Chapter 37
SORROW
Whoever controls the heart, commands the beast.
— OLD ASMARAN PROVERB
My eyes opened to darkness. The damp wood beneath my torn fingers swelled, rocked. Salt air choked me as shards of frigid rain lashed down. Rolling onto my front, the bile swept through me and I purged, spitting and gagging as the violence of the world spun in cruel spasms.
‘That’s not very pretty, is it?’
I stilled as her voice sliced through my aching skull. Spitting the last of the vomit, I brushed my tangled hair back, sitting up and meeting the blurry face of the empress. I raised my chin as the world rocked again, and she squealed like a child on a swing.
‘About time you woke. I thought you’d died on me.’
I gripped the fabric of my skirt, soaked, coarse, and threaded it through my fingers.
Not the world spinning, not yet, I realised.
You’re on a damned boat. Shivering, I raised my head and scanned the gloom.
The rain split the pitch of the night, icy fragments slicing into my eyes.
Furiously, I blinked, desperate to make some sense of what the fuck this woman had dragged me into.
A glow, orange, fierce caught the corner of my eye and I turned.
The abbot leaned over the side of the boat, purging himself as another roll lifted the flimsy craft high, before smashing down.
A cough, wet and strained from the shadows told me Ifan sailed with us too.
Spray showered us, pooling beneath my sodden skirts.
I sniffed, my nose wrinkling as an acrid odour merged with the sea.
‘Fuck.’ I glanced over to where the shadowy empress swung her feet, humming.
‘Speak up, Mrs Asmar,’ she shouted as another swell rose like a serpent beneath the pathetic craft. ‘Has no one told you it’s rude to mumble?’ She squealed again as the surge threw us into the waves, and I shielded my head as the sea crashed down.
I squinted towards a growing ember splintering the inky void, my heart stuttering, praying it was only clouds above the volcano the fates demanded I’d been thrown into.
‘Sometimes I forget she can’t see a thing!’ The empress stood, giggling, as a wave slammed the bow and she fell against a guard. She sat up, and I swiped the rain from my face, desperate to save even a fragment of my sight. There had to be some way out.
But as the chains rattled against the half-rotten planks, shutting off my gifts and the empress hummed, my soul shrank.
She stumbled forward, plopping herself next to me. I sat straighter, meeting her gaze through the gloom and refusing to allow her to see the depth of my terror.
Humming, she grasped my hair and raised my head.
‘Let’s play a game,’ she crooned, her forehead furrowed as she wiped the rain from my face. I tugged back, but she hissed and twisted the loose strands of my hair around her fingers. ‘I love games. I’ll give you three guesses to work out where we—’
‘Vyrus.’ I snorted as anger flashed through her eyes. ‘You’ve brought us to the volcano. The temple.’
Her brown eyes closed, the muscles in her jaw tensed as another wave exploded over us.
Strands of paper-thin hair stuck to her lined face.
This was the first time I’d been so close to the damned creature.
A flash of scarlet caught my eye and I glanced down, my heart faltering at the sight of the almost fully formed ruby, twice the size of Matthias’s fist, nestled against her sodden chest. I could grab it, throw myself over the side.
The cuffs cut into my wrists and I swallowed down a sob.
Wrapped in chains, I’d sink beneath the swell, another soul lost to the Whispering Sea.
Shivers tore through me as she opened her eyes, placed a weak smile on her face.
True, I’d die, but she’d never use me. She’d lose all the power Vyrus’s heart had placed in her hateful soul, giving the rest of the world a chance.
I blew out a shaky breath, suddenly understanding the weight Matthias bore.
He’d lay his life down to gift me a chance of survival.
I watched the ruby glinting in the sparse light as the weight rammed into my chest. If I moved swiftly enough, ripped it over her head and dived overboard?
My fingers twitched as she shuffled, my breath catching as I lost track of the crimson rock for a heartbeat.
‘Something’s different.’ My head snapped in the direction of a man; his face lost to the dark. ‘I can’t… read her, but I’m getting…’
The man peered closer, and my blood chilled like the water surrounding us. An Anomaly, I realised as he narrowed his gaze. An Anomaly who seemed to be reading my thoughts.
‘She’s thinking of…’ He crossed his arms. ‘Sacrifice. Throwing herself overboard.’
The empress grasped my hair tighter, pulled my head higher as she tutted. The boat rocked, waves crashing into my face.
‘I see why you and Asmar fell for each other. Shame.’ I reached up, dug my fingers into her papery skin. ‘I really hoped you and I were the same. Only,’ she sighed, ‘you’re just not enough are you, Mrs Asmar?’
‘Why don’t you remove my cuffs and we’ll see who’s strongest?’
I couldn’t give a fuck if my gifts slammed into every creature on this craft. It no longer mattered that they obeyed. I only needed to destroy.
Her high laugh carried across the night as another barrage of frigid rain blinded me.
