Page 3 of Burned Alive to Be His

JUDITH

F or three days, I am a rat in the belly of a beast. I stay hidden in my cramped hollow behind the ale barrels, the darkness a suffocating blanket.

Thirst is the first torment, a dry, rasping thing that scrapes my throat raw.

I lick condensation from the cool wood of the barrels, the taste foul but wet.

Hunger is a dull, familiar ache, a companion I have known my entire life.

I gnaw on a sliver of wood until my gums bleed, just to have something in my mouth.

The ship groans and creaks around me, a constant symphony of an unhappy vessel, and the stench of bilge water, fish, and damp rot is so thick I feel I could drown in it.

On the fourth day, the thirst becomes a fire I cannot ignore.

I know the risks. I know the cost of discovery.

But a slow death in the dark is no different from a quick one in the light.

I wait until the sounds from the deck above are muted, the rhythm of the waves a steady, lulling rock.

I slip from my hiding place, my bare feet making no sound on the grimy planks.

The hold is a labyrinth of crates and barrels, shadows clinging to everything.

A single enchanted lantern, its light a sickly yellow, sways from a central beam, casting long, dancing shadows that writhe like living things.

I see it near the ladder leading to the upper decks: a large cask of fresh water, a dipper hanging from its side.

My heart drums against my ribs. It is so close.

I move like a ghost, my body low to the ground, using the stacks of cargo for cover.

Every creak of the ship’s timbers is a shout in the silence.

I reach the cask, my hands trembling as I lift the wooden dipper.

The water is cool and clean, a miracle on my tongue.

I drink slowly, forcing myself not to gulp, not to betray my desperation.

“Well, well. What do we have here?”

The voice, thick with the guttural accent of a Zagfer laborer, slices through the quiet.

I freeze, the dipper halfway to my lips.

Two figures detach themselves from the shadows near the ladder.

They are big, burly elves of the laborer caste, their faces smudged with grime, their eyes holding a mean, hungry look.

I drop the dipper. It clatters on the deck, the sound an explosion in the stillness. I back away, my hand instinctively moving to the hem of my tunic, to the small, sharp comfort of my blade.

“A little rat,” the first one says, a slow, unpleasant smile spreading across his face. “Thought you could steal a free ride, did you? And our water?”

“Stowaways get one of two things,” the second one adds, stepping forward to block my only escape route back into the maze of barrels. “The whip, or the sea. And the captain ain’t fond of wasting food on a whip-beating for a worthless human.”

My mind races, calculating angles, searching for an escape. There is none. They are too big, too strong. The ladder is behind them.

“She’s a pretty little thing, though,” the first one says, his eyes roaming over my filthy tunic, my tangled hair. “For a human. Might be we could have some fun with her before we toss her over. A little payment for the water she drank.”

A cold, familiar dread washes over me. I have seen this look before, in the eyes of guards and masters in Vhoig. It is the look of a predator sizing up its prey. I draw my blade. The shard of metal is pitifully small in my hand, but it is all I have.

“Stay back,” I whisper, my voice a dry rasp.

They both laugh, a harsh, ugly sound. “Look at that,” the second one scoffs. “The rat has teeth.”

He lunges. I am not a fighter. I am a survivor.

I don’t try to meet his attack. I drop, scuttling to the side, and slash upwards with my blade.

The metal connects with his forearm, slicing through his tunic and the skin beneath.

It’s not a deep cut, but it’s a surprise.

He roars in pain and rage, stumbling back, clutching his arm.

His shock gives me an opening. I scramble away, back toward the darkness of the hold, but the first one is faster.

He grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks me back.

Pain explodes in my scalp. He throws me to the deck, my head cracking against the hard wood.

The world swims, black spots dancing in my vision.

He stands over me, his face a twisted mask of fury. “You’ll pay for that, you little bitch.”

He raises his foot to stomp, and in that moment, the ship lurches with impossible violence. It is not the rock of a wave. It is a cataclysmic heave, as if a giant hand has seized the vessel from below and shaken it like a toy.

We are all thrown from our feet. Barrels and crates slide across the deck, crashing into the hull with the sound of splintering wood.

The enchanted lantern shatters, plunging the hold into absolute darkness.

I hear the men shouting in fear and confusion, their curses lost in a deafening roar that comes from outside the ship.

It’s the sound of the world being torn apart.

The deck tilts to a sickening angle. I slide through the filth and spilled water, my body slamming into a stack of crates.

Above, I hear the splintering crack of the main mast, a sound like the breaking of a god’s bones.

The screams from the deck are cut short, swallowed by the howl of a wind that does not sound like any wind I have ever heard.

This is not a storm. It is a monster.

The hull beneath me groans, a deep, agonized sound, and then rips open with a shriek of tortured wood.

Water, black and impossibly cold, floods the hold.

It surges around me, pulling me under, its current a powerful, irresistible force.

I am tossed and tumbled in the chaos, my lungs burning for air.

My head hits something hard, and the world dissolves into a silent, crushing blackness.

I wake to the sensation of fire. Not the heat of a kitchen, but the searing, blistering fire of a relentless sun on my skin.

My throat is a desert, my lips cracked and bleeding.

I am lying on something that shifts beneath me, and the world is a dizzying expanse of grey, churning water and a sky the color of a bruise.

I am clinging to a large, splintered piece of the ship’s hull.

