Shaking off the thought, the aide’s gaze slid like a knife to Lev’s right hand.

“Your right hand—it's fine now?”

“Of course.” Lev raised it and flexed, fingers clenching like iron tines under moonlight. He seized a glass, squeezed, and glass snow fell with a hiss.

Razor shards skittered like icy rain, leaving only faint scratches on armor black as midnight.

“...Good.” A breath loosened in the aide’s chest like steam from a kettle. Curiosity budded like spring grass. “May I ask—how did you heal it?”

He had watched that black Fuzzy Orb swallow Lev’s whole right hand like a storm swallowing the sun. The town had no mage with Healing Magic, a dry well at noon.

“Oh, that.” Lev chuckled, a warm ember in cold wind. “It’s human grit, the Independents’ will, standing like a lone pine against a Dark Deity and an Evil Entity.”

“You think the Independents only talk?” His voice struck like a bell at dusk. “Everyone knows how terrifying Dark Deities and Evil Entities are.”

“Without a Blessing, you can’t stand, like paper before rain.” He tapped the table, a drumbeat in war fog. “If we flip the table with no cards, we’re sheep in a storm.”

“Take this plague. Without Mystic Return Smoke, if we declared independence, once the Plague God spread a virus, not a soul would outrun the wind.”

“So... it’s not just Mystic Return Smoke?” The aide’s eyes lit like lanterns. “You’ve got a way to treat wounds too?”

“Of course. But it’s still experimental, a seed under frost, not ready for sun.”

“I see.” Joy softened his voice like melted snow. He worked hard because he dreamed of humans standing on their own feet, not kneeling to gods, a lighthouse in fog.

Lev said “experimental,” yet his calm looked like a finished blade. Soon, no one would fear bleeding out or festering rot, like travelers reaching a bridge at dawn.

“Heh.” Lev watched the aide’s daydreams drift like kites, and let a soft laugh fall.

—

“Lucimia, I don’t know why, but there are more soldiers on the street.” Desty peered through the door crack, a cat’s eye in night.

“Normal. They’re hunting Plague Followers.” Lucimia’s reply was a flat stone on dark water.

They were hiding in the comb shop. No lamps, only a night thick as ink. Broken combs lay everywhere, like ribs washed ashore.

Another woman lay on the floor, still as winter earth.

She was the clerk who’d sold combs to Lucimia and Desty, a face once lit by trade-fire.

She was dead, taken by disease like a candle pinched out by damp fingers.

Tumors swelled like storm blisters. Some skin had shriveled like old bark; some peeled like fish scales in dry wind. Blood seeped from seven orifices, a wilted peony.

Lucimia had resented the high price, a thorn under the nail. Seeing her dead here, she felt a small ache, a drop in the basin.

Only a little.

She crouched and kindled a dim glow with magic, a firefly cupped in her palm, and let it fall over the woman’s face.

The woman’s hair had been tied before. Now chestnut strands spilled like river water, catching gold in the glow.

“Hm?” The face tugged at Lucimia’s memory like a hook in deep water.

She brushed the long hair aside, a curtain lifted for a familiar stage.

Chestnut hair. A mature face. It was the woman from the portrait—Kace—etched like a name on cold stone.

The likeness wasn’t perfect, paint to flesh. No mirrors that capture truth here, no camera’s eye, only an artist’s wind-bent reed.

Hair up and carefully dressed before, Lucimia had missed it, fog over a lake. Hair down now, the image matched, two shadows overlapping.

“How? A Plague Follower, dead of disease?” Lucimia’s mind jolted like a sparrow at thunder.

She recalled what she knew of Plague Followers—and the Plague Knight whose name cut like iron.

The fighters fought. The others took in other people’s sickness, like sponges drawing poison, turning pain onto themselves to free the suffering.

So Kace... died because she drew it all in, like a well swallowing rain?

That explained the many symptoms, a storm of stains on one canvas. Lucimia had seen her coughing before, morning light and shop dust. A cough calls for Mystic Return Smoke like a bell for prayer.

She didn’t smoke. She endured, a stone under waves.

More: after Kace died, no worms bubbled up, no wriggle like rotting earth. It looked like a pure illness death, cold and clean.

Can Plague Followers wipe out the worms along with the disease, like fire purging brush?

Wait. Are Plague Followers treating diseases spread by Plague Followers, a snake circling its tail?

This—

“What the hell is this?” Lucimia blurted, the words a shard of ice.

“What is it?” Desty slipped closer, a shadow moving on velvet. “Keep it down, or the soldiers will sniff us out.”

Lucimia pressed her lips, then tugged Desty over, a silent bell. “Look at her. Doesn’t she look like... Kace?”

“What?” Desty leaned in. Two glances, and her eyes widened like dawn breaking. She pulled out the portrait they’d saved, paper whispering like dry leaves, and matched face to paint.

“It... really is her! What is going on?”

Lucimia shared her chain of thoughts, beads sliding one by one. When she reached the part about Plague Followers treating what Plague Followers spread, Desty burst too:

“What the hell is this?!”

She froze a beat, clapped a hand over her mouth like a lid, and flicked a glance at the door.

No soldier stirred. She let out a thread of breath, a reed whistle.

Voice lowered, she said, “So what? Someone else spread it, and the Plague God took the blame? Do we still take out the Plague Followers?”

“This...” Lucimia’s resolve wavered like a flame in a draft. The sight before her put grit in her gears.

She feared helping the wrong side, a boat rowing into fog.

“Wait. Let me think. Let me sort this.” Lucimia raised a hand, a stop-wave.

“Alright. I’ll watch the door.” Desty knew she couldn’t help with the knots. She lifted her sword and returned to the slit of light, a guardian post.

Lucimia stood, drew two deep breaths like cool water, pulled up a clean chair, and sat. She braced her forehead with both hands, sinking into thought like a stone into a well.

She traced every thread from waking by the river to now, a loom under moonlight—

First, the girl who called herself Shebelle begged her to end the plague, yet swore the Plague God was a proper god, a straight tree in a crooked forest.

Shebelle seemed harried by someone, like a fawn chased. The old granny played the protector, a wall of mossy brick.

Anjelo invented a plague-stilling powder, ground from Mystic Return Grass, smoke curling like snakes—Mystic Return Smoke. Because he preached the Independents, the God-Favorers hunted him, so he hid like a fox.

Here’s a snag: in Jaha Town, the Independents clearly hold the windward shore. So why is Anjelo hiding?