Chapter 23

23

Irony was being tossed into the very cell he had crafted for Arya , wearing a band of gold around his neck he’d thought never to feel again. But Jai deserved it. He stared at the ceiling Arya had gazed upon hours earlier. Pain lanced through him. Every breath made him wish he was dead. Parts of him ached, others throbbed.

He didn’t fear what came next. His death would be even more agonizing than the beating. Priya would be sure to drag it out so he suffered to the very end. She wanted to hurt him, to punish him. Jai even knew how he would die.

But he didn’t linger on that. Death was inevitable. The pain tried to keep him absorbed. It almost succeeded. But he had another distraction. Arya . He refused to believe she was dead. She got away. She must have. Priya hadn’t shown him a body. Until that happened, she was alive to him.

“ Please , let her be alive,” Jai begged the gods.

They had been a fickle bunch lately, but they were his last hope. He wasn’t praying for himself. It was all for Arya .

Just thinking of her made him smile. Memories took him back to the fateful day they met. His heart had missed a beat when she looked at him. Her smile had been so bright and all-consuming it eclipsed everyone and everything.

They had been drawn to each other as if a band were stretched between them, tugging them closer. After that, anytime they were near each other, they had secretly brushed against one another—a touch of fingers, a shared look, the tickle of her hair against his arm.

They stole every moment they could. It only heightened his need and longing until she was the only thing occupying his thoughts.

Was that why he hadn’t noticed Priya changing? Jai doubted it would have mattered how much attention he’d paid. Priya would’ve hidden it from him regardless. She hadn’t wanted him to see anything. It was a difficult thing to accept. He’d believed he knew her, but he had only known the elf she wanted him to think she was.

Priya hated Arya for her deception, but Priya’s went much deeper. Though she would never see it that way. He and Priya had come from the same place and experienced the same things, only to diverge and become two different people. She had set her course long ago, and there was no bringing her back. Even if he wanted to.

And he didn’t.

The Viper shuddered violently, causing ripples of pain to roll from his head to his toes. He flattened his hand on the floor to soothe the ship. She hadn’t been sailing as smoothly as normal. He liked to think it was because she didn’t want Priya captaining her. The atmosphere within the crew was taut with strain. It always was during this last bit of their river journey because they were returning to the Masters , but this felt worse than usual. Maybe it was all in his head because he had wanted to believe the crew was family.

Just because they’d all been detained by the Masters didn’t make them a family. That was his folly. And one he would pay the ultimate price for. Not that he blamed the crew. They were slaves trying to remain alive. Whoever turned against the Masters or Priya would be dead within seconds. Just as he was about to be.

The rattle of the anchor being dropped reverberated through the vessel. When it caught on the riverbed, the ship jerked to a halt with a groan. The roar of the waterfall penetrated the ship’s walls. Priya had brought them too close. They needed to lower the second anchor.

The Viper lurched forward suddenly. He heard shouts from the crew, followed almost immediately by the sound of the second anchor dropping into the water. Even then, the ship felt unsteady, as if it bemoaned its proximity to the falls. Whoever tried to turn the vessel around to sail it back would have a hell of a time. But that wasn’t his worry anymore.

“ Thank you for being my home,” he whispered to the ship. “ I’m going to miss you.”

Footsteps approached, drawing ever closer. Then the cell door banged open. Jai didn’t take his gaze from the ceiling. He didn’t struggle when rough hands heaved him to his feet and forcibly dragged him from the room, down the hall, and up the stairs. Jai bit his tongue to keep from moaning in pain. He nearly passed out twice.

They halted on the upper deck. His eyes were so swollen that all he could make out through the slits was a blur of bodies. The crew members released him, and his legs buckled. They unceremoniously hauled him back up but kept a hold of him this time.

Something touched him. Jai jerked his head away. Priya put her face in front of his and gently tugged some hair caught in his cuts away from his face. He stared at her as the waterfall thundered. He’d never liked this area of the river. Maybe in the back of his mind, he had always known it would be the place of his death.

“ I love you, Jai . You love me. I know we could have a wonderful life together. All you have to do is pledge yourself to me,” Priya shouted over the roar of the falls.

