A cold feeling swept across Evan. What happy feelings of familiarity and a sense of belongingness that he had felt before disappeared. He was violently flung back into the deep end once again.

The stowaway wouldn’t likely be out to kill them, as they’d had many chances to take out whoever they wanted. But he knew that when cornered they could be very dangerous. And it was possible that they weren’t the only stowaway on board.

“Are you sure?” Ashi asked, gripping Evan’s arm protectively. His expression was filled with horror. “Oh, gods, please tell me everyone’s okay.”

“There are no injuries that I know of so far. Nothing but scrapes from broken glass, C-Captain. But there’s a... woman in the food storage room,” the sweaty, nervous boy elaborated. “She claims she’s meant to be here, but I’m very confident that she snuck her way in. She’s not… normal.”

Ashi waved the boy away. “Thank you, Aboney. He fished a small dagger out of his dark leather boots. “Time to see what’s really going on,” he told Evan.

Evan brought his backup dagger from the pack he had brought with him. “I’ll be your backup, Captain.”

Slowly, with caution, they made their way down to the storage room. Ashi’s heeled boots made small clicking noises on the hardwood. Evan decided that it was fortunate that they weren’t trying to keep the element of surprise.

The animated yelling crescendoed quickly, making Evan’s already rapid heartbeat quicken in alarm.

With anxiety filling his veins, he noticed a thick coil of smoke emerging from the gap underneath the door to the stowaway.

Evan was forced back by Ashi’s strong hand. Ashi’s concerned amber eyes met his own brown ones. “Evan, be careful. She could be very dangerous.”

Evan rolled his eyes. “I am an assassin. I am trained in the art of taking lives. I think I can handle a hungry stowaway with anger issues.”

Ashi sighed, shaking his head. “Alright then.”

And Evan opened the door.

Ashi’s eyes widened significantly as he revealed what was inside. “What in Hevali?” he said in awe.

Evan was met with not the smell of burning that he expected, but rather the scent of death and decaying flesh. The garish green smoke that he saw was not natural, and the room was filled with it.

The room was also full of coughing men, most of whom were doubled over in either pain or asphyxiation.

Ashi’s terrified eyes found Evan’s. “Evan, stay back. I mean it. If you want to go back you can.”

Evan smiled. “I’m okay. I’m staying,” he said strongly. He gazed around the room. “Where the hell is that woman? I suspect she’s the cause of this.”

“I think so as well.” Ashi gagged. “It smells like death in here.”

Evan mimed a shushing noise with his pointer finger. Ashi nodded.

They both carefully made their way, scouting out the room. So far, there was nothing but writhing bodies and the crunch, crunch, crunch of broken glass. Ashi cursed under his breath, tearing his hands through his hair. “No casualties?!” Ashi exclaimed in fury. “The hell did he mean ‘no casualties’?!” Evan suddenly envied Elameere, who was probably snuggled up in a comfortable bed. In this moment he would give anything to be in a bunk, sleeping soundly.

All too suddenly, interrupting his thoughts, Evan heard a startling noise from close behind him. He would have called it a scream, but it was too inhuman for such a name. Much too inhuman.

Ashi, who was trembling next to him, looked about ready to hurl. Evan was close to that as well.

“Who goes there?” Evan called into the smoky haze.

He heard a slithering noise. A loud slithering noise that filled his heart with dread and sped up his heart to what had to have been an unhealthy speed. “Damn it, I said who goes there?”

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He saw a flash of light before the world went a blinding white. He remembered screaming. He remembered the loud thump of Ashi’s body falling to the ground. He remembered the pain.

And, of course, he remembered the voice.

“Ah yes,” a voice that chilled Evan to the bone cried out. Through the many clashing thoughts in his pained mind, he thought this must be the stowaway. The voice giggled. “This is what I wanted. A strong, worthy young boy. I must warn him!”

Evan saw a face swimming in the dark green smoke. It was snake-like, but strangely humanoid. Almost as if someone had taken the skin of a viper and stretched it over a woman’s face. Tears of horror streamed down Evan’s cheeks as he sobbed silently. He couldn’t move. He could barely think.

The figure mumbled to herself. “Maybe I’ll spare the others as well.” The figure looked straight at Evan with gleaming red, snake-like eyes and smiling with what looked like bloody fangs. “Would you like that, boy?”

