Chapter 12
His presence alone reminded me I was nothing.
After all, what was a silly Siren girl who actually believed she could trust a man she had only just met?
The girl who became so enamored that she let him kiss her, followed him aboard his ship where he laughed and locked her away to rot in darkness until he sold her to the highest bidder?
Nothing.
Around ten of Vaetrik’s pirate crew had been hiding in a nearby abandoned house, and they got to work dragging us inside and tying Reiven and me to rotting wooden chairs with ropes that bit into my wrists.
Some of them carried torches that cast flickering light across the grimy living space we found ourselves in, empty save for some dust-coated furniture and rat filth all over the floor.
Light glimmered in a pair of golden eyes as Shaddan turned away from the door at the rear of the house. He wore the same armor, but now the leather holster strapped across his back actually contained a weapon, a silver spear that looked almost as long as I was tall.
“Caught a pretty fish in your net I see, Captain.” Gone was his air of amicable nobility—his own mask that he wore for Humans the night of the banquet, I thought.
“Aye.” Vaetrik stroked his cropped, sandy beard.
He didn’t have that, or his finely crafted saber and pistols, or his long, elaborate coat, when I first met him.
No, he had just been a scrawny, sunburned young sailor, fishing alone in his rowboat.
His smile had completely dazzled me, fool that I was.
And now, thanks to all the gold he got as payment for me, he had secured his position within the Eventide Brigade, bought his own ship and crew...
I supposed that was why he cleaned up his image so much, tried to act like he was better than the common pirates.
Gatelo had ripped Reiven’s cutlass out of my hands after I lost my will to fight upon seeing exactly who had come for me, and he flourished it about in front of my companion. “Not so tough now, are you?” He pointed it at Reiven’s neck. “So, when do we kill him?”
Reiven’s face was set behind a veil of indifference. He didn’t bother to acknowledge Gatelo’s taunt, but in the shadowy depths of his eyes, calculations were taking place.
“I’ve had enough of your chatter. Get out of here,” Vaetrik said coolly, turning his attention to me.
He cupped my cheek with his rough hand, covered in small scars from many a sword fight.
“Did you miss me, pet? When that crotchety hag Ipheri refused to sell you back to me and banned me from her establishment, I almost thought I’d never see you again. We couldn’t have that, now could we?”
My body quaked.
“Hey!” Gatelo interrupted, turning Reiven’s cutlass towards Vaetrik. “I’m not leaving without the chest of gold you promised me.”
His words were met with crushing silence for a few moments before Vaetrik broke it with an annoyed sigh. I could have warned Gatelo of what was to come. Maybe I should have. But as usual, Vaetrik’s presence kept my lips shut tighter than a clamshell.
He smoothly drew his pistol and shot our ship carpenter in the forehead without even looking his way.
Somehow, I managed to not flinch at the crack of sound or the gunpowder smoke that burned my nose, but I did cast a glance at Gatelo’s already still corpse.
Poor fool, even if he had turned on us. He was an idiot for believing in Vaetrik’s promises, just like I had been.
“Now, where were we?” The scorching-hot barrel of his pistol seared my skin as he used it to lift my chin. “You were going to tell me how much you missed me.”
The only thing I miss is the girl I was before I met you.
As if I could ever pull together enough courage to speak to him that way. To speak to him at all. My lips quivered as I stared at him, horrified that I was once again looking up at the man who broke my willpower over and over again until I had nothing left.
He holstered his weapon, his smile chilly and calm. “I suppose we should talk business before pleasure, hm?”
I cringed. His voice felt quiet, yet somehow, it positively boomed with power.
“I heard you’re helping the Timebreaker retrieve the Voidtome. Is that true? What made you decide to do that?”
Panic bloomed in my chest. Took over my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t look into his eyes. I couldn’t bring myself to form words, or even sounds.
“No, you wouldn’t do that on your own. You have no choice because of this, hm?” Vaetrik ran his hand along the golden choker around my neck. At my continued silence, his fingers wrapped around my throat, far tighter than the collar.
“Answer, pet,” he ordered.
Answer him, Zephra. Come on!
Even if I found the strength to tell him what he wanted, his grip on my throat would strangle the words. Besides that, I could hardly even focus on what he was saying. My head overflowed with the memories of his misleadingly kind voice.
“Zephra, it was all a joke, I promise! Come on, I’ll let you out.”
