David stood in front of Dowel’s house with a bundle of hammers. The doors were wide open, but he didn't enter due to the loud argument coming from inside. The wind had gotten colder. If it stayed for long, the harvest would be bad, and soups would get thinner again, especially closer to the Long Night, when meat was scarcer.

  The argument got even louder, and Dowel, a big man in his thirties, dragged out a scowling old woman, Teres.

  “I’m not leaving this damned house!” Teres snarled.

  “Pipe down, Grandma.” Dowel clutched his nose. “It's only for a while. Don't be difficult.”

  David cleared his throat loudly and stepped closer with the hammers. “Dowel, I got your tools.”

  “Finally!” Dowel let go of his grandmother. “Leave them here. I'll take them after we're done moving.”

  “Moving?” David put down the bundle. “Where to?”

  Dowel shrugged. “Other side of the village.”

  “Okay, well, take care!” David stretched his shoulders and jogged back toward the smithy. His throat was still raw from fever, but he wanted to get some exercise and save time.

  Halfway home, he came up behind Chief Brenn walking in the same direction. David slowed down and followed at a distance. The chief entered Dad’s smithy. The clanging of metal stopped.

  David walked around the building and stopped at the corner of the open-air forge.

  “...on that for now. If all goes well, we won't need as many weapons,” Brenn was saying.

  Dad said, “Are you sure about this? I don't like the idea of knights parading around the village.”

  “Trust me if not them.”

  Someone walked toward David, so he scurried into the forge and bumped into the old chief, his face scratching against the man’s rough linen shirt.

  “What's the rush, child?” Brenn smiled and rustled his hair. “Take care, Bert.” He walked past David and left.

  “Back already, son?” Dad said. “Pretty quick.”

  “It wasn't far.” David puffed his chest out, but his wound panged and he tried not to wince. “Need more help?”

  “No, you did plenty. Go rest.” Dad pulled out an iron rod and laid it on the anvil.

  David nodded and walked away. He found Mom in the shed, grinding something with a mortar and pestle.

  “Dad said I'm done for the day,” he told her. “Can we continue our lessons when you have time?”

  Mom looked over her shoulder at him, still grinding. “Sweetie, you have a fever. And channeling mana takes a lot of energy.”

  “But I’m fine! You promised you'd teach me!”

  “I wonder who you took after with that impatience of yours.” She shook her head. “Give me a second.”

  At least it wasn’t a flat-out rejection. David sat on the workbench and watched Mom work. She added more herbs, mostly the frothy Voel, and crushed them into paste. The shed filled with the fresh aroma of mint and citrus, and the paste turned from green mush to the translucent healing ointment he was perhaps too familiar with. She poured it into a short glass jar.

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  “Why did it change colors?” David asked. “I could help you make that if you teach me how.”

  “In time, David.” She rested her hands on her hips. “You can still learn without pushing to use mana right away. You need theory first, anyway.”

  David hopped down from the workbench. “Like what?”

  “History.” Mom smiled. “And languages! Especially runic.”

  David sighed. Mom brushed his cheek and lifted his chin up

  “Don't make that face,” his mom said, taking a small black notebook off the table. “Don't you want to read my notes?” She let the pages flutter open; they were all empty.

  “Not funny.”

  “Really? Then what if I do this…” Her fingers tensed, and the notebook started to shine. Splotches of black ink seemed to write themselves onto the pages, jagged symbols he couldn't read, surrounded by short sentences in the common language and long paragraphs filled with short, cutty lines.

  Mom said, “Guiding mana on your own is one of the hardest things you can do, so instead, people learned the language of the world and created a language in which each rune represents a single intent.”

  “Where did you learn all that, Mom?”

  “I used to study at the academy in Ki-Elico. I didn’t really care about anything other than alchemy, but I always liked making notes.”

  “Can I go there too?” he asked. Maybe there was a chance. “I want to be powerful like you.”

  “I don't know, sweetie. When I left... it wasn't on good terms.”

  “What happened?”

  “It's a long story. I'll tell you one day, when you're older.” She handed him the notebook. “I charged it with enough mana to stay readable for a few hours. The first pages are an introduction to ancient language, which I used for a lot of my notes. Go and start with it, sweetie, I need to replenish my stock of ointment before the Long Night.”

  There was almost a whole month until the next eclipse, so he didn’t really understand why his mom needed to rush so much, but he thanked her and left nonetheless.

  David sat down on his bed, leaned against the wall, and opened the notebook to the first page—the translation guide to the ancient language.

  The language itself was written in sharp strokes. According to the guide, the simpler signs were like letters and connections between the words; the more complex ones represented whole words. He skimmed ahead. No matter how many pages he scanned, he couldn't find anything about pronunciation or the rules of the language. He wasn’t sure why he expected such things to be there, but the lack of it was frustrating.

  He sighed, fluttering the flame of his candle. He’d hoped to get a few magic lessons, some basics at least, and then train on his own, but he didn’t expect the process to be so slow.

  But Mom was right, in a way. With his fevers and constant tiredness and weakness, he was not ready for anything strenuous. He had to learn what he could while getting healthier. Unfortunately, the more he exerted himself, the more inclined he was to fever.

  He got up and grabbed a few apples from the sack by the kitchen counter. They were tart but with a hint of sweetness. Eating and exercise would help with his strength. He sat back on the bed, wiped a dribble of juice from his chin, and submerged himself in the translation guide, memorizing the simpler symbols and shapes.

  Soon, though, his eyes started to glaze over. He took a quick peek out the window. Mom and Dad were nowhere in sight. He skimmed the pages until he found the runic signs. Most of them were described in ancient language, but a few were annotated in common. Out of those, the one named Condense sounded the most harmless.

  He got up again, found some of Mom’s colored chalk, and drew the rune on the floor as accurately as he could. Then he touched it, focused on bringing up the warmth and prickling feeling, and expelled some mana into it. The rune shimmered and lit up, but nothing seemed to happen.

  His fingers got cold, then a wave of tiredness washed over him. As soon as he stopped supplying mana, the rune lost its glow, but still shimmered in the candlelight, as if wet. He touched it, and the damp chalk smeared under his finger. He was sure he didn’t spill anything there, but he checked just to be sure.

  David wondered where the water came from. From magic, that much was obvious, but did it just appear out of nowhere? Maybe one day he would be stranded without water to drink and would save the day using that rune? Probably not, but it was still good practice.

  Unlike what his mom said, he didn’t need to understand every detail just to practice. He wiped the smeared rune off the floor, continued reading the translation guide until he felt rested enough, then repeated the experiment. Just like before, the rune ended up covered with a tiny amount of water, not nearly enough for a single sip.

  He made three more attempts like that before the letters in the notebook faded away. He got up, stretched his arms, and yawned. For the first time in a while, he was dizzy from mental effort rather than fever. He was about to get Mom to re-supply the notebook with mana when trumpets blared.

  He looked out the window. People were leaving their homes and streaming toward the square. Something was happening, and David had a feeling it had to do with Brenn's conversation with Dad.