The Rise of Deragon (The Deragon Duology #2)

6

Pandora

I ’ve never seen a weakness in crying. Expressing emotions is a healthy and appropriate response in any catastrophic situation. And yet, the moment Madman turns back to me after murdering Ardian—after embracing the namesake I didn’t wish to believe in—I go into shock. At least outwardly. I almost begin to fear that I have gone numb to the sight of such sudden violence, but then, little by little, the unmistakable chill of terror creeps up my bones.

The windless summer night promises to make this discreet voyage longer than it should be. That, and there’s scarcely any food on this boat, which I remind myself is because Madman didn’t intend on taking hostages.

“Why call me ‘angel’?”

Madman’s head faintly perks up at the question. “Oh. We’re talking again?”

His voice is smooth as velvet and his smirk is as dreamlike as it is precarious.

“Answer the question.”

Madman laughs to himself, just once. The sudden change in my otherwise airy disposition takes him by surprise. The low sound of his next words burn through me like unanticipated heat.

“Am I not allowed to address you by a term of endearment?”

“I have no problem with your kindness.” I don’t feel the need to add, limited and volatile as it may be . “It’s the word angel I’m not sitting well with. After all, you somehow know the truth that no one else does. If you had intentions of killing my aunt, and threatening my mother’s safety were I not to have cooperated earlier, then you can’t possibly be Urovian. Which means you don’t believe in angels at all.”

Urovia’s homeland religion is complex, but it is rooted in supernatural wonder. Saints, angels, prayers, and—in the case of the blessed, like Jericho and Venus—astounding rituals. Ever since the Deragon Dynasty superseded the former era, our present circumstances have intertwined well with the history of the past. Urovia came into existence as a result of liberation from faithless trust in deities of fallen empires, but it came into power as a result of divine retribution.

My family’s armies sacked the once formidable Mosacian Empire just days after I was born. They struck Sevensberg Palace—once a pinnacle of power and domination—and according to record, the place caved in like a house of cards. When the people saw that their stronghold had been toppled, very few took the opportunity to be defiant against the Hive and die for a nation that had antagonized their allies for several, bitter years. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t any Mosacian loyalists, because there were definitely a fair share of them—as proven by my current capture—but Venus in particular didn’t bat an eye at their fury. She and Jericho shut them up swiftly . . . and eternally.

Where they did show sympathy, however, was in allowing the collected territories to continue their preferred religious practices—although even I am inclined to believe that the decision wasn’t a kindness. Rather, it was a sleight of hand, a way to gatekeep the supernatural beauty of sainthood, and a treasure only Urovia would get to inherit.

It brings a tinge of sadness to my voice as I finally say, “You’re a foreigner.”

Madman scoffs. “Yet, you say the word without blatant aversion.”

“Does that upset you?”

“You’re just so—” He stops, shaking his head in frustration. “ Not them. You were raised by a married couple that wiped out an entire empire and collected its smaller countries like children’s figurines. You lived in a golden prison that taught you to be heartless , and yet—”

“And yet what?” Nevermind that he just insulted my home by calling it a prison.

Madman works his jaw. “You traded your life for their filth to live on.”

I try to keep the words from sinking in too deep, but my first instinct is to retaliate. “Well, you would’ve killed me if I denied you, so it’s not like I had many options.”

The statement rattles him, and with a huff, he abandons his spot along the ship’s steering wheel. Boots clicking as he stomps towards me, I don’t have time to apologize or make a break for it before he sweeps me into his arms, trapping me in what should be an embrace but feels more like a constricting cage.

Then, he reaches into his cloak for the weapon he killed Ardian with.

I scream, the sound shrill and unlike anything else I’ve ever produced, but Madman doesn’t bother smothering the sound. We’re too far from shore to attract any attention other than whatever fish bob towards the surface of the Damocles Sea.

Held tight against his front, my lips tremble as he presses the weapon against my temple. The metal is cold and heavy against the skin there, and I swallow hard as Madman’s mouth careens towards the other side of my face.

“Broadcove Castle is protected by hundreds of guards, settled along a coastline safeguarded by fleets of warships, and nobody’s dared to attack their lands since the Hive swarmed Mosacia. The last thing on the king’s and queen’s mind would be possessing a handgun,” he whispers shrewdly, his smile tweaking upward in one of the corners. “The enemy they’re expecting is a massive army, not a lone vigilante in a mask.”

The words are uttered humorously, and the message is clear—he is not the good guy. I knew as much when he crept in through my mirror.

“But between me and you, angel, you should trust me when I say that I don’t plan on killing you. Not now. Not ever.”

The small mechanism clenched in his hand did such unforgivable damage, and yet, Madman holds it with effortlessness. The obsidian gleam of it unsettles something deep in my core, and the featherlight touch of his fingertips grazes the body of it. “Remind yourself of that when you start to contemplate who you should place your faith in. The people who may attempt to ransom you, the same people who let one man slip through their defenses and steal you away without a scratch . . .

“Or me. The man who could’ve blown your pretty brains out by now—the man who could’ve killed you years ago but held off, all because he wanted to know you.”

The things he says are sincere, and maybe, in some deranged way, they are meant to be reassuring. Yet terror chills my blood at the revelations his words provide.

I don’t know how, but Madman has been watching me . . .

For years .

Dissuading guards, surviving in the catacombs and decoding its labyrinth, and observing the dynamics of the castle’s inhabitants. He’s spent so long in the shadows, watching and waiting—and now, he intends to take what he wants. To take me .

Him taking me alive will not prove to be as merciful as I may have originally thought.

