Leta reached into her pocket, grabbed a razor blade she had hidden there, and promptly drew it across Saddy’s furry neck.
At first, the children simply thought Leta was stroking the hare’s neck. It wasn’t until the first trickle of blood emerged that anyone knew something was wrong.
“You hurt Saddy!” screamed Awen. She released her hold on the rabbit and began to flap her hands in distress.
“You have to keep in contact with Saddy for the entirety of the test,” said Leta, her voice purposefully calm.
Awen shuffled farther away.
Leta couldn’t blame the girl. She always used snow hares when administering the test. The white fur caused the blood to stand out in sharp contrast. The impact on the children was more visceral, and therefore more likely to provoke a response. Awen’s response was horror. An acceptable reaction, but not the one Leta was seeking.
Bree backed out of the test next with tears rolling down her cheeks.
Saddy’s eyes flared, and her little nose began to frantically twitch.
Bree squealed and turned away, unable to bear the sight.
Saddy’s body began to convulse. The poor animal’s motor functions were starting to break down.
Ionni and Orso kept their hands on the rabbit. Orso’s mouth hung agape as he watched the blood course down the length of Saddy’s body, running over his fingers and the back of his hand. Only Ionni appeared unfazed. The girl was much older than the other three children. She likely knew what the test entailed and was mentally prepared for the macabre experience. Some evaluators used rabbits. Others used hens, lambs, or piglets. Besides the animal, the methodology of the test didn’t change. Give a child a cuddly animal, then kill it in their hands. If the child was a transfuser, the test should induce a reaction.
Leta could only watch and wait. In the next minute one of two things was going to happen — Saddy would either bleed to death, or one of the children would manifest the powers of a transfuser; in the dozens of evaluations Leta had administered, she had not once seen the latter happen. As far as she was concerned it was a foregone conclusion — the rabbit would die. It always did.
Leta wasn’t sure why they still bothered administering the evaluation. The Weaver’s Blessing was becoming an extraordinarily rare gift. It was not exactly a mystery why. The power seemed to be hereditary, and there were desperately few transfusers alive to pass on the gift to their children. In an age long since past, nearly every city, town, and backwater in Elandria had a resident master healer. The emergence of the Blackheart changed all of that.
When the Blackheart first emerged, people’s understanding of the affliction was limited, and the attempted remedies only worsened the problem. It was not uncommon for master healers to perform transfusions on Blackheart victims. What no one realized until it was too late, was that the act of transfusion passed the affliction to the healer. As more and more people got sick, more and more transfusers succumbed to the Blackheart as well. Master healers were eventually forbidden from practicing their powers on the afflicted, but by then the damage was done. An entire generation of healers was already dead or dying. The number of master healers had not recovered.
To make up for the shortage of capable healers, those few transfusers who remained were actively recruited by the Tiber and Vacian Orders. This only exacerbated the problem. Members of the Tiber Order swore an oath of celibacy, and although Vacian Sister’s were allowed to marry, they seldom did. By Leta’s count, there were only eight active transfusers within the Vacian Sisterhood. Sister Beli, Leta’s assistant, was one of them. The gift was slightly more common in men — there were a little over fifty transfusers within the Tiber Brotherhood. Unfortunately, almost all were past middle age and none had children. Within a generation or two the Weaver’s Blessing would likely become extinct.
High Lord Valerius possessed the gift, but neither Leta nor Meriatis inherited the power. There was hope that Leta’s son, Nysen, might possess the Weaver’s blessing, but he failed the test just like everyone else. That memory in particular caused Leta great pain. Nysen didn’t care that he wasn’t a transfuser. All he cared about was that he couldn’t keep the rabbit alive. Several days after the test, Leta walked into her son’s room and found him crying on the floor. He had cut open the throat of one of his stuffed animals and was trying to sew it back together. He couldn’t understand that it wasn’t his fault that the rabbit had died.
