38. Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Eight
T he hunter steps toward me with malicious intent, his boots sliding through the blood that spreads across the planks between us.
I see the exact moment he understands who I am — what I am — before his gaze drops to my throat, to the place where my voice still vibrates softly.
His grip tightens around the blade. In his face, there is no hesitation, no uncertainty of a man who questions the morality of what he is about to do.
I dig my fingers harder into the gaps in the wood beneath me as I look past him.
More boots hit the deck, more men spill over the planks as the hunters climb aboard with weapons drawn.
I understand with sudden, sick clarity that we never stood a chance against them.
They waited, they watched, and they chose the exact moment when my voice would be the weakest and our guard the lowest, to strike.
We are outnumbered.
We are unprepared.
We are going to die here.
The realization settles into my chest with suffocating weight, and I become deeply aware of how fragile my body has become, how diluted the strength inside of me feels after everything I have already given to the crew.
I wait for him to close the remaining distance between us and drive that blade straight into my heart, before anyone can reach me. Before Sable could reach me. But the hunter doesn’t move.
“Captain said to capture you alive,” he spits. “Makes the highest profit. I see you got some shiny new scales too.”
His gaze drops to my legs.
Fear bubbles in my stomach, before it cramps so tight it makes the deck tilt beneath me. Frozen, I watch him pull a dirty cloth out of his breaches as he towers above me, and I press my back against the mast, as if I could sink into it if I tried hard enough.
The power within me is drained, and yet I wonder what happens if I reach for it anyway.
As he leans down to grab me, I pull at the strings of my song and open my mouth.
My throat aches as the first note escapes, and it is dripping with the taste of iron.
Blood runs over my lips and down my chin, clinging to my skin in slow, heavy strands as I try to drag air into my lungs.
I spit it out to avoid choking on it, with both palms against blood-stained wood.
He laughs, and tears blur my vision.
I lift my head just enough to see him standing there, his blade loose in his hand now, his shoulders relaxed with the easy confidence of a man who knows the outcome of this fight has already been decided. His eyes move over me with open satisfaction as more blood spills from my mouth.
“Is that all?” he asks.
You are weak. The sea whispers into my ear, and for a moment, I believe it. Believe that this is how it ends, on my hands and knees in a mixture of Saint’s blood and my own.
Yes, I am weak.
But that does not mean I cannot be brave. I haven’t survived this long for it all to end like this, with me in the hands of the men I have been running from my whole life. I’d rather die before they pluck a single scale from my body.
My fingers tremble. Something moves beneath my skin, a slow pressure at the tips of my fingers, as if something buried deep inside my bones is trying to force its way free.
Then pain blooms, and my nails push forward, lengthening beyond what should be possible, thinning into clear, curved points that gleam faintly in the dim light.
Talons.
Slowly, I look up at him. The smile on the hunter’s face falters when he sees them. My mouth shifts into a smile that does not belong to the woman I was weeks ago.
His eyes widen.
Too late.
My arm lashes forward with a natural precision, faster than he can react. My talons slice cleanly into the back of his leg, just above the heel, sinking deep into the thick cord of his Achilles tendon before tearing through it completely.
He screams, and it is like music to my ears.
The sound rips out of him as his body collapses, his legs buckling beneath him as he crashes down onto his knees with violent force. The blade he carried a moment ago clatters across the deck, useless.
Blood pours from the wound. Bright. Hot. Alive.
Yes. The sea whispers again.
My hands press into it without hesitation, my fingers sinking into the warmth of it as the instinct takes over completely, guiding me. I drag the blood across my skin, smearing it over my arms in slow, deliberate strokes as if marking myself with it.
The siren rises, and so does my power.
It surges back into me with a sudden force, flooding my body, drowning out the weakness that burned through me moments ago. The strength returns to me, in unruly, sputtering bouts, growing more and more intense as fear begins to glisten in the hunter’s eyes.
He tries to crawl away.
I let my voice rise again, and this time, it does not break. The note emerges low and steady, vibrating through him instantly, wrapping tight around his failing will as his body stills. When his hands fall limp at his sides, I know my command has burrowed deep into him.
