The camp was awake. Word had spread.
Hundreds of camp members were gathered near the main lift, holding torches, their faces anxious.
When Scott stepped onto the wooden deck, carrying the sleeping Elara, a hush fell over the crowd.
They saw Scott. Not the dying boy they had mourned, but a warrior.
Shirtless, powerful, and radiating an aura of absolute command.
"Lord Scott!" someone shouted.
"He's alive!"
"He found her!"
Cheers erupted, but Scott raised one hand. Silence fell instantly.
He walked through the parting crowd, the villagers bowing their heads in respect as he passed. He didn't stop until he reached the door of his own treehouse.
"Jorunn," he said softly.
"I'm here," she replied, stepping to his side.
"Take her," he said, gently passing Elara into her mother's arms. "Put her in bed. Stay with her. Don't let her wake up alone."
Jorunn nodded, tears in her eyes. "I will. Thank you, Scott."
She carried her daughter inside, kicking the door shut behind her.
Scott turned back to the crowd.
Leo threw Varg down onto the wooden planks in the center of the gathering.
Scott walked to the center of the platform. He stood over Varg, looking out at his people.
"This man," Scott's voice projected clearly, amplified by his powerful lungs, "thought that because I was wounded, because I was 'dying'."
He placed his foot on Varg's chest.
"He drugged my wife. He tried to kidnap her in the night like a thief."
A roar of outrage went through the crowd.
Men clenched their fists; women shouted curses.
In this apocalyptic world, loyalty and safety were everything. Betrayal was the ultimate sin.
"But he was wrong," Scott continued, his voice hardening. "I am not dead. And this camp is not weak."
He looked down at Varg.
"Varg. For the crime of treason, kidnapping, and assault against the Lord's family... I sentence you to the death by The Blood-Vein Parasite."
A collective gasp sucked the air out of the platform.
Even Leo flinched, his grip on Varg's ankles tightening instinctively.
The older members of the camp knew what that was.
It was a rare, nasty fungal parasite usually found deep in the forest… Getting infected means a fate considered worse than death by all spore men.
"No!" Varg shrieked, his eyes bulging until the whites showed all around.
He began to thrash wildly, ignoring the pain in his broken limbs.
"Kill me! Just cut my throat! Don't put that inside me! Please, Lord Scott! Mercy!"
"Mercy?" Scott crouched down, his face inches from Varg's.
His eyes were cold, glowing with a faint, bioluminescent hard-light. "Don't you want to teach my wife a lesson about pain?"
"Have you ever considered the consequences?"
Scott ignored him. He extended his hand to Leo. "Give me your dagger. And bring out the seed box."
Leo hesitated for a fraction of a second, a testament to the cruelty of the punishment, before unhooking his belt and handing over his blade.
Soon he also brought another specimen jar containing a single, writhing, crimson tendril suspended in stasis fluid.
"Hold him," Scott ordered as he popped the cork.
Leo and two other guards pinned Varg to the deck as Varg screamed, thrashing like a dying fish, but he couldn't move under the combined weight.
Scott took Varg's shattered wrist, the one he had broken earlier. He used the jagged bone pushing against the skin to create an opening.
"The Blood-Vein fungus," Scott lectured calmly, his voice carrying over the silent, terrified crowd.
"It doesn't kill its host. However, it needs a continuous supply of fresh, pumping blood to survive. It enters the veins and grows... against the flow."
He tilted the vial. The crimson tendril slid out, sensing the warmth of the fresh blood bubbling from Varg's wrist, it lunged.
It burrowed into the open wound like a living worm.
"ARGGHHHHH!" Varg's scream was a sound that didn't seem human. It was high-pitched, wet, and tearing.
Under the skin of his arm, the crowd could see a red line shooting up his forearm, past the elbow, seeking the heat of the torso.
"It grows micro-thorns inside your blood vessels," Scott continued, standing up and wiping his hands on a rag.
"Every time your heart beats, or each time you move, it tears your blood vessels. It feels like molten lead is replacing your blood."
Varg was convulsing now, foam gathering at the corners of his mouth.
He curled up, clutching his arm, but the pain was already spreading to his chest.
"Tie him to the Warning Post," Scott commanded, pointing to a thick, stripped log at the very edge of the platform, facing the dark forest.
"Make sure he is fed and given water," Scott said, his voice void of any warmth. "The parasite dies if the host dies. And I want him to live a long, long time."
Leo dragged the sobbing, twitching man toward the post.
Varg was no longer begging; he was just making low, guttural sounds of pure agony, his body locking up as the fungus began to colonize his circulatory system.
Scott turned back to the crowd.
They were pale, staring at him with a mixture of terror and absolute reverence.
"This is the price of betrayal," Scott announced. "We survive together. Any betrayal will not be tolerated."
"Everyone back to your posts! The night is over. We have work to do."
—-
Sunlight sliced through the gaps in the wooden shutters, painting stripes of gold across the furs piled on the bed.
Elara woke slowly.
Her head felt heavy, a dull throb pulsing behind her temples, the lingering hangover of the Siren Mushroom.
Her body ached, but it wasn't the sharp, stinging pain of the whip.
It was a deep, muscular soreness, a tenderness in her thighs and hips that felt strangely grounding.
She shifted, trying to curl into the warmth beside her.
Elara's eyes flew open.
For a second, panic flared. The memories of the cave, the blue light, the tearing fabric, it all rushed back. She gasped, pushing herself up.
"Easy," a deep, rumble of a voice soothed her. "I'm here."
A large hand, rough with callouses but incredibly gentle, covered her back.
Elara blinked, the room coming into focus. She was in her own bed.
The familiar scent of dried herbs and old wood filled her nose. And lying next to her, propped up on one elbow, was Scott.
But it was a Scott she was still trying to comprehend.
The morning light highlighted the transformation.
His shoulders were broad, stretching the skin, filled with dense muscle, marred by the fresh, looking powerful rather than fragile.
He wasn't feverish. He was radiating a steady, furnace-like heat.
"Scott?" she whispered, her voice raspy.
"Morning," he said softly. He reached out and tucked a loose strand of black hair behind her ear.