"Protect something else," Gad repeated. "You're saying this entire time, we've been fighting something that thought it was doing its job."
"I'm saying I don't know yet," Bellan said. "But the phrasing troubles me. Guardians don't simply become hostile without reason. If the entity was made to protect something, and your bloodline's original purpose was to contain it rather than destroy it, there's a piece of this history we're still missing entirely."
Gad rubbed a hand over his face, exhaustion compounding with the weight of yet another unanswered question. "Add it to what Doran needs to investigate. If there's any chance the farmhand's condition offers clues, or if the villages have older stories about what came through their wells before any of this started, we need that information to
