"Turn your arm. Palm up. Don't flinch."
Garrett Hale didn't flinch. He gritted his teeth until the cord in his neck stood out like a cable under tension, but he held the pose. His right forearm rested on the sterile white sheet, the skin there mottled with bruises that hadn't healed in three weeks. The B-rank swordsman looked at me, eyes wide and wet with a fear he wouldn't admit to. He was waiting for the warmth. The golden rush of energy that knitted bone and soothed nerve.
My palm hovered an inch above the worst of the discoloration. I didn't touch him yet. Not directly. I sent a thread of genuine healing energy forward, thin as a spider's silk, sliding into his meridian system. Just enough to map the terrain. Just enough to see where the road ended.
The imprint flickered.
It wasn't the steady, rhythmic pulse of a healthy core. It stuttered. Like a candle flame caught in a draft that shouldn't exist inside a sealed room. I pushed the energy deeper, past the muscle, past the fascia, until I hit the anchor point in his radius bone.
There it was.
Natural decay spread outward. It was diffuse, a slow erosion like water wearing down stone over centuries. The edges blurred. The center held firm while the periphery faded. That was how imprints died. That was how people aged out of their prime.
This wasn't that.
The degradation here was concentric. It started at the very heart of the anchor, a perfect, ugly sphere of nothingness eating its way out. The surrounding tissue wasn't fading; it was being dissolved. The structural integrity of the imprint was collapsing inward, leaving a vacuum that his body couldn't fill because the foundation was gone.
I've seen this pattern before.
I've made this pattern.
My Decay Touch does exactly this. It reverses the flow, turning the healing energy into a solvent that eats the imprint from the inside out. Forensically untraceable, usually. Because when I do it, it's precise. Surgical. I control the rate. I control the depth. I can make it look like an accident, or I can make it look like a rapid-onset disease.
This was neither.
This was a blunt instrument. Someone had taken a hammer to the foundation of this man's power and smashed it. There was no finesse. No timing. Just a crude chemical assault that ignored the subtle dance of meridian flow and simply rotted the core.
"It's not healing," Garrett said. His voice cracked. "You're an E-rank, right? Maybe... maybe you need a senior healer? Someone from Silver Peak?"
"I'm checking the anchor," I said. My voice sounded flat even to me. "Hold still."
I withdrew my hand. The air between us felt heavy, charged with his desperation. I wiped my palm on my trousers, a useless gesture. My right hand felt cold. Colder than the left. That was the tell. Every time I mapped a decay pattern, even without activating the full ability, the temperature dropped. My body remembered the mechanism. It primed the pump.
*Pool: 91.6.*
The number sat in the back of my mind, a ledger entry I couldn't erase. I hadn't spent anything today. Not yet. But the proximity to the decay made the ceiling feel lower. Tighter.
"Patient two," I called out, not looking at Garrett. "Nadia Voss. Bring her forward."
The nurse, a young man with trembling hands, guided the woman to the adjacent bed. Nadia was an A-rank shield-bearer. She was massive, built like a fortress, but she moved with the stiffness of someone whose joints were filled with gravel. Her left shoulder was wrapped in a thick compression bandage.
She sat without complaint. She didn't ask questions. She just stared at the wall, her jaw set in a line of pure exhaustion.
"Bandage off," I said.
She peeled it back. The skin beneath was gray, the texture of old parchment. The earth-element imprint should have been vibrant, a deep ochre glow radiating from the deltoid. Instead, it was dull. Dead.
I repeated the process. Hover. Thread. Map.
The energy slid into her shoulder. It hit the same wall. The same void.
Concentric collapse. Core first. Outward second.
The signature was identical to Garrett's. Down to the microscopic irregularities in the decay rate. It didn't matter that Garrett was fire-aligned and Nadia was earth. It didn't matter that one was a sword arm and the other a shield shoulder. The agent causing this didn't care about the element. It didn't care about the host. It was a universal solvent.
A chemical hammer.
I pulled my hand back. The cold in my fingers spread up to my wrist. I flexed my hand, forcing the blood to move, forcing the warmth back.
"What is it?" Nadia asked. Her voice was low, rough. "Is it overuse? I pushed the barrier too hard in the Rift last month. Director Vance said I was close to the red line."
