To her great regret, Rhea visited Mercurio.

"It's late!" He was half-dressed as he opened the door, one eye bruised. "Oh, just a bit of training -"

"I'm leaving, Mercurio." She held out his necklace between her fingers. "Lysa's ill with Magepox, so we're going east to find someone who can help. And," with a shake of her head, she was lanced by pain and chills, "I'm with fever, sorry, but this is goodbye."

Mercurio's smile faded. Indeed, Rhea's glowing golden skin had turned pale, lips blistered and chalky, bangs casting shadows beneath her eyes so deep it made her seem ghostlike in the harsh torchlight. "You're leaving? Leaving me?" His voice was knife-sharp.

In a moment, a slick of anger. It cooled off at once.

He shook his head. She averted her eyes. "I want to say I can't repay you for -"

"For what?" Mercurio ran his fingers through the greasy locks of his hair. "You've nothing to owe me, Rhea. Come, come inside, we can talk about it, and with sense!"

"I can't, Lysa's on the cart, and I just wanted to say my thanks -" He pressed his lips onto hers, eyes closed, and held her tight and long. She pushed back, and he let her go.

"No, no. You're not finishing that thought, Rhea. Hold on." He slipped away into the dark of his house. She heard clanging, swearing, and the click of a sheath. After a few minutes, he emerged with a pack, fat, strapped with iron pots, unwicked torches, codices, blades, and a coiled recurve of fine elf bone.

Rhea shook her head. "Oh, Mercurio, no." Tears welled in her sullen eyes. "Not like this, no."

"Shush, Rhea. You don't think I don't know? I did, and I don't care." He grabbed her shoulders, "I love you. I don't know what lies in the east, but you aren't going to the edges of the realm alone. Not like this. You need someone you can trust." For a moment, in that brief exhale, he let his shoulders fall. "And I need you."

For Mercurio, the next few minutes choked him to his core. Rhea didn't say anything; she stood silent, eyes averting his gaze. Her hands rose to brush his beard, but she'd pull back at the last moment. Then, she nodded, and all the world felt light as air.

He grabbed another blade, more waterskins, some wine, old pulpy paper and other good kindling. He wrapped sheets of bronze leather around the bottom of his already-large pack and handed her a walking stick. She shook her head, but he insisted. "For the tents." She relented.

They caught up with the young Medicaler, Seamus, who was cloaked in thin hide. His teeth chattered, but he couldn't help it: his furs were wrapped around a shivering, wheezing Lysa, her fingers hanging off the toe board. Mercurio bowed to Seamus, who nodded.

The four of them, women sick, set out at once under cover of night. There were few guards and those who looked carefully needed only to see the glint of green and silver on Seamus' arms and finery. "My leech-aids," he told them, eyes on the girls. They were there to help him in some far-off town. Every guard believed him. He was a Medicaler, after all.

Rhea sat by Lysa's side, hunched over, her long hair caressing the blankets. Mercurio sat in the back, a hand on the dagger tied to his bandolier, watching Ardalsalam recede. Though the walls had long turned cold, the minarets still shined with a holy flame. Splashes of coral fire licked its white walls. The granite fortress, once cloaked in light, turned to mere stone and melted into the night. Rustle and bustle snapped to babbles and rushes, and the stars soon scattered beneath the black leaves of black trees.

Hand on the wick, Seamus lit a torch and let it hang off the lamp socket. Light danced on the road, showing leaves fluttering with glee and eyes twinkling from creeping bushes. At times he'd cast a glance, askew to Lysa, but kept himself silent.

The highway made leaving a short trip. It wasn't long before they reached the edge of the farms and would see the pillars of the western Wraithwoods rise into view. Even in the darkness, they'd pass the wandering glows of marshalling companies, of pilgrims and merchants making dangerous way. Rhea had seen the scatterers when she worked on the eastern front, but Mercurio, who'd been a city boy all his life, leaned forward with wild joy. Perhaps if she'd be well, she would've conversed with him, wrapped in his warm arms and together, they'd smoke a good pipe with dried fruit and cheap wine.

