This time, sleep came and went without dreams—no visions of metal worms devouring the sky, no return to the prison buried deep in purgatory. Just darkness. Emptiness. A blank slate. It was almost comforting. Almost.

  I had hoped it meant something. That, perhaps, this day would be different—ordinary, even.

  That illusion shattered the moment I opened my eyes.

  The first thing I saw was red.

  Not the rich, warm red of firelight or the velvet hue of dawn creeping over the horizon—no, it was darker, messier. A blood-drenched pillow lay inches from my face, the fabric soaked through at one corner. It wasn’t much in the grand scheme of bloodshed, but it was far more than what should ever come out of a sleeping child’s nose.

  My breath caught. My chest tightened.

  The empty space beside me registered next—Luna was gone. So was Reruoved. Panic clawed its way up my throat, drowning any rational thought. My mind conjured horrible scenes on instinct—Luna, limp and lifeless, her small frame discarded somewhere in the dirt, blood streaking her cheeks like war paint. I shook my head violently, trying to banish the images, but they lingered like ghosts behind my eyes.

  I threw open the carriage door and bolted outside, feet barely touching the ground. The cool night air hit me like a slap—shocking, raw. It smelled of burnt wood and stew.

  And then—relief.

  There she was. Luna sat on a stool near the fire, holding a bowl of stew in both hands, her posture a little slouched, her expression dazed but unmistakably alive. Tom sat beside her, chewing quietly, as though the world hadn’t tilted for a moment back there.

  “Luna!” I cried, my voice cracking. I dropped to my knees in front of her, gripping her shoulders as she calmly raised her spoon to her mouth. “Are you alright?”

  She blinked, half in surprise, half mid-bite. “Hmm? I just had a little nosebleed,” she mumbled around the spoon, trying to avoid biting down on it. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  Nothing to worry about.

  But she looked like death warmed over.

  Her skin was far too pale, even in the glow of the fire—it had the colorless sheen of candle wax. I reached out and gently brushed a hand against her cheek, then her forehead. Warm, yes—but everything felt warm to me now. My own sense of temperature had dulled since purgatory, where the air had burned cold or frozen hot, depending on the hour.

  “You’re ill,” I said with certainty and took the bowl from her hands. She resisted—barely. Her arms were weak, her fingers trembling.

  “No, I’m fine,” she insisted with a frown. “There are more important things to deal with. We haven’t figured out who—”

  “No.” My voice cut through hers, firmer than before. “We’re not doing this today. You’re not coming with me. Nothing is more important than your health. Do you understand?”

  Her lip trembled slightly, and she pouted in that charming, manipulative way she had perfected. “Lu…”

  I didn’t let her finish. I stood up, grabbed her hand, and pulled her gently to her feet. “We’re going to the infirmary. Tom, lead the way.”

  Tom hesitated, his expression somewhere between annoyance and sleepy resignation. He cast one last longing glance toward his half-eaten bowl before pushing himself up and nodding.

  “Yeah, alright,” he muttered, trudging ahead.

  Surprisingly, he seemed to know where to go—despite having joined the army even more recently than I had. I didn’t question it. My focus was solely on Luna, whose steps were slow and shaky. She leaned on me more and more with each passing minute, and the guilt in my chest grew heavier with every limp shuffle.

  This was my fault. I had dragged her into the night—into the cold, the chaos, the danger. I had been so focused on catching murderers and uncovering secrets that I hadn’t once stopped to think that she was only thirteen. Thirteen and trying her best to keep up with monsters.

  She shouldn’t be walking next to me. She should be sleeping, wrapped in warm blankets, dreaming of quiet days—not trying to survive in my broken, twisted world.

  When we finally reached the infirmary, I was taken aback by what we found.

  A large, wide tent stood before us, lit from within by dozens of soft, flickering lanterns. In front of it, gathered in quiet clusters, stood several soldiers—every single one of them looking as pale as Luna, if not more so. Some sat hunched over on crates, holding rags to their noses. Blood stained their uniforms, sometimes dried, sometimes fresh. Most of it wasn’t much—just small nosebleeds—but it was happening to too many of them.

