The world was noise.
Steel clanged like drums. Voices rose in a storm that battered the canvas walls of the tent until they shook like sails caught in a gale. My body was a furnace of fire and ice, veins pulsing with fever, every breath cutting like glass. The cot beneath me pitched and shuddered as though the ground itself wanted to cast me away.
Outside, the mob grew louder.
"He's cursed!"
"Kill him before it spreads!"
"We bleed because of him!"
"Break the vessel!"
The words carried weight, heavy enough to crush bone. They pressed through the tent walls, pressed into my chest until my heart pounded to their rhythm.
Garron's voice cut back against them, a growl sharpened to a blade.
"You'll not touch him!"
