washed over her skin, her hair, her face, and she basked in it. Even as the water turned a murky reddish-brown and grew cold. When she finally forced herself out, she brushed her hair and ran her fingers through it. It wasn't oily or tangled anymore, and for a moment she let herself imagine that it was Genya or Zoya with their hands on her head.

Henrik went into the washroom after her, and she dressed herself in the clean clothes the woman offered. She'd introduced herself as Afiya, and offered to braid and bead Freya's hair in the Zemini way, but she'd kindly refused. She would feel even less like herself than she did now, and she didn't want that. The clean cotton blouse was dyed a deep violet, and Freya wondered if Afiya had purposefully chosen this colour. Standing there in only a long, loose crimson skirt, she stared at the colour of it and felt like crying.

The shade wasn't quite right, but if she stared at it for long enough, it began to morph into the same shade of purple David's kefta, and the embroidery on her own, was. She sat herself down on one of the beds, leaned back against the creaking headboard, and held the blouse to her chest.

Everything that had happened for the last two months, the last two years, even, rammed into her like a heavy warhammer, and there was no armour or corecloth to soften the blow for her. Her eyes clouded with tears and she slapped a hand over her mouth, muffling as much of the sound as she could. Her shoulders shook and her chest tightened, but as she cried and cried and cried, the pressure lessened and she realised she began to feel better.

It felt like an eternity before Henrik exited the washroom. The blouse was now safely pulled over her head, and she was fiddling with the hem of her long skirt. The difference between the man she'd been imprisoned with and the man she was looking at now was jarring. He shaved, so he appeared so much younger than he had in the hold of the ship. He couldn't have been much older than Freya was. And his hair was trimmed as well, the front locks pulled back from his face by a leather cord. It made the scar on his face more visible, but it didn't look as gruesome as she originally thought it did. Maybe it had healed more over the months they'd rotted in a cell, or maybe she'd always been too out of it to notice the wrongness of her assumptions.

"I'm going to go look for a crew that would be willing to get us out of here," he said, fixing the position of the clothes he'd been given. The colours of it were dulled compared to hers, more brown than anything else, but there was some blue and green sprinkled into it.

Freya perked up at his words. "I'm going with you." She reached for her hair, intent on tying it back similar to the way he had, but was stopped by him shaking his head. Frustration built up in her chest, moments away from exploding like a pipe bomb. "I am not going to be left here in this room!" She threw her hands out wide. "Besides, how can I trust that you won't just leave me here?"

She hadn't realised she was afraid of that until she voiced it, and she had to swallow the crack that threatened to distort her voice. Henrik stared at her in silence for a little while, the look on his face indiscernible, and she thought he really would just get up and leave. If he did, she didn't know what she would do. Afiya would surely offer to help her in some way, but there had been no training for situations like this at the Little Palace. If one got captured by drüskelle, they would most likely die. The chance of survival was so slim that they hadn't been told anything else other than to avoid it completely.

You are the Siren, you don't need some common blacksmith from Ketterdam to help you. And she didn't, really. She knew she would find a way to survive. It was just so much easier to be with someone who understood her plight, and who knew what he was doing.

"You are too recognizable. A Fjerdan girl with pale hair and a burn scar on her face? Everyone will know you're the one the drüskelle are looking for if they've put out a warrant. Take this," he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a thin golden ring. "I managed to hide it from the drüskelle." She didn't bother asking how he'd done it, reaching out to take the ring. She raised a brow in question. "It was my little sister's before she died of the plague. I won't leave it behind."

A sudden sorrow made Freya stifle all other questions. He could very well be lying to her. It could be a ring he'd found in the pocket of the coat he'd stolen, or he could've nabbed it off the body of one of the drüskelle they'd killed. But she decided it didn't matter, and only nodded at him.

"I'll keep it safe."

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Freya ended up sleeping throughout the day, enjoying the feeling of a mattress beneath her and soft linens wrapped around her body. She didn't know how long it was until she was woken up by the door to the room opening, but there was no light coming through the small window on the western side, so she assumed it had to be well past dark.

It wasn't Henrik who came in, but Afiya. A bowl of smoking soup was carried in her hand, and she placed it down on the small table with two chairs. She was humming a tune beneath her breath.

"It is broth. I didn't want to give you anything too heavy. You look like you haven't eaten in weeks, and I didn't know if you would be able to keep it down," she said, gesturing to the bowl. Freya nodded, thankful for the woman's keen sense of observation. While the drüskelle had fed them, it was usually a very sparse meal, meant only to keep them alive, not strong.

