The copper tang of blood filled Tomas Reeve's nostrils as he made the small incision across his palm. Three drops—no more, no less—fell into the clay bowl where crushed feverfew and willow bark already waited. The proportions mattered. Too little blood and the mixture would lack potency; too much and he'd weaken himself needlessly. After five years of practice, he could judge the amount by feel alone.
"Will it hurt?" The boy on the pallet couldn't have been more than eight summers old. His face was flushed with fever, eyes glassy, but fear sharpened his gaze as he watched Tomas stir the mixture with a wooden rod.
"Less than what you're feeling now," Tomas said, keeping his voice steady despite the familiar lightheadedness that followed bloodletting. He'd eaten too little today—a mistake he couldn't afford when practicing. "The fever will break by morning."
The boy's mother hovered nearby, her calloused hands twisting the edge of her apron. Marta Thatcher had brought in three bushels of wheat last autumn when her husband's broken leg needed setting. A fair exchange, though the wheat had run out two months ago. Tomas didn't mention this. The Thatchers were good people who paid when they could.
"He'll need water through the night," Tomas continued, focusing on the practical to push away the dizziness. "Small sips, even if he sleeps. Can you manage that, Marta?"
The woman nodded, relief and residual worry battling across her weathered face. "Thank you, Healer Reeve."
Tomas didn't correct the title. He was no true healer by the College's reckoning—just a half-trained apprentice practicing without license in a town too small and poor to attract proper blood mages. But titles mattered less than results in Riverford.
He finished stirring as the mixture thickened slightly, the blood binding the herbs into something greater than their parts. The reaction was subtle—no dramatic glow or transformation like the stories told of master hemomancers in the capital. Just a deepening of color and a change in consistency that only experienced eyes would notice.
"Drink it all," Tomas instructed, helping the boy sit up enough to take the bowl. "It tastes foul, but that means it's working."
The child grimaced at the first sip but continued with the stoic determination farm children learned early. When he finished, Tomas took the bowl and wiped it clean with a cloth he'd boil later. No trace of blood could remain—both for practical hygiene and to prevent misuse. Blood retained power even when dried, as Marta Hemlock had taught him before her passing.
The memory of his mentor sent a familiar pang through his chest. Three years gone, and still he found himself mentally composing questions he could no longer ask her. Would she approve of his techniques now? Had he remembered her teachings correctly? The uncertainty never quite left him.
"Rest now," he told the boy, whose eyelids were already growing heavy as the medicine took effect. To Marta, he added, "I'll return tomorrow to check on him. Send word if the fever spikes again before then."
Outside the Thatcher cottage, Tomas paused to breathe deeply of the evening air. Spring had finally taken firm hold after a winter that had stretched too long. The Redflow River ran high with snowmelt from the distant Frost Crown Mountains, and the first crops were pushing through the soil in neat rows. Riverford had survived another winter. Not everyone had been so fortunate—old Willem Cooper had succumbed to chest fever in the coldest days, and the Arnson's newborn hadn't lived to see her naming day—but most had endured.
Tomas flexed his hand, feeling the small cut pull. It would join the network of fine scars that mapped his palms like an additional set of life lines. The cut was already clotting—another skill he'd developed through necessity. Blood mages who couldn't control their own bleeding didn't last long.
The walk back to his cottage took him through Riverford's central square, where the weekly market was winding down. A few farmers still hawked winter root vegetables and early spring greens, their voices carrying the practiced cadence of sales pitches. Tomas nodded greetings as he passed but didn't stop to chat. The bloodletting, minor as it was, had taken its toll after a day that had already included treating Martin Fletcher's gout and delivering Widow Harmon's goat of twins.
"Healer!" The call came from his left, and Tomas suppressed a sigh as he turned to find Alderman Beck approaching with purposeful strides.
Beck was a barrel-chested man whose prosperity showed in the quality of his wool tunic and the silver pin that fastened his cloak. As Riverford's most successful grain merchant and elected alderman, he considered himself responsible for the town's welfare—a duty he took seriously, if sometimes officiously.
"Alderman," Tomas acknowledged with a respectful nod. "What can I do for you?"
Beck fell into step beside him, lowering his voice despite the relative privacy of the emptying square. "There's talk of a licensed practitioner passing through Millbridge next week. One of the royal circuit mages."
