Snow tricks my eyes tonight, reflecting the moonlight, banishing the darkness. I tread through the quiet village, Taren by my side, the windows of our first target long gone dark.

  Taren bounces from foot to foot as we stand by the back door of the home, a grin spread across his face. He peers into windows one at a time as I stand still, shivering from more than the cold.

  Once satisfied, Taren nods to me and shifts the door, inch by inch. Old Solib doesn’t have any kind of lock. We slip inside and tiptoe around her clean, one-bedroom home. We sneak, not because we fear waking the woman. She’s too weak from the illness. It’s Marlene who worries us.

  Everyone draws lots to watch over the elderly in the village, even Marlene. She lies back in the small chair by the bed. Denet stays with Raimi’s family tonight.

  Taren’s sight is superior to mine, so he guides me to the bed. Both of my cloak pockets overflow with moss.

  I shuffle up close so I can reach the sleeping woman without nudging Marlene.

  [Detect Decay] shows me what I expect. Pulses of decay, rooted in the heart, spreading the same as Raimi.

  I [Leech Grip] moss with one hand, draining vitality quickly, then immediately blast the decay, ripping through it. It withers and struggles against my onslaught of life. I flare with [Leech Grip] as the decay retreats, smaller and smaller.

  But unlike with Raimi, I slow down at the end, trickling vitality from the moss—drops of life acting like water on smoldering coals, pulses hissing in my mind with each contact. Then there is nothing.

  I could continue on, revitalize the woman, but her body can do the rest. I don’t want her to jolt up like Raimi did, overflowing with vitality. And I need to conserve mana.

  Taren stands behind me, shadowed eyes on Marlene, but the widow doesn’t stir from her chair.

  I tap Taren to signal my healing’s complete, and we slip outside, back into the cold.

  At the blacksmith’s home, near the chapel, Taren paces back and forth. The windows are dark. Taren checked them a dozen times already. I stand in the snow, waiting. Despite my ring, my mana seems to fill a drop at a time.

  Once replenished, I nod to Taren and we crack the door open. Few homes in the village have locks or bar their doors at night. The blacksmith healing ends quickly, and we exit once again.

  Half of my moss, lining one cloak pocket, is ash. I scrape out the remains as we wait for more mana. Taren shows more impatience than I expect from a hunter. People are different from animals, he tells me. Waiting for mana is different from stalking prey.

  By the third healing, I suspect I have enough moss to heal one more person, but exhaustion tells me a different story. Dawn will rise in hours, and Denet will do anything but let me sleep late.

  I still have half my mana, enough to finish now and get some sleep. Taren seems optimistic. He selects a solitary home to save time searching neighboring windows for light.

  Inside the home, we find an array of furniture and objects strewn about the floor. Taren leads me through until we reach the back room, where the pulses of decay originate.

  In his bed, a man, Aedul, shivers under thick blankets. I [Leech Grip] moss, now practiced at the healing art. Surges of vitality flow down my arm and cut into the decay.

  But something changes. The pulses that once hissed and shrank before my onslaught of vitality resist. For each flare of [Leech Grip], the decay shutters, regroups, then grows.

  I cannot stop. Something is wrong here. I rip vitality from the moss, which crumbles in my fingers as I search for more. I pound Aedul with life, unloading vitality like a wave. Decay crumbles under the crushing weight of life, splitting and shrinking.

  Then my moss runs out.

  Flecks of decay remain, spreading into the corners of Aedul’s chest, acting as seeds of rot. Within moments, they grow independently.

  Impossible.

  With no moss, I [Leech Grip] myself. My body trembles from the effect. Vitality wants to enter my core, refill me, but I refuse it, pushing it away and down into Aedul.

  The decay seems intelligent, spreading far apart, casting up weaker remnants of itself as a sacrifice to protect budding decay. But I’m relentless, sapping my strength without care, purging every spore of decay. It cannot stand under the pressure of life. Smaller and smaller and then—

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  My mana dries up. [Leech Grip] and [Detect Decay] fail me. My stamina loss under the strain cripples me, and I crumple to the floor with a thud.

  The noise triggers something. A mutter from the other side of the bed where Aedul's wife sleeps.

  Taren reaches me and lifts. Mutters become more coherent as Taren drags me towards the door, crashing through the haphazard furniture.

