The first thing I felt was pain. I couldn’t move, but my body was in agony. It felt like everywhere was burning from the inside.

  At the same time, I couldn’t move, this felt eerily familiar to what I had experienced before — but with far more pain.

  As I opened my eyes, on my back staring up at the roof, I was clearly not in the kitchen anymore, and I could barely focus on anything as my eyes watered from the pain I was in, I was sure I was on a bed of some kind right now.

  In a way that was somewhat of a relief, but it also meant I was in worse shape than I had expected, I tried to wrack my brain for where I went wrong; I was sure that I purified the dish, and even if I hadn’t I didn’t use any dangerous ingredients in there, the salt sure, but I had used that since, and when purified it was fine, then there was perhaps the honey?

  But even that had been used and was fine when purified, I attempted to think of the buffs for the Eel, but when I did the pain through my body intensified — any thought of checking it was erased as I cried out in pain.

  When I woke up again, it was to two green eyes peering down at me from above.

  I tried to say something but nothing came out, I still couldn’t move, the pain was still there, like liquid fire surging through my veins back and forth, I really wanted to let Lily know I was okay — well as okay as I could be in the situation — but nothing came out.

  This was definitely the same as last time. I was sure of it. Hari was going to kill me, but desperately, I tried to search my memories for how I fixed it last time.

  I used an ability, right? Arcane Foraging, because my mana was overloaded.

  Lily had moved away now, so I was back to staring at the roof, but I attempted to activate Arcane Foraging.

  Pain.

  Pain unlike anything I had felt before.

  The fire that had been running through my body before was now everywhere all at once — pure agony.

  “Trevor?” Liane’s voice woke me up.

  “Open your mouth, I need you to swallow this for me,” she said as I felt the touch of glass on my lips before a cold feeling started running down my throat and then for just a moment it felt like the fire in my veins was muted.

  It didn’t last long; as it came back with a vengeance, my eyes began to water again, but I saw the unmistakable face of concern on Liane.

  “In good news Trev, we have the wagon ready!” she said, now sitting next to the bed.

  I wanted to say something — to get the details, anything — but I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t move…

  “It’s really cool, there is a spot for three barrels to sit, and along the edge there is a large cutting board that folds down, in a pinch you could sit three or four people in there, and despite Hari not being a large fan of it initially, he’s come around, even going as far as to add two runes to it, one for repairs and one for durability,” Liane explained, looking over at me now and then to see if I was still awake.

  There was a long pause. “I don’t know what you ate Trev, Lily wouldn’t let us touch it, but I swear if you had dragon before I did, I’ll never forgive you.”

  I saw the smirk on her face, knowing she was joking — but it seemed it wasn’t just the two of us in the room as the smirk fell.

  “I’m kidding Lily, I’m kidding. I wouldn’t touch the dragon meat,” Liane said.

  I didn’t know where Lily was. I couldn’t move my head — I hope she didn’t cause too much trouble when I collapsed.

  “You know this is the longest you’ve been awake. I think you’ve been unconscious for nearly a week now. And you’d never believe the rumours that are flying around about it all.”

  I could practically hear the mirth in her voice as she said it.

  “The main one is people believe that idiot who muscled you in the line tried to have you killed, and it backfired — and now Lily is hunting him! That one gained so much traction he even left town!” Liane chuckled.

  There was movement I heard just at the far end of the bed.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “It’s fine Lily, it’s not true. He’s an egotistical moron, but he didn’t hurt Trevor,” Liane said.

  “The other main rumour is that you died, and the aura everyone felt was Lily expressing sorrow and anger at that death.”

  That sounded like a good opportunity to lie low again — but that thought was dashed just a second later as she continued.

  “Anyone with half a brain would see that’s not true though, you’ve had healers and doctors running in and out of here all week, half of them leaving traumatised, the other half wondering how you managed it — or more so, how you’re still alive.”

  “Before I leave you to rest, I’m going to pick up some winter clothes for you, when I asked Crisplet if you had brought any, I got a no, and we may end up leaving sooner rather than later so we don’t get trapped in the snow, but don’t worry, we’ll work it all out, rest now.”

  And with that, she got up; I heard the door close as she left the room.

  Before I fell asleep, I once again saw Lily’s eyes over my face looking into my own.

  Was she checking on me?

  The next time I woke up, it wasn’t Liane who was sitting next to me, but Milo.

  “Ah, awake are you?” he said.

