Tibryl starts to shiver, and I move the blade away from her skin, a dart of hope rushing through me. The tips of her pointed ears seem less flushed, her eyes not as glazed. I let out a relieved breath as the forest’s ceaseless tide of animosity pulses through me.

Black Witch.

Tibryl’s mother, Emberlyyn, wheezes, and my trace of relief evaporates. She’s slumped against Tibryl, both their backs to a violet moss-covered boulder. I spare a glance at Nym’ellia, beside me, the young teen’s green-glimmering face tight with worry.

“In Voloi, sometimes the moon glows purple and everything looks like violet flowers,” little Tibryl suddenly enthuses, her green and amethyst eyes glassy but alert.

I blink at her in surprise. “I remember reading something about a Lavender Moon holiday,” I say, attempting an encouraging smile, even as my muscles itch with the desire to get moving, my eyes continually scanning the surrounding forest for more of Vogel’s creatures.

“Everything’s better in Noilaan,” Tibryl says, seeming to cast off some of her shyness as she nods sagely in affirmation of her own statement. I imagine she’s around seven years old. Her black-streaked violet hair is dirty and matted and frames her violet face in a wild mess.

“I’ll have my own paints,” she tells me, her fever-glazed eyes brightening, “and I’ll paint the moon and all the flowers. There are tiny purple birds there who will sit on your finger, and the Noi children keep them as pets. And there are heart-shaped waffles flavored with violets. And everything is so beautiful.”

She lets out a prolonged hacking cough, and I place the cooling Ash’rion blade’s side back on her neck, shushing her comfortingly as her mother listlessly rubs her back and chews on the Eastern Meadowsweet leaves I’ve foraged for them both to lessen their fever-dazed state.

So we can hasten our dangerously slow pace.

Tibryl’s spasming cough gets the better of her and she starts to whimper. I withdraw the blade again as Nym’ellia offers the child water from her flask.

I rake my fingers through my own knotted hair, acutely cognizant of Vogel’s overwhelming advantage, tethered as I am to these extremely vulnerable people, my magic bound down.

“We’ve had a long journey from Valgard,” Emberlyyn says as Tibryl drinks. “The Mages are pushing non-Mages out of the Western Realm.” She glances west with tensed eyes before looking back to me, exhaustion writ hard on her face. “The desert was unforgiving.” She pauses to cough into her fist.

Tibryl offers the water to her mother, and Emberlyyn takes it with a grateful nod. The child lays her head in her mother’s lap and closes her eyes, Emberlyyn’s hand coming down to tenderly stroke her daughter’s matted hair. There’s a disturbing rattle in Tibryl’s lungs as she breathes. The end stage of the Grippe.