  This wasn’t a coincidence.

  My worry sharpened into something colder. More focused.

  Luna wasn’t just sick. She was part of something bigger. And whatever was happening here... it was spreading.

  “What is happening here?” I asked sharply, stepping into the path of a man in white who was striding briskly out of the infirmary tent.

  He barely glanced at me as he answered. “A new kind of illness,” he said breathlessly, eyes flitting to the soldiers slumped outside. “We don’t know much. Doesn’t seem lethal, but the symptoms are spreading fast—weakness, fatigue, pale skin, frequent nosebleeds. Let them rest for a few days and most recover, but beyond that… we can’t do anything right now.”

  With that, he disappeared into the night, his coat flaring behind him like a ghost vanishing into fog.

  I stood there, heart sinking.

  The timing was too perfect—too suspicious. First the elven bandits, then the string of flawless murders, and now this creeping illness worming its way through our ranks like rot. It was starting to feel less like coincidence and more like a campaign. Something planned. Orchestrated. Executed with terrifying precision.

  I clenched my jaw. I had to be wrong. The elves couldn’t be responsible for this. They were too few, too alien in appearance to hide among us in great numbers. That’s what we believed, what we were told. But what if we were wrong? What if they'd found a way in after all?

  “Tom,” I said quickly, turning toward him, “have you found anything suspicious among the supply corps? Anything at all?”

  He shook his head, slowly. “No. Everything seems… fine.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Fine. The word hit me like a stone sinking in water. Heavy, final, empty.

  My last hope—of uncovering a trail, a clue, a single misstep—had just slipped through my fingers.

  “Take Luna back to the carriage,” I ordered. “Keep her warm. Make sure she rests.”

  Tom hesitated, adjusting the collar of his jacket as he glanced warily at Luna. “What if I get sick too?” he muttered, edging away from her like she was a vial of poison.

  Anger flared in my chest.

  “Then you still take care of her,” I snapped, taking a threatening step closer. “You’re not going to keel over from a damn nosebleed.”

  “But what if—”

  He didn’t get to finish. My fist tapped lightly—but firmly—against the side of his head. A warning. Not enough to hurt, just enough to shut him up.

  “Do it,” I said. Then I turned to Luna and knelt beside her. “Luna… I’ll be back soon. Just hang in there for me, alright?”

  She gave a faint nod, her eyes glassy, and even that effort seemed to exhaust her. I gave her hand one final squeeze, then dashed away into the dark.

  I didn’t slow down until I reached the cluster of command tents, Arthur’s tent in particular. It stood like a lighthouse amid chaos, though even its polished outer canvas couldn’t hide the voices erupting inside.

  I pushed through the flap.

  Inside, a storm was raging. Officers shouted over one another, their words crashing and tumbling in confusion and fear. At the center stood Arthur, his hands raised in a futile attempt to restore order.

  Terms like quarantine, evacuation protocols, and containment zone flew through the air like arrows.

  Markus noticed me first, his eyes sharpening as he wove through the crowd and pulled me back outside into the cool night.

  “The illness?” I asked as soon as we stepped out.

  He nodded grimly. “You’ve heard?”

  “Luna has it,” I said, voice tight, biting my lower lip in frustration.

  “Damn it,” he muttered, rubbing his forehead. “Another sector compromised. Just what we need—more unpredictability.”

  I stiffened. “She’ll recover. They said it’s not lethal.”

  “I know, I know.” He exhaled sharply, looking away. “But if she’s already infected, she may be moved to one of the recovery tents after treatment. For containment reasons.”

  The idea of Luna lying beside strangers, shivering under thin blankets surrounded by bloodied rags, filled me with dread. Tom might be there with her, but whether that comforted me or made it worse… I couldn’t decide.

  “When did this start?” I asked, trying to shift my mind back to strategy. “This… plague?”

