CHAPTER 40 #2
“Bring the surgeon,” he demands, waving her away, a chilling smile spreading across his face.
“If you think my sister will allow your life to end so easily, you are mistaken,” he says, wrapping a thick, calloused hand around my throat.
He drags me off the floor, and I suck in a gasp as the weight of my body tears at my broken flesh.
“And if you think the damaged state of your form is anything but appealing to me, allow me to correct that assumption.”
I can’t help the whimper that escapes my lips when he pins me against the wall of the ship with his hips. The promise of every desire the male harbors within him pressed between my legs.
“Your mate should have marked you when he had the chance.” It’s the only warning he gives before breaking my necklace in his fist and casting it to the floor as his fangs find purchase in the fragile skin at my throat.
His tongue laps at the blood, a contented rumble in his chest. I claw at his face.
A sad and desperate attempt to part him from my flesh.
He bats my hands away before raking his fingers through the open skin of my side and I loose a scream of utter agony and rage that makes the male smile against my throat.
“Enough!” Vos shouts from the doorway and he drops me back to the bloody deck beneath his feet.
I stifle a sob, the feeling of the male’s fangs beneath my skin more repulsive and violating than could ever be put into words.
I don’t hear the harsh words exchanged between them when the surgeon pours a vile smelling solution on my wounds.
My eyes grow wide when he produces a small wire brush from a black bag and takes it to my side.
I heave up bile as he scrubs the exposed muscle at my ribs, surely scraping the bones that lay beneath.
The waking world shutters as my vision blurs. I watch the small female drenched in my blood fall to her knees and pocket the necklace. If only the void calling to me were death, I would have peace when it finally comes to take me.
If the frequency of my meals is any indication of the passing time, it’s been a week since I came to in the brig. A week of near solitude, save for the surgeon who attends me daily. He had washed my wounds that first day, stitched and bound them, before I woke in the darkness and wept.
Two days later I woke with a fever and a dreadful ache in my side.
I screamed when he broke the sutures and washed the wound again, much more thoroughly than he had the first time.
He wrapped my ribs in a poultice after that, the green of the herbs melding with the fresh flow of my blood to stain the bandages.
My fever broke three days later, and today Vos joined the surgeon to see for herself the state of my condition.
Though the surgeon assured her it is too soon to continue my torture, it’s clear the female’s patience is at its end.
I can only hope it will be the blade and not her brother that leaves its mark upon my body when we begin again.
Long after the surgeon’s visit this morning, laying in the near dark of the brig, I note the creaking of the ship as it begins to tilt at the whim of the harsh gusts overhead. Large waves batter the sides, and my stomach has wound itself into a tangle of knots.
I’ve hardly moved from where my blood has dried into the deep grooves of the wooden floor.
With only my thoughts to keep me company, my days are filled with misery as I ponder the mess I have made of my life.
The solitude of the dark and the memories I cannot purge from my mind are perhaps a more acute torture than what Vos laid bare upon my flesh.
Ask.
An echo resounding within me day and night.
The sound of his voice, the first thing I hear upon every waking.
I am a fool, for not asking the male who offered me so much, for not trusting all he laid at my feet.
And I am a coward, for running from a truth that would have shattered all that I am, as much as it would have freed me from the shackles of my upbringing.
A tear falls from my eye, wetting the crimson stain beneath me. It isn’t the first. There have been many, and I have no doubt there are more to come. Where once there were numerous paths I might have tread, now it seems only one remains. One that I find no pleasure in pondering.
My palm rests on my chest, a futile attempt to soothe the ache I fear will plague me for the rest of my life.
What little might remain of it. Another tear falls, and I wonder if the male I am bound to will find a way to shed the bond between us.
I would, if I were him, just as I tried to shed the ties of my past life when I set foot upon the shores of A’kori.
I eye the poultice, wishing to strip the mesh from my skin and let the wounds fester until I meet death at last. But they would only be replaced, and I have little doubt I would find myself shackled to the wall for my efforts.
Another tear falls to the floor, and I wince at the pain in my side when I jump at the voice coming from the dark.
“Foolish,” she rasps from the shadows, “You or I, I know not which.”
My eyes strain to find the source, hidden in the darkness.
“Bagya.” I suck in her name on a painful and shallow breath.
Unchanged since last I saw her, the crone sits atop a box of cargo, hidden in a dark corner across the room. Wrapped in tattered rags, a large hood further obscuring her face, she cracks a hideous and broken smile.
“I suppose, Bagya will do for now,” she says simply.
I should fear her, I know I should. The general’s warning resounds in my mind, and yet, what price would be too great to be free of this cage? I cannot help the hope that rises within me, matching all the dread I feel at seeing her again.
“Have you come to make another bargain?” I rasp out, unwilling to grasp at hope if she only came to taunt me.
“That depends,” she says, “are you done with the lie, child? Or will you hold it with you forever?”
I huff scornfully. Only briefly considering the riddle of her question.
Focing fea.
“I am done with lies,” I say, my voice weak. I stifle a small quiver in my lip, brought on by the deception I’ve held close for far too long.
My honesty came too late and at too great a cost. I stanch the flow of memories, unwilling to consider the lives that may have been lost as my limp body had been dragged from the palace.
“Then a bargain we will have. The lie, for your freedom,” she says.
I want to end the crone, to tell her that her words are as twisted as the deceit that kept me captive to a life built upon lies.
But what can I do? As long as Vos still lives, my future is assured, and it is not a future I look forward to living.
Just as she had when I was young, the fea sitting before me holds the power to grant me the only thing I truly need.
Why am I worried? Hadn’t I already given her the same? And never for a moment in my life have I regretted that exchange. To remain aboard this ship is death, and if I do remain, that death will be a welcome reprieve when it finally comes.
