Chapter 36
Sharpened Mockery
SYORAN
Whenever I found my conniving best friend, I was going to put my hands around his fucking throat and strangle him.
It had taken all of two seconds of me turning my back for Caspian to slip away, which certainly wasn’t surprising, but that didn’t make it any less infuriating.
He’d always been a master of vanishing without leaving a trace, the shadows seeming to cloak him as if he commanded their very existence.
And sure, it proved to serve as a great benefit whenever we found ourselves in questionable predicaments. But when he leveraged it against me?
All I felt was rage.
Dancing between the columns serving as structural pillars for the buildings they were attached to, I basked in the silence that had blanketed the island.
When the chaos had unfolded, I’d merely watched.
Townsfolk helped one another flee, leaving priceless items still stacked on tables as if there were no concern of theft.
Where that may have been the truth on the afternoon of any other day, with the mumbled mention of the Royal Guard approaching, their reality was about to shift.
Marellan’s men would destroy everything regardless of the treaty.
Each footfall guided me closer to the opposite side of the now vacated market. The steady drum of my boots seemed to supply the only sound slithering through the cobblestone streets of Veilmar, and I couldn’t help but wonder—
The sharp clash of metal rattled my senses, the sound rolling to life from the town’s innards.
I pivoted on the ball of my foot, my path detouring toward wherever that all-too-familiar noise had come from.
Not only did its reverberation point to the use of steel, but the percussive patterns that followed immediately gave away the man I’d walked alongside for years.
“Caspian fucking Vayne, what have you gotten yourself—”
“Ah, seems we are hunting for the same man?”
That voice.
Jaw feathering, I spun toward that recognizable timbre, and those godsforsaken near-white irises greeted me.
His lapis hair was spun back into a low bun, a few loose strands framing the sides of his face.
That irrefutable scar, carving through his right cheek, sat raised against his dark beard, its lighter hue clashing with the olive of his skin.
“Malrik Ravelle,” I crooned, craning my head to the side as my palm settled on the hilt of my weapon. “To which god do I owe my displeasure?”
He huffed with a lack of amusement, the corner of his mouth lifting into a smirk-infused snarl.
“I suppose I could ask you the same, though I harbor the capability of inference unlike some. Considering I spotted Alastair Seridean’s ship docked at port, I am presuming Caspian may have lost his hold on the woman, whom he had no rights to in the first place. ”
“The woman you assaulted not only physically, but emotionally and sexually?” Peeling my sword from its scabbard, I chuckled. “Ironic to lay claim to someone you notably don’t give a fuck about.”
Jaw feathering, annoyance laced his features. “What I do with my property is none of your business. Besides, isn’t it quite out of character for Caspian and you to harbor a soft spot for a woman neither of you truly knows?”
“Caspian Vayne and I are not unfamiliar with the concept of human decency,” I prompted, spinning the scabbard in my hand with practiced ease. “Something you’re entirely unable to wrap your mind around.”
Head tipping back, he released a manic laugh.
“Human decency in a world as corrupt as our own will get you nowhere, and that fact alone is what will prove to be the downfall of both you and your captain, Syoran Kao.” Freeing his saber, he pointed its sharpened tip in my direction.
“Since Caspian has failed to teach you of the darkness polluting our world, allow me to.”
Without wasting a beat, he lunged forward, and I caught his blade.
Steel rang against steel, slicing through the air just as we wished to carve through each other’s flesh.
I felt the impact travel from my smallsword up my wrist before seeping into my forearm and biting into the bone.
I was not unfamiliar with his strength, but his swordsmanship with a longer blade surprised me.
Stepping in, I kept our connection tight, holding the curve of his saber. That was the advantage of shorter steel, closing the distance and suffocating the arc. As we battled for the upper hand, I solidified my hold as he smiled at me over the rim of our locked weapons.
“Too close,” he murmured.
Through a snarl, I allowed my reply to follow. “Not close enough.”
Twisting my wrist, I allowed the momentum to send my blade down his, sparks spitting between us. With an attempt to bind his saber and shove it off line, my shoulder drove forward as my smallsword darted for his ribs.
He quickly pivoted, the saber’s guard slamming into my knuckles with enough force that it numbed my fingers.
I barely kept hold of the hilt as he disengaged and cut low, aiming for my thighs.
Jumping back, my boots skidded over the cobblestone as his blade whispered past my legs, close enough that I felt the wind of his nearly successful attack.
With a huff of amusement, he circled, and I followed suit. “Seems Vayne may know a thing or two about training his men.”
“Caspian taught me nearly everything I know,” I spat, keeping my smallsword tight to my centerline, point aimed at his throat. “Just as he enlightened me that you aren’t all you let on.”
Where he had reach, I had speed, and that created a balance—at least temporarily.
He turned his saber with taunting, egotistical arcs in the air, the sun glinting from its steel.
Testing to see if his flawed confidence would prove beneficial, I parried inside and stepped hard to my right, forcing his saber wide.
My blade snapped toward his face, and he jerked back, but not fast enough.
Smile curving my lips, I watched a trail of crimson bloom along his unscarred cheek—a blow landed.
Lifting his left hand, he touched where I’d cut him. His tongue trailed across his lips as he brought his two fingers back to look at the lineage I’d evoked. “Good,” he crooned softly. “I was hoping you weren’t all talk.”
