The Palace Infirmary. Night.
Grog was burning.
The fever had taken hold sometime after midnight, rising slowly, steadily, like water creeping up a beach. His skin was hot to the touch, dry and cracked, his breath shallow and ragged. His hands clenched and unclenched the sheets beneath him, twisting the fabric into knots. His lips moved, forming words that didn't come out—names, maybe. Places. Things only he could see.
The healers had done what they could.
Cold compresses on his forehead, his chest, his arms. Bitter draughts forced between his teeth, some of which he swallowed, most of which he choked back up. Poultices on the wound, changed every hour, each one coming away black and foul. Prayers to gods who weren't listening, spoken by a young acolyte who had been summoned from the village and looked like she was going to be sick.
Nothing worked.
The lead healer—a woman named Hessa, who had been tending the Duke's family for thirty years—stood at the foot of the bed, her arms crossed, her face grim. She had seen infections before. She had seen wounds that wouldn't heal. She had never seen anything like this.
"It's spreading," she said. "Faster than I can stop it."
Lira didn't look at her. She was sitting in the chair beside the bed, her bow across her knees, her eyes on Grog's face. She had been there for hours, watching, waiting, refusing to leave. The others had tried to take her place—Aldric, William, even Gwen—but she had sent them away. This was her watch. This was her fight.
"What does he need?" Lira asked. Her voice was steady, but her hands were not.
Hessa shook her head slowly. "I don't know. Something we don't have. Something I've never seen."
Mirena stood at the window, her back to the room, her staff in her hand. The stone was in her pocket, pulsing against her hip—faintly, steadily, like a second heartbeat. She had been feeling it all night, matching its rhythm to Grog's breathing, to the rise and fall of his chest.
She had been studying the wound for hours. The blackened flesh had spread from his chest to his shoulder, down his side, toward his heart. The edges were curled and dark, the center wet and red. It should have been healing. It wasn't.
The creature's claws had done something to him. Something that was still in his blood.
"The healers are losing hope," Lira said.
Mirena turned from the window. "I know."
"Can you do anything?"
Mirena was quiet for a moment. She thought about the stone in her pocket, pulsing against her hip. She thought about the rings—the ones Grog always kept in his clothes, folded beside his bed. The empty ones. The ones that had held nothing for weeks.
"I can try," she said.
---
Grog dreamed.
He was in the cavern again—the one from the old timeline, the one at the end. The walls were dark, wet, glistening in the light of torches that shouldn't have been there. The air was cold, thick, heavy with the smell of blood and something else. Something that didn't belong.
The hero stood before him. Aldric. But not Aldric. His eyes were red, burning, the red of embers before a fire catches. His face was wrong—the features the same, but the expression was something else. Something that had been waiting.
His sword was raised.
Grog tried to move. He couldn't. His body was frozen, his hands empty, his sword somewhere else. He tried to speak. His throat was closed.
The hero swung.
The blade came down.
Grog woke gasping.
Lira was beside him, her hand on his chest, her face pale. Her fingers were pressed against the bandages, feeling the heat radiating from the wound, feeling the way his heart hammered beneath his ribs.
"Grog. Grog, you're safe. You're in the palace. You're safe."
He stared at her. His vision was blurred, his mind foggy, his body burning. The room was spinning, the walls shifting, the faces around him blurring into shapes he couldn't name.
"Lira?"
"I'm here." She squeezed his hand. "I'm not going anywhere."
He tried to sit up. His chest screamed. The wound was still there, still burning, still spreading. He could feel it, the blackened flesh creeping across his ribs, the infection seeping into his blood.
"The rings," he said.
Lira frowned. "What?"
"The rings. The ones in my clothes. By my bed." He grabbed her wrist, his grip weak but desperate. "Bring them."
Lira looked at Mirena. Mirena nodded.
"I'll get them," Lira said. "Stay here. Don't move."
Grog almost laughed. Almost. "Where would I go?"
---
Mirena followed Lira to Grog's quarters.
The room was dark, the fire low, the bed untouched. His clothes were folded on the chair beside the window—the same clothes he had been wearing when they returned from the hills, still stained with blood, still smelling of the creature. Lira knelt beside them, her hands searching the pockets.
She found the pouch.
It was small, leather, worn smooth from years of use. She opened it. Twelve rings spilled into her palm—plain silver, unremarkable. They had been sitting there for weeks, empty, waiting.
Lira looked at Mirena. "They're cold."
Mirena reached out, touched one. It was cold. The same cold as the stones on the floor, the same cold as the air outside.
"They've been empty for a long time," Mirena said.
"They're not empty now?"
Mirena shook her head. "I don't know. But he asked for them."
Lira closed her fist around the rings. "Let's go."
---
They returned to the infirmary.
The healers had gone—sent away by Lira, who didn't trust them anymore, who didn't trust anyone who couldn't save him. The acolyte had fled sometime in the night, her prayers unfinished. Hessa had left reluctantly, her face grim, her hands stained with salves that hadn't worked.
Grog lay on the bed, his eyes closed, his breathing shallow. The blackened flesh had spread to his shoulder, down his side, toward his heart. The wound was weeping, the bandages soaked, the sheets beneath him dark with fluid.
Lira knelt beside him. "I have the rings."
He opened his eyes. They were glassy, unfocused, but he saw her. He saw the rings in her hands.
"Put them on my chest," he said. "Over the wound."
She did.
The rings were cold at first—cold as the stones on the floor, cold as the air outside, cold as the metal of her knife when she pressed it to her palm. She laid them one by one over the blackened flesh, arranged them in a pattern she didn't understand, following his whispered instructions.
One on the center of the wound. Two on either side. Three along the line of his ribs. Four across his shoulder. The rest she placed around the edges, where the blackened flesh met the healthy skin.
Then they grew warm.
Not hot—warm. A gentle heat that spread through his chest, through his side, through his blood. The blackened flesh began to recede, pulling back from the edges, shrinking away from the rings. The wound began to close, the edges knitting together, the weeping slowing.
The infection began to fade.
Mirena watched, her hand in her pocket, the stone pulsing against her palm. It was warm now, warmer than it had been, pulsing faster, matching the rhythm of the rings.
The rings were drawing something out of him. Something the creature had left behind. Something that was still in his blood.
---
The fever broke at dawn.
Grog's skin cooled, his breathing steadied, his hands unclenched. He slept—truly slept—for the first time in days. His chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm. His face, still pale, had lost the gray tinge of infection.
Lira sat beside him, her hand on his, her eyes on his face. She didn't sleep. She couldn't. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him in the clearing, saw the creature's claws raking his chest, saw the blood spreading across his shirt.
Mirena stood at the window, watching the sun rise over the hills.
The stone in her pocket had stopped pulsing. It was still now, quiet, waiting. But it was warm. Warmer than it had been before.
She looked at the rings on Grog's chest. They were warm. And they were not empty anymore.
She could feel it. Something had passed from him into them. Something that had been killing him. Something that was now contained.
She didn't know what it meant.
She didn't tell the others. Not yet.