I stalk towards the woods, filled with purpose. Taren hurries to catch up with me.

  “What about Raimi?” he asks.

  “I need vitality to heal.” The moss in my pocket is half ash.

  Taren doesn’t understand. “What about something in the house? Like wood or grain?”

  I shake my head. “Those things are as good as dead when cut off from a source of vitality for too long, even seed grain is too dormant.”

  “Orlen must have something, or maybe his wife…”

  “I’m certain they won’t mind me murdering some plant or animal in front of them like a black sorcerer to heal their daughter.”

  “Yeah, that may be stretching things. Honep would know of it within the hour.”

  Boots that Marlene gave me after my first good haul of venison cut through the snow, leaving gashes in the white.

  Moss is best. It retains vitality long after it has been uprooted. It can even regrow once returned to the earth. My problem is the snow. Searching becomes guesswork. [Detect Decay] has no sense of vitality.

  Taren stops and scans the surrounding forest, his eyes glowing with a golden hue. Then he stops and points. “An elk is digging up the snow out there. Some kind of plant, I hope.”

  We both stamina burn, but Taren outpaces me, and for longer. Before I reach him, he has ripped up a sizable chunk of moss.

  The trek back to the village feels too long. Taren pushes me until my stamina is empty, then drags me along until I have enough stamina to walk on my own.

  The sun hangs at the top of the cloudless sky when we reach Raimi’s home.

  Taren knocks while I stand to the side. I fidget in place, then make sure the moss remains hidden in my cloak. This is my first house-call healing.

  Orlen draws the door back and frowns when he sees Taren. “I told you, son, there’s nothing…” His voice trails when he sees me. I don’t know how to introduce the idea.

  Taren does it for me. “You know he can heal.”

  Orlen nods. “But Father Edrine said…that Raimi must be…no, there isn’t anyone as close to holiness as our little girl.” He stands aside, leaving a gap in the doorway.

  Taren takes the invitation, then glances back at me. I scramble in after him.

  “So you can heal more than wounds, young man?” Orlen asks as he gestures towards the back of the house. They have two small rooms adjoining a cozy living space, similar to Marlene’s home.

  I nod. At least I expect I can heal her, though I don’t know what illness afflicts Raimi.

  When we reach the side room, Orlen hesitates, then pushes the door open.

  Inside, Raimi lies atop a soft bed, covered in wool blankets. Her eyes are shut tight, her breath short and rapid. She trembles, and her mother reaches out with a wet cloth to cool her.

  The woman sits on a stool beside the bed. When she spots Taren and me, her eyes widen in surprise.

  “I thought you told Taren to let our girl rest,” Raimi’s mother says. “Visitors will only upset her.”

  Raimi mutters something, and one of her eyes opens a sliver.

  Orlen holds up a hand. “No reason to get all uppity. Taren brought that boy. You know, the one who helped in the granary.”

  The woman turns her gaze on me. “You didn’t tell me it was that forest child. Father Edrine says—”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Never mind what the cleric says,” Orlen interrupts. “Do you want Raimi healed, or do you want to wait for Mother Life’s judgement?”

  His wife considers for a moment, giving Raimi a chance to notice us.

  “Taren…” she mutters. “I’m glad…” Then she sees me and her eyes pop open. “W-what…Sev…” She weakly pulls at her wool blanket as if to cover her face.

  Her mother watches with concern.

  “What harm can the boy do?” Orlen says. “Nothing worse than what that cleric offered.”

  “Don’t talk about Father Edrine in such a way, Orlen.” But there are questions in her expression. She turns to me. “You can heal her?”

  All eyes are on me, except for Raimi, who has managed to hide half her face under the blanket. “I can try.”

  Orlen nods. “Humility. Wouldn’t that be a surprise if Edr—”

  A glare from his wife shuts him up, but afterward, she looks resigned. Without a word, she stands and leaves the room.

  “Forgive her,” Orlen says, “she’s always been quite devout.”

