The night passed slowly, each moment stretching longer than the last as Elysara tossed and turned in her bed. Her mind refused to quiet, the image of the Nyrren still vivid in her thoughts.
She rolled onto her side, clutching the soft quilt tighter, but the weight of the unease in her chest only grew heavier. The quiet outside, usually a balm to her mind, now felt suffocating. The moonlace, the wolfsbane, and now the Nyrren—everything seemed to be unraveling all at once.
Sleep never came. By the time the clock struck 4 a.m., she was still wide awake, staring at the ceiling, her thoughts racing. She had to do something. She had to understand what was happening before it was too late.
Suddenly, the quiet of the night was shattered by a loud, frantic banging at the door.
Elysara jolted upright, her heart leaping into her throat. She scrambled out of bed, her bare feet cold against the wooden floor, her breath shallow with panic. Who could be at the door at this hour? With everything that had been happening in the garden, her pulse quickened in fear.
The knocking came again, even more desperate this time.
"Grandmother?" Elysara's voice was hoarse with dread as she rushed toward the door.
There was no response. She quickly pulled open the door, her breath catching in her throat as she faced the woman standing before her.
The woman was barely standing at all, her gaunt frame swaying on unsteady legs. Her skin was pale, almost ashen, and her body was covered in ugly, swollen bumps, filled with pus and blood, oozing as they erupted from her skin in painful, grotesque patches. Her eyes were glassy, clouded with fever, and her shallow, labored breaths rattled in her chest as she tried to speak.
"Please… help," the woman rasped, her voice a broken whisper. Her body trembled violently, as if it couldn't decide whether to burn with fever or succumb to some unseen chill.
Elysara's heart pounded in her chest, panic rising like a tide. She'd never seen anything like this before—this wasn't just a sickness. This wasn't just a disease.
The woman's condition was far beyond anything Elysara could understand. She stepped forward without thinking, fear surging through her body.
"Hold on," she whispered, her voice shaking. "I'll get help. Please, just hold on."
The woman's eyes fluttered, and she collapsed into Elysara's arms, too weak to remain standing. Elysara gasped in horror as the weight of the woman's body hit her, her skin burning hot, and the sickening sight of the sores oozing onto her own arms.
"Grandmother!" Elysara cried out, her voice full of panic and desperation. "Aureth!"
Her grandmother's soft voice came from inside the house, muffled by the walls. "Elysara? What's wrong?"
"Please, come quickly!" Elysara's heart was racing now, each second feeling like an eternity. "There's a woman—she's—she's—sick! So sick. Please, you have to help her!"
In an instant, Aureth appeared at her side, her calm demeanor a stark contrast to the chaos surrounding them. But even she froze when she saw the woman's condition, her breath catching in her throat. The weight of the situation settled in her gaze as she knelt beside Elysara, her hands already moving to examine the woman's body with practiced care.
"By the gods…" Aureth whispered, her voice barely audible.
Elysara stepped back, watching in horror as her grandmother gently pressed her fingers to the woman's swollen skin, inspecting the lesions and the feverish body that barely seemed to be holding together.
"There's something wrong," Aureth murmured, more to herself than to Elysara.
"Is she…" Elysara couldn't finish the question. She didn't want to know, but she needed to.
Aureth glanced at her granddaughter, her expression grim, and then turned her attention back to the woman, gently lifting her head, trying to find some sign of life beneath the fever and the pus-filled sores.
"I'm not sure," Aureth said softly, her voice laced with concern. "But we need to get her inside. We need to stabilize her."
Elysara nodded, her hands shaking as she helped her grandmother support the woman's frail form.
Aureth worked in silence, her hands moving expertly as she prepared a series of potions. The mixture was dark, viscous, smelling of bitter heros and strange, earthy undertones. She murmured incantations under her breath, the magic flowing from her fingertips as she dipped a cloth into the potion and pressed it gently to the woman's forehead.
Elysara, however, could hardly keep still. Her heart raced in her chest, every moment slipping away as the woman's condition worsened.
The woman's skin was taking on a sickly green hue, as though the life was being drained from her. Her body trembled, and her shallow breaths came in ragged, painful gasps. It was a slow, agonizing process, one that Elysara had never witnessed before.
