I didn’t dream anything this time. No metal worm visited me in my sleep, nor was I visiting the prison in purgatory again. It was just a normal day. At least that’s what I hoped as I woke up in the early night. Right beside me was a blood-drenched pillow. It wasn’t much blood, but it was definitely more than there should be. Reruoved was missing, along with Luna and worry started to grip my heart. I shook my head and tried to ignore the scenes of Luna´s dead body that flashed up from time to time, but wasn’t very successful until I stormed out of the door and saw Luna eating stew with Tom.

“Luna! Are you alright?” I gripped her shoulders as she was just placing the spoon inside her mouth.

“Hmm, I just had a bit of nosebleed. There is nothing to worry about.” She mumbled as she tried not to bite onto the spoon.

“But you look incredibly pale.” I said as I noticed her complexity. She was incredibly pale and her skin seemed as white as mine sometimes in the shine of the fire.

“So do you. Lucinda, don’t worry about me. I´m fine.” She said, just as her nose began to bleed again. With one disappointing look towards Tom, I grabbed her forehead and felt her temperature. It was warm, but that didn’t mean much as everything was warm to me as I always had the temperature of the air around me.

“You are ill.” I concluded and took the bowl of stew away from her. She resisted, albeit very weakly.

“No, I´m fine. There are more pressing matters we have to solve first.” If she was talking about the murder cases, then I had to disappoint her.

“I´m not taking you with me today. Nothing is more important than your health.” I was in no way ready to risk her health. She was the only person I had built up some emotional connection with so far on this planet and I was in no way willing to lose that because of her illness.

“Lu …” She pleaded and pouted, but I grabbed her hand and pulled her up.

“Let´s go to the infirmary, they will know for sure how to help you. Tom, can you lead us?” Tom nodded, although rather reluctantly. With a last longing gaze towards his bowl, he stood up and walked towards the infirmary, with us following him.

We didn’t speak much, mostly because Luna already struggled with just walking and had to rely on me to keep her balance. I was worried sick about her and couldn’t help but to think that I was the reason for this. I dragged her into the cold night, without thinking about her health at all. It was my fault and I couldn’t do anything to help her at all.

As soon as we stood in front of the infirmary, a large tent with a few humans in white clothing inside, I was flabbergasted. Some so many humans looked incredibly pale and some of them were bleeding out of their nose, although not in large quantities.

“What is happening here?” I asked a doctor who was just leaving the tent in a hurry.

“A new kind of illness. We don’t know the specifics yet, but it seems that it isn’t lethal. Let the patient rest for a few days and she should be fine, there is nothing we can do right now.” He said and hurried away. I was beginning to become even more worried about the current situation. First was the elven bandit, then the murders and now this strange illness. It was as if the elves had already won, something I desperately had to avoid at all costs. And yet, I doubted that the elves were capable of so many perfect murders. They just couldn’t hide among the humans in the numbers needed, at least that’s what everyone believed.

“Tom, have you found anything suspicious?” I asked, hoping he brought me a piece of the puzzle I needed to solve.

“No, everything seemed fine so far.” I scratched my cheek as I realized that my last hope may have vanished with his statement.

“Bring Luna back to the carriage and take care of her.” I said and made sure that Tom supported her enough until I let go of Luna.

“What if I get ill as well?” He asked and tried to keep as much distance from Luna which made me incredibly angry.

“Then you still take care of her.” I said, trying my best not to smack him right there.

“What if” started he, but didn’t come far as my fist hit his head lightly.

“Do it. Luna, I will be back in no time, just hang in there for me.” I said and smiled, in an attempt to cheer her up. She nodded weakly which was my sign to dash off towards Arthur`s tent. Luckily it wasn’t too far as we were already in the general area and I didn’t even lose my way once. Proudly, I entered the tent, not expecting to see a horde of officers, shouting through the room with Arthur at the centre. Luckily, my presence wasn’t completely drowned out by them and Markus soon escorted me outside again.

“The new illness?” I asked as I heard quite a few words like quarantine inside the luxurious tent.

“You know about it?”

“Luna has it.”

“Damn it, another area we have to watch out for.” He said and made me regret saying anything. I didn’t want Luna to stay with a bunch of nose bleeding soldiers after she was cured. Well, Tom was with her, but I wasn’t entirely sure if that made it better or worse.

“Since when is it spreading?” I asked out of curiosity.

“A few days after we joined the army. I highly doubt you have anything to do with it, but-“

“It wasn’t me.” I interrupted him before he could even finish. Even if I wanted to spread something like this, I wouldn’t be able to.

“I see … it seems like the elves won without fighting us even once.”

“It is impossible that they did it, right?” I inquired, just to check if my thinking so far was correct.

“I believe so. The bandit was a damn rare magician and I doubt that they could pull this off without leaving any clue behind. Anyway, do you have any information about the murderers except what the soldier gave us?”

“No … what units are hit the hardest so far by the illness?” He wanted to change the topic, but I was still very interested in the illness.

“Hmm, the supply corps had a big wave three days ago. They were ordered to stay under themselves and we hoped to solve this problem due to that. The cases among the main army were negligible during that time, so we did hope to contain it until after the first few battles with the elves.” Or he did hope to spread the illness to the elves and use it as a weapon, but I chose to stay silent about this possibility. In fact, I was more interested in the fact that the supply corps has been hit by the illness than anything else.

“The supply corps … hmm.”

“You think this is connected to the murder cases?” I had a hard time finding any connection between the murders and the illness, but the timing was certainly out of the ordinary.

“Possibly.” I turned around to make my way to the supply corps in the hope of finding anything useful, but Markus grabbed my shoulder and held me back. Just as I imagined slashing his hand off and looked behind me in disgust, he let me go. I still couldn’t stand the touch of some people and Markus was apparently one of them. Well, neither of us liked the other to begin with, so this wasn’t entirely surprising.

“I´ll come with you.”

“Huh?” I raised my eyebrows as I thought I misunderstood him.

“Arthur will not believe you, no matter what you find. And besides …” He pointed towards the loud tent which made me chuckle involuntarily. I knew exactly where he was coming from as a few heads were bound to roll if I had to stay in this tent for longer than a few minutes.