Chapter 39
Kill Them All
ROHEN
Fingers wove into my hair right as I reached for the dagger responsible for nicking his flesh, the dagger he’d knocked from my hold.
Malrik ripped me back, and my knees scraped across the cobblestones. Biting back the anguish that sprawled across my scalp and the curse that followed as I brushed over the hilt of the blade, I lifted my leg and drove my heel into his stomach.
A deep growl left him, but he only tightened his hold.
He forced my back against his chest, digging his nails into my hip as his other hand looped around my throat.
“Do you truly believe you will escape me again, Levitte? After all I’ve given you, the sacrifices I’ve made, you choose to be ungrateful? And for what? Another cock—”
Reeling back, I drove my skull into his nose. The immediate snap of bone welcomed me, and I smirked. “For me.”
I plucked his thumb from my neck before grabbing his wrist. Taking a step forward, I spun inward before moving from under his arm.
Knee pressed against the back of his thigh, I wrenched upward.
Tendons protested and cartilage snapped, his agony-infused grunt igniting the fire within me that he’d attempted to snuff out.
“You little bitch!”
“You seem a bit rusty, Malrik—”
Reaching for me, he gathered my shirt without looking.
Before I could step away, he yanked, and with an effortless toss, flipped me over the top of him.
My surroundings blurred. The various structures around me served as the sky for only a blink, and air whooshed out of my lungs as soon as I collided with the ground.
An uncontrolled whimper tumbled from between my lips as I curled on my side, my ribcage rattling as I fought to gather oxygen. “F-Fuck…”
Footsteps approached, and the rainfall assaulting my skin suddenly lessened as Malrik prowled into my line of sight. Clutching his right shoulder, a sneer consumed his expression, but I didn’t miss the underlying anguish blooming in his milky irises.
Lifting his leg, he pressed the ball of his foot into the sweeping laceration that Caspian had carved into my flesh.
“I ought to butcher you in these streets for your continued display of ingratitude and insubordination.” He sank deeper, my back arching against the earth beneath me.
“It seems your time at sea has chipped away at the woman I raised you to be—a woman of servitude and devotion. Tell me, has Caspian Vayne been worth what you will suffer now?”
A guttural snarl tore itself from my throat, and I spoke near breathlessly. “I don’t associate with that pitiful fucking man.”
“Oh?” he crooned, pressure lessening. “And what did Vayne do to you?”
Nostrils flaring, I glared up at him. Fingers slowly snaking to my waist, I kept my movements minimal as I responded, “Wouldn’t you like to know.
I’m sure the two of you would get along swell, considering you’re born of the same toxicity.
Men who believe they can have anything without consequence, men who take what isn’t theirs to have, men who view themselves as impenetrable. ”
His mouth opened with a simmering reply, but I beat him.
Spinning another one of my daggers between my fingers, I quickly solidified my hold before slashing across the back of the foot that he pinned me with. The sharpened steel tore through his Achilles with ease, the squelch of flesh and blood serving as confirmation of the damage.
A slew of curses served as his reply, his mumbled vulgarities casting ire at the gods. Instinctively, he jumped back, moving to test the damage I’d inflicted. As soon as he settled his foot against the street, he collapsed beside me, and I used the gap in his interference to push myself upright.
Tightening my grip on the hilt of the blade until my knuckles whitened, my shoulders rose with a shaky inhale.
Soaked to the bone from the torrential downpour, I ignored the shiver that slithered its way up my spine.
With my mind fixated on my wrath, a sudden warmth blanketed me, and with it, lightning carved its way through the sky.
“I’m rather fond of the image of you on your knees before me, rendered useless, like your prick.” Clicking my tongue against the roof of my mouth, I fiddled with the dagger. “It’s ironic, truly, how fragile men who view themselves as superior really are.”
“If you believe yourself superior, as a woman, then you are even more idiotic than I thought. Our world does not accommodate the constraints of femininity. It does not cater to the concepts of innocence or gentleness, and any woman who believes it does deserves to be broken, just like you.”
My jaw clenched with enough tension to pop. Taking a step forward, I fisted his hair and forced his head back. Glare settling on his, my lips pulled back with a snarl.
“And that’s where you have it all wrong.”
“Do I?” he prodded, a malicious smile forming. “Rohen, men run our society. You are a minor inconvenience to the power of Serevalen, a speck of resistance that can be squashed without so much as batting an eye. Those who sit above you determine law, oversee trade, and command the fucking seas.”
“Again,” I breathed, bending forward just enough to grant myself leverage. “You are wrong.”
Driving the dagger into his stomach, I twisted with every ounce of rage and disgust I harbored.
The warmth of his essence seeped from the wound, coating my knuckles with his corruption.
He’d served as the pollution to my light for far too many years, robbing me of all it meant to be a girl—someone youthful and merely desiring to be understood.
He coughed, darkened crimson coating his lips. With the shake of his head, he laughed, the eeriness of it clinging to something far beyond mania. “And in which… magnitude am I incorrect? The Others… rule these lands. The Damned are… gone.”
“Gone?” I hummed, dipping my chin to glower at him beneath hooded brows. “The reawakening of the Damned has just begun, and you want to know why?”
He moved faster than I expected, hand cupping the back of my head as he forced me closer. “Why, my little viper?”
“Because I’m Ellira’s fucking daughter, and through her, I will command the godsdamned seas myself, bitch.”