"She's dying, isn't she?" Elysara whispered, to her grandmother. Her hands clenched into fists, nails digging into her palms as she tried to stay composed.
Aureth's brow furrowed, her eyes never leaving the woman's body. "I don't know," she said quietly. "But l'll do everything I can to save her. We need to keep her alive long enough to understand what's happening."
Aureth wasted no time as she rushed to a locked chest that Elysara had rarely seen her open. The heavy lid creaked, revealing its mysterious contents: ancient, worn texts, their leather bindings cracked with age, alongside vials of shimmering liquids and bundles of dried herbs that filled the air with a sharp, earthy aroma.
Elysara stood frozen for a moment, watching her grandmother pull out an old, rune-inscribed book. The symbols on its cover seemed to glimmer faintly in the candlelight, and Aureth's fingers hovered over them with reverence before she flipped through its delicate pages.
She began pulling vials and jars from the chest, her hands moving with a practiced urgency. There was no hesitation, no wasted motion as she measured out powders, crushed herbs, and poured shimmering liquids into a small bowl. The mixture hissed and steamed as she stirred it, releasing an acrid scent that stung Elysara's nose.
"What can I do?" Elysara asked, stepping closer, her voice trembling.
Aureth didn't look up. "Fetch me the moonlace petals from the high shelf. And stay close to her. Speak to her if you can. Sometimes the spirit clings to a familiar voice when the body begins to let go."
Elysara nodded and hurried to retrieve the petals, her heart racing as she placed them in her grandmother's outstretched hand.
Aureth added them to the mixture, the potion turning from a murky brown to a deep, glowing gold. She whispered under her breath, a chant in a language Elysara didn't recognize. The air around them seemed to thrum softly, the magic in the room growing palpable.
The woman on the bed twitched, her body still wracked with tremors. Her breathing was shallow, her skin an unnatural greenish hue, and her chest seemed to pulse with every weak beat of her heart.
"Hold her hand," Aureth instructed, her voice calm but firm. "She's fighting, but she's slipping. We must give her something to hold onto."
Elysara knelt by the bed and took the woman's clammy hand in hers, her touch gentle. "You're safe now," she whispered, though she wasn't sure if the woman could hear her. "We're going to help you. Please, just hold on."
Aureth dipped a cloth into the potion and pressed it gently to the woman's forehead, her chest, and the palms of her hands. As she did, she began chanting again, her voice low and melodic, the words carrying an ancient weight that seemed to fill the room. The potion glowed faintly against the woman's fevered skin, spreading like liquid light.
The effect was almost immediate. The woman's violent tremors began to subside, her labored breathing evened out, and the dark veins creeping across her skin halted their advance. Though the sickly green hue remained, her body relaxed, her expression softening from one of agony to a fragile calm.
"She's stabilizing," Elysara said, her voice tinged with hope.
Aureth didn't respond at first, her focus unbroken as she painted intricate patterns on the woman's chest with the potion, following the guidance of the runes in her book. The air felt heavy, as if the house itself was holding its breath, and Elysara could feel the faint vibration of magic in her bones.
When Aureth finally spoke, her voice was quieter, but still resolute. "The potion has dulled the pain and slowed the spread of the poison, but this isn't a cure. It's a reprieve."
Elysara looked down at the woman, whose chest now rose and fell in a steady rhythm. "But she's sleeping. She's… peaceful."
"For now," Aureth said, closing the ancient book with a heavy sigh. "But the darkness inside her hasn't been banished. It's still there, waiting."
"Will she wake up?" Elysara asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I don't know," Aureth admitted. "What we've done tonight has bought her time, but unless we can find the source of this curse, her body won't be able to fight it off for long."
The heaviness of the statement settled over Elysara like a weight, but she clung to the faint hope in her grandmother's words. The woman was alive, for now. And that was something.
For the first time since the frantic knock at their door, the room was quiet. The woman lay still, her expression no longer twisted in pain, and the faint hum of Aureth's magic lingered in the air like a comforting warmth.
Elysara leaned forward, brushing a strand of damp hair from the woman's face. "We'll figure it out," she whispered. "We'll save you."
Aureth placed a hand on her granddaughter's shoulder, her touch both grounding and reassuring. "Rest for now, child. The battle isn't over, and we'll need all our strength for what's to come."