19
Kora
The tears wouldn’t stop. They flowed freely, soaking Kora’s shirt as she slammed the door behind her. She leaned against it, panting as she tried to grapple control over her emotions.
Pirate-killer.
Murderer.
Soul reaper.
She gasped, her hand flying to her chest in a feeble attempt to soothe her thundering heart.
Her knees quaked as she gulped down the cool air, but her skin flushed with shameful heat, her mind ricocheting.
Jack Flint had been right from the beginning.
Who knew the scrawny pirate had as much insight as a witch seer?
Kora stumbled forward, her left hand flying out to grip the nearest surface for stability. Her fingers closed around parchment and her head whipped up.
A bedroom. Long in width, with the same, dusky, orange-painted walls, meeting a curved ceiling with a pointed centre.
Large, glass double doors lined the mezzanine on the left, the glass stained in multi-coloured squares of blues, oranges and purples.
Wooden floorboards replaced the overly dazzling tiles from the rest of the castle and matched the dark furniture.
Plain cream bedding was tucked in so tightly to the bedframe it’d require multiple sailors to rip it from its restraint.
Kora glanced down to her left. A desk, with stacks of parchment, leather-bound books, and ink quills lined the surface symmetrically, perfectly proportional from one another. And on the far side, were two, gleaming, beautiful letter openers.
Sweet Calypso.
She lunged, clasping the metal between her shaking fingers. It wasn’t the same, the weight unbalanced, the edges dull, the silver embellishment plain. But it was something similar to before. To the Kora that could fight.
Two raps sounded at the door. “It’s me. I’m coming in.”
Kora whirled as Raiden’s large form shouldered through the door. His eyes were bright, their evolving sparkle lighting up the room. He quickly shut the door behind him as Kora rushed to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
She was sick of crying.
“I wanted to be alone,” she remarked. How had he found her?
Raiden’s stare cased the room as though he hadn’t heard her, pausing at every little bland detail, before lingering on the bed. He remained by the door, his hands twitching before meeting Kora’s gaze. Her stomach flipped.
“How did you know to come here?”
She frowned. “I was trying to get away as far as possible.”
“You . . . you don’t know what this room is?”
Kora glanced around again, her hands gripping the knives behind her lower back.
It was an ordinary room, the furnishings simple, the floor bare except for a simple red rug between the bed and the armoire.
No drawings, no books, not even a piece of discarded clothing.
A single candle donned the bedside on the left, its wick untouched.
Before the balcony doors was an empty space except for a lone wooden chair with a cream blanket draped over the plush white upholstery.
Trunks lined the space beneath the mezzanine, which was shrouded in darkness and looked as equally cold as Kora felt.
“This is your room,” Raiden’s voice held so much weight Kora nearly dropped her knives. “You slept here every night for years.”
This . . . this was her past? Kora frowned.
There was nothing here. No personality, no evidence of a life lived.
A lump formed in her throat. This didn’t feel like her, compared to colourful chaos of her chambers in Cadell Manor.
Books, weapons, clothes covering every surface.
Nothing like what she could only describe as sterile and minimalist. She inhaled, missing the eucalyptus candles, the winding wisteria, the warm terracotta tiles.
She glanced back down at the desk, only just noticing the subtle ‘K.J.’ etched into the bottom right corner.
Out of everything, she’d claimed a damned desk.
“It’s just . . . coincidence,” Kora whispered, edging closer to Raiden, needing his warmth to combat the chill of the darkness lurking within.
“Maybe it’s a sign.” Painful hope lined his features, which Kora knew she couldn’t fulfil. She looked away, unable to face it a second longer.
“I’m sorry, Raiden. It’s been ten years, my memory won’t be coming back.”
“Ah, you didn’t have me before,” he winked. “We’ll get you back to normal in no time.”
Normal.
She flinched and Raiden’s hope vanished, replaced with shock.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that .
. .” He exhaled, running both hands through his platinum locks.
“There’s so much history you need to remember.
So many things about Windspire, about Galen, all the islands, everything. ”
There was something unsaid within his words and Kora studied him. His frame was taut, all harsh lines and rounded muscles. His jaw continuously ticked, as though he were biting his tongue.
“Why do you want to help me? You heard them. I’m a killer. A murderer. I spent a decade as your enemy, killing your friends and family.” Kora shut her mouth, as Agatha spilled into the forefront of her mind, grief washing over her so intensely.
A cloud overcame Raiden’s features, before they smoothed out in determination. “I’m not listening to them. I know who you are.” He leant forward, and Kora sucked in a breath at his nearness.
“I’m not the same person as you once knew me. Whoever I was to you, is gone.” The words tasted like dirt, her throat scratching with every syllable.