Perhaps it was better they didn't; she didn't know, not then. Her head was stinging.

It wasn't long before disaster struck.

It began with Mercurio complaining about an odd tug in the back of his head, like a weight stuck in his brain. A tickle crawled up his throat, and no matter what he'd drink, it'd refuse to go away. Goosebumps rose from his arms, and his flesh soon washed with red patches stretching from his shoulders to his wrists. Whenever he scratched it, it'd get worse, tightening his skin into ropey knots. No amount of bloodletting nor magic seemed to help, and he exhausted all their water before long.

Two days after they left Ardalsalam, four days before they'd reach Witchway, they stopped at Pander's Spring, a gold tarn of hot water smelling of death. As Mercurio stumbled out of the carriage, his paling face hit the ground, and he broke out into a fever.

Still sick, Rhea rushed to get him up, but he chattered so loudly and heavily it seemed he was going to break his teeth. "Ser Medicaler!" She yelled to Seamus. He'd been healing Lysa all morning, whose joints curled like wet wood and eyes turned slate as mountain fog. "Ser Medicaler, please!"

"Shut up, shut up!" Sweat ran down his brow. "I'm trying to help her here, can't you see?" The morning had hit all of them particularly hard, but Lysa's condition worsened at a striking pace. They heard her rustle in the middle of the night, the pang of pops at odd hours, but they hadn't expected her to turn to stone. Between casts, he'd slap Lysa to attention, but she remained unresponsive. Blood and bile escaped her lips, not as foul droplets, but a mist, deep black and red, like a winter's breath.

Mercurio, on the other hand, was finding it difficult to speak. His mouth locked up, and all energy left him shortly after. He punched his fists into the ground and pushed himself up, his eyes blood red with snot running from his nostrils. "Come, Mercurio," Rhea whispered. Her headache was driving her to her wits' end. "Get up."

"I'm...I'm getting up," He whimpered through the click-clacks firing from his lips. "I'm getting up."

"Come on, steady yourself." Rhea slung his arm around her shoulder and got him up. "Ser Medicaler, please, heal him."

"I can't let Lysa perish, Rhea. She needs help!"

"But so does Mercurio, and you've been at this long enough!" She grabbed him by the shoulder. Though her grip was firm for one as sick as she, her fingers continued trembling. "We need to get her to the Sentinel witches, and I can't do that by myself - you can't do that by yourself!" She let go.

The light faded, and Seamus, sweaty and tired, cracked his knuckles. "Keep an eye on Lysa." He asked her. She nodded.

Lysa was getting paler, and her skin smelled of seawater. Slime clung to her skin, which seeped out from ridges rolling under her skin. Bent over, Rhea brushed her hair away. Once sleek, now greasy.

"Rhea. Rhea." Lysa whispered through cracked lips. "Rhea."

"I'm here." They clasped hands. "Don't go, Lysa. Don't go."

Tears began to stream down her face. "Rhea."

"Yes?"

"He's coming."

Rhea frowned. "Who's coming?"

"The man. He's coming for me."

"What man?"

"He's in black. All black. He's coming to get me." She grimaced, eyes looking past everyone. "I'm burning. He's taking me..."

"No, no. No. Seamus!" At her call, Seamus stopped at once and rushed over. "I don't care, but get us to Sentinel at once; we need help right now! How fast can you move this carriage?"

"It'll take a while to -"

"Then take the saddle; we've no time!" She rummaged through the trunk. Baubles, bottles, blades. A flash of leather and iron. There it was!

They unhooked the horse from the yoke, and Seamus slung the saddle over. "I'll take Lysa, and you take Mercurio." His eyes darted through the gaps between the boughs. "Do you know where to go?"

"East, the road downhill, till the sign cracks into lightning."

