Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 851: Trembling dog(1)

It was cold. It was always cold.

The kind that crawled under the skin and nested in the marrow, gnawing at him day and night. Cain had grown used to it, or so he thought. But every time it returned, he hated it anew. He hated the gift that had been forced upon him. Hated the life that had been prolonged when it should have ended.

Saved, they called it.

He knew that if someone knew the extent of his existence, some would call him blessed. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

But what sort of blessing left him with a leg that dragged behind him like dead weight, an eye that refused to look forward, a brain that betrayed him with fits of madness?

A gift? No. A curse.That was what he was given

His remaining family either pitied him, wrapping their words in soft tones, treating him like fragile glass that might shatter with a touch, other instead looked at him with utter contempt.

When the Gods give something they always take something back; the Sea-God was part of that pantheon. Why would he be any different?The confederation might revere him alone out of the Five and yet all knew how fickle the sea is.

Cain was everyone’s reminder that joy always carried a price.

And so he asked himself, again and again: was this life? Was this what survival meant?

Where was the happiness? Where was the laughter? All he had was the endless pendulum of disgust and pity. Cold and pain. Pain and cold.

His skin prickled, burning with frost as the abyss reached for him again. That water, icy, suffocating, eternal, wrapped around his limbs in his mind as though he were back in it. He remembered the weight dragging him down, remembered the black depths swallowing him whole.

Most men who fell into the sea met death quickly, mercifully. The water closed over them, the cold snatched their breath, and they were gone. The Sea-God took them swiftly. But Cain? Cain was never that lucky.

He had felt it all. He had been awake when the abyss claimed him. Awake when the sea wrapped its hands around his chest and pulled him into the dark. He had stared into the abyss until the abyss stared back and decided it would not let him go.

And now, even in life, the Sea-God reminded him of it. Every fit of madness. Every shiver. Every time his body betrayed him,it was the sea whispering: you belong to me.

It was a horrid sensation, one that never left him. He could feel it now, as real as the floor beneath him. The pull. The water dragging him downward, downward into the dark. Always downward.

Why could he not die? Why was he not free?

Freeman. The name was a mockery. He was no freeman. He was a prisoner of his own broken flesh, chained to a god’s cruel mercy. He was not free even of his soul.

And in his darker moments, in the fits that shook him until the world blurred,he wondered if he ever had been.

A sudden current tore through him, overturning his body, dragging him deeper. The Sea-God was warning him.

Most of the time, when the fits came, they carried some meaning.

He had seen it when they, well actually Blake, defeated the Imperial Armada, he saw it when they conquered Harmway.

They were not random seizures, not madness without design. No, he was made to see. To witness.

He never chose when they came. There were no signs, no whispers of warning. One moment he lived as Cain; the next he was swallowed by the abyss. He couldn’t even remember where he had been before the Sea-God took him. Sometimes he wondered if there were two of him, one who lived in daylight, and another who only woke when the madness struck.

Was the other Cain awake right now? Was he sitting with Blake, speaking, eating, drinking, while his body here convulsed and foamed like a mad dog on the floor? That lucky bastard could drink, eat, feel when he was here, feeling nothing.

Were they laughing at him as drool ran down his mouth, as his limbs jerked without grace?That bastard deserved it.He got everything good that he could not.

His skull cracked against something hard in the current. A jolt of pain shot through him. The Sea-God was growing impatient.

Cain forced his eyes open, hating how miserable he felt, the darkness around him bending, forming shapes.

At first, he saw only a dog. He waited but saw nothing else for a long time.

That was all. A dog? Was this the great revelation?

The current surged again, harsher this time, shoving him forward, angry. No. He was missing something. He had to look closer.

The creature was no ordinary dog. Its body was hairless, skin slick and black, as if it had been drowned in tar and dragged back up. Its ribs jutted through its hide, but what struck him most were the knives. Two daggers protruded from its back, their hilts grotesquely decorated with rabbit’s paws. Each movement the beast made drove the blades deeper, drawing wet whimpers from its throat.

Yet still it moved. Still it hunted. Its head low, teeth bared. The sight of it twisted Cain’s stomach, made bile rise in his throat. It was wrong, terribly wrong, and yet he could not look away.

Then he noticed he was not alone.

