Tesh traced the plague's spread on Corvin's map with one elegant finger, his whiskers twitching slightly at the apparent randomness. "There's no pattern to it at all."

  "That's what I've been trying to tell you," Corvin said, pushing another map across the cluttered desk. The human surveyor's hands were stained with ink, his normally pristine Imperial uniform showing signs of days spent in the field. "It's not following trade routes, water systems, or any normal means of spread. Cases just appear, with no clear connection to previous outbreaks."

  Something about the distribution tickled at Tesh's memory. He'd seen records of a similar spread pattern in some ancient texts about the Meticari plague, though that had been centuries ago. Probably just coincidence. His whiskers twitched again, this time in controlled irritation at his own wandering thoughts. If he was right about this new plague gaining traction, there was only so much time for dead-ends.

  ?The Grey Plague. Nearly wiped out my people.? he started to mention the historical parallel to Corvin, then stopped as a whisper brushed the edge of his hearing. He turned slightly, attention drawn to where Soulkeeper rested against the wall. The ancient blade seemed to drink in the candlelight, its dark, curved metal reflecting nothing.

  The whispers grew louder, but remained meaningless—just sounds that nonetheless left him with a deep sense of unease. Like walking into a tomb and finding the door already open.

  "Tesh?" Corvin's voice snapped him back to the present.

  "It's nothing." Tesh turned back to the maps, his precise movements betraying none of his discomfort. Soulkeeper had been in his family for generations, and in his possession since he was a teen. Its occasional whispers were probably just some ancient enchantment slowly degrading. Nothing to concern himself with. "You were saying about Lady Blackwood's research?"

  Corvin gave him a look that suggested he wasn't fooled by the deflection, but continued. "She's been documenting cases in the territories around Haven's Rest. Told me she’d try to find any relation to recorded history. Might be worth comparing her findings with what we've gathered. These things rarely just come out of nowhere.?

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  The whispers rose again, making Tesh's fur stand on end. He never could discern if there were voices in the hushed sounds, but it felt like there was supposed to be words. At this point, Tesh wasn’t sure if the whispers came from Soulkeeper, or from inside his own mind. He forced himself to focus on the practical aspects. "Haven's Rest itself remains untouched?"

  "So far. Just a few cases when I passed through. No obvious connection between any of them. As far as I know it hasn’t spread that fast from the Free East, yet.?

  Tesh's claws extended slightly, scoring tiny marks in the wooden desk before he could control the reaction. The whispers were like static in his skull, meaningless yet somehow urgent. As if Soulkeeper was trying to tell him something but lacked the proper language. That he didn’t know its language.

  "I should speak with her," he said, as much to drown out the whispers as anything else. "Her library might have historical records we're, and she’s, missing. Blackwood’s a collector, not a historian.?

  Tesh’s eyes jumped between the maps and Soulkeeper in the corner. ?Her collections may hold clues that she might miss.?

  "You mean they may have clues to help you understand what that blade is trying to tell you," Corvin said quietly.

  Tesh's whiskers twitched, but he didn't deny it. He picked up the blade and secured Soulkeeper to his back, its familiar weight settling between his shoulder blades. The whispers subsided to a dull murmur in the back of his mind, like waves heard from a great distance. The blade felt heavier than usual, though he knew that was impossible.

  "Sometimes understanding what we're dealing with means looking to the past," he said carefully. "The legend says that Soulkeeper holds the souls of those who’ve fallen to its blade, and it’s as old as my people, if not older. If I figure out a way to understand its whispers it may be able to tell us more than what we can read in the texts.?

  "And if we're dealing with something worse than a plague?"

  Tesh's claws extended again, this time deliberately. "Then we need to know that too. I believe that the blade may hold answers. It is time I figure out how to understand what it’s saying.?

  He left Corvin's tent with measured steps, his natural grace hiding the tension in his movements. The whispers followed him, meaningless yet somehow familiar, like a language forgotten, but not quite lost. That nagging similarity to the ancient Meticari plague kept tugging at his thoughts, but every time he tried to focus on it, the pattern slipped away like water through his claws.

  The blade's weight seemed to grow with each step, its whispers a constant reminder that some knowledge came with a price. He just hoped he was prepared to pay it.

  Behind him, Corvin returned to his maps, searching for a pattern in the randomness. Neither of them noticed how the candlelight seemed to dim as Tesh departed, as if something in the shadows had drawn it away.