+

Madman’s gun apparently has a name: Whisper.

A particularly moronic name for a weapon that nearly shattered my eardrums.

Though Madman essentially threatened me at gunpoint, he takes the time to show me exactly how Whisper works. Dutifully, he unloads and reloads the chamber, shows me how to hold it for maximum stability, and I try not to think of the way sparks go off beneath my skin as his gloved hands guide my fingers over the lines of the pistol. If only to escape the sensation, I squeak out a lie that comes out as, “I’m quite tired,” and he casually re-holsters his gun.

Madman heads for a lockbox stored near the wheel, and after keying it open, reveals a meager supply of crackers, some sort of meat wrap, and a tin of soup. “It’s all yours,” he says gruffly, even though he passes me the objects without any hostility.

I nod graciously towards him, but I politely pass on the wrap. The slight rocking of the boat on water, not to mention all the events of today, have started to take their toll on me—and it looks like Madman can see it on me. He pushes the wrap back towards me. “You need to eat.”

“I ate at the Feast,” I say, but I realize it’s a lie. I sang during supper.

“Pandora.”

“No, thank you. You eat. I’d prefer not to deal with you when you are hungry.”

His smirk reappears. “Was that a joke?”

Unsure if I’ve offended him, or worse, endeared myself further, I make myself busy by giving in to my secret hunger. I drink the soup like water, not caring about any obnoxious slurping sounds I make as I gulp down the broth, or the unladylike way my jaw works to nibble at the stray noodles and cut up carrots. Once that’s gone, I choke down a few crackers. “Happy?”

The ship bobs along a stray wave, and on cue, Madman hands me a steel cup. He must have pulled it from the lockbox when I was shoveling the soup into my mouth. “This should settle your stomach.”

As I tilt the cup upwards, consuming the herbal mixture slower than the soup, I catch the first hints of sunrise in its reflection. The dark indigo dims into something warmer, something new. Halfway towards the base of the cup, I realize that Madman is right. It is helping my stomach—soothing the unease there in a way that makes the rest of my body feel balanced and loose. And alarmingly fast, at that . . .

Just as the warmth of my drink begins to race through my veins so that I feel it through my fingers, I hear Madman tell me, his voice perfectly calm, “We need to get you out of your dress.”

His words set fire to my brain. “Like hell we do,” I try and argue. But as I hear the words disjointedly fall out of me, I stare into the tin cup like it bit me. “You coward. You poisoned me?”

His tone doesn’t sharpen, even as spit flies off the end of my bottom lip and lands on the hard boning of his mask. “I only gave you a tonic, angel.”

“ Don’t call me ‘angel’ right now.”

“You won’t die, you’ll just sleep through your seasickness—”

“I didn’t ask you to give me anything,” I snarl.

“It’s fast-acting.” He ignores my interruption outright. “So unless you want to sleep in that uncomfortable, purple monstrosity, you should let me help you into some normal clothes.”

My eyes turn glassy. “You think my dress is ugly?”

Madman huffs, placing a hand to his concealed forehead. There’s an argument festering beneath his stormy eyes, but he wards it off, his voice guttural as he tells me, “Turn around.”

“ No .” The word is vile on my tongue.

“I get it. You don’t trust me yet. It’s why you haven’t let yourself sleep, because you think I’m going to kill you the minute you let your guard down. But I know you’re exhausted and nauseous . . . and scared,” he adds for good measure.

All I can do in response is pout because it’s the truth. Yes, I took his outstretched hand, and I went to him willingly, but each passing second with him, I wonder how deeply I’ve doomed myself. Even if he has no intention of hurting me physically, my gut instinct is sounding silent alarms. And yet, there’s no way to flee. No point in fighting. I’m simply frozen in fear unlike any I’ve ever experienced.

“So let’s get this over with before I have to strip you down unconscious. Turn. Around.”

Against my better judgment, I do, fighting the sudden sinking weight of my eyelids and the terrifying realization that him helping me out of my clothes doesn’t scare me half as badly as it should.

His fingers work against the few buttons along the top of my dress’s keyhole cutout, and when they split apart, I shiver at the touch of his leather gloves coasting towards the zipper at the small of my back. I start to stumble over myself, and Madman steadies one hand where the fabric starts, the other higher up on my bare back.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers, lowering the zipper to the notch. Gently, he situates me on the ground, propping me up against the mast so that I’m sitting up. “Keep your eyes open.”

Dashing for the lockbox once more, Madman yanks out a spare set of clothing, which only consists of an oversized shirt. When he returns, eyes wide and hands steady, I’m at least grateful that it’s soft. It’s enough of a distraction to keep my mind from dwelling too long on the fact that Madman’s weaving my arms out of the dress fabric and easing the shirt over my head before pulling me out of the gown entirely. I’m exposed for all of two seconds before Madman yanks the shirt fully over my bare flesh. “Arms up,” he prompts.

Pathetically, I reach up towards him like a child longing for parental comfort, and he lifts me from the floor. His arm captures the underside of my knees, the other idly stroking my back, and damn me for wanting to know what his bare hands would feel like as opposed to his gloves.

“You can rest now,” he tells me.

A fraction of my will still clings to reality, fighting against the sleeping tonic. I don’t want to descend into the blackness, unsure of how long I’ll be under. “Give me something . . . to dream about.”

Madman sighs, the sound warm and not at all like anything I expected from him. My lashes drift towards the skin beneath my eyes and my head lulls towards the crook of his neck.

“We are not as different as you think . . .”

Only his words aren’t spoken.

They’re sung —all in the loveliest baritone that has ever graced my ears.