“M
ax.”
May-oocks.
I clawed my way through darkness. Turned in my dream and peered up to the cloudy sky. So did Brayan, his steel gaze turning and lifting as he lowered his sword.
“Max.”
I jolted awake. In the process, I moved my left shoulder without thinking and paid for it with a surge of blinding pain.
“You were talking in your sleep.” Tisaanah’s eyes were ringed with darkness and heavy with concern as they fell to my shoulder. “Still?”
I couldn’t even unclench my teeth. “It’s nothing.”
“Stupid,” she huffed, and drew back the curtain as she beckoned to Sammerin.
 |
I SHIVERED and eyed the two Syrizen across the room through the open curtain. They were on the opposite side of the boat, but I could feel them staring at me, a sensation
that was no less uncomfortable due to their lack of eyes. Ascended, they were creepy. I resisted the urge to cross my arms over my bare chest.
“Can you close that, please? I don’t like having an aud
—” The rest of the sentence was lost in a clenched hiss between my teeth as Sammerin touched the skin around my wound.
He furrowed his eyebrows. “Really? I wasn’t even close.”
Tisaanah drew the curtain closed without looking away from me. “It smells very bad, too” she observed.
Despite myself, a smile twitched at my mouth. Tactful as always. Sometimes I wondered if I should be insulted that I never got any of that saccharine charm that she produced for everyone else, but I’d come to realize that this was really the greater compliment. No counting her dancing steps with me.
“Thanks, Tisaanah.” I glanced at Sammerin, who now stared at the dark patch of my skin with stony concentration. “What is it, exactly?”
I still hadn’t been able to figure it out. It definitely wasn’t a burn, but it wasn’t quite a cut either, and it hurt worse than nearly any other injury I’d ever received. That was saying something.
And, embarrassing as it was, Tisaanah was right — it had really started to reek.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Sammerin said. Tisaanah wandered back over to him, concern in her eyes. Concern and a shrouded touch of guilt.
“It’s noth—” I started to say.
And then the whole world went white and my body folded in on itself.
“Mother of bleeding fucking hells!”
It was a solid ten seconds before I could even draw a breath, let alone open my eyes.
“Sorry. It’s better without warning.” When I did, Sammerin was gazing at his hands, rubbing his fingers
together. “I needed to feel it.”
“Creative cursing.” Zeryth had pushed aside the fabric and was leaning against a wooden pillar, watching me with lazy curiosity. “You have a way with words, Maxantarius.”
“Fuck you.” I was in too much pain to even wish that I could come up with something more inventive.
“And delivered with such enthusiasm.” “Don’t you have something better to—”
“This is rot.” Sammerin spoke quietly, focused only on his fingers. Zeryth and I both lapsed into silence.
I glanced at Tisaanah, who stared back at me with wide eyes.
“Rot?” I echoed.
“Rot. Decay.” He shook his head, still staring at his hands, then my wound, perplexed. “I can’t even speak to the flesh. It’s dead.”
“Like an infection?” Tisaanah asked, hesitantly.
“An infected wound will start to decay if left unattended long enough, but this is far beyond that. Was it like this from the beginning?”
“It’s gotten worse, but—” “Was it black like this?”
“Yes.” Tisaanah answered for me. “It looked the same.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Sammerin muttered.
Neither had I.
In me, Reshaye had simply ramped up the scale of my natural magic ability, feeding my own powers back to me at a staggering scale. But as a Valtain, this kind of physical ability would be difficult for Tisaanah. And I’d never heard of any Wielder, Valtain or Solarie, turning something living to decay through touch. Not even a Wielder who controlled flesh, like Sammerin. He could tear it apart, deprive it of blood, strangle it and wither it slowly. But rotting it? Outright killing it? That was new to me.
Tisanaah paled.
“It appears I’m missing some background information. You did this, Tisaanah?” Zeryth’s eyes had a certain sparkle in them, a certain hunger, as they landed on her and lingered.
“Reshaye did,” she corrected.
I wished I could have reached into her lungs and stopped her before she replied.
“We-ell. That is interesting.”
Tisaanah’s gaze flicked back to me and to that peculiar wound. But I was looking past her, at Zeryth, whose eyes roamed over her with eager pleasure, like he had just been presented with a gift that he couldn’t wait to unwrap.