Something like shock consumed his features, but the deep knowing that remained in his glinting irises nearly stole my breath. It was the expression of someone who harbored secrets, someone who had been familiar with my truth before I had.
The chant of the corrupt enemies who ruled our lands began to flow from his lips. “Vel’kharum ithra Sorva—”
“You knew, didn’t you?” I moved to rip my blade free, but his other hand looped around the back of my arm. “You fucking knew!”
His sneer grew as he continued, “Vrax ven’kyr maleth. Mor’zael korveth Kyrn.”
“You must leave,” Ellira growled down our connection. “Now. Do not rebuttal. Do not press. For once, Daughter, trust me.”
In every other instance when the Goddess of the Sea had warned me to stay wary or remain mindful of possibilities, I had ignored her. But there was something about her motherly caution this time that sparked a bone-deep feeling within me—Malrik was summoning.
Which meant…
“Fuck you!” I screamed, forcing the blade to the left to carve through even more tissue.
But he held strong, his eyes beginning to flicker with an inkiness I’d never witnessed before.
Darkness poured into his once ghostly irises, filling them as one would fill a glass with the finest wine.
With each incantation, those corrupted shadows devoured his gaze further, and, for some reason I couldn’t pinpoint, I wished to call for Caspian.
“Sorva vel un tharosh.”
“To the shore!”
I replied with a whimper, “Ellira, I’m trying, but he won’t—I can’t!”
“Velum naezh ith’varon.”
Gods above, please.
“Khaelis mor-thun valeth—”
Blood-curdling screams swallowed his continuation, drawing my attention in the direction they’d come from.
Only a block from the docks, I watched in horror as spined arms, protected only by a thin layer of gray skin, jutted from the water’s surface.
Tentacles followed behind, plucking men from the royal ships as if they were weightless.
Nausea built as the swell of siren-like cries flooded the island, the sea settling to a stillness that only meant one thing.
The Seven-Headed Terror of the Deep, one warned of in old tales when Ellira used to command the tides, had awoken once more. Each word of her lore flowed through the back of my mind.
You won’t hear your crewmates die. You’ll just turn and notice you’re alone, and then she will drag you under.
“Holy gods…” I mumbled, stumbling back a step as Malrik’s grip loosened. “She’s… alive.”
“You do not need to fear,” Ellira answered, brushing against the back of my subconscious. “I sent her.”
A protruding spinal column breached the surface as Yxalune rose, peeling herself from the water.
Once her humanoid torso fell into view, three of her seven necks followed.
Sprouting from her vertebrae, each head was grotesque in its own right—one skeletal, one fish-like, and one eyeless with a blunt snout.
Body moving with unnatural grace, she skittered along the sea floor, arms and tentacles continuing to pick apart the ships with ease.
The gilled one continued its song, and with it, the waves rose again, but it wasn’t due to gravitational pull.
It was because of an approach; the call hadn’t been offered to further frighten those she tormented. It had been to gather reinforcements.
The Vellari.
“What the fuck is it doing?!” Malrik shouted, turning to me as if I would offer him answers. “You’re her daughter! Stop that thing!”
His fear became palpable, something I wished to take my time lapping up. “Call upon your gods for mercy. Perhaps they can save you, though I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
He reached for me again, but I batted away his hand before he had the chance. “You care for the innocent, do you not? This thing will destroy everything!”
“Good,” I hissed, running my tongue across my teeth. “Maybe then you’ll realize that women aren’t to be trifled with.”
Pivoting on my heel, I turned my back to him. Confident that between the gaping wound in his stomach and his split Achilles, he would remain kneeling like an obedient bitch, I moved toward the dock. With my trust instilled in Ellira, I continued my route, basking in Malrik’s ensuing screams.
“You can’t just leave me here!”
Allowing my grin to bloom, I slipped into an alleyway and out of his sight.
I progressed down its length until it spat me out on the shoreline.
Footsteps drumming against the planked walkway, I cast my gaze over Alastair’s ship, which remained untouched.
But it wasn’t his vessels' unscathed shape that caught my attention.
It was Caspian’s.
Swallowing the slew of curses I wished to utter at the Goddess of the Sea for even considering sparing the piece of shit captain and his remaining men, I stopped when the tips of my boots came to settle just over the dock's edge.
“If she eats me, I’ll personally kick your ass in the afterlife. I don’t give a damn if you’re a god or not,” I scoffed audibly.
Ellira merely laughed. “As much as I would love to see you attempt it, I promise that, to an extent, you carry as much command as I do over the creatures of the sea.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? To an extent?”
“Your thoughts of Caspian, for example.” The smile was prevalent in her timbre, as if she were getting enjoyment out of it. “I refuse to allow you to destroy the ship of the man your heart calls for, regardless of your refusal to admit it—your Mizani.”
“Mizani, my ass. Whatever—”
My annoyance halted as two sets of hands slapped against the wood beneath my feet, bony fingers curling around the knotted surface.
Forcing myself to breathe and stay put, I watched in a mix of awe and horror as Yxalune resurfaced once more.
Heads dancing over the dock's lip, they craned back to look at me.
“Rohen Levitte, Daughter of the Sea.” Its inflection was a mix of various voices, as if they worked together to make speech possible. “How may we serve you?”
With a smile, the demand came with ease. “Kill them all.”