Book 4
Pale Sap Weakness

Status: Prose draft completed
Pale Sap Weakness follows Ṛṣi and Maeril into Mosstone, the Wealdath, and a sickness rooted not only in bodies, but in forest, memory, mythal, old vows, family damage, and the land itself.
Book 3 is the threshold where the road-life phase of The Monk and the Witch begins to end. Ṛṣi and Maeril are no longer only travelers passing through trouble. They stay long enough to become implicated in the wound they are trying to understand.
The sickness can be treated, but not simply cured. The deeper problem remains alive in the Wealdath, the dryad, the Suldusk, the Elmanesse, and the old magic of the forest. What begins as help becomes trespass, consequence, grief, renewal, and a bond no one fully understands yet.