The East Sea Ruler

Chapter 3

The food provided is quite good in terms of diplomacy, but none of the food can be enjoyed by the Marine.

No matter how luxurious it was, and even though Marine could spend all the rum on this table, it would not be enough to calm Marine's mind.

Throughout the banquet the Captain kept restraining him, keeping the Marine from behaving badly. Captain knows how Marine feels right now, Marine can only sit back and play his part.

Marine glanced for a moment at Prince Torin, no familiarity at all. Sang Pangerang never greeted, praising Marine. It's as if the Prince played his part as Marine did.

When dinner was over, Marine bailed and slipped away. He climbed the stairs to the deck, climbed up the stern and leaned on the pile of mines.

After a long time Marine played with his mind, he looked up to feel someone coming. Bronn left the party, he was standing on the fence of the ship, his face facing the sea. Accidentally standing far away, but close enough to keep the Marine gerik. Maybe so that the Marine does not do anything stupid, where maybe the Captain wants to lose his valuables.

"You know about this?" Marine was unable to hold the charges in his voice, despite the fact that they had been acting like friends for a long time.

"Captain only tells you what to know."

"What about me?" Marine vents his emotions to Bronn. "Will someone tell me what I need to know? Are you gonna tell me?"

Bronn said nothing, again unaffected by Marine's pain.

Marine turned away frustrated because the silence shown Bronn hurt him even more.

Bronn came to live aboard Maiden when Marine was five years old. The captain finds him at the dock, an orphan who survives by stealing from the docked ships, filled with potential, and, and the Captain sees an opportunity to turn him from an ordinary thief boy into a reliable killing machine.

The captain took Bronn to the ship as a cabin attendant, where he immediately embarrassed the rest of the crew by being able to climb the mast and swing from sail to sail with ease.

Although Bronn is three years older than Marine, he never minded when Marine kept following him from behind and he would sit on the deck for hours to teach Marine the tough knots.

Bronn who grew up with Marine is not the man who is next to him now. A man who can easily kill, as good as other things he can do. Among the Marine and Bronn, who were more suitable to replace the position of Captain was Bronn.

"I wouldn't jump if that's what you're worried about." Marine looked at Bronn.

No response from Bronn. Even so without guilt he faced the Marine.

"Are you going to do it? Marry that guy?"

"What makes you think I have another choice?" Marine looks up at Bronn, "Do you care? Leave me alone, Bronn."

The familiar footsteps in the wood made the Marine look up to see, in his mind who else had escaped the fake celebration.

With a surprised look of the face, Marine saw that Prince Torin was looking for him. Feeling impolite to greet the royal members while sitting down, Marine stood up, trying not to stumble over his own skirt.

"Ah, here you are apparently." Torin turned towards Bronn. "Can you leave us both?"

Instead of complying, Bronn stepped forward to approach the Marine. "I was ordered to escort him."

Marine can't decide which is worse, hearing that Bronn is here just because of his father's orders, or watching Bronn defy the Prince.

Torin was shocked to hear Bronn's remark, he didn't expect to get such a reaction. "He's safe with me, I can confirm."

Bronn. "Stay with it."

An awkward silence enveloped the two men who were both unwilling to budge.

Marine looked towards Torin and Bronn, a sense of annoyance arising on his face.

"The Felon replied to the King, once again, can you leave us both?" Torin sounded polite but firm. His face showed no fear.

Marine is curious, especially when he finds out that Torin is not accompanied by his personal bodyguard, the issue that he is a coward is just a lie.

"I'm just Snake, not Felon himself. And you're not king yet." Bronn showed an attitude that does not want to lose to Torin.

Marine couldn't stand everything he saw. "Bronn, you can go. We'll both be fine without you."

Bronn opens his mouth to protest, but Marine cuts him off first.

"I don't need you. I want you to go." Marine's words sounded harsh.

For a moment, Bronn stared at the Marine emotionlessly. "Of course, miss." closed her eyes and nodded and left.

Marine, giving a tired smile to Torin, tries to channel his apology for Bronn's behavior.

Torin raised an eyebrow. "Isn't he your father's most valuable killer?"

"Yes, it seems like he became overconfident after being introduced in person." Marine smiles hoping Torin returns his smile, but Torin does not. Just like Bronn, Marine can't read Torin's mind.

The man the Marine had to marry walked over and stood beside the Marine, leaning against the fence. The Marine follows him there too.

The sound of the waves beneath them. Marine tries to talk to Torin, but he can't figure out what to say.

But suddenly Torin started the conversation. "When the sky blackens, and the moon is swallowed up by the earth, the ocean becomes still. Silent. All the magic stopped, frozen, for now the hunter of night had arrived."

Torin quotes one of the stories that Garce used to tell Marine, this is one of Marine's favorites.

"The victim: a demon. A big, scary demon. And behind the waves, the raptors are suffocating." Marine finishes Torin's story.

Prince Torin nodded as a token of gratitude then said. "So, looks like we're getting married."

Marine's breath gets stuck in the throat. "Looks."

Marine slightly raised his head to stare at Torin, only to find Torin was looking at him attentively.

Marine looks back at Torin, unable to shake the feeling that Torin is doing the same thing as Merine, trying to read her inner thoughts.

"Are you gonna miss this?" Torin said, pointing towards the Maiden, the ocean, the life that the Marine has been living. "Or maybe the grandeur of the palace would be more suitable for you?"

There is a slight insult that Merine feels in the words of Torin. As if the picture that Marine uses it can only live a luxurious life, where in fact, Marine only moved from one prison to another.

"I don't think it's any good for both of us to pretend that what I want means anything at all, don't you think?" Marine's hatred is clearly visible in the look on his face at Torin's words.

