David cradled a pale corpse lying on a gray stone floor in a puddle of blood. He brushed dried blood from her cheek. He reached out to the side and brushed against a sharp fragment of glass. He grabbed it tightly. A sharp pain shot through his body.

  He woke up clutching his throat with thick beads of sweat rolling down his face. He pried his hand from his throat. No cuts, no broken glass in sight. The bruises on his chest and shoulders throbbed, reminding him of who and where he was. The midday sun was filtering through the shutters, spreading across his little house.

  The same nightmare again.

  He reached out to the side, but his parent's bed was empty. Obviously. Wait... In the morning Mom had promised to teach him more about purification. He jumped out of the bed, grabbed a bit of jerky and flatbread, shoved it into his mouth, and jogged off toward the alchemical shed.

  “I'm up!” he said as entered. Inside, Mom was already hard at work, purifying a bowl of frothy voel leaves. “I’m well rested, no fever, and ready to help,” he said before she could ask.

  “Lively today, are we?” Mom chuckled. She turned around from the workbench, hands on her hips. “Dad needs some help too, but let's do this quickly first. Take this.” She handed him a small bowl and put a voel leaf in it. “To purify it you'll need to—”

  “I remember!” He climbed onto the empty workbench at the opposite side of the shed. The bruises ached, and he suppressed a wince. He hesitated for a second, thinking if he should do it the same way he learned to do the day before, but thought better of it. He brushed his fingers against the springy leaf, focused on the image of the leaf burning down, gathered the warmth in his fingertips and pushed it out.

  Parts of the leaf disintegrated, but he was already breathing hard. Maybe he shouldn’t be trying this so soon after waking.

  “It seems bursts come more naturally to you…” Mom asked, tapping her finger against her lips. “That won't do. Purification is very taxing. You have to try and make it so the speed at which you move mana to your fingers is the same as the speed at which you let it out.”

  David stared at her for a second. It was as if she had read his mind. He pushed the mana lazily down his arm, warming his fingers much more gently than he had before. The whole leaf started crumbling until all that was left in the bowl were grains so tiny he couldn’t even see their color. The grains melted together, creating a few muddy green beads. David wiped his forehead and stared at them. Not bad, but he was feeling slightly cold more than a little tired.

  “Very good, David!” She rustled his hair. “We’ll have to work a bit more on your channeling, but you’re getting it fast. Your understanding of what the voel is made of could... Never mind. Don’t worry about that yet.” Mom put her hand in the bowl. The beads shone briefly, then shrunk to half size and turned the vibrant green of earth dust.

  David blinked.

  “Watch me work as you rest, sweetie,” she said.

  She poured the beads into a big sack already bulging with earth dust.

  “You purified all that yourself?” David asked.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “It's a lot, isn't it?” Mom chuckled and placed a whole bundle of voel into the bowl. When she touched the leaves, they sizzled into dark smoke. It was many times faster than David’s attempt, and she could even talk while she was doing it. “Between this and the elemental dusts for frostfire, it took about three years,” she said.

  Years. She had spent years preparing and gambled it on one ritual. And she seemed proud of it.

  “Was that why you needed firebloom from Sophie? Isn’t that rare and expensive?” David asked.

  She shrugged. “Your father’s pay is enough to provide for us. Did you think your mom retired to a village to spend her life making healing ointments?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I am making a weapon that should help protect our village. But don't tell anyone yet, I don't want them to get their hopes up in case I—”

  Fail. David finished the words that trailed off. He vividly remembered her last failure, blood leaking from her eyes and all that. He thought she might die. He didn't want a repeat of that. Hopefully, he'd be able to help her this time.

  Mom worked without talking for a while, and David watched. The herbs sizzled and smoked, then the beads would clink into the sack. Whatever she was making, he hoped it could be used against the predator monster.

  “Why do monsters attack us?” he asked, breaking the silence.

  Mom paused, a fresh bundle in one hand, the other tapping her lips. “Some say it’s the moon driving them mad when it eclipses the sun, but I think it’s because mana compels them to.”

  David rested his chin on his fist. That would work for the boarmen attacks, but the predator didn't seem compelled to do anything. “Do monsters think? Are they like people? Or more like animals?”

  “You're asking really hard questions today, sweetie.” Mom chuckled. “I think it depends on the monster, some seem smart, but they’re quite rare. Though I once read about a war in 207…”

  “What happened then?”

  “I don’t know the full story.” She deposited another round of beads into the sack. “But an organized army of monsters attacked the kingdom exactly as the lords fought one another. Seems pretty smart to me.”

  “Did we ever try talking to them? Or did we try to abduct some of them to learn about them? Did they abduct humans?”

  “If any humans were abducted, it wasn't made public.” Mom shrugged. “I think some scholars at the academy tried to interrogate them, but nothing came out of it.”

  “Why?”

  “I don't know.”

  He grabbed a bowl with another voel leaf and purified it. He did slightly better this time, but the beads still had to be “fixed” by Mom. The rest of the afternoon flew by with David watching her work and practicing.

  Evening was cool and windy outside the shed. David lingered on the path from the house for a few minutes, watching some villagers haul logs from the gate, then started toward the village. Keeping his practice a secret from his dad was becoming more and more difficult. Sooner or later, Dad would realize David wasn't just helping Mom with menial tasks, and there was nothing he could do about that.

  But what really bothered him, he realized, was Calland and his clique. They were plotting something and there was a chance it would affect him and his family. In the worst case his mom could even be in danger. As he approached the square, he saw Elvara talking to someone, so he ducked behind the corner of a tool shed to watch.

  The man wore linen clothing and had a dusty face like most villagers did, but David didn't know him. And he knew almost everyone in the village. He was too far to hear them, but they started toward the gates before he could get closer. David followed at a safe distance.

  Elvara and the suspicious villager walked all the way to the gates and met up with Calland, who was waiting there with a horse next to him. If that asshole was leaving, that would only leave the predator monster to worry about.

  Calland leaned in and kissed Elvara on the cheek. He exchanged some words with other man and handed him a letter. To David’s disappointment, it wasn't Calland who got onto the horse, but the suspicious villager. A messenger, apparently. Damn.

  The messenger galloped away in a cloud of dust and there was only one thing west of Grainwick, aside from the monster-infested forests. The fort the knights originally came from. David moved back and stumbled into a crate. Calland snapped toward him, then waved. David took one look at those chilling blue-and-purple eyes. Ran.