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It hurts so bad, but I scoot along the deck, trying to get as close to Kearan as possible. He has a wound that matches mine, though his isn’t stanched. He’ll bleed out much quicker than I am.

“Now you have a choice to make, Sorinda,” Threydan says. “You can watch him die and know that I will have his body join my ranks of undead forever. Or you can accept my offer, gain the power of the panaceum, and heal him with it.”

The breath stutters out of me as two horrible choices are laid before me. I want neither; neither can happen. Why can’t I just die so the choice is made for me?

I cease my struggling and fall still.

Death for me will not stop whatever happens here. Am I foolish enough to think Threydan will cease terrorizing my crew once I’m gone? No, he’ll likely slaughter everyone I ever knew for what I took from him.

He says, “Make the choice now, Sorinda, or I will speed this along. Where is the little pirate? She’s who I’ll maim for you next.”

Roslyn.

“All right,” I croak. “I’ll do it.”

“No!” comes too many shouts for me to count. One from a wounded Kearan, one from little Roslyn up top. One from Dimella and countless others. They are a good crew.

If I’m to remain a good captain, I need to do this one last thing for them. Then this nightmare of a journey will finally be over for them. I’ll worry about my forever after that.

“Good girl,” Threydan says demeaningly. He returns to me, scoops me up in his arms—and I close my eyes, pretending it’s only Kearan holding me again.

Threydan turns his back to the majority of the crew, as though to give us a semblance of privacy. Then, without hesitation, he lowers his lips to mine again.

I can’t pretend it’s Kearan any longer. Not now that I know how his lips feel and taste. But Threydan doesn’t seem to mind that I’m not reciprocating the kiss. This is a ritual. I’d imagine this is the only way he can share eternity with me now that the panaceum is a part of him.

What is a kiss but a meeting of two souls?

That place inside me where all my heat is contained around my heart—it throbs, swirling like an angry mass within me. I feel a tug, something trying to coax it upward.

And I resist. Violently. Because that is my essence. My mortality. That is me all condensed into one place. I grab ahold of my heart with clawed fingertips, keeping it right where it is.

Threydan says against my lips, “Give in to me, Sorinda. He doesn’t have long. You must give it to me now.”

One by one, I loose those fingers. I force myself to hold absolutely still. Do nothing as my mortality is pulled from my chest. Up higher and higher. Until it reaches Threydan.

Or perhaps it is the other way around. Perhaps immortality is invading me, snuffing out my light. Building me anew.

It takes but a moment, and then—

Everything changes.

Chapter 24

EVERYTHING FEELS DIFFERENT.

If I thought I was empty before, when it was only temperature I could no longer feel, it is nothing compared to what I am now.

A husk.

No pain.

But also no spark of life.

There is a breeze on my face, but I feel removed from it somehow, as though it hardly registers to me. I cannot smell the briny water of the sea or feel the tight braids in my hair. Though I can see the bodies around me, I feel no particular connection to them. I know that I care for them. But the actual sensation within my heart? It’s missing.

I’m missing.

I’m a mind full of thoughts but no feelings.