❛ ʻʻ .. it's strange how fate
keeps bringing us together .. 〞
in which a girl who can see a person's fate from the touch of a hand falls for the one boy fearing human touch.
━━ KAZ BREKKER
frenemies to lovers, slowburn
shadow & bone - crooked ki...
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xviii. the heart is an arrow – Randvi
THE SIX OF them walked for hours on end, making small talk to pass the time. It was a two day walk to Os Kervo, but Randvi prayed it would take them longer.
She could not go back to Ketterdam empty handed. Without Alina, she would not receive her million kruge prize, nor would she be free without Kaz's head for Pekka. Randvi could no longer rely on the protection of the Dregs, or on Kaz, not since he had learnt of her planned betrayal.
It did not matter that Randvi had not betrayed Kaz. She had broken his trust, a trust that would never be rebuilt.
Randvi spent most of the first day of walking in silence, trailing behind everyone else, consumed by her thoughts. Where would she go? Noyvi Zem? The Wandering Isle? Pekka had said he would hunt her every day until he found her, that she would never live freely whilst she owed him. She could survive, live day to day, moving from place to place. But what life was that? She had been on the run once before, and had sworn she would never do it again.
Could she go to Fjerda? Hope that the Druskelle had stopped searching for her, that people had forgotten the tale of the girl who could predict the future? Perhaps she could search for her brother, and the two would be reunited. Or perhaps the Darkling would be searching for her.
Perhaps she would never be safe, or free.
Randvi wanted to believe that Inej would have found a way to make her stay, that she would have convinced Kaz to look over her. She wanted to believe Kaz would never really turn his back on her.
But it seemed the two had other things in mind. They had begun to find a reason to fight in each other.
She had heard it in the way Kaz had told Inej 'I need you' during their walk. She had seen it in the look Inej had given, the way her lips had parted and eyes softened. Kaz needed Inej, but he did not need her. He never had needed her.
All those years Randvi had lied to herself, searched for meaning in meaningless things, every time Kaz asked her to accompany him on a job, every time he sat besides her in the crow club. It had all meant nothing. To him, she was nothing more than an investment, a convenience.
Non of it had been real.
As the six of them began to set up a camp for the night, the sky just starting to darken and turn a deep shade of purple and blue, Randvi felt an anger bubbling away inside her. Kaz had lied to her. Even in spite of knowing he was a trickster, Randvi felt betrayed, and a fraud. She had placed her trust in a boy that did not care for her.
Mal and Alina lay besides the fire, half asleep in each others arms. The fire had slowly begun to die, Randvi too distracted by her thoughts to bother collecting anymore wood to keep the fire a blaze.
