The dungeons are dirty, made of wet stone and molded floors. Yet the bars and chains are pristine. We are escorted into the cells, Maverick furthest from the heavy wooden doors. I'm in the cell right beside him and Cosmo is closest to the exit. The guards chain my ankle to the floor, leaving it at that. Having taken my sword but left the necklace.
"We are in a predicament," Maverick speaks playfully, his chains rattling as he moves. Cosmo huffs and I almost laugh.
"In that we are. Never in all my years of life did I expect to be locked within my own dungeons." Cosmo says a slight sadness in his voice. Maverick chains clank again.
"It happens to the best of us. You get used to it." He speaks confidently and I roll my eyes, "is this new for you as well, 12?"
I move backward until I lean against the wall. "No." The dungeon goes silent, and I clear my throat.
"I never expected that."
"Wow, 12. You, breaking the rules? I am thoroughly impressed." I roll my eyes at both Cosmo and Maverick, crossing my arms. "It was only like twice." Cosmo slightly gasps in surprise and Maverick snickers.
"Me and my father used to end up in cells all the time." Maverick sighs in contentment as he reminisces, "it was so long ago..."
"Kallin Maverick..." His name rolls off my tongue and I feel sad for the man. He seemed like such a fun and kind person.
"You remember his name. Took you long enough." My mouth goes dry as Maverick's chains rattle once again.
"...remember..." My fingertips run over the emerald eye, "Maverick... What do you think would happen if you consumed the eye?"
"For me, it prevented pain, for my ex-wife it caused her to get sick. For you. I have no idea. Though you already have immeasurable power," I pull the eyes from my neck, staring over it. It buzzed in my hand, reacting to the symbol on my palm. They defied any logic. Cosmo spoke softly, "as much as I am against eating certain things, I don't believe that anyone is coming for us...your friends could die..."
Death.
Without another word, I consumed it.
It's bitter, like biting into a lemon. Or remembering a memory that was sweet but turned horrid. That's what it tasted like and melted on the tongue like butter on a hot roll. It sends an electric shock through my body, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
"The blood of a cursed woman runs through you." I open my eyes, choking on my breath, Levithan stands before me, a single glowing eye staring over me. He's large, towering over me as I float within the darkness of the ocean. Air bubbles float from my lips, my eyes going wide.
"I should eat you for returning, you spawn of an unlucky woman, but you have returned my eye. Count this as your blessing."
I blink and the king huffs. "You dare not speak."
"I don't know who you're talking about." I push the words from my lips, and Levitan swims from the throne, his long body swimming around me.
"You dare forget your curse and the stolen blood that runs within your veins."
A woman, shrouded in darkness runs through the dark streets of Cornelia, the sounds of guards loud, instructing orders to kill the murderer of Damien Ventura. The woman moves swiftly, invading the guards with ease. Passing the form of a man and climbing into the hole of a wall, the man quickly behind her, covering their tracks. They huddle in the small storage, the woman kissing the man with a smile of triumph. She removes her hood with giddiness, with hair and eyes like mine smiling at her lover.
"I did it." She gasps the air, her hands revealing a bottle, filled with red liquid, it swishes in the bottle as she twirls it. I furrow my brows and she shifts, revealing her swollen stomach. She was pregnant. "There there. All will be well." The man hums in delight, and the woman opens the bottle and drinks it. I gag and step back from the scene.
"I'm sure the gods will forgive us." The woman muses in happiness, having drunk the blood of Damien Ventura.
"How could they not." The man once again hums, kissing her clothes belly. I watch time pass at a fast pace, the woman giving birth to her child in the small storeroom. The three plan to escape Cornelia and back to the neighboring country, one where the woman was originally from.
It fails.
The man worked with a liar who turned the lovers in. All of them were unrecognizable faces, except for the couple I knew as Adam's parents. They take the newborn child and puts her into the orphanage, while the couple is put on trial for murder and witchcraft.
My parents were hung.
"Why would she--"
"Do not feel bad for the Ventura's, they are all demons. within their own right," Levithan swims in front of me, I'm overcome with sudden grief. They died as I had assumed, but for that reason, murder was not what I had expected.
"But your mother, her people studied the way of demons and gods. Like fools. Trying to create magic of sorts. Cornelia is a fearful nation and wiped her people. She had the ability to see curses that others had and the power that came with them. Vested she was sick and would have died before you were born. Still, she is not exempt."
Levithan swims around me, studying me. My headaches and I feel sick. I move and face the king of monsters. "Why are you doing this?"
"Why are you?" The monster questions and my brows furrow together. The demon moves closer to me, sudden pain shooting through me. It was like I was being stabbed to death, my body writhes in pain, a distressed cry leaving my lips.
"My curse makes anyone that knows Maverick into sea demons. You are not exempt." I feel the ground leave me and I'm falling, my mouth gaps, and I'm in pain. So much pain. A victim to a curse. To the crimes of another. Maverick. It was all because of him. Everything is because of him. Another whine of despair exits my lips, my limbs flailing around as I fall.
What had I done to deserve this?
"All those in close ties to voracious pirate will suffer. No one is exempt."
Ventura's body lurches forward, a gasping in impulsive discomfort tumbling out of his lips. His hands flew up to the mark on his neck. His body burned, his legs clawing at the mark, a muffled screaming leaving his lips, pouring from the mark. Rhodon throws himself into Ventura's bedroom and finds the man screaming in pain.
Coughing up blood, Cosmo struggled to breathe, holding onto the bars, his vision blurry. His headbanging against the bars. "12..." His voice is a whisper as he crumbles to the ground. His head throbs bitterly, each vein and cell on fire.
All because of him.
All because of Captain Killian Calnick Maverick, the Slayer of Sea Demons
Like any other barbarous, murderous, terrible, violence-ridden pirate, like any other that the European soldiers shot and aim at, waged war with, captured, and hung, like the ones that pillaged or raided towns. Captain Maverick was no different. In all terms of the word, he played the role of the self-centered, arrogant villain. Scholars say that he was the absolute perfect fit for the role. The one with a delusional and incompetent personality. The type that made you either hate him, loathe him, or want to kill him. The villain that believed that he gallantly sprang into action, but only doomed his comrades and doomed the girl.
Captain Killian Calnick Maverick was the cause of everything in our eyes