(( :warning: Warning: Death, hinting at SA, starvation, and murder. If you are uncomfortable with these topics, I suggest not continuing to read ahead. :warning: ))

Raine Silverbrook’s story was never meant to be a fairytale.

She was born deep in the woods, in a small, crooked house with her mother and two brothers. Her father had left before she ever drew breath—according to her mother, he’d grown tired of being a parent. Raine had cried over it once, maybe twice, but learned early on that some griefs weren’t worth the weight they demanded.

Her mother was loving—until she wasn’t.

The moment Raine's powers manifested, everything changed. She was a Grisha. And her mother hated Grishas. The warmth in her voice turned cold, and her hands, once used to braid Raine’s hair, became instruments of pain. But Raine never lifted a finger against her. Not once. Even when her fire left her hands scorched and blistered. Even when the pain of using it became unbearable.

She still loved her mother. She just never understood why that love was never returned.

Her older brothers tried to defend her, begged their mother to stop. But words meant little. Raine became the house's ghost — used, blamed, beaten. Forced to light fires she could no longer bear to touch. The burns on her hands grew deeper with every flicker of flame.

Then came the moment that shattered everything.

Her mother dragged out her little brother, Christopher, placed him in front of her, and—without hesitation—shot him. Again. And again. Until there was no life left in his small, broken body.

Raine screamed until her throat was raw. Her mother only sneered.

Years ed. Raine was nine when her eldest brother, Archie, whispered a plan to escape. One moonless night, they ran. But freedom was a cruel illusion. Just before they reached the woods’ edge, an arrow tore through Archie’s gut. Bleeding and broken, he told her to run.

She did.

Alone and hunted, Raine fled to the towns. But there was no safety there either. The people feared what she was. She was chased, beaten, exiled. Always running. Always hiding.

Eventually, she met a man who offered her shelter—but with a price. She refused. He took what he wanted anyway. Bloodied and broken, she fled again, with bruises on her skin and horror carved into her bones.

Hunger gnawed at her. Desperation drove her to steal.

That’s when she made her second deal with the devil—Jacob Osborn. He nearly killed her for trying to steal from him, but something in her—the fight, the fire, the fury—made him hesitate. Instead, he offered her a deal: food and shelter, in exchange for her service.

What he didn’t tell her was that she’d become a killer.

Raine was made into a weapon. A contract assassin with a name that echoed in the criminal underworld. She abandoned her birth name—Sallow—along with the last fragments of the girl she once was. She became Raine Silverbrook.

She never used her Grisha powers. She didn’t need to. She was fast. Lethal. Precise. Her twin fencing swords, crafted by her own hands, could cut through steel—and did. She wore long sleeves to hide her scars. She flinched at touches. Her body no longer felt like her own, and neither did the pain that lived beneath her skin.

Then came Kaz Brekker.

She was seconds away from another kill when he stopped her. She lunged, but Jesper intercepted—only to be knocked down in a blink. Inej ed the fray, yet even she couldn’t take Raine down. The target escaped in the chaos. Furious, Raine turned on Kaz, but all he gave her was a cold, unreadable stare. Something in that stare held her, just for a moment, before she vanished into the shadows.

But Kaz had seen something. In her eyes. In the way she moved. In the way she listened like the world whispered to her alone.

He wanted her.

He went to her employer, offered something they couldn’t refuse. Raine was handed over like a chained animal, muzzled and restrained—because the last time someone tried to order her around, she left bodies in her wake.

But Kaz didn’t chain her. He didn’t flinch at her silence or her distance. He gave her space. A room. A roof.

And for once… Raine wasn’t alone.

Slowly, she adjusted. She spent her time on rooftops or in the shadows of the Crow Club. She kept an eye on Jesper. Sometimes even ed the tables—just to keep him from losing too much.

She never meant to grow attached. But something about Kaz—his quiet torment, his mind like a maze—mirrored her own. She saw the ghost in him. Maybe he saw the fire in her.

Feelings weren’t spoken. They lived in glances, in silences, in the way she always stood at his side when things got bloody. Raine never thought she’d feel something like that. Not again. Not ever.

But she did.

She wasn’t a hero. She wasn’t whole. But in a world that tried to break her, Raine Silverbrook had become something else.

A knight, forged in fire.

And she would fight—for those she chose.

Especially for him.