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This one is slightly bigger than the last and feels just as strange as the field outside its boundaries.

Esme drifts closer to me, her shoulder brushing mine every few strides. Her fear is strong enough that she’ll try and hide behind me even if she won’t look at me.

I’d love to tease her, use this chance as an excuse to drape my arm around her and tug her close. Except I notice a weird noise, like someone punching a wet pillow. Considering what happened before, I’d prefer for my sword arm to remain free.

Cautiously, we edge toward a tiny hut with its door propped wide open. In the past, this would be a way station, a place to trade out mounts. Now, the corrals are empty. Even the smell of horse manure has faded.

In a sane world, that would mean the structure would be empty too.

It also shouldn’t smell of blood and fresh meat.

In a sane world.

The road leads right to the door, and it would be cowardly to detour around it without investigating.

Esme stares at the path to the corrals in back like they’re designed from gold and chocolate. But her hand is wrapped so tightly on the hem of my shirt that she might lose blood flow soon.

Positioning herself so I’m between her and the door, she peeks inside.

After a moment, my eyes adjust to the dimness, and a figure forms. A man sits with his back to us, hunched over the table.

Blood trickles off the table in a steady drip.

Prying Esme off me, I drift toward him. “What in the name of…”

Is this another accident? One he can’t get out of due to his mind fog? I can’t tell if the blood is coming from him or something on the table, like an animal he’s killed.

I circle the table for a better view but rear back a second later. Gods above and below, he’s flaying his arm. He digs the knife in again, dragging the blade down to create a fresh wound. He repeats the same motion, over and over.

But that’s just the latest in a long line of work. Bloody letters cover every visible inch of skin from his wrist to his shoulder. Overlapping, tangled, and gouged deep enough that white bone shines through in several spots. Red dribbles sluggishly onto the wood. Squinting, I decipher the message.

MARCUS MARCUS MARCUS MARCUS

The floor squeaks as I gravitate closer, my boot splashing in a crimson pool on the floor. Viscous lines of blood snake around Marcus’s feet and the legs of the chair, puddling underneath him.

No flies or maggots feast on the wounds. I grip my forearms like I’m desperate to hold my own flayed flesh together. Come to think of it, I’ve not seen a single scavenger bird either. Not in any of the Withered villages or fields.

I reach out to prevent him from mutilating himself but stop when I catch a glimpse of his expression.

He appears emptied out. His nose seems soft, his eye sockets strangely flat and too round. His lips lay flat, drained of color. The same with his chin, which recedes into his jaw. Puncture wounds that haven’t healed litter his neck and body, though most have stopped weeping blood. I jerk my hand back.

Everything about this guy floods my gut with dread.

“This looks like the Hushing Sickness. Maybe you should put him out of his misery too. The way you did to the guy with the pitchfork.” Esme stumbles from the hut, desperate to escape what comes next.

I can’t bring myself to touch him. Instead, I back out of the hut, leaving the man to carve his name into flesh that will soon be unrecognizable as skin. As Esme and I hurry out of the village, the buildings give way to more gray fields, more dead earth, and a dull sky above us.

No matter how much distance I put between us and that cursed man, the horrible itching across the back of my neck refuses to go away. If anything, the sensation grows stronger.

It’s more than the unsettling vision of a man carving himself up like a freshly slaughtered deer. My skin crawls, and every hair from my nape to my nuts stands erect from the invisible eyes that track us like prey.

Esme’s pace quickens. “Agnar. Something’s following us.”

I risk a quick glance over my shoulder. Nothing. “I know.”

Her hand twitches toward me but stops short of grabbing my shirt. “What do we do?”

Run. Fight. Die. The usual options.