Chapter 37
Spiteful Undertones
ROHEN
Boot colliding with the center of my chest, I stumbled, and a handful of curses followed suit.
I’d clashed with many men in the past, men who hadn’t stood a chance against me.
But Caspian Vayne? He was holding his ground with the wounds I’d left behind and against Alastair and me—two opponents who were more than equipped with dueling and not unfamiliar with the God of Death.
The arc of Caspian’s blade caught the rays of the sun, fractals of light splitting in warning of my impending doom. Wasting no time, I rolled to the left, and the sharp song of metal joining erupted above me.
“Vayne,” Alastair snarled, hooking his sword in the curve of Caspian’s saber. With a sudden yank, he ripped him forward, granting me enough space to get back onto my feet. “Seems your new crew has been able to keep you on your toes. I was expecting your… expertise to have dimmed with age.”
Cackling with mania, Caspian took advantage of the short distance, driving his forehead into the center of Alastair’s face.
Scarlet bloomed immediately, trickling from the strawberry blonde’s nose.
With a quick adjustment in stance, Caspian drove his heel into the back of Alastair’s hand just as he stepped back to press it to the rushing dam of blood.
Without time to blink or breathe, Alastair hit the cobbled street.
“Bold, considering only two years separate us.”
Spinning the pommel in his hand, he adjusted his hold, sharpened tip angled down at Alastair’s throat.
The teeth of the saber seemed to gleam with a ravenous hunger, the desire to consume a bountiful lineage carving its way through every edge of the finely crafted steel.
But just as it began its descent, I moved.
Feet light beneath me, I closed the gap in seconds, praying to whatever god would listen that I could prevent Alastair’s approaching end.
Driving into Caspian’s towering frame, I sent both of us to the unforgiving ground.
As we stumbled, my body greeted cobblestone yet again, but the impact didn’t register.
Instead, an immediate trail of searing anguish lashed its way from just below my collarbone to the side of my shoulder—another scar of his influence that I would live with for the rest of my life.
Biting my tongue to keep myself from crying out, I hissed in my prior captain’s direction. “You’re enraging.”
“Enraging because I am a formidable foe or because your mind can’t seem to unlatch itself from me?” Caspian taunted, a smile fueled with knowing lacing his infuriatingly gorgeous features.
“Your ego speaks of how small—”
“My ego speaks of nothing,” he spat, crimson gaze darkening. “We are both familiar with how our desires are woven together, braided in a way the gods seem to command. Believe me, the furthest thing I want is to be with a woman like you.”
“Ignore him!” Alastair shouted, running a hand along his neck to wipe away the cut Caspian had still managed to leave behind, regardless of my interference. “He has a thing for taunting. It’s a lever he pulls quite frequently in—”
An unforgiving force slammed into the side of my head, darkness snuffing out my vision before I even had time to contemplate what had happened.
Ears ringing, I blinked through the affliction that burned against the base of my skull.
Struggling to level myself, I brushed my fingertips over the cold divots beneath me, tracing each rock shape as if it would somehow rid me of the daze that had taken over.
Surroundings greeted me once more, the vibrancy of Veilmar serving not only as a reminder of where I was, but a glaring warning for what was approaching.
The horizon came into view just beyond the hand-crafted town, and along it, a fleet of ten ships sat docked at the port, all bearing the royal crest.
Which meant…
“Alastair, we need to—”
Before I had the chance to extend my warning, a foot collided with my stomach. Oxygen vanished immediately as I was tossed back into one of the structural pillars as if I weighed nothing. My spine and ribs cracked upon impact, and another wave of unconsciousness threatened to swallow me whole.
“Now that she is taken care of,” Caspian growled, his timbre sounding close yet distant at the same time, “we can pick up where we last left off.”
Shadows loomed along the edges of my vision, and as they slipped to coat my sight with an inky black, that motherly voice filled the back of my mind.
“Daughter, I know you are tired, but it is pertinent that you keep yourself awake. You need to escape this island, for Malrik is here, and while his orders do not entail retrieving you, his viciousness guides his desires.”
I clenched my jaw, a sharp inhale aiding my movement. Forcing an elbow beneath me, the consistent clash of steel greeted me, its pace hinting at Elaros’s presence—for he was awaiting the soul of the losing opponent.
“I cannot leave him,” I shot back as I pushed myself to my knees.
“You cannot stay.”
“And I refuse to abandon my friend!” My shout tore through my subconscious, and the steady pulse of my heart followed. Ignoring the sudden sway of the earth beneath me, I continued, “Unlike your lot, humans are devoted to people they care about.”
“You foolish girl,” she spoke with venom, but there was the ghost of a smile lingering. “Those of us bearing said titles are the reason each of you is living. Without us and our protection, you would’ve died long before you could meet this friend of yours.”
“And if you had been around to shield me from the brutality of this world, you would know that I will never abandon those who have held me with gentleness.” Lips curling into a snarl, I swallowed my pain as I forced myself upright.
“But that is something you lack understanding in because you weren’t there!
You weren’t there when Malrik beat me! You weren’t there when he raped me! You. Weren’t. There!”
Not having noticed the sudden approach of dark clouds overhead, the roar of thunder brought me back from my stupor. Rain slipped from their angry forms, coating the island in a downpour.
Chest raising with growing fury, I combed my fingers through my dampening hair.
My utterance settled, and with it, another wave of wrath consumed my senses.
