Page 60 of The Song of the Void

The floor beneath my feet tilted at just the wrong moment, and I stumbled and missed by a few inches. Drunk or not, Vaetrik had no issue knocking the knife out of my hands and throwing a punch into my stomach, so mighty that I flew backwards and slammed onto the floor a few feet away. My chest ached and heaved as my lungs emptied of breath.

I tried to get to my feet, but Vaetrik was deceptively fast for how powerfully built he was. His boot came down on my throat, no mercy in the weight he leaned against my windpipe.

I uselessly flailed, striking at his calf to get him off me, but that only made him step on my throat harder. I almost wanted to ridicule myself for how pathetically wrong my escape attempt had gone. The moment he woke up, I lost.

“I wanted to keep you around, pet. But now I’m going to take pleasure in killing you before that man’s eyes, after I break him so brutally he won’t be able to move or say a damn word. I’ll keep your head hanging on my wall, so you’ll always be mine. And so that you can watch from the afterlife as I take him apart piece by piece until I feel merciful enough to let him die.”

Years ago, I would have called it mercy for him to kill me, and I would’ve begged him to do it. But Reiven’s death was another matter entirely.

“I’ve always wondered what Siren bones feel like when they snap.” His boot left my throat and pressed into my knee. It would only take one well-placed push to shatter it.

I gasped to get enough oxygen to speak, but could only yelp when he kicked at my knee. He was just playing with his toy, as usual, and it hurt like Mourner Hell. “I—I⁠—”

“What? Speak up, Siren.”

Choking on soundless words and terror, I held my hands in front of my face. The ring that Ash gave me glinted before my eyes as I fumbled to find the symbols on it. Where did he say to start?

I cried out at another kick to my knee. Something definitely splintered inside the joint, but I fought off tears and found the beginning glyph engraved in the ring. I focused on Vaetrik, the man I hated more than anything in the world, and squeaked in a far weaker voice than I intended, “I’m not your pet!”

I ran my finger across the symbols as Ashkade had instructed me. A pulse of energy rippled outward from the ring in a bubble made up of threads of millions of those same glyphs. The translucent globe encased a portion of Vaetrik’s quarters, and within it, time stopped marching forward.

Vaetrik’s body had frozen in place, his face contorted with anger at such backtalk from his submissive pet. Of course, time continued as normal outside this small sphere, judging from how the floor continued to rock with the unruly waves. I stood, stumbling as my knee screamed in pain, and seized my dagger again.

Ten minutes. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him!

My thoughts echoed one another as if my mind were a cavern filled with frantic voices, overlapping in their haste. I limped back to Vaetrik, gasping with each step. With every inch closer, my resolve wavered. I glared up at him as I tried to force myself to slash his throat open, to shower myself with his blood, but my body refused. Courage and strength wouldn’t return to me—until I remembered everything he said he’d do to Reiven.

Nine minutes. Do it!

There was no time for me to waste. I gripped the dagger like it had done me some heinous wrong and aimed for his throat just as the door swung open. It was odd to hear the thunderous storm outside, when within the bubble was complete silence.

Unfortunately for me, that bubble didn’t reach the door, so a dripping wet General Akshar was free to move as he pleased. His relaxed posture tightened into a fighting stance, amber eyes glinting as he took in the scene. He extended his hand, and my dagger betrayed me, flying out of my grasp and into his before the blade could make contact with Vaetrik’s throat.

“Shaddan, please!” I cried desperately. “Please, let us go! Look, I know we’re after the same thing, but at least I know you have good reason to steal the Tome. Vaetrik is a deceitful pirate. For all you know, he might be using you to get the Voidtome himself.”

Eight minutes.

“I’m not a fool.” Rain pelted the deck behind him in a relentless discordance. The light from the lanterns outlined his form against a canvas of stormy gray, revealing the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes as they darted towards Vaetrik. “I have nothing against you, Siren, but…I can’t allow you to get in my way, either.”

The metal navigational instruments and weaponry within the room quivered with his power, rising until he flicked his finger towards me, and they all followed his direction. A brass spyglass slammed into my back, shoving me forward. The time-frozen sphere moved with me, and that gave me an idea.

I ran straight for Shaddan but had to skid to a halt the moment he was inside the orb too, before I moved a step too far and Vaetrik was freed. They both stood motionless on opposite sides of the time magic, barely inside the sphere. One step in either direction, and one of them would be able to move again. I slipped the ring off my finger to set it on the floor.

Seven minutes. I have to go get Reiven, or there won’t be time to escape!

I staggered towards Shaddan, and before I slipped around him, seized the Flamevein Obsidian knife in his belt, the one he had stolen from Reiven. If the ring’s magic ran out, Shaddan wouldn’t be able to take control of it like the other dagger, so I’d have to reconcile with utilizing an enemy’s weapon.

Please, Spirits, keep the pirates busy enough to not notice me. Please, please!

The Spirits must have heard me and for once, smiled down on a lone Siren stumbling about on a pirate ship. Vaetrik’s crew were occupied with tying down a sail that had come loose in the violent storm wind. They shouted at each other to brace as a towering wave approached and swept over the deck. Gray, raging clouds veiled the light of the sun.

I crept across to the stairs that led below and nearly tripped over my own feet at the bottom of the staircase, where a door blocked off the hold from all light and fresh air. Right inside was the hawk-nosed pirate, though he was too busy jeering at Reiven and had his back to me.

Before he could fully turn, I leaped onto his back and drew the Obsidian knife across the fragile skin of his throat, like I should have done with Vaetrik.

Five minutes.

Blood sprayed from the gaping slash, but even after he fell to the ground, I stabbed him in the back, over and over and over in a frenzy until I was certain he would never move again. My hands were sticky and hot. The blood coating my knife sizzled and burned away until the metal was clean.