"I am thankful for your help, Afiya," Freya thanked her, sitting down at the table and picking up the spoon. "Not many people would risk themselves to help strangers." Afiya shrugged, a pleasant smile finding its way onto her face.

"It is the right thing to do." It wasn't really an answer to Freya's unspoken question, but she wouldn't press the woman who had offered her a place to stay. Afiya tilted her head. "Do you not think yourself worthy of being helped? You said before that you are not a saint, but fate would not have gifted you extraordinary powers if you were not meant to have them."

Freya blinked, unsure of what to say to that. The inquiry had come so out of the blue, and she was left with an uncomfortable moment of introspection before she fumbled words together in her mind to try and cultivate an answer of some sort. "My powers have been more of a curse than a gift to me. I was taken from my home by soldiers of the Second Army when they attacked my village. My abilities showed themselves then for the first time."

"But had you been allowed to stay in Fjerda, you would have been killed!" Afiya argued, brows scrunched together in confusion. "Is it a curse to be allowed to live? Perhaps the Second Army is not the ideal place to be raised, but the Little Palace is safe, is it not?"

Freya shrugged. "My father died in the attack, and I recently found out my mother and little sister were killed as well. My brother was left all alone, and he was one of the drüskelle who captured me. If I had no powers and stayed with him, maybe he wouldn't have become such a hateful person." She was as filled with anger and hatred as she was, but at least she didn't send innocent people to their deaths.

Afiya pursed her lips and shook her head. "Or maybe you would've been killed alongside the rest of your family, and he would've been left alone anyway," she said, deep brown eyes searching Freya's face for... she wasn't sure what. "You cannot look at your powers as a curse, or you will wither away. You are zowa, blessed. The world and all its deities wanted you to have them."

Before Freya could muster up any other argument, the door burst open and Henrik strode in. "We have to go. I found a crew who is willing to take us. The captain is Ravkan. I've heard of him before, he attacks drüskelle ships and attempts to break the Fjerdan naval blockade," he said, tapping his foot anxiously. "They want us on the ship now, while it's still dark."

Freya nodded, dropping the spoon in her hand and rushing to stand up. She hadn't even eaten one spoonful of the broth. "What's the captain's name?" she asked, though she doubted it would tell her anything. She rarely had time to listen to gossip of men on the other side of the Fold.

"I think he said his name was Sturmhond." Henrik shrugged. "The name sounds a lot more intimidating than he looks. He has a really weird nose." Freya breathed a laugh as Henrik turned to Afiya. "Did you manage to sell the corecloth?" She blinked at him awkwardly for a moment before she realised what he was asking of her. She nodded, digging around in the hidden pocket of her skirt and pulling out a small pouch of coins.

"It should be enough to get you passage," she said, and Henrik nodded. He jerked his head towards the door, and Freya followed him. At the last second, she turned around, grasping Afiya's hand in hers.

"Thank you for your help."

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Nikolai Lantsov – or rather, Captain Sturmhond of the Volkvolny – was in mourning. He'd been in the same state of melancholy for over a month, ever since that fateful day in an overcrowded tavern in Os Kervo, where he overheard a drunk First Army soldier rambling of the Siren's death. He vaguely remembered his fingers clenching so tightly around his pint of lager that they turned pearlescent white, and his heart beating so rapidly and not at all at the same time.

The next day brought only confirmation. In the city centre hung a hastily drawn sketch of Freya Helvar's face, at least a hundred candles lit beneath it. He'd never seen the Ravkan people mourn a Grisha in such a way, and he hadn't even realised that people worshipped her as a saint until he heard a few women whisper under their breath as they laid bouquets of white irises beneath the portrait. He thought distantly that she would've hated it. The worship and the flowers. His next thought was that the portrait was entirely wrong, and didn't look like the girl he loved at all.

He wasn't sure how he managed to hold himself together until he boarded the Volkvolny again and disappeared into his captain's quarters. No one bothered him, and he wondered if that was the work of Tolya and Tamar, who knew full well of the storm of feelings rampaging his insides. He drank himself into a thick stupor on whiskey and wept on the floor, pressing the heels of his palms painfully hard into his eye sockets. It was a small punishment, and not nearly enough.

He realised he couldn't recall the exact pitch of her laugh, or the angle of lips when she smiled, or even the feel of her lips for that matter. He cursed himself for ever leaving the Grand Palace, though he knew he wouldn't have been able to save her this time. That made everything all the more bitter, and it made whatever anger he'd felt for the Fjerdans before turn to hatred. He imagined her terror as the drüskelle nabbed her off the streets of Ulensk, of her last thoughts before a headmen's axe was brought down upon her neck.

