The horn called again before Derrick reached the gate.
He counted the calls because counting gave his mind work.
One meant someone had seen movement outside the wall.
Two meant a name had been called and no one had answered.
Three meant the gate crew was awake, angry, and scared.
The third call had gone out while he was still under the trees. Derrick kept walking because stopping would leave him with the dark, the wet leaves, and what had happened in the woods. His basket hung from his good arm. Roots knocked together inside it with each step. Mud pulled at his feet. His torn sleeve stuck to the claw marks on his forearm, then peeled loose, then stuck again.
He almost dropped the basket twice.
He did not let go. Roots were food. Food was a reason to open the gate.
The palisade came into view through rain and smoke. Lanterns moved along the wall walk. The village did not have soldiers. It had farmers with spears, fence menders with mallets, and old men who knew where to stand when something came out of the trees. A lantern lifted near the gate.
"Derrick?"
Rynn.
Derrick pulled his tunic closer with his hurt hand and regretted it at once. Pain ran from wrist to elbow. Under the cloth at his chest, the gold mark warmed like a coal covered with ash.
Do not show them.
That thought was his own. It sounded scared enough to trust.
"Derrick! Answer."
"Here," he said.
His voice came out thin.
The gate gap brightened. Rynn stood between the posts with a short spear in both hands. It had been re-bound since the Acousten attack, the new cord lighter than the old wood. Behind him, Jorren leaned against the wall with his bad knee wrapped, holding a lantern instead of a weapon. Another man dragged at the crossbar. Halen was there too, crouched behind a stack of split poles and doing a poor job of hiding.
Rynn looked Derrick over fast. Feet. Hands. Basket. Face. Trees behind him.
Then he saw the blood.
"Open it," Rynn said.
"Ask him what followed," Jorren said.
"Open it first."
The bar scraped free. Two men pulled Derrick inside by the elbows before he had time to step properly through. The gate shut behind him. The bar dropped back into place with a wet knock that made Derrick flinch.
Rynn kept the spear low, but the point still faced Derrick's legs.
"What followed you?"
"Nothing."
"Did you check?"
"I looked."
"Looking once is how fools bring teeth to the gate."
"I looked more than once."
Rynn turned his head. "Jorren, watch the trees."
"I am watching."
"Watch harder."
Jorren grunted and raised the lantern.
Derrick lifted the basket. His arm shook. "I found roots. By the stream. Some are split, but most are good."
No one reached for it.
"Take it," Derrick said. "Please."
Jorren looked at Rynn. Rynn looked at the blood again.
"Where were you cut?"
"Arm."
"I can see the arm. What cut it?"
"A bird."
Halen leaned out from behind the poles. "A Tuftest?"
"Get back," Rynn snapped.
"I only asked."
"Ask from farther away."
Halen slid back one step and no farther.
Derrick held the basket out again. "The roots."
The horn blower, Vessa's sister by the look of her sharp nose and sharper eyes, took it from him at last. She peered into the basket, then at his wrist.
"He is dripping on them."
"Then wash them," Rynn said.
"Blood wash or mud wash?"
"Both."
It was a stupid argument. It helped. People argued about roots only when they expected to be alive long enough to eat them.
Derrick tried to stand straighter. His legs gave half an inch. He caught the gate post with his good hand.
Rynn noticed. "Mara!"
"Do not shout my mother awake," Halen said. "She hates that."
Mara's voice came from the rain before anyone saw her. "Then give me a reason not to be awake."
She crossed the lane with no shawl, hair wet against her temples, a bucket in one hand and a cloth bundle in the other. She did not ask permission to take Derrick's arm. She caught his wrist, turned it toward lantern light, and held it still while he tried not to pull away.
Her thumb pressed just below the claw marks.
Derrick hissed.
"Four cuts," she said.
"Branch," Derrick said.
Mara looked at him.
He looked away first.
"Branches do not walk in fours."
Rynn's hands tightened on the spear. "What bird?"
"Large," Derrick said.
"How large?"
"Larger than Tuftest."
"Everything is larger than Tuftest."
Mara took the basket from the horn blower and shoved it back into her hands properly. "To Vessa. Now. Sort the good ones before the mud eats them. If any are cut too deep, feed scrap."
The woman went.
Mara hooked her fingers under Derrick's good arm. "Walk."
"I can."
