Serenica could not have picked a worse timing.
She was to meet with the queen mother somewhere near Aja Vana in two days. She was to mention nothing about them having a dragon that was ready to rob the Maroon King clean, and finally, she was to be diplomatic, but she was too stubborn.
One of the pirates was an avid smoker. His name was Mell, and Mell had cancer.
Serenica had been treating him for a long time, but she was only able to postpone the inevitable. The miasmatic energy radiating from his throat and lungs – Ed, of course, said that miasmatic thinking was a bunch of outdated nonsense – had been spreading too far and for too long. Mell was always suffering from shortness of breath. He could not keep any food inside his stomach, and this had caused him to lose weight. He was but a sack of skin, bones and failing organs, coughing up blood and pieces of his lungs.
