The effigy outside is still burning, a structure of old horse bones and straw, draped in red ribbons, bleached pink and white by the sun, standing in the centre of the village square. From the flames to the daylight, the warmth isn’t comforting. It feels like blankets draped over fever, oppressive, dizzying. The structure collapses inward, timbers of bone and straw snapping in the fire. Sparks rise, caught in the late afternoon light, floating like stars lost too early. It was meant to be a cleansing rite.The villagers had pleaded for one, saying that Brigantia’s breath would turn the sickness back across the fields. They built the effigy from old remains of livestock — offerings meant to keep the Reaper’s Malady from their doors. But the flames give no solace. Serai sees not protection, but the endless hunger of fire, devouring bones already dead.

They had arrived three days earlier, the Sanctum’s carts rattling down the uneven path that opened into a village still strung with festival colors. Ribbons, painted boards, banners — all of it sagged in the damp air, untouched since sickness had stopped the dancing mid-song. The infected had been corralled into the meeting hall, and there they lay: fever-slick, eyes glassy, lips cracked from thirst. Serai moved among them, the last of his tinctures dwindling, his spells little more than whispers against the weight of the plague. The cots filled faster than he could work. The walls closed in with the smell of rot and sweat. He sent a rider back to the Sanctum, urgent seal pressed into wax: send what we have, send more, send anything.

He gave no specifics - no numbers of the ill, the dead, the children, the village. If he did, the medicine would be diverted, or delayed, or weighed against the worth of the patients. He hates the calculus of scarcity, the triage that tells him to save the “useful.” Brigantia’s teachings never asked for such things. Finch would speak himself in circles until the scripture fit.

Six days later, Mimi answered. And Serai knew he was correct.

She rode in with six Herdsmen, the earth chewing beneath their boots and hooves. They looked like a war-band, like soldiers returning from conquest, not guardians of healers. The carts they dragged rattled with iron and oiled leather, not with vials and blessed herbs. Serai met her at the square, his hands still stinking of vinegar and sickness, feeling a surge of hope at the sight: bandages, antiseptics, salted meat, dressings. And then it is gone. They are all labelled, rationed, diverted. Supplies for wounds, for soldiers. Nothing for fever. Nothing for the sick.

“Where is it?” he asked, before she had even dismounted. “The medicine?”

“Right here.” Mimi says, loud enough that the gathered Herdsmen hear her, loud enough to make her words an order rather than a cruelty. “Enough to keep the Herdsmen standing.”

“That’s not what I asked.” His voice was quieter than he wanted, but his throat felt thick. “They’re dying in there, Mimi. Children.”

Her eyes slid past him, toward the hall. She didn’t flinch, didn’t even hesitate. “They were already dying when you arrived. I brought what we needed. These men cut down a Talontar nest three nights ago. They’ll do it again, and again, until this is finished. That’s where salvation comes from. You patch the rest. That’s your duty.”

Duty. She spoke it like it was a blade, clean and sharp.

“You talk of salvation, but you mean conquest. Brigantia tends flocks; she does not count them.”

“If you’d seen what I’ve seen, you’d know flocks don’t matter if the wolves aren’t killed first.”

The other healers obeyed her without question. They turned from the villagers, binding soldiers’ arms, cleaning shallow wounds, counting rations, tightening boots. Serai watched the sick get pushed back with soft words and downcast eyes. A mother with lesions on her arms was told she’d have to wait. A boy with fever-blindness stumbled at the door and was turned away.

That night, Serai lights a lamp in the corner of the hall and works alone, grinding herbs with shaking hands, pouring what little magic remains into the children who burn with fever. His throat aches from chanting, his palms sting from the strain. It is not enough. A boy no older than Finch was when he fell ill gasps three times and then stills. A girl dies before dawn, her sister clutching her hand until rigor sets in. Six children wake without parents.

He watches Laurel’s hands shake as they unwind a roll of bandages. The fevered boy on the cot beside them stirs in restless dreams, murmuring words that make no sense. Laurel presses the cloth to his forehead, dampened from the last of the well-water. The family huddled nearby watches with eyes swollen from weeping, waiting for a promise no one can give.

He closes his eyes, leaning his head back against the stone, exhaustion wrapping around him.

“Brigantia,” he whispers, though he isn’t sure if it’s a prayer or a plea. His goddess had always been quiet — not absent, but distant, like a river that could only be heard if one stopped long enough to listen. He wonders if she is listening now. Laurel steps away, eyes closed as if they cannot bear to watch the death they’ve already accepted.

“You can see me?”

Serai jolts, eyes snapping open.

The boy on the cot is sitting upright, though his chest heaves with each breath. But his eyes — pale, clouded by the sickness that had nearly blinded him — are clear now, staring straight into Serai’s. Not past him. Not through him. At him.

Serai’s throat tightens. “What did you—?”

The boy tilts his head. Behind his gaze there is no fever, no pain. Only stillness, like the hush of grass swaying under a summer wind. When he speaks again, the voice is not his own.

“You carry my name in your heart, though your hands serve another’s war. Do not mistake cruelty for necessity. Do not mistake vengeance for justice. My herd is not the strong alone — it is the sick, the frail, the forgotten. To heal them is to honor me.”

“I tried,” he rasped. “Gods forgive me, I tried. But they won’t listen. Not Mimi, not the Sanctum, not the Church itself. They’ve chosen the sword.”

The air stirred, gentle, like a hand through his hair.

The fire roars in the square, drowning out the gasps of the family, but Serai cannot look away. The boy’s lips move with words that belong to another.

“Do not abandon the pasture for the blade. Do not forsake the river for the fire. Walk, and I will walk with you.”

The child coughs suddenly, body buckling, and his mother rushes to steady him. When he settles back into fevered sleep, his eyes are once more clouded, his breaths ragged.

Serai sits frozen, heart hammering in his ribs. His hands are trembling, not from exhaustion now, but from something that feels too much like hope — dangerous, impossible hope.

The effigy burns lower, ribbons curling into ash. Somewhere beyond the smoke, a goddess has spoken. The Herdsmen and their bloodlust could have Mimi. The Church, if it wished, could retreat behind prophecies and riddles. He would walk. He would heal indiscriminately, without tallying worth or weighing usefulness. Brigantia was not a goddess of war. She was rivers, flowing to all without prejudice. She was pasture, feeding all who entered. She was a shepherd, guarding every lamb.

The night air is cool after days of fever heat. Serai doesn’t look back. The crack of burning bone follows him out of the village square, heavier than any hymn.