The splinter was still slick with her blood. But now, it had mine too.
The edge had slipped into my palm without resistance—clean, sharp, almost intentional. My blood slid down my fingers, mingling with hers like some cruel bond. But I didn't flinch. Pain didn't register anymore. Not in the usual way. It had become background noise—an old hum at the back of my skull, drowned out by something much louder.
Grief.
Rage.
Regret.
Promises.
And guilt that kept grinding my insides like broken glass.
I looked down at my palm, watching the blood drip onto the floor.
Why do I still feel it?
I've killed. I've bled. I've burned and broken men for less than this. But still, looking at their faces, lined up in death like failed prayers, my chest clenched in ways pain never could. My body had gone numb. But my heart—it cracked again with each step I took.
My mind couldn't keep up. It refused to accept this. Refused to believe that this was the aftermath. That this was the cost of action taken too late. Of cruelty left to fester.
I looked at the bloodstained splinter once more. The shard of her suffering. The piece of war that took more than I could ever give back. And still, I couldn't throw it away. I couldn't cleanse myself of it.
So I knelt beside her.
Gently—carefully—I laid the splinter next to her body. Like an offering. A promise. A weapon waiting to be called upon.
Not now. But soon.
"I'll use it," I murmured. "Just not yet."
Then I turned.
The cabin door loomed again.
That familiar stench of rot and booze and cheap lust seeped out from under it like a warning. But I didn't hesitate. My boots moved on instinct now—rage-driven muscle memory. I stepped inside.
The demon's snore still echoed from the far corner. That beast, that thing not even worthy of the word man, still slumbered like he hadn't turned this ship into hell. Like he hadn't broken bodies and stolen light from every soul here.
But I wouldn't give him my thoughts. Not yet.
There was something more important in that room.
She was buried under debris, partially hidden beneath a collapsed wall and splintered planks from the cannon blast I had fired. The room was dark, dust still hanging in the air. I had to crawl through what remained of the floorboards to reach her.
My hands worked fast, but gently. I lifted each chunk of shattered wood off her—each beam, each jagged panel, every damn piece that had tried to erase her.
Underneath it all, she lay still. Her legs—her lower half—were crushed beyond recognition. The weight of the wreckage had mangled her beyond anything a body should endure. But her upper half... it was untouched. Her face was bruised, bloodied, but whole. Her arms curled inward like she had tried to protect herself even in her final moments.
I froze.
My throat burned. My chest locked.
"I'm sorry," I said.
My voice cracked like old wood.
"I didn't know… I didn't know you were here."
And I meant it.
When I fired that cannon, I thought I was delivering justice. I thought I was cleansing the filth. I thought I was saving what little could be saved.
I didn't think I was burying her.
I lowered my head for a moment. Just long enough to breathe through the ache. Then I reached out and lifted her—slow, reverent, like she might still wake up and feel the wrongness of my grip.
She didn't.
But I held her anyway.
Because she deserved better than being forgotten in a pile of broken wood and ash. She deserved more than being collateral damage in someone else's war.
And I would give her that.
Even if it was the only thing I had left to give.
For now… rest.
You need it.
My voice was barely a whisper, like it would shatter her if I spoke any louder. As if she hadn't already been broken beyond what the world should be allowed to break.
I lifted her carefully, cradling her the way someone might carry something sacred. Her body gave in easily, too easily, like it had nothing left to hold itself together. Warm blood soaked into my clothes, thick and slow, and I felt the sickening slide of something more—something inside her that should never have been outside.
Her organs.
Pieces of her that were never meant to touch air.
My jaw clenched. I didn't look away. I didn't gag. I didn't recoil.
Instead, I moved my hand, placed it over the wound, trying to hold in what I could. As if it mattered. As if I could keep her intact just a little longer. Not to save her—no, that time had long passed—but to preserve some semblance of her. Of the girl she had been before this horror tore her apart.
"I can't make you whole again," I said quietly. My throat felt raw. "But I can still protect what's left of you."
I carried her through the shattered hallways, every step echoing with the weight of her limp form against me.
When I reached the others, I knelt and laid her down—slow, gentle, like I was tucking her in after a long nightmare. Her body lay next to the others, aligned not as corpses, but as fallen sisters. Pieces of a tragedy I would never let fade into the background.
"I'm sorry," I whispered again, not knowing if I meant for her, or for all of them.
This wasn't peace. Not yet. But it was rest.
And it was the least I could give.