The storm left the village raw. The square stank of damp straw and unease; doors creaked shut too quickly, shutters pinched too tight. Whispers of Varo's death had not faded, they had multiplied.
Akuma lingered at the chapel's eaves, listening to the pulse of a people pretending to sleep. Brother Elias had passed him twice without words, carrying buckets from the well. Mira trailed once at his side, her braid undone, her eyes too sharp for her age. Neither spoke to him, but their silence carried a weight heavier than speech.
He should have left. The forest offered safety. Hunger would always find prey there. But some root dug deeper in him than choice. The wool of the flock clung to his shoulders, and he could not yet shake it off.
Night came early under heavy clouds. He walked the alleys, a shadow among shadows. The air was sharp with rain and the perfume of hidden blood. That was when he found the boy.
A thin figure, barely grown, stumbling from the tavern's back door. He clutched his ribs, a dark patch spreading under his shirt. His breath rattled like broken reeds. When he fell against the wall, the smell of blood struck Akuma like fire through dry grass.
Hunger seized him. His hand was already on the boy's throat before his mind caught up. One pull, one bite, and the gnawing in his chest would ease.
But the boy's eyes lifted. In them Akuma saw a reflection of himself as he had been: weak, dying, discarded. He hesitated.
Another thought rose, quieter but more dangerous: What if death was not the end?
He bit into his own wrist. The blood that welled up was black-red, thick with the curse. It hissed faintly against the air. He pressed it to the boy's mouth.
The boy gagged, thrashed—then drank.
The alley shuddered. Shadows rippled as if wind had blown through stone. The boy's back arched; his veins darkened, his skin paled to bone-white. His heart stopped, then hammered again, too loud, too wrong. A scream tore through him, high and ragged, and it carried across the square.
Candles flared behind shutters. Doors cracked. The chapel bell clanged once, startled from Elias's hand.
He came running, lantern shaking. Mira was faster. She burst into the alley barefoot, skirts wet with mud. Her eyes went wide at the sight: Akuma crouched over the boy, blood still wet on his wrist; the child writhing, teeth breaking into fangs, red lines weeping from his eyes.
"Saints preserve us…" Elias whispered. The lantern's flame jumped in the wind.
Mira did not speak. Her gaze fixed on Akuma, as if daring him to name what she was seeing.
The boy stilled. Silence drowned the alley. Slowly, impossibly, his eyes opened—crimson where brown had been. His chest did not rise. No breath remained. But hunger lit his stare, feral and sharp, aimed at Elias, at Mira, at the beating hearts so near.
He whispered, voice cracked: "F-Father…?"
Elias stepped back, crossing himself, lips moving in a prayer that faltered halfway. Mira shook her head once, as though denying the word.
Akuma's grip closed around the boy's jaw. He forced his gaze upward, meeting those newborn crimson eyes. His voice was low, harsh, final.
"Not your father," he said. "Your curse."
The boy sagged, sobbing blood.
Akuma rose. He did not defend himself to Elias, nor explain to Mira. He did not need to. The truth was written already—in the trembling child at their feet, in the black stain spreading from his own veins into another's.
He turned and walked toward the forest. But he could feel it now: the bond tethered to him, a second heartbeat echoing inside his curse. A whisper that would never fade.
Behind him, Elias knelt beside the boy, muttering prayers that had no power. Mira stood rigid, her face pale but her eyes sharp as knives. She did not look at the priest. She did not look at the child. She looked only at Akuma's back as it vanished into the dark.
The curse had spread.
And the flock was no longer safe—even from itself.