"It's not overuse," I said.
Overuse frayed the edges. It thinned the thread. It didn't eat the knot.
"Then what?" Garrett demanded from the next bed. He was sitting up now, ignoring the nurse's attempt to push him back down. "If it's not overuse, and you can't heal it, then what is wrong with us?"
I picked up my datapad. The stylus felt slippery in my grip. I needed to write something clinical. Something that wouldn't trigger an alarm. Something that would keep me in this room long enough to find the source.
*Atypical degradation curve inconsistent with overuse models,* I typed. *Recommend environmental factor analysis.*
I didn't write *chemical catalyst*. I didn't write *synthetic decay agent*. If I wrote that, the report would go to the Association within the hour. They would lock down the ward. They would bring in the forensic mages. They would scan my energy signature against the residue in the patients' bodies.
My secondary Imprint trace was detectable in low-grade scanners. I knew that. It was documented in every forensic primer. If they ran a spectral match, they wouldn't find a perfect copy of my decay, but they would find a cousin. A messy, amateurish cousin. And cousins get talked about.
"Environmental factors?" Nadia repeated. She laughed, a dry, hacking sound. "We haven't left the guildhall in three days. Unless the air conditioning is poisoned, Healer Blackwell, I don't see what environment you're talking about."
"The water supply," I said. "The food. The topical salves used in post-mission care."
I was guessing. But it was a calculated guess. If this was a chemical, it had to be administered. You couldn't infect an imprint from across the room. It required contact. Ingestion. Absorption.
"The salves," Garrett muttered. He looked at his arm. "We all used the new batch. The one Dawn Bell donated. Said it accelerated tissue regeneration."
My stomach tightened. A small, hard knot formed behind my ribs.
Dawn Bell.
Lucian's client organization. The group that had been so eager to supply Iron Edge with resources during the shortage. The group Lucian had vouched for in every quiet inter-guild conversation where donations became trust and trust became access. The memory of that exchange felt distant now, filtered through the lens of this rotting flesh.
"Which batch number?" I asked. My voice didn't shake. I made sure of it. I kept my face a mask of bored professionalism.
"DB-744," Nadia said. "Green label. Smelled like mint and ozone."
I knew that smell. I'd smelled it on the crates stacked in the annex hallway. I'd walked past them yesterday. I hadn't thought anything of it. Donations were common. Guilds traded supplies all the time.
But this wasn't a donation. This was a test.
Or maybe it wasn't a test. Maybe it was just cleanup.
If someone wanted to neutralize high-ranking operatives without killing them outright, this was the way to do it. Strip the imprint, drop the rank, render them useless. A B-rank without an imprint is just a man with a sword. An A-rank shield-bearer without her power is just a woman with a heavy arm.
They become liabilities. They become pension cases. They disappear from the board.
"Stop using it," I said. "Immediately. Discard any remaining tubes. Wash the application site with neutral soap and warm water. Do not scrub."
"That's it?" Garrett stood up. The movement made him sway. He grabbed the bed rail for support. "You're telling us to wash our arms and hope?"
"I'm telling you to stop the exposure," I said. "I can't repair the anchor if the dissolving agent is still present. It's like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom."
"So there is a hole," Nadia said. She looked at me, her eyes sharp despite the pain. "You know what this is."
"I know what it looks like," I corrected. "I've seen similar degradation in theoretical models. Rare. Usually associated with toxic Rift exposure."
"Liar," Garrett whispered.
He didn't say it with anger. He said it with resignation. He knew I was holding back. He knew I was scared. And that scared him more than the rot in his arm.
I turned away from them. I couldn't look at their faces anymore. The guilt was a physical weight, pressing against my sternum, but I couldn't let it show. If I showed weakness, they would panic. If they panicked, they would run to the Guild Master. And if the Guild Master got involved, I would lose access to the records I needed.
I had to find the source. I had to find who ordered this.
Was it Dark Flame? Gideon Roarke testing a new weapon? It fit his style. Brutal. Efficient. Disregard for collateral damage. But why use Dawn Bell as the vector? Why involve a third party?
Unless Dawn Bell wasn't a third party at all.
