Page 124 of Vengeance of the Pirate Queen

“Why? I thought you said I couldn’t kill you.”

He says nothing, only tries to fight against the firm grip of all my knives.

I pry his heart from his chest.

“Please! Dearest, I didn’t mean to put this on you so quickly. You just need time to see. You must understand—”

“I understand plenty,” I say as I stare at his purple heart. The red of the organ mixes with the blue of the panaceum, resulting in a violet glow. I cut into the unmoving flesh, until I see the first signs of the panaceum. It is hardly bigger than a walnut, and it shines like a star in the night sky. Peacock blue.

“Revenge was the first real emotion you ever felt as an immortal,” I explain to him. “It consumed you, because it was all youcouldfeel. It made you desperate, desperate enough to make me like you. But I am your undoing. Because I control the panaceum as much as you do.”

The moment I pry it from his heart, Threydan thrashes so much, he tears part of his skin from my knives, gaining an inch.

Though the skin of his chest now starts to repair itself, the panaceum is already clasped within my hand.

“It belongs to both of us!” he shouts, spittle flying from his lips. “We control it together. We are invincible together. I saw you, bits of your life. I know you’re the perfect match to take on the world with me!”

“It’s your will against mine, Threydan. I fight for my crew and the lives of all the world. You fight only for yourself. Whose will do you think will win in the end?”

It begins in earnest then, that mental battle between the two of us. I close my eyes and see him, both our metaphorical hands clasped upon the panaceum. Each trying to be the one to wrest it from the other.

Except Threydan is all alone. A black void stretches out behind him. It is only his own strength that he uses to try to claim control of the panaceum.

I, however, have help. Countless individuals line up behind me: Kearan, Dimella, Jadine, Roslyn, Enwen, Taydyn, Philoria, Visylla, Dynkinar, and so many more. They add their strength to mine.

Threydan puts up the best fight he possibly can, but in the end, the battle finishes in the only way it could.

The panaceum is mine. I cut off his access to it, and I recall the powers that it granted him. He falls alone into darkness.

When I open my eyes, Threydan’s head is slumped against his chest. He doesn’t breathe or move. It isn’t the stillness of an immortal, but the stillness of the dead.

I close his brown eyes with my fingertips.

Chapter 25

I STANDWITHTHEpanaceum in hand and survey my crew.

There is a tense moment where we stare each other down. I can only imagine how I must look: my eyes an eerie blue, blood raining from my hands, my body extra still.

I see the fear in their eyes. I am physically changed. So why shouldn’t my mind be changed as well?

My eyes drift down to the panaceum, clasped gently between my fingers. It is mine to control now, not Threydan’s. I close my eyes to concentrate. I can feel my essence encased within that small orb, thrumming excitedly.

I seize it like a parent does a lost child. I put my lips to the swirling blue, and for the first time in a long time, Ifeel.

Warmth spreads across my lips as I make contact. I feel that writhing mass ofmereenter my body, settle within my heart, then disperse throughout the rest of my limbs.

The cold of this frozen land slams back into me. More so than usual since I recently went for a swim in the freezing ocean and am still damp with both salt water and newly shed blood. But I welcome that biting cold like an old friend. I missed it. I missed feeling.

I missed being alive.

When the physical changes are done, I try to cut myself off mentally from the panaceum. I hear the undead slump to the deck, lifeless once more. Within my mind’s eye, I imagine a pair of scissors aiming for that tether between me and the panaceum, except as I look at it, I realize it’s not alone.

There is the smallest bit of my essence contained within the orb.

And I realize that if I were to completely sever that tie, I would die. Because the object was still corrupted—still encased within Threydan’s flesh when he changed me—I, too, suffer the consequences of that corruption. If I were to cut ties with it, that healing would be undone.

It has to stay with me always. I can’t hand it off to Alosa and be done with it. My hand tightens in a vise around the cursed object.

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