The first death came from the golden water.
Not sickness. Not poisoning. Something stranger. A man named Orin, one of the Awakened, collapsed while drinking from the river. His body didn't decay. It dissolved. Turned to light. Faded into nothing.
Lena arrived at the riverbank within minutes. She knelt where Orin had been. The water still shimmered gold, but now it felt different. Colder. Hungrier.
"Lyra, get Hope. Now."
---
The council gathered in the longhouse. Hope's face was pale.
"The Symbionts didn't do this. Something else is using their gift. A corruption. A parasite."
"What kind of parasite?"
"I don't know. But it's ancient. Older than the Symbionts. Older than the wounds."
---
The second death came the next morning.
A woman named Sera, a healer who had embraced the gold
