Seventeen sick by dawn on the third day.
I kept count in my head because someone needed to. Yannick posted the numbers on the village board each morning, but I saw the pattern he couldn't. The infection wasn't spreading randomly. It moved in clusters, family by family, house by house. Proximity mattered, touch mattered, and the folk remedies weren't stopping it.
And now we had help. Two kinds of help, arriving within hours of each other.
That was when everything started to go wrong.
Father Benedict rode through the western gate at midday, his black vestments dusty from the road. I watched from my window as Yannick greeted him in the square. Mid-forties, stocky build, the kind of priest who'd spent more time in administrative posts than in front of congregations. His horse looked better fed than most of the villagers.
"The Church sends its blessing," Benedict announced, loud enough for the gathered crowd to hear. "I bring sacramental oils blessed by the Bishop himself, and the grace of proper Western healing."
Proper Western healing. I caught the emphasis. My jaw tightened.
An hour later, Brother Niketas arrived from the north. Lean where Benedict was thick, weathered where Benedict was soft. He wore the simple brown robes of a hesychast monk, prayer rope wrapped around his wrist. His eyes swept the village with the practiced assessment of someone who'd seen this before.
"Peace be with you," he said quietly to Yannick. "I've brought herbs and training in contemplative healing. We'll do what we can."
What we can. Not the Church's blessing, not grace from on high. Just what we can.
I'd seen this play out in my studies. Eastern and Western healers working the same patient, each convinced their tradition held the key. Sometimes it helped. More often, it made things worse as theological pride got in the way of practical medicine.
I stayed in my room. Safer there. Less visible.
But I couldn't stop watching.
---
By evening, they'd set up competing infirmaries. Benedict claimed the village hall, hanging blessed crosses on every wall and insisting the sick be arranged in rows like soldiers. Niketas took the old barn, spreading straw mats in a circle and keeping the space open to the spring air.
"Contagion spreads in enclosed spaces," Niketas argued when Benedict objected. "They need fresh air and light."
"They need the sacraments," Benedict countered. "Proper confession, proper anointing. Your Eastern mysticism won't save their souls."
"Their souls are fine. Their bodies are dying."
I listened from the doorway of the inn, my hands clenched at my sides. This wasn't about the patients. This was about territory. About which tradition could claim victory, if... or when people started recovering.
Yannick stood between them, exhausted. "Just... help them. Please. Both of you."
They split the sick down the middle. Families got to choose: Western rite or Eastern. Some chose based on faith. Most chose based on which building was closer.
I went to bed that night with a knot in my stomach that had nothing to do with hunger.
---
The fourth day brought twenty-three sick. Six more overnight.
I watched Benedict work through my window. He moved from bed to bed in the village hall, anointing foreheads with blessed oil, murmuring prayers in Latin. The golden light of Sacramentum flickered around his hands as he worked—proper Western theurgy, structured and formal.
Minor Healing
"Per istam sanctam unctionem, indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid deliquisti"
"Through this holy anointing, may the Lord forgive you whatever sins you have committed"
The prayers were beautiful, precise, and they weren't working.
Niketas took a different approach. I'd slipped out at dawn to watch him through the barn's open door, staying in the shadows where no one would notice. He sat beside each patient, teaching them the Jesus Prayer, helping them find stillness despite the fever burning through their bodies.
Prayer of the Heart
"Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, ἐλέησόν με."
"Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me."
Silver-blue mist appeared on his breath as he prayed, flowing into the patients like water. His approach was gentle, patient, responsive to each person's needs.
And it wasn't working either.
The fevers climbed. The bleeding started—nosebleeds first, then blood in the coughing. I knew what came next. I'd read the texts. In another week, maybe less, the organs would start failing.
I retreated to my room and tried not to calculate mortality rates.
---
She arrived on the morning of the fifth day.
I was carrying water from the well when I saw her ride through the gate. My hands went numb. The bucket slipped, water splashing across the cobblestones.
Black vestments with golden trim. The formal riding cape of an Inquisitor. Short hair under an ecclesiastical cap. Sharp features, sharp eyes, scanning the village like a hawk looking for prey.
Sister Maren of the Sacred Keys.
I'd never seen her in person, but I'd heard the descriptions from Father Gregorius's whispered warnings. Young for an Inquisitor—maybe twenty-six. Brilliant, ruthless, and theological expert trained to spot heresy the way a wolf spots wounded deer.
She was looking for me.
I turned slowly, keeping my movements casual, and walked back toward the inn. Not running and not drawing attention. Just a scribe carrying water, taking his time, nothing to see here.
My heart hammered so hard I thought it might crack my ribs.
"You there."
I kept walking. Maybe she was talking to someone else.
"Young man. With the bucket."
Breathe. I stopped, turned, made myself meet her eyes. "Yes, Sister?"
She walked her horse closer. From this distance, I could see the travel dust on her cape, the blessed silver pendant at her throat, the leather-bound book tucked into her saddlebag. Canon Law. Every Inquisitor carried one.
"I'm looking for someone," she said. Her voice was cool, precise. "A fugitive. Heretic. Escaped from St. Ambrose Church three months ago."
"Haven't heard anything about that, Sister." My voice stayed steady. Years of practice lying to protect forbidden knowledge in the scriptorium had left me fluent in careful half-truths. "But the village has been dealing with plague. We've been focused on that."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Plague?"
"Twenty-three sick as of this morning. Two different healers trying to help." I gestured toward the village hall. "Father Benedict is working with the Western patients. Brother Niketas has the Eastern group in the barn."
Something flickered across her face. Concern? Calculation? She looked past me toward the village hall, then back.
"I'll need to speak with your village elder," she said.
"Yannick. You'll find him at the hall." I nodded toward the building. "He's been coordinating care."
She guided her horse past me. I stood very still, bucket forgotten, and watched her disappear into the village hall.
Then I walked, didn't run, back to the inn and climbed the stairs to my room.
My hands were shaking when I closed the door.
---
I didn't leave my room for the rest of the day.
Through the window, I watched Maren move through the village. She spoke with Yannick for an hour. Then with Benedict. Then with Niketas. She examined the sick, checked the treatments, took notes in a small leather journal.
Professional. Thorough. Dangerous.
Was she really here for the plague? Or was this how Inquisitors worked—investigate everything, wait for someone to make a mistake, then pounce?
I forced myself to eat dinner, though the bread tasted like sawdust. Twenty-three sick. Four had started bleeding from the ears. If this continued, half the village would be dead in two weeks.
And I was hiding in my room like a coward, terrified of a woman who might not even be looking for me.
Father Gregorius would be ashamed.
The thought stung more than it should have. I shoved it away and returned to my copying work, forcing my attention back to the Chronicle.
---
The wrongness started at sunset.
I felt it before I understood it—a pressure in my chest, a discordant note that made my teeth ache. The fragments hidden under my shirt grew warm, then hot against my skin.
I crossed to the window.
In the village hall, golden light blazed through the windows. Benedict's prayers, amplified by desperation. I could hear the Latin liturgy even from here, rapid and urgent.
In the barn, silver-blue mist rose like fog through the open doors. Niketas and the patients chanting the Jesus Prayer in unison, seeking hesychia together.
Both healers pushing their traditions to the limit. Both traditions powerful, focused, working with pure intention.
And they were interfering with each other.
I'd read about this in the forbidden texts. When both traditions operated in the same space without coordination, without unified intent, the energies clashed. Like trying to sing two different songs simultaneously—neither harmony nor melody, just noise.
The fragments against my chest vibrated like bells.
Something was wrong.
I gripped the windowsill, my breath coming short. This wasn't just theological competition. This was creating a spiritual vacuum, a void where the contradictions met and canceled each other out.
And into that void...
No. Not that. Please not that...
In the square below, Maren emerged from the village hall and stopped, her head tilted like she'd heard something I couldn't. Her hand went to the pendant at her throat.
She felt it too.
I backed away from the window and sat on my bed, head in my hands.
Sunset faded to twilight. The chanting from both buildings continued, discordant and desperate.
And in the space between them, something that shouldn't exist began to take form.