Chapter 2: Bloodsold

Tavin awoke in a dark room, lying on a cold wooden floor. He pushed himself up and looked around. It was dark, and his eyes hadn’t adjusted yet, but he could just barely see enough of the muddled shapes around him to recognize the place. He was in the back room of his shack, right where he had been. Tavin went to stand, but found that the strength in his muscles were gone. He remembered—he lost a lot of blood in the ritual. He needed light.

Propping himself up, he managed to reach the candle on the desk. It had gone out. How long had he been unconscious? There was no light coming from beneath the door to the main room either, which meant the fire in his hearth had gone out too.

"I grant you my flame."

The words stuck out in Tavin’s head. A chill ran up his spine as he realized—he had done it. He had successfully reached a god, and made a pact. He was Bloodsold. With his hands shaking, he held the candle before him, his free hand cupped around the wick. How did he do this?

Tavin closed his eyes, and pictured fire. A roaring bonfire, a cozy hearth flame, a lit torch in the darkness, a faint candlelight in the quiet hours. He felt a strange heat building in his fingertips. He tried to push it out, and to his surprise, it worked. He felt a faint, comfortable heat on the skin of his palm and fingers, but distinctly outside instead of in.

He opened his eyes, and marveled at a small, free-floating flame, hovering between his fingertips and thumb. He held it up, unable to take his eyes off of it. It was incredible. His fingers started to shake, and the flame began to flutter. Moving quickly, Tavin brought the flame to the candle wick, and it caught. The fire at his fingertips faded.

Everything was where he remembered: The bare furniture all pushed to the sides, the now-smeared circle of dust, the book, all untouched from where they had been left. Something didn’t seem right. He managed to stand on his uneasy feet, and as he did so, his foot ran through the circle. It hit him—there was no blood. The circle of dust was just that, dust. Tavin looked down at his hand, still wrapped in cloth. His eyes widened.

It was clean. His other hand trembling, he unwrapped it. The wound was healed. There was no scar, no pain, no sign that it had ever been there. Tavin turned his hand over and over—he couldn’t believe it. Perhaps he was seeing things. What was going on? The book hadn’t mentioned any of this. He tucked the cloth away, and stumbled into the main room of his small three-room shack. Ash and cold charcoal had spilled out from the hearth in a long streak toward the door to the back room.

He brushed some of it aside with his foot; there were no scorch marks or burns in the flooring. He wanted to investigate more, but he was so, so tired. It would have to wait until some other time. He huddled over to his bed and collapsed into it.

As he drifted off, he looked at his hands once more, still in shock and disbelief about what was happening. One hand should be pouring blood, but was as clean as wash day, and the other had just had fire dancing between its fingertips.

The next morning, Tavin stepped outside into the cool, dry air. He took a deep breath, and looked down toward the village of Varenwald, where he lived. His home was on the outskirts of town, a little way up one of the sides of the small valley that the village was tucked into. People were going about their day; the sun had already passed the horizon. He should go into the town proper and see if any jobs needed doing; he was always low on coin and could use a little more. But Tavin had other things on his mind.

He went inside, gathered a few bits of food into a pack, and went east instead. He came to the small river that would eventually feed into town, and went upstream. He didn’t have to go far; no one ever had any reason to come up this way. He reached a small clearing by the riverside. The ground was made of silty soil with sparse vegetation and river rock. He had come here before to watch the water go by when he needed to be alone, and he knew that this would make for the perfect place to test his new abilities.

Tavin set down his pack and flicked his hunting knife free from its sheath. He looked at his left hand, at his ring finger. It was common knowledge that Bloodsold spilled their blood to use any significant amount of power, and they usually chose to spill it from the finger that was associated with their pact god—not because they had to, anywhere would do, but for luck.

He had always thought he would reach the God of Strength, and had gotten used to the idea of using his knife on that finger. He had practiced it in his head so many times, but Hanari’s finger was the right thumb. A little uneasy, he moved the knife to his other hand. He said a silent prayer that it would work, and cut open a small slit on the end of his thumb.

Tavin winced, sucking in air through his teeth as the knife dug into his flesh. He felt heat flow through his thumb, and watched the blood dripping from the wound. He concentrated, trying to evoke flame, just like he’d done the night before.

The blood that had already fallen onto the silty ground went up in a flash of flame, but the droplet that was forming on his thumb leapt to life. It leapt into the air in front of him, forcibly taking a small stream of blood with it, which joined the fire and made it grow.

It formed into a fist-sized ball of pure flame, hot and dense enough that it couldn’t be seen through. Tavin’s eyes went wide. He reached his hand out to cup it, and the flame moved with his hand, floating a few inches above his palm. This was incredible. He passed it from hand to hand, then he wondered: could he... throw it?

He tried to fling it, mimicking throwing a ball, and was happy to see that it moved as he wanted it to. It flew free from its position tied to his palm, toward the river. However, it sputtered out and dissipated before it had even gone a few strides. Tavin felt a wave of shock wash over him—that was it?

He looked at his thumb, at the wound. The bleeding had slowed to a lingering ooze, the cut still raw and red. He had made a much bigger cut in his hand last night, shouldn’t this one be healed by now? At least the pain was gone, replaced by a faint tingle.

What was he supposed to do with this little power? Maybe he had made a mistake. Maybe he had done something wrong in the ritual; he had reached the wrong god, after all. He should have truly negotiated with the goddess. Tavin couldn’t escape the thought that if he had found Falgen like he planned, he would have been granted much more strength. Despair stung in his chest. Maybe he could practice it.

Tavin tried again, digging his knife into the same cut, evoking the same fire, and he succeeded. Once again it extracted the blood from him to form a ball of flame, but this one was a little smaller. When he tried to throw it, he willed it to travel, to make it all the way to the river, but it sputtered and vanished barely further than the first.

Distraught, he lifted his knife to his thumb to try again, but saw that his hands were shaking. He stopped. Tavin let his hands fall to his sides, then moved to pick up his pack and found that his body felt heavier. He couldn’t afford to collapse out here, not when he didn’t know how long he would be out.

He rummaged through and pulled out some stale bread, then sat on a rock and ate, listening to the running water and feeling the warm sun on his skin. The sunlight brought him a sense of comfort, and he found some optimism. Somehow, he would make this work, but it wouldn’t be a good idea to push himself. For now, he would return to town, and see if anyone needed any work done. No one had to know he was Bloodsold, at least not yet.

He picked up his pack, and headed back to Varenwald.

By the time Tavin had made it back, most of his strength had returned. He made his way to the town square, paved with cobblestone with a large, central well in its center. He stopped when he saw a crowd gathered, down the main street that entered town from the west.

"Oy, Tavin!"

It was Bennett, the village blacksmith.

"Did your fire go out last night, too?" the large man asked.

Tavin froze. Too?

"Yeah, it did." Tavin said, playing along. "I thought it was weird."

"You’re not the only one," he said. "I was finishing some work when the whole forge went cold. Seems everyone in town had the same thing happen in their hearths and cook-fires, all around the same time. We think it must be some kind of magic. Maybe one of those, you know... Bloodsold."

Tavin’s heart raced. Did they know already? Would they find out?

"Is that what the crowd’s about?" Tavin asked, pointing to the mass of people. Everyone had crowded in as close as they could to see whatever was going on.

"Well, sort of..."

"Sort of?"

Bennett gave Tavin a conspiratorial look.

"Visitors," he whispered.