I can feel the sickness in the stones beneath my boots. It pulses up through the soles, a dull throb like a dying heartbeat. The alley reeks of mildew and iron—someone bled out here recently. I press my palm against the damp brick wall, letting the vision come.

Flashes: a hooded figure dragging a body, symbols carved into flesh, a whisper in a language that scrapes my bones. Then, the vine—black, veined with crimson, creeping from a sewer grate, wrapping around the corpse’s ankle.

This is the third sighting this week. The Blight isn’t spreading. It’s hunting.

My arm burns where the Warden mark coils from wrist to elbow. I haven’t used it in days, afraid of what the pain might bring—the voices, the visions, the risk of losing myself. But if I don’t act, more will die. And if the Council finds out I’ve been tracking this alone, they’ll brand me rogue.

A sound behind me. Footsteps. Too light to be guards. Too steady to be a beggar.

I have seconds to decide: draw my dagger and confront whoever’s there, vanish into the shadows and keep running, or press my hand harder against the wall and dive deeper into the vision—knowing I might not come back whole.