‘When they tried to sell me into wedlock, I fought it.’ She pushed herself closer, dragged down the neck of her dress.
At first I saw nothing, till she grabbed me, shoved my head towards her.
With my teeth bared, I readied to bite her, grab the ruby – until I saw it.
An insignificant blemish on her pearl-white chest. Leaning back, my breath stilled as I took in the black mark, the flecks of bronze surrounded by the darkest lighting strikes.
She had a tattoo of her very own.
I pushed back as she barked out a laugh.
‘I tried to make myself like you. An Anomaly.’ She pulled her dress back, giggling as another wave splashed into the back of her head.
‘But I’ll be honest. It wasn’t as clever as I thought.
It did, however, give me the power to poison my family, my vile intended, the servants and all those who thought they could sell me off.
Then I sat on the throne, then Yepana’s throne and every throne on my continent.
I became an empress. Tell me, Sorrow.’ I swallowed as her voice steadied, her head tilted as she clutched the ruby.
‘Did you spread your legs for Asmar the moment you knew he’d bought you, or did you wait till your wedding night? ’
A feral grin lit up her face as I sneered.
‘So, as you see, I may not be one of those blessed, but I still win… whereas you…’ She leapt up as the boat rolled back.
My nose wrinkled as the first tendrils of acrid smoke burned the back of my throat.
Was Vyrus erupting? ‘You’re going to help me ascend to the next rung of my ladder. Tell me, Asmar. Where is he?’
My forehead scrunched. He? Did she wonder where Matthias was? Or what if she didn’t seek her thrall? What if she sought someone with more power thrumming through his divine veins?
Crooking a finger, she glanced behind her. Through the sheets of rain, two men approached; one a guard, the other a Brother of Vyrus.
‘Remain where you are, brother,’ the empress called as the other man stood by her side. ‘Can you see him, Mrs Asmar? Can you see the brother?’
I raised my chin; her expression lost to me as the tempest clawed. She’d never witness the fear gripping my heart.
She skipped, giggling as she slipped on the soaked deck.
‘This is good.’ She turned to the stony-faced Anomaly next to her. ‘Kill him.’
The second the man turned, the brother clutched his neck.
A gush of black spilled down his white smock as he gurgled.
Eiriulf cried out, dived out of the way as the brother fell, toppling over the side to be swallowed by the sea.
The man, Anomaly, turned back. Even through the piercing strikes of rain, I sensed his stare bore into mine.
I grasped my neck, the ghostly whisper of a blade running over my drenched throat.
The empress knelt before me, the rising water covering her knees.
‘And as these waters are simply teeming with diafols, his corpse won’t even make it to the bottom of the sea.’
The shivers tearing through me were nothing to do with the cold seeping into my bones.
Her hands splashed as she leaned forward.
The vengeful God’s heart, swinging towards me.
I swallowed. Memories of those I loved, swarming my mind as the bow rose up, up, figures crying out as the wave carried us.
I could give them a chance; the barest hope they could defeat her.
She leaned in closer, and I fought to keep my fractured gaze from the glint of the ruby. ‘So, Mrs Asmar—’
I barely heard her scream as the boat crashed. Her fingers missed the ruby as I stood, lifting it from her neck. Boots slipped, water crashed. Eiriulf lurched, screaming as my boot landed on his knee. I reached the side, slick fingers gripped and—
Hands wrapped around my neck, throwing me back onto the sodden deck. I groaned, blinking up as the empress descended on me.
‘Bitch,’ she screeched, her voice breaking. Each word matched with a strike to my shattered jaw. ‘Dare! How dare you. If I didn’t need your fucking blood, I’d damn you.’
I clung to the chain. Her heel slammed into my nose and I cried as she dragged the ruby from my fingers. I should have gone, I thought as I no longer knew if it was blood, tears or rain drenching my face. If only I’d gone…
The empress continued to rage. Her screams, raw and putrid, poisoned the dawn as the sea stilled and fractured rays of light shivered as they broke through swollen clouds.
A flurry of activity as the boat stilled told me we’d arrived at her destination.
Heaving in a broken breath, I lifted my throbbing head, wincing against the light.
A dark pier stuck out from the rocky isle where I should have died months ago. Pushing back the sodden strands of my hair, I set my shaky gaze ahead, to where Mount Vyrus trembled with rage.
A laugh bubbled up my throat. Even after I’d faced every torture, bested each ordeal, the fates were not content to allow my defiance to go unpunished.
A chill struck me. Perhaps Vyrus had cursed me after all.
Not a single Tribute had ever defied the Gods and here I was, facing the rupturing volcano once more.
As Eiriulf grabbed my sleeve, grunting as I shoved him away, following the empress’s forces onto the ash-strewn pier, I prayed that this time Matthias wouldn’t risk himself to save me.
Though, as I looked over my shoulder, shivering and peering across the now-still waters, I knew my man would forever defy the Gods to find me.