I held the cup between my palms and savored the warmth. The tea was a glassy yellow, gleaming golden under firelight like liquid amber. For a moment, the scent of it drifted to my nose and brought the faint taste of jasmine to my tongue. I waited a second. One, three, five. And again, the world flickered—the colors faded, the smells receded, and the jasmine was gone.
Flickering joys, little slices of life. Given, then taken by the nature of my existence.
Beside me, the Hag sat on her own chair. She caught me staring into the tea, which was now just water to my muted senses. Bland, scentless, and without warmth. Just fluid, like any other. The old woman took a sip out of her own tasteless cup.
“Do you know the story of the Moonthief, boy?”
I nodded. It was taught in schools everywhere—an old folk tale, depicting the story of a man who collected a thousand moons, but failed to steal a single sun. It was one of the few things my mother liked. I knew it well—almost too well, in my efforts to understand the mystery that mother was.
The words came to me like kitari. A treasured memory; an old friend.
I leaned back on the chair and spoke.
“Merden sat on a throne of gold, emerald, and silver. He was a king of thieves, with fingers of wind and feet of stillwater. But for all his skill, he was empty. He robbed the world to fill that void. Wine, women, wealth—these were the things he thought would bring his heart back to health. And yet, despite his horde of treasure, his riches left him with a loneliness that no song could express. So he turned his eyes to the sky. To the blacks, the blues, and the lights of day and night. Merden sought pleasure in the immortal, and so he crowned himself Moonthief; sun catcher, star plucker, moon collector; taker of Aether-spawn treasure.”
Surprised, the Hag—no, Vivian—turned to me. The old woman raised an eyebrow, “You’ve memorized it, boy?”
“Most of it. My memory’s always been handy with this sort of thing.”
“I see. Then, tell me about his meeting with the Xaanilath.”
I nodded again. That was an easy one—even a personal favorite. I’d written a few songs about the Xaanilath, myself. I looked out into the storm and said, “The sky was far, and so Merden traveled the Faerie Roads. He crossed the paths unseen, the highway ever-changing, where up was down and left was right and everywhere was nowhere. Where no mortal man could possibly traverse the paths walked solely by the Fair. But Merden was no lost traveler, for he had the Compass of Allere, the treasure of the Spire, whose needle was one that always pointed to its owner’s greatest desire. It brought him to the horizon; the wall between the sea and the sky. There, the gatekeeper waited, and the Xaanilath taught him the rules of the heavens. It told him that in the realm beyond, no act was without its price. That the vastness allowed no gold or chalice or blade in pay…”
I paused as the next line came to mind. Frowning down at my cup, I wetted my lips and finished the passage.
“...for only in the currency of trades did the immortal kings play.”
“Mm. And it was a trade, wasn’t it, child? The thing that made you what you are now.”
I frowned at the truth in the story, right in front of my eyes, but hidden from me all my life. I regarded Vivian with a long look, “I thought this was just a folk tale.”
“All trees sprout from their roots. Much the same, stories stem from old truths. You played Merden’s folly the moment you dealt with the Fae. Will you tell me your trade, boy? The answer interests me. Just what did you pay the price of your Name for?”
“My father’s life. I asked the Fae to save him, no matter the price.”
“Then you’re much like the rest of us.”
Vivian hunched forward and stared into her cup. She raised it and took a slow, waiting sip. She let the silence sink into the air between us. The Hag finished her cup and set it aside with a heavy silence.
“Was it worth the price?”
I didn’t hesitate. The nod that followed came naturally to me, and it contained no ounce of doubt or deceit, “It was. And I would pay it a thousand times for the same result.”
Vivian smiled bitterly, “I hope your answer remains the same, many years from now.”
“My father raised a stubborn child,” I replied, a finger tapping my temple. “I’m not one to let just time change my mind.”
With that, I downed the rest of the mug as well. I set it down on the coffee table between us and stood, stretching my arms over my head. I walked off from the hearth and looked out of the window, where the Drowning Rains peppered the swamp with an ocean’s worth of water. I adjusted the cloak around my shoulders and turned to Vivian, the Hag.
We were enemies, just an hour ago. We were in a position that seemed impossible to remedy—one where a resolution was unachievable without one of us suffering a loss. And yet, I’d done the impossible. I’d bridged the gap.
And I wanted to try again. I lowered my head to a small bow, “Thank you for the tea, Vivian.”
The Hag didn’t turn away from the fire, “Will you leave, now?”
“Only if you say no to what I suggest next.”
“Then speak.”
“I want to suggest a trade. As immortals do. I’m being honest when I say that I’m lost with this immortality business—that I desperately need a guide.” I turned to her, “I want you to teach me what immortality is. What it means.”
“Your bird is the only one I’m interested in making an exchange with, and I don’t accept trades done through middle-men. What could you possibly offer me by yourself?”
“Teaching, of course. Alchemy. That’s why you needed Venti, right?”
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She frowned, “How did you know that?”
I only shrugged in response. I motioned towards the stairs leading down, down into her ruined basement. “It was easy to put together after seeing your house. The destroyed workshop, the melted cages on the ceiling, the smell stinking up your cellar—you mixed a magical stimulant based on wisp silk and whispercap with positive-reactive material, didn’t you?”
Vivian stared at me, her mouth agape, before she regained herself and scoffed. “Hmph. So you know a bit of the bird’s knowledge. It’s not entirely unexpected. But you are no master like she is.”
“Master?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I jerked a thumb towards the inside of my cloak, where Venti slept. “This idiot? She wouldn’t be able to brew a non-textbook recipe to save her life.”
“Then where did she learn…”
The Hag trailed off and stared at me. I grinned.
“It’s true that Venti knows the recipes well, ashaan, but that’s the extent of what she knows. Notes. And right now, you’re looking at the alchemist who wrote them.”
----------------------------------------
Vivian watched the boy stride down to her ruined workshop. There, the glass jars that held her ingredients were either melted or shattered by the heat. Years’ worth of alchemical supplies she’d painstakingly researched and collected laid scattered over the floor in bits and pieces, and all but her most resilient materials had been reduced to ash. The sight of it made her heart hurt—enough for it to stop beating for a second longer than normal.
She probably would have suffered several cardiac arrests by now, if her immortality didn’t make her immune to such mundane conditions.
It was only thanks to her walking stick that she was able to stay on her feet. The sight of her hopes being reduced to ash made her legs feel like water-sodden wood. Brittle, wretched. Weak enough to snap under the weight of her heavy heart alone.
“There’s nothing left here, boy,” she said, watching his eyes travel over the room. Vivian only shook her head at the sight. She was still skeptical about his claims—after all, what did a child know that she didn’t? She’d been practicing alchemy for decades. Vivian was no master, but she knew her share of alchemical know-how. Enough to know how fruitless this was. She slapped the tip of her cane down against the ground, and the ash puffed up into a small, toxic cloud. Sour, with a hint of petrichor from exposure to the rain. Vivian shook her head, “If you want ingredients, you’ll have to wait for me to procure them. The ones here are beyond salvaging.”
“Hm? No need. I’m just making a little healing ointment. We’ve got everything we need here.”
“Outside of dust, the only things left are tainted magical components. There’s nothing for you to use. Anything you brew from these scraps will just be poison.”
“Just watch me. I’m supposed to be the teacher here, remember?”
“Hmph. So be it. Just know that I have no remedy for a potion-scorched gut.”
He turned to her and grinned in that smug, cocky way that youngsters did. The kind that they showed before making fools of themselves. Vivian almost felt pity for him as he began collecting the volatile, mana-charged ingredients from the ground. Was it arrogance that made him do it? Or was he simply desperate to be taught about immortality? Vivian shook her head.
“Stop this, boy. I don’t want to be a party to this suicide attempt you’re trying to chance in my home. You can’t impress me if you’re dead.”
The boy threw a piece of unstable bloodcryst into the air and caught it. “And that line of thinking’s why I’m offering to teach you,” he said. “Mother was right when she said it—traditional alchemists are too rigid. You see a bit of elemental taint or mana-activation and it’s suddenly the end of the world. The standard circles don’t have any creativity at all.”
Vivian scoffed, “And how, exactly, is creativity going to help you turn an activated bloodcryst into something that won’t grow roots inside of your stomach?”
He ignored her question. “Your kitchen has carcinon and hog’s blood, right?”
She frowned. Red beans? Just what was this boy trying to do? Vivian gave his question a reluctant nod, “It does.”
“What about dogsbane, ramseed, and ballas weed?”
“No self-respecting kitchen goes without those, child.”
He sighed in relief, before striding past her, back up the stairs with his withered arm hanging limply by his side. Vivian hobbled into the kitchen after him just as he placed a wok over a fire. “Thank the Ancestors. I thought I’d have to do this without an anesthetic.”
Vivian would be lying if she said she wasn’t curious, now. What use were mundane materials now? The bloodcryst would just overpower their effects. She frowned as he began mashing several of her plant-fiber seasonings into numbing, red paste.
“Why would you need an anesthetic?”
“Because I’m going to grow a bloodcryst in my arm.”
Vivian stared at him and tried to understand. Was this child a maniac? Or simply suicidal? Rowan continued talking, detailing his absurd plan even as she tried to process the sheer stupidity of his words. Vivian would have stopped it already, if the gruesome curiosity possessing her wasn’t so insistent in letting him finish.
“Before that, though, I have to get this cryst drunk first. Do you have any alcohol in the house? Anything strong will do. There should be—ah, here it is. Bitterbite. Good spirit.”
She watched him dump pig’s blood and alcohol into the wok, before throwing the bloodcryst inside.
“People forget that bloodcrysts are an offshoot of Blackrend’s living crystals,” he said, as the blood-alcohol solution began to bubble to a boil. Crimson veins began to spread within the clear cryst, worming out as if awakened. “They may not be sentient, but they’re still living things. And like other creatures, they react to stimuli like heat, magic, food. They can be guided with those. Bloodcryst in particular is parasitic in nature—its first instinct upon coming into contact with body-temperature liquid is to absorb. And so, if we do this—”
He took the red paste and threw it into the wok, even as the cryst drained alcohol into itself. Immediately, the red veins emerged from the crystal’s glassy surface, drunkenly digging into the fake flesh he’d mashed. Rowan let the majority of the parasite’s veins emerge, before taking a knife and promptly cutting it off from the base.
It writhed violently, in pain, and the Hag recoiled.
“What are yo—”
Rowan took the paste and smeared it over his injured arm. Immediately, the parasite dug inside, sliding its tendrils into his flesh. He took a belt from his clothing and tied it into a tourniquet around his arm. Trapped inside an atrophied limb, the creature writhed further, confused, desperately trying to keep its new host alive. With the alcohol throwing its base functions into chaos, the parasite did its job with reckless abandon, sacrificing its own vitality to restore his.
It began to shrivel and die, and Vivian watched the flesh on the boy’s arm heal. The muscles returned. The dry, flaking skin turned healthy and new. Rowan patted the rejuvenated arm and nodded.
“That’s what I meant by creativity.”
Vivian watched with her mouth agape. What he did wasn’t even alchemy! Rowan plucked the dead parasite off of his arm and threw it to the side. Then, he wiped his hands on a cloth and turned to her, “I’m going to completely change medicine and alchemy for you, so get ready. But now that we’ve reached this point, I want to add another condition to our trade. One that benefits us both.”
“You talk as if I’ve already agreed to your conditions.”
“Do you plan on saying no, then?”
Despite his unorthodox showing, Vivian found herself hesitating. The boy nodded at the sight. He turned away from her, and his hands went to work. Rowan began cleaning the makeshift workstation with clinical precision.
“I need to get home to check on my father, and you need a good alchemist to help you. Right now, you have one. Help me get home, and you’ll have not just me, but a master as well. I guarantee it.”
“And who, exactly, might this master be?”
“Elanah Kindlebright. My mother.”
Vivian stopped.
The name was one she knew. One everyone knew.
She approached. Her hand reached out to grab his arm. Her grip was tight. Shaky, but strong. He looked down at her, blinking, and Vivian met his eyes. Her expression shone. The sudden flare of life that lit up her face said all that needed to be said.
“Get me an audience with the Summersky House’s Blight Witch,” she said, “and I’ll teach you everything I know.”
“So it’s a trade, then?”
Vivian nodded, “The best I’ve been offered. Let’s get to work, boy.”
He raised an eyebrow, “Work? On what?”
“Weaving you a Name.”