The ink stain on my left hand wouldn't come off.
I'd scrubbed it three times this morning with the rough soap the innkeeper provided, but the black mark remained—a blotch across my palm like a brand. Fitting, I supposed. Everything about me was stained now. Three months of running hadn't washed away what I'd done at St. Ambrose.
I flexed my fingers, watching the stain crease and fold. My hands used to be clean. Scholar's hands. Father Gregorius had teased me about it once, back when laughter came easily between us.
Don't think about him.
I looked away from the window where I'd been watching the village square and returned to the manuscript spread across my worktable. The Chronicle of Villa Geminae, copied and recopied for sixty years since someone's grandfather had started recording births, deaths, marriages. Mundane work. Safe work. The kind that kept my head down and my identity buried.
The kind that was slowly driving me mad.
My room above the inn was small—barely large enough for the bed, table, and chest that held everything I owned. The ceiling sloped at an angle that forced me to duck when I crossed to the narrow window. I'd chosen it deliberately. One door, one window, one escape route through the thatch if necessary. I'd memorized the distance to the ground: twelve feet. Manageable with a rope, survivable without one if I was desperate.
I was always calculating escapes now.
The mantle hanging from the bedpost caught my eye. Faded blue wool, torn along the hem, the color of a sky I barely remembered. My father's mantle. The prophet's mantle. Father Gregorius had kept it for twenty-four years as a relic, then pressed it into my hands the night I fled.
"Your father wore this when he spoke truth to power," Father Gregorius had said, blood still seeping through the bandages on his chest. "Now you wear it. Run, boy. Run and finish what he started."
I'd run. I was good at running now.
The door creaked below. My hand moved before I thought, fingers wrapping around the staff leaning beside my table. Six years of training with Brother Marcus had left that reflex carved into my muscles. Footsteps on the stairs, heavy, deliberate. I counted them. Eight steps to the landing, then silence.
My heart hammered against my ribs.
A knock. "Master Kael? Pardon the intrusion."
I recognized the voice. Yannick, the village elder. I forced my grip on the staff to loosen, made myself breathe.
"A moment," I called.
I slid the staff back into place, then pulled my sleeve down to cover the ink stain. Stupid. As if that mattered. But old habits clung like cobwebs. I'd been raised to be presentable, to represent the Church with dignity. Hard to remember I wasn't that person anymore.
I opened the door.
Yannick stood in the narrow hallway, stooped with age but still broad across the shoulders. Seventy years in the Marchlands left their mark. Scars crisscrossed his weathered face—demon claws, probably. Everyone here had scars.
"Elder." I nodded. "How can I help?"
"The Karras boy took sick last night." His voice was flat, tired. "Fever, chills. His mother thinks it's just the spring flux, but..."
He didn't finish. Didn't need to. Spring in the Marchlands meant plague season. The question wasn't whether sickness would come, but how many it would take.
"I'm a scribe, not a physician," I said carefully.
"You're educated. You've read the medical texts." His eyes searched my face. "The village needs someone who knows more than folk remedies."
My jaw tightened. This was how it started. Small requests. Harmless questions. Then someone noticed I knew too much, had studied too broadly, moved with the trained economy of a warrior-priest. Then someone asked the wrong questions, and I'd be running again.
"I can look at the texts," I said. "I'll see if there's anything useful."
"Appreciated." He turned to go, then paused. "You've been here two months now, Master Kael. Good work, keeping to yourself. But Villa Geminae takes care of its own. You've earned that much, if you want it."
If I want it.
I didn't deserve it. Didn't deserve the warm room, the steady work, the quiet acceptance of a Marchlands village that had learned not to ask too many questions. I'd abandoned the man who raised me to save my own skin. Safety I hadn't earned tasted like ash.
"Thank you, Elder," I managed.
He nodded and descended the stairs, his footsteps fading into the common room below.
I closed the door and leaned against it, eyes shut. The headache that had been building all morning pulsed behind my eyes. Not the soul-pain—not yet. Just exhaustion. I'd barely slept last night. Every creak of the building, every voice in the street below, every shadow passing the window had jolted me awake.
This isn't sustainable.
I knew that. Had known it for weeks. But where else could I go? Every church, every monastery, every town with an Inquisitor's seal on its gates was forbidden to me. Cardinal Voss had declared me heretic. Sister Maren of the Sacred Keys had my description, my name, probably my exact location by now. The noose was tightening.
And I had no idea what to do about it.
