The bottle of Heartfert I was in my hand, its curious dark-brown color glowing subtly under the moonlight as I traveled from Rothfield monastery to his farm. I saw the glow of their fireplace from the window. I touched their brittle grains, sensing the miasma there, before I dumped a quarter of Heartfert I on the soil.

There was no way I could gauge the effectiveness of the fertilizer in the soil here. I only had a connection to Rothfield grounds and some chosen lands that were still somehow spiritually connected to Rothfield. Dipping my finger here would be useless. I retrieved another empty bottle, slimmer than the container for the fertilizer, and scooped up a sample of the fertilizer-soaked soil for Wilbur to check in his new lab. Holding it in the moonlight, though, the farm soi’ls color looked already fertile. I was hopeful as I brought it back.

Wilbur checked it on his table, under the great magnifying glass and nodded. “It looks healthy enough.”

Claude came up the church’s steps early in the morning. “You did something. I know you did!” He was smiling. “I was going to visit you when I noticed the new seeds on the ground were already growing fast.” I nodded. I hoped it grew as fast as the crops on Rothfield.

We continued to add drops of fertilizer to the soil. The grains grew stronger still on the second, third, and fourth nights. They were almost halfway the size for harvesting. But on the fifth day, these fertilizer-enhanced grains turned brittle once more.

Claude showed me the rough grains on his hand. I was dismayed. It seemed that crops still needed my prayer for dispelling miasma for it to grow on soil outside of Rothfield. That, or a much more potent fertilizer. Maybe I could imbue the fertilizer with my prayers somehow. Make it mix together like how Wilbur does alchemy.

“I wish I could I give you more fertilizers to try, Claude. But we need the fertilizers here to make their own crops grow,” I said, pointing to the villagers of Kent. “I’m sorry.”

Claude shook his head. “It’s all right, my friend.” He let the wind carry the dry grains from his palm. “Thank you for trying.” It hurt to see his sad smile.

“What we can do now is to plant your seeds here so we can care for them better.” I showed him the healthy grains and the leafy tops of our root vegetables. “Maybe they can grow better here?” It hurt slightly to still lie to him.

Claude looked down, and I knew he was afraid to look desperate. His other hand was tucked in his pocket, still carrying the spring seeds. I took his hand away from his pockets and brought my fingers to pry his’. The seeds stuck to my hand. I tapped his shoulder and matched his sad expression with a smile. I nudged him to the area close to the first crops he had given me.

“I’m taking space here,” he said softly.

“Good,” I said. I dug the seeds with a shovel he took from the old toolshed. “I need more of your presence here, anyway.” We planted the seeds silently and Claude fetched a pail of water from the stream surrounding the monastery. “You will still have your home by the end of the season,” I promised him, patting the ground.

He searched my face. He hugged me. “I believe you.”

He surprised me by going inside the church, passing the pew made of the dark trees he helped carve. He looked up at the statue of Saint Gaelmar. “I’m not much of a believer, but if you’re listening, thank you for bringing me a friend.” We exited the church. A couple of steps away from the steps, he turned back again. “I realized I never thanked him properly.” He looked at the little mounds we freshly planted. “Even if this one fails, my feelings will not change. I am thankful to have met you. And your brothers.” He went on his way home.

Wilbur and Woodrow were behind the church doors when I went back inside.

“He’s a nice boy,” Wilbur whispered.

Woodrow said, “Such a good lad.”

My brothers went to their respective stations; Wilbur to his infirmary to attend to his patients, and Woodrow to keep the illusion of normalcy. The villagers of Kent were quite open to the supernatural, but even they would not handle the idea of two brothers drinking blood. I thought about Lydia and Annette as I stared at Gaelmar’s statue. If we could not save his farmland, then saving his little sister would have been for nothing. “Help me save him,” I prayed to the Saint.

Ember came up to my side. I sat on the floor with her. I sighed. I knew what I must do.

It was unsavory, and I did not like it, but I, too, was beginning to grow desperate. If belief and prayers fueled the Saints’ powers, then I have to make my sermons convincing. I need to really make them believe that Saint Gaelmar was still with us so I could use more of his kindflame. But my words alone were not enough. I looked at the state of the church. In the vision Gaelmar showed me on our first arrival on Rothfield, there were bright, tall candles illuminating the halls and pathways of the entire land. The pews were made of polished oak. The columns were gleaming marble instead of crumbling stone. The ambiance of the church influenced their reciprocity and their belief in the Saints, I just know it.

So, I needed to work on that.

I crossed the cloistered garth towards Wilbur’s infirmary. It felt nice going to a new place in the monastery. He was bent over his table, checking on the quality of his potions as usual. I told him of my plan.

“Candles. Let’s start with candles,” I said.

“Making candles is simple enough,” Wilbur replied. He looked at the torches mounted on the walls. They’re usually made of beeswax, but int he absence of it, animal fat would do. Lucky for us, we could make tallow from the fat of the pig about to be butchered tonight.”

A patient groaned from his bed.

After cleaning the infirmary, Wilbur decided to admit the sick. My power wasn’t strong enough to dispel the miasma in the settlement, so it still affected the people least resistant to it. Fortunately, Wilbur has been making more medicines with his growing flowers in the monastic gardens. But since they need to constantly be reawakened through the use of certain ores, Agate, Harlan, and their fighters have offered their services to gather more of those ores in Mounth Lhottem. Woodrow and Wilbur sometimes accompanied them on night missions, and if I had enough power, I blessed their swords with Gaelmar’s kindflame just like I did with Claude when we fought off those direwolves, turning them into ash.

Wilbur took the medicines from his table; the one he called Shivermaid II and the one he called Fluke I. The blues and yellows swirled in their respective bottles as we headed for the infirmary proper. Three of the ten cots were vacated. An old man with a gray beard was coughing on the vot nearest the door. Wilbur took a spoonful of the fever medicine, Fluke I, and brought it gently to the man’s mouth. Then he took the smallest dose of Shivermaid II and added it to the soup for a woman affected by the death-chill.

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I grabbed his arm when went back to his office. He stored his medicines back in the cupboards. “How about you? Have you fed?”

“I have. Woodrow and I take turns drinking the blood you have collected from them, depending on which of us needs it more.”

I nodded. “But you… aren’t starving?”

Wilbur smiled and nodded quietly. “The villagers are safe from our bloodlust.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Wilbur. I–”

He made a peaceful gesture with his hand. “I am joking, Ryne. I know what you mean.”

They had told me of their plan, some night ago. It was a repeat of what happened in Fairstep Monastery. They will heal the men and women of their sicknesses and then drink their healthy blood, preferably without using Woodrow’s charm.

___

The great communal fire was already roaring well into the night as I approached Agate and Harlan’s camp. I told her of my request to make candles from the pig they just slaughtered. She nodded and called some of her women and their children to help me. We sat inside one of their tents. One woman delivered the fat in a thick bowl and some of the children brought in the dried pith of the rush plants for the wick. We patiently dipped the rush into the fat and let it cool, over and over again until it was thick enough to stand on its own. I returned to the shadowy church with those new candlesticks. I was about to place them near Saint Gaelmar’s feet and the bent candle holders beside the pews when Wilbur spotted me. He emerged from the cloistered garth holding icy-blue petals. He held it out to me.

“Even though these are mainly used for medicine, they still are flowers. You can use them as sweet-smelling incense for your candles.”

“Don’t you need to use them for your valuable medicines?”

“I can spare a few.”

I took the shivering maidens from him and smiled, mixing them with the soft wax of the candles. They now looked like copper carrots with blue bits sticking out. “I hope the smell would be more pleasant than its sight.”

“I am also quite curious if smelling them would produce a similar effect to drinking them as potions,” Wilbur continued.

I chuckled. So this was another experiment.

___

Saintsday. The villagers of Kent filed inside the church. Already they noticed the small improvements made. There were now two pews that the elderly could sit on and the soft glow of the candles chased away some of the shadows. When the children were near enough, sitting in a semi-circle in front of Saint Gaelmar, they smiled at the subtle scent of the shivering maiden candles. I raised my arms and began the service. I did not know all the words I said, only that I meant all of them. I held in my heart the affection I felt for my brothers, and my friendship with Claude, and the responsibility I felt towards the villagers staring at me.

My voice echoed throughout the church. “Like Saint Gaelmar, we need to look to our allies for strength, and even though the world is cold and alone, we must remember the flame in each of us, glowing brighter and warmer when we stick together.”

I saw mothers cradle their smiling children. Agate and Harlan stood at the back, looking over their villagers. Her arms were crossed, expressionless but nodding. Harlan was smiling. I felt their warmth course through me. I prayed a simple prayer from one of Knox’s sacred books–the ones untouched by his agenda.

The same warm wind from every sermon swirled around the church and seemed to go through me when the villagers responded to the prayer, uttering Saint Gaelmar’s name. I felt a gentle whooshing in my chest. Their prayers had fueled me. The scent of the shivering maiden candles grew richer, like icy mint in warm wind. I felt the cooling sensation of the shivering maiden petals on my skin. Wilbur will be pleased. It is not the same effect as the potions–barely a fraction–but it still helped somewhat, especially in the shift in mood. Woodrow poked his head on one stone pillar. He, too, sensed it.

___

That night, I had a vision.

We were in a delightful, sunny meadow. Gaelmar was standing in front of me. “You are ready to hear the prayer for growth.” His voice was a deep rumbling. He leaned close to me, lips close to my ears. But when he spoke to me, it was the voice of a woman. Hers was the gentle waves in the morning. The words etched themselves into my heart.

As soon as I woke, Ember was already near the church’s entrance waiting for me. She watched me as I placed my palms on Claude’s new crops. I repeated the words that I heard. “I bless this land. May the crops never wither. May they grow rich and produce a bountiful harvest.” The warmth I had gathered from the villagers’ offering of prayers warmed the soil. I dipped my finger on the soil. I felt that it would grow twice as fast.

Only a week went by when the crops doubled in yield. All the villagers were bewildered at the sight and speed of those grains. Claude stared and dumbly held the grains when I harvested them for him. “Show that to your Lord Byruth.”

He gave one long stalk to me. “It is only right.”

I did not take the grain he held. “Claude, you don’t have to pay tribute.”

He pressed the grain to me. “Take it. Please.”

I gave the grain to Harlan and Agate, cooking it along with their turnips and parsnips in the bubbling pot over the communal fire with the rest of the villagers. They appreciated the healthy harvest. They appreciated me sharing the bounty of the land, I felt. Agate smiled in approval. I sensed a decent surge in stamina motes. Again with the music playing. “It is livelier here,” Claude said, closing his eyes. He stayed for a bit longer before returning home. Even Woodrow made a rare appearance, juggling wooden balls and talking to the scout Jerome.

Before I went to bed, I planned.

I needed to know the priorities of my responsibilities. Everything was like a trade, like a currency. The prayers fueled my kindflame, and I must spend or invest the kindflame wisely per day, per week.

I needed to analyze Rothfield properly. If I spent most of my kindflame to dispel the miasma affecting the people, then the villagers would less likely get sick and Wilbur could make more medicines and stock them up for future use. But that meant minimizing the protection for the crops and medicinal flowers. Then there were other factors to consider like monsters creeping up and sudden missions when we needed to fend them off.

What I do know is important is that If I spread myself too thin, then chaos could erase all our hard work, and living with mortals does not afford the luxury of time.

___

That was what I did.

I balanced my prayers, alternating between each day's demand. Some days, I cast the prayer of dispelling over the crops, then over to the settlement. Some days, I channeled more fire into the prayer of banishment so that Wilbur and Woodrow could go into the mountains to mine ores and help with fighting the dark wolves manifesting because of the Unending Chaos. Every Sainstsday night, I bless the small area of land to help Claude’s crops grow.

This went on until the time for Bahram's tribute arrived. Claude had told me when. I went to their farm at night just in time to see Claude offer the sacks of grains for the intimidating lord.

Vincent Bahram was not smiling. “But how?” He sounded almost indignant and a bit amazed. “Their crops are still brittle.” He said pointing to the crops that cracked in the wind.

Lord Byruth’s face was impassive as he observed the sack of golden grains. His eyes scanned the farmland. “As long as they know their place and the people of Rothfield are fed, then what does it matter?” He knew Claude could not have stolen it from somewhere.

They went back into the night. Vincent looked cheated. He looked as if he was eager to have snatched up this farmland for his own. He probably wanted a big playground for his horses. Claude spun around to see me hiding in the grains. We smiled at each other, triumphant.