Chapter 38
Truth Lies in Prophecy
CASPIAN
The crack of cartilage blended with the overhead clap of thunder.
Attire soaked to conform to my frame, a subtle shiver rolled through my body.
Each flash of lightning caught the reflection of our weapons—my twinned sabers reflecting the darkness that followed the veined explosion of light that Alastair’s short sword captured.
We’d been here before, bloodied and beaten by the others' hands.
But those instances carried a jubilant innocence.
We were teenagers then, foolish soon-to-be men who entertained the idea of roughhousing while commanding a ship and sailing the seas together.
And now? Now, all that remained was searing hatred.
Trailing my thumb beneath my nose, the sneer I wore turned sinister. With one glance at its pad, I noted the vital hue that greeted me—a reminder that I was still, somehow, human.
The concept itself felt fragile after everything that had happened, all the secrets I had kept to myself.
Each journal scattered across my desk carried them, their worn pages contained every ounce of information I harbored, but couldn’t disclose, not because of a lack of desire but because I was bound.
It was a fact I hadn’t come to realize until I attempted to confide in Syoran, my inability to do so clarifying every ounce of clashing emotion I’d felt in the past—my lack of desire to offer the truth, the nauseating feeling that consumed my senses whenever I so much as contemplated doing so, and the anger that arose any time someone pressed me for enlightenment.
The brand burned into my flesh had not only served as a beacon for Rohen Levitte but also as the captor of my words, my autonomy, my voice.
I was silenced by the dark gods' influence.
I knew where the second Eye of Ellira resided.
And I was the son of Elaros.
My truths.
But even that knowledge didn’t explain the unexplainable thread that looped itself around my throat. A draw toward my little siren that aggravated me beyond means, the only word to elucidate it being Mizani—something that the scrolls I’d stolen failed to elaborate on.
Golden glower narrowing, Alastair circled me again, bruising forming along his left cheekbone. “Your mind is elsewhere, Vayne.”
“Apologies.” Gathering a mouthful of copper-infused saliva, I spat on the rain-laden cobblestones. “I just find you quite… drab.”
He lunged forward, and I blocked his left hook. Without missing a beat, my knuckles greeted his unprotected side, colliding into his kidney with enough force that he nearly doubled over. The groan he released in response to the blow forced a smile to my lips.
Fingers weaving through his hair, I forced him upright until our noses fell inches from each other. “You’re weak. Pathetic. A man who served as the most pitiful excuse for a right-hand, for my second.”
“I only ever wanted to protect you since we were kids, kids, Caspian! I always held space for you whenever you felt your world was crumbling.” His jaw feathered with the words, a familiar slice of anguish dancing through his irises.
“Whenever you felt alone, I was there. I sacrificed everything while you sat aside, fat and happy, off the joys of life I provided. I placed myself in front of danger for you and carried shared emotional weight, all while you leeched off me until you felt you’d gotten enough.
You attempted to kill me. You are a pitiful man, Caspian Vayne, a man who sucks the life from everything he touches and leaves nothing in his wake. ”
Something in my chest ruptured at his words, the side of me that had died the day he turned his back on me. He’d betrayed us, and still, somehow, he blamed me.
“You wish to dodge responsibility? To dance around truth?” I hissed, tightening my hold on his hair.
“If it makes you feel better, then paint me as the supposed villain in your story, Alastair Seridean. It’s a title I have borne my entire fucking life, and I have no issue continuing to do so if it helps you feel at peace before I put you to rest for the deceit you’ve bestowed upon me and the crew you supposedly cared for.
I may not be a good man, but I sure as fuck don’t lie my way around the truth. ”
“You tried to kill me and nearly succeeded! What the fuck are you talking about?!” he screamed, his nostrils flaring with an anguish so perfected I nearly questioned myself about the events that unfolded that night.
“Have you manipulated and lied so well that you now cannot decipher where the line between integrity and duplicity begins and ends?”
My breath lodged itself in my throat, and I had to force myself to blink, to process what he was insinuating.
Corruption and malice had woven themselves into our lives since before I could remember.
It started in youth, when our minds were still malleable, and King Marellan readily took advantage of it.
He’d pinned us against one another a handful of times, not to such detrimental extremes, but to the point we often questioned one another’s loyalties.
Had it continued? Had he been the one responsible for what happened on the sea that winter night? Or was it the gods, the other great manipulators of my life?
Palms slamming into my chest, Alastair forced himself away from me, and I allowed it. Taking a step back, he drew in a shuddered breath. “You do not get to sit here and claim innocence when you nearly gutted me that night!”
“Elaros…” I whispered down our connection, desiring answers I feared he wouldn’t be able to provide. “Was all of this… Was all of this a lie?”