Stand.
His ruined leg drags uselessly behind him as he forces himself upright, his face pale with agony. Trembling, he turns toward the railing with slow, obedient steps.
The sea stretches beneath him, black and endless, its surface broken only by the violent rocking of the ships.
Around me, the battle continues mercilessly, steel striking steel in sharp bursts that cut through the air.
Somewhere close to my left a man cries out before the sound chokes off abruptly, replaced by the wet collapse of something heavy hitting the ground.
I know it was one of our men without looking.
The hunter sways where he stands above the water, his fingers tightening against the railing as if some final instinct is fighting to return to him. But I do not release him from my control.
Jump.
I command him, and he lets go. His body drops into the dark with a dull, distant splash that vanishes almost immediately beneath the roar of the battle. The moment he disappears, the power surges back into me with violent force, intoxicating my senses with sweet death and pure, unfiltered power.
I do not feel weak anymore.
The smell of blood and gunpowder fills the air around me, polluting my lungs with every breath, thick and suffocating. I turn to take in what unfolds in front of me.
Grim is several paces away, his frame locked in brutal combat with two hunters at once. To my surprise, he swings an axe instead of a sword, forcing back the attackers. But he slows down, his twisted face a clear sign of exhaustion.
One of the hunters lunges low, and Grim blocks the strike, but the second moves behind him and raises his weapon high.
I raise my voice with intent, focusing solely on him. The note tears free from me, cutting clean through the chaos as it finds the hunter just as his blade begins its descent. He freezes, body locking mid-motion as the sound sinks deep into the fragile center of his mind.
Grim sees him now, confusion flashing across his face as the hunter steps away from him instead of toward.
Walk. Jump. Drown.
He passes Grim, his shoulder brushing against him as he moves through the heart of the battle and toward the railing, ignoring the shouts of his own men.
When he jumps, Grim's eyes lift to meet mine, only for a brief moment, with him already swinging his axe again.
Understanding passes between us, and I lift the corner of my mouth into a smile as more power floods my system.
I scan the deck for Sable.
I find him. He moves between his attackers with lethal precision across the deck, his blade flashing in tight arcs that force them back one step at a time.
But there are too many of them, their bodies closing in around him, no matter how much he slashes at them.
He won’t be able to keep them off forever.
My chest tightens at the thought of a blade ramming into his chest, of him bleeding out as Saint did.
So I do not let my song fade. Instead of forcing it back down and obeying the instinct that wants me to stop, I allow it to expand further. The power spills outward in slow waves, pulsing through the air around me as if the sea itself has chosen my body as its vessel.
Without a second thought, I lift my hands, my fingers spreading through the air as if I can feel the shape of the power itself. My song reaches further across the deck and slips past the clash of steel, then wraps around not one but two of the hunters attacking Sable.
One of them stiffens first, his blade faltering before falling to the ground.
Then the body of another locks mid-motion, as if he is being held back by an invisible force.
Their minds struggle against my power, and I feel the strain of it tearing through me, my lungs burning as if each breath must force its way through broken glass.
Movement flickers at the edge of my vision. Two more hunters break from the chaos, their eyes fixed on me and my throat. A quick glance to my sides tells me that no one can step in, that no one can leave their position, as they would risk their own lives in doing so.
“Risa!” Sable shouts, there is nothing controlled or commanding in it now, only raw fear stripped bare as my name tears out of him. He knows what it is costing me, and he knows he will not reach me in time.
I drag more power through me, ignoring the violent protest of my body as the sound lashes outward and wraps around them just before their hands reach me.
The impact of it nearly breaks me. Pain explodes through my chest as my hands jerk violently in the air, my fingers cramping inward as the force pouring out of me doubles, triples, far beyond what I have ever produced before.
My gaze finds Sable, who’s using two swords now, trying to fight his way through the shifting crowd. With his eyes widened and his knuckles white around the handles of his blades, he screams my name again. But it all seems so distant. So out of reach.