The words hit me like a punch to the gut. "Tampered? How?"
Agnos's face darkened, the usual calmness replaced by something colder, something I hadn't seen in him before. "Must be the magical artifact. It must have been used on him for another purpose. Something powerful. Something... dangerous."
Baku's moaning intensified, and I stepped forward again, but Agnos stopped me with a sharp glance. "Don't," he said firmly. "Let him work through it."
I hesitated, but then I looked at Baku again—he was trembling, clearly caught in some kind of mental wringer that I couldn't even begin to understand. I looked back at Agnos, hoping for some kind of answer that could ease the knot in my chest.
"There's only one artifact that could do something like this," Agnos continued, his voice tight. "And it belongs to one of the servants of the Unknown Gods."
