Chapter 15
Embodied Corruption
SYORAN
“You’re fucking joking, right?”
Glaring at me between the bars of the cell, Rohen lifted an unamused brow.
Her emerald eyes glinted with something far more potent than hatred, something far darker than loathing.
Drowning her, the linens she wore attempted to blanket her wrath, but I knew if she found out who they belonged to, she would undoubtedly demand another pail of water to scrub her skin clean of his essence—a life I was trying to save.
“I’m not,” I snarled, my own attire now stained with my best friend’s blood. “You either help him, or I’ll string you up by your wrists and toss you over the edge of the ship for the Tide Eaters to have their way with you.”
“Sounds far more appealing than being stuck here,” she spat, her lips curling into a sneer. “Honestly, you standing before me requesting my aid to save my captor’s life is hysterical at best.”
Without a moment of hesitation, my hand curled around the keyring dangling from my hip.
Shoving the one responsible for her holding into the lock, I twisted it to the side with a force I knew spoke of my slipping patience.
My palm met the frigid metal, its chill unable to dim the fire burning within my soul.
Tearing the door open, I took two strides before I landed in front of her.
My fingers coiled around her throat as I forced her back against the brick wall, basking in the grimace that coated her features.
Resting the tip of my sword against her abdomen, I craned my head.
“This is not a request, which means you have no say or choice in the matter. You either help him, or you fucking die. Better yet, why don’t we just pass you back to Malrik since he’s hunting for you?
I’m sure he’d love to taint your cunt some more.
” My lips brushed over her ear, mocking and condescending.
“But you’d like that too much, wouldn’t you? ”
A telling spark of fear rippled through her irises, only to be replaced by unfiltered distaste.
It was a breath, a brief second of contemplation, of how much more of herself she’d inherently lose if we handed her off as if she were nothing more than the minimal assets she had.
With the distance between us no longer guarding her feigned strength, the mask she wore fell, and vulnerability momentarily slipped through its cracks—a powerlessness I understood far too well.
Her opinion of us matched the societal definition: a fleet of negligence and the embodiment of corruption, but none of them had glanced our way long enough to understand the fragility that existed at sea.
We were all broken in our own ways, stripped of compassion by those who were supposed to protect us.
While we, Cas and I, understood the sinister ideations that plagued the minds of many of the men we led, as well as those prowling the lands, neither of us harbored the same ill will.
Well, we hadn’t until the choice no longer came of our own volition.
The royalty and the noose they choked civilization with were nearly impossible to escape.
Once one finally did, those obedient to the crown drowned out the truth, silencing opposition behind a uniform voice.
Our overseers shrouded the very definitions of humility and humanity in an irrevocable darkness, one even the fates seemed to allow, just another entanglement in our complex stories.
When we’d prayed to the Damned and the Others, none had answered, and our souls shifted into tainted remnants of what they once were, but one thing had always remained.
Our morality.
Deep within the marrow of my bones, there was a young boy who screamed for gentleness, pleading to the man I’d become not to handle or treat a woman with such harshness.
I once believed in the beauties of life, and while I wished to listen to that side of me and understand the nuances of the flaws I embodied, it’d become second nature to look the other way and allow my internal rage to consume me.
Especially when it came to Caspian Vayne.
My protectiveness derived from a complex internal well, graying the lines between desire and second-nature obsession.
On one hand, I saw a captain, one whose very soul and essence I wished to hold, because he’d done so with me so many times.
But, on the other hand, there was something far more complex; something otherworldly.
My bloodstream thrummed with the overwhelming need to walk alongside him, even if it meant stepping into one of the mouths of Yxalune, the Seven-Headed Terror of the Deep.
It was almost as if fate, or even the gods themselves, had etched my instinctive urges to protect him in the marrow of my bones.
“Last chance, Levitte,” I growled, pressing the sharpened point into her skin. “You help the captain of this ship, or I gut you and throw you overboard like nothing more than the chum we feed to the sea life.”
Through gritted teeth, she hissed, “Even if I wanted to help him, your lot are senseless enough to traverse the open waters without an herbalist on board, which means—”
“What do you need?”
“What?”
Exhaling heavily, I clenched my jaw. “What. Do. You. Need. To. Save. Him?”
She rolled her eyes. “Knowing what Malrik likely laced the blade with, I would need both Quassia and Ammiadamon, which are rarities and often only held by those who know of herbal properties and their effects in healing. You know? Like an herbalist?”
“Well, it’s a good thing our medic keeps every plausible herb on hand, isn’t it?” I jeered, lifting an amused brow. “Which means that you, little devil, have no excuses left.”
“You can’t just—”
Grabbing the collar of her shirt, I ripped her from the wall, shoving her toward the cell door. “I am confident you know how to use your legs, so please, for both of our sakes, start walking.”