Page 28 of Daughter of the Dark Sea
“What happened to the crew?” She clutched his hand tightly, not daring to move him in fear of him fully bleeding out.
“We’d settled in for the night,” Samuel spoke hoarsely, and he coughed. “Then this smoke appeared out of nowhere. It knocked us all out—most of us.”
Jack’s brown gaze hooked on Silas, not daring to look anywhere else other than his twin. A splattering of dark blood materialised on the back of Jack’s white shirt, but he didn’t react.
Aryn approached through the fading fog, holding up the swaying ship healer with his arm. The healer was aged, his skinweathered, with a skinny frame and long grey hair. Kora stepped back, allowing the healer room to observe Blake, and clasped her hands together to prevent them from shaking. As he inspected him with slender, aged hands, Blake groaned a third time, his eyes fluttering open.
“Any longer, he would’ve been dead,” the healer announced. Kora’s throat clenched. “But he’ll live, with my help.”
She sent a silent prayer to Thanos, the god of death.
The crew spilled out of their hazy quarters, rubbing their sore heads as they peered around with bleary eyes. Dark smoke emanated from their bodies, clutching at remnants of their consciousness. Once their eyes landed on Blake’s bleeding body, and the battered pirate, they began yelling, waking each other up.
Several sailors knelt beside him, producing a wooden stretcher with taut fabric between two beams. Kora looked away when Blake cried out in pain as they shifted him onto it and carried him to the medical bay.
“Get him out of my sight!” Kora snarled at Jack, and Samuel and Aryn shouldered his limp, hopeless body between them as they dragged him back to Hell’s Pit alone.
13
The healer had declared no one could visit Blake for the remainder of the evening—and most of the next day.
Kora paced around her quarters. Her blades were clean of tainted blood, and permanently attached to her back, hidden away in their scabbards in anticipation of another attack. But her soul remained marked, marred by the pirates’ continuous onslaught. Their cruelty never ended.
The dual chests they recovered fromDemon Sea Sirenhad remained untouched by Jack Flint’s odious hands. However, he’d ransacked her quarters, hunting for the Galenite wealth—which she’d safely stashed away again.
Why the Flint twins specifically sought the Galenite wealth eluded her. This potential alliance had to end. Galen’s return would destroy everything the Talmon Empire had worked for—everything Kora had worked for. She’d rather end up in Deadwater Prison than at the hands of Galen. Her marred soul would disintegrate in their presence, fading to a wisp, ready tobe moulded into a creature of darkness, of torture and mindless slaughter.
A knock sounded at her door and Samuel shouldered through the slim doorway, his face set in a stony grimace. Aryn promptly followed, his attentive, hazel eyes surveying the wrecked chamber, his quiver and longbow strapped across his shoulder and chest. She inclined her head towards him, neither of them were taking any chances after last night.
She appreciated the archer’s hindsight. In fact, if it weren’t for Aryn, she’d be amongst the piles of dead in the hull, her carcass wrapped in abandoned hammocks. He’d spared her life from Jack’s fury . . . even if shehadbeen willing to die by his hand. To join the blank faces, surrounded by the moonlight-kissed hair her mind clung to, in Thanos’ realm.
She wasn’t sure what it meant. Years of hardship, years of gruelling pain, for her to suddenly throw it all away in one night. To accept defeat and surrender to the god’s obvious intention on making her suffer. At least, that’s what it felt like.
To Kora’s surprise, the ship’s healer entered the wrecked space. She vaguely remembered his name was Koji Sanatorre, along with the knowledge that he had a reputation for favouring wealth over aiding the infirm.
Long grey hair was balanced in a knot atop his head, and in the daylight, his face was pale and wan, wrinkled skin scrunching as he smiled tentatively. But the smile didn’t reach his slanted eyes. Light brown trousers and an oversized white shirt lined his slender frame. The sleeves were rolled up, with an unbuttoned brown waistcoat hugging his chest.
If he was here, it had to be bad news, and Kora tensed as Koji opened his thin mouth to speak, his bony hands clasped before him. “Before you worry,” his voice was rough, “he’s progressing well.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, thanking the gods—especially Thanos. “Thank you.”
“I’m here to check on you.”
Fan-fucking-tastic. She twitched, her skin crawling with an itch that had persisted since the twin’s attack.
The healer motioned for her to sit in one of the onyx chairs by the desk. Luckily, she’d recovered everything from the workspace, returning items to their trusty drawers—more importantly, the ledgers. The rest of her quarters laid in tatters. Her precious books of fiction and seafaring torn to streams as if they held a valuable secret, the pages scattered.
Her heart felt the same. Ribbons of muscle shredded within her.
Her favoured assortment of blades glistened across the floor, and several throwing knives were still embedded in the ebony woodwork of the walls. Aryn’s stare snagged on them, his body jerking. The bedding was tossed all over the room, creating waves of cream and blue, smothered in white feathers from ripped open pillows.
Kora had slept on the chaise longue last night, with her mattress propped against the bay window, too tired to put anything back together. Even now, exhaustion rimmed her eyes. Her body was fatigued, her heart bruised and aching. Her mind had gone into overdrive, incessantly worrying about Blake, Galen, and the pirates.
Anything to keep her mind off . . . what happened.
“I’m fine,” she waved Koji off. “Just some light bruising.”
Indeed, she had woken up to her entire side bruised and battered from Jack. Her back ached unforgivingly from sleeping on the stiff-backed chaise longue. The pain was a welcomed distraction.
