Jacob leaned over the workbench while Arthur guided his hand."This one's simple," his father said, drawing a looping mark that ended in a short tail. "A healing rune. Nothing fancy. You can set it alongside any other rune, and it won't interfere."
Jacob copied it carefully. The rune was small, almost unimpressive compared to the intricate shapes he'd learned before. Yet when he traced it with mana, it shimmered faintly, as though the air around it grew a bit warmer.
"What does it heal?" Jacob asked.
Arthur chuckled. "Not much, if I'm honest. The best I ever got it to do was act as a bandage. It might speed up healing when I make it, but it is not noticeable enough for me to know for sure. My grandpa was apparently able to enchant it well enough to make wounds heal after a good night's sleep, though."
His father was eyeing the small rune he had inscribed on the cloth in his hands. It looked like he could tell this enchantment was different than any healing enchantment he had seen before.
"I am willing to bet yours is much more powerful."
And without saying much more, Arthur pulled out a sharp pocket knife and sliced a small wound into his own hand.
"Dad!" Jacob was shocked at first, but after a grimace, Arthur just held his bleeding hand out to his son.
"It's ok, Jacob. Just a small flesh wound. I bet your magic will make something like this seem like it never happened."
Jacob was already putting the enchanted cloth over his father's bloody hand, earnest in his desire to see his father healed.
In just a few moments, the blood stopped, and Arthur pulled off the healing cloth to reveal a bloody hand with no cut. After wiping off the blood, all that could be seen was a red healing mark where the cut had been.
"Not sure what you envisioned when you made this rune, but it looks like my cut has already been through a couple of days of healing. I knew your ability to make this enchantment would be better than anything we had seen before."
Arthur leaned down and mussed Jacobs' hair with his clean hand.
"I am proud of you, son. Now, you'd better get going or you are going to miss the public wagon to Thornhold."
Jacob was blushing a bit, getting praised by his father. But the reminder to catch the wagon got him going.
"Oh, yeah!" Jacob started grabbing his things, "Thanks for reminding me, Dad!"
As he rushed out the door, he turned back to his father, who was putting some things in the barn away.
"Thanks for showing me the rune, Dad. I will be home before dark!"
Arthur just smiled and waved as Jacob ran through the barn door toward the village square.
"Be safe out there, Jacob!"
Before long, Jacob was on the wagon headed toward Thornhold. It was traveling with a caravan of farmers and merchants headed for the market for the day, just like Jacob had ridden with his father and brother the previous day. Except this wagon was provided by the village for those traveling without their own transport.
While Ruvka was a relatively safe village, it was on the edge of what was considered safe. The guards of the village still dealt with monsters from time to time, especially on the side of the village toward Thornhold, which was known as the last civilized city on the edge of the wilderness in the Sinclair Kingdom.
Along the way, the caravan guards had to fight off a few beasts. A pack of wolves and a gang of goblins. The fights were not too bad, and the guards looked to have sustained minor injuries at worst. But the speed and brutality at which they fought left Jacob in awe.
'This just goes to show that I am still powerless when I can barely even keep my eyes on the guards of a small village caravan like this one.'
When the caravan finally made it to Thornhold, Jacob paid the driver a few coppers and headed for the market with a special neckerchief that was self-cleaning but also had a healing spell on it.
'Who knew that fifth-grade biology would be so good for a healing spell? Just imagining the cells divide and clear out the dead stuff makes for an amazing visualization for this healing spell.'
Jacob thought to himself as he looked for the nice old lady he had seen the day before. But when he tracked her down in the market, she barely remembered him. Her kindness had been nothing more than polite interest. Jacob swallowed the disappointment, put on a smile, and instead showed his newly made healing item to a passing merchant.
The man was surprised to find an enchanted item in this part of the market, and after testing it a few times, he decided to purchase it for a few dozen silver.
He returned home on an earlier return wagon than he had intended, a bit down that he had not been able to garner actual interest in his enchanted items. He had brought his light sack with him, filled with all sorts of nice enchanted items, even his sword. But no one even believed him that they were enchanted to begin with. Refusing to even entertain him today.
He grumbled to himself on the way home. This time, they had an uneventful trip.
Back in the village, Jacob wandered roads he'd rarely walked in his eleven remembered years. The baker's shop with its cracked shutters, the weaver's stall patched with scraps, the clutter of children's voices chasing one another across the dirt paths.
The scene was mostly foreign to his memory; most of what he remembered was the farm. Playing with the chickens.
As he wandered around, still a bit dejected by the events of the day, he managed to wander off to an edge of the village he had never been to before.
And that is when he heard her, the girl from the festival. She was singing again, and Jacob found her voice enchanting. He followed the sound where he found Sera. The girl who lived with her grandmother at the edge of the village.
She smiled when she saw him, but her eyes were tired, and the cottage behind her looked ready to sag into the earth.