Small wrinkles form at the base of the Toring nose while he judges the Marine.

Looks like Torin wants to say something. However, the opportunity is lost when she steps back and Marine realizes they are no longer both. Torin's bodyguards have gathered, along with some of Marine's father's men.

"It's time." Torin said to the Marine who did not understand what the Prince meant.

Some time, Marine was aware of his incomprehension, all this time he forgot about one Felon tradition that will happen tonight. Marine always thought if it was just a myth, made to prevent the previous Felons did not prioritize anything more than King Mareka.

It can't be real!

Marine looks at Torin's face, for the first time Torin's face shows the opposite of Marine's thought. Fear emanated in the eyes of Marine, if he could escape from this place, he chose to run away.

Marine's father climbed onto the deck, saw his cheeks flushed with drunkenness, just like his eyes, and asked Marine and Prince Torin to come at him.

Marine and Torin step towards the Captain, arriving before the Captain, the crew makes a circle around the Marine and Torin.

The ceremony has begun.

Marine wasn't sure where to look. So that no one noticed the fear that spread on his face like a rash. He looked straight ahead until his watery eyes held him back from crying.

Cleeve began to approach the Captain, Marine and Torin, carrying a silver plate with hot flaming iron chains from the fireplace. Just by looking at it alone made the Inner Marine scream in panic.

The captain took out his thick glove, asking the Marine to raise his left hand and Torin to raise his right.

The wrists they both touched, and the desire to run away, jump into the sea, and die in the way that the most feared Marine crawled all over his skin, was very clearly depicted on the look on Marine's face. And it was realized by Torin when he turned to the Marine.

"Breathe, "Whisper so softly and softly that the Marine thought it was just his hallucination.

The falseness missing from Torin's face, the two of them were just a pair of humans sharing the pain. Marine gave Torin a head nod.

The captain lifted the chain and precisionfully wrapped it around the Marine and Torin shipyard, tying it together.

The pain when hot metal melts in the skin is so piercing. Burning and eating the flesh of the two of them before forming a small valley on the surface of the skin.

With all her energy the Marine does not let her body move in the slightest. He won't show his weakness, won't let his father think that his father won.

"All of you are witnesses.of the sign." The Captain's words echoed in the dark night sea breeze, although the sacredness of the ceremony was slightly diminished because he was drunk.

"Felon and the King have become one, the mark on their bodies being the symbol of the oath of both of them." And, with those words, the Captain lifted the chain back up, carrying a burning sheet of skin with him.

Marine lowered his hand which currently felt like it had been slashed by thousands of knives blindly. Marine glances at Torin being grateful to Captain Marine's father, for his blessing and announcing the future of the Eastern Islands being safe in this alliance.

Rum is again removed, and the wine jars are once again filled to the brim as they all celebrate the Marine and Torin binding ceremonies.

Marine was once again not offered a glass of wine, so Marine was hoping to get a glass of wine to help with the pain he felt.

Marine distracts the pain by focusing on avoiding Grace's gaze. Marine does not want to see Grace's pitying look at him that will tear down his defenses.

Showing his weakness will only strengthen the father's power over him. Marine's view turned to Torin's personal bodyguard, who, like Marine, did not share the taste of wine.

Instead, Bronn continued to drink nonstop. He was a little further away from the crowd. Even with a considerable distance, the Marine could see the danger emanating in Bronn's eyes.

Eventually the rum was exhausted and Prince Torin approached the Marine for a farewell.

"It's time I left." His face did not show the pain of the binding ceremony earlier. "On the next occasion, I hope you can pay a visit to my residence, perhaps when our father has decided on a wedding date, so that I can repay this hospitality."

"Thank you." Marine smiled respectfully.

"Then, see you later." Torin lowered his head before leaving with his bodyguard.

Ren raised the anchor. It didn't take long until the Prince's ship was just a small spot on the horizon, a light burning amidst the darkness.

There was no illumination on the deck, the Maiden chose to be an invisible hunter. Marine's father returned to his cabin without a word. No explanation, thank you, or apology to Marine.

Marine moves to his room, with his wrists burned in disdain for his father's betrayal. Only after Marine himself and the rest of his crew began to hunt, had the emotions he had been craving for years flooded him.

Marine clawed at her dress trying to take it off which turned out to be just as difficult as when putting it on. After only the remaining underwear wrapped around the body, he took out a knife with a growl full of emotion. Throwing it against the wall, the knife stuck right in the middle of a rake that was stuck in the wood fibers.

Marine smiled even with such a chaotic mood. Years of practice have paid off and few objects can't be perfectly accurate.

Something that my father did not know. The Marine walked up to pick up the knife again, then tried it again, this time with his eyes closed. The Marine repeatedly launches the knife into the wall and the knife always hits its target perfectly. Practicing in such a chaotic mind, Marine had one wish as a seventeen-year-old child. He wanted to see a world other than the ocean.

The Marine was eager to set foot on land. But his father always reminded that outside the ship it was not safe for him to remember too many enemies of his father.

Marine once broke his father's decision to get off the ship by the time they landed on the first island. Marine thinks it is impossible for his father to punish him because he is his daughter, and his father would never hurt his beloved daughter.

It's true what Marine thought back then, but instead. His father ordered a young crew to be tied up at the front post, then had Cleeve whip him forty times in exchange for the punishment the Marine should have received.

A warning from his father to Marine to keep his mouth shut, realize his place and respect his father the Captain.

Marine rolled over on his hanging mattress, maybe Marine didn't have to change his mind. Maybe marriage is the only way out. Escaping from Maiden is tantamount to defecting and the Marine will be hunted to death.