The Passionate Seabirds  

Silence engulfed Amara as the last rumbles faded beneath the mountain's stony flanks. She knelt alone and dishevelled, the Hallow Skull's lifeless weight heavy in her arms. Had their gambit been worth such cost? Rhys and his bold crew now lay entombed, and with them the truth of Bane's sinister designs. Grief warred with fury in Amara's heart.

A faint groan snapped her head up. Staggering to her feet, she crept over scattered rubble toward the sound. "Rhys?" she called out raggedly. "Can you hear me?" Dared she hope?

Another pained groan answered. She scrambled faster over the wreckage until she spotted a familiar gloved hand protruding from beneath a heavy block of carved masonry. Amara rushed to grip the stone with desperate strength, heaving upward. Her body screamed in protest and so did the debris, grinding loudly.

Amara hollered with the effort, blood and sweat running down her limbs. Barely, agonizingly, the massive block shifted. As soon as the gap widened enough she flung aside her makeshift lever. "Rhys!"

The rogue lay pinned on his back, face caked in grime and blood. His one good eye fluttered at her hoarse cry. Amara dropped to her knees beside him, sending healing force into his broken body. But even her gift could not erase such trauma instantly.

Rhys's mouth twisted in a pained grin. "You look terrible, witch." His jest ended in wracking coughs. "Are we...in hell?"

Amara shook her head, vision blurred with tears and exhaustion. "Just me. You've paid your dues, rogue." She clasped his hand as if to keep him tethered. "Help will come. The Skull remains ours."

At that Rhys's eye sharpened. Despite everything, defiant purpose yet lingered in him. "The damned trinket...is it worth lives lost?" His searching look demanded truth.

Amara glanced down at the carved skull resting now against her knee, its lambent light extinguished. "I no longer know," she admitted heavily. "But we will find the answer together."

Rhys lifted his head slowly, causing some of the tension to leave his battered frame. His eye drifted shut but his fingers twined tighter with hers. Companionship yet lingered even on the edge of the void. Amara focused her soul on that frail bond, keeping dire silence at bay.

How long they remained there clinging to life and hope she never knew. But finally, heavy footfalls approached and Bane's undead crew appeared, their eerie luminescence stained the dusty gloom. It seemed that now their master was…gone, their allegiance switched to Amara.

"Help." At Amara's command, they lifted aside the rest of the debris pinning Rhys before bearing him away. Gently she stored the Hallow Skull in a sack and followed them down from the lightless tomb their folly had made.

Rhys was laid softly in the bivouac shelter overlooking the valley ruins while Amara tended him. Neither spoke of the harrowing losses; words could not encapsulate such pain. They focused only on salving each other's wounds. A clear understanding passed between them. Together they would unravel truth or not at all.

When misty dawn broke some hours later Rhys could stand, leaning on her shoulder. In silence, they surveyed the wreckage of ships along the shore. The sea beasts were gone but their passing was writ starkly in raked sands and broken planks. Only Bane's sleek Sea Raven remained unscathed at its mooring.

"We have our heading then, if you can bear it." Amara searched her companion's ravaged face. Rhys nodded once, jaws tight. She knew his heart's storm equalled her own. They descended the switchbacks in silence.

The spectral crew manned the lines and oars with nary a backward glance at their former master's valley tomb. Obedience was imprinted into their very bones along with cold fury. These wraiths would serve a new vision now, even if redemption lay beyond them.

Their passage from that benighted isle was swifter for lack of living souls aboard. Sea Raven rode high and proud on the open swells once clear of the headlands. No monsters or pirates accosted them now. It seemed the fates left this leg of the voyage to Amara alone.

Rhys kept to her cabin, still regaining his strength. Amara stood often at the prow beneath sun and stars, letting the clean ocean wind scour away the horrors clinging like ash. But inner peace eluded her. Faith in goodness had been her compass, yet she had still been led far astray. Now she must find a new lodestar to chart their uncertain course ahead. The Skull was her ward, but its purpose remained veiled.

In sombre mood, she joined Rhys below decks that evening after a silent meal of hardtack. But her breath caught unexpectedly at the sight meeting her within. The last rays of sunset slanted through the open aft window, gilding Rhys's bare torso in bronze as he finished wiping himself down with a damp cloth. Amara froze, pulse quickening. His warrior physique was painted with scars, each mark a mute testament. But together they articulated a language of hard-won resilience her scholar's flesh did not know.

Rhys glanced up, also stilling momentarily. Wordlessly he held Amara's gaze as she drifted nearer, drawn by a force beyond reason. The cabin seemed to shrink until only they two remained. Amara reached out without thought to trace one long pale scar down his chest. Rhys's breath shuddered at her feather-light caress along the mark left by a magistrate's lash long ago. His one good eye smouldered.

"Amara..." Her name was raw need on his tongue. Then they were clasped tight, mouths urgent and seeking. Amara let herself be consumed by the fire kindled from their shared ashes. She guided his callused hands along her supple curves until her robes slipped away. Their joining was fierce and ungentle, an exorcism of demons exterior and within.

Locked together they fell across the berth, blind and deaf to the world until spent passion left them entwined in wordless wonder on the creaking boards. As cries of seabirds intruded along with the thump of waves against the hull, Amara found a kind of peace. Sorrow yet seared in the rogue's rough embrace. But in this unguarded moment, only sublime fragility remained.