Blake's eyes narrowed, hard as whetted steel, as they fell upon the pitiful figure limping forward. Cain. His last brother.
The man was a shadow of what blood of theirs should have been. The chainmail draped over his wiry frame sagged like a borrowed garment, far too large for the bones that held it up. He smiled or tried to, but the twitch at his lips was nervous, feeble, as if even joy had learned to fear him.
His one good eye fixed on Blake, wet with desperate hope, while the other wandered uselessly, forever turned to the left, as though mocking his attempts at focus.
Blake's jaw tightened until his teeth ached. If it had been me… he thought, staring at that broken shell of a man, I would rather have died that day at Rock Bottom. Better the sea swallowed me whole than live to wear that face, that shame.
Yet Cain had lived. And now here he was, standing on the proud deck of his younger brother's flagship, shaming the very wood beneath his boots with his trembling presence.
