memoir of a forgotten pirate

V

I lied, of course.

I didn't only kill three people.

There was a fourth one.

The Siren had boarded a royal naval ship, and taken most of its passengers as prisoners. The stragglers weren't nearly as lucky— those were the ones thrown overboard, having outlived their usefulness.

One of the naval captains knelt before me, his arms tied to a pole in the Siren's lower decks.

He spat a mouthful of blood and saliva in my face.

"The king will have your head," he snarled. "Traitors to the throne. To your homeland—"

"That's quite enough out of you," the Pirate King said darkly as he stepped forward. In the dim light of the lower decks, his teal eyes glinted maliciously as he knelt to look at the naval captain in the eyes.

"Oliver Kirkland," the captain snarled. "You'll burn, just like your whore of a sister—"

The Pirate King kicked the captain in the chest— the sound of cracking ribs reverberated in the room. His eyes were filled with a violent fury, the likes of which I had never seen before, not even in the most fiercest of our raids.

"Kill him," the Pirate King said. "Kill him now, poppet. Here." He placed a knife roughly in my hands.

And I did it without question. I stepped forward, plunging the knife into the man's throat with a horrible, horrible noise. The man's dying breath gurgled around the knife, and I only remembered the dark pulsing of satisfaction— the satisfaction of a job well done.

I never wanted to feel that again.

I dropped the knife as soon as I realized.

"Thank you, poppet," the Pirate King said. "Well done."

I raised a hand to my mouth, feeling my stomach churn. I wanted to vomit. I hadn't seen Leon or Uncle Yao in so long— what would they think of me if they saw me now? Would they call me a monster? Surely I was— I was the greatest monster of all— a murderer who relished the very act—

I bolted out of the room and onto the deck, where I vomited across the railing.

That night, I scrubbed my hands until they were red and raw, but even then— I couldn't get the feeling of his blood off my hands. I couldn't unhear the gurgling of his dying breath— I couldn't even unsee the life fading from his eyes, the constant chanting of murderer, murderer, murderer—

I couldn't stay.

I just couldn't. I began to pull away, becoming more distant. I stopped participating in raids and tried my best to avoid the other members of the Siren. Some of them figured something was wrong and tried to reach out to me.

Luciano tried— he offered to teach me how to carve bone, an activity that he'd picked up, only for me to realize that he did this art of bone carving on prisoners while conscious. Allen tried as well— but I couldn't speak to him. He wouldn't have understood.

No one would have.

I was becoming a monster, and the shell of ignorance I had built for myself— ignorance built on the idea that I could just do as I pleased, ignoring the lives on my hands— it was all catching up with me.

Perhaps that was why the Pirate King presented me with an ultimatum.

"May I come in, poppet?" he asked gently, rapping his knuckles against my door.

I nodded silently.

I never liked the way the Pirate King approached me. He approached like a predator stalking prey— he always managed to make me feel small. Insignificant. Of course, he coated it with sugary praise and soft words, but it didn't make the reality of my situation any less uncomfortable.

He knelt by my bed, giving me a smile.

"Are you alright, Qiangxiang? You've not been yourself recently."

'Recently.' As if I had been myself this entire time, just following along with his every action like a polite lapdog.

"I'm alright," I forced out through gritted teeth.

The Pirate King hummed.

"I have a task for you," he said. He leaned in close. "Something only you can do."

I felt a cold sense of trepidation rush through me.

"What is it?" I asked, trying to sound eager.

The Pirate King pulled out an ornate dagger from his coat pocket, holding it out to me. The engraving of a snake was wrapped around the pommel, a dark and beautiful thing. I reached out to touch it, finding the wood surface smooth.

It felt like the entire world was holding its breath.

"It's beautiful," I said quietly. "A gift?"

"Kill my son," the Pirate King said. "Using this dagger."

I felt like I'd been sucker-punched in the gut.

"Kill him?" I whispered, trying my best not to sound shocked. "Why?"

"Because he's weak," the Pirate King said mirthlessly, with not even a touch of warmth to his voice. No paternal love. Only the gaze of someone who knew what he wanted, and would get it at any cost. "And I have no use for sniveling, weak creatures on my crew. You must do it, Qiangxiang. You are the only one who can."

My hands shook as I took the dagger, feeling the weight of it in my palms.

The weight of all I had done, of all these needless atrocities—

"I will," I said. The voice that spoke didn't sound like me. "I won't let you down."

"I know you won't," the Pirate King said as he turned away from me, leaving the room.

I couldn't do it.

I couldn't kill the Pirate King's son.

He was just a boy— just an innocent person who was going to lose his life because of me. And maybe that's hypocrisy— the fact I could have killed four other people who were innocents in their own right without question, and yet suddenly I couldn't kill the Pirate King's son.

And yet I knew that if I couldn't do it, I was as good as dead.

But something in me couldn't settle for that. I couldn't die like this when I still had some semblance of a life beating in me. I wanted to be free. I would claim that freedom with my own two hands— somehow.

So, that night, I fled.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I did it— but I couldn't become more of a monster. My mind flitted to Uncle Yao, to Leon— to what they would think of me now. I was a monster through and through.

I ran to the authorities claiming to be an escaped prisoner of the Siren, that I knew the Siren would be docked in a hidden location and that the Pirate King and all of his crew were there. The authorities had them all rounded up in an instant.

I don't try to remember that night.

The Pirate King had held his head high as he died, a leering smile upon his face as the life dissipated from his body. The ship had gone up in flames. My home— the one place where I had felt like I belonged, somehow, traitorously— gone in an instant. My fellow crew, gone like that too.

I had to disappear.

The authorities would realize soon enough that I was another member of the Pirate King's crew— if Tianyi had known my name then, who else knew? Who else was going to look for me? Who else was going to seek revenge, find me so that they could burn me like they did the rest of my crew?

I had tried my best to escape— to do something good.

But look at what it did. Look at what my well-meaning did. It destroyed my family.

It was that night that I remembered the golden coin, the soft reminder that at some point soon, I would need a big favor. I wondered then how Tianyi knew that I would need a swift exit. I still wonder about that even now. Or perhaps she saw it as predestined fate.

I could only hope that she would deliver on her promise.