Page 52 of The Ever King

Never had I embraced gore, but a shiver danced down my spine. I wanted the man to suffer. For a moment, I wanted him to suffer more than I did Bloodsinger.

I didn’t know this side of myself.

Truth be told, she frightened me.

The Ever King dropped the rope. His captive let out a haggard breath. One simple wave of the hand from the king, and two crewmen hooked their arms beneath the prisoner’s and leveraged him into a rough stance on his knees.

“The seas,” Erik said, dark and low, as he accepted a knife from Larsson. He glanced over his shoulder at the prisoner. “Lucien, whose voice commands the seas?”

The prisoner spat his blood. “Hard to tell these days, Erik.”

“Is it now.” Erik turned, a thoughtful pinch to his face. “It hardly boggles me. I wonder why it is such a struggle for you.”

Lucien scoffed, but said nothing.

Erik stalked the man, a beast to a mouse. With every step, he tapped the blade against his palm.

“What is your purpose in coming to Skondell? The only thing I can gather is you’re here for the lotus, no doubt for nefarious reasons.” The king came to a halt in front of the man. “Who financed your campaign?”

“Ah, king of the seas, you sail beneath your own dark banner. You know no privateer worth his weight gives up his financiers. Makes for bad business.”

“Hmm.” Erik inspected the blade in his hand. “This is a rather dull knife.”

Odd thing to say. Odder still was the way Lucien’s eyes widened in horror.

I startled when Erik lunged at his prisoner. He might’ve limped from whatever injury I’d caused, but I was right about my theories—Erik Bloodsinger was a snake, swift and deadly, always waiting to strike.

A guttural scream clawed through the air when the point of the knife, with horrifying precision, lodged into the corner of Lucien’s left eye. The two crewmen gripped the man tighter. Both held one side of his face, forcing him to keep still as Erik . . . worked.

The king didn’t blind the man, not right away. He tugged and teased at the eye. I covered my mouth, hot sick rising in the back of my throat. Erik slowly lifted the eye, causing a bulge in the socket, but never finished the job.

Lucien sobbed and pleaded.

“Might consider a bit of mercy,” Erik said, calm as a summer’s breeze, “should you tell me who financed your campaign.”

“Finish it, gods, finish it,” Lucien sobbed, truly pleading for the king to pluck out his eye.

“Financier.” The king lifted the eye a little more.

I took a bit of pride that I wasn’t the one to vomit. A man somewhere near the water’s edge retched when bloody sinews bulged from behind the socket.

My nerves twitched, the desire to flee, to swim until I tried my fate with the Chasm took hold.Don’t look away. This was the man I’d face. Perhaps I was gazing into what the future held for me. Better to learn what I could now.

It gave me focus and purpose. It gave me a desire to act, not crack at the seams.

“These . . . isles are damned . . . anyway,” Lucien sobbed. “The lotus was a . . . new attempt at a spell cast to . . . heal it.”

Erik steadied his hand and looked to the northern tip of the isle. Beyond the smoke and flame, dark hills made of scorched grass were all that remained. Clearly the fire had eaten away whatever greenery there’d been.

Or so I assumed. Until the slightest burn of fear flashed in the king’s eyes.

The king blinked. “Who wanted the lotuses, Lucien? Lady Narza?”

“I-I-I don’t know their name. Payments were made without meeting.”

“What purpose did they have for the lotus?”

“Might p-p-poison the blight away.” Lucien groaned. “I was going to use s-s-some to b-buy entrance through the sea witch’s realms to the far seas.”