-The Spymaster-
Whenever Kailen closed his eyes, a sea of darkness unfurled before him, lashing and ripping into the hull of a black wood ship. There was nothing but endless stygian. Even the sky above him turned into the pulsing red flesh of a gaping maw– utterly starless and abysmal. The yellowed sails clinging to broken masts lashed and whipped like the turbulent inky waves, beating and beating and beating with the hollow winds. Home was a spatter of gray land against the horizon. But between him, his ship, and the rocky outcroppings of the Kallonian harbour was a stretch of ocean so unendingly vast it had his heart clenching.
“Pay attention” The Captain of the Adratoan Royal Guard, Aeron Herve, hissed as he crouched against the deck of the K’erdan ship. “Pay fucking attention.”
Kailen peeled his eyes open, sighing as the sea of black dissipated into a deep blue ocean with tranquil waves. The ship under him was of bleached oak wood, its masts inconspicuously small and its sails a deep gray. And, goodness, the heavens above him were wide open– cloudless and spattered with scintillating stars. Home. He was home. The ocean was a gift that whetted the air like spring blossoms, the briny winds clawing up his nose. But the ship was drifting away from Adrastoan lands, closer and closer towards K’erdan.
“Get your shite together, Spymaster,” Aeron bristled, a pale hand braced against the cutlass strapped to his belt. He gestured to the throng of K’erdanese men shuffling against the ship’s deck. “We don’t know what these men are smuggling.”
“They’re K’erdanese soldiers– not smugglers.”
“They’re carrying crates of goods from the Inindanian Jungle,” Aeron cocked a silver brow incredulously.
Kailen huffed. The men had traipsed through Adrastoan lands, an act of treason as per the Vaarven treaty, to retrieve cryptic crates from the hands of treacherous Adrastoan Scholars. They had, then, braved the Indianian wilderness once more to trudge, with the crates, back to their unassuming ship bobbing in shallow waters. It was a mystery how they had managed to get past Adrastoan wards unnoticed– a god’s damned mystery. But Kailen was not tasked with prying into that. His job, much like Aeron’s, was to stalk the K’erdans into their continent to learn of their intentions– and what, exactly, was in those crates. After all, the men were no ordinary smugglers– they were part of K’erdan’s royal guard.
It was only when the ship had alas picked up speed that the two crept towards the pile of crates tucked under a coarse tarp. Most of the men had stumbled into the crew’s quarters, the entrance to which was by the ship’s forecastle.
“Blue blood,” Aeron hissed, peeling back the tattered tarp. “I suppose it would be foolish to open these crates?”
Kailen blinked, “They could be warded.”
Aeron’s citrine gaze narrowed. “How else do we know what’s within?”
Kailen traced the wooden front, black brows furrowed in thought. Being a spymaster had taught him a great many things; through his years, he had learned of the vitality of caution. However, his impatience and curiosity had somehow outweighed his circumspection.
He jammed the length of his dagger into the slit of its door, heaving until the lid popped open. Mercifully, the tepid lashing of the waves against the ship concealed the moaning of wood. The helmsman still stood before the wheel, staring up at the thin spatter of a burgundy cloud. And still, the two Adrastoans waited a beat before cracking the lid open further. “By the gods,” Aeron recoiled, lips puckered in disgust.
A stench that settled in his guts haunted the briny air. It was utterly foreign and yet so ancient, older than the Kallonian monks. It permeated the winds like a phantasm of death. But the crates were stacked only with yellowed scrolls, rotten with age. Aeron, with irresolute hands, pulled open the first scroll he could grab.
The writing was meticulous. Though they held a sense of urgency. Kailen could not recognize the letters. One look at Aeron’s perplexed frown and the spymaster knew he couldn’t either. “What use do the K’erdans have for these?”
Kailen shrugged. For all his knowledge of Adrastos’ substantial history, he knew not what the purpose of those scrolls were. Not until he had dug his hands to the bottom of the crate, his fingers meeting with cold stone. What he yanked out was heavy with sin, the thing winking in the dying moonlight. Kailen could feel it in the marrow of his bones, sinister and unkind. Archaic and desperate.
The stone tile was inscribed with a strange word, the writing haphazard and overcome with moss. “What does it say?” Aeron asked.
Kailen said, “Till death.”
The spymaster frowned, clenching his eyes shut in thought and, unsurprisingly, finding his sea of eternal darkness behind his eyelids.