"Yes! The very one!" He mounted the mare but remembered something at the last minute. Out of his satchel came a small book of prayers. His knife pierced the back cover, and with it, he wrote three sentences. Rhea couldn't read any of them. "Follow these signs after the road cracks, and they'll take you to Sentinel. And," Seamus removed his outer gambeson and threw it to her, "you'll need it more than I." The silver sigil of the Medicaler was on the scruff. With those words, he galloped off with Lysa, who still murmured of hellfire.

That left Rhea and Mercurio alone at the tarn. The other horse waited, but there was a problem: she could scarcely ride. In the past, her hold on the reins was guided by the soldiers she'd flattered, and the only soldier here was chattering, hands not calm enough to steer.

But she couldn't give the Medicaler boy room to doubt, not when Lysa's life hung by a thread. She ignored the pain, stumbled to the saddle, and dragged Mercurio on. With the knife from his bandolier, she trimmed her hair so short it chilled her nape and then hid the scarlet band beneath her furs and her chattering teeth behind a mask. Together, they trotted out of the forest. She tried to muster a gallop but failed.

If she hadn't been ill, perhaps she would have enjoyed this. Seamus' overcoat was a bit large, but he was a tiny man, and thus it fit her well enough. At times, the cold metal of his sigil would kiss her neck, but she quickly grew to love the feeling. A power welled inside her, and even as her skull thumped, thoughts rushed through her head of Ser Rhea, Medicaler, house unnamed and sigil unsmithed, but Medicaler regardless! The trot made it feel all the more true: night air running its fingers through your hair, the arms of someone around your waist, the muscle of a beast moving like another limb. Thank God for this miasma! To give her freedom even as she slowly fell apart, thank God!

Was this what Sophia felt the moment she tasted freedom? When she left the Imperial College and could call herself whore no more?

Why didn't Rhea follow her?

It wasn't long before they ran across highwaymen. Slinking out of the shadows, Rhea saw the meagre glint of iron from their old blades. Her heart fell. How could she take them on? When her hand shifted to Mercurio, hoping he'd swell a bit of muster, they broke their wall and let her pass.

One half-toothed man, bald and big, bowed at the shine of her robes. "'ope it all goes, Ser Medicaler."

Hold yourself, Rhea. Hold yourself. Calm. Do what they've always done. Eyes half-drooped, cast down, shoulders up, white-knuckled hands clenched around the reins, she lowered her head, but with the slightest, politest nod. "You are too generous for this child of the cinders." She deepened her register. Medicalers always spoke with heft, that heft.

"We shan't hold you on your mission." And with that, she trotted past them into the open fields of the east.

The bandits were not the only folks she'd come across: travellers and parish folk would bow at her presence, and it was only in the country that she realized just how valuable the coat of green and silver truly was.

It wasn't long before she ran into a problem.

They reached the main road before noon, populated with morning travel. Most looked on with faint curiosity and respect: a woman riding a horse as a soldier slumped with his face buried in her back, his arms locked around her waist.

Her eyes shot from stare to stare, ears trained to the whistle of a sword. It was because of her concentration that Rhea nearly ran over the woman who flung herself in front of her horse. She was witheringly old, pale, eyes fat and red, bursting with tears. "Ser Medicaler!" She wailed at Rhea's feet. "Ser Medicaler!"

Rhea tensed up. It was not a bow or curtsy, no polite wave or grace. This woman needed a Medicaler, and here Rhea was, a scarlet woman wrapped in a smoke knight's gambeson.

Throat sore from a morning of deep voices, Rhea spat a growl. "What ails you?" She tried to keep the arrogant roar of every Medicaler she worked with, that absolute confidence that they'd show as they sat high horse, looking down at sick serfs. "Come, tell me!"

"My son, Ser Medicaler, he's taxed with Wort, only a few days ago! Please!"

Rhea's hands trembled. Her mind shook. Every little movement made the pounding in her skull even worse. To fall into a lie was easy, but to lie was hard. "Bring me to him." Perhaps there was something she could do.

There was nothing.

The boy was filthy, and worst off, treatable: he was farmer-tanned, ox-built, drenched in a golden vomit, which slowly turned his skin into sheets of chitin and pus. Scabs cracked like a moult, peeling off in flakes as white as snow, afflicting him from his hand to his shoulders. He looked at Rhea with desperate eyes.

