Still, he didn’t react, his eyes locked on his bloody hands.Without thinking, Kieran dropped the sword and sprinted to Sebastian’s side.The attacker inches away, Kieran did the only thing he could think to do.
He tackled Sebastian to the ground.
The two of them rolled over each other once, landing with Kieran atop Sebastian.Kieran had his arms around the other boy, clinging to him as if his life depended on it.Sebastian’s body felt stiff against him, and Kieran could feel Sebastian’s breath against his neck, ragged and pained.Kieran let go just enough to lift and look the boy in the face, desperate to make sure he was okay.
“Kieran,” Sebastian said, voice choked.His eyes were rounded, pupils blown out so any trace of brown in them was swallowed up by darkness.Kieran wasn’t sure, but it seemed as if he was trying not to open his mouth too much.“Y-you have to get away from me.Now.”
Just then, something sharp pressed against the side of Kieran’s neck.It bit into his skin just enough to cut.A hot bead of blood bloomed from the wound before it slid down his throat.
It dripped down onto Sebastian’s pale cheek.
He went rigid, holding his breath.
“Look at the mess you’ve made of things, Sebastian,” the mercenary standing over them said, blade poised to slice through Kieran’s throat.“This is no way to repay the man who offered you a cure for your little affliction.Or does your new friend not know about that yet?”He chuckled.“Guess he’s about to.”
The next moment, the mercenary sliced his blade across the side of Kieran’s neck.It wasn’t deep enough to kill, but hot pain flared from the wound nonetheless.Kieran gasped as blood poured freely.It rained down, spattering Sebastian’s face with crimson.
In an instant, the boy’s entire visage twisted into something horrifying.
His eyes flashed open to reveal glowing red irises.Suddenly, a second pair of smaller eyes opened below that, then another and another, until six additional red eyes had opened, framing his natural ones on either side of his temples down to his cheekbones.His lips parted to reveal that his upper and lower canines had sharpened into fangs, along with the incisors beside them.At his sides, his fingers twitched and bent as they turned black and curved into hooklike points, almost like a spider’s legs.
Kieran, for once in his life, was entirely speechless.
“Hey, you!”a voice cried from across the deck.“Get away from them!”
A bolt of greenish light shot across the deck and over Kieran’s head, striking the mercenary who’d cut him.The man screamed, bloody sword clattering to the ground as he reeled back, hitting the ground paralyzed.Kieran smelled something—cloth, maybe—burning.
Delilah and Briar sprinted in their direction, eyes and handsglowing with the sparks of magic.Both were in their nightclothes.Briar’s hair was sticking straight up where she’d been sleeping on it.Delilah’s braid was coming undone, and from the scowl on her face, it was clear that she was far from happy to see their uninvited guests.Briar shot an electric bolt at another mercenary, paralyzing him.That left two paralyzed, one dealing with a stab wound in his shoulder, two dead at Sebastian’s hand, and the final one, who’d cut Kieran’s throat, on fire behind him.
Before Kieran could process the whole situation, Sebastian hissed below him.His hands shot up, shoving Kieran away with enough force to send him flying.Kieran’s back collided with the mercenary still shouting and patting at his burning clothes.They both fell in a heap, Kieran barely able to push the man off before the fire could spread to his bathrobe.
Sebastian put his hands behind his head, rocked back on them, and then launched himself onto his feet.At the sight of him, Delilah gasped while Briar let out a low whistle.Kieran wasn’t sure, but Delilah seemed to mouth,So that’s his curse.
One of the paralyzed mercenaries finally regained momentum, scrambling to stand.He was looking at Sebastian in horror, eyes wide.He sprinted for the ropes hanging from the tiny ship that had brought them, screaming.
Before he could get there, though, Sebastian sprang at him with uncanny dexterity.His clawlike fingers hooked into the man’s arms, stopping him in place.In seconds, Sebastian’s fangs were in the mercenary’s neck.The black-clad stranger let out a piercing scream as Sebastian began to drink from the wound, blood wetting the lower half of his face.
“Retreat!”cried the man with one of Sebastian’s knives still in his shoulder.
“But the Hilt,” the one Kieran had paralyzed said, just now starting to move again.
“Are you a fool?Even Elias can’t pay me enough to die.”The stabbed man ran for the nearest rope, shouting, “Hurry!”
The remaining mercenaries all made a run for the ship, limping and clearly injured.Kieran made eye contact with Delilah, unsure whether he should do something to stop them, but Delilah shook her head.Each mercenary grabbed a rope and was lifted into the air.They vanished into the tiny aeroship, and with a tinny, buzzing sound as its wings began to beat like a hummingbird’s, the ship took off into the sky.
There was a beat before the man Sebastian had been drinking from hit the ground, dead.Sebastian stood over him, panting, his front completely crimson-stained.After a moment, he looked up, the extra eyes closing and vanishing from his face while the fangs shrank to normal teeth.The last thing to change back was the glow in his eyes, which went out like snuffed twin candles.
While Kieran, Delilah, and Briar all stared at him, slack-jawed, he held up his hands in surrender.
“If you’d prefer to restrain me,” Sebastian said, head hanging, “I would understand.Just please give me a chance to explain myself.”
“Are you…lucid?”Briar asked, the evenness of her tone contradicted by her ledrith stance.
“I am,” Sebastian confirmed, “at the moment.”
“At the mo—?”Kieran started.
Delilah cut him off by clearing her throat and shook her head before he could continue.“I think it’s about time we had an emergency crew meeting.”