"Then prove it in a straight line."
He managed three steps before his feet dragged.
Rynn moved beside them. "He should answer before he goes inside."
"He can answer while I keep his arm from rotting off."
"If it is corruption, the arm is not the only problem."
"If it is bleeding, it is my problem first."
Rynn had no answer ready. He kept walking.
At the gate table, an old woman with one sleeve rolled to the elbow had already set out what the horn call required: a clay bowl, a strip of boiled cloth, a cup of ash paste, and a hooked needle for pulling splinters. She looked annoyed to have them used on a boy instead of a fence hand. Annoyed was better than afraid.
"Arm over the bowl," she said.
Mara shook her head. "My hut. Better light."
"Better light uses oil."
"Then charge me for darkness too."
The old woman snorted and pushed the cloth bundle into Mara's free hand. "If that stains, you wash it."
"If he dies, I will send him back with it."
Derrick stared at them. They were arguing about cloth while his arm smoked. It should have felt wrong. It did not. People who could argue about cloth had not decided to kill him yet.
The lane was slick with mud. People stood in doorways, each holding whatever they had grabbed when the horn blew. One woman had a bread paddle. A boy had a broken rake head. An old man had one boot on and one bare foot planted in the mud. Nobody laughed at him.
Derrick kept his hand over his chest. He told himself it was to hold his tunic closed against the rain. Mara glanced at the hand once. Rynn glanced twice.
Halen followed behind them until Mara said, "Halen."
"I am going home too."
"You are going home by the long way."
"That is wetter."
"Good. Maybe it will slow you down."
He made a face but moved to the side path. After five steps, he changed direction and followed at a different angle.
Mara did not turn around. "I can hear you."
"No you cannot."
"Then I guessed right. Farther."
Rynn pointed with the spear. Halen retreated behind a barrel and still watched.
Mara's hut smelled of smoke, wet wool, old broth, and the bitter leaves she kept hanging from the rafters. Her husband sat by the hearth with a harness strap across his lap. He rose when the curtain opened.
"Claw?" he asked.
"Looks it," Mara said.
"Deep?"
"Deep enough to make him stupid. Sit."
Derrick sat on the low stool because Mara pushed him there.
"Sleeve off."
His hand clamped over his chest.
"No."
The hut went quiet.
Mara's husband set the harness down. Rynn stood just inside the door, rain dripping from his hair. Mara held the knife already, not raised, just ready for cloth.
"The sleeve," Derrick said. "Only the sleeve."
Mara studied his face. "Fine. Sleeve."
She cut from wrist to shoulder. The wet cloth peeled away from skin with a soft suck. The wound looked worse in firelight. Four torn lines, swollen at the edges. Dried blood. Fresh blood. Tiny black bits set in the cuts like grit.
Mara bent close.
Rynn saw them too. "What is that?"
"I said quiet when I need quiet," Mara said.
"You did not say it yet."
"I am saying it now."
She touched one black fleck with the knife tip and lifted it out.
It smoked.
Only a thread. Thin and dark. It curled from the metal and vanished.
Rynn stepped back so hard his shoulder hit the door frame.
Mara did not drop the knife. Her mouth went flat. She held the blade over the coals until the fleck burned with a bitter smell.
"Corruption," Rynn said.
The word made the hut smaller.
Derrick shook his head. "I did not bring it here."
Mara dipped a clean cloth into hot water. "You brought your arm."
"I did not mean to."
"Meaning is for after washing. Hold still."
The water hit the first cut. Derrick kicked the stool leg. Mara's husband caught his shoulder from behind.
"Hold him," Mara said.
"I am."
"Better."
Derrick bit the inside of his cheek. Mara cleaned around the cuts, not across them, working grit loose one fleck at a time. Each one smoked when it touched heat. Each one made Rynn look more ready to run and more ashamed that he had not.
Mara did not look at Derrick while she worked. "Name the bird."
"I do not know the name."
"Shape."
"One leg. Long beak. Fast. Feathers dark at the joints."
Mara's husband said, "Entrempast."
Rynn looked at him. "They do not come near the village."
"Healthy ones do not."
Derrick stared into the fire.
Mara scraped another fleck free. It smoked. "Purple eyes?"
Derrick nodded.
"Say it."
"Yes."
Rynn swallowed. "Did you kill it?"