Shiverwort. Oh no. Medicalers can fix Shiverwort.

Perhaps, had Rhea not been on that road at that time, had she not been sick and feverish, had she not had Mercurio's wellbeing on her mind, things might've gone down differently. She might've told the woman the truth, let her shoulders fall and walked away. Nobody would have been better off, but at least everyone would know.

But she didn't. Instead, Rhea shook her head. With her sad theatrics, she refused to dismount and trotted on, leaving the two of them powerless in the shadow of her horse. Having fallen into a lie, Rhea tried to lie, and poorly, "I will only treat with talents."

"We've coin, Ser Medicaler! Yes, we've got it!" The old woman proudly produced a small bag of dirty gold, her hands thrusting it in Rhea's face. Rhea grabbed it, and with the woman's expectant smile, shook her head.

"This is not enough." She handed the bag to the old woman, whose face fell. Keep it together, Rhea told herself. Do not break.

"Oh, I see." The mother cried. "But, please, tell me of your sigil's house, my late husband, he's got land. We've land! We can part or provide for you later when we reach the Vsil-"

"It must be now. If you wish your son to live, I demand more. Now." Whispers hung around them, but Rhea kept her composure. Do. Not. Break.

Now is not the time. Not a tear, Rhea. Not a tear.

The old woman cried and tried to give Rhea the coins again. "Please, my son..."

"Cannot be helped." Rhea nodded but continued on.

The son, pale-eyed and tired, was in no short supply of disgrace and fury as he watched his old mother crumble. He burned Rhea's face into his mind and cursed her sigil under his breath.

Rhea's heart sunk lower than ever. She kept going until she heard whispers no more, but by then, she could no longer cry.

It had been nearly three days now, and Edgar held his mother's cold hand. She passed away in the night sometime, apologizing to him. His breath was becoming strained, each rise and fall of his chest tearing his skin apart.

A few travellers passed him by, most turned away by his horrific visage. Shiverwort had grown over much of his body, and soon he would look no different than any other crag, log, or mound.

Eyes closed, he heard the click of metal greaves and the whinny of a horse. With what little energy remained, he opened them to see a glint of green and silver. He had no power left to spit. "Come to taunt me? No gold, we've no gold. Stolen what meagre lot you demanded by bandits. How the cinder children have fall...to do what you do."

"This Shiverwort is too far to be healed, as talkative as this man is." That voice; it wasn't the Medicaler from the other day. A gentler woman. Her long hair brushed his skin and tickled what few nerves he had left. He let in a little more light.

She was petite, eyes stern, her hands on the ridges of his skin. "Fate would have us miss by merely a few days, it seems."

Edgar tried to laugh, but all that came out was a hacking wheeze. "It seems. Your scum lot...tried. I've no money to pay you. No money to steal. Gone by bandits. Let me die in peace, it'd be more mercy than you gave my mother. Humiliated. No money. Stolen. By bandits, stolen."

She frowned. "Has the Order fallen so far to extort from smallfolk?" She looked down the empty road and then turned to Edgar. "This Wort is too far gone, but I've a solution."

"No lies and jokes. Let me die with pride. Peasant's pride. Give me that."

"Dying with pride does you no good. But," she produced a small red ruby. It shined in the afternoon sun with sparkling moonlight, "I can help you. I require soldiers, and I -"

"I'd see your Order burn to the ground. Useless! Charlatans! Let me burn, smoke knight. You save me, and I'll kill yer kind."

She gave a sinister grin, from ear to ear. "Then we've the same goal. What's your name?"

He shuddered at the words, and though he could scarcely, shuddered at the smile. "...Edgar."

"Edgar. My name is Marcia, and I would love no more than to see that fetid Order turn to ashes. Help me, and I'll help you."

He looked at his mother. "What must I do?"

"Close your eyes; I'll fix you."

"Thank you, ser Marcia."

"It might be easier to call me General. I'm not yet used to this girl."