Chapter 34 Stranded At Sea

Rodrick Snowveil's heart pounded furiously as he clung to the ship. The cold wind cut through his soaked clothes, each gust laced with salt that stung his eyes. His fingers were numb, trembling as he tightened his grip on the jagged wood. The once-proud vessel was gone, nothing more than a ghost on the unforgiving sea, reduced to shards and wreckage. Around him, the remains of the ship bobbed aimlessly, carried by the tide like bones of some great beast long dead.

He stared into the distance, his lips blue and trembling. Somewhere out there, past the endless stretch of sea, lay Asasia. "I can make it. I have to make it. My cousin... he'll help me. He'll take me in. I'll start again. I'll reclaim what's mine." The thought flickered in his mind like a dying flame, but the icy wind of reality snuffed it out. No means of escape. The servants were watching him.

They hadn't spoken for days. The two surviving men, once his loyal attendants, had become something else—gaunt, hollow, like wraiths in human skin. Their uniforms, once crisp and noble, hung in tatters, stained with salt, sweat, and filth. Their eyes... those eyes. Rodrick shuddered. He had seen hunger before, but never like this. It was a madness, a desperation so deep it had turned men into animals.

He glanced at them now, their gaunt forms swaying with the motion of the wreckage. They no longer looked like men. Their skeletal hands gripped the wood, but their eyes—those hollow, dead eyes—were locked on him. Silent. Unblinking.

Rodrick's heart thudded in his chest."What's wrong with th...."

"No," he rasped, his voice barely audible over the wind. "No... We'll find a way. I'll get us out of this. We just need to hold on—my cousin in Asasia, He'll..."

The first servant's eyes flicked toward him, dark and glassy, a predator's gaze. They had heard enough. There was no hope left in this forsaken place, no distant cousin with a fleet of rescue ships. Rodrick could see it in their eyes. He wasn't their lord anymore. He wasn't their savior. He was food.

"Please," Rodrick whispered, more to himself than to them. His legs trembled as he pushed himself further back against the wreckage, his hands frantically searching for anything he could use—anything to defend himself. His fingers closed around a splintered piece of wood, slick with saltwater and his own sweat. "A weapon. I can fight them off."

The first servant took a step forward, his movements slow, deliberate. His gaunt face twitched, lips cracked and peeled, but his eyes never left Rodrick. There was no anger in those eyes. Only hunger.

Rodrick's breath came in shallow gasps, the cold air burning his lungs. His mind raced back to the days before all of this. Back when he was still the proud second son of the Snowveil family. He hadn't been the chosen heir, no. That title had gone to his older sister, Eveline, the perfect daughter. The one who had everything. The one who had been groomed for power, while Rodrick had been left to drift in the shadows, always watching, always hoping for a chance that never came. His father had barely looked at him during his final days. "You're not fit to lead," he had said, his voice cold as the winds that swept through their ancestral halls. "Leave the family matters to Eve."

Rodrick clenched his teeth. "Eve. Always Eve.*

The second servant moved closer, his lips twitching into a grotesque semblance of a smile. His fingers, thin and bony, flexed as he reached for Rodrick.

"No!" Rodrick screamed, brandishing the splintered wood like a dagger. "Stay back! Stay—"

Before he could finish, the first servant lunged, his skeletal fingers wrapping around Rodrick's wrist with terrifying strength. Rodrick yelped in pain as the splintered wood was ripped from his grip. The servant's face was inches from his own now, eyes wide and crazed, teeth bared in a sickening grimace.

"I served you," the servant rasped, his voice barely human, more a growl than words. "I did everything for you. Now... you serve me."

Rodrick screamed, thrashing as the servant pushed him down onto the wreckage. His back hit the splintered wood with a sharp crack, the wind knocked from his lungs. He tried to scramble away, but the second servant was on him now, his fingers clawing at Rodrick's legs, dragging him down.

"No, no, please!" Rodrick begged, his voice cracking. His mind was a whirl of panic and desperation. "This can't be happening. This isn't real. I'm Rodrick Snowveil. I'm not going to die here. I'm not—"

The first servant's grip tightened around Rodrick's throat, cutting off his breath. His skeletal fingers dug into the flesh, squeezing, bruising. Rodrick's vision blurred, dark spots dancing in his sight. And then, he felt it—a sharp, burning pain as the second servant's fingers dug into his side. He screamed, but the sound was muffled, lost in the wind.

His blood was warm as it poured from the wound, staining the servant's hands. Rodrick's eyes went wide in terror as he watched the servant lift his bloodied fingers to his mouth and begin to feast. The sound of flesh tearing, of bones cracking, was drowned out by the howling storm, but Rodrick felt every moment of it. The cold wind, the biting pain, the slow, agonizing realization that this was the end.

His limbs flailed uselessly, his strength fading as the servants tore into him, their hunger-fueled frenzy overwhelming all reason. His mind spiraled into darkness, the storm roaring above him, indifferent to his suffering. Rodrick's final thoughts were not of Asasia or of his sister. They were of the cold, unforgiving sea. The sea that would claim him, as it had claimed so many before.

"No one will ever know. No one will ever find me."

As his vision darkened, Rodrick felt the icy touch of death creeping in. The servants continued their grisly feast, their hollow eyes reflecting the storm above, their faces twisted into grotesque masks of primal hunger.

Rodrick's final scream was lost to the storm. The sea swallowed him whole, leaving nothing but the wreckage—and the haunting silence of the dead.