Devery woke up with a splitting headache. He looked around. It was dark, and he could see a flickering light in the other room.

"Seems like I was carried back home," thought Devery. I'll have to thank Seleph later.

He was in his bed, and had been covered with a blanket. The blanket had seen better days, but it still did its job, on usual days. Today, even with the blanket over him he was feeling an unnatural chill in his body. It felt as if all his body warmth had been stolen away, and he had been frozen in a block of ice for a millennium. He tried to sit, and the bed made a creaking noise.

He heard the sounds of hurried footsteps from the other room. Gracy came running toward his room.

"Dev...! How are you feeling? Does it hurt anywhere?" She hurriedly came toward him and helped him sit. Then she started feeling him all over.

"Good, good, the fever broke." She sat on the bed beside him and loosened her shoulders. She was silent for a while but soon broke down crying. She had been trying to hold it together, all this while. When Seleph dragged him over like a dead body, she wanted to go kill that dog for getting her husband killed. But when she heard how he had fallen down on his own, she pressured the mutt for the whole truth. Not a lot of village folk were able to stand strong in front of Graciana's stare.

He spilled the truth. Graciana had a hard time believing it, but she kept the judgment aside for a while. She got Dev into the bed with Seleph's help. He was burning up. And then Seleph barked of how Dev would kick the bucket maybe. She kicked the mutt out of her house with a barrage of utensils being thrown behind him, while he ran for his dear life.

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It had been a few hours since Dev had been brought back home, and finally, she could rest easy seeing him alive.

"You fucking asshole! We are going to have a nice long chat about what you hid from me later," panted Graciana between ragged breaths while sobbing.

"Shit!" thought Dev. He was frightened of what was going to come. But right now she needed him.

He scooched over near to Graciana and held her in his arms while trying to calm her down. He stroked her hair with his palm, while he wiped her tears with the other.

"I'm really sorry, Gracy! I am sorry I made you worry," said Devery. He felt guilty. Maybe he should have talked to Gracy first.

They stayed together in an embrace for a while. The silence was comfortable.

"Your fever seems to be down. Are you hungry? I've prepared some gruel."

Devery was feeling much better now. The cold was fast receding, and he was feeling warmer than a few minutes ago.

"I'm famished," said Devery, smiling.

Graciana extricated herself from the embrace and went to the other room to get the food. Devery sat there thinking about his day. He still remembered the weird experience he had before passing out. The throbbing in his chest at that time was particularly violent. He slowly parted his tunic to look at his chest.

There, right in the center, was an insignia. Or was it a symbol? Devery didn't know the difference, but it looked quite simple. It was a broken circle with thick borders. It almost looked like, a dashed line had made a circle. And in the center was something that looked like a group of thorns pointing outwards.

He covered it again with his tunic. He would tell Graciana about it, but not now. They both needed some time to rest.

Graciana came over with a bowl of hot gruel and put it in his hand. She sat there watching, while he ate.

BOOOOOOM!

They both looked towards their door. It had been blown out.