It sparked at the base of my spine, roaring up its length.
In tandem with its desired release, lightning carved its way through the sky, striking the cobblestone mere feet away from where Caspian and Alastair continued their fight.
Did I… Did I do that?
“Rohen!” Alastair shouted, catching our opponent's strike with a steadier hold. “Get your ass back to the ship!”
Seething, my brows narrowed. “What?”
“Get”—sweeping the tip of his sword skyward, he forced Caspian back a step—“the fuck out of here!”
“The crown is here!” I screamed back, the sky roaring with rage overhead. “If I leave you here, Leilani will never—”
“That I already know, and I have this thing for escaping danger unscathed. Besides,” he sheathed his weapon, and I went to scold him for it. Stopping as soon as his knuckles drove into Caspian’s face, the rest of his statement followed: “I have a fucking score to settle.”
Peering over my shoulder, I caught sight of the all-too-familiar royal garb of the king’s approaching men. With a curse, I turned back to Alastair right as Caspian caught him by the throat, heaving him off the ground.
“Run!” he forced the single, rasped command from his lips, and whether I wanted to or not, my body started moving.
“I fucking swear, Ellira, if you are the one—”
“I am the one,” she snarled, the usual gentleness to her tone nonexistent.
“You staying there will influence everything. Fate will no longer work in our favor, and we will be nowhere near as close as we are now. I refuse to allow your inability to listen to rip from us our ability to destroy the dark gods.”
I tossed myself over one of the carts with ease, the glass trinkets remaining sturdy regardless of my influence. Ire building, lightning erupted overhead once more, and with it, I spat at the goddess who claimed to be my mother, “I am not some godsdamned chess piece!”
“No, you are not,” she replied, her voice softening. “But you are the child of the prophecy, the one meant to weave all five children of the gods together. The one who will put an end to the corruption that poisons the land, the apathy that asphyxiates the use of magic.”
“That sounds a whole lot like a pawn to me—someone you are using to complete your work because of your own inadequacies.” Slipping out of the main square and down an alleyway, I flattened my back against the building at the sudden approach of footsteps.
An unfamiliar male timbre spoke first. “Malrik Ravelle is already scouring the lands, but you are all acquainted with your expectations. We are here to gather Prince Kael alongside Percival Corvathis, but his biggest demand is that, out of everyone, we bring Caspian Vayne back to Serevalen.”
Caspian?
What does the king want—
“Vayne is a necessity for what we have planned,” a woman added, but the undercurrent of her statement contained something so malicious, something so…
inhuman, that my hair stood up on end. “Kill the townsfolk, set fire to the buildings, and paint Veilmar in blood since red seems to be their favorite color. If you fail to return with the pirate, you will all be executed for insubordination. Understood?”
Bile burned the back of my throat, and I had to bring my hand to my mouth to keep myself from retching. Sure, what she said had been nauseating, but not to the point of sickness. So why was my body reacting in the way it was?
“Sorva,” Ellira snarled down our connection. “The dark goddess who resulted from the separation of my counterpart and me. She is the one whom you witnessed in that vision, the one—”
A hand closed around my mouth as I was ripped into an alcove right as Sorva and her entourage passed.
That scent immediately registered.
Tobacco and leather.
“Long time no see, Levitte.”
Malrik’s utterance slithered up my spine as his grip shifted, closing around the front of my neck as he ripped me past him to meet the wall. Back dragging up unforgiving brick, I kicked my feet as he robbed me of any leverage I had.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t find you?
” he hummed, malice lacing its tune. “Did you really think you’d be able to escape me?
To run from the man who raised you? The man who taught you everything you know?
The man who watched you grow into,” his ghostly gaze swept down my frame, “everything you’ve become? ”
“Go… Fuck yourself,” I spat, my saliva coating his face.
Running a hand across his skin, he smirked. “You seem to forget that I don’t mind that level of foreplay, dear.”
“So it seems…” I wheezed, trying to tuck the heel of my boot into one of the crevices to grant myself air. “Someone else… wished to add to the scar I left on your face? Just… the other side.”
The carving in his right cheek had been etched during a moment of defense, and while he wore it with pride, it served as a reminder that he wasn’t invincible. Which is exactly what the near-twinned gash on his left mirrored—Malrik Ravelle was human, which meant he could be killed.
“Seems your desire to crack foolish jokes hasn’t dimmed since your time with Caspian. Shame.”
Before I could react, he sank two fingers into the cut below my collarbone.
Nails burrowing deeper, his hold around my throat intensified just before the cry of anguish threatened to fall.
As I thrashed, his grin only deepened, irises darkening like the storm that had come to try to wash the arriving evil from the island.
My head swam with the pressure, eyes fluttering as darkness lunged forward. Just as I was about to let it take me, he drew back just enough, a wave of oxygen slipping down my throat and searing my lungs. Gasping, a slew of coughs followed as I watched him pull his hand from my wound.
Bringing his crimson-coated digits to his mouth, he flattened his tongue against them and, with one swipe, gathered my essence. “Mmm. You taste just like I remember.”
“Do I?” I hummed, my narrow window shortening with my prompted distraction.
“Sweet,” he craned his head to the side, “like fresh fruit.”
“You forgot the undertones.”
His brows furrowed in confusion. “What?”
Fingers already curled around the dagger I’d kept hidden, I freed it, carving down the entire length of his arm. “Spiteful.”