And yet,somehow,I had, which is why it felt pertinent to uncover their nuances and define every hushed tone of their overarching meaning. Elaros had remained adamant, each close call of slipping into death’s embrace confirming my involvement. If it were bound by fate, then wouldn’t it inevitably come to that point?
A loud thud reverberated against the door, severing my attention. I paused, waiting for a voice, an utterance,anything,but nothing followed. The interruption had only become another hindrance, deepening the headache I’d been nursing with the practically untouched glass of whiskey. It pounded against my skull, and I reached for the liquor, stopping when yet another bang echoed against the wooden frame.
“What?”I snapped, my annoyance evident in my timbre.
Again,nothing.
Shoving myself up from where I sat, I crossed my cabin in a handful of strides. Inhaling to compose myself, my fingers looped around the handle as I yanked the door open. Expecting to be greeted by a crewmate with some form of update on our route, my breath caught in my throat at the unexpectedness of Death’s arrival onmyship.
Lying at my feet was the body of Augie, one of our secondary navigators. Crimson pooled beneath his lifeless frame, sixteen years of life spewing from the place his head had once been. The only reason I was certain it was him was because of the scars that covered his wrists, instances of self-harm he divulged in before finding me, before findingmycrew.
Our family.
It took me seconds to gather my daggers. Slipping on a loose linen shirt, I stepped out onto the watered-down deck. A pang of emotion slammed into me as I stepped over his body—the thought of leaving him behind the furthest thing I wished to consider—but with a pertinent threat prowling my sanctioned home, there was no other option.
Booted feet drumming against the planks, I followed the walkway to the quarter deck. Unsettling silence greeted me, not a single tune of sailor song clinging to the air or whispered stories of The Tide Eaters being shared. The only interruption of the stillness was the deep rumble of thunder followed by the sharp crack of lightning overhead.
Droplets of rain coated my flesh but didnothingto staunch the flow of seething rage that threatened to swallow me whole. My whitened knuckles were the only telltale sign of my anger, for my composure in dire situations had been molded by the very man who polluted our lands.
But as I rounded the corner and gained visible access across the ship, that collectedness vanished. Each hung lantern swung in warning, as if something soulless could sense the living. Their glow was the only light amid the darkness, proving to be sufficient to illuminate the scene of damnation that welcomed me.
Bodies.
Lifeless. Unmoving. Unbreathing.
Scattered haphazardly across the expanse that, come morning, would’ve been filled with laughter and playfulness, were numerous bodies ofmymen.Just like Augie, they’d been decapitated, their identities ripped from them by the very definition of soullessness. Where some had been granted what the attacker deemed a privilege, their limbs still attached, others had been hacked apart as if they were nothing more than pigs cast to slaughter. The lingering puddles on the wood had been consumed by their lineage, what was once clear shifting to a darkening scarlet.
My shoulders rose and fell with increasing breaths as I took in the massacre, destruction I hadn’t even heard ensuing. With a quick once-over, it was easily decipherable thatover halfof my crew had been laid to rest by a hand far too precise, far too…trained.
With the lightning serving as my guide, I cast my glower to the forecastle deck, and as soon as it struck the water,shecame into view.
Vibrant red dripped from the tips of her rain-soaked hair, its hue not belonging to the color of her locks, but to the life force of the menshe’d so willingly slain. The clothing we’d offered her was plastered to her frame, splattered in the same gore that caked every inch of her exposed skin. Clutching a sword in her right hand and a dagger in her left, her glower settled on me while the corner of her mouth curled into a sneer.
But it was neither of those things that had my grip on my daggers tightening and my blood boiling to a temperature beyond salvation. No, it was thepileof heads stacked beside her.
Morwenna’s claim rolled forward as if she were trying to stop me.“Because you two are Mizani.”
Fuck whatever that meant. Fuck the witch.
I will butcher this fucking cunt.
“You were supposed to be asleep,Captain,” she crooned, her tongue lapping across her crimson-stained lips. “Considering the amount of Dream Root I slipped into your bottle of whiskey, there’s no way you should be standing right now.”
“Oh, you mean the whiskey I hardly touched,little siren?” The question came from me as a near-animalistic growl, my canine sinking into my cheek with enough intensity to draw forward my ancestry.
Feigning a pout, she twirled the dagger between her fingers with an eloquence that displayed her ties to the king’s right-hand, the Overseer of Assassins—MalrikfuckingRavelle. “Well, that’s a shame. The heart I painted in blood just outside your cabin was supposed to be your little ‘good morning’ present along with my absence.”
“Do you realize the number ofinnocentlives you took tonight? Men who weren’t even in their twenties cast to Elaros because you had some pitiful fucking score to settle?”
She scoffed, a breathless laugh escaping her. “Innocent? Anyone associated withyou,Caspian Vayne, is the furthest thing from such a concept. You’re lucky I was kind enough to spare the men I did. Consider it my last act of departing grace to you.”
“Departing?” I spat. “If you think you’re leaving this fucking ship, you’re mistaken.”
Glancing down at the stack of bloody heads she so proudly displayed, she turned back to me. “Yeah? And who’s going to stop me?”
“I think we both know the answer to that question, little siren.” Leveraging her distaste for my presence, I continued, “If you’re too cowardly to faceyourcaptain, you could just say so.”
Her brows dropped to cloud her vibrant glare. “You wish to be absent of your head as well?”
