Lola rocked back on the balls of her feet and sighed with gentle irritation. Seth, kneeling next to her in the temple flower bed, looked over.

“What?” He asked with a scowl. “It bloomed. Dad can’t do that, so it has to be me!”

She took the now flowering pea plant and settled it into a small hole in the dirt before responding.

“Even if our Plant gift let you heal it the way you did, you still just used Virtue essence. That’s exactly what your father would do.”

Seth sighed, and Lola chose not to mention that, given a short explanation of the spider pea’s needs, her husband probably could do the same, Plant gift or not. It was part of the reason he had delayed this part of Seth’s training for almost a decade—he thought it was unnecessary. She picked up the next plant and went to brush the irregular leaves with a finger before Seth stopped her with a worried look.

“Mom, you can’t make it bloom yourself,” he insisted. “Even if you’re just trying to show me! Dad said using our Plant gift weakens you faster, and I think he’s right.”

He stared earnestly and unsubtly at the large mole on her arm. Lola couldn’t help but smile at his concern; he was so much like his father. Both of them always forgot that she was the one that first mentioned the connection, but her two favorite healers only thought about taking care of their patient.

“I’m just appreciating the spider pea, Seth. It only grows here and on one other island—take it somewhere else and it falls apart! I’m certain that I’ve felt something different in its essence before.”

Seth rolled his eyes slightly and took the new plant as they awkwardly shuffled left on their knees to the next hole.

“I know, Mom, you’ve mentioned it. You don’t have to use your favorite plants to try and guilt me into using our Plant gift ‘properly.’”

Lola swung an arm up…and up and around his shoulders. He’d finished growing a year or two ago, but she still accidentally got him by the middle from time to time.

“Actually, son, I wanted you to practice on the spider peas because I knew that you would use Virtue no matter what I told you, and your father always forgets that he agreed to help with my gardening experiments.”

Seth started to argue with her, then just nodded. He’d started doing that lately and it almost made her want to shed a tear; her boy was maturing. Then, the spider pea in his hand burst into bloom, and Seth looked at her with a wide grin.

“Nope,” she said. “That was Virtue healing again, plant it and get the next one.”

“Damn it.” Seth muttered under his breath.

Lola gently smacked him upside the head.

____________________________________________

Abruptly, the ground beneath their feet rumbled ominously and they turned to see a pillar of pinkish-orange flame shoot into the sky beyond the south wall from somewhere between the edge of the jungle and the Telid Mountains. As Seth and Lola watched the light warp and distort, a deep voice echoed from the wall.

“Summoning sighted outside the walls! No Ain activity visible! Noncombatants to the temple; combatants to the walls or gate!”

Seth couldn’t remember the crier’s name—the person with a voice amplification gift assigned to Lith outpost had changed three times in the last year. He hoped that this one didn’t have the political connections to get reassigned early. He was good at enunciating. His mom shoved the tray of spider peas they had been planting into his arms.

“Head to the basement and prime the wards, I’ll round up everyone else.”

Seth headed for the temple narthex at a light jog as his mom turned to the dormitory. His mom might not be a priest, but one of her gifts made her great at getting people’s attention.

Seth headed down the stairs to the basement shelter, breathing heavily. They practiced readiness exercises fairly often, but he wasn’t usually carrying a tray of dirt and plants. Once he made it through the entrance to the basement, Seth set the tray on one of the benches and started slowly pushing Virtue essence into the elaborate wards on the door. A priest like his dad could do it much faster, but since the threat was outside the walls and possibly cult-related, the temple’s two priests were considered combatants.

By the time the wards were almost charged to finish the seal, his mom had started sending people in, but Seth had to keep all his focus on preventing the wards from snapping into place prematurely. A few minutes later, he vaguely heard someone doing a headcount, then felt a tap on his shoulder. One of the other acolytes was gesturing for him to finish, so he let go, the door slamming shut with a hum as the wards became fully active. Seth looked around and noticed that the record keeper (Dale, if this wasn’t someone newly assigned) was talking.

“...precaution, so it shouldn’t be too long right?”

Seth tuned him out and walked over to join the other acolytes near the door to the crypt. The shelter was a large enough granite rectangle for the 200-odd townspeople to spread out, but not by much. Before he had a chance to say anything, he found the tray of spider peas thrust back into his arms by his mom.

“We can’t go any deeper in the basement with the non-clergy members around,” she said. “So, are you alright with continuing to practice with the other acolytes watching? Most of them haven’t seen many other essences in use before, and it will help pass the time?”

“That’s fine.” Seth reluctantly agreed, and the group of seven acolytes moved to the corner of the basement away from the hard benches, settling around Seth and his mom on mats they grabbed from a stack in the corner.

With all eyes on him, Seth picked up one of the plants and tried to guide his own plant essence into it. Four failures later, he was mercifully distracted by the sounds of someone having a panic attack. Both he and Meranda, the other acolyte with Virtue essence, started to stand, but she sat back down and motioned for him to go ahead.

Seth went over to where the man he recognized as the latest town baker was hyperventilating and laid a hand on the man’s forehead. Seth was confused when his slight healing seemed to make the shaking worse, but remembered something his dad had mentioned about the people who were often assigned to work in Lith.

“Do you not go to church?” Seth asked, already knowing the answer.

The baker, Jack maybe, shook his head, his expression blank.

“No, can’t remember the last time I did, why?” The man shot back. “You gonna tell me to leave or try to convert me?”

His skittish tone belied his challenging words. Seth stepped back, shaking his head.

“Nothing like that Jack,” He said, “it just means that your soul isn’t used to places that are aligned with an essence, like churches are. That makes you feel the essence in the place a lot stronger, which can be straining if you’re not compatible.”

