Chapter one

The memory was still fresh in my brain, it felt like yesterday. I looked down at the living jewelry curling around my wrist making its way up to dance through my fingers.

The scream I let out when I first came to, left my throat raw. I screamed despite knowing there was no way anyone would hear me. I felt like I'd swallowed thorns and as though my voice would never be the same.

I tried removing it at first, clawing at my skin, trying anything to free myself from its grasp. When I had finally separated it from my skin, while it was careening towards the ground. It returned to its round stone-like shape. As it hit the wood floor of my cabin, the pain was immeasurable. Like I lost a limb and took an arrow to the skull. Burning, searing endless pain. We needed each other. I frantically scrambled for it, vision blurry. Fighting the bile trying to climb up my throat. The pain only getting worse. I thought I was dying, I never thought I'd be able to catch my breath.

It felt like time stopped as I suddenly felt the enveloping comfort. It had been searching for me too, and it found me. The relief spread from the tips of my fingers, up my arm and through my body.

I could breathe again, Everything felt right.

Now? Now we're one, a team. I don't even bat an eye as it swirls and curls around my body. There's still so many unknows. Where did it come from, why me? What am I meant to do with it? But it has kept me safe.

Since we found each other, the nightmares had stopped. No more running, the taste of blood long absent from my tongue.

I still don't understand them. To this day, I have no explanation for how the blood could follow me to the waking world. How I could wake with my feet blistered and raw, a pool of blood and pus the edges of which already forming a crust on the sheets. My lungs barely able to draw breath.

I started to expect it every time I lay my head. I don't miss it. I never realized how free I could feel. How strong I could be.

I feel untouchable.

Ichorin and I could take on the world. That's its name, Ichorin. It makes me feel like the gods themselves are my peers, as if even the lord of death and doom couldn't touch me. It felt like a gift from the universe to provide me the strength to protect what means the most. To expand my horizons.

For the first time in my life I could venture beyond the bounds of my safe haven. My well, my clearing in the woods that provided security and life to me for twenty-five long years. Caring for me long after my family left.

They had feared they would succumb to the same forces of terror that invaded my rest every evening.

Ichorin became my safe haven. I never would have expected to pull such a force of pure power from my own little stone well. I didn't think that a strange object would be the thing to provide for me a chance. An opportunity to be amongst people again. To live a normal life, to a certain degree. Much more normal than I've ever had the luxury to afford.

Now, here I am in Tabularasa. It took me weeks to make it out of the woods. I understand now why no one had ever stumbled upon my cabin. The canopy of trees was so thick, only thinning around my clearing and where the woods stopped. The darkness was omnipresent. There was no escaping the ever looming pressure. I don't know how someone could make it through the tangling masses of roots and underbrush without the light of Ichorin or its guidance.

I never explored deeper than needed when hunting. I didn't hunt more than I needed to. I was only feeding myself and I had my garden. It fulfilled a lot of my needs. I miss it sometimes, tending to my garden was always a much needed escape from the repetitive loneliness of my life. Seeing the seeds I planted push up through the soil as they reach for the warm sun. It gave me a sense of purpose. Some hope that maybe I too could push through the frigid, bitter darkness and feel the warmth of the sun.

It kept me going and now, here I am. I made it out from the perpetual darkness of the woods that cradled me for so long. I'd taken my first steps, in the sun and its warmth and beauty was unprecedented. Basking in the glow of the lively city, I felt radiant.

The buildings were taller than I could ever imagine and I struggle to understand how they got them so big. I learned pretty quickly along my travels that magic wasn't really commonplace. From what I gathered. In some rare cases, people would be born with the skill. Though only a handful of people with such skill are alive today. Oh to be so lucky... Innate power, no need to be stuck in the woods for two decades.

Yet, I am lucky in my own right. I have Ichorin, we found each other and now we're here!

I've been in Tabularasa for about two months now and the sheer amount of people still surprises me. I feel like I could go for years never seeing the same person twice. Before this, the only people I ever knew were my family. After they left, fifteen long years passed before I made it through the woodlands.

It's hard to believe I was alone for that long. I hardly even realized how much I yearned for connection. The only company I had was the small shelf of books my father had left. I read them so many times I could close my eyes and see the pages word for word. I'd learned quickly to appreciate that I'd been taught to read, as it seemed not many here knew how. Most of the shops and buildings I've come across have been adorned with pictures describing their purpose.

What shocked me the most was when I asked a stranger about a place to find books. I was directed to a big building with large stone books adorning the pillars out front. Filled to the brim with all kinds of things people could read. Books anyone could borrow, If returned promptly within a week or two that is. Although when I went to examine the contents of a book with a large soup pot on the front. The inside was adorned with beautiful, detailed illustrations. Not a word in sight!

I flipped through the book expecting there to be a page somewhere with writing. I was shocked to find it lacked any. Instead there were recipes for all kinds of delicious looking food. Step by step directions drawn out beautifully. With so much detail it was as though I was watching someone cook the dish before my eyes. I didn't know this kind of skill was possible. After placing the cooking book back on the shelf I moved on to one with a strange symbol on the front. A cup with a long stem and round base, with a snake wrapped around it.

Opening it up I saw something I immediately recognized as Dicentra Spectabilis. Long dark red stems and abundant vibrant green flat lobed leaves. Flowers about the size of my thumb, made up of two half moon like shapes with small round water drop like bottom. Hung evenly spaced along the thin long stems. Eventually the drop shaped part of the flowers open and reveals the stamen so the flowers can pollinate. Apparently its more commonly known as the Bleeding Heart plant.

I remember reading about them in one of the books from my collection. I spent a lot of time exploring the surrounding woods with my family when I was small. While my mother pointed out the different plants telling me what their names were and if they were safe or not. I paid much more attention than my siblings. Enthralled by the information. I remember her telling me they were very beautiful but can make you very sick. So I had always steered clear.

This book was different. It depicted uses for the plant. Suggesting harvesting the flowers when they bloom and the roots when the weather begins to cool and trees change. Allowing the harvested plant materials to sit in alcohol for one month. It showed someone having a tooth pulled and adding a few drops of the solution to the area. A kettle being boiled, rag being soaked and a compress with the leaves being applied to wounds. Cuts and bruises, ankles twisted from tripping on roots.

A more peculiar use depicted was a picture of someone crying, someone curled up in a corner appearing distraught. Then taking some of the mixture in their mouth and appearing more at ease. I am continually amazed at what's out there and how people in this area were able to so clearly share and document this information without using words.

I make sure to lock this information away in my brain. For next time I see some Dicentra Spectabilis and ask the clerk at the counter if I could borrow the book. She said yes and to bring it back in a fortnight. I was elated.

So far, I've been making money by collecting medicinal herbs from the woods and selling them to the apothecary. It doesn't make me much but it's enough for a bit of food and a bed at the inn. I haven't made any real friends yet but I get along well with the innkeeper. Sometimes we chat in the evenings about the city over ale.

I have no idea where life will take me next. But I'm so glad I'm not alone waking up in my own blood anymore.