It was only a few weeks later that Nysen’s skin began to spot. By the end of the year he would be dead, another victim of the Blackheart. Leta always felt awful that she put her son through such a cruel test. The failure haunted him, and even on his deathbed he was asking about the rabbit. “Will Saddy be angry with me when I meet her in the afterlife?”
“No, of course not,” Leta remembered saying as she placed a damp cloth on her son’s sweltering brow. “Saddy will love you because you tried to help her. Caring for others is the most important task the gods ask of us. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail. But we must always try.”
Leta had learned since then to cut the rabbit’s throat deeper. It sped up the process and shortened the creature’s suffering. It was the prolonged suffering that seemed to traumatize the children the most.
Saddy began to twitch — her final death throes. The test would be over soon. Leta could go on with her day, and these poor traumatized children could wander home and worry about their own failings. Just one bad memory in a life that will be full of nightmares, thought Leta.
The rabbit suddenly squealed — an unusual noise given the fact that its neck was cut wide open. It began to frantically kick its hind legs, trying to free itself from Ionni and Orso’s grasp. Something was happening that Leta had never seen before. The flow of blood had inexplicably stopped.
Leta dug through the rabbit’s fur with her fingers, searching for the wound. It was gone. Leta was dumbfounded. “Who did it?” blurted Leta in disbelief. “Which one of you healed the rabbit?”
Ionni released the rabbit and raised her hands. “I don’t know what happened, priestess.”
“Um, Priestess Leta.” Awen was pointing at Orso.
The boy was trembling. He dropped the rabbit, and the blood slick critter went bounding off through the hall, searching for a place to hide. Leta paid the creature no mind. Something was terribly wrong with Orso.
“My... my neck,” managed the boy, his face turned pale. He reached toward his ear. When he withdrew his hand, his fingertips were wet with blood. The skin along the boy’s neck was slowly separating, as if it were being pulled apart along a hidden seam. Blood spilled from the ensuing gap. First it was a trickle, then it came in great spurts as the artery tore open. Orso collapsed to the ground clawing at his neck.
Leta rushed to the stricken boy’s side. She had to pry his blood slick and trembling hands free from his neck to inspect the wound. The laceration had nicked the main artery. He would die soon. She clamped down on the wound, hoping she could stem the flow of blood until help arrived.
“Ionni, fetch Sister Beli, High Lord Valerius, or Herald Cenna — whomever you can find first. Hurry!”
The girl nodded dumbly and ran off.
Bree began to cry. “He’s going to die, isn’t he?” she wailed. “Oh gods help us. He’s going to die!”
Leta ignored the girl and focused on keeping pressure on Orso’s neck. Leta had only seen so much blood a few times in her life. Not once was there a positive outcome.
Ionni did not take long to find High Lord Valerius. Leta’s father came rushing into the chamber, moving faster than Leta had ever seen him move.
“Let me see the wound,” said High Lord Valerius as he took a knee beside Orso. Leta released the pressure on Orso’s neck and the wound immediately began to spurt blood, sullying her father’s robe. Valerius didn’t seem to notice. He spent half a second inspecting the wound before instructing Leta to reapply pressure.
He rolled up his sleeves, revealing forearms covered in scars.
“Find something we can use as a tourniquet,” ordered Valerius.
Bree produced the belt from her starched robe.
“Quickly tie the belt around my arm. Make it tight.”
Bree didn’t budge, her feet were glued to the ground. “I... I can’t.” She stared at the blood like it was a pool of lava. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Ionni yanked the belt out of the young girl’s hand and trudged through the ever growing puddle of blood. She cinched the belt tightly around High Lord Valerius’s bicep. The veins in his forearm bulged.
“That’s a good lass, thank you,” said the high lord, his voice purposefully calm. “Now everyone step back. Make sure you are not in contact with either of us.”
Valerius closed his eyes and clamped his hand over the chasm in Orso’s throat. It looked like he was strangling the boy. Orso shuddered and the heels of his shoes thudded against the stone floor. The skin along Valerius’s forearm began to part, the flesh separating down through the layers of skin until red muscle was exposed. Leta felt nauseous, but she didn’t look away — it was such a rare opportunity to see the miracle of transfusion in action. Valerius released his hold on Orso’s neck. The laceration on the boy’s neck was gone, leaving behind a thin red scar that trailed from ear to jugular.
