Chapter 24
Bloodbath
CASPIAN
Rain fell steadily, drumming against the window of my cabin. Its rhythmic pattern served as a lullaby for those who weren’t on duty, but for those who manned the deck, it persisted as an annoying hindrance.
Beside me, the dim candlelight set the mood, offering steadier illumination than the lightning strikes that occasionally lit the black expansiveness threatening to consume us.
The orangish glow cast shadows across my desk, making the script within the numerous journals I’d scattered across it more visible.
Each scroll was different, unique in its own right, sharing tales that’d been banned from our society as soon as King Marellan settled on the throne.
He’d buried them beneath the palace, locking them in an archive he believed remained untouchable, a na?ve assumption considering the man he’d branded and forced to kneel beside him.
With the royal crest burned into the flesh above my heart, deep-seated spite billowed beneath it.
But even amidst the wrath I carried, its emblem provided me free rein to explore the varying wings of the castle.
Granting me that level of access was its own irreversible mistake, for every time I ventured into his corrupted walls, I plundered whatever I could get my hands on.
It also graced me with knowledge most didn’t have about the kingdom or the man who bore its crown, which is ultimately why I’d rescued twelve volumes of historical texts from their confinement.
Tapping my ringed fingers against my whiskey glass, I ran a hand through my damp hair, having just settled in my quarters for the night after assisting the men who so willingly followed my orders.
With a sharpened exhale, I glanced between the scarlet quill pen and the journal I’d been jotting notes in for the past five years.
My handwriting consumed the worn pages, the cursive adorning it something I’d taught myself.
Even with all the words I’d filled it with, and the conversations I’d had with the Damned, there was still far too much to uncover, riddles written intending to keep their underlying meaning cloaked in secrecy.
It felt as if something else was guiding me toward the dire need to know, an adamant refusal to give up settling in the marrow of my bones and the edges of my soul.
Raising the glass to my lips, I took a lengthened swig before setting it down.
The bourbon’s burn flooded my chest, settling my nerves and grounding me for the night of work that awaited.
With a sigh, I briefly pulled away from my elected vice to gather the bottom of my rain-soaked shirt.
Tugging it over my head, I tossed it toward the corner of the room before repositioning myself in the chair that would undoubtedly become my place of rest once exhaustion consumed my stubbornness.
I wrung my palms together before reaching for the writing utensil.
With a simple dip into the black ink, I coated its tip and circled the sloppy words I’d transcribed earlier in the week.
Drawing a circle around them, my brows furrowed, my attention lingering as I racked the recesses of my mind for something, anything, that made sense.
A thousand legs have spun this thread. A thousand eyes have watched them bled—from shores unseen and silent tiers that never surface, yet draw near.
What slumbers deep will wake anew and feast on those who never knew their shadows walked on other sides.
The heart of stone, the crown of glass, a windowed throne, the ages pass.
A name once known, now left to pass, once spoken whole, now split in half.
And just below, I underlined a title that seemed far too familiar yet strangely foreign: The Unraveled One.
“Prophetic, but to what degree?” I mumbled to myself as I rubbed my eyes with my thumb and forefinger before reaching over to grab my glasses.
Adjusting their gold frame on my face, I let my attention dance among the three codices that lay open, as if my enhanced ability to see clearly would restructure my muddled thoughts.
Mirrors.
Two princes stand—one flame, one shade, yet mirrors lie where choices fade. Tread now with care, for blades are true; not all crowned gold is loyal or new. Strike the king, let iron fate fall free, or doom both throne and rolling sea.
“Mirrors… Once spoken whole, now split in half…” Each articulation felt as if I were delving into a curse, uttering concepts that painted a realm far beyond our own. “Strike the king, let iron fate fall free, or doom both throne and rolling sea.”
Nothing, not a damn thing, made sense. It was too convoluted, too interwoven, that I had no clue how to digest the layers upon layers of information buried beneath each line.
Ultimately, it felt like a warning, an utterance from the Damned that’d been jotted down before they’d fallen and stored where the hands of humanity would never be able to reach it.
And yet, somehow, I had, which is why it felt pertinent to uncover their nuances and define every hushed tone of their overarching meaning.
Elaros had remained adamant, each close call of slipping into death’s embrace confirming my involvement.
If it were bound by fate, then wouldn’t it inevitably come to that point?
A loud thud reverberated against the door, severing my attention.
I paused, waiting for a voice, an utterance, anything, but nothing followed.
The interruption had only become another hindrance, deepening the headache I’d been nursing with the practically untouched glass of whiskey.
It pounded against my skull, and I reached for the liquor, stopping when yet another bang echoed against the wooden frame.
“What?” I snapped, my annoyance evident in my timbre.
Again, nothing.
Shoving myself up from where I sat, I crossed my cabin in a handful of strides.
Inhaling to compose myself, my fingers looped around the handle as I yanked the door open.
Expecting to be greeted by a crewmate with some form of update on our route, my breath caught in my throat at the unexpectedness of Death’s arrival on my ship.
Lying at my feet was the body of Augie, one of our secondary navigators.
Crimson pooled beneath his lifeless frame, sixteen years of life spewing from the place his head had once been.
The only reason I was certain it was him was because of the scars that covered his wrists, instances of self-harm he divulged in before finding me, before finding my crew.