  I tried to move and still couldn’t, although I noticed that my body did not feel on fire right now — that was a start.

  “That’s good, well I’ll start with the good news, you’re on the mend, you’ve done a fair bit of damage to your mana channels, so right now I imagine if you try to use any abilities it would be incredibly painful, but they are not destroyed — not this time.”

  He let out a sigh, “I don’t know what you ate, but you need to be careful, you’ve gotten lucky this time, very lucky, I won’t dwell on it, we’ll figure out what went wrong when you can move again. Oh, also, don’t worry about that; the medicine we’re giving you is also causing your paralysis right now. You need to stay as still as possible while those channels repair — or you might make the damage permanent.”

  With a small chuckle, he looked at me. “And to make that even more difficult, we’ll be leaving town tomorrow, and you, my young friend, are going to have an interesting trip. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to ride Sable for a while, so it’s going to be me and you sitting in that wagon of yours, and I get to practise some magic on you.”

  His tone may have implied it would be sinister, but the smile on his face said it was anything but — I wasn’t sure how I felt about leaving town and being unable to move, but Liane was right, we didn’t want to get trapped in the winter snow, I didn’t even know how long I had been laying down for.

  I tried to nod, but failed.

  I saw Milo take out a book and begin to read. I just stared helplessly at the roof until sleep took me again.

  When I next woke up, my surroundings had completely changed. No longer was I looking up at the roof; instead, I was looking at fabric of some kind, the sound of wheels on stone. As I looked around, I saw Milo sitting there on a small bench to the side of two much darker looking barrels than I remembered.

  I was surprised because I didn’t feel the wagon moving under me — it was perfectly soft… no; I don’t know if soft was the right word — still?

  I could see the wagon moving around me, but I was staying still in the middle of it like I was floating.

  “Ah, woken up, have you?” Milo said.

  He took on a worrying grin as he looked at me. “I got to practise some magic on you. Right now, I have you lying on a cushion of air, which should keep you suspended above the moving wagon and stop any of the rattles or movements from affecting you.”

  He looked proud of his achievements. I wish I could say thank you — but nothing came out.

  “Don’t worry, I know you’d be thanking me,” he said with a smirk.

  “Also, as you can probably see, the barrels are ready to go. I let them soak in the lake down there for several days, tightened up the bands and didn’t even need to wax any holes. I also feel some water mana infused into the wood — and it feels very strange with the barrel that Crisplet charred.”

  I saw a burst of embers fly above me from the side. I knew Crisplet would still be with me — but it was reassuring to see it all the same.

  I did wonder where Lily was though.

  “In other good news, you should be allowed to move again in just a couple more days, you won’t be able to do too much with mana for a little while after that, but you can at least move a little — and that’s got to be nice after two weeks in bed, I’ll also warn you now, when we eventually reach the capital, you will need to see some medical staff there too.”

  I let that sink in for a moment — I had been in bed for two weeks! We’d have been halfway to the capital by now if I hadn’t injured myself like this.

  Unlike the past I couldn’t fall back to sleep, it felt different now, all the previous times I was exhausted — right now I felt awake, but unable to move, so I was trapped, I couldn’t use my own abilities either, I desperately tried to think of something I could do.

  Then, a thought came to me. Something Milo said back in the cave—that all magic users can sense and feel mana, right? Milo said he could feel the water mana infused into the barrels.

  I made up my mind — if I’m to be trapped here and unable to sleep or move, I will train.

  I mean, I didn’t know what I was doing or how to start, but I at least knew what was around me and that was a start right, below me should be wind mana, near me should be condensed fire mana, then next to Milo there should be water mana infused into the barrels.

  I knew what was there, so I focused on the largest one that I was currently touching, the wind mana below me. Closing my eyes, I focused on it — I tried to feel it, without actually touching it.

  What felt like hours passed, and nothing — I could sense nothing at all.

  But I had time.

  It was late in the evening when something finally changed; I was being moved from the wagon to the small hut that Milo had built out of stone, and although it could have been the wind I was lying on, I swear I sensed something different — there was a shift in the mana.

  As if something had changed — it went from still to turbulent as I was moved.

  Then, when I was brought inside, I felt it leave, well mostly leave — there were lingering traces of it left behind as I was lowered onto the ground.

  I heard the voices of everyone around me, but I was excited!

  I had felt it — I know I had.

  I started focusing on the fire; I could see the glow — I knew Crisplet would be there. I would sense the mana.