“For a purpose? For a purpose?!” Jutting a finger in her direction, my lips curled into a sneer. “You gods and your fucking prophetic bullshit. If you couldn’t save yourselves from this division, then how the fuck do you expect us to?”
“In due time, you will understand.”
“There is nothing to fucking understand!”
A saddened smile coated her features. “Mizani recognize each other eventually. Have faith in the gods.”
“I don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Clenching my jaw, I shook my head, turning on my heel. “I once had faith in the gods, but I stopped believing when I realized they never gave a fuck about anything but their prophecies and their followers remaining devout.”
With one glance over my shoulder, I met her sorrow-filled expression with every ounce of ire I held for divinity, for those who had tossed me into a world of violence and violation. I’d been beaten, stripped of my innocence, and molded into someone everyone else wanted me to be. It started with Malrik and extended to every man who’d touched me without my consent solely because of his command.
Neither the Others nor the Damned had pulled me from that hellscape; I’d saved myself every fucking time. It wasn’t some unspoken healing that prevented me from bleeding out after each beating. No, it was my own skilled hand that stitched each wound. It wasn’t some unexplained feeling that comforted me through the trauma and every nightmare that followed. No, I’d wiped my own fucking tears.
If anything, I was my own god and fucking salvation because not asingle call had been answered. The silence had engendered contemplation, contemplation had weakened faith, and the falter of faith had bred hatred. There was no point in passing off my devotion to entities that’d never given a fuck about me and hadn’t since the day I was born.
As that thought settled in the back of my mind, I elected to speak. “Perhaps it’s time humanity began refilling the shoes of the gods. Hell, worshipping myself seems far more rewarding than worshipping any of you.”
And with that, I allowed my darkness and the sins I harbored to swallow me whole.
CHAPTER 9
Crimson Blades
CASPIAN
Flattening my chest against the wooden deck, I narrowly missed Syoran’s swing. The wind that followed behind his precision kissed my nape, a warning of his willingness to ensure he drew blood. It was something I’d requested from him, a ruthlessness I required my crew to have and act with, even if it were a mere sparring session.
Those who stood in opposition wouldn’t hesitate to kill, and I demanded the same from the men I led. It was why most of those on my ship bore their scars with honor, unspoken stories of their dance with Elaros and their faithfulness to me. There was a reason they referred to me asThe Marked One,though the name carried a far heavier weight than my crew had come to realize.
Every match had been bloody in its own right, but no one hadeverlanded a hit on Syoran or me. We’d spilled the guts of our crew, and often requested that the deckhands clean up after our slaughter. Ultimately, if a man hadn’t reacted quickly enough to an attack, it no longer became our responsibility. Their souls landed in the hands of the God of Death, their pre-determined fate carried out just the way he’d intended it to.
Not a single mark on our bodies had been gifted by any of those sailing alongside us. When it came to us with each other? That was an entirely different story.
Preparing myself for the attack I knew was bound to come, I tensed just as Syoran’s booted foot slammed into my stomach, sending a roar of affliction up my side from my still-healing wound. The force behind it propelled me to the opposite side of the ship, and I lost my grip on my sword; its clatter warned me of its position a few feet away. My back collided with the gunwale, oxygen vanishing on impact, only for a grunted hiss to escape me as my body curled inward.
But my mindknewbetter.
With a quick roll, I dodged the downward arc of his blade, pushing myself to standing once more. Burrowing into the wood, a fourth of it sliced through the railing, adding more personality to the ship I happily commanded. A curse fled Syoran’s lips as he yanked, the steel refusing to come free, even against his strength.
My fingers coiled around the two hilts at my sides, and I freed my preferred weapons: twinned curved sabers forged by Sapphira.
She designed the golden pommels to look like serpent skulls, their sculpted jaws forming the “r” shaped guards. Detailing the vertebrae along the upper portion of the hilt, lines of crimson swept to color the back of the handle—a painted shade of red that was once a pooling and free-flowing lineage. Etched with carefully crafted scales, each grip nuzzled into my palms with an attentive focus that ensured only I would be able to comfortably wield them.
The leading edges of each of the blades curved in a fine sweep, their arrowed points coming to rest an inch from the talon-shaped blood diamonds that she’d attached to each guard. Matching the fluidity of an “s,” the upper portion of the steel had been refined with the same intentional honing that’d been used to craft its belly.
Just below the shined metal sat a hooked end with serrated teeth, its purpose to loop around intestines and spool them free from any poor bastard’s stomach. The four-inch swoops ended in another sharpened edge, merging to form the tips.
As I freed them both, the sharpshingof steel erupted across the rain-soaked deck, a sing-song promise of death coaxing the anguish from his kick that’d threatened to consume me. Spinning each hilt between my fingers with ease, I secured my grip and swung with the merciless intention I wielded any weapon with.
Even so, these two were special in their own right.
Syoran pivoted just in time and caught the wrist of the hand headed toward his throat, electing to take the blow aimed for his sweat-sheened abdomen. Jutting his hips back, he escaped the intended depth of the laceration, only the tip of the blade carving through his skin.
“Gods, you’re fucking annoying!” he shouted, charging me once the sharpened steel had completed its path.
His body slammed into mine with unrelenting force, sending the two of us tumbling across the planks. Shirtless myself, the worn wood carved into my scar-littered back. Slivers jutted into my skin, earning a slew of curses, which only had Syoran smiling as he climbed over me.
Pinning my equipped hands over my head, he leaned down until our noses came to rest mere inches from each other. “I believe this would be a killing blow, Captain.”
