The Judgement Of Divinity (TMOE #2)

Chapter 45: Until death

Thankfully, the sleep Lucius had fallen into was voidless. He could not figure out what he was looking at but the Scourge was nowhere to be seen or heard, and he was certain he could move if he wanted to.

Except his body did feel different. He was drenched in sweat, and some kind of dizziness plagued him as if the world was swaying around him, and it continued even as he opened his eyes.

"Oh thank the stars," Ethan said from beside the surprisingly comfortable hammock Lucius had been placed in. The latter blinked, lifting his head from a damp pillow and peered through the dim light in confusion.

"Ethan?" his hoarse voice managed. "What... Why are you...?"

"Richard found you passed out on the street. Stiff and pale as a snowdrop. Had the weather not implied otherwise we would have thought you'd frozen to death."

Lucius recalled the incident, sickening him further and he retched at the memory of Mabel's corpse-like body.

"He brought you back to Anthony's house." Ethan handed him a bucket that had been placed beside the hammock as a precaution. "Tom made sure you weren't dying, but—"

"Anthony." Lucius' eyes widened, and he looked around. Where the Waste were they, anyway? He couldn't recognize the room. The smell of damp wood would suggest perhaps the Hydrina, but it wasn't a part he was familiar with if so. The ceiling was too low, and small windows let very little light into the space.

"Where..." he began, trying to decide between asking where Anthony was or where they were first.

Ethan's gaze fell, and his forehead had a noticeable wrinkle as he gathered his words.

"He left."

"He—?"

"He was gone when Richard got back with you." It was hard not to notice Ethan's expression darkening. "He just left a note... Explaining what happened."

Regret stained Lucius' eyes as he too lowered his head.

"Yeah, I... I messed up. But I'll fix it. I just have to find him."

Ethan adjusted his seat, scrunching up his face in discomfort before drawing another breath.

"See... I don't think that's going to happen."

"... What?"

"He spoke to Damien." Ethan turned his head away. "Agreed to not come back until..."

The sentence did not continue, and Lucius stared the vampire down.

"Until what?"

"... Until you're dead."

The already narrow space seemed to close in on them, much like Lucius' body seemed to crumple in on itself.

"And he agreed to that?"

"Well he couldn't really see a reason to stay, I guess." Ethan's gaze had gone grave again and no matter how he tried to sugarcoat it, the undertones of accusation showed through. "But he also said that you wouldn't have to worry anymore."

"Wo—" Lucius' jaw had already dropped. "Not worry? How can I not? He left because of me, and Damien's still out there!"

Ethan put a finger to Lucius' lips.

"No, Damien agreed to leave you alone. It was Anthony's one condition."

That about did it for Lucius' conscience.

"But I was cruel to him. Why would he do that?" He suddenly drew air through his teeth as a burning wave prickled his skin. "He— He can't..."

Ethan's focus shifted to Lucius' throat.

"Regardless, you have other, more pressing things to worry about." He produced a small mirror from one of his pockets and held it out.

Lucius hesitated before receiving it. He could guess what it was about, so he wasn't too shocked as he moved the mirror along his torso.

"Tom isn't sure if they will keep spreading even further, or if they'll go back to the state they've been in before, but..." Ethan pursed his lips. "... That last one's unlikely."

Lucius traced his hand over a larger vein that had grown along the side of his neck and up behind his ear.

"So..." His low voice was strained. "... What can we do about it?"

"What we planned to do, of course." Ethan gestured around them as if it was obvious. "I won't lie and say everything will be alright, but... Fortunately we got a hold of the ship before this whole mess happened so we hurried to gather—"

"The ship?" Lucius stared at him in horror. "The what!?"

"The... Ship. The first thing you said." Ethan awkwardly stretched out his hand to introduce the room again. "Tom said he'd talked to you about this."

That was what the swaying was. It wasn't Lucius' mind pulling pranks. His queasiness was not just from his terrorised state.

Before Ethan could protest, he'd already flung his feet out of the hammock with almost keeling over as a result, grabbed his breeches from a chair and stumbled towards the stairs. It proved harder than he would have wanted but he'd fought worse terrain many times.

"Lucius," Ethan tried, though not so enthusiastically, knowing the suggestion to stay down wouldn't be well received.

It really was true.

The salty breeze. The sun's painfully bright reflection against vast water. Things he'd only caught glimpses of from the harbour before.

His feet steered him forward without a thought, heading towards the railing of the large, upper ship deck he'd just reached, but he couldn't see anything. Nothing but a glaringly blue sea. No land. No South Kerilia. No hint of the town he'd sacrificed everything for, all because of the blightish horror the Scourge had planted on his body.

A crushing, gut-wrenching sensation swept over Lucius as the dark veins made themselves known again, and he wanted nothing more than to jump into the water. To swim back. Just to get back somehow, but he knew it'd be impossible to swim that far even if he'd known how to swim in the first place.

There was no way he'd admit defeat though. He had to get back to Anthony. He had to prevent Damien from seizing the town, and he had to find out what the Waste had happened to Mabel. So he turned on his heels, eyes narrowing as he gazed out over the busy quarterdeck that had been pronounced his prison cell. Not that it mattered of course.

He'd escaped prisons before.