Raiden lips lilted. “Then let me discover the new you.”
His gaze travelled down, and the flush consuming Kora’s skin threatened to combust. He snapped back to her face, tracing every feature.
His diamond irises hardened at her scar, but for once, Kora felt seen, rather than gawked at.
Raiden understood what the scar represented, rather than a pitiful infliction to be stared at marring a female’s face.
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” she whispered. “My life is a lie.”
“Let me help you understand the truth,” he responded softly.
“I know it’s a lot, but we all want to help you.
You may not believe it, but there are people who care about you here.
” Raiden tentatively reached forward, his movements slow yet fluid.
Her heart raced to the point she was sure it would climb into her throat.
His knuckles grazed her sunken cheeks, his thumb brushing her damp skin from crying. “Kordelia, I—”
She snapped.
Still ingrained into the individual fibres of her muscles, her hands guided the envelope knives like they were an extension of her limbs. Surprising force shoved Raiden against the door, rattling the frame as one knife pressed to his throat, the other to his lower stomach.
And he gods-damned smirked.
“That’s not my name!” A growl ripped from Kora’s throat.
Despite wanting to connect desperately to her past, to her memories, she couldn’t lose herself as she was now.
The gruelling ten years she’d suffered, the hardships and horrors that had shaped her.
The name Kordelia caused panic to wreak through her core, her scar to tingle followed by a sickening wave.
They wanted to erase Kora as she was, and replace her with a shade from the past.
Her relationships may be shattered, her beliefs tarnished, her understanding on the world scrambled, but she knew in her heart who she wanted to be.
“Never call me that again. I am, and always will be, Kora Cadell.”
Those walls shot up again, darkening Raiden’s stare. His head tilted, leaning into what he probably knew was a blunt weapon as he studied her for several agonising moments.
“I will not use that traitor’s name,” Raiden’s voice ran down her back, causing her legs to give an inch. “Everyone seems to be giving you new names, perhaps I should give you one of my own . . . Huntress.”
“What?”
“You heard me.” A challenge flashed in Raiden’s eyes, his smirk returning.
The blades pressed deeper into his flesh, the familiar haze overcoming her mind, whispering to the darkness.
He was taunting her, playing on her fears and horrors.
Mocking her status as a killer into a nickname, constantly reminding her of the atrocities she had committed.
The endless pirates, the innocents sentenced to Deadwater Prison, the exiles in the Silent Tundra.
She lost her grip on the lower knife, her clammy hand slipping and landing on his perfectly sculpted torso. Heat soared, her hand igniting from the touch, and she swallowed as a small chuckle radiated from Raiden.
“Are you going to kill me like all the other pirates, Huntress?”
The nickname rolled sinfully off his tongue. Oh, shit.
“I easily could,” Kora gritted out. She definitely could not.
“Then,” he leaned forward again, and Kora allowed the blade to twist, the flat end pressing against his stubbled throat as his lips brushed her ear. “What’s stopping you?”
“Or don’t stop at all,” he followed mentally, and Kora unforgivingly shivered. His lips were so close that his breath brushed her face. His scent was tantalising, dizzying her with its freshness, embodying endless air.
Kora stumbled back, wavering as she set the knives down, her cheeks heating. “I’m sorry. I . . . I need to be alone.”
She didn’t deserve his attention, or the gods-damned hope repeatedly surfacing within him.
It broke her to see how he lit up every time he saw her, like Kora was the answer to his prayers.
She was hollow, a husk for Barron’s will, ruined and discarded, left with this cold darkness snaking around her limbs.
He’d stripped her life force, her drive, and scattered the pieces of her heart so far that she couldn’t mend it back together.
Raiden sighed, closing his eyes briefly. “What did I do?” His mouth stayed firmly shut as he pressed his hands behind his back.
“I just need some time.” Kora exhaled, her arms wrapping around herself once again.
Her lip trembled as flashes of Agatha’s blood filled her mind’s eye.
But she didn’t—she couldn’t cry again. In the pit of her old enemy, surrounded by a Pirate King and his lackeys that wanted her locked up, she needed to smother her weakness.
She needed the cold Captain Cadell to return.
“I can come back to check—”
Kora shook her head. “No. Please don’t.”
She retreated from Raiden, allowing that cool darkness to surface, her old familiar mask taking control, and painfully glanced away at his shattered hope. Raiden’s face slackened as hers smoothed out, a slice of something vicious scratching down her back, allowing her mind to switch off.
It was better this way—easier. She didn’t have the capacity for complicated relationships, even if he made her toes curl, her heart race, and her skin flame like an erupting volcano. He’d made it clear he desired to fix her. To turn her into who she was before.
But that person was long gone. Replaced by a hunter designed as a weapon to kill those who lived within these walls.