Chapter 62
Sixty-Two
Rett’s bloodshot eyes shoot to mine, the veins in his neck bulging as he struggles to normalize his breathing.
“I never should have trusted a whore to be my wife. You’re exactly as my mother warned.
Conniving. Self-serving. And to think, I bent over backwards to provide you with everything you could have ever wanted, and yet you flee from me.
You ruin everything just like a lying, ungrateful slut running to her next gullible fuck. ”
Ashland readies his sword, but Valora stops him with a sharp shake of her head. “Do you care to lose a tongue, boy?” he snarls at Rett.
I flinch and cough. “You can say whatever you want about me, but you drugged me,” I cry hoarsely, my lungs still burning with salt.
“You pretend to be different and kind, but you took my choice away with that nectar. You tricked me into doing and saying what you wanted!” My eyes sting with hot tears as something fractures inside me.
I slowly realize who has been offering me restraint and who has been forcing me this entire time.
That it matters to me, even if I didn’t know how much until now.
“The Beast Tonic on coronation night was made from Mellonia, wasn’t it?
You’ve been trying to control me since the very beginning, haven’t you? ”
“I’ll fucking kill him.” Ashland brandishes his sword, making Valora hold him back as he snarls, “Release me now.”
Rett’s face blanches. He turns to the crowd of sailors watching our exchange. “I know exactly who caused this. There’s only one person here manipulating her—making her run away with him.” Jumping to his feet, he faces Ashland. “Filling her head with lies using his shadow magic.”
“The Witch-King isn’t making me do anything that I don’t want to. I chose to leave with him willingly and without coercion. Why is it so difficult to believe that I simply don’t want to be your wife?”
Something in my words calms Ashland, and he tucks his blade into his scabbard, stretching his shoulder muscles in circular motions as if he itches to pull the weapon back out.
“She answered you,” he says evenly. “Speak to her again, and I’ll have the crew gag you.
” He clenches his jaw before spitting at Rett’s feet.
With a feral roar, Rett rushes toward him, a hulking mass of muscles under his leather tunic. “Give me a sword, and we’ll sort this out now. Man to man.”
I quickly wedge myself between them. Ashland presses against my back, breathing hard through his nostrils, but I warn him, “Don’t.”
“You promised to become my wife,” Rett yells so hard that he spits in my face, his tusks pointed at me as his mouth gapes open. “Make it right.”
Before I can react, Ashland snatches my elbow and pulls me behind him. “Control yourself, or gagging you will become the least of your concerns once I chain you to the mast and leave your flesh for the ravens.”
Ashland’s words fall on deaf ears as Rett looks down at his arm, no longer paying him any attention.
Groaning, Rett rocks on the balls of his feet.
The lines unfurling from his ring finger have grown to consume every inch of his hand, front and back, with no green skin visible anymore.
Rett yowls, tugging the ring on his finger, but it won’t come off.
I’m frozen with panic as I watch the crimson lines glow and multiply past his elbow, crawling up his arm.
“Rett—” I call out.
Hunched and writhing, he doubles over. I shouldn’t have allowed it to get this far.
“Make it stop!” Rett explodes, pulling at his hair while the veins pop in his temples, and blood vessels burst in the whites of his eyes.
“Please!” I beg, searching for mercy from Ashland’s cold face. “Please, help him!” Tears fill my eyes, overflowing immediately.
“There’s nothing to be done without a witch-healer,” Ashland says through gritted teeth. “Look where we are!” The cerulean ocean surrounds us on all sides, rocking the ship back and forth.
Rett froths at the mouth, giant strings of saliva hanging down as he violently punches and claws at his cursed arm. One of the crew members tries to restrain him, but Rett nearly throws him overboard, causing the other sailors to spread out as they watch in horror.
I clutch at Valora, sobs racking my body. “You told me there’s always a way—”
Rett’s agony drowns out my voice. He rips his tunic off, beating his chest with abusive slams.
I cover my mouth as acid rises in my throat. His entire arm and shoulder turn crimson, the lines swirling up the pillar of his broad neck.
A fresh burning under my own skin makes me examine my hand. The crimson lines are also spreading up my wrist, making my heart hammer with every shooting sensation of pain.
Rett unsheathes a massive dagger from his belt. Before I know what’s happening, he hacks wildly at his elbow joint.
Valora holds me back as I shriek, “Stop! Please, stop!”
