“Wait!” Trying to resist, the words tumbled from me just as desperately as I wished they’d sound. “This is how you’re going to repay me for savingyourcaptain? I could’ve let him die, but I usedmy knowledgeto keep him from Elaros’s arms! And now you’re going to shove me back into the brig as if I didn’t provide aid? As if I am worthless to your crew?”
He stopped for a breath, the air of contemplation flooding the walkway that molded my fate. It was a chance, a millisecond opportunity for him to change his mind.
For him to recognize my worth and refuse to send me back to damnation.
I knew I'd cracked through his hardened exterior, that he’d seen something within me that he could relate to or find sorrow for. I’d seenit in his gaze when he thanked me for saving Caspian’s life: a flicker of compassion and a spark of defiance for whathe’dcommanded Syoran to do.
He didn’t desire to manhandle me. He didn’t wish to escort me around as if I were nothing more than livestock because heunderstoodwhat it was like; he’dexperiencedthe darkness that loomed over our reality. And even though he’d claimed Caspian had too, his co-captain’s mentality,his orders,spoke of anything but. He was too hardened, too…emotionless to understand the complexities of the nightmares that captivity awakened.
His reply came as a whisper, clinging to an undercurrent of regret. “I am only following orders, Rohen, you know that.”
“Following orders?Following orders?” I scoffed, disbelief consuming every syllable. “You spoke to me of the desire to be free, to wear the badge of autonomy in this world. But now you’re sitting here mumbling about obeying the commands of another as if he holds the reins of your free will? Have you ever considered that maybe you’re just as imprisoned by that man as I am?”
“I. Am. Not. A. Prisoner.”
Willing myself to rip the rug of blinded arrogance from beneath his feet, I smiled, the challenge apparent in my gaze. “Oh? Thenprove it.”
His jaw feathered, agitation billowing from him in thick waves. Gliding beneath his lip, his tongue lapped across his teeth as if they could somehow tame the searing ache my manipulation left behind. His eyes remained locked on mine, the shadows of his irises just as impossible to read as he was.
Silence lingered until he exhaled, shaking his head as he ran his fingers through his hair. “Fine.I will speak with Caspian, butdo notmake me regret my decision, Levitte. I may be commiserative now, but that does not mean I will not hesitate to rip your intestines from your body if you betray my goodwill.”
“Deal,” I replied.
The arm that I’d slipped behind my back concealed my crossedfingers, a giveaway that my promise was a mirage, and that, come nightfall, I’d destroy the very concept of control they believed they held.
I’d no longer tolerateany mantaking advantage of me, whether my body or mind. Those in the past had used me in all aspects of the word as if my body were the only thing that held any value. And while Caspian’s men hadn’t dove as far beneath my waistline or up my skirts, they had grazed their greedy fingertips over my skin. Sure, I’d allowed them to taint me in a way, allowedhimto reel in my leash, but it’d all been for a purpose.
The time had come for me to show them who’d held the key all along, and to enlighten them that I’d simply entertained their little game of feeble manhood. Where they believed they were powerful, they hadn’t held a lick of understanding. It was their limp pricks that guided them all along, and my vengeance would be their rude awakening.
I wasn’t Malrik’s favorite by mere chance; I was deadly in my own right, and I’d remind them precisely why they should’ve never guided me on their ship.
Come morning, Caspian Vayne would be down a crew. But most of all, he’d be down a prisoner—a prisoner who would undoubtedly find the very man who wished to destroy everything he was.
Fuck the concept ofMizani,or whatever the fuck Ellira had stated.
I was ready for blood.
CHAPTER 23
Tides Turn
KAEL
Nightfall came as if Serevalen craved it, swathing the land in a darkness symbolic of my father’s rule.
Shadows lined the corridors of the palace, reaching out with their familiar icy tendrils of asphyxiation, threatening to devour anyone who so much as breathed wrong in the eyes and expectations of royalty. The silence that blanketed the halls I grew up in carried the screams of those whom the king had silenced.
I wished for nothing more than to eradicate myself from the Marellan bloodline, to cut the threads of connection that intertwined me with the corruption that our lineage wrought. The same deception that seeped through the cracked doors of the throne room seeped into the seas that crashed against the cliff sides of the kingdom, polluting the islands and continents beyond; worlds I wished to explore if only the gods granted me the reprieve.
The immorality of my ancestors was something I could no longer ignore. Wasting another second of my life molded into the guise of a prince wasn’t an option. Not when I was moments away from snapping the chain my father had wrapped around my throat, meresecondsaway from tasting freedom.
He’d given me everything I needed to execute my escape as soon as he allowed a pirate to pass into the palace. It was an engagement of demands I hadn’t been invited to, but I knew the nuances of the discussion as soon as the impending dread washed over me like a wet blanket.
It was a feeling that stirred up a sensation of familiarity, and with it, deep foreboding. My father had called upon the falsified gods—the Others.
Their frequent attendance, alongside the offerings exchanged in return, became an assembly I quickly came to loathe after attending only two of their summonings. Not interested in meeting them again, I elected to step out, taking my men with me into Darswyth for a brief respite from my father’s indulgence in malice.
Once I returned from my explorative evening getaway, the guards flanking the doors of the dining hall informed me that the king had granted the man the “privilege” of indulging with him and his most esteemed advisors after their meeting. The invitation was a rarity, an exchange that, when recollecting other similar instances, became something I could only tally on one hand. And yet, it was an extension I was grateful for, as it pushed the expected departure time from dusk into the late hours of the night.
