I barely taste it as I eagerly chew and swallow, needing to stop the pain that has returned to my belly.
When I’m done with the first skewer, Threydan hands me another.
And then the final one.
That’s when I remember he doesn’t need to eat. He is truly immortal. Meanwhile, I can still die by hunger.
And thirst.
As soon as I think it, Threydan hands me a cup filled to the brim with water.
I can’t even care if he’s poisoning me right now. I’m too desperate to be full.
“Easy, now,” he says as I chug the water. “You don’t want it to come up again.”
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, surveying the kitchen around me. “What is this place?”
“When we found this island, we knew it would take a while before we discovered the sirens and the panaceum. This was the shelter we made.”
“You mean you and your crew? The ancestors of the Drifta?”
“Yes.”
“How long did it take you to find it?”
“Over six months.”
“That’s a long time to survive in the bitter cold.”
He smiles at that. “It wasn’t always like this. It was cold, yes, but it wasn’t so frozen. The sirens cursed the land just as they did me before they left. I suspect they thought it would deter future travelers from finding me and waking me. But nothing so silly as snow would ever deter you.”
The food in my stomach starts to turn. “You keep speaking as though you know me. You don’t. You don’t have a claim to me. You must stop this fanciful notion of us.”
He eyes me from head to toe in a way I do not like one bit. “But I do know you, Sora. You are Sorinda Veshtas, the pirate queen’s assassin. You were born the daughter of a rich nobleman, until you lost everything when you were five. But you had your vengeance. You know much in the way of vengeance, as you’ve been dealing it your whole life. I need you to help me with mine next.”
I choke on the next sip of water. I suspected that he was receiving my memories just as I’ve been getting his, but I can’t believe he knows so much so soon.
“It’s your doing, you know,” he says. “When you stabbed my heart, you connected us. I was so entranced by what I saw, that moment when you made your first kill, that I knew we were meant to be. And while we’re on the subject of your memories, we will need to talk about this Kearan lad. He can’t have you, because you’re mine.”
I don’t know which memory of mine made him delusional enough to think that anything is happening between Kearan and me, but he’s as misguided as I once was.
“Those memories were not for you to take.”
“I didn’t take them. I shared them with you.”
“You cannot share them! They’re mine. You shouldn’t have—”
“It’s all right, love. I’ve seen your darkest secrets, and you have nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed of. You are extraordinary. If anything, I’ve only seen how short I fall compared to you.”
“Stop talking to me like that.”
“Intimacy scares you. I understand, but—”
I leap away from him as he tries to step closer.
“No, no,” I repeat. “You don’t understand. If you did, you would know how wrong all this is. You cannot keep me here. You cannot force me to be with you or to help you with whatever your ridiculous plan is. You cannot take so much from me and then expect me to thank you for it.”
He’s too still as he stands there. Chest unmoving. Eyes unblinking. Not so much as an itch to scratch or a muscle to stretch.
It’s unsettling.
“I am sorry for how this all played out. I cannot help what I am or how our first meeting went. I—”
“That’s a load of shit.” I call him out on it. “You chose to be like this. To fuse with the panaceum so no one else could use it. You chose to kill and to hurt. You may not have chosen the consequences of those actions, but you are responsible for what you are.”
His eyes narrow. “What I did, I did for—”
“Your sister. Yes, I know. I saw. She was in pain, and you wanted to help her. That’s why you sailed this way. But it seemed to me that you lost your purpose along the way.”
He glowers at me. “I never lost my purpose. The second Kayra was born, my life was about her instead of myself. I spent every second of my day with her, ensuring she had everything she needed. I had to witness her in pain day after day. My parents called for the most expensive physicians, but none could find the source of her agony or help to ease it.
“When rumors spread that the king was sending a crew in search of a cure to all maladies, I made sure I was hired for it. We sailed for months before reaching this island, and then we searched even longer for the mystical object that would heal our loved ones.
“I was the one who found it, and do you know what happened when I presented it to the rest of the crew?”
“They tried to take it.”
“They wanted it for the king. They wanted titles and glory and money. All things that a man in power could provide. But I knew what would happen if our monarch got his hands on such a thing. An artifact that can heal any disease or ailment? He would sell cures to the highest bidders, grant longevity to the most important individuals. The rich would live forever, and people like my sister would be utterly forgotten and alone.
“So I ran. I kept it, and yes, I made it a part of myself so it would be mine to share with those who truly needed it. The poor. The desperate. Those who are in pain. Those who need relief. And do you know what happened next?”
I shake my head slowly.
“The sirens found out I had taken it. My crew was quick to lay all the blame on me, and since I could not be killed or harmed, they did the next best thing. They cursed the land to bring forth snow and ice. Then they cursed me to sleep until I was woken. Cursed me to live in an icy tomb until my sister was dead and all those I wanted to help were gone.”
The siren was as beautiful as she was dangerous. Her hair was white as snow, as were her lips. She was naked as she walked toward me, rising out of the ocean, her charm trailing behind her.
I did not know true terror until that moment.
Her voice grated on my ears like a hailstorm battering the roof of a house. “You will sleep until all those you love are gone, Threydan. You will live without living until you are woken. I hope the moment does not come until the end of time.”
And then there was music. The most beautiful, painful music that made me want to weep.
Then nothing.
“I’m awake now, Sorinda,” Threydan says, pulling me out of the memory. “Everyone I’ve ever known is gone, save you. Do you know what it is to sleep for a thousand years, dreaming of the world passing you by? It was agony, but I held out hope that one day I would rise again. One day, I could claim vengeance on the sirens who did this to me, all because I wanted to help the less fortunate.”
His eyes bore into mine. “You are my only hope. If I get too close to the sirens, they will only put me back to sleep. But you? You are immune to their songs as a woman. You can get me my vengeance, and then we can rule these lands however we see fit. I had one life taken from me, but I will not lose another.”