Page 60 of Claimed By the Depths

“Vayne!” he snarled manically as he caught his footing and swung.

Retrieving my twinned saber, I parried his ire with a cross of metal. Our glowers met, his near-white eyes fuming with indignation as I took advantage of the power I held over him. Pinning his sword between my own, I dropped my left shoulder and rotated, ridding him of the steel he believed worthy of protection.

The chime of its clatter against the street echoed behind me as I faced him once more. Spinning my sabers with practiced ease, I slid them back into their respective sheaths and cocked a brow. “Seems you’re a bit out of practice. Is that what happens when you have everyone do your dirty work for you?”

“Your arrogance will be your downfall,” Malrik hissed.

“Will it?” My question carried a hint of the brashness he accused me of as I shrugged. “Perhaps it will. Though in this circumstance, I fear my rather cheeky behavior carries nothing more than the truth.”

Rohen shouted, but it wasn’t the spike in her cadence that caught me off guard; it was the single word—the nickname—she hurled my way. “Cas!”

As if driven by divine intuition, I charged Malrik. Fisting his linen shirt, I forced him two steps to the left as the dagger Vrax had selected whizzed toward us. With his body serving as my shield, the steel burrowed itself into his flesh, sinking to the hilt just below his shoulder blade.

Groaning in what sounded far more like annoyance than anguish, Malrik reached up to cup the back of my head. Lips inches from my ear, he whispered, “Here’s the thing about giving yourself to our Beloved Mother, Caspian Vayne.” The sharp shing of metal barely had time to register before deep-seated agony settled in my gut. “Injuries are minimal, and if they happen, we heal rather quickly. Sure, you may be tied to the gods, but you’re still a mere human. A mere human who shares a direct link with Sorva, one that can be ignited with the influence of her blood.”

I curled my fingers around his wrist as he twisted the dagger deeper, the pain in my abdomen spiking with the motion. “Y-You’re not… impenetrable,” I seethed, the edges of my vision blurring slightly.

“No, I’m not,” he crooned before ripping the weapon free. “But you are far more vulnerable than I am, Vayne, and with Sorva’s bind, that vulnerability amplifies tenfold.” Lifting the blade, he studied the clash of my lineage against its shiny length. “Your blood is already tainted, and it's only going to continue darkening alongside her presence. The veins you’ve painted over with ink will replicate, and with their multiplication, you will sink deeper until your sanity becomes something else she weaves. Let the searing of your insides be a reminder of your imprisonment, Captain, and just how tethered you are to her.”

I peered down, palming my stomach to try to ease the bleeding. Pulling away just enough to examine my spilling life force, what was once a vibrant crimson had transitioned to an abyssal maroon. Sweat beaded along my brow as the realization settled, and with it the carvings littering my upper back spiked with affliction.

Sorva’s presence swept over me with compounding influence, phantom talons wrapping around the back of my neck as my surroundings inverted. A dizziness followed, and with it, my knees buckled before meeting cobblestone. Slapping against the street, my hand barely prevented me from folding in on myself. Nausea built, and my back rounded with the surge of bile. Before I could ease myself from its acidic arrival, Malrik’s foot slammed into my stomach.

Agony mixed with breathlessness, everything flickering to a shadowy black. The sharp crack of my skull against the unforgiving surface beneath me registered as a sound more than a feeling as the threat of Sorva’s control swelled. Dazed, every sound around me dulled to a barely audible hum, except for one.

Rohen.

“Caspian!” she shouted, desperation mixing with rage. “Caspian! Get up!”

A rasped groan was my only reply as I went to turn onto my side, but a boot prevented me from doing so.

Driving his heel into the weeping arrow wound in my shoulder, Malrik twisted his ankle to force his sole deeper. “Aw, seems my little viper harbors a hint of care for you. I never deemed such a thing plausible after how much time I spent breaking her. But it’s adorable, truly. Though I hate to say that all it does is grant me another means of torment, another route to ensuring she shatters and is incapable of being put back together again. And, lucky enough for me, it tacks on another ounce of joy in torturing⁠—”

The scream that tore from Rohen’s throat and ripped through the streets of Hollowmere carried a slight tune, one melodically haunting. As if fearful of her symphony, the earth quaked in warning, ripples similar to the manifestation of the Other’s portals shaking the surrounding structures. The towering mountains joined in, trembling as they shed excess rock, offering themselves to the woman whose rage had turned deadly.

“Holy gods.” Malrik’s hold loosened, his breathless utterance confirming what I already knew.

Rohen had called for help, and that aid had arrived in the form of Yxalune.

From the shore, yards away, the Seven-Headed Terror of the Deep outstretched her tentacles in hunger. With her feminine, rather human features on display, she fanned her fingers with predatory glee. The bony plates running along her forearms glistened as her three infamous heads slithered skyward. Peering down on the village, they each searched for the daughter of the goddess who created them, the daughter who had cried out for the sea monster’s assistance.

A sharp whistle erupted from a few feet away, only proving to benefit Ellira’s devoted entity. Yxalune’s eyeless, blunt-snouted head shot in our direction, picking up on the pitched demand the Other had extended.

As the bat-like being swept down in rescue, Yxalune’s jaw clamped around the monstrosity. Cartilage snapped, and flesh squelched, inky black erupting from beneath her closed maw. She chewed twice before her dark talons curled around Vrax’s pet and, with one tug, she shucked its skeletal figure of muscle and skin.

With a careless flick, one of Ellira’s most feared creations tossed the remnants of the creature to an awaiting tentacle, and not a second later, it was crushed beneath her wrath. Her skeletal face studied our reactions with curiosity, head craning to the side as Vrax extended a finger in Yxalune’s direction.

“You otherworldly cunt; you do not belong here!”

The renowned Terror of the Deep swiveled, its fishlike skull glaring in the Other’s direction. Mouth opening, a searing shriek peeled from her, shredding through the mountains' eroded layers as if they were nothing more than mere parchment. With her pitch refusing to waver, I watched as lacerations marred skin—not Rohen's or mine, but Vrax's and Malrik's.

Their screams earned my merriment, but as quickly as it arrived, a burning anguish snuffed it out. Consuming every inch of my body with unrelenting heat, my back instinctively arched, fingers curling in on themselves as that fire infiltrated my veins. It carved through them, threatening to spread from beneath my tattoo as her voice echoed in the confines of my subconscious.

“Oh, darling, what a predicament you have landed yourself in,” Sorva hummed, the prevalence of her influence increasing as her unseen hand curled around my throat. “Be my good boy, won’t you? Tell Ellira’s bitch of a daughter to shut her hideous pet up, or I will see that you become just as devoted to me as the king is.”

Chest shuddering, I failed to draw in a breath as a tremor rocked my frame. With it, my muscles went rigid, pulsing beneath the command of something else entirely. My hand twitched, and my fingers brushed together with a rhythm that was just as scattered as my thoughts. The overstimulation it wrought made everything else minimal—sound, sight, smell—but the sharp tang of my tainted lineage proved potent enough to grab the remnants of my attention.

I coughed, but my inability to move only caused my polluted life force to bubble. Asphyxiating on the very essence of my tie to Elaros, my panic mounted to form a peak far higher than anything else.