Kahlil waits quietly, taking cues from the way Kell reacts as he dismisses the strange, inky darkness from his hand. He watches them fade into the air, thoughtful as the tension from his shoulders relaxes a bit.

"All the priests in my sect - the ushiri, carry cursed blades," he starts to explain slowly, and a knife appears in his hand. A proper one, not the shiv he made to carry secretly within the castle. The handle is simple, the blade itself the deepest black carved from animal bone.

"Even a simple cut from the blade can kill, the curse entering the body and spirit like an infection." The effects could be the same. Fever, coma, then death.

"That darkness in you might not be the same, but - a curse is intention. It's will power, and emotion. Anger, pain, fear - they can all be fuel for a curse, but they're reactionary. Unstable." He pauses, then brings his thumb up to the blade, pressing down but not hard enough to cut himself.

"Say I never learn to use my blade properly, but maybe one day I reach for it in fear. I'm just as likely to hurt myself as another."

The curse doesn't care who it infects. It's up to the wielder to be in control.