And here he was almost two months later, just as angry and bitter as he'd been when he first found out. The docks of Weddle were eerily silent during the night, and he watched the calm sea beyond the railings of the Volkvolny. The moon was round and bright, its light reflecting off the flat surface of the water.

The waiting game was his least favourite thing, and he felt fidgety, but he leaned further against the railing on his forearm and stared even more intently at the water, hoping it would calm him. Whoever the man who approached him earlier that day was, he hoped he would get to the ship soon. He was a Grisha with a gnarly-looking scar on his forehead, and that was as far as Nikolai knew of him. That, and that he had a girl with him, hiding out nearby.

Nikolai didn't remember the last time he'd helped a small group of Grisha. He'd grown used to much bigger acts of rebellion against the Fjerdan regime. Most of the time, he burned down entire naval units. Whatever Grisha he found aboard drüskelle ships, he always helped of course, but there were usually more than twenty. He felt sick as he thought of the living conditions of those holds, and failed entirely to reconcile that with Freya. He didn't even want to think of her rotting away down there.

"Your tailoring is fading away." Tamar's voice brought him out of his wretched thoughts, and he twisted his head to look at the yellow-eyed Heartrender. He shrugged, fully aware that his usual blond hair was starting to seep through the ruddy red and his eyes were no longer the same odd murky green. As the silence stretched between them, Tamar leaned on the railing so she was in a similar position to him. "Why did you agree to help him?"

It was such a broad question that Nikolai didn't know where to start, and he fought off the urge to shrug again. "He needed help." He settled on that, hoping Tamar didn't question him any more, but of course that was asking too much.

"Yes, but you didn't even hesitate," Tamar said, raising a brow at him. "I've never seen you jump so headfirst into action – which you do often, by the way, it's beginning to be annoying." Nikolai breathed a snort. He did have a habit of not thinking everything through in the midst of a fight, but he liked to think he was level-headed in every other situation.

He fell silent again, until finally, he said, "It's what Freya would've wanted." And he realised then that it was the truth. If he'd left this man, no matter how much of a stranger he was, without any help, could he really say he'd ever loved her? He remembered finding her in that rundown shack in Mosava, covered in blood and sickly pale, and how relieved he'd been to find her alive. He'd understood the horror of being Grisha then, if not fully, then at least partially.

Tamar didn't have any time to answer him, because by then a shout came from the dock below them, and Nikolai was pushing off the railing. He stopped at the top of the gangway leading up to the ship. He instantly recognised the man at the bottom. He was already speaking to Tolya, who was gesturing up to the ship. The man nodded taking the first step towards the gangway, and then he paused.

The figure behind him – the girl he'd spoken of, no doubt – was hesitating, tightly gripping the black hood hastily tossed over her head. The man held out his hand, and something snapped and the girl was taking it. They walked up the gangway together and at the top the man stopped, looking at Nikolai.

The girl broke away from him, stepping further onto the ship. Nikolai's heart stopped in his chest.

"How much coin do you need?" the man asked, holding a leather pouch in his hands. But Nikolai wasn't looking at him, but rather at the girl behind him. She'd pushed the hood off her head, letting it bunch around her shoulders and revealing the pale blonde hair that appeared liquid silver in the moonlight. And her face... Nikolai could tell exactly who it was, even if he could only see a part of her side profile.

His jaw went slack, but he managed to hide every other show of surprise, even the tears of pure, utter disbelieving relief that flooded through him. Because Freya Helvar was standing before him, with all the beauty he'd held so close to his heart. She was ethereal, pale like a ghost and far too skinny, but she had the same sort of empyrean glow about her.

"Free of charge," Nikolai breathed, and then Freya was turning towards him. He waited with bated breath, but there was no spark of recognition in her eyes as she looked at him. He turned to Tamar, nudging her forward, and without him having to voice a single thought she led Freya and the man who was with her belowdecks. Only Tolya remained beside him, the rest of the crew either sleeping or preparing the ship to leave as soon as the sun rose above the horizon. "Tolya, I need you to undo my tailoring."

A/N

I changed the spelling of Henrik's name from Henrick because I felt like it looked better! Idk why the c just kind of started annoying me. ANYWAYS Nikolai is finally back! I can't wait to write him and Freya interacting again. I was listening to Work Song by Hozier while writing Nikolai's pov. It's literally him and Freya I don't make the rules.

Also! As of now Luca's book "These Wild Minds" has been published! Go check it out and tell me what you think of the prologue (I'm gonna be honest I struggled so much writing it)