His saber suddenly moved as if it were alive, guided by some unseen force.
It no longer carried the wild slashes of a brute, but precise cuts that required me to react instead of act.
High right, low left, feint to the shoulder, a real strike to the hip.
I caught them all—barely—and my arm burned from the repeated shocks of each collision of our weapons.
I ducked under a horizontal slash and surged forward, driving my shoulder into his chest. We collided without a second breath, the smell of leather, sweat, and iron flooding my senses. With the space between us no longer serving his benefit, I punched my blade toward his abdomen.
And just like that, he trapped my wrist. Gloved hand clamping down, tendons strained, the crushing force preventing me from moving further in or pulling back. Twisting the hilt in his other hand, he angled the blade down toward my exposed side.
“You rely on proximity,” he breathed, seemingly unfazed by our clash. “It’s predictable.”
Growling, I drove my knee toward his thigh, and he shifted, taking the impact on the muscled portion of his leg.
With one yank, I wrenched my wrist free and shoved him off me, steel screaming as our blades scraped against one another.
In the progression of retreat, his tip grazed my ribs, just a kiss, but heat flared instantly.
Fuck, too slow.
He pressed in with the advantage before I could fully reset.
A flurry of three cuts followed, and I parried high, then low, but the third slipped through my guard and sliced across my bicep, tearing through linen and breaking flesh with ease.
White-hot pain burst from the carving, and my grip faltered.
The flash in his irises was enough to indicate that he saw it; of course, he fucking saw it.
His eyes sharpened, a newfound malice consuming his stare. He swung wider, forcing me back with the reach of his saber, and I had no choice but to retreat. Step by step, my boots glided across the cobblestones beneath them, vibrant scarlet slipping from my skin to paint the ground with my ancestry.
Head tilting with observation, he smirked. “You’re tired.”
“And you’re bleeding,” I snarled, unable to ignore the steady flow of my own essence.
“Superficial,” he crooned, digging his thumb into the cut to gather a glob of his tainted life force. With one flick, it splattered against the once-pristine street, a mark of the corruption that lurked within the walls of Serevalen. “Unlike you, considering you’re leaking everywhere.”
I allowed my gaze to shift, and he proved his claim by attacking again. It was a feint so subtle I almost admired it—lifting his saber for an overhead cut, I raised my smallsword to meet it, only for the real strike to come from below.
His curved blade carved across my thigh, and while the laceration wasn’t deep, it was deep enough for my leg to buckle. I dropped to one knee before I could stop myself, the world narrowing to nothing more than affliction and breath.
Instead of rushing in to finish what he started, he stepped back just out of my reach. Saber poised, he watched me with the patience of a man who knew he’d already won. “Are you ready to yield, Syoran Kao?”
I spat blood on the ground instead. “Over my dead body, you fucking piece of shit.”
He sighed. “You realize such a request puts your captain in a rather precarious situation, considering we are here for him anyway. Your death will serve as great leverage in his torment.” Clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, he huffed a laugh. “Well, and the good-for-nothing prince.”
Knowing he liked to talk, I lunged from my knee, desperation leading my speed. My shortsword thrust forward toward his knee, the angle just as low and vicious as he was.
The saber flashed down with anticipation in an efficient arc. I felt the impact before my mind could wrap around understanding it: a shocking blow that knocked my blade from my hand. Hilt slipping between my fingers, his weapon reversed in the same motion, and the tip sank into my side.
It wasn’t a clean stab. No, the curved steel punched between my ribs until it settled inside me completely. Dragging back as he pulled it free, heat tore through me, and I gasped, the sound stolen from somewhere deep and primal.
With a wheeze, I brought a shaky hand to my side. Warmth greeted me, and I barely caught myself as my body swayed forward. Palm colliding with the ground, the force of the movement rattled my frame with anguish, a bout of coughs serving as my response.
His booted feet came into view, and I struggled to lift my chin. Stabilizing myself in a feigned sense of impenetrability, I caught my warped reflection in his blood-soaked, polished blade.
Lips parted, crimson painted them in its vibrant hue.
Sweat beaded on my brow, and the paleness of my skin confirmed my loss, my failure.
Soaked through, my lightweight linen shirt did nothing to staunch the flow of my ancestry, lively scarlet blooming across it in a sick display of life’s fragility.
“Seems you’re not as impenetrable as your captain claimed you were.
Have you ever considered that maybe he trained you with minor flaws to keep you just weak enough so he could hold the advantage?
You have to recall that Alastair Seridean, his supposed best friend, attempted to betray him, and Vayne would be stupid to assume that even his new right-hand had his best interests in mind. ”
My vision blurred, and the irrefutable tang of copper climbed up the back of my throat. “You have no right to lay claim to a man you hardly know.”
“Maybe,” he goaded, adjusting his grip on his saber. “But I can say the same to you, Syoran Kao. There is little to nothing you know about your Captain Vayne except for the mirage he’s curated, the image he wishes you to see.”
Unable to form a rebuttal of my own fast enough, the pommel of his blade greeted my temple, and the world went sideways.
The ground greeted me faster than I could react, my skull cracking against the cobblestones as a resounding white noise replaced my hearing.
Before the abysmal cataclysm swallowed me whole, I watched as he sheathed his weapon in one smooth, victorious motion, my blood lining its sharpened edge.