I ran upstairs. We carried all our possessions in a single valise and a few extra packs. There were advantages to being forced to travel light, even if it meant I rarely had anything nice to wear when attending a local noble’s gala soiree.

Parties were the least of my worries at the moment.

Afterward, I lowered the drawbridge so we could leave.

Ninavis rode on Arasgon’s back to take the weight off her leg. Arasgon and I walked together, helping each other navigate through the impenetrable smoke.

I wondered if this resembled traveling through the sandstorms of Khorvesh or the blizzards farther north in Yor. If not for the air pockets around our heads—

Well. I suppose I wouldn’t be in any condition to puzzle over the smoke if not for the fresh air around our heads.

Halfway back to the fairgrounds, I spotted something moving on the main road. Not walking, as one bearing the glyph might, but crawling. Injured. Maybe dying.

“Brother Qown, someone’s over there—” I couldn’t believe someone had survived the cursed smoke for so long. From the way they convulsed and stumbled on their knees, they seemed in pain. Perhaps someone wearing the glyph had also been injured.

I approached and bent down to see the person better. My stomach flipped over while I tasted bile.

“By the Eight,” I whispered.

It was Tamin.

He didn’t have a glyph on his forehead, nor anywhere else as far as I could tell. The white-skinned witch had left him to die. Somehow, he hadn’t.

But he was trying.

Tamin’s face had turned an ugly purple. Blue smoke danced through his open mouth and nostrils. His mouth gaped open as he failed to draw breath, but despite all this, he somehow still lived.

I once heard of a child who had drowned in the river near Tolamer Castle. She fell through thin ice in winter and then found herself unable to surface. By the time the local farmers cracked the ice and brought her to a priest, she’d been without air for ten minutes—and lived. Everyone had agreed, however, that such had been the grace of the Eight and the cold water acting to preserve her.

Tamin had no such benefits, and I was damn sure the Eight were not on his side.

Brother Qown knelt next to me. He didn’t hesitate, as he never hesitated when someone’s life was at risk. He drew the glyph across Tamin’s forehead.

I shook my head. “The smoke is already inside him.”

“I’ll find a way to draw it out,” he said. “Some force is keeping this man alive. His case isn’t like the others. Even an injury healed by magic can’t work if no one draws the sword from the wound.”

I heard Ninavis behind me. “Kalazan, no!”

I had that much warning.