Derrick saw the forest again. Wet leaves. Beak in the dirt where his chest had been. Gold light cutting through the trees so hard the shadows disappeared.
"No."
Mara wrapped the cloth around his arm. "Then how are you here?"
"It died."
"Birds die when something kills them," Rynn said.
"This one died."
"That is not an answer."
"I know."
Nobody spoke after that. Mara tied the bandage too tight, loosened it, then tied it again.
Outside, boots stopped in the mud near the hut.
Mara heard them and raised her voice. "If anyone is standing out there to be useful, fetch boiled cloth. If you are standing there to listen, go be useless somewhere else."
The boots moved away. Not far, but away.
"Rynn," she said. "Get the Elder."
"I should stay."
"You should do what I said before you decide you are grown."
Rynn looked at Derrick's covered chest. "Keep him away from Halen."
Mara did not scold him.
That landed worse than the water.
Rynn shoved the curtain aside. Halen tumbled back from it and landed in the mud.
"I was not listening," Halen said at once.
"You fell very quietly for someone not listening." Rynn grabbed him by the tunic. "Move."
"Did the smoke come out of his arm?"
"Move."
Halen twisted enough to look past him. Derrick had one hand at his chest again. The mark warmed under the cloth.
Halen's eyes fixed there.
The curtain dropped.
Derrick curled his fingers into the tunic.
Mara saw.
"Show me," she said.
"No."
"If there is another wound, I need to see it."
"It is not a cut."
"Bites can hide. Burns can hide. Corruption hides best."
"It is not that."
"Then what is it?"
Derrick had no small answer ready. Mara had told him small words kept fools alive, but every word he had for Archelix was too large, too bright, or too likely to get him thrown outside.
Mara's husband turned toward the wall. It was not privacy, not really, but it was what the hut could give.
Mara crouched in front of Derrick instead of standing over him. "Did the bird touch your chest?"
"No."
"Did the purple smoke touch it?"
"No."
"Did you put your own hand there after?"
"No."
"Then who did?"
Derrick breathed through his teeth. "Light."
Mara's eyes narrowed. "Fire?"
"No."
"Lightning?"
"No."
"A person?"
"No."
"Derrick."
"It had wings."
Mara did not move.
The hut fire popped. A coal split and rolled against the ash lip.
"A Leyoki?" she asked.
Derrick thought of the shape floating over the mud, gold and smooth and terrible. Leyoki, god, wound, command. None of those words sat right.
"I think so."
Mara looked at his hand. "Move your fingers."
He shook his head.
"Just enough."
"If I show you, you may put me out."
"If I were going to put you out, I would have done it before wasting clean cloth."
That was Mara's comfort. Derrick took it because there was no better kind in the room.
He opened his hand a little.
Gold shone through the wet tunic.
Mara stood so quickly her knee struck the stool. Her husband turned despite himself. Derrick covered the mark, but the hut had already changed.
No one said blessed.
No one said cursed.
Outside, the Tuftest yard erupted.
The sound tore across the village. Tuftest usually whistled, clicked, and complained. This was different. Dozens of small throats shrieked at once. Wings beat against wood. Claws ticked and scraped. Something cracked.
Vessa shouted, "Hold the cover down! Not that side, the nests are there. Move, child, move!"
Mara went to the door.
Derrick folded over on the stool.
The sound was not only in his ears. Each cry jabbed somewhere in his chest. It was not a cut or a bruise. It felt like many small bones tapping from the inside. The gold mark warmed. The slower beat under his own quick one shifted toward the yard.
"Derrick?" Mara said.
"Too loud."
"They are outside."
"I know."
He pressed both hands over his chest. The Tuftest screamed again. He gagged.
The curtain opened. Rynn came in with the Elder behind him. Halen tried to squeeze in too and was blocked by Mara's husband.
"Out," Mara said.
"I saw light," Halen said.
"You saw a curtain."
"The curtain was glowing."
"Then go watch it from outside."
The Elder stepped into the hut and looked at everything without asking for a summary: bandage, bloody water, knife in coals, Derrick bent over, Mara at the door, Rynn too close to panic.
"Report," he said.
Mara answered. "Corruption flecks in the arm. Removed and burned. Not spreading yet. Entrempast, purple-eyed. Something gold at his chest."
"Seen by whom?"
"Me. My husband. Maybe the boys saw too much."
