Page 6 of Claimed By the Depths

“You fucking bastard,” he hissed, moving toward me once more.

Before I could reach for my final dagger, his foot collided with my stomach. My ribs cracked beneath the impact, and my back followed suit as I slammed into the concrete partition a few feet behind me.

Heaving, a near-manic laugh came from me between shuddering breaths. “A-Aw… Did I land a blow far more effective than yours?”

Rage flashed across his expression as he stormed toward me, snatching his scythe on the way. I clenched my jaw at the settling realization of his impending approach.

I was going to die.

This was my brutal end.

Spinning the snath, the curved blade began its descent. With an arc and velocity indicative of my immediate demise, I took in a fleeting breath, knowing damn well I would be landing in Elaros’s embrace with my next exhale.

The release of air came, but darkness did not follow. Slowly opening one eye, the shadows of death did not grace me. Instead, Maulix stared down at me, the scythe repositioned at his side as he clenched his jaw in apparent wrath.

“You’re lucky,” he seethed, a redness coating his face as his glare deepened. “It appears I am needed elsewhere. Far more important matters to attend to.”

Chuckling, my shoulders bobbed as my laughter built. It contained a mixture of relief and amusement, for this wasn’t the first time I’d been miraculously spared from the end of my existence. Part of me knew it wouldn’t be my last.

Luck always served me well, Jaskor’s favoritism proving intact in yet another instance.

“S-Sorva whistle for you?” I asked with a smirk, relishing his building rage.

“I do not have time to continue engaging with the likes of you,” he snapped before lifting his arm to point at me. “But do not be mistaken. The next time we meet, I will be the one to kill you.”

Crooning, I rested my head back against the wall. “Sounds like a date, Maulix.”

His lips twitched at my insinuation, but without another offered word, he vanished from in front of me. Left in the open garden just outside the palace, a sudden, shrill panic rippled from the ballroom. The intensity of it became even more evident as attendees fled without question, fear undoubtedly leading the charge.

My hand met the ground as I struggled to push myself up, glancing toward the back balcony as people scattered from it.

What the fuck is going on?

CHAPTER 3

Cast into the Dark

ROHEN

Cursing at myself, I rounded the final corner and stepped out of the eastern wing of the palace. No matter how hard I’d tried to shove that godsforsaken captain from my mind, nothing proved sufficient to rid me of the sight of his expression when Sorva shooed me away.

His crimson irises harbored a twinge of relief, but that hadn’t been what caught my attention. No, it was the concern that swam through his stare and the implications it housed. If it were genuine, it meant that he fostered some sort of… care for me? Was that even possible for a man of his caliber?

You don’t give a damn. You don’t give a damn. You don’t give a damn.

It was becoming harder to believe my internal monologue. Not because I falsely directed my wrath toward him, but because there had always been that lingering feeling. An emotion that drifted to the bottom of my heart and planned to stay buried there, that was, until he was near. It became a tumultuous wave whenever I was in his vicinity, suggesting the fate-woven tug Ellira had spoken of.

Fingers curling into fists, my nails carved crescent moons into my palms. With a huffed exhale, I stomped down the steps and followed the shrubs that lined the pathways leading to the garden tucked away at the back of the palace with every intention of returning to the ship.

The initial wave of panic had died down, and those attending the wedding had fled. In their absence, an unsettling stillness clung to Serevalen. It was as if the Capital was holding its breath, standing on the precipice of something detrimental—the vision of destruction I had seen. I hadn’t wanted to believe that the implications of my subconscious clung to even a fraction of the truth, but as soon as I got a clear view of that woman, that Other, I knew we were already damned.

The king had been dipping his toes in the seas of corruption for far too long, and with the supposed warning the malevolent being had offered, I knew we were about to be cast back into the dark. Dark rituals had taken place, including the bind silencing Caspian’s truth. With them, portals had opened, and the divinity our ruler had thrust us into worshipping had crawled up from the cracks left behind.

They’d wasted no time polluting our realm, and yet I couldn’t help but feel like this was just the beginning of something far more deadly, something far more⁠—

Fingers curled around my wrist, ripping me into a thick wall of bushes. Before a shout could slip from me, a hand cupped around my mouth, snuffing the sound into a muted muffle.

“Shut up unless you want us both to die.”