❛ 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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l. dead man tell no tales – Randvi
THE HOURS MERGED, the days into nights, the sunrises into sunsets. Had Randvi not spent her time counting and listening the changing songs of birds, she was sure she'd have believed almost a week had passed.
But it had only been a day. A long, gruelling day filled with fearful thoughts and the reminder Van Eck would never show her mercy.
Every few hours a key would turn and a heavy door would creak open. Erik would emerge carrying trays of food or medical supplies. Every time he would make an attempt to see to her wound, and every time she would kick him away. Randvi would not take help from her captor, she would never accept help from Van Eck.
Accepting the food, however, was much more tempting.
At first it had been suspicious grey looking slops of what could have been porridge, but it had soon turned into cuts of venison, the freshest vegetables available in Ketterdam and mugs of hot chocolate. Erik would untie her hands, tell her to eat, and she'd knock the tray to the floor.
Van Eck knew what he was doing, a blind man could have seen that. He'd sent Erik every few hours to speak with her. He was a Fjerdan boy, barely older than her, supposedly from a village not far from hers (she wasn't sure how true that was). He had been trained as a medik by his mother, but had sought work in Ketterdam for reasons Randvi didn't care. He would ask about her family, recall childhood memories, but she would never speak back.
Isen ne bejstrum, she had told him one night. The ice does not forgive. It was her warning to him for turning against his people.
Tonight was different.
Erik arrived as the sun began to set, painting the grey room in shades of pink and orange. Her gunshot wound ached, a bad effort of stitching on Erik's behalf he prevent her from recovering enough to make another attack. She was on the verge of death, barely hanging on to life, and her stomach gave a painful growl at the sight of food.
And Randvi could have cried tonight.
A tray placed on a table before her contained nothing but Fjerdan delicacies, but not the kind the royal family would feast on, it was the food she'd grown up with. Fresh salted fish, stewed cabbage and boiled potatoes. The biggest slice of walnut cake stood besides it.
Every part of her screamed to push to food to the floor as Erik untied her hands. But she couldn't. She feared her body would start eating her if she went one more day without something.
There was no cutlery, a reasonable precaution, so Randvi used her hands. She scooped mouthful after mouthful of cabbage and fish, then took the largest bite possible of the cake. She felt like a traitor for giving in to Van Eck's plan.
