Page 95 of Beneath the Veil of Tides
“I only fight on the winning side.”
“Then, you should have taken my offer. Because now, I have the entire royal bloodline to fight Thal’Maruun—your aunt. I have both of the goddess’s nieces, sister, and brother-by-marriage.”
The attempt to contain my shock was impossible. He was right at the temple of the Shadeborne Bound entrance. Hedidhave my entire family.
Raoku smiled. “You really think your bloodline slipped past us? It was obvious the moment your sister turned up in our facilities. Her blood sent our power surging in waves. Did you honestly believe we wouldn’t notice?”
“You lied to us,” I breathed.
“I didn’t claim to have integrity. That is only for the hero. However, it is time for your true sacrifice. You know––” he said, dragging his fingers across the glass around me, tapping in a taunting rhythm––“the one you escaped in the first place.”
Raoku snapped his fingers, and immense pressure suffocated my face. Bone layered over bone until my head was fully encased, a hollow, ivory helm sealing me in. Thin spikes reached outward, brushing against my chest. I leaned forward, and they tore through the skin. A narrow slit framed Jun’s father below, smirking up at me as though he’d built something worth admiring.
“To silence the cries, of course. Your sister didn’t like it either, but she’s survived so far,” he chided wryly.
Lightning ran through me, my body convulsing as the searing agony ripped through bone. A roar attempted to escape my mouth, but the ivory bone helm contracted tighter. It screamed back at me, a crowd of voices tearing at my senses. My ears pounded. Blood drifted through the water around me.
Raoku watched, amusement dancing behind his eyes as I attempted to hold in my screams. Heat overwhelmed me. Fire roared against a boulder at the far end of the room, conjured and sustained by a figure standing before it, their power spilling outward in flickering threads that reached toward me like searching fingers. The bones around my head dug into the skin of my face, ripping the gash along my cheekbone further. Tendrils of yellow power extracted from my body and soakedinto the metal below my stiff tail. He drained what I had never been able to use. I never had the chance.
But I wouldn’t allow him to see me miss it.
Pain never bested me. I’d cheated death many times in my life, but I promised myself that when the torture was over, I would then deliver it to everyone who deserved my rage.
The electrifying pain stopped, and I gasped for breath.
“You are going to fight on our side, or I will kill them all. Every single one of them. Slowly.”
I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe enough to put forth the words.
“Starting with this one,” Raoku said and a young mer appeared beside him, summoned by the commander’s power. The mer fought against the rope binding his arms and legs together. The drenched prisoner sluggishly writhed against his grip, but he looked so weak—so ready to give in to the torture. His mouth was gagged, but his whimpers found my ears.
“No,” I whispered, but Raoku only laughed.
“You actually care about this mer? You don’t even know him.”
I did. I saw the fear in his eyes—the life he was desperate to grasp.
Raoku continued. “I forgot to tell him that I killed everyone he loves months ago.”
The mer cried—sobbed. He fell to the ground in a heap, his body shaking in emotional convulsions. Raoku pulled his sword from the hanging sheath on his hip.
“Let him go,” I croaked.
“I guess this is how he found out,” Raoku replied heartlessly.
He slid a dagger across the mer’s back, and the poor prisoner thundered in pain. Raoku cut again. The prisoner begged. Another slice through the meat of his back. The merkicked his feet, attempted to scoot away from the blade, but the commander followed. Slice after slice Raoku tore into him.
“Leave him alone!” I roared, but that only fueled Raoku and tempted the helm to tighten around my head.
He paced around the mer and brought his sword down through his throat. Blood sprayed, coating the glass cylinder that held me inside. The innocent’s head thudded against the floor, scarlet honey pooling quickly.
The helm became too unbearable as I screamed, bursting my eardrums with the echoes and nearly shattering every bone in my skull.
I attacked the glass in silence instead. My hits were slower, the water’s resistance weakening them.
Raoku only grinned and walked out of the double doors.
Torches dimmed by the hour, eventually leaving me, the unconscious mers in silos, and the dead mer’s lifeless body in the dark. It was a gratefulness I’d never imagined myself wanting—the inability to see the blood and separation of the mer from his head.
