The Unlit Candle Feast was an old tradition, older than the founding of Mossford itself. I didn’t know where it originated, nor did anyone as far as I was aware, but I had always heard it was born from a need to push off the cold of winter, in the days where fire was the main method used to heat the home, instead of spells, in the days before every city had a graveyard with wards that stopped the dead from haunting the streets, the days where a monster could slip out of the darkness and swallow you whole.

It came from the celebration that even in the deepest of darkness, people can find kindness for their fellows.

Not that it was celebrated on the longest night of the year, but it was still absurdly cold and dark outside most of the time during the later half of Deep-Night and going into the month of Last-Breath.

Everywhere celebrated the feast a little bit differently, but the way that Kene and I had celebrated it in Mossford, all lights were turned off from dusk till dawn, and you would have a feast with your family using nothing but the light you could conjure with ungated mana, as a way to respect the past while honoring the abundance that you lived in today. After food, everyone would exchange a gift with everyone else.

The way it was celebrated here in Puinen was a little different. Rather than each family holding its own feast and using ungated spells, they turned the center square into a massive bonfire, and that was the only source of light allowed in the village. The feast was prepared by every member of the community, with everyone pitching in what they could. The only part that was kept separate and private was gift giving.

That relieved me, because if I’d had to have my gift for Kene judged by the entire village, I would have died of embarrassment twice over.

In the days leading up to the feast, I was given various jobs in the village, but the one that I most often found myself filling was the role of a butcher. I might have only worked as one for a few months and currently be down an arm, but that still gave me enough experience to assist the butcher in town, a large man named Hammond.

He also lent me access to his shop’s communication mirror, and I traced out the identification of the bakery’s own mirror onto it, calling my dad and brother, both of whom were relieved to hear from me. We stayed on the call for a few hours after the butcher’s and barkery had closed, chatting about what I’d been up to – my brother in particular took an interest in my escapades on the trail and inside the Idyll-Flume.

As my father drifted off to go to bed, Ed’s face grew a little bit more serious.

“Malachi… Do you know a short girl, uses a hammer in combat?”

A jolt of terror rushed through me and I nodded.

“Someone took out a hit on me. I’m not sure why. I’ve filed a report with the lightwatch here in dragontooth. Or, wait. They’re called the gray guard or something like that? She attacked me a bunch in the Idyll-Flume. Her face isn’t real, she has some sort of illusion growth item.”

“Tell me everything,” Ed said leaning forwards.

I did, going over all of the details I could remember about her, from the comments she’d said, the comment’s she’d been told to say, the growth item, her legacy allowing her to harvest power from things she killed. When I finished, I gave Ed a look.

“She came to the house, didn’t she?”

“She did, at first just asking for you, but Kerbos picked up on something. I caught her that night, breaking into our backyard, and she tried to kill me. I threw her into the air, then tried to trace her, but she used some sort of spatial artifact to escape. I’ve filed my own report, but… Be careful, and think about staying up there until she’s found?”

“I’m not going to be scared out of my own home,” I said, shaking my head. “Once I’m healed and advanced, I’m going to find her and turn her in. She’s not going to escape again.”

“Then stay there until you’re healed,” Ed said. “Dragontooth has plenty of things you can do. Maybe you could go visit Octavian in Delitone, taking a really roundabout way home.”

I raised my eyebrows. That was a good idea… I did need to drop off the eggs, and Octavian had said it would take a week or so for me to be vetted by the sanctuary. But I’d also be asking Kene to take a risk, and I wasn’t entirely comfortable with that.

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“I’ll think about it,” I conceded. “Can you ask Meadow to meet me in Delitone in a bit? I’d love to introduce her, get her opinion on the sanctuary…”

“And do some training?” Ed asked, a teasing note entering his voice.

“Maybe,” I said, then grinned. I couldn’t help it. I liked getting stronger, but I also liked helping people and animals. This would allow me to do both at once. It was perfect!

We moved onto lighter topics then, with me asking after Liz and Kerbos, and despite the rather concerning topic that had cropped up briefly, I was feeling refreshed when I left the butcher’s shop.

The following day, I worked a bit as a butcher again, but shifted my focus to procuring my gift for Kene, which was… harder than I’d expected.

When the librarian had said I’d finish the trail in time for the Unlit Candle Feast, I’d kind of blown them off, and I was regretting that now. I’d been a touch arrogant in assuming that I’d be able to get through the trial quickly, and we’d be back home in time for the feast.

Ah, well.

I scoured through just about every shop in town, doing the best I could to get a good gift for Kene, because I was sure that they’d have picked out an amazing gift for me. Puinen had a limited selection of shops, and my budget was pretty limited too – I might have picked up a lot of magic, but I hadn't made much actual money.

Once I found something, I did the best I could to wrap it in some brown butcher paper with only a single arm.

Dusk was thankfully much easier to shop for, though convincing her to let me go shop alone was harder than I’d expected. In the end, I just brought her along with me, and gave her the piles of various nutritional packets that she wanted and could use in her realm right away. In return, she gave me a pat on the head, then flew away, returning a moment later with a braid of garlic and onions that she’d managed to grow in her spare time, and had braided using the combination of her legacy, nascent truth, and still-not-quite-congealed dominion.

“Thank you!” I said, heading into the house and hanging them in the kitchen. She let out a happy peep and then conjured her cloud, flew to my shoulder, and hopped onto it again.

Once Kene was done working, we headed to the steadily growing bonfire. The village had several piles of roasted meat, with more spinning over the fire, thin rivers of fat dripping into the fire and creating splashing sizzles.

But it wasn’t just meat. There were assorted root vegetables – turnips, celery root, and parsnips, all roasted over the fire as well until the outsides were a touch on the crispy, almost burnt side, and the insides were soft and slid off the fork.

I thought it was all a touch on the salty side, but there was still a certain quality to eating food fresh off the fire, outside under the stars that was hard to replicate. The fact that Kene helped me make the plates and fretted over me as I ate was also a benefit – their concern was frankly adorable.

Even Edgar joined the celebration, reaching his massive head into the bonfire with seemingly no concern at all to snap up three entire ham hocks, back to back.

As the night continued, the food was depleted, and people started bringing out drinks, both alcoholic and otherwise. I had a slender glass of a clarified milk punch, and I found that I liked it quite a bit, before I shifted over to a non-alcoholic rosemary and apple shrub. Kene had a mug of posset, then swapped over to hot cocoa.

Dusk didn’t need to drink in the traditional sense, so she spent most of the feast zipping from spot to spot, looking at people and things. That comforted me a little on its own – she was relaxed enough to not feel the need to cling to my side.

Most of the people who lived here didn’t have nearly as much concern about drinking, and before long, several had broken out into impromptu karaoke. Someone dragged out a large soundstone and started organizing people into actual groups, which was my cue to dip away to one of the benches with Kene and pass over the gift I had purchased. It wasn’t much, just a set of silver earrings that I thought they would like, and a silver necklace with an old healer’s sigil on it.

“Thank you!” they said, delightedly pulling it on before passing me my own gift. I opened it to reveal a small, smooth, slightly waxy looking pill.

“I spent some of the time you were on the trail refining that,” Kene told me. “It’s not much, but… It should be helpful?”

“What is it?” I asked, rolling it between my fingers.

“It’s a refined source of knowledge energy,” Kene said. “It’s not strong enough to really register as a specific gate, but it should push through the knowledge flows in the brain and widen them slightly. In a normal person, that wouldn’t do anything, since their flows are only cycling as much knowledge energy as they have. But you have an excess.”

They held up their hand

“It won’t make you any smarter, it’s not a miracle pill or anything. It will just help more of the energy flow through you, and that will sharpen your senses slightly. Its main benefit is that it will let you build up your reserves faster for your runelight lens.”

I popped the pill into my mouth and let it dissolve. Its power was gentle, like Kene had said, but I could feel it rushing through my mind, eyes, ears, mouth, skin, and more.

“It’s tingly,” I said. “Thank you!”

“Of course,” Kene said, then grinned. “I needed to give you something to help you catch up.”

“Hey!” I said, and they laughed, dancing back from the jabbing finger I sent at them.

Someone brought out some butter cookies and apple cakes then, and Kene was spared from my vile machinations.

It was a good night, and even the following day, as I joined the clean up crew with my good arm, it was strangely peaceful and relaxing, idyllic in a way that I hadn't really experienced since before my mana testing had happened, with the only flaw in the foundation being the fact that my family was so far from me.

But all good things must come to an end, and before long, I was out of the sling and standing in front of the gates to the trail with Dusk and Kene, charging them with mana in order to get to the other side.