  I cross the room and circle the bed, stopping by the stool Raimi’s mother abandoned. The moss in my pocket is crushed as my anxiety grows. I cannot fail at this.

  I activate [Detect Decay] to see what I can find. There is no outward black glow on her, but a pulsing comes from near her heart. I sense decay filling the expanse of her chest and neck. It spreads, a little at a time.

  I lift my hand towards the top of Raimi’s head, which is the only part of her not covered in wool. As I touch her hair, she coughs.

  [Leech Grip]. I channel the vitality from my overstuffed pocket up my arm and into my core. Vitality already fills me, with no space for more. Pressure builds as I continue. I can [Leech Grip] faster, but I restrain myself. I don’t know how much vitality I need for this healing. Instead, I keep pace with my mana ring, letting my body stretch with the overflowing vitality.

  I leave [Detect Decay] active, though it slowly empties my mana, then let the first drops of vitality flow down my arm and into Raimi.

  The decay inside her quivers, as if intelligent, its pulse weakened by the vitality, if only slightly. I pour the vitality built up in me, bringing a gush of life to battle with the decay. I flare [Leech Grip], ripping through the moss in my pocket and my mana.

  The decay resists. Vitality punches holes in its strength. The pulses divide into smaller echoes, then retreat, only to be overwhelmed when I draw every drop of vitality my mana can capture and shove it into Raimi.

  [Leech Grip] has reached Level 7.

  The decay is destroyed, not a single pulse remains. The extra vitality restores her strength, and she jolts from her bed, breaking the connection from my hand.

  “What? Where?” she stammers.

  Orlen cries for joy and jumps forward, pulling his daughter into a tight embrace.

  His wife hears the commotion and bursts through the door. I step out of the way as she runs around the side of the bed and hugs her family.

  “Thank you, thank you,” come the cries from Orlen and his wife.

  Raimi takes in our presence more fully at this moment. “You’re in my room,” she says, barely holding back a stutter. She clutches the wool around her as her parents crush her with love. “What are you doing in here?”

  “Your friend,” Orlen says. “Sevorn, is it?” I nod. “He healed you.” He grins broadly and reaches out one hand towards me, as if to bring me closer. “You are a miracle worker, my boy. Edrine said she was beyond his power.”

  His wife frowns, but does not lecture him this time.

  “There are others,” Orlen says. “Like Aedul, or old Solib. Others you can heal.”

  Taren steps in. “His powers are limited. We can’t expect him to heal everyone in Ashgrove.”

  Orlene nods at this. “Then I thank you for picking our family for your miracle.”

  “I would ask,” I say, “that you don’t speak about my healing.” I cannot let Edrine learn any more of my skills. “It may make people jealous or angry…”

  “Of course, we won’t say a word.” He glances at his wife and she nods.

  Raimi still grips her blankets tightly, no longer pale. She even has red in her cheeks. She will be fine.

  I leave the house, floating in every way except reality. Taren catches my arm and my elation dies when I see his face.

  “This is dangerous,” he says, then gestures to my pocket, which is coated in gray ash. Some of it must have spilled out. I glance around to find no one watching us. “Raimi is the exception,” Taren continues. “We can’t have you healing publicly.”

  “But what about the others, like Orlen said?” I cast my gaze over the many homes, dusted with snow, pillars of wood smoke cresting their roofs. Many hide from the cold world outside, others huddle around loved ones. I’m certain there are more than the crowd that pestered Elder Rorahn.

  [Detect Decay] picks up pulses of decay. Some echo over my skin, familiar. My mana recovers some, so I drain it and concentrate. The decay in Raimi was unique—its pulses thrummed like a beating heart, more alive, more intelligent.

  I sense a replica, two homes down the road, closer to Elder Rorahn’s residence.

  Taren watches me.

  “I can sense who is sick,” I tell him.

  He gazes in the same direction as I do. “How much mana does your healing take?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t want to risk failure. I burned it all.”

  He rubs his neck and takes in the village one more time, then he grabs my shoulder. “We’re going to need more moss.” He smiles. “And an excuse to be up all night.”