The village of Harrowfield hasn’t paid its tithe in three months. Lord Cassian sent me to investigate. I expected lazy peasants or crop failure. What I found was worse.
The entire village has gone silent. Not abandoned — silent. People move through the streets, tend gardens, walk to the well, but nobody speaks. Their eyes are blank. They perform daily routines with mechanical precision but there’s nobody home behind the eyes.
The priest told me everything. Three months ago, a traveler came through offering a cure for the blight affecting their crops. The cure worked — crops grew overnight, healthier than ever. But the price wasn’t silver. It was voices. Every person in the village traded their voice for the harvest.
The priest still has his voice because he’s a priest of the Old Faith. He begs me to find the traveler and reverse the bargain. The traveler is heading east, toward the Ashwood. Of course he is.
I’m tracking him now. If I can’t reverse the bargain, Harrowfield will be a village of ghosts within a year.
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