“It’s a bargain,” I say quietly, swallowing my defeat, still unsure of what I’m giving up.
Ice fills my veins, my heart beating wildly within my chest as I struggle to breathe. It ebbs, and I suck in a deep breath, wincing at the agonizing pain of my side.
“Then it’s done.” The crone’s voice is a whispering echo as she fades into the shadows surrounding her, vanishing, while I remain behind the cool steel bars of my cage.
Moments pass, as the ship continues to pitch from side to side. All alone within my cell, a fire begins to build within me. I want to forfeit myself to haliel. To scream in the faces of the fates and demand that they explain the joke they have made of my life.
I grit my teeth, and with great effort rise enough to grasp at the door of my cage and rattle the bars. It stays firmly latched, and I collapse with a wracking sob. Rage fills me, my ears pounding with the beating of my heart and—
No. Not my heart.
Banishing the fresh tears of my wrath, I listen to the waves of Terr beating upon the belly of the ship in a rhythmic pulse, familiar and sweet.
I’m rocked with every sway. Moved in time by the waves, like a child is swayed by her mother as she clings to her breast. Wind like the filling and freeing of lungs bursts in a timing all its own, sweeping across the deck overhead.
Clutching the bars, I struggle to pull myself to my feet, letting my rising senses swaddle me in the strange feeling that is the life of Terr. My eyes linger upon my hands, upon the newness of my own flesh, my fingers gently scouring the unfamiliar shape of my form.
My stomach pits when my fingertips brush the newly pointed tip of my ear. Not formed like that of the feyn, but with the uneven edges of the Vatruke.
The fall of heavy footsteps calls my attention to the door across from me. Shadows beckoning, I back into the dark corner of my cell, the pulse of Terr consuming me, until we meld together and our pulses beat as one.
Nix ducks into the room, his hesitation evident in each step when he fails to discern me. I sway, lost among the thick drapes of heavy darkness clinging to every corner of the small space. The strength of my legs threatens to give way beneath me.
Too arrogant in his own strength he unlocks the door of my cage, stepping inside.
It’s hardly a thought when I travel between the shadows, finding myself behind him.
Before I’ve even considered what I’ve done, my quick reflexes slam the cell door shut, locking him inside.
He whips around to face me, a slow smile spreading across his face, not at all concerned with being confined.
“There you are,” he says softly, dragging his eyes from the elegant and bloody legs beneath my torn gown to the oddly shaped tips of my ears.
The latter widens his eyes and his smile grows. “I think I prefer you like this,” he admits, his hands grasping the thick steel bars between us. “Much harder to break.”
He tightens his grip and the metal bends, groaning as it concedes to his might.
I don’t think when I bolt out the door. A patrol spots me from the stairwell leading topside and I swear under my breath. I burst into a sprint, hand bracing the wounds at my side as his voice rises above the storm to alert the others.
The ship pitches violently as I make it to the upper deck.
I swallow a scream of pain when I slide into the railing, the only thing keeping me from the turbulent seas below.
Rain pounds the ship, a deafening roar to my newly heightened senses.
Lightning illuminates the dark seas in short flickering bursts, allowing me a momentary glimpse of the A’kori vessel in pursuit of the Vatruke.
Relief. For a moment. Until my eyes widen when I see for myself the massive rocks jutting from the shallow reefs of Chai’brukar.
White water breaks violently upon itself.
Thunder booms even as lightning flickers over the shore of the Braxian coast, the dense forests of the fea swelling with light, only to dim the next moment.
“Valtoura!”
I spin around to face Vos, certain that the only end to this will be paid for with her life or my own.
She stands outside the door of the captain’s room, Arda at her side. Nix creeps up from below deck and begins rounding on me slowly.
“There is nowhere for you to go!” she yells over the crashing of waves as they break against the bow. “Let us put this behind us.”
She takes a cautious step toward me, her eyes ravenous as she takes in every bit of my new form.
Another step. “Come with me, and I will show you what true power is.”
Another step. “Let me free you from the bonds of your fate.”
Nix is nearly at my back when I step toward her. She smiles, reaching out her hand. When I level her with the heat of my fury, her face falls.
The ship pitches beneath us. While she struggles to keep her footing, I clutch the rail, using the momentum of the waves and the leverage I’ve gained to throw myself off the side. The wounds on my torso tear themselves anew.
The cries of Vos’s rage are lost to the icy water as I plummet into the sea.
The calm of her womb is a stark contrast to her violent surface overhead.
Dark waters surround me. Only the distant, flickering light over the forests of Brax declares where I might find air.
Air my lungs should desperately need. Yet, there is no burning in my chest, no gasping urgency.
My dress weaves among the current, thousands of tiny crystals shimmering in the sea.
I find that I am content to remain in the quiet darkness, and I close my eyes, letting myself rest for what might be the first time in my life.
After everything, I’ve found peace in the stillness and quiet of my end.
A thrum in the deep, and I open my eyes.
Lightning streaks across the sky, dancing upon the waves that ripple overhead.
In the darkness that surrounds, tiny lights flicker into being.
A beautiful hum in my chest rises to meet her song.
I can feel her now, my demon. Dancing in the midst of the starlight that encompasses me. So familiar, and yet…
She greets me as never before, shattering the last of the fragile panes that divide us.
She pours herself into me, filling the deep void in my being, sharing in every sorrow, every joy, and every fear.
She sings to me sweetly, tenderly, enduring the pain of our breaking until bound together we are knit anew.
A murmur from the depths of Terr. Her name is a soft caress as it skates across my ears, only a whisper in the darkness.
“Shivay.”