The Fallen Crown

TWO

~ BURN BURN BURN ~

The sponge that scratched against my face felt more like a bundle of tiny razors, somehow pulpous yet excruciatingly painful with each stroke.

Stop! I wanted to shout at him as he began to guide it over the sensitive part of my nose. But I'd already said it too many times to know that word in particular held very little meaning anymore.

It was now morning. The cabin boy's body had been dragged out and dumped overboard in the middle of night, when the ship was quietest, by a group of four males. Their faces were hidden by the darkness and they moved quickly and quietly, sharing whispers only meant to be heard by Fae ears while each choosing a limb to grab. Watching them made me question the very existence of goodness, and when they were gone, the heaviness in my gut only seemed to worsen.

Hours had come and passed before the one-armed pirate himself had returned to wash me, freshly clean and shaved, bucket in hand, and an annoyed look on his face.

My skin burned as if it was on fire. Tears slid out from under my lids and I hated them more than I did the pain that summoned them.

The single-handed pirate had terrorized the majority of my body as hastily as he could, his face scrunched in a way that couldn't be told a part from anger or disgust. Hardly any inch of me was spared from his rough strokes until all that was left of the cabin boy in the world was agonizingly scraped off of me and wrung into a bucket.

The only thing that hadn't been dealt with was the sack for clothing they'd subjected me to the whole excursion, despite it being stuck with dried blood to my stomach like a second skin.

However, in no way did I want them to force me into a new one. The first and only time they'd undressed and dressed me was bad enough of an experience for both them and me to know it would never happen again.

The sponge plopped back into the bucket of brownish-red water with a flick of the pirate's wrist.

I was too sick to my stomach to feel the relief that I should've felt, my throat burning.

"There. All clean," he said, silver eyes gleaming with mischief as he stared at my glaring face. It was as if he found it amusing, his mood obviously having lifted since he arrived.

He picked up the bucket and snapped up to a stand as heavy steps descended the stairs, the wood creaking and screaming in protest.

My stomach sunk when the captain of The Serster came into view, his triangle face, plump stomach, and dirty beard all as terrible looking since the day I first saw him.

Not even sparing the one-armed pirate a glance, the Captain marched forward and grabbed my jaw between his fingers. His nails pressed against my skin as he yanked me towards him, so close that I could smell his rotting teeth.

My eyes widened in both fear and pain, staring at his ugly face.

My neck ached from the sudden movement in the places where the cabin boy's fingers had gripped the tightest. It confirmed to me the terrible bruising that I'd suspected to have been forming or was already formed there.

A faint sob reverberated around the room from Oriana, who's also learned the devastatingly true lesson that speaking usually caused more trouble than good.

The captain's eyes scanned my face and then my neck, and they grew much angrier. Once finished with his assessment, he pushed by head back roughly, almost knocking it against the wall.

"Well, you still smell like shite." I held back something like a growl deep in my throat's stiffened muscles, perhaps a behavior I'd learned from Henrik. "But at least you look... presentable."