My body is a symphony of pain. Every muscle aches, every breath is a labor.

I hoist myself up, my vision swimming. The sea stretches to the horizon in every direction.

There is no sign of the ship, no sign of any other survivors. Only the endless, indifferent water.

Days blur into a nightmare of thirst and sun.

The sun is a merciless tyrant, beating down on me, cooking my skin.

The nights are a different kind of hell, the cold seeping into my bones, the darkness absolute and filled with the whispers of the deep.

I lick rain from the wood when it comes, a meager, desperate act.

I see shapes in the water, dark and vast, that move with an unsettling purpose.

I do not know what they are, and I do not want to.

My mind begins to fray. I see ghosts in the waves, the faces of the slaves I knew in Vhoig, their eyes accusing. I see the sneering face of Lord Tarsus, his new whip in hand. I drift in and out of consciousness, my grip on the wreckage weakening.

I am dying. The thought is not frightening. It is a simple, quiet fact. I have escaped one hell only to find another. I close my eyes, ready for the end. Ready for the cold embrace of the sea.

And then I smell it.

Not salt. Not rot. Something else. Sharp and acrid, like a forge, with an undercurrent of something burning. Sulfur.

My eyes flutter open. Through the haze of my delirium, I see it. A dark, jagged line on the horizon. A smudge of black against the grey sky.

Land.

The sight is a jolt to my dying heart. A spark of that defiant rage I felt in the cellar ignites once more. I will not die.

I don’t know how I do it. I kick my legs, my movements feeble, paddling with my raw hands.

The current, as if sensing my desperation, seems to pull me toward it.

The dark line grows, resolving itself into a mountain.

A single, massive peak that smokes lazily into the sky, its slopes a stark, forbidding black.

Hours later, the waves finally cast me onto the shore. I collapse onto sand that is not sand, but fine, black grit that is hot to the touch, even through my wet, tattered tunic. I crawl away from the water’s edge on my hands and knees, my body shaking with a profound, bone-deep exhaustion.

I have survived.

I lie there for a long time, the hot black sand warming my chilled body, the sound of the waves a gentle hiss behind me. The air is ripe with the scent of sulfur and ash. I push myself into a sitting position and take in my surroundings.

This is no paradise. The beach is a stretch of black grit and jagged, volcanic rock.

There is no green, no sign of life. The mountain looms over me, a terrifying, monolithic presence, a plume of dark smoke drifting from its peak.

It feels like the edge of the world. A place the gods forgot to finish.

But I am alive. And I am free.

I am so lost in the overwhelming relief of it that I do not hear him approach. One moment, I am alone. The next, a shadow falls over me.

I look up, and my blood turns to ice.

He is a dark elf, but unlike any I have ever seen.

He is taller, broader, his body a terrifying landscape of corded muscle.

His skin is the color of storm clouds, but it is not smooth.

It is covered in a fine, shimmering layer of what looks like obsidian scales, thickest on his powerful forearms and shoulders.

Two imposing black horns, wickedly sharp, curl back from his temples, and his ears are longer, more pointed, than those of the nobles in Vhoig.

His face is a sculpture of brutal perfection—a sharp jaw, high cheekbones, and a mouth set in a cruel, arrogant line.

His eyes, the color of amethysts, are fixed on me with a cold, predatory intensity.

He is magnificent. He is terrifying. He is the most dangerous thing I have ever seen.

All the survival instincts honed over a lifetime of servitude scream at me. Small. Invisible. No threat. But I am done being small. I am done being invisible. I have fought the sea and the sun and the darkness, and I have won.

I scramble back, my hand closing around the hilt of my blade, still tucked in my tunic. My fingers are stiff and clumsy, but I manage to draw it. The shard of metal is a pathetic joke against a being of his power, but it is mine.

He watches the movement, a flicker of something—amusement? intrigue?—in his violet eyes. He takes a step closer. The heat radiating from him is almost as intense as the sand.

“Stay back,” I rasp, my voice a broken thing.

A low sound rumbles in his chest. It is not a laugh. It is a growl, a primal, possessive sound that vibrates through the air and settles deep in my bones. It’s the sound of a predator that has found something unexpected in its territory.

He does not stop. He continues to advance, his movements fluid and utterly confident. He is the master of this desolate, fiery land, and I am an intruder. A piece of flotsam.

I hold my ground, my arm shaking as I keep the blade pointed at him. My heart is a wild drum against my ribs, but my eyes are locked on his. I will not cower. Not again.

When he is just feet away, he stops. His gaze drops from my eyes to the small blade in my hand, then back to my face. The corner of his mouth quirks in a semblance of a smile, but there is no warmth in it. Only a chilling arrogance.

“Treasure,” he says, his voice a deep baritone that seems to come from the very core of the mountain.

Then he moves, faster than I could have believed possible. One moment he is there, the next his hand is clamped around my wrist. His grip is like stone. The scales on his skin are smooth and cool against my sun-burnt flesh. With a casual twist, he disarms me. My blade falls to the black sand, lost.

His other hand fists in the front of my tunic, and he hauls me to my feet as if I weigh nothing. I stumble against him, my head spinning from weakness and terror. He is a wall of heat and muscle, smelling of sulfur, hot stone, and something else, something wild and ancient.

I am his.

He begins to walk, dragging me behind him, away from the sea and toward the smoking peak. Toward the heart of the fire.