TROUBLE , kaz brekker

xvii. she made the light sing.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

LOVE IS A STRANGE THING.

For Echo, love is foreign and alien and as synonymous with unreachable as the moon is with night. In all her world-weary years, there were a handful of moments that defined the way her mind perceived the emotion forever and as with all things - they were rarely kind.

The closest she'd ever come to love's tender kiss was at the age of seven when, in her rage, she'd reached to tug on her mother's wrist and the jolt of amplifier power that coursed through Manya Orlova's blood had caused her to lose control of the inferno she had bred.

In her lapse, her mother was engulfed by the flames. All because of one single touch and even with the help of a healer the red raw scars lingered for days to come. Yet, it was this sudden realisation of her power that gave Echo Caddel the first imprint of love. Her mother had praised her, her father had smiled. It was almost happiness.

And thus, the two were forever intertwined.

Power was love. Money was power. It was a universal truth. Echo's share of a million kruge was the first step to guaranteeing that her family would rue the day they ever thought her to be nothing.

She would be loved. Even if she had to pry it from their corpses. Because the scars she planned to leave this time would never fade.

And what was love to Kaz Brekker? What was time to a Saint? Perhaps love was nothing more than the paper he folded between his fingers or the swift finish of a deal. Sometimes, Echo wondered if he even knew what love was. Maybe he was better off for it.

Or maybe he was just as damned as the rest of them because as they ran through the halls of the Little Palace it wouldn't have mattered if they'd had never felt a thing. It wouldn't change the fact that they were hopelessly overpowered and tremendously out of breath.

"Kaz," Echo hissed, masked by the thundering of their footsteps on the sleek marble tiles. "Where are we going?"

He turned to her with a cocky grin that, unsurprisingly, did little to quell her growing unease. "Feeling penitent, Caddel?"

"Not particularly."

"All the better." He whispered as the harsh lights of the Little Palace were traded for something softer.

The Chapel. Of all the rooms in this place, this may have been the worst to die in. With it's soft red carpets and golden shadows, how could it be anything but the perfect tomb? Despite her father's best efforts, Echo had never stepped foot in a building of the faith and if she had her way, she never would again. It was too rich, too bright. Her preferred religion tasted like blood.

Behind them, the Inferni's mocking calls sounded and with no where else to run, Kaz and Echo had little choice but to fade into the dim shadows of the candlelight.

"Neither of you are supposed to be here, are you, limping man, thief?"

Thief? The title was almost offensive. In her time, Echo had committed far more notable crimes to be given something as petty as thief. If this had been anywhere else, she may have even objected. But right now, there were more important problems.

Echo was dizzy with something indescribable. It was paralysing and lead in her veins and it sang with the same voice as her sister. She couldn't die. Not here, in the Little Palace because then what had been the point of it all? She'd fled and found something far better than the Saints had given, only to die in the same four walls that would have been her coffin.

She could be a thief, if it meant she was a living one.

"You're like a wounded spider in my house." The voice was closer this time. Echo felt Kaz sink further into the darkness at her side. "You know what my sister and I do to spiders?"