A glimmer of hope, before the inevitable impact of my face with the damp wooden floor. Laughter, cold and resounding in the dark, cramped hold of his new ship, the Ocean’s End.
Laughter broke the awful silence before I could get a sound out. Not Vaetrik’s laughter, though it was still patronizing. It didn’t feel like it was directed at me.
“Damn, I thought I’d never see her shut up, but you made her completely speechless.” Reiven tilted back his head as he laughed before leveling a smirk at Vaetrik. “Why am I not impressed?”
He’s crazy. That idiot doesn’t know who he’s dealing with, and he’ll go out the same way as Gatelo.
Vaetrik stalked over to him and glowered. If Reiven was already getting under his skin with a comment like that, he wouldn’t last very long. Hopefully Vaetrik made it quick for him—
Wait, according to Ash, if Reiven died, the tether between us would instantly kill me too. Vaetrik considered Reiven for a long moment and drew his sword.
“W-w…” I couldn’t get out a full word, just a pathetic sound.
Luckily, rather than cleaving Reiven’s head from his shoulders, Vaetrik leaned closer and dug the tip of his blade into his fresh gunshot wound. Aside from a muscle tightening in his neck, Reiven hardly reacted. Maybe he was used to masking all the pain I sensed in him when we first met.
“Who is this, pet?”
“Reiven Miyasagi, the Timebreaker’s bodyguard. Your ‘pet’ and I are bound together, so she won’t be going anywhere without me.”
It was Vaetrik’s turn to laugh as he returned to my side, wrapping his arm around my shoulders in a fake show of comfort. “Did you tell him about me? That I was the first man who ever laid eyes on you? Have you told him that no matter where you go, or who you’re with, you will always be my pet?”
My body shook. After a moment of hesitation, I met Reiven’s eyes and found confusion and annoyance.
“Ah. I get it,” Reiven said. “You must be the reason she hates pirates. She did mention you were always…overcompensating for something.”
Oh, he’s trying to get me killed.
“Is he telling the truth about this binding?” Vaetrik raised an eyebrow at Shaddan.
The Druinn general pursed his lips and lifted his chin. “The bastard interrupted my spell at the banquet. Unfortunately, he’s the one who holds the bond, and only he can release it.”
Vaetrik took off his tri-cornered hat, combing through the waves of thick blond hair I once had begged him to let me touch. He jerked his head at Reiven. “Kill him then.”
“I wouldn’t,” Shaddan said, his words punctuated by another crash of thunder that rattled the windows. “These binding artifacts were once used to keep servants from turning on their lords, so they’re lethal if forcefully broken. If you kill him, she dies.”
“Fine then. Break it off her.”
“Mm, can’t really do that either. Unless you’re willing to risk accidentally killing her that way, too.
Besides, we only need her to tell us what the Song of the Void is.
” When Vaetrik gave him the slightest nod, Shaddan rolled his eyes and held the palm of his hand out towards me. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I strained against the ropes that held my arms behind the back of the chair, dread flooding my system as the golden collar around my neck quivered with Shaddan’s power.
A flash of white light burst through the dirty windows, accompanied by a boom of thunder directly overhead.
Rain pelted the roof, leaking through in some spots, no doubt the reason for the heavy scent of mildew in this place.
I stared up at Shaddan, pleading with my eyes for him not to do it.
Whatever happened to “we non-Humans have to stick together?”
“This ‘Song’ that protects the Voidtome…What is it, Siren?” He clenched his fist. The gold ring around my throat constricted, then expanded slightly, as his Druinnic power tried to force the magic-infused metal to shatter.
The unnatural strain on the relic shot white-hot pain through my body. Agony skittered up the veins in my neck, up into my head, like tiny spiders made of burning metal crawling inside my bloodstream. He furrowed his brows, and another, more intense flash of pain rendered me completely blind.
“Tell me.”
A scream ripped from my throat.
“Stop!” That was Reiven’s voice. How odd. He sounded a bit panicked, not at all like the overconfident man I knew.
Another knife-like shot of agony throughout my entirety made me scream again and sob incoherent pleas for Shaddan to stop.
“You’ll kill her!”
Vaetrik’s laughter echoed in my ears, but whether it was at my anguish or Reiven’s alarm, I wasn’t sure.
I would have given anything to be anywhere else, away from him.
I would even take being locked in the hold again.
Wave after wave of pain slammed into me until I was certain I was either going to throw up or pass out. Maybe both.