Chapter 3: The Illness Within
It had only been two days since Ivy's nightmare returned, but it felt like the world had aged a decade.
The joyful songs that had once filled Delhelm's streets were gone. In their place—silence. And the silence was louder than any scream.
Every morning, more people fell ill.
By noon, the palace infirmary had overflowed.
And by nightfall, the whispers began:
"Is this the return of the dark magic?"
"Did something follow the king and queen back?"
"Are we cursed again?"
---
Isen sat in the palace courtyard, staring at a crumpled note in his hand.
"The healer Elia has taken ill."
The same young woman who had first warned Ivy… now lay unconscious in her own ward.
Footsteps approached—Tenley, her face pale beneath her usual iron resolve.
"It's spreading faster. Too fast."
Isen looked up. "What about the boy from the market?"
She shook her head slowly.
Gone.
A name without breath.
Isen stood. "We need answers. We need to know where this began."
---
That evening, Ivy, Orien, and Tenley rode with Isen toward the edge of the kingdom—east of the capital, where the first flare of sickness had been seen. The streets were emptier now, shadows stretching like hands.
They reached the eastern market at dusk.
It was once vibrant with color, with laughter, with spice in the air. Now… it was grey. Deserted. Silent.
Only one person remained—a blind beggar, sitting at the foot of a broken well, humming a haunting lullaby.
Ivy approached slowly. "Sir… do you know what happened here?"
The beggar tilted his head. "The wind spoke first," he murmured. "Before the fever. Before the coughing. It whispered in the walls."
Tenley frowned. "The wind?"
Orien crouched beside him. "Did you see anyone bring something? A traveler? A stranger?"
The beggar nodded slowly. "A woman. Cloaked in black. She walked through the fog, left something in the well. When she vanished, the water turned sour. And then… the children started coughing."
Ivy's blood ran cold. "What did she leave?"
But the beggar only started humming again.
And no more answers came.
---
Back in the palace, Aiden wandered the halls alone.
He hated being treated like a child.
He hated the way people stopped talking when he entered a room.
He hated the fear he saw in his mother's eyes.
But what he hated most… was the sound of coughing echoing from behind every door.
He turned a corner—then froze.
A palace guard was leaning against the wall, breathing heavily, his eyes bloodshot. Black veins curled up his neck like smoke.
"Sir?" Aiden whispered.
The guard turned—and collapsed.
Aiden screamed.
---
Ivy and Isen rushed into the palace as night fell, the scream still ringing.
They found Aiden sobbing beside the unconscious guard, his hands shaking.
"I didn't touch him, I swear! I just saw him—he fell!"
Ivy held him tight. "You're alright. You're safe."
But Isen looked at the guard—and saw the same marks they'd seen in the market.
This wasn't just spreading.
It was inside their walls.
---
By the next morning, Ivy stood in the tower window, watching a crow circle above the garden.
Below, children played. Women washed clothes. The castle gates remained guarded. But it was all… fragile.
Too fragile.
She clutched her necklace—the ancient one that once protected her—and whispered, "What is this? Where is it coming from?"
Behind her, Tenley entered, a scroll in hand.
"We may have found something," she said. "In the old archives."
She placed it on the table.
An old legend. A forgotten plague. A name scratched in fading ink:
The Mourning Fog.
A darkness that once swept across kingdoms in ancient times.
Brought not by man… but summoned by blood.
It lived in breath. In shadow. In water.
And it could not be killed—only sealed.
The final line chilled Ivy's soul:
> "The seal can only be broken when the lost bloodline returns… through doorways never meant to open again."
Ivy gasped.
The magical door.
The return.
Them.
She turned to Tenley, eyes wide. "We didn't bring the sickness back."
Tenley's jaw tightened. "We let it out."