"I saw," Halen called from outside.
"You saw mud if you do not step back," Rynn said.
The Elder did not raise his voice. "Rynn, keep him outside."
Rynn moved into the doorway and used his body as the door.
The Tuftest shrieked again. Vessa cursed loud enough that even the Elder blinked.
"Eggs," Mara said.
That one word did more than panic. Everyone understood eggs. Eggs were broth for the sick, trade for salt, hatchlings for next season, and something small enough for bad luck to break in a breath.
The Elder looked at Derrick. "Are you doing that?"
"No."
"Are they reacting to you?"
"I don't know."
"Better answer."
Derrick gripped his tunic. "Maybe."
Mara shut her eyes for one breath, then opened them. "He cannot even stand."
"Can he hear them?" the Elder asked.
"We all can hear them."
"Boy. Can you hear more than noise?"
Derrick did not want to answer. The Tuftest cries filled his throat. He could feel the yard now, bright with little lives, crowded and terrified. Not thoughts. Not words. Heat under feathers. Feet striking boards. A wing caught somewhere. The sour smell of panic. The memory of the Acousten roar living in their bodies.
"Yes," he said.
The Elder's staff tapped once on the floor. "Then we go where I can see what is true."
Mara turned on him. "He is bleeding through the bandage."
"Then he bleeds where we can see him."
"That is not care."
"Care is not the only thing needed tonight."
Rynn looked over his shoulder. "He should be tied before he goes near animals."
Halen, outside, said, "Rynn, shut up."
Rynn's face went red. "You do not know what he is."
Derrick looked at him.
Rynn looked back, and shame crossed his face almost at once. He did not take the words back.
The Elder lifted a hand. "No tying. No touching the mark. No blessing talk. No curse talk. Spear points down unless I say otherwise. We walk."
Mara took Derrick's good arm. Her grip was hard enough to bruise. "If you fall, I am not carrying you alone."
"I can walk."
"You keep saying that before proving otherwise."
Derrick stood. The hut tipped. Mara's husband caught his shoulder. Rynn stepped aside, spear low.
Outside, rain had thinned to mist. The village lane shone in lantern light. People had gathered despite the cold. A fence mender held a mallet. The rib-wrapped man from the gate carried no weapon, just one hand pressed to his side. A girl from the Coustel pens clutched a feed scoop with both hands.
They looked at Derrick and then away, which was worse than staring.
A child asked, "Is he sick?"
The child's mother pulled him back. "Quiet."
The Elder stopped in the lane. He did not turn around. "Everyone not needed at the Tuftest yard goes home."
No one moved.
"Second telling means work fines at dawn."
Three people left at once. Others backed under eaves but kept watching.
Derrick noticed who stayed because noticing was easier than feeling. Mara. Her husband. Rynn. The Elder. Vessa's oldest niece by the egg baskets. Jorren near the gate because his knee kept him from being useful anywhere else. Halen, half hidden behind a rain barrel because nobody had assigned him a place he liked.
The Tuftest yard sat along Vessa's hut, fenced with split rails and covered in reed panels. Usually the little one-legged birds hopped and argued in nervous bursts. Tonight the yard shook. Birds struck the panels, bounced off nest boxes, and crowded the wrong corners. Vessa had both arms braced over a loose cover while two children held egg baskets under the eaves.
"Keep him back," Vessa said when she saw Derrick.
Mara answered before Derrick could. "He is back. Now tell us what is broken."
"Two eggs after the horn. One bird bleeding at the foot. Another jammed under a panel, if it has not crushed itself. They started screaming when he came through the gate."
Rynn looked at Derrick again.
"I did not make them," Derrick said.
"No one said you meant to," Mara said.
"That is not the same as safe," Rynn said.
Hooktail crouched on Vessa's roof. The Braynex was a dark wet shape against thatch, tail curled tight around a peg. It usually clicked at scraps or lunged too close to hands. Now it watched Derrick without begging, without moving.
The gold mark warmed.
Hooktail hissed and flattened itself to the roof.
Rynn lifted the spear.
"Point down," the Elder said.
"It reacted."
"So did you. Point down."
Rynn lowered it.
Derrick took one step toward the fence. The Tuftest closest to him slammed against the far side, then scrambled over another bird. Vessa swore again and slapped the rail, not to hurt them, only to break the pile before necks snapped.