Jai smiled, causing the cut on his lip to split open again. “ Never .”

Fury blanketed her features, contorting them into a hideous visage. She straightened to tower over him. “ Remember . It didn’t have to be like this.”

“ It always had to be like this,” he replied.

Her gaze moved past him as she ordered, “ Take him.”

Jai was dragged to the side of the ship and then tossed overboard. He landed in the shallow water. Just as he managed to get to his feet, rough hands grabbed one of his arms to pull him to shore, yanking it out of the socket. He couldn’t hold back the yelp of pain. The crew members didn’t speak to each other or him as they half-dragged him, and he stumbled across the rocky shoreline.

He spotted the cage, open and waiting. Soon after becoming captain, he had been made to watch an elf forced into the cage and moved out into the falls. What came after was the stuff of nightmares.

Jai swallowed nervously as they drew nearer to the cage. He tried to get his feet under him so he could walk on his own. One knee held him, but the other crumpled, causing him to trip and the two holding him to lose their balance. The hands holding him were suddenly gone. He fell with a thud, banging his chin against the rocks and sending pain shooting along his jaw and up into his head.

The crew took great enjoyment in wrenching him up by his injured arm. Their laughs and jeers floated around him. Jai clenched his jaw, so he didn’t cry out. It took him a moment to realize that he wasn’t moving.

“ What are you doing, Anil ?” someone asked.

Jai became aware that The Viper ’s second mate had moved to his other side. The crew’s scowls warned that this had better be nothing more than a jest.

“ Anil ?” Jai asked in a soft voice.

“ I can’t do it,” Anil said to the others. “ Jai is our captain.”

Someone said, “ Not anymore. We answer to Priya .”

Jai tried to see the crew, but his eyes were almost completely shut now. “ Don’t do this,” he warned Anil . “ They’ll kill you.”

“ I should’ve stood with you on the ship,” the second mate answered.

“ Then you’d already be dead. Tell them you’re kidding.”

Anil blew out a breath. “ Sorry , Cap’n . Can’t do that.”

Everything happened so fast. The crew rushed them. As he was tackled, Anil tried to unlock Jai’s gold collar. Jai fell backward when Anil’s hand got caught. Jai shouted his name and tried to move between them, but he and Anil were outnumbered.

Within moments, Anil lay unmoving. Jai stared into the elf’s lifeless eyes, hating that anyone had died trying to help him. A big hand wrapped around Jai’s ankle and dragged him the rest of the way to the tall, narrow cage. They tossed him inside, and the door banged shut with deafening finality. Then he heard the creak of the chains as they slowly hauled him from the land into the waterfall.

Priya waited at the bottom of the towering cliff as the crew led the freshly woken and confused slaves down the steps. She could make out the ship’s rigging but couldn’t see the cage. Her gaze moved to the center of the falls, where the cage had stopped. It devastated her to have put Jai there. If only he had pledged himself to her.

Why didn’t he love her? What did she lack? Why hadn’t he ever seen the many times she’d come on to him? Others desired her. Why not him?

She didn’t want to leave Jai alone to die, but she couldn’t watch, either. He could be up there for a few hours or days. It all depended on how much he struggled. The more he moved, the more noise he made, the sooner the Black Terror would come for him.

It was a gruesome way to die, but it would be better than what the Masters would do. She would be punished for killing Jai and losing the human, not to mention killing Arya before they got their pound of flesh. Priya had a way out, though. She would locate the other three with bounties on their heads and bring them in. If anyone could do it, it was her.

She couldn’t tell if the cage was moving or not. Jai had seen such a death. He knew what awaited him. Would he allow himself to drown versus facing the Terror ? That was just like Jai . Defiant until the very end.

“ Your loss,” she whispered.

Her newly appointed first mate led the slaves past. Many were crying as they struggled with the idea of their fate. Some still attempted to use their magic. Others yanked at the gold necklaces. A few had their heads down, accepting what awaited them.

It was the same with every batch she brought. Those who were rebellious or fought against their new roles would soon be broken. The Masters had done it with even Jai . If he hadn’t withstood it, no one could.