“He made it!” Saph.
“Yeah? He made it?He made it?!” he spat, agitated. “It’s poison, Saph,poison!And you—you—are a worthless fucking navigator in this situation! Because of your idiocy, we are likely going to be down a captain, andIam going to lose mybest friend, because, as far as I’m fucking aware, we don’t have a herbalistonboard!”
“How was I supposed to know?!” Her voice cracked, emotion overriding it.
“Oh, I don’t have a fucking clue. Maybe, for once, just have some godsdamned respect for the man whosaved your life!” Silence stretched on, and neither of them exchanged another word. Instead, Syoran turned, combing his fingers through my hair. “Cas, I need you to stay with me, alright?”
“I-I c-can’t…”
Breathe.
I can’t fucking breathe.
“Get the fucking medic!” he barked out, slipping into his role as second in command. “NOW!”
“Y-Yes, sir.”
I won’t make it with a medic. Physical aid isn’t the only thing I need. No. This? This is internal damnation, and there is no way to save me from its hellfire.
“Yes, there is, Child.”
That voice. That familiar…
One of the deckhands spoke up, his voice coming through rapid bursts of my fading consciousness. “The girl.”
I swore I felt Syoran’s patience snap. “What fucking girl, Lionel?”
“The whore,” Lionel, our Boatswain, replied, dread consuming me as soon as the finality of his statement filled the air. “During my designated watch over her, I found out she harbors an understanding of herbs. She cansavehim.”
CHAPTER 15
Embodied Corruption
SYORAN
“You’re fucking joking, right?”
Glaring at me between the bars of the cell, Rohen lifted an unamused brow. Her emerald eyes glinted with something far more potent than hatred, something far darker than loathing. Drowning her, the linens she wore attempted to blanket her wrath, but I knew if she found out who they belonged to, she would undoubtedly demand another pail of water to scrub her skin clean of his essence—a life I was trying to save.
“I’m not,” I snarled, my own attire now stained with my best friend’s blood. “You either help him, or I’ll string you up by your wrists and toss you over the edge of the ship for the Tide Eaters to have their way with you.”
“Sounds far more appealing than being stuckhere,” she spat, her lips curling into a sneer. “Honestly, you standing before me requesting my aid to save my captor’s life is hysterical at best.”
Without a moment of hesitation, my hand curled around the keyring dangling from my hip. Shoving the one responsible for her holding into the lock, I twisted it to the side with a force I knew spoke of my slipping patience. My palm met the frigid metal, its chill unable todim the fire burning within my soul. Tearing the door open, I took two strides before I landed in front of her. My fingers coiled around her throat as I forced her back against the brick wall, basking in the grimace that coated her features.
Resting the tip of my sword against her abdomen, I craned my head. “This is not arequest,which means you have no say or choice in the matter. You either help him, or you fucking die. Better yet, why don’t we just pass you back to Malrik since he’s hunting for you? I’m sure he’d love to taint your cunt some more.” My lips brushed over her ear, mocking and condescending. “But you’d like that too much, wouldn’t you?”
A telling spark of fear rippled through her irises, only to be replaced by unfiltered distaste. It was a breath, a brief second of contemplation, of how much more of herself she’d inherently lose if we handed her off as if she were nothing more than the minimal assets she had. With the distance between us no longer guarding her feigned strength, the mask she wore fell, and vulnerability momentarily slipped through its cracks—a powerlessness I understood far too well.
Her opinion of us matched the societal definition: a fleet of negligence and the embodiment of corruption, but none of them had glanced our way long enough to understand the fragility that existed at sea.
We were all broken in our own ways, stripped of compassion by those who were supposed to protect us. While we, Cas and I, understood the sinister ideations that plagued the minds of many of the men we led, as well as those prowling the lands, neither of us harbored the same ill will. Well, wehadn’tuntil the choice no longer came of our own volition.
The royalty and the noose they choked civilization with were nearly impossible to escape. Once one finally did, those obedient to the crown drowned out the truth, silencing opposition behind a uniform voice. Our overseers shrouded the very definitions of humility and humanity in an irrevocable darkness, one even the fates seemed to allow, just another entanglement in our complex stories. When we’d prayed to theDamned and the Others, none had answered, and our souls shifted into tainted remnants of what they once were, but one thing had always remained.
Our morality.
Deep within the marrow of my bones, there was a young boy who screamed for gentleness, pleading to the man I’d become not to handle or treat a woman with such harshness. I once believed in the beauties of life, and while I wished to listen to that side of me and understand the nuances of the flaws I embodied, it’d become second nature to look the other way and allow my internal rage to consume me.