The news sent a cold jolt through Tomas that had nothing to do with the evening chill. Royal circuit mages traveled the kingdom's smaller towns, providing services that local practitioners couldn't handle and—more worryingly—ensuring that blood magic was practiced according to College regulations.
"I see," Tomas said carefully. "Do you know their purpose in Millbridge?"
Beck shrugged his broad shoulders. "The usual, I expect. Checking water quality, blessing fields, looking for unlicensed practitioners." He emphasized the last words slightly, his gaze sharp on Tomas's face.
The warning was clear. Beck had protected Tomas from official scrutiny before, arguing that Riverford needed whatever healing they could get, licensed or not. But there were limits to what even an alderman could do if a royal mage took interest.
"I appreciate the information," Tomas said. "Perhaps I'll make myself scarce next week."
Beck nodded, apparently satisfied. "Might be wise. Though there's talk of bringing them here if Widow Harmon has her way. Her sister in Millbridge has been filling her head with tales of what proper blood mages can do."
The emphasis on "proper" stung, though Tomas knew Beck meant no personal insult. It was simply fact—Tomas's training had been cut short, his knowledge incomplete. There were conditions he couldn't treat, workings he didn't dare attempt. A fully trained and licensed blood mage from the College could do more.
"The widow seemed satisfied with my help delivering her goat today," Tomas observed dryly.
Beck's laugh was genuine. "Aye, and at a price she could afford, no doubt. That's worth remembering." He clapped Tomas on the shoulder. "Just watch yourself, Healer. Riverford needs you in one piece."
They parted at the well, Beck heading toward his substantial home near the town hall while Tomas continued to the smaller dwelling he'd inherited from Marta Hemlock. The cottage sat at Riverford's edge, where the town gave way to scattered farms—close enough to reach in emergencies but separate enough to avoid the suspicion that sometimes followed blood practitioners.
The first stars were appearing as Tomas reached his door. He paused to look up at them, finding the familiar patterns that had guided travelers for generations. The Shepherd's Crook hung in the northern sky, while the Seven Sisters were just becoming visible in the east. Marta had taught him their names and meanings during long nights of study, insisting that a healer needed to understand the world beyond blood and bone.
Inside, the cottage was cool and dark. Tomas moved through the familiar space by memory and feel, striking flint to light a single candle. Its glow revealed the main room with its hearth, table, and shelves of carefully labeled jars and pouches. A curtain separated his sleeping area from the space where he received patients. Simple, functional, and—most importantly—his.
He sank onto the bench by the table, finally allowing himself to feel the day's accumulated fatigue. The cut on his palm throbbed in time with his heartbeat. Small price to pay for young Thatcher's recovery, but one of many such prices exacted over years of practice.
As he reached for the bread left from morning, a strange sensation washed over him—a tingling warmth that began in his scarred palms and spread upward through his arms. Tomas froze, recognizing the feeling from previous episodes. It had been happening more frequently lately, this unexplained surge of... something. Not quite power, not exactly awareness, but a change in his perception that made his own blood feel suddenly foreign and familiar at once.
The candle flame jumped and stretched toward him, as if pulled by an invisible thread. Tomas stared, heart pounding, as the flame bent at an impossible angle without flickering or smoking. It held for three rapid heartbeats before snapping back to normal, leaving him wondering if he'd imagined it.
But the warmth in his veins remained, pulsing with each beat of his heart. Something was changing in him, had been changing for months. Something Marta's teachings hadn't prepared him for.
Tomas looked down at his hands, at the network of fine scars that recorded years of healing work. What was happening to him? And more urgently, with a royal circuit mage potentially heading to Riverford, what would happen if they discovered whatever strange power was awakening in his blood?
The bread lay forgotten as Tomas rose and moved to the shelf where he kept Marta's journals. If answers existed, they would be there, in the cramped handwriting of the woman who had recognized his potential and changed his life. He had searched before without success, but tonight, with the strange warmth still flowing through him and the threat of discovery looming, perhaps he would find something he had previously overlooked.
Outside, the stars continued their ancient patterns across the sky, indifferent to the small human drama unfolding beneath them. In Riverford, a boy's fever began to break. In Millbridge, a royal circuit mage prepared for their rounds. And in a modest cottage at the edge of town, Tomas Reeve searched for answers as his blood stirred with power he neither understood nor could control.
The awakening had begun.