Who funded them? Who truly benefited from a weakened Iron Edge? The salves were a perfect vector—distributed through trusted channels, concealed within a legitimate supply chain. An organization like that wouldn't operate on principle alone. It operated on someone's directive. Someone who wanted the guilds compromised, their best assets stripped, without a trace leading back to them. The poison wasn't just in the jars; it was in the system that delivered them.
Would a principled front knowingly feed corruption to the very institutions it claimed to monitor? Or was that the point—to weaken from within, to clear the board under the guise of oversight?
The thought coiled, cold and logical. This wasn't the work of a rogue actor. This was institutional.
I walked to the sink in the corner of the ward. I turned on the tap and let the water run until it was scalding. I stuck my right hand under the stream. The heat bit into my skin, turning it red. I needed to feel something real. Something that wasn't decay.
*Pool: 91.6.*
The number hadn't changed. I hadn't used the ability. But the ceiling felt lower. The air in the room felt thinner. Every moment I spent near this corruption chipped away at me. Not my pool, maybe. But my resolve.
I dried my hand on a paper towel. The rough texture scraped against my palm.
"Nurse," I said, not turning around. "Pull the logs for DB-744. I need to know when it arrived, who signed for it, and who authorized the distribution."
"Healer Blackwell," the nurse stammered. "That's... that's restricted data. Only admin level can access procurement chains."
"I have admin access," I lied.
I didn't. Not really. The access level I'd bluffed my way into covered rotation schedules. Procurement was locked tighter than the vault.
But they didn't know that. They saw the badge. They saw the confidence. They saw a healer who wasn't panicking.
"Please," Nadia said. Her voice was small now. The armor was gone. Just a woman with a dying shoulder. "Please find out who did this."
I turned back to them. I looked at Garrett, then at Nadia. Two more names on a list I didn't want to keep. Two more victims of a game I was playing in the dark.
"I will," I said.
It was a promise I wasn't sure I could keep. But I had to say it. Because if I didn't, the silence in the room would crush us all.
I walked out of the ward before they could ask another question. The hallway was bright, sterile, empty. The hum of the ventilation system was the only sound.
I pulled my datapad from my pocket. I opened the contact list. My thumb hovered over Lucian Voss's name.
I needed to ask him about Dawn Bell. I needed to ask him if he knew about the salves. I needed to see his face when I asked.
But if I asked, and he knew, I tipped my hand. I showed him I was connecting the dots. I showed him I was investigating the corruption, not just healing the symptoms.
And if he didn't know?
Then I was dragging him into a mess that might get him killed. Or worse, it might make him choose a side. And I wasn't ready for him to choose.
I locked the screen. I slipped the pad back into my pocket.
I wouldn't call him. Not yet.
I would go to the source. The procurement office was on the fourth floor. The logs were digital, but the physical manifests were still kept in the archives. Old school. Paper trails for high-value transfers.
If someone wanted to hide a poison, they wouldn't put it in the digital log. They would slip it in with the paper work. A forged signature. A misfiled crate.
I started walking. My boots clicked against the tile floor. The sound was sharp, rhythmic. A countdown.
*Click. Click. Click.*
Each step took me closer to the truth. And closer to the edge of the disguise I was wearing.
If I found the order, I would know who signed it. If the signature was fake, I would know who forged it. If the signature was real...
I stopped at the elevator. The doors slid open with a soft chime.
I stepped inside and pressed the button for the fourth floor. The doors closed, cutting off the view of the ward. Cutting off the sight of the rotting imprints.
The elevator rose. My stomach dropped.
*If the signature is real, then Lucian's employers are killing the guild from the inside.*
And if that was true, then the man I was watching, the man who was watching me, was standing in the middle of a firestorm he didn't even see coming.
The elevator dinged. The doors opened to the archives hallway.
It was dark. The lights were off.
Someone was already here.
And they weren't looking for files. They were waiting for me.
A figure stepped out of the shadows near the archives door. Tall. Familiar. Holding something in his hand that glowed with a faint, sickly green light.
The same green as the salve.
"You took your time, Vera," the figure said.
It wasn't Lucian.
It was Kiran Vale. And he was smiling.
*Vote if this chapter hurt. Vote harder if it hurt the right people.*