  Markus folded his arms. “Few days after your group joined the main army. That’s when the first minor symptoms were recorded. It’s been spreading slowly. Quietly. We didn’t realise how many were infected until this morning.”

  My throat tightened.

  He gave me a measured look. “I doubt it came from your team, if that’s what you’re thinking. There’s no evidence—”

  “It wasn’t me.” I cut him off before he could finish.

  Even if I wanted to unleash something like this—which I didn’t—I wouldn’t have known how. I had barely survived my time in purgatory. I wasn’t some rogue bioweapon.

  Still, the doubt in my own heart remained, unspoken and poisonous. The murders. The illness. The timing. They all trailed behind me like shadows.

  What if I was wrong about my own innocence?

  What if I had brought something with me from the other side?

  Or what if I was completely wrong, and the elves spread this virus?

  “…it feels like the elves won without even fighting us.” The words left my mouth before I could stop them, bitter and quiet like a prayer offered too late.

  Markus said nothing for a moment. The night stretched between us, filled only by the far-off crackling of firewood and the hushed murmurs of fevered soldiers. I stared into the dark, wondering if the enemy had ever needed swords or arrows at all.

  “Could they have done this?” I asked, needing to say it aloud—to make the thought real, so I could measure it against someone else’s logic. “This illness… do you think the elves are behind it?”

  He exhaled and shook his head, slowly. “I don’t think so. That bandit you caught was a rare breed—a magician, maybe even something worse. But unleashing a plague like this?” He looked grim. “That would take coordination, infrastructure, power on a scale they just don’t have. At least, not without leaving any trace.”

  It was a relief, in theory. But my stomach still twisted with doubt.

  “Anyway,” Markus said, shifting the subject with military bluntness, “do you have any new information about the murders? Anything other than what that soldier gave us before he offed himself?”

  I shook my head. “No… nothing.”

  Markus rubbed his jaw in frustration. “Damn. Then we’re still blind.”

  “What units have been hit hardest by the illness so far?” I asked, unwilling to let go of the only lead we still had.

  He glanced back toward the tent, then returned his focus to me. “The supply corps took a big hit three days ago. Nearly a third of them reported symptoms overnight. We’ve isolated them since—kept them among themselves, hoping to slow the spread. Back then, the main army barely had any cases, so we thought… maybe we could contain it.”

  Or maybe, I thought bitterly, you hoped it would spread to the elves instead.

  I kept that thought to myself. It wasn’t the time to accuse him of plotting to turn the illness into a weapon—not without proof. But the fact that the supply corps was the origin point stirred something inside me.

  “The supply corps…” I murmured.

  “You think there’s a connection between the illness and the murders?” Markus asked, his voice lower now, more serious. “Because I don’t see it.”

  “I don’t know yet,” I admitted, frowning. “But the timing is too perfect. The murders started after the fire, and this illness followed right after. What if they’re not separate?”

  I turned to leave, mind already racing through possibilities. If there was something hidden among the supply units—something we’d missed—I needed to find it now, before it disappeared again. But before I could take a step, Markus’s hand shot out and grabbed my shoulder.

  The reaction was instinctive—my body tensed, and my hand flinched toward my blade. I turned my head slowly, gaze cold and sharp as steel. For a moment, I imagined cutting his fingers off one by one.

  To his credit, he let go immediately.

  We didn’t like each other. Never had, unless we were both drowning in alcohol. And moments like this reminded me why.

  “I’ll come with you,” he said, brushing his hand off on his coat as though he regretted touching me too.

  I raised an eyebrow. “You’ll what?”

  “Arthur won’t believe you, no matter what you find.” He gestured back toward the command tent, where the shouting was still going strong—frantic, chaotic, desperate. “Besides… if I have to stay in that tent another minute, I’ll throw someone through the canvas.”

  Despite myself, I chuckled. Just once, sharp and dry.

  “Fair enough,” I said, and together we turned toward the shadows where the supply corps made camp—where sickness had taken root and secrets might still linger in the dark.