The cabin door slammed against the bulkhead with a noise that sounded like a pistol shot. The Captain and Finn burst inside; the Captain was huffing, his lungs burning from the frantic run across the deck, while Finn was gripped by sheer panic. They stopped dead, the air in the small room hitting them like a physical wall. It wasn't just the heat; it was a thick, cloying smell of rot and old metallic. They locked eyes and a look of grim recognition passed between them as the stench reached their noses and the known unmistakable, sulfurous scent of black magic got their attention.
"By the depths," the Captain growled, his voice a gravelly rumble between labored huffs. "What in the blazes is that stench, lad? Smells like a graveyard in high summer, ay?" He tried to lighten the suffocating mood, but the attempt died in the air. Neither Finn nor Rissa were in a state to be comforted nor did they hear him at all.
Finn's eyes were fixed on Rissa, who was staring at the pillow with a haunted vacant look. He looked in the direction where she was looking and stepped toward the discarded pillow on the floor, his hand instinctively reaching for the dagger in his belt. As he nudged the fabric with the toe of his boot, a dark, oily liquid oozed from the stitching, staining the floorboards like an infected wound.
"Captain…" he whispered, his rough accent sharpening with terror as captain also approached him. He knelt, while using his silver blade to slit the silk. And to his hunch instead of soft down feathers, a knot of blackened, pulsing roots tumbled out, wrapped in a scrap of parchment that looked like cured human skin. "A Cinder Bind." He looked up his shoulder, at the Captain with a face of pure horror.
"What's that?" Rissa interrupted, with a shivering voice.
"It's a leech-curse," Finn replied, his voice flat with dread. He turned his gaze to her, eyes wide with caution. "Where did you get this? Where did it come from?"
Rissa looked at Aeryn's grey face and then back at Finn. He understood the silent confession in her eyes before she could even speak.
"It's been sitting right under her head," Finn said knowingly, the realization hitting him. "Drinking the life out of her while she dreamt... and you…WE thought she was just seasick."
Suddenly, a heavy thud echoed from the ventilation grate above the door and a shadow flickered against the wood.
"Someone's listening!" Finn barked. He lunged for the door, throwing it open just in time to see a dark cloak vanishing around the corner. "He's heading for the rigging! Don't let him reach the mainmast!" he shouted and everyone hearing him ran after the figure.
Finn became a blur of motion, bursting onto the rain-slicked deck. Above him, a figure scrambled up the ratlines with unnatural, spider-like speed. It was Kaelen, the quietest lookout they'd recently hired or someone else maybe wearing his skin.
"Coward!" Finn roared, springing onto the shrouds. They climbed into the howling wind, forty feet above the tossing deck. Kaelen pulled a jagged obsidian dagger, but he didn't strike at Finn; he slashed at the main halyard.
"If she dies, we all die!" Kaelen screamed, his eyes glowing with a faint, sickly violet light.
Finn didn't hesitate. He threw his silver skinning knife. It buried itself in the traitor's shoulder, sending the obsidian blade spinning into the dark sea. Kaelen lost his grip, his body hitting the lower deck with a sickening crunch. Everyone gathered around him but Finn didn't look down at the body to check if he lived or died and just scrambled back to the cabin, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Inside, the Captain had stripped his heavy coat. He had his large, calloused hands pressed against Aeryn's temples, chanting in a tongue of a strange language he had never heard before, maybe Old High sahirran words.
"Captain, what are you doing?" Finn breathed, slamming the door wide open.
"Sharing the burden," the Captain gasped. His own skin was beginning to grey, the veins in his forearms turning black as the curse traveled up his limbs. "I can't break it, but I can take half the weight... for an hour. It's the Blood-Oath of the Wardens. I should have done it long ago."
Rissa, huddled in the corner, watched in horror as the Captain's strength seemed to drain into the girl. Aeryn's breathing steadied, but the Captain began to shake.
"Lad, look at me," the Captain commanded through gritted teeth. "The traitor... he is captured, we don't know if he lives or dies, but the master he served is watching. Rissa, Finn told me everything. You told us to turn the ship. You begged us not to go to the Hegemony. Now we find a killer's curse in her bed. Tell me...Why?"
Rissa's teeth chattered. She looked at Aeryn, then back at the Captain, her eyes darting away. "I... I don't know," she whispered hesitantly.
The Captain coughed, a spray of dark blood hitting the floor. Finn immediately surged forward to hold him, his face contorting into a mask of sudden, brutal fury.
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