Evan nodded furiously, which made him quite dizzy.

“Alright,” the snake woman said, her eerie grin growing wider. It sent a wave of relief through his body and he shuddered and fell to the ground, tears falling into his lap as he gripped his dagger tighter. “This smoke is not meant for humans, after all. I wasn’t aware you all were so fragile.”

Evan continued to silently sob, tears still flowing in rivulets down his horror-struck face. What was this? What was she? Why was he here? What was going to happen now?

“Oh, don’t cry,” the woman said with pitiful eyes, wiping his tears away with clawed fingers. “Your friends will be perfectly chipper in the morning. They won’t remember a thing if you do not want them to. You need not worry your pretty little human head. I just needed them out of the way for now so I could talk to you. Oh, and you can go ahead and put that dagger down, hon. I have had more than enough violence for today.”

Evan looked down in his lap and saw the gleam of his dagger, then flung it far away. He did not want to come off as a threat to such a dangerous woman. Snake woman? Did she even really count as human?

“I know what you’re thinking, little one,” the snake woman said. “I am not human, nor am I a snake. I am a Naga.”

Naga, Naga, Naga… Evan racked his brain for any mention of the species. He clearly did not pay enough attention to his cryptid identification class in school. He vaguely remembered the mention of snake people that resided in caves far, far away from Morti. “So, you’re a Naga. And that means…” Evan gasped out, his voice hoarse from the smoke.

“It means I am here to deliver you a message. My people are prophets. We see into the future, but we are not usually permitted to share such things with humans. We have tried in the past, but it did not go so well. Most humans are greedy; rotten to the core. But you… I sense a strong future with you in charge.” Her eyes gleamed mischievously. “So I snuck out of the cave my people reside in, disguised myself as a frail human, and boarded your boat. You did not suspect a thing until I hid in this room and transformed back and a boy saw me. I told him to go warn you. I wanted a peaceful transaction, but your men are violent. They tried to hurt me, so I had to put them to rest. Temporarily, of course.”

Evan thought that cleared up most of the questions burning in his mind. All but one. “Why me? Why me of all people? I am not worthy.”

The snake woman smiled.

“There is no special reason I picked you. You are but a regular human. But for some reason, the gods put you on a path where you can use this information. You were merely closest to me out of all the people on the same path as you. Any more questions?”

Evan shook his head. He was almost relieved that there was nothing special with him. “Get on with it, then.”

The Naga cleared her throat. “Well, it might be a little cryptic. We are not allowed to give out basic, easy to understand information, after all.”

“I said get on with it, Naga.”

The Naga wrinkled her nose. “I would ask for more respect, but, alas you are human.”

Evan rolled his eyes.

“You must understand, there are people on your journey that you must not trust,” the Naga warned.

“You do not know me. I trust no one,” Evan said.

“But it is a human instinct to believe. And you must not follow that instinct unless you know for a fact that they will not betray you. The ones you love the most, they will leave, and most of them already have. But you will learn to find more people to trust, and even more people to distrust. Your enemies will become your friends. Your friends will become your enemies. But such is life.”

“Get to the point,” Evan grumbled. “I already know to trust no one. I am an assassin. I am trained to kill, and I am not allowed to grow emotional attachments. It gets in the way of my complicated work.”

The Naga sighed. “Your father, there. You trust him, do you not?”

Evan blinked. “Ashi?” He gazed at the man’s figure on the floor next to him. “That man is not my father.”

The snake-like lady frowned. “I have made a mistake in assuming. I am terribly sorry. May I ask who your father is?”

Evan’s eyes turned dark. “I do not know my father.”

“I see,” the Naga said. “Well. You must trust the man?”

Evan snarled. “I’ve already told you, I trust no one.”

“You frustrating humans,” the Naga growled. “I must go on, I’m afraid, as I have a life outside giving prophecies to infuriating humans.”

Evan nodded, his eyebrows knitted in concentration.

The Naga opened her mouth, and smoke escaped in coils out of her fanged mouth. “Evan Engle, assassin of Morti, I know your future,” the Naga hissed. Her voice sounded odd and unnatural when she spoke.

The Naga’s eyes opened wider and began to glow a strange green.

And then Evan heard the unmistakable shot of a gun.