A child walked beside the dog. Or what looked like a child. The figure was blurred, genderless, featureless, naked but for the strange weight of innocence Cain somehow felt.

It was the child’s hand that struck him most, patting the beast on the dagger-hilts. Each touch sank the blades deeper, drawing another whimper. But the dog never turned on the child. It suffered and stalked onward, as if obedience mattered more than agony.

Cain drifted there, watching, trapped in the cycle. Step, whimper. Pat, stab. Step, whimper. Pat, stab. The pattern repeated until the world itself seemed to pulse with it.

And then, the rhythm broke.

The dog stopped. Its body trembled. From the dark, a third figure emerged, not grotesque, not cruel like the other. He reached out, not to strike, but to acknowledge. To offer recognition. A hand extended in peace along with a crown on his palm.

For the first time in all the vision he had , Cain felt warmth. A fragile comfort, foreign to him. The sight filled him with an ache he hadn’t realized he still carried.

But warmth never lasted. Not for him.

The dog lunged. Its tarred body coiled like a spring, jaws snapping shut around the offered hand. Bone cracked. Flesh tore. The beast devoured not with hunger but with frenzy,he did not swallow any piece but instead simply spat it out, piece by piece, until nothing remained.

The crown fell horribly, somehow, to the black....ground?Abyss?Darkness....yes Darkness.

The hand, all that while gave no reaction as it was bitten , not making out even a flicker as it disappeared.

What a bloody fool that was.

He woke with that last thought .

For a moment he did not know where he was. His last memory was of stone beneath him, his body convulsing in the hall. Yet now he lay upon a mattress in his chamber.

Something pressed against his mouth. His hand clawed upward, trembling, and closed around a damp piece of cloth. The pressure vanished at once, withdrawn in a frightened motion. Cain felt movement behind his head. Slowly, a face leaned into view,the girl. His slave. The only thing he ever truly possessed.

Her gaze was uncertain and fearful. She looked at him as though he were a wounded beast, one that might lash out even while bleeding.

Cain spat the cloth aside, his throat raw. At the sound, the girl flinched, stepping back in haste, her bare feet whispering against the floor. He gave her a long look, realizing what had happened and raised his hand,not in anger, only reaching.

But she only retreated farther, shoulders taut, as if his touch might burn.

That hurt him.

His arm dropped, heavy as lead. He let himself sink deeper into the mattress, lungs rattling with each breath. The chamber was too quiet, the silence pressing like stone.

He was alone. Always alone.

The thought hollowed him out more than the fit itself. He shut his eyes, willing it all away, but the truth clung. His lips trembled, and before he could master himself, a tear slid hot and bitter down his scarred cheek. He clenched his jaw, shamed by it.

He wanted his mother. Wanted her voice, her hands, the warmth of her embrace. But he knew,knew with a certainty sharper than any blade,that if he dared take a ship back, the sea would swallow him whole before he ever reached her.

A second tear followed the first.

The girl stirred. Slowly, hesitantly, she stepped forward again. She hovered above him.

Ashamed of himself, Cain brushed the wetness from his cheek with the back of his hand, though the stain of it burned hotter than any fever.

He glanced at the damp cloth lying beside him. His voice rasped low

’’Where did you learn that?" he asked, gesturing faintly toward it. He knew she could not understand every word, but meaning was something even silence could carry.

The girl’s eyes flickered , she of course understood. She hesitated, then touched her chest with a finger, and lowered her hand to mark something small, close to the ground. A child.

Cain’s gaze narrowed. "A sibling?" he muttered, more to himself than to her.

He raised two fingers, pointing at her, tilting his head in question. She nodded quickly, her face brightening for a heartbeat with a strange eagerness, relief even, at being understood.

For a moment,brief, absurd,Cain felt the ghost of laughter tug at him. It startled him more than the fits ever did. He could not remember the last time he had laughed.

The moment passed.

He drew a deep breath, then exaggerated the motion, pointing at his mouth and chest as if to ask: Did they breathe?

The girl’s eyes softened, her nod slow, deliberate. She looked at him then, truly looked, and in her gaze was no pity, no disgust, only a simple human desire , as clear and piercing as the sun through storm clouds.

Cain felt more tired than ever as he came to the decision; he was a failure even at being a simple pirate scum.