Bree wiped back her tears. Awen simply stared slack-jawed at the now healed wound in Orso’s neck. Only Ionni seemed to understand what she had just witnessed — she edged closer trying to get a better look at the wound in High Lord Valerius’s forearm.
“There is no need to be afraid, girls,” said Valerius, letting a rare smile crease his lips. “Young Orso will be back to full health in a few days.” Valerius cleaned his bloody hands on his already sullied robe.
Orso appeared to be asleep — his eyes were closed, his breathing was steady.
“B-b-but how?” stammered Awen, clearly still confused.
“I gave Orso some of my vitality,” explained Valerius. “In exchange, I took some of Orso’s hurt into myself. You see, transfusion is a balancing act. The wound must go somewhere.” He held up his forearm so the girls could see.
“Yes, I’ve seen a transfusion before,” said Ionni, “but what I don’t understand is why Orso was injured in the first place.”
“Priestess Leta’s evaluation is designed to instigate a reaction from people who possess latent powers,” explained High Lord Valerius. “Orso, it appears, is blessed with the gift of transfusion. Unfortunately, the boy’s abilities are instinctual. His emotional reaction to the sight of suffering caused his powers to manifest, but due to his lack of training, he did not possess the ability to redirect the wound. He simply took the wound from the hare and mirrored it within his own body. A skilled transfuser can redirect the wound to a less vital part of their body.” Valerius pointed to the laceration in his own forearm. Despite the severity of the injury, only a small trickle of blood emerged from the opening.
“Or they can impart the wound to a third party,” added Leta. “I’m sure you’ve heard of a leech boy.”
“Treves, Herald Cenna’s assistant, he’s a leech boy, isn’t he?” said Bree. Then, as she realized what the title entailed, she scrunched up her face with disgust. “Oh, that poor boy. How cruel.”
“Indeed, it is,” said High Lord Valerius. “But it is one of the stations an acolyte must complete on his path to becoming a Tiber Brother.”
“Why don’t you use a leech boy, high lord?” asked Awen.
High Lord Valerius raised his hands, showcasing the innumerable scars that crisscrossed his forearms. “To serve others, one must share in their suffering, so the Book of Requiem teaches us. A man of my station must feel his people’s suffering most of all. But that’s enough for one day. Look, the brave lad is waking up.”
Orso began to stir.
“How do you feel?” asked Valerius, helping Orso sit upright
“Cold. Achy.” Orso gingerly felt at his neck. “Where did all of this blood come from?”
Valerius didn’t bother to answer. “Girls, help Orso to the infirmary. Sister Beli will know what to do.”
Ionni took the lead in hoisting Orso to his feet. The other two girls each grabbed an arm. Orso’s legs were wobbly, but he managed to remain standing. They led him away through the hall, leaving bloody footprints in their wake.
“I put more of my vitality into the boy than I let on,” admitted Valerius, once they were alone. “I feel lightheaded. Bring me a chair.”
Leta quickly brought her father a stool.
Valerius settled onto the stool with a groan. His eyes wandered to the blood that was coagulating on the floor. “You cut the rabbit too deeply. That was careless of you. I’ve warned you of the risks.”
“How was I to know that the boy possessed the gift?” said Leta, struggling not to sound overly defensive. “I’ve performed this test dozens of times, and not once has one of my subjects manifested the ability to perform a transfusion. I guess I just got tired of watching rabbits suffer. A deep cut means a quick death. I made a mistake.”
“That you did, and you almost killed the boy. And not just any boy, the only son of one of the most powerful families in Merridia. A family to whom we owe a great debt of gratitude. Were it not for the efforts of Praetor Maxentius and General Saterius, I may well be dead.”
“And Meriatis would be alive,” muttered Leta under her breath.
“I’m going to assume I did not hear you correctly.”
Leta did not repeat herself.
Valerius’s eyes narrowed. “You are taking all of this much too lightly. Over a thousand children have been tested in the past year. Orso is the first to possess the gift. This is no coincidence; this is a message from the gods. They favor the boy.”
“They favor him for what?” asked Leta.
“A transfuser with such a noble bloodline could make a compelling claim for the throne.”
“The Throne of Roses already has an heir,” snapped Leta, unable to hide the irritation in her voice.
“You?” Valerius shook his head. “We have spoken of this matter to exhaustion. You already know my answer. A woman has never sat upon the Throne of Roses and never will. The gods will not allow it. Now please, go fetch me a thread and needle. I need to close up this wound.”
Leta scowled, and walked off to acquire the requested tools. Her father was right about one thing — no woman had ever sat upon the Throne of Roses. But he ignored an important fact. Orso wasn’t the only one touched by the gods. Leta had the scars to prove it.
CHAPTER
XIII
GREENSTONE
Emethius regarded his childhood home with an aloofness he found surprising. It had been years since his last visit, and the main structure seemed smaller and infinitely older than he remembered. It was a cold, uninviting building. Water seemed to seep from the walls, and moss covered every inch of the structure. Emethius could sense the stale taste of mildew on the back of his tongue, even from afar.
I shouldn’t have come here, thought Emethius, for a moment hesitant to approach the door.
Greenstone was built at a time when the Cul still threatened the lands west of the Morium. One of Emethius’s ancestors attempted to construct the keep in the style of the dwarven master masons by dry fitting interlocking stone. Outwardly, the results were impressive. High walls made the keep all but impenetrable. Unfortunately, the whole structure tilted to the left. The foundation was rotten, and probably had been since the day it was built.
The main culprit was the cellar. It was constantly flooded by groundwater, and there was no easy way to keep it dry. As a child, Emethius devised a plan to siphon the water out of the cellars using a series of pumps. He still remembered his father’s response. “Greenstone has stood for a thousand years, and it will likely stand for a thousand more, with or without your help,” his father had said, as he threw Emethius’s plan in the fire. “Don’t waste any more parchment with your sketches.”
Emethius never bothered to show hi
s father any of his other plans after that, be it his plan to run an irrigation canal to the bone dry southern fields, or his schedule for a crop rotation that would double their annual yield. Emethius learned early in life it was simpler to keep his opinions to himself, rather than challenge his father and face the repercussions.
To avoid his father’s brooding temperament, Emethius spent a lot of his childhood outside. Back then, the Lunen family estate was one of the largest in the Henna Lu diocese. Emethius could walk all day and never leave his family’s property. Fields of golden grain seemed to go on as far as the eye could see. There was a forest to the east filled with wild game, and a stream that bisected the land, teeming with trout. The sea was only an hour ride, and Emethius would often go sit by the water and listen to the waves crashing against the shore.
Looking over the land now, Emethius wondered if any of these boyhood memories were real. Most of the winter snow had melted, leaving behind a muddy soup. The fields were unfurrowed — no one had bothered to turn over the soil for the upcoming planting season. The crofter huts that dotted the fields like molehills appeared abandoned.
“Go for now,” whispered Emethius into his horse’s ear. Manos exhaled loudly and wandered off to munch on the fresh sprouts that were just beginning to emerge from the mud. The gelding was born in these fields, the offspring of his father’s old warhorse and a tractable mare named Baylilly. Emethius trusted Manos not to go far.
As Emethius approached the keep’s sole entry portal, he passed the stump of an ancient elm. As a child, Emethius used the stump as a chopping block for firewood. The rusted head of an ax was embedded in the stump, probably deposited there the last time Emethius had used it. He swore the stump still bore a blood red tint. He tried to ignore the disconcerting thought and knocked on the keep’s heavy wooden door.
The door opened slowly. Emethius was not surprised that Sir Bastin, the estate’s master-at-arms, was the one who answered. For a second the old dwarf’s eyes lit up like he was seeing a ghost.
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