"Jordan—"
"We're mates, Ruka." I closed the distance between us, my voice dropping to a fierce whisper. "Partners. That meansyour fight is my fight. Your danger is my danger. Whatever nightmare is waiting for us in that village, we face it side by side."
Something flickered across his face—pride, fear, frustration, love, all tangled together in a knot too complex to unravel. His jaw clenched, and I could practically see the battle raging inside him. Every protective instinct screamed at him to send me away, warring against his respect for what I was claiming. What we were to each other.
Finally, he exhaled through his nose and gave a single, sharp nod. "Together. But you stay behind me."
I could live with that.
The village swallowed us in its eerie stillness, our footsteps muffled by the thick carpet of pine needles and moss. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath, as if afraid to disturb whatever had transformed the once vibrant village into a ghost town.
Doors gaped open like slack mouths, their hinges creaking a slow, rhythmic dirge. A basket of half-woven reeds sat abandoned beside one dwelling, the artisan's work frozen mid-creation—as though they'd simply vanished between one breath and the next. The fire pits stood cold and dark, their ashes scattered by the breeze. No children darted between the structures. No voices rose in conversation or song. No life.
The wrongness of it crawled across my skin like ice.
Ruka prowled ahead, every movement liquid and lethal, his blade catching fragments of light that filtered through the canopy. He was all predator now—head tilting to catch sounds beyond my hearing, nostrils flaring as he tasted the air for threats I couldn't perceive. The muscles beneath his shirt coiled and released with each careful step.
"Ruka?" My whisper barely disturbed the air.
His hand snapped up, commanding silence. Then he pointed toward the common house, where the large structureloomed like a sleeping beast. His voice emerged as little more than breath against my ear. "There. Something's moving inside."
I strained to hear whatever his senses had detected, but the silence remained absolute. Still, I'd learned to trust his instincts.
We crept toward the common house, each step deliberate, measured. The door hung ajar, darkness pooling beyond it. Then I heard it too—a low, broken moan that raised every hair on my arms. Another sound followed, softer. A whimper. The unmistakable music of suffering.
My medical training surged forward, drowning out fear in a flood of purpose. Someone was hurt. Someone needed me.
Ruka's hand closed around my arm before I could move—gentle but unyielding, an anchor holding me in place. "Careful," he breathed against my temple. "We don't know what's waiting."
He was right, of course. But that sound—that raw, vulnerable sound of pain—hooked into my chest and pulled. I met his eyes and nodded, and together we approached the threshold.
Ruka eased the door open with his free hand, blade still poised to strike, his body a living shield between me and whatever lurked within.
What we found was far worse than the remains of a battle.
The common house had transformed into a cathedral of suffering. Bodies everywhere—pressed together on furs, huddled against walls, sprawled across every inch of floor. The entire village, it seemed, had been swallowed by this place.
The children were the worst. Their small forms lay amidst the larger ones like fallen leaves, their faces painted with fever, breathing labored. A little girl lay closest to us, maybe five years old, her skin erupting in angry welts that made my medical instincts scream warnings I desperately wanted to ignore. Herwhimper was a ghost of sound, her tiny fingers grasping at empty air, searching for comfort.
Near the fire, the elders had claimed their territory—thoughclaimedsuggested choice, and there was nothing voluntary about this gathering. Ancient faces contorted in agony, bodies that had survived decades now trembling beneath thin blankets. One old woman's gaze locked onto mine, and the plea in those rheumy eyes hit harder than any words could.
But the truly terrifying part? The warriors were down too. Men and women who could hunt for days without rest, who embodied strength itself lay diminished, their powerful frames reduced by the unseen enemy that had swept through this place like wildfire.
Then the smell crashed over me. Sweat and sickness, yes, but underneath it all lurked something darker. The scent of bodies waging war against an enemy they couldn't see, couldn't fight, couldn't defeat.
"By the gods," Ruka breathed, his blade finally dropping as the full horror registered.
I was already in motion, physician mode activated, even as ice crystallized in my veins. Because I knew those lesions. I'd seen them in dusty medical texts, in grainy historical photos, in bioterrorism seminars I'd sat through half-asleep, never imagining they'd matter.
This was impossible. This was extinct. This was—
I dropped to my knees beside the nearest patient, and the high fever, raspy breathing and distinctive pustules confirmed what my racing mind had already concluded, what every fiber of my being wanted to deny.
Oh god. Oh no.
Ruka became my shadow as I moved through the makeshift infirmary, his warmth at my back the only thing keeping me grounded as the nightmare unfolded patient bypatient. I felt the weight of his gaze tracking my every movement—the way I checked pulses with trembling fingers, examined tongues with growing dread, examined the raised lesions that bloomed across skin like some grotesque garden in various stages of terrible flowering.
"What is it?" His voice cut through the fog of my racing thoughts as he crouched beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from him while I examined a young warrior whose chest rose and fell in desperate, shallow gasps.