Our family.
It took me seconds to gather my daggers.
Slipping on a loose linen shirt, I stepped out onto the watered-down deck.
A pang of emotion slammed into me as I stepped over his body—the thought of leaving him behind the furthest thing I wished to consider—but with a pertinent threat prowling my sanctioned home, there was no other option.
Booted feet drumming against the planks, I followed the walkway to the quarter deck.
Unsettling silence greeted me, not a single tune of sailor song clinging to the air or whispered stories of The Tide Eaters being shared.
The only interruption of the stillness was the deep rumble of thunder followed by the sharp crack of lightning overhead.
Droplets of rain coated my flesh but did nothing to staunch the flow of seething rage that threatened to swallow me whole. My whitened knuckles were the only telltale sign of my anger, for my composure in dire situations had been molded by the very man who polluted our lands.
But as I rounded the corner and gained visible access across the ship, that collectedness vanished.
Each hung lantern swung in warning, as if something soulless could sense the living.
Their glow was the only light amid the darkness, proving to be sufficient to illuminate the scene of damnation that welcomed me.
Bodies.
Lifeless. Unmoving. Unbreathing.
Scattered haphazardly across the expanse that, come morning, would’ve been filled with laughter and playfulness, were numerous bodies of my men.
Just like Augie, they’d been decapitated, their identities ripped from them by the very definition of soullessness.
Where some had been granted what the attacker deemed a privilege, their limbs still attached, others had been hacked apart as if they were nothing more than pigs cast to slaughter.
The lingering puddles on the wood had been consumed by their lineage, what was once clear shifting to a darkening scarlet.
My shoulders rose and fell with increasing breaths as I took in the massacre, destruction I hadn’t even heard ensuing. With a quick once-over, it was easily decipherable that over half of my crew had been laid to rest by a hand far too precise, far too… trained.
With the lightning serving as my guide, I cast my glower to the forecastle deck, and as soon as it struck the water, she came into view.
Vibrant red dripped from the tips of her rain-soaked hair, its hue not belonging to the color of her locks, but to the life force of the men she’d so willingly slain.
The clothing we’d offered her was plastered to her frame, splattered in the same gore that caked every inch of her exposed skin.
Clutching a sword in her right hand and a dagger in her left, her glower settled on me while the corner of her mouth curled into a sneer.
But it was neither of those things that had my grip on my daggers tightening and my blood boiling to a temperature beyond salvation. No, it was the pile of heads stacked beside her.
Morwenna’s claim rolled forward as if she were trying to stop me. “Because you two are Mizani.”
Fuck whatever that meant. Fuck the witch.
I will butcher this fucking cunt.
“You were supposed to be asleep, Captain,” she crooned, her tongue lapping across her crimson-stained lips. “Considering the amount of Dream Root I slipped into your bottle of whiskey, there’s no way you should be standing right now.”
“Oh, you mean the whiskey I hardly touched, little siren?” The question came from me as a near-animalistic growl, my canine sinking into my cheek with enough intensity to draw forward my ancestry.
Feigning a pout, she twirled the dagger between her fingers with an eloquence that displayed her ties to the king’s right-hand, the Overseer of Assassins—Malrik fucking Ravelle.
“Well, that’s a shame. The heart I painted in blood just outside your cabin was supposed to be your little ‘good morning’ present along with my absence. ”
“Do you realize the number of innocent lives you took tonight? Men who weren’t even in their twenties cast to Elaros because you had some pitiful fucking score to settle?”
She scoffed, a breathless laugh escaping her. “Innocent? Anyone associated with you, Caspian Vayne, is the furthest thing from such a concept. You’re lucky I was kind enough to spare the men I did. Consider it my last act of departing grace to you.”
“Departing?” I spat. “If you think you’re leaving this fucking ship, you’re mistaken.”
Glancing down at the stack of bloody heads she so proudly displayed, she turned back to me. “Yeah? And who’s going to stop me?”
“I think we both know the answer to that question, little siren.” Leveraging her distaste for my presence, I continued, “If you’re too cowardly to face your captain, you could just say so.”
Her brows dropped to cloud her vibrant glare. “You wish to be absent of your head as well?”
Stepping off the lip of the quarter deck, my boots collided with the main. “Are you going to continue talking yourself into a corner, assassin, or are you going to come show me exactly what Malrik’s favored cunt is renowned for?”
That was all it took to get her to walk down the stairs from the forecastle deck to join me—my bait was sufficient to draw her near. Her attention swept between my two daggers, and without a second of hesitation, she sheathed the dagger she held in her left hand.
It was a mark of defiance, a stamp of vengeance, and the conviction of becoming the curator of damnation.
With a subtle flick, the sharpened point of her bloodied sword clanged against the wood, and she smiled at its deadly hum. “Suit yourself, Captain, but I can promise you’ll regret ever requesting this type of dance with me.”
“Your confidence is flattering, but I can still smell that uncertainty, little siren, which I will waste no time devouring.” Running the two sharpened edges of my daggers together quickly enough to draw sparks, a smirk coaxed my lips.
“Let it be known that you’re just about to find out why I became the Captain of the Bloodmarked, as well as why those inland have titled me The Marked One.
And I hope you don’t falter, darling, for it will very well cost you your head. ”