There had been many, many times over the years when I very vividly imagined how good it would feel to rip out Zeryth’s throat, but this may have been the first time that I actively had to stop myself from doing it.
“You think?” I scoffed. “Honestly, it’s a little underwhelming. Annoying more than anything. Let’s just heal this thing up, Sammerin.”
I knew it was unconvincing, but it was my best shot. My blood roared as a little smarmy twitch at the corner of Zeryth’s mouth told me that he knew exactly what I was trying to do. It was so distracting that I almost didn’t hear Sammerin as he said, “I can’t.”
My attention snapped back to him. “You can’t?”
“Not easily. I can’t talk to this. And the shape is…” His lips thinned in concentration. “I need to dig it out before I can try to bridge the damage.”
Did he just say dig? I tried not to let myself blanch.
“Can you leave, please?” I snapped at Zeryth. “This is invasive.”
It was amazing, how fast Zeryth’s expression changed — like every muscle rearranged into a razor-sharp glare all at once. “This is my ship. I can crawl into the washroom with you and I’d be well within my rights. And that aside, I don’t appreciate your tone. Remember who you’re speaking to.”
Right. Zeryth Aldris, Arch Commandant.
Zeryth Aldris, the man who once went out on a reconnaissance mission with five of his most talented military peers — his most talented competition — and, conveniently, was the only one to return alive. The man who forced me back to my family home to get me out of his way. The man who advocated for my imprisonment, even though he knew perfectly well the truth of what had happened in Sarlazai that day.
Zeryth Aldris, the man who “befriended” a teenaged Tisaanah in slavery and proceeded to leave her there, not once, not twice, but four damned times. And then had worn that lazy little smile as he tried to force her to her knees in front of everyone that she so desperately wanted to impress, just because he could.
And who now, after all of that, looked at her like she was a slab of meat ready to be quartered for his own purposes.
Oh, I knew exactly who I was speaking to.
I smiled at him through gritted teeth and said, “I could never forget.”
Frankly, I was proud of my restraint. But clearly my tone was still not up to Zeryth’s standards, because he straightened, shoulders squaring, head cocked. “Come here, Maxantarius.”
“This is not needed,” Tisaanah cut in, before shooting me a look that said, Shut up and stop causing trouble.
“Stand up and come here.”
Long, sharp fingers grabbed ahold of my mind and squeezed, squeezed—
I managed five long seconds before my legs betrayed me, rising from the chair without my permission and taking one agonizing step after another. I stopped a few steps in front of him and arched my eyebrows, as if to say, Happy now?
He raised a pale finger and beckoned. “One more step.”
Bastard. I made the movement as tiny as I possibly could, inching forward only slightly, and he laughed. “You never make anything easy.” His smile soured into something closer to a sneer. “You’ve always been so mouthy. But that willpower has never quite been strong enough, has it? Always failed you at the most important times.”
Low. So fucking low, even for him. Fury clawed at every muscle in my body.
“This is your boat, but it is my mission.” Tisaanah’s voice cut from behind me. “And these distractions are not useful, Zeryth. This is not why we’re here.”
“Distractions?” His gaze lowered to my shoulder. “I only wanted to get a closer look at this. I like to fully understand the potential of the resources I have at my disposal.” He examined the wounds, his nose wrinkling. “Disgusting. And fascinating.”
Then he turned to Tisaanah, face drawn into overwrought concern. “It troubles me, Tisaanah, that you didn’t feel comfortable telling me about this sooner.”
Her face remained neutral, but I watched her expression steel in that particular way that told me that she was calculating the perfect response. Then her features settled into a well-practiced apologetic sweetness, and she replied, “There was just so much happening…so fast…I wasn’t thinking properly.”
It was so saccharine that it bordered on sarcasm, or maybe I only thought so because I knew her too well. But Zeryth, at least, appeared to buy it. One blink and that dazzling, effusive smile was back.
“We’ve all been a little distracted. It happens, in times like these. But, make no mistake — this is why we’re here. None of us can afford to forget that.” His breezy gaze flicked to me, gesturing to the wound. “Get that taken care of, then. Have fun with the…digging.”
And just like that, he glided away, not so much as bothering to look back as he ascended the steps to the deck.
