Chapter 18: Whispers in the Blood
The next morning dawned with an eerie calm. Mist clung stubbornly to the village streets, refusing to lift even as the sun rose higher. It was as if the land itself sensed what had been disturbed in the forest.
Elric moved through the clinic like a ghost—quiet, methodical, haunted. His hands tended wounds, his voice offered comfort, but his mind remained anchored to the image of the Tree, to Cai's vacant eyes, and to Selene's cryptic words.
"You've barely touched your tea," Lira said, setting down a bowl of herbs beside him.
"I don't have time for tea."
"You don't have time for collapsing either," she shot back, folding her arms.
Elric looked up. His eyes were red-rimmed from a night without sleep. "He's still feverish. Whatever the Tree showed him... it's affecting more than his mind."
Lira glanced at the boy resting in the spare room. His forehead glistened with sweat, and his limbs jerked now and then like a puppet caught in invisible strings.
"We should send for someone," she said. "Another healer."
"No," Elric said, too quickly. "No one else can know. Not yet."