I dragged the second blood eagle by what was left of his hair.
His weight slumped behind me, his body no longer resisting—only leaking.
Every inch I pulled him across the deck, his blood left a trail. Not in splashes, not in chaos, but in a steady smear, as if even in death he knew he had a part to play.
A role in something far beyond himself.
His skin, torn and jagged, snagged against the floorboards. Every centimeter made it worse.
His chest scraped wood.
Nerve endings twitched in vain.
His blood mixed with mine where it pooled beneath him—ritual and execution woven together.
And finally, we arrived.
Back at the site of the ritual.
Back where the girls waited.
Where the first blood eagle still hung.
Where silence wasn't empty—it was witness.
I dropped him there, his body falling like discarded cargo.
But I wasn't done.
I knelt beside him, positioning him carefully, deliberately.
He would kneel.
Even in death, even as nothing more than flesh and splintered bone—he would kneel.
Not to me.
To her.
To the girl he faced. The one he would never know.
A stranger in life. A judge in death.
I adjusted his form, placing his legs beneath him, pushing his torso upright.
His ribs spread behind him like broken wings. His skull bowed forward. His face—frozen in the moment despair overtook fear—looked straight at her.
Not blank.
Not peaceful.
Just ruined.
Good.
That was how it needed to be.
Each blood eagle for a single girl.
A winged offering for every soul stolen.
A monument of agony for every shred of innocence taken.
Seven girls. Seven blood eagles.
This was only the second.
I stood and turned again, facing the rest of them.
The scum.
The filth.
The ones who watched with wide eyes but stayed still. Cowards in disbelief, too afraid to run, too weak to act.
They watched my every movement.
Every breath.
Every step.
Hoping—praying—that they wouldn't be next. That fate would forget them. That the ritual had already claimed its due.
But it hadn't.
Not yet.
And they knew it.
I could see it in their trembling hands, in the way their fingers hovered over their hilts but never gripped them. They thought about fighting—some of them. Maybe all. But the thought was brittle. Hollow. A thing whispered in fear and crushed by the truth.
Because they knew.
Even if they attacked all at once…
Even if they caught me off guard…
I could win.
I could fight them. Bleed them. Break them.
And I would heal.
Even if I didn't.
I could still take a lot of them with me. They just didn't want to be one of them.
But that wasn't the point.
A frenzy wouldn't serve the ritual.
The blood eagles had to be crafted.
Not slaughtered.
Not broken.
They had to be perfect.
Clean. Whole. Intact.
Art, not carnage.
A low-quality blood eagle was useless. Sloppy.
A waste.
I needed peace and order to do that.
I raised my left hand slowly.
Five fingers.
Open. Empty.
Five fingers for five eagles remaining.
Five reminders that the ritual was far from over.
Five silent declarations: I'm not done.
And then I walked.
Not fast. Not slow.
Just steady.
Toward the next one.
The next blood eagle.
And he knew.
He knew it was him.
His steps were slow, hesitant.
Each one inching him closer to the railing, the last threshold between him and the sea.
He wanted to jump.
I could see it in the twitch of his legs, in the tremble that rippled down his spine.
He wanted to hurl himself into the unknown, thinking maybe the ocean would show more mercy than I would.
But he was scared.
Scared of the depths.
Scared of the things that waited below.
More scared of the sea than of me.
That stung. Not as an insult—but as a reminder.
The waters were more of a fear factor than me.
My steps drew closer, slow and purposeful, and I watched him reach a decision in real time.
I saw it flicker in his eyes—his resignation. His terror. His desperate attempt to choose the lesser evil.
He lifted his leg, planted it high on the railing, ready to leap.
No you don't.
I moved faster than thought and yanked hard at the fabric of his clothes.
He toppled backward onto the deck, crashing down with a grunt, limbs flailing.
"You are a sacrifice," I said, low and sharp. "A part of the ritual."
My voice carried no anger—just command.
"So you better act like one."
I struck him with the hilt.
Same as before. Same as the others.
But this one—this one fought back.
His head snapped sideways from the blow, but instead of folding, he surged forward—wild, panicked, driven by nothing but raw instinct.
His fist shot out, blind and desperate, and landed.
Right on my jaw.
It wasn't strong enough to drop me. But that wasn't the point.
It landed.
And that made all the difference.
I froze—not from pain, but from what I felt ripple through the air after.
Not from the hit, but from the eyes.
Every gaze snapped to life.
The scum. The cowards. The vultures in human skin.
They saw it.
They saw me get hit.
And I saw it grow in them like mold in the dark.
Hope.
That disgusting, dangerous little spark.
Hope that maybe—just maybe—I wasn't unstoppable.
Hope that maybe, if one of them fought hard enough, they could land a blow too.
Hope that they could kill me.
My hand lowered.
My gaze rose.
I looked around slowly, letting every single one of them feel the weight of what they were doing.
"You fucking mongrels…" I growled, not shouting, not screaming—just speaking with venom heavy on every syllable.
"You filthy, festering scum… and this is what gives you hope?"
A single punch?
A twitch of resistance?
You dared believe in victory again because this pathetic creature threw a hand in panic?
I looked down at him—at the trembling, panting mess at my feet. He wasn't a warrior. He wasn't a hero. He was a rat backed into a corner, lashing out in a final breath.
And they thought this was their sign?
"No," I muttered.
"This one won't be a blood eagle."
Blood eagles were crafted. Ritualized. Sacred in their own twisted way.
This thing at my feet didn't deserve that. He didn't deserve the honor of facing one of the girls. He didn't deserve to be part of their justice.
No.
"This one," I said, tightening my grip around the sword, voice cold as the waters he'd feared, "will be a message."
A message carved in pain.
A declaration of what hope costs.
A symbol to rip out whatever foolish courage had begun to bloom in their chests.
If blood eagles were my offering to the dead…
Then this would be my warning to the living.
Watch closely.
And remember.