The scent of incense and old wood replaced the cloying stench of decay as Arrion pushed open the heavy oak door of Hearthstone's only temple. It was not a grand cathedral, but a sturdy, humble building of timber and fieldstone dedicated to **Lyria, The Song of Life**. The morning light streamed through high, narrow windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air and falling upon the simple altar, which was adorned with a sheaf of wheat, a blooming pot of sage, and a carving of a mother deer with her fawn.
Behind the altar, tending to the sage, was Father Alden. He was a man of middling years, with a kind, weathered face that spoke of laughter and quiet sorrows shared. His hair was the grey of wood ash, but his eyes were the vibrant, startling green of new leaves in high summer—a mark, some whispered, of Lyria's particular favor. He looked up as Arrion entered, his gentle smile fading into a look of pastoral concern as he took in the hunter's size, his stark expression, and the faint, troubling stain on his hand.
"Arrion," Father Alden said, his voice a soft, steady baritone. "You move like a man pursued by shadows. And you bring a scent that does not belong in a house of life. Come. Sit." He gestured to a rough-hewn bench near a small, perpetually burning hearth-fire, the symbol of the hearth and home Lyria also protected.
Arrion did not sit. He stood like a monolith of anxiety in the tranquil space, his presence making the chapel seem suddenly small. "Father, I need counsel. Not as a priest to a villager, but… as a keeper of life to one who has seen it defiled."
Alden set down his watering pot and wiped his hands on his simple green robe. He nodded, his green eyes intent. "Speak, my son. Lyria's ear is here, and mine."
The story spilled out of Arrion, less orderly than it had been for Borryn and Orryn, laced with a deeper, more spiritual horror. He spoke of the promise of the spring hunt, the clean kill, and then the visceral, unnatural wrongness of the black blood. He described the rapid, hungry rot, the way it poisoned the very earth, the sickening sight of the blight running through the tree roots like black veins.
"It wasn't sickness, Father," Arrion said, his voice strained. "It was… *hate*. A hate for living things, made manifest. I used my strength to scour it, and it was like trying to drain a swamp with a cup. The corruption is deeper than the soil. It's in the song of the place, and the song is turning sour."
He finally revealed the source, the name that hung over his family like a shroud. "This is the work of Marquis Ralke. A delayed vengeance. He couldn't send soldiers past the imperial watch, so he sent… this. A plague for the forest that shelters us."
Father Alden listened in profound silence. The vibrant green of his eyes seemed to cloud, as if watching a beloved garden wither before him. He did not question Arrion's certainty about Ralke; in a village this small, priests heard many confessions and knew more secrets than the headsman.
When Arrion finished, the only sound was the crackle of the sacred hearth-fire. Alden walked slowly to a small basin of water—not holy water in the grand sense, but water blessed by sunlight and prayer. He motioned for Arrion's stained hand.
"May I?"
Arrion extended his hand. Alden took it gently, his own hands calloused from gardening and woodwork. He poured the clear water over the black stain, murmuring a prayer not of purification, but of *discernment*. "Lyria, let us see the nature of this wound."
The water turned a faint, murky grey where it touched the residue, and a faint, acrid tang lifted from it. Alden's face tightened. "This is no natural blight, nor a demon's curse. It is… alchemical. A crafted thing. A perversion of the principles of decay, turning a sacred process into a weapon." He released Arrion's hand, his own now troubled. "You speak of hate. You are more right than you know. This is an act of metaphysical malice."
He paced before the altar, his green eyes fixed on the carving of the deer. "The Verdant King… you believe he knows?"
"I believe he feels the pain of his domain," Arrion said. "But does he know a mortal hand deliberately planted the knife? I must warn him."
"Then you must go," Alden agreed softly. "But you asked for counsel on raising the alarm." He turned, his gaze piercing. "Arrion, what do you fear will happen if you sound the general alarm? If you stand in the square and tell every farmer, every woodcutter, every mother, that the forest that feeds them, protects them, and holds the bones of their ancestors is dying from a poison sent by a noble they cannot touch?"
Arrion saw it immediately. "Panic. Despair. A stampede for Oakhaven that would leave the weak behind. Or worse, a mob demanding we burn the Weald to create a firebreak, which would only enrage the King and seal our doom."
"Just so," Alden nodded, a sad wisdom in his eyes. "Fear is a contagion as potent as this blight. It clouds judgment, turns neighbor against neighbor. The people of Hearthstone are brave, but they are not soldiers in a war of secrets and sorcery. To tell them everything is to burden them with a terror they have no tools to fight."
"So we say nothing?" Arrion asked, frustration bubbling up. "Let them gather berries from a dying bush? Let their children play where the roots are turning black?"
"No," Alden said firmly. "We are stewards, not tyrants. We raise a *different* alarm. One of prudence, not of doom." He began to plan, his mind practical. "I will speak from the pulpit this evening. I will say that the late melt and strange frosts have given rise to a dangerous mold or a sick rot in the deep woods—a truth, if not the whole truth. I will declare the eastern quadrant of the forest, from the black creek north, as forbidden for foraging and hunting until the forest purges it. I will bless and distribute the powdered silver-root and saint's-wort we have stored; they are good for common blights and will give people a sense of action."
He looked at Arrion. "Orryn must deploy the militia not as an army, but as wardens. They will guard the paths, gently turn people back, and watch. They must look for the signs you saw—the black-tipped buds, the wilting mushrooms, the fleeing game. They report only to him and to you. This keeps the village functioning, prevents a rash exodus, and gives your small circle of knowing ones eyes and ears."
It was a good plan. A priestly, pragmatic deception to maintain order. But it felt like applying a bandage to a severed artery.
"And what if it spreads faster than our lies can hold?" Arrion whispered.
"Then, my son," Alden said, placing a hand on Arrion's armored shoulder, "the truth will become self-evident, and panic will come regardless. Our task now is to buy time. Time for you to seek the King's wisdom. Time for your uncle and cousin to fortify spirits, not just walls. Time, perhaps, for the Empire to finally notice that the poison in its border marches is no longer just metaphorical." He paused, his green eyes searching Arrion's stormy grey ones. "You carry more than a hunter's worry, Arrion Haelend. You carry the weight of this knowledge because you are strong enough to bear it. Lyria teaches us that life is resilient, that it fights to endure. You are part of that fight now. But you cannot fight for the people if you are also wrestling them."
The wisdom was undeniable. It echoed his mother's lessons about navigating rooms of wolves. Give the people a manageable truth and a tangible task. Let the few who can stare into the abyss do so, and act.
"I will go to the glade," Arrion said, resolve hardening. "I will tell the King of Ralke's hand in this. But Father… what if the Church can do more? What if you sent word to your bishops? A report of a supernatural blight in the Weald?"
A complex, pained look crossed Alden's face. "The Church is a vast, slow-moving creature. My report would wend its way through a chain of comfortable, distant bishops who view the Whispering Weald as a pagan oddity. By the time it reached the ear of a Cardinal of Lyria, if it ever did, the blight would be at our door. And it may be dismissed as the hysterics of a frontier priest." He sighed. "Our faith is here, in this soil, in these people. The institutional Church… is in Aethelspire. We are on our own, with Lyria's grace and our own strong backs."
It was the final, sobering piece of counsel. No cavalry was coming. No imperial edict would save them. It was Hearthstone, a retired knight, a hunter, a priest, and a wounded forest god against the calculated malice of a Marquis and the ancient evil he served.
Arrion left the chapel feeling both calmer and more burdened. Father Alden had given him a path: measured action, controlled information, and a mandate to seek higher aid. The kindness in the man's green eyes had been a balm, but the grim realism behind it was a cold splash of water.
He walked back into the spring sunlight, now seeing the village with new eyes. The children chasing a dog, the women airing winter blankets, the men mending a fence—all were moving in the fragile bubble of normalcy he and a few others were now tasked with preserving. He would go to Orryn and Borryn with Alden's plan. Then he would go back into the woods, not to hunt, but to beg an audience with a king.
The scent of rain and moist soil was still in the air, but now Arrion could almost perceive the faint, sickly-sweet undertone lurking beneath it, the first note of a dirge for the green and growing world. He prayed his thunder and his father's sword would be enough to silence it.