I crossed to the window again, watching the square. Spring morning in Villa Geminae looked almost peaceful. Women carried water from the well. Men repaired the wooden palisade—demons had tested it again three nights ago, judging by the fresh timber. Children played in the dirt, laughing and shoving each other.
Normal. As normal as life in the Marchlands ever got.
The fragments in my chest caught the sunlight, just visible through my shirt if you knew where to look. I'd sewn a hidden pocket into the lining to keep them close. Fragment #1, the circular base. Fragment #2, the stem. Two pieces of the Chalice of Unity, given to me by Father Gregorius hours before I fled.
"Finish what he started."
I didn't even know what that meant. The fragments had no instructions, no map, no prophecy explaining their purpose. Just two pieces of broken ceramic that felt warm against my skin and occasionally resonated with a frequency only I could hear. My father had died collecting them. My mother had died protecting them.
And I carried them like a coward, hiding in a Marchlands village, copying birth records to avoid drawing attention.
Some prophet's son you turned out to be.
Movement in the square pulled my attention. A woman crossing toward the well, her gait unsteady. She stumbled, caught herself on the well's edge, then collapsed.
I was moving before I thought, down the stairs and into the square. Others reached her first—Elena, the blacksmith's daughter, and old Marta who kept the general store. They rolled her onto her back.
Her face was flushed red. Even from ten feet away, I could see the sweat beading her forehead.
"Fever," Elena said, her voice tight.
"Like the Karras boy," someone murmured behind me.
No.
I pushed forward, dropping to one knee beside her. My hand went to her forehead—burning. Pulse rapid and thready. Breathing shallow. The clinical assessment came automatically, six years of training with Brother Marcus clicking into place like a prayer.
"When did symptoms start?" I asked.
"She was fine this morning," Marta said. "Saw her at dawn, healthy as ever."
Hours. Onset in hours, not days. Fast. Too fast.
I looked around the square. Two dozen faces watching. The Karras boy had fallen sick last night. This woman collapsed this morning. If this was what I thought it was...
My chest tightened.
"Get her inside," I said, standing. "Keep her isolated. Anyone who touches her needs to wash with soap and water immediately after."
"Is it plague?" Elena's voice trembled.
I wanted to lie. Wanted to say no, just a fever, nothing to worry about. But I'd seen this before in the medical texts Brother Marcus made me study. Spring fever in the Marchlands had a pattern. Rapid onset. High fever. Then the bleeding started.
"Maybe," I said. "Too soon to tell."
They carried her toward the inn. I stood in the square, watching them go, my mind already racing through treatments. Eastern or Western healing treatment, perhaps magic?
What if I combined them again?
The thought came unbidden, and I shoved it away violently. No. Absolutely not. That was how I'd gotten into this mess. That was how I'd exposed myself, saved Father Gregorius' life, and destroyed my own.
But if the plague spread...
"Master Kael."
I turned. Yannick stood behind me, his expression grim.
"How bad?" he asked quietly.
"Don't know yet. Could be nothing. Could be everything." I met his eyes. "How many sick?"
"Three. Karras boy, Mira there, and Tomas the cooper's son reported chills an hour ago."
Three. Three in twelve hours. The math was simple and terrible. If the infection rate held, half the village would be sick by tomorrow night.
"We need a healer," I said. "A real one. Not a scribe who's read some books."
"Nearest church is two days' ride," Yannick said. "Western rite. They'll send someone, but..."
But it would take four days minimum. By then, dozens would be sick. Maybe dead.
"What about Eastern?" I asked.
His eyebrows rose. We were technically in Western territory, though the Marchlands made a mockery of such distinctions. Most villages here hedged their bets, keeping dual altars hidden in cellars. Practical heresy. The kind that kept you alive when theology got in the way.
"There's a hesychast monastery fifty miles north," Yannick said slowly. "They might send someone faster."
"Send for both," I said. "We'll need all the help we can get."
He nodded and turned away, already calling for riders. I stood alone in the square, watching the shadows lengthen as afternoon crept toward evening.
Three sick. Soon to be more.
And I was going to have to watch them die, because using what I knew—what I really knew, what I could do with both traditions working together—would mark me as surely as if I'd painted a target on my back.
The fragments against my chest felt heavier than they should.
Father Gregorius risked everything so you could run, a voice whispered in my head. My father's voice, or maybe my own. Hard to tell anymore.
I looked down at the ink stain on my palm. Still there. Still marking me.
Some stains, I was learning, didn't wash away.
I turned back toward the inn, my legs heavy, and tried not to calculate how many days we had before the dying started.