But his eyes are deranged and unaffected. He mangles his forearm, splattering blood and sinew across the deck, but the bone prevents him from cutting all the way through. Instead, chunks of flesh hang off his arm.
Sobbing, I beg anyone—anyone—to intervene. There’s pandemonium while the life pours from Rett, his face draining of color, his body going limp as he stumbles around.
A tall, cloaked figure pushes through the gathered crowd.
Captain Lir appears.
The sun shines behind his sandy-brown hair, casting his freckled features into shadow, his sightless eyes fixed ahead.
A sob chokes in my throat as I realize it’s him. The captain who held me every year on the day of the Bidding Ceremony. The man who was too good for me, and so I set him free.
I’m not imagining it.
“Don’t move,” he orders, his tight mouth setting into determined resolve, “or it’ll be your neck.” He draws his cutlass from the lopsided belt at his side, and in one swift motion, he slashes his blade down, severing Rett’s arm at the elbow.
The swirling lines disappear from Rett’s slumped chest.
My eyes snap down to study my own hand, but the curse remains—pulsing angrily and creeping further across my skin.
A wet sound attracts my attention upward. I stare mutely at Rett’s severed limb, his blood trickling down the deck, soaking and turning the hem of my gown the deepest of crimsons to match the lines on my hand.
Valora hands me to Ashland, who tries to support my crumpling body, but I push him away, running and burying my face into Lir’s chest. He grunts from the impact, but he breathes in my scent from the top of my head, his voice catching in his throat with recognition.
Those familiar arms wrap around me as I sob.
A panting sailor runs up, clutching wads of torn fabric. Valora’s voice sounds muffled as she orders the crew to wrap Rett’s bloody arm in linens and to apply pressure. She follows them as they take away his body. “Get the fire going—as hot as it will go. We must cauterize the injury.”
The whispers buzz in my ears.
Lir drops his cutlass on the decking behind me and embraces me tighter.
Something glints in the sunlight at my feet. Falling to my knees, I pick up Rett’s ring, crusted with so much blood that not even the inscribed Dead-Fae words are legible.
I gaze upward into the sightless eyes of Lir. My former lover—his comfort, the only blessing in my life for so long.
Ashland steps out of the shadows of the mast, his gaze drifting between us. “You regard my captain in quite the familiar manner.”
Lir stays silent.
Too silent.
Ashland studies Lir another second before standing next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder with an ease of familiarity. “Care to elaborate on how this came to be?”
I don’t answer, not daring to breathe. Lir was my secret for so long, and now everything is exposed in the bright light of day.
When I don’t answer, Ashland hesitates, his eyes finding mine. “I see. Well, you should know that Lir helps us monitor people, places… situations.”
I stand up, my mind reeling. “That isn’t possible. He’s a mercenary for Alexandria.” I remember Ashland and Valora mentioning the spies working for them—and my heart stops.
Lir listens intently, keeping his facial expressions neutral, but every muscle in his body grows rigid. He appears to be the same man—but did that person actually exist? Did I even know who he truly was?
Despite his blindness, he’s aware I’m looking straight at him. He says softly, “My biggest regret was keeping my identity from you, but it was necessary for the sake of the war.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “Everything was a lie?”
“It wasn’t as if you were truthful, either.
I knew you were secretly a Lady Courtesan, but I never dreamed you were the king’s daughter.
” Lir steps closer, taking a sharp inhale through his nose.
“Please believe me when I say my feelings for you were never a lie. I still harbor as much love for you today as I did yesterday and all the yesterdays that came before. Never doubt that.”
He’s finally expressed the unspoken devotion that drove me away. Confusion and familiar feelings rise to the surface, forcing me to confront the buried memories of our shared past.
Ashland’s frown deepens as his eyes narrow on Lir.
“But you tried to convince me to leave and start a new life with you when you were lying the entire time,” I assert.
Lir reaches for me. “I needed you to abandon the Bidding House and that whole damn system you were trapped in. I didn’t want it to hurt you anymore.”
With an eerie quietness, I ask, “Why doesn’t anybody trust me with the truth?”
“Truth is a luxury in war,” Ashland answers, his voice hard.
“Stop. I’ve heard enough.” My tears run dry, and my hand falls into a tingly numbness that should worry me—but doesn’t.
Ashland walks away. “None of this will matter before long.”