Echo-Touched Stag

A Greatwood stag infected by a lingering, crystal-like corruption — running faster than it should, shedding grey grass where it beds, and the Cullers' quarry before it becomes the next Rotcrown.

The corruption doesn't kill them quickly. It hardens in the bone first, making them fast and wrong — a stag that should be browsing stands still with its head cocked as if listening, then bolts at nothing. Where one beds for more than a night the grass turns grey. The Cullers call them by how far gone the crystalline growth has climbed the antler: first-crown, second-crown, or fully crowned. Crowned ones they send to Maret. The rest they put down before the grey spreads.