Lyssa

Lyssa changes a monster's behavior rather than merely making it sick in an ordinary way. Infected beasts do not kill only for food, territory, or young; they become exceptionally vicious and slaughter anything in their path. The infection is understood to spread by the bite of an infected monster, not by exposure to green blood.

In an infected host, Lyssa can heighten natural abilities while making the host more monstrous. In the Guardian, it gives rapid healing, sharper sight and hearing, extraordinary speed and strength, and a bloodlust that nearly strips away his control.

Luella's theory traces Lyssa to the interaction between Ransom's elixir and the bite of the one-eyed bariwolf. The elixir alone did not create the infection, because ten people took it without developing Lyssa; she believes Ransom's elixir supplied the fundamental magical component, the bariwolf bite supplied a missing component, and the resulting bond created Lyssa inside him before the one-eyed bariwolf spread it through further bites.

Attempts to reproduce Lyssa by replacing the original bite with infected-monster blood fail under Luella's theory. Ramsey's team uses blood taken from infected monsters on human subjects, but without the missing magical component supplied by a bite, the experiments kill the men instead of recreating Ransom's condition.

Skore states that Lyssa spreads through blood but is not a bloodline. He links it to the Starling condition by saying Calandran magic fuels Lyssa while poisoning Starling blood, and Odessa infers that the original bite may have come from Xandra while she was trapped in bariwolf form; that inference remains unconfirmed.

Luella suspects Ramsey's team is using blood taken from infected monsters in an attempt to recreate Ransom's powers in human subjects. She believes the infected-monster blood cannot create Lyssa without the missing magical component supplied by a bite, so the experiments are not reproducing the infection as intended.

Healer Alore uses controlled experiments to study a cure, not to weaponize Lyssa. Because the infection appears to travel by bite, she tests Luella's elixir with tarkin saliva and with Alore's saliva; Ransom's saliva is tested as an uncertain comparison after Ransom's blood yields no useful result.

No cure for Lyssa exists. The Voster High Priest can siphon Lyssa from the Guardian's blood for study, but the procedure is painful and does not cure him.

Lyssa does not appear to pass from an infected mother to her young simply because she licks them clean. The Guardian treats that as a working observation rather than a complete transmission rule, so the tarkin pups still require individual checking.

Lyssa cannot be removed completely from Ransom without killing him. The High Priest can take enough to delay the infection's consuming him, but Ransom says it is bound to him and has become part of his being.

Alore's experiments with Ransom's saliva and Faze's tarkin saliva do not reproduce Lyssa in rats, leaving the infection's repeatable creation and any cure unresolved. The one-eyed bariwolf remains the desired missing subject because it is still in Turah, where Odessa believes it continues spreading the infection and slaughtering innocent people.

Skore considers a cure unlikely while the underlying magic remains. He cannot confirm that destroying the orbits would cure Ransom, so Odessa continues both Alore's cure work and the orbit quest without knowing whether either path can save him.

The Guardian is a surviving human host. Lyssa gives him rapid healing, heightened senses, exceptional speed and strength, and dangerous bloodlust, while the infection increasingly threatens his control.

Confirmed infected monsters include the lionwick attacked by Ransom and Odessa. Other recent mountain attacks by grizzurs and bariwolves may be related, but Ransom cannot determine whether those monsters were infected.

The unidentified man Odessa kills in Ellder is confirmed to have Lyssa, making him a known human case outside Ransom. His infection has no bite scar and instead shows fresh injection marks, proving that a human can be deliberately infected.

By the journey through Ozarth and Laine, infected species include bariwolves, alligasks, and kaverines outside Turah. Green blood, milky-white eyes, and abnormal bloodlust identify the alligask and kaverine cases, while the Ozarth bariwolves show that the infection has crossed the Turah border.

An unusually large bariwolf pack is reported as entirely infected with Lyssa. The report makes the one-eyed bariwolf's possible presence among them immediately important to Ransom.

The Ashmore bariwolf fight gives the green-blood mystery its name. The bariwolves' putrid green blood matches the earlier marroweel and grizzur signs, and the Guardian identifies the condition affecting them as Lyssa.

The Ellder infirmary escape confirms that Lyssa can affect humans as well as monsters. The infected man attacks Odessa, burns with abnormal heat, bleeds dark green, foams at the mouth, and dies after Odessa cuts his throat; Zavier then confirms Lyssa and identifies injection marks rather than a bite.

Ransom's infection visibly advances in Quentis as dark veins spread from his heart and his silver-eyed rages grow more dangerous. He admits Lyssa is making him lose control and fears that he may become too weak to fight it.

Brother Skore siphons Lyssa from Ransom's blood in the Quentis barracks, temporarily removing the dark veins from Ransom's chest. The relief also reduces Ransom's unnatural heat, silver eyes, rage, and pain, but Odessa doubts that the procedure is a cure.

Korakin is chemically important to the investigation. Laine's healers and alchemists find that Lyssa reacts strongly to korakin made from kaverine dung, and the apparent adhesion between the two leads Odessa to suspect an alchemical origin.

The Voster High Priest spent nearly a year teaching his magic to attune to Lyssa.

Luella's elixir is central to Lyssa's origin theory. Luella believes Ransom's elixir supplied the fundamental magical component, while the bite from the one-eyed bariwolf supplied a missing component; their interaction created Lyssa in Ransom's body.

Brother Skore demonstrates that Voster magic can act directly on Lyssa when he begins siphoning the infection from Ransom's blood in the Quentis barracks.

The orbits and Starling blood become linked to Lyssa through Skore's explanation of Calandran magic. If Calandran magic fuels Lyssa while poisoning Starlings, the orbit quest may be relevant to the infection, though no one can confirm that destroying the orbits will cure Ransom.