Two threads of gold and black floated across the recovery room. Their trajectory touched every elf on the beds and then connected them to Arthur himself. As the golden thread pulsed with life, the black one pulsed with wrath.
At the same time, Tiara raised her hands to cast a veil of recovery on the patients to ease their pain. Arthur and the elven princess worked together to heal them, and they began waking one by one.
"That was the last of them," Arthur announced as he nodded toward Tiara. "What should we do now?"
"It would benefit Malrik if we understood what led to their infection," Tiara said as she began helping them stand. The twenty elves began telling her about what happened before they were infected.
Arthur frowned as he heard their tales. The survivors spoke of an army of mutant monsters touched by famine, led by an elf with long dark hair. Everything it touched would mutate into something otherworldly, dark, and inhuman.