“My ability to answer your query is asphyxiated by the ancient power that divided the true divinity of these lands.” A tinge of sorrow clung to his utterance. “But, I can say this: the foes you believe you have exist out of deception.”
Heaving for air, I shook my head, my gaze lifting to my former best friend—to the man who once held my heart. “Alastair, there’s—”
Before I could spew my realization, before I could insinuate the Others' influence in our falling out, white-hot talons clawed their way from my heart and branched outward.
Anguish slithered under my skin, devouring my entire torso and both arms. Speaking became impossible as I collapsed, knees slamming against the cobblestone street.
The royal crest. The bind.
“You need to breathe through it, Child.”
“Breathe? Fucking breathe—”
The affliction grew, an unseen hand coiling its fingers around my throat with the same burning influence. One palm slapped the earth, the other pressing against my brand in hopes that something, anything, would stop its onslaught.
“Should I feel pity for whatever the fuck this is?” Alastair snarled, his presence looming.
“No,” I forced the single word out between clenched teeth, a tremor rocking my frame as the pain continued its route through my body.
“No?”
Not allowing me the chance to reply, his foot slammed into my stomach with enough force to send me onto my back.
The uneven road dug into my skin, my soaked linen shirt offering no protection against its intentional nip.
A dull anguish followed, etching itself into the scars already littering my skin, but it was nothing compared to what continued building within me.
Booted footsteps approached, and Alastair stepped into view, dagger in hand.
Wasting no time, he dropped himself on top of me, straddling my waist as he brought the sharpened edge of the steel to my throat.
“There is no fucking chance that I will ever forgive you for what you did to me, no matter what strings you attempt to weave. You are a man built from malice, a man chiseled by apathy, and your theatrical display of purity will not fool me. Not again, Vayne. Never again.”
Throat bobbing, I held his gaze. Golden irises, once illuminated by a blossoming light, had shifted into something far darker, molded by the harshness of betrayal.
It was something I understood far too well because, from a different lens, he had done the same to me.
His supposed decision to turn his back on me, after the love he claimed to harbor, had festered inside me and created such a monstrous man that even I couldn’t recognize myself in the reflection staring back at me through his glare.
I only had myself and my naivety to blame, not bothering to question all the pawns in the game of my life, pawns that undoubtedly belonged to the Others.
The pious beings that the deception poisoning our lands demanded we worship hadn’t only driven a wedge between the true gods and their people, but between Alastair and me. And for what?
“You share similarities,” Elaros crooned from my subconscious, gently offering a form of comfort. “In soul.”
“Are you insinuating he is the son of a god?”
“I am not insinuating or denying anything,” he paused before continuing, “it is you who remains capable of digesting things as the dark gods demand, or out of your own desire to understand. Question everything, Caspian, for only the truth lies in prophecy.”
There were far too many truths to consider, paths in life that were likely influenced by the dark gods and those who followed them.
Where we’d believed we were free as soon as we set sail, we’d remained leashed the entire time.
Driven to destroy one another because of the chance that we might decipher the truth, that we might dust off the foundation of lies that established the throne.
That was just too grave a risk for the Others.
Our alliance was a strength, one they wished to destroy.
Pressing against the scar on my throat, Alastair snarled. “Are you ready to be laid to rest, Vayne?”
I reached up, fingers curling around his wrist as I yanked him closer. Affliction slowly ebbing, speaking became easier, and I offered him two words I knew he wanted to hear. “Do it.”
Hesitation flared in his stare. “No fight?”
“I have nothing left in me, Alastair,” I chuckled in exhaustion. “And with the crown already infiltrating this island, you would be offering me an out. We are both familiar with their approaches, and if they’re here, it’s likely for me.”
Adam’s apple bobbing, his tongue trailed over his split lip as he considered my admittance.
“My decision is not out of empathy or even sympathy, but the desire for you to suffer to the utmost degree.” Sheathing the dagger, he pressed the knuckles of his right hand against my sternum as he hoisted himself off me.
“You can lie there like the pathetic piece of shit you are, and they can whisk you away. If the king sent for you, a punishment undeniably awaits, and I know your weaknesses. You break when you are alone, and he will happily destroy you. And that? That is far more satisfying than draining you of your lineage.”
Stepping over me, he moved toward where his sword rested. With a simple bend forward, he retrieved it, returning it to the scabbard at his side. He turned, offering one glance over his shoulder at me, hatred lining every inch of his features.
“While I am jealous of whatever bastard left that scar behind, a scar that should’ve taken your godsforsaken life, I will relish the joy that comes from knowing you are suffering.”
He pivoted on his heel and slipped into one of the alleyways.
Little did he know, I was the bastard who’d carved my way through my own throat, and I’d done it the night I believed I killed him.