The walk back to camp felt like a funeral march, no one speaking, the air thick with what they had seen. Kael held the smallest of the three children, a nameless little girl who clung to him like a shadow, her tears soaking into his collar. Her small frame shivered against him, while August guided the two boys beside him, one hand on each thin shoulder. The boys moved as if in a trance, eyes staring past the path ahead, as though some essential piece of them was still lying in that ravine with the broken Blightheart.
The air, which had tasted of dust and decay, now carried a different taint—the metallic scent of blood and the phantom sweetness of corrupted magic. August couldn't shake the image of the Blightheart's pulsing green light or the sickening crack as the fourth child's body was consumed by it. The memory was a splinter in his mind, sharp and insistent. It wasn't his memory, not truly, but the horror felt deeply personal.
As the flickering torches of the camp perimeter came into view, a ripple of movement spread through the survivors huddled around the fires. Figures rose, their faces etched with a desperate hope that quickly curdled into grief as they counted the returning children. A woman broke from the crowd, her cry a raw, wounded sound that tore through the evening quiet. She rushed toward Kael, her eyes fixed on the small, sobbing girl.
"Mara," she gasped, reaching out with trembling hands. Kael gently passed the child to her mother, who clutched her daughter as if she were a ghost. Other parents swarmed them, their relief a fragile thing, tainted by the obvious absence of the fourth child.
Lyon pushed his way to the front, his expression a hard mask of authority. His eyes swept over the group—Kael, August, the three children—and his jaw tightened. "What happened? Where is Elara's boy?"
Kael's voice was low and gravelly, worn thin by the night's events. "There was a Blightheart. It had them." He didn't need to elaborate. The word alone was a death sentence—a collective gasp and murmur of fear spread through the onlookers.
Lyon's gaze snapped to August, suspicion burning in his eyes. "A Blightheart? How convenient. You find trouble the moment you step outside the camp."
"We found the children," August countered, his voice steady despite the exhaustion pulling at him. "That was the task."
"And one is dead," Lyon shot back. He turned his attention to the rescued boys, crouching to look them in the eye. "What did you see?"
The boys flinched. The older one, his face smeared with dirt and tears, just shook his head, unable to speak. The other stared past Lyon, his gaze fixed on something in the middle distance that no one else could see. He began to hum, a low, dissonant tune that mimicked the chilling harmony they had heard in the ravine.
A cold dread trickled down August's spine. Kael placed a restraining hand on Lyon's shoulder. "Leave them, Lyon. They've been through enough. The whispers of a Blightheart don't fade quickly."
Lyon stood, shrugging off Kael's hand. He stared at the humming boy, his suspicion warring with a flicker of pity. "Take them to the infirmary tent. Keep them isolated. We don't know what taint they might carry."
When the parents finally started to lead their children off, the boy's humming stayed behind, thin and out of place amid the heavy quiet. The crowd broke apart at last, but their eyes kept flicking back to August, wary and full of blame. He was the outsider, the disturbance in the stagnant pool of their old fears. Before, they only had a statue to whisper about; now the Blighthearts had stepped into the open, and children had paid the price.
Kael guided August away from the remaining onlookers, toward a less crowded fire. He handed August a waterskin. "Don't mind Lyon. He's a boy playing a man's role, and he's afraid. Fear makes men stupid."
August took a long drink, the water doing little to wash away the foul taste in his mouth. "He thinks I'm a threat."
"He thinks anything he doesn't understand is a threat," Kael corrected. "And he doesn't understand you. Neither do I." He looked at August, his old eyes searching. "You didn't flinch from the Blightheart. You saw what it did, yet you moved toward it. Why?"
August hesitated, unsure. "The children needed help."
Kael sighed, the sound like grinding stones. "Many need help in this world. Not many live long by offering it." His gaze drifted toward the infirmary tent, voice lowering. "About the boy's humming—it isn't just an echo, and it's not harmless. The Blightheart's gone, so the pull will fade eventually, but until then, the melody lingers in their heads. Give it time: two, maybe seven moons before the song fades and the children become themselves again. Just… don't listen to their humming for long if you can help it. The Blightheart's corruption clings to sound, and it'll try to tangle with your thoughts if you let it."
A sharp commotion from the infirmary cut through the low murmur of the camp. Raised voices, muffled shout, the unmistakable edge of panic. August and Kael hurried over, joining a cluster of worried faces gathered outside the tent's entrance. Inside, the three children sat apart from the others, the two boys quietly humming that same unsettling melody while the girl lay curled up, hands covering her ears, trying to block it out.
Healer Maeve knelt close by, careful not to meet the boys' eyes or move closer than necessary. Parents watched with worried faces from a distance, torn between love and fear. No one dared interrupt the humming. Lyon lingered nearby, tense and uncertain, but the children made no move to approach or lash out; their humming was the only threat.
August took a thin, uneasy comfort in the fact that there were no curses, no glowing sigils—just that tune, drifting like smoke through the air. Kael's warning kept looping in his head. For now, all they could really do was wait it out, hope the song lost its edge over time, and keep reminding themselves not to focus on it too much. As the light faded and the camp wound down, the melody just kept going, calm and off-putting, while everyone got ready for another night of not knowing what might happen.