"If they keep this up, they will stop laying," Vessa said. "If they stop laying, tell the sick to enjoy water."
Vessa's oldest niece crouched beside a basket with her fingers spread over the eggs to keep them from knocking together. She was whisper-counting under her breath and starting over every time a bird screamed.
"Eight, nine, ten... no, wait. Aunt Vessa, this one has a hair crack."
"Then set it aside for morning broth," Vessa said. "Do not put cracked with clean."
"It is only small."
"Small cracks rot large baskets."
The girl moved it to a separate bowl and wiped her hand on her skirt before touching the next egg. Derrick watched her do it. His village had counted grain that way after bad weather, each handful sorted like it had a name. He had hated the slow counting then. Now the care of it made his throat hurt.
Vessa caught him looking. "Do not stare at my eggs like you can fix them too."
"I can't."
"Good. One wrong thing at a time."
The Elder nodded to Derrick. "Tell me what you hear."
"Birds."
"More."
Derrick put his raw palm on the wet rail.
The yard hit him all at once.
Every Tuftest was a small hot point. Quick heart. Thin bones. Wet feathers. Straw. Shell. Fear. They remembered hands that fed them and hands that grabbed them. They remembered the Acousten noise from the day before. They smelled blood on Derrick, smoke from the wound water, rain, people, Braynex on the roof. Their fear had no words, but it was not simple. It piled and bounced from bird to bird until each one made the next worse.
Derrick's fingers locked around the rail.
"Back," Rynn said. "He is making them worse."
"Wait," the Elder said.
"Look at them."
"I am looking."
Mara moved close enough that her sleeve brushed Derrick's shoulder. "Can you pull your hand away?"
"No."
"That was not the answer I wanted."
"Me either."
The slow beat under Derrick's own found the noise. It did not speak. It did not command. It gave him a rhythm to put the scattered fear into, one count, then the next.
Derrick counted because he had nothing else.
Gate bar.
Root basket.
Rain.
Rail.
One bird.
Another.
Another.
He tried to breathe slower. The Tuftest closest to the rail kept screaming. Derrick shut his eyes, then opened them because shutting them made the yard worse.
"Quiet," he said.
Nothing changed.
He pressed his burned palm harder into the rail.
"Quiet. Please."
Gold moved under his skin.
It did not flare. It ran thin through his palm, into the wet wood, along the rail where rain had darkened it. The nearest Tuftest stopped mid-hop and toppled into straw. Vessa reached for it, then stopped when it righted itself and tucked down. Two more lowered their heads. Another kept beating its wing against a crate until a feather tore loose.
The yard did not go peaceful.
It paused.
That was enough for Vessa to move.
"Back left," Derrick said.
Mara leaned closer. "What?"
"Panel. One caught. Wing caught."
Vessa did not ask how he knew. She shoved past the egg baskets, lifted the loose reed panel, and reached underneath. A Tuftest burst out, bit her thumb, and staggered into a nest box.
"Found it," she said, shaking her hand. "Mean little thing. Alive."
A few watchers muttered.
"No one names it," the Elder said.
The muttering stopped.
Derrick's hand would not open. The flock's fear kept coming through the wood. Not as hard now, but steady. He took too much of it before he understood he was taking anything. His wound went cold. The mark grew hot. His knees bent.
Mara grabbed him first. Rynn grabbed him second, then looked angry at his own hands for doing it. The spear slid from his arm and dropped into mud.
Derrick sagged between them.
"Get him away," Mara said.
"From the birds or from us?" someone asked from the lane.
Mara turned her head. "Say that closer."
No one did.
Derrick's sight narrowed to lanterns, straw, and Vessa's thumb bleeding where the Tuftest had bitten her. The gold pulled back from the fence. When it left the rail, the birds became only birds again, loud and frightened but outside him. He missed the quiet space and hated himself for missing it.
Voices came in pieces.
"He stopped them."
"He started them."
"Look at his hand."
"Keep the children away."
"Blessed."
"Rot-marked."
The Elder struck his staff against the rail. Not hard, but sharp.
"Enough."
People stopped because the old man rarely wasted force.
He looked from face to face. "No one says either word again tonight. You saw a wounded boy touch a wet fence. You saw frightened birds settle enough for Vessa to save one. That is the whole story until I say there is more."
A woman near the eaves said, "That is not the whole story."