Based on the look he got, Seth probably said the wrong name, but at least the irritation was pushing aside the panic.

“You’re sayin that I’m not ‘virtuous’ enough for this place?” The baker grumbled.

That was more or less exactly what Seth meant, and the man would probably have an even worse time in a temple of Sin, but he decided a slight white lie would help the patient.

“It just means that you don’t contemplate the nature of virtue while you’re making bread, Jack.” He said soothingly.

Seth realized Jack was definitely the name of the baker from four years ago who used to give him spare rolls, but not-Jack seemed mollified nonetheless. Seth returned to the acolytes as the man started joking about what virtues he should think about while shaving. Meranda and his mom were talking, which wasn’t unusual, but they weren’t chatting about hymns for once.

“Is mom trying to convince you to help her sing to the plants in the greenhouse?” He interrupted as he sat down.

Meranda rolled her eyes and pointed at him.

“You’ve never actually used your plant essence, have you?” She asked.

“I’ve been using it to make plants grow faster for years,” Seth said defensively.

His mom shook her head as Meranda replied.

“Mrs. Lola said that’s just a passive benefit of being born with the Plant gift, like how both of us can be healed more easily because of our Virtue gift.” She pointed out. “It sounds like you need to do what Priest Joe taught me when I came last year.”

Seth drew himself up in indignation .

“I’ve been using Virtue this whole time,” he started, “Mom says…”

Meranda cut him off. “I wasn’t talking about Virtue, I was referring to how Priest Joe helped me start using the Virtue essence. I think you skipped a step, and neither of you noticed.”

His mom nodded and broke in.

“I never had you try to connect to your Plant essence because your father taught you years ago with Virtue. The ability to use two different essences is incredibly rare, so we didn’t have any information on dual essence birthrights requiring two separate connections. Plant essence feels so central to me, like Virtue does to your father, that we assumed any essence you could use would come from that same place.”

Thinking about it, Seth figured that could explain why he’d had so much trouble. His dad had always taught him to treat all the essence in the body the same when healing, so he’d just kept that line of thinking. As his mom started guiding him through a familiar process, Seth began to look for a second connection. Just as he thought he might feel something, his focus was broken when another of the acolytes stood up and loudly asked Seth to wait until he got back. Annoyed, they all watched as he went over to talk to one of the other people who was pacing back and forth looking worried.

“I think they’re cousins.” Amber, another acolyte, helpfully whispered.

The young man came back and explained. “He's got a far seeing gift, I was telling him that it won’t work in a warded room like this. Wouldn’t be much use keeping the Ain out if it did, would it!”

A couple acolytes politely chuckled while everyone else shuddered at the thought of such a gruesome death at the hooks of those monsters. Seth tried to refocus on the Plant essence he might’ve glimpsed before and realized that he could just follow the same pathways he’d been using to let himself heal the plants back to their source. Feeling a bit foolish, he pulled on the essence and tried to make it start flowing through his body like his Virtue essence. It didn’t work, and Seth was annoyed and confused until he realized that plant essence probably wasn’t supposed to circulate in his body, him not actually being a plant. He started trying to figure out how it should flow, when he was interrupted again.

Seth was fighting with the urge to hurl the spider pea plant at whoever was causing a disturbance when he realized the door to the basement was being opened from the other side. He put the plant back in the tray and stood, dusting the dirt off his hands. After a minute, the door opened to reveal his dad and the white-haired Priest Joe with some grass and blood stains on their cut robes, but the skin beneath had already healed.

“Alright everyone, calm down, the problem’s mostly taken care of.” His dad continued, “some cultists tried to summon something near the base of the mountain, but they did the ritual wrong. The backlash killed or stunned most of them and messed up part of the mountain side. The guards, soldiers, and wanderers took care of the rest, but we do now have a slight Chaos area we need to address. Some Ain movement was seen at the higher elevations, but they seemed to react negatively to the Chaos, and returned to their usual area of activity. Anyone who sends reports back to the kingdom should mention that detail. It may not be a weakness they can easily act on, but it is important information.”

Seth breathed a sigh of relief hearing the Ain hadn’t come down the mountain. He had never seen one of the mysterious, dangerous monsters himself but he had heard of the horrors from people that had somehow survived venturing further up the slopes.

As people began to leave with mixed reactions, Seth stepped aside to where his dad and priest Joe were conferring in low tones.

“I want to help with the Chaos,” he interrupted, “I know Virtue essence can help get rid of it, and I’m going to be a priest soon.”

His dad started to shake his head, but priest Joe spoke first.

“Levi, he’s got a point. He may not have the ability of a priest yet, but he’ll get it within a few years at most, and he could use that Plant gift to help with the foliage.”

Seth’s dad shook his head again. “There’s a big difference between what he can do and what we can do, not to mention he doesn’t actually know how to use plant essence.”

Seth quickly replied, “I figured out what I was doing wrong! I was forcing Virtue essence through my Plant gift since that’s what I usually use, but Meranda gave me some advice that helped me figure out how to do it right.”

Joe chuckled. “Actually, your mistake is exactly why I thought you could help with the plants. We can heal a plant if we understand it enough, but your birthright is perfect for purifying plants. Plus, purifying the area will come after we cart off all the cultists, and we need all the warm bodies we can get for that. His Virtue essence is enough to prevent the chaos from affecting him.”

Levi considered for a moment, then relented with a nod.

“Alright, fair enough. You can help with the cleanup, Seth. But I expect you to help until the purification is done, and use the opportunity to practice with the foliage.”

Seth grinned and headed out of the basement, his dad calling after him, “and wear something you don’t mind burning afterward!”