[ He is quiet for a heavy beat, the concern apparent on his face. It draws his eyebrows together, crowds out the patient calm he'd been hoping to project. ]

I do understand that this has the feeling of... an anticipated reckoning. It is one we can do our best to defend against, all the same. He is not the worst threat we have faced.

[ In a gentler tone: ]

This issue of Tara's... might it be any familiar symptom of Corruption?

[ Might she be like me, he does not say. ]