"It is the useful part. The rest can wait for daylight."
"And if daylight makes it worse?"
"Then at least we will be foolish with our eyes open."
That drew one rough breath that might have become a laugh in a better year. It died quickly, but it loosened the yard.
Mara shifted Derrick's weight. "He needs the hearth."
"He needs watching," Rynn said.
"Both," Mara said.
Rynn looked at Derrick. He seemed younger than he had at the gate. Younger and angrier about it.
"I am not wrong to be afraid," he said.
The Elder nodded. "No. But fear is not a plan. Hold his other arm."
Rynn obeyed.
Halen stood near the rain barrel with both hands over his mouth. For once, no one had told him to do that. His eyes stayed on Derrick's chest.
Derrick tried to cover the mark. His arm would not lift.
Mara pulled his torn tunic closed herself. Her fingers brushed the warm cloth and stopped. She felt it. Derrick saw that she felt it.
Then she tucked the cloth flat like she was fixing a child's shirt before market.
"Walk," she said. "Or be dragged."
They got him back to the hut in pieces. Three steps, pause. Four steps, Mara cursing under her breath. Two steps, Rynn checking the watchers. Halen tried to follow and was blocked by Mara's husband without a word.
Hooktail moved along the roofs above them. Derrick felt the Braynex as a small dark attention behind his head. Hungry. Curious. Careful. When Mara pushed him through the curtain, the feeling cut off.
Inside the hut, the fire had burned low. Mara's husband fed it two sticks, then shut the curtain tight.
The Elder entered last. "Rynn, outside."
Rynn still had mud on his hands from catching Derrick. "I saw enough to stay."
"You saw enough to know why the doorway needs a guard."
"Anyone can stand outside."
"Not anyone will keep Halen out."
Rynn looked toward the curtain. Halen's shadow was already close to it.
"Move," Rynn said through the cloth.
"I am not inside."
"I can hear your nose breathing."
"That is not a crime."
"It will be if I tell Mother."
The shadow moved away.
The Elder sat on the low block across from Derrick. Mara knelt to check the bandage. It had bled through.
"Again," she muttered.
"Sorry."
"Bleed less next time."
Her husband handed her clean cloth without being asked.
The Elder waited until Mara had wrapped the arm again. "Now. In order. No pretty tale. No guesses dressed like truth. Where you went. What touched you. What you brought back."
Derrick stared at the fire.
"Boy."
"I went past the woods' edge."
Mara made a sharp sound.
"I know," Derrick said.
"Knowing did not stop you."
"No."
The Elder lifted two fingers. Continue.
"I found roots by the stream. Saw Castapin. Two. They did not bother me."
"Good," the Elder said. "Say harmless when harmless happens. Fear makes liars of memory."
Derrick swallowed. "Then the Entrempast came. Purple eyes. Smoke at the joints. It cut me. I cut it. It was going to kill me."
Mara kept working, but her hand slowed.
"Then?" the Elder asked.
"Light."
"From a fire?"
"No."
"Sky?"
"No. It was in the trees first. Then it was a shape. Gold. Wings. No legs that I saw."
Mara's husband crossed himself with two fingers, an old sign from some village Derrick did not know. Mara noticed and glared. He dropped his hand.
"It spoke," Derrick said.
The Elder leaned forward a little. "Words."
Derrick shut his eyes. The voice came back too clearly. Not kind. Not cruel. Needing him was enough.
"It said, 'I require it.'"
Mara tied the bandage and sat back on her heels.
"Require what?" she asked.
"Me, I think. Or what it put in me. Or what it wants me to do. I don't know."
"Name?" the Elder asked.
Derrick's hand crept toward his chest.
"Name, Derrick."
He did not want to say it. Names made things easier to repeat. Repeated things became village talk. Village talk became rules. Rules became ropes, doors, and who got to eat near the fire.
But he had already brought the thing back under his skin.
"Archelix."
The hut stayed standing. The fire kept burning. Mara did not throw him out.
The Elder said nothing for several breaths.
Mara spoke first. "Old name?"
"Older than our fires," the Elder said. "Or a fever using an old name. Both are trouble."
Derrick looked at him. "Am I fevered?"
Mara touched his forehead. "Yes. That does not make you wrong. It makes you hot."
That helped more than it should have.
The Elder pointed to Derrick's chest with the end of his staff, stopping short of contact. "No one touches it. Not you unless you must. Not Halen. Not some fool trying to prove courage. At dawn, Mara checks the wound. Vessa counts birds and eggs. Rynn gives me names of who stood close enough to hear. Jorren watches the gate with someone whose knee works. Derrick stays in this hut or where I put him."
"For how long?" Derrick asked.
The Elder did not soften the answer. "Until I know whether the village is safer with you inside or outside."
Mara stood. "He is a child."
"He is a child who touched a fence and changed a flock."
"He saved a bird."
"He may have frightened twenty first."
"You do not know that."
"That is why he stays watched instead of judged."
Mara's anger had nowhere clean to go. She grabbed the bitter cup from the hearth stones and pressed it into Derrick's hands.
"Drink."
It smelled like boiled bark and old grass.
"What is it?"
"Something that will make you sleep or vomit. I am hoping for sleep."
Derrick drank.
The taste was worse than the smell. Warmth slid into his stomach and sat there like a stone. His arm throbbed less. His chest did not.
Outside, Rynn's voice rose. "No. He is not coming out."
A villager answered too low to hear.
"Ask the Elder in the morning."
Another voice.
"Because I said no tonight."
The Elder stood. "He will do."
Mara did not smile, but some tight part of her face eased.
Derrick looked at the curtain. "Is Halen still there?"
"Of course he is," Mara said. "Curiosity is the only thing in this house that eats more than he does."
From outside, Halen said, "I heard that."
"Good," Mara called back. "Then hear this. Bed."
"But what if he glows again?"
"Then he can glow without your help."
Small feet dragged away.
The Elder paused at the curtain. "No one speaks of wings outside this hut. No one repeats the name unless I ask. The village gets the useful truth: corrupted bird, cleaned wound, frightened Tuftest, no blessing, no curse, wait for dawn."
Mara looked at Derrick. "And him?"
"He gets broth when he wakes and a guard when he sleeps."
Derrick tried to sit higher. "I won't hurt them."
Mara pushed him back to the mat with two fingers.
The Elder answered from the doorway. "Wanting matters. It does not decide everything."
The words were not cruel. Derrick wished they were. Cruel words could be hated cleanly.
The Elder stepped out. Rain and voices came through the opened curtain, then cut off when Rynn closed it behind him.
Outside the door, the Elder did not leave at once. Derrick heard the old man's staff scrape through mud and stop.
"Listen," the Elder said to whoever had gathered there. "No one goes to the pens. No one checks the mark. No one wakes neighbors to trade guesses. If your mouth needs work, count rope lengths. If your hands need work, help Vessa. If your fear needs work, keep it inside your own teeth until sunup."
Someone asked, "What if it spreads?"
"Then Mara will shout loud enough for the dead to hear. Until she does, you let the boy sleep."
"And if he glows?"
"Then you still do not put your fingers on him."
That ended the questions better than any comfort would have. Feet moved away, some slow, some quick, some only pretending to leave.
Mara tucked a folded blanket under Derrick's head. She did it roughly, like she was angry at the blanket for existing.
"Sleep," she said.
"Can I stay here?"
"You are already here."
"In the morning."
Mara's hands stopped.
Her husband looked into the fire.
"In the morning," she said, "we see what morning has to say."
That was not a promise. It was not refusal either.
Derrick took it.
The herb made the room tilt by slow degrees. He counted roof beams. One was cracked. One had smoke stains in the shape of a bent finger. One had a bit of twine tied around it, maybe from some old drying line. Ordinary things. Human things. Things that had nothing to do with gold wings or purple-eyed birds.
Outside, Vessa shouted numbers. "Twelve standing. One limping. Count the back nests again. No, use your hands, not guesses."
Eggs knocked softly in a basket.
Rynn told someone to move away from the door.
Halen whispered something and was answered by Mara's husband's low, "Bed. Now."
Hooktail clicked once from the roof, then went quiet.
Derrick held still under the blanket. One heartbeat ran fast from fever and fear.
The other stayed slower.
It did not feel like a gift. It felt like another thing in the room waiting to be counted.
The village might keep him for the roots. Mara might keep him because she had started and would not stop. The others might keep him because the thing in his chest had quieted birds they needed alive.
He was no longer sure which answer scared him most.
Being useful could get a person kept.
It could also get him watched forever.