Tibs decided he was far enough from the village when there was enough light to take the sky from black through the varying shades of purples and into pale blue. Only the village hunters would be able to follow his trail, and he doubted Joman could convince them to brave the forest to find him.

  This should ensure he didn’t have to depend on his sense to keep away from people, because he had no way to know how he’d react to other’s presence while channeling Wood.

  He channeled the element as he walked and waited for the change to affect him.

  Unlike the other elements, the effect wasn’t apparent—he sent essence to a tree that wasn’t growing well—or immediate.

  The tree groaned as its branches lifted, and the trunk straightened. Its leaves turned a vibrant green.

  Maybe he’d been wrong about Wood affecting him.

  A bush’s green essence was marred with the purple of corruption. Annoyed, he pulled that element out, letting it dissipate in the air, and traced where it came from. With a snarl, he ripped the life essence out of the minuscule creatures, gorging themselves on its roots. How dare they sap its essence and replace that with corruption? There were more throughout the ground and they too, he removed.

  He gently replenished the bushes’ essence, and they filled out with vibrant leaves. Then he nourished them with more essence. Harvest season was coming, so they’d need it. Or would they? Was that when forest bushes fruited? He shrugged. Giving them more essence could only be good for them.

  But he’d ask Mother Natril about it, she’d know. