Chapter 51
R I T T E R
A sense of finality struck me harder than anticipated as I watched someone else rescue my daughter, with the same fervor I once had when rescuing Nora, all those years ago.
I don’t have time to thank Basilisk for saving my life just now, trusting that Soren knows what he’s doing with Jane. She’s alive. The sirens will take care of her. Cypress promised.
Cutting my way through those that remain, I re-center my aggression as I shout out to Jesper while he hides behind a wall of Blackwell’s men. This damn body of mine is worthless without the training, knowing I can’t get to him on my own?—
The large figure of Soren enters my vision, pulverizing the pirates with either his weapons or his body, Bones right behind him, and then Basilisk joins.
It’s a fast clash of wet steel, until I spot an opening to reach Jesper, who is bickering about getting into the reserve boat, only to yell out a counter point that the sirens will take them under if they touch the ocean.
“Where is Morvock!” one shouts as I near them while trying not to slide off the deck. I’ve earned the right to hone in on my target while the younger men handle the rest.
Jesper shouts, “He fucking left us!” They near the side of the ship, and one screams out, “There’s sirens in the water!”
I laugh at their futility, the smile not reaching my eyes. My heart races faster, so damn close to the revenge my family needs.
Jesper glances around in a clear attempt to search for an answer until he spots me, fear washing over him as if he’s never been truly terrified before. He fumbles for a dagger from his waist, rotating it inward on himself, and I know what he’s about to do.
The siren’s suicide; killing oneself is preferred to the siren’s curse.
No he fucking doesn’t.
I dive forward with my entire weight, my arm intersecting his blade right as it reaches his body, penetrating my entire wrist as I cry out when I see the metal sink into my flesh, severing the ability to use my fingers.
Jesper collapses to the ground with my attack as we both lie on the soaking deck. Jesper’s laugh rents the air, his one visible eye manic, only for me to use my other hand to remove a blade at my thigh, cutting at one of his knees as his cackle morphs into a hollering pain. Try escaping now, you cunt.
I cannot die without knowing Jesper faces pure torment, and he will not be graced with the mercy of dying today. My wrist still bleeds profusely, the blade sticking out of my arm, but I’ll plunge over the edge with him if I have to.
“What are you doing?” Jesper asks with panic, reaching for his knee.
“Giving you to the sirens,” I declare, the raging inferno reflecting against his eye, his skin and clothes glistening as I slowly rise up to stand over him, his weapon still in my flesh.
“Please,” he pleads, trying to move but Bones appears and stomps hard with his boot on Jesper’s chest, whose mouth expands wide in a forced exhale. He tries to catch his breath, glaring at me. “Think of the life you’re about to commit me to. The misery .”
“And what about my misery?” I lean down, holding up my fucked up wrist as if to show physical pain means nothing to me. “My wife was murdered on your orders. And what of my daughter’s life? Of Jane’s suffering? Of the mother you robbed her of?” I spit in his face. “My only regret is I will die before you and be unable to witness your torture centuries from now.”
Abject horror spreads on Jesper’s face as I realize he sees Soren nearing us, as if the Zenith is death incarnate. Bones lifts his boot as Soren grabs Jesper by the neck, picking him up with one hand as the pompous cunt struggles to breathe. “You killed Anya,” Soren rasps, and Jesper sputters something useless out. “And you planned to use Jane, to assault her. To destroy her dignity.” Soren brings Jesper closer to his face, his mask utterly stolid but the striking eyes underneath are incensed with fury. “You were never going to survive that. I am your fucking reckoning, not the god you hid behind.” Soren drops his gaze. “Go ahead, Bones.”
Jesper is pinned to the railing, his hair splayed in wet strands over his face, the bandaging around his one eye sloughing off, slowly revealing a gnarled gash like he’d been mauled by an animal; red, swollen, and bruised. Bones unfurls Jesper’s reluctant arm to immobilize with his boot, slamming an ax through his wrist, the hand nearly rolling away before Bones can grab it.
Jesper screams out in shock, trying to stand but his cut up knee won’t take any weight.
“How polite to offer your hand in this,” Bones says, laughing in Jesper’s face before headbutting him so hard he becomes dazed, the mad man still in his face. “You’re so fucking lucky you’re going to the sirens. I would have tortured you until my last breath, then handed you over.” He moves away, as if being near him anymore will force Bones to murder him. “I can’t look at him.”
Soren readjusts to grab Jesper by the collars, the Order of Ash leader beginning to cry, bleeding out all over the broken deck, his eyepatch sliding off to reveal eyelids that are sewn shut. Soren says to him, “You and I will never meet again. Enjoy your eternity.”
He then lifts Jesper to toss him over, and I near the edge to ensure that the sirens greet him, just barely witnessing his body getting sucked into the waves.A few tails breach the dark water right where the ocean consumed him, like shark fins when circling a feast.
The relief that floods my body nearly has me collapsing.
Soren nears me, as if he can feel everything coursing through me. He probably can, and I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. I look at him, holding up my wrist as blood drips down my arm, still unable to use my fingers. “I need to get in the waters. I’m bleeding out. I need the sirens. Pulling this out will kill me.”
Nora always made sure to educate me on proper wound management.
Soren and I share a prolonged moment of eye contact, an aged Zenith staring at the younger, more capable one; it’s officially time for me to let go. “Go ahead,” Soren says, nodding to me.
With the next harsh jolt of the ship, I let my body fall overboard, weightless as I plunge below, watching flaming the deck rise higher above me as I tumble between the two interlocked vessels.
I did it Nora. I’m so sorry it took me so long .
My body collides with the surface to expel all air from my lungs, before gently sinking down, pale hair immediately floating around me, the fires above giving off immense, diffused light.
A part of me recognizes it’s the sirens already tending to me rather than Nora’s blonde hair, but in that moment, I wouldn't mind if I didn’t wake up.