  Outside, the cold air refreshes me. My vitality remains weakened, but I have stamina enough. Taren pulls me along as we race to the edge of the village, near the once-rotten granary. I collapse and pant.

  “What happened?” Taren asks me.

  “Something…” I breathe. “He had something…different. It…it fought me.”

  Taren frowns.

  “I know so little about healing.” I lie back in the snow to rest. “Two or three people healed doesn’t make me a master.”

  “No, but your healings are two or three miracles to a village like ours.”

  “Edrine—”

  “That old man doesn’t heal. Must have gotten all the other cleric [Skills], like [Invigorate Mob] or something ridiculous like that.”

  “He hasn’t healed anyone?”

  Taren the stub of his missing finger. “Not in ways that matter. Only small healings. The cleric’s limited in ways you aren’t.”

  That must be enough then. Those are the thoughts that I push into my head as I sleep that night in the hayloft. I am enough.

  ~~~

  Denet wakes me after dawn. “Raimi says you were in her room with Taren.”

  I rub exhaustion from my eyes and blink at the boy. He’s climbed the ladder and now stares at me.

  “Boys aren’t supposed to be in a girl’s room,” he says with a frown. “That’s what mama always says.”

  I don’t have the energy to explain it to Denet, so I lie down.

  Denet must take my silence as acceptance because he changes the subject. “She’s all better now,” he says. “She wants to go and play, just with me, cause she’s embarrassed. But I wanted to see you first. You can ask her to let you come too.”

  I groan. “Not today, Denet.”

  The boy tries a few tactics to convince me. Girls are weird. Raimi will forgive you if you lose in a snowball fight. When I offer no response, the boy mutters to himself, then slides down the ladder.

  Sleep doesn’t return to me, so I climb down from my loft and head into the frigid morning.

  Taren finds me first and claps me on the shoulder, a grin to match his demeanor.

  “Welcome to your first day as master healer,” he says to me.

  I don’t feel it until he points out what I’m missing.

  Old Solib stands outside, watching the morning chores in the village square. Marlene leans against the door, befuddled. Old women don’t heal overnight.

  Raimi runs by the well with Denet, then circles the great oak.

  Rings of metal on anvil come from the blacksmith’s forge.

  All the people I healed, enjoying life again.

  Except one.

  “Where is Aedul?” I ask, though I don’t want to know the answer.

  Taren frowns, then searches the crowd.

  I trudge towards Aedul’s home. It stands alone, no houses in proximity.

  [Detect Decay] fills me with that all familiar pulse—that sickening beating that vibrates against my skin. I want to block it out, but I must know.

  With windows lined with drapes, I cannot see inside, but the decay rocks through my core, more powerful than before, and when we reach the back of the home, near the Aedul’s room, I hear something.

  Sobbing. Constant and unconsolable.

  I stumble back, knocking into Taren.

  He opens his mouth, but I don’t hear him.

  I break away from his outstretched hand and race through ice and snow. Taren calls out, but does not chase. He could catch me in seconds.

  He understands. This is not the time for words.

  When my stamina empties, I slip and fall into the snow, then stare at the sky through the empty branches of an elm.

  I know what Taren will tell me when I see him again. It’s not your fault, he’ll say. You can only heal so much. You’re still just a boy.

  I am a boy. A boy who can kill as easily as he can heal. A boy who kills to heal. A boy whose powers may lead him down the path of destruction, but he cannot know; he cannot ask anyone without risking his life to a mob.

  A raven lands on the branch above me. The nameless raven.

  I launch myself to my feet, ready for action—mana brimming over, stamina at the ready.

  But there is nothing.

  I circle, searching in vain. Nothing but snow-covered trees and rocks surround me.

  I tilt my head to gaze at the nameless raven, which hasn’t moved from its branch.

  “Maybe I’m the trouble this time,” I mutter under my breath.

  The raven glances down at me, intelligence in its eyes.

  “You know rot and decay,” I say, frustrated. “Where is it all coming from? How can I put an end to all this?”

  The raven stares at me, unflinching.

  I tighten my fists, knowing how foolish I must seem.

  Then the raven launches from its perch, swoops down near me, and flies deeper into the forest. When I don’t follow, it circles around and then flies in the same path.

  Nox clicks under my shirt, nervousness passing through our bond.

  Nervous is good, I think to myself, as long as it leads to an end I want.

  I race after the nameless raven.