Chapter 792: Great Call(2)
Blake’s eyes narrowed, hard as whetted steel, as they fell upon the pitiful figure limping forward. Cain. His last brother.
The man was a shadow of what blood of theirs should have been. The chainmail draped over his wiry fra sagged like a borrowed garnt, far too large for the bones that held it up. He smiled or tried to, but the twitch at his lips was nervous, feeble, as if even joy had learned to fear him.
His one good eye fixed on Blake, wet with desperate hope, while the other wandered uselessly, forever turned to the left, as though mocking his attempts at focus.
Blake’s jaw tightened until his teeth ached. If it had been … he thought, staring at that broken shell of a man, I would rather have died that day at Rock Bottom. Better the sea swallowed whole than live to wear that face, that sha.
Yet Cain had lived. And now here he was, standing on the proud deck of his younger brother’s flagship, shaming the very wood beneath his boots with his trembling presence.
Blake did not hate him. Hatred would have been cleaner, simpler.
What festered instead was worse, a knot of pity and disgust twisted with a reluctant tether of blood. Cain was his brother, the last of his line. That alone kept Blake’s hand from casting him overboard then and there. But Cain had no place here.
The sea belonged to n of strength, to n who carved glory from salt and storm.
Cain, with his fits, his whispers, his ruined body, was a walking curse. He should have remained hidden, where Blake had left him, kept safe, unseen, where he could not sha the family Blake had torn from the ashes with his own hands.
Blake had borne the weight of their na, had crushed their people’s centuries of submission beneath his will, had silenced the old whispers with steel and blood. And still, Cain had been his burden, the fits, the madness, the rumors of curses trailing them like carrion birds.
Blake had killed n for those whispers, had spilled their blood in alley and tavern to snuff out the laughter. But whispers cannot be slain, and Cain’s very existence kept them alive.
“Brother…” The voice was as thin as a reed, wavering, and it grated against Blake’s ears. A rasp, a plea.
Blake did not answer. He did not even grant Cain his eyes. Instead, he turned the full burn of his glare upon Kroll.
“Why is he here?He should have stayed ho, where he could be tended. What happens when he breaks into one of his fits? What happens when my fleet sees him?”
Cain’s good eye flicked with wounded defiance. He tried to protest, raising his voice, thin though it was. “They are becoming more and more r—
But Blake turned on him then, and the force of his stare alone crushed the words in his throat. The air between them snapped taut, the older brother trembling, the younger towering like a oak.
“To you I gave orders,” Blake said, each word struck like a hamr on an anvil. His voice was iron, his eyes drilling into Cain’s “Clear orders. You were not to leave ho. You were not to co crawling into my war.”
Cain did not look away. To his credit, perhaps to his curse, he did not lower his head or flinch, though the effort made his jaw quiver. He stood there, scrawny and ruined, staring back at the brother who lood like a storm over him.
And Blake, though every vein in him ached with disgust, could not silence the one truth that dug beneath it all, this was the last blood he had left in the world.
“Your brother is not as wispy as you make him out to be,” Kroll rumbled, stepping forward at last, his massive fra sliding between the brothers’ locked stare. “When I anchored at Elios for provisions, Cain here ca straight to , asking to join my crew.”
Blake said nothing.He simply watched, jaw tightening, waiting for Kroll to finish.
“I refused, of course,” Kroll went on. “Didn’t want a half-cripple dragging my deck under. But later that day, one of my sailors turned up dead in a tavern,skull split open with a hamr. Guess who swung it?”
Cain’s one good eye flickered, but he said nothing.
“I stord down there ready to shake him up,” Kroll said with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “Law’s the law,even if he’s your kin. But your little brother, with the hamr still warm with blood, looked square in the face and said the only thing he had to repay was his life. Not coin, not land for that was yours, just himself. So he swore his service to as paynt. Debt-slave, by his own tongue. And I took him.”
Kroll chuckled, clapping Cain on the shoulder with a aty hand. “You two may look different, but I’ll be damned if he doesn’t have your sharpness of mind. So here he is. Not your burden anymore, Blake, he’s mine. And truth be told, I like the man.He is funny to have around like a monkey”
Blake’s breath hissed through his teeth. He stepped forward until he and Kroll stood inches apart, the storm in his eyes burning hotter than the sun on the deck.
“You are overstepping your boundary, Kroll,” he growled. “I will pay for whatever debt that weakling scum,killed by a cripple, no less, might be worth.” He snapped his gaze to Cain, spitting each word like poison. “And you will return ho.”
Cain’s lips parted, his one good eye flashing with protest, but Kroll’s voice cut across him like an axe.
“It’s my prerogative to accept your offer or not, Blake,” Kroll said calmly, though his grin had hardened. “And my answer is no.”
Blake shifted his weight, his hand twitching near the haft of his axe but not yet reaching for it. “I will have him back, one way or another… friend.”
Kroll didn’t flinch. “He is part of my crew now. My property.”
The words hung heavy in the salt air, until Cain finally stepped forward, his thin fra taut with trembling resolve.
“No.”
Both n turned to him.
“I am no man’s property,” Cain said, his one eye bright with defiance. “It is the prerogative of every Free man to choose the course of his own life. I may be broken, but I am still my own person. And I will choose where I serve,by my own will, not yours, brother.”
Blake’s face darkened, the words striking him harder than any blade could. “You are a cripple,” he spat. “Your place is not on a deck or in a tavern fight,it is under my care. As head of this family, it is my responsibility to see to you. You live because of . You eat because of . And you will be protected because of , whether you like it or not.”
Cain’s jaw trembled, but he did not back down. His hands clenched at his sides, and when he spoke, his voice cracked, but the words cut deep.
“Then I will rescind it.”
Blake blinked, uncomprehending for a heartbeat.
“If my blood is only a chain to you,” Cain said, his good eye burning wet, “then I will cast it aside. I will not be your burden, nor your sha. If being your brother ans being caged, then I will have no brother at all.”
“You would be alone in the world?Leave mother alone?” Blake’s voice cracked like a whip, but there was a tremor beneath it, a panic that slipped unbidden into his words. “A cripple without kin, without a family to guard you? What cursed food have you eaten to twist your head into such madness?” His roar carried across the deck, but in the core of it there was fear, the vision of him cast adrift, helpless, mocked, and devoured by the world cursing Blake’s mind.
Cain did not flinch.
He dragged his la leg forward, each step a labor, yet each one carried with iron in his spine. He ca close, close enough for Blake to see the flecks of defiance in that one good eye.
“You have long shouted of the Confederation’s way of life,at every wave and every corner ” Cain spat, his thin chest heaving. “Of freedom, of every man’s right to carve his own path. Have you forgotten your own words, brother? Or is that liberty only for n with two strong arms?”
Blake stood silent for a bit, before at last, he exhaled, “So be it, then.” He turned his gaze to Kroll, his eyes like storm clouds. “He is your problem now. Your property. If he wishes to limp to his death, then let him, he’ll not die on my conscience. You can scrape him off your deck when the sea swallows him.”
His stare cut back to Cain, though his voice cracked with sothing near grief. “You may wish yourself free, but mark this, you are no longer my responsibility. You have forfeited your place as my blood. Die and Live as you please.”
With that Blake stepped back, chest heaving, and then barked toward them both, voice rising into the roar of command. “Now get off my ships. Both of you. I’ll not have you souring my deck with this folly.”
Cain straightened as best he could, as though the disowning gave him height he did not have. He nodded once, stiff and grim, before turning to follow Kroll back toward the docks.
Blake watched them go, his face set in stone. Only when they were out of sight did his shoulders sag, the mask cracking for just an instant.
And later on that night, he would send four n to enter into service on Kroll’s ship.
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