Kingdoms with [Kings] and [Queens]. He had been to neither. Nor did he bear them resentment directly.

He hated every nation on this continent. Murderers. Murderers who would burn anyone with the wrong class, who loved wrong, who did ‘wrong’. For a while, Feren lay there.

His forehead was burning when he went to check on it. The infection was progressing fast. Yet he stood up. He stumbled away from the hunting party. They would track him, soon. He walked, without magic.

I hate them all. For Gewilena, his companion and muse. For the dead [Necromancers]. In honor of Az’kerash, the greatest of them all, who had been betrayed a hundred years hence—

For vengeance he carried himself onwards. Until he found a stream and collapsed by it. Feren put his face in the water, not caring if it had any scum in it, and lapped at the water. He rolled over onto his back.

Stared at the sky.

I will need to burn the wound clean. He realized with a sickly apprehension. He was no [Mage]. Just a

[Necromancer]. But he knew enough from living in the wild.

They’d done this before. Back with Pisces, Gewilena, all the others in the cabal. Infection. Rotting sickness after being scratched by one of the Ghouls when it went wild. She’d told him they could cauterize the wounds of the four who were dying of it.

Three died. One lived. Feren was sweating. He raised his hand, whispered.

“[Searing Flame].”

A ball of hot fire appeared, the kind you could throw in an enemy’s face or use to start a fire. He stared at it, sick, and condensed it so it ran across his hand.

If only Pisces were here. He’d have been able to run—and fight. Better he hadn’t, even if he could have taken on that [Lord] with his fancy rapier.

Pisces had no stomach for it. None. He’d run to Wistram, as if you could forget what they did.

“Gewilena. This is—”

Feren gritted his teeth, then grabbed his side. He felt the heat at first—smelled burning as it seared his infected skin—

And then pain.

Then he began screaming. But he held it there. One—two—three—

He didn’t get to five. He let go. Looked down at his charred skin. It smelled like burnt flesh. He had burned his skin away, an entire section of it.

Gagging on the pain, lightheaded, Feren reached down.

Healing potion. They healed anything. These were high-quality ones, too. Nothing like the cheap stuff he’d stolen or bought from shady [Traders]. But even they couldn’t stop infection perfectly. If there was still enough in him—

It will accelerate my healing. If my body can’t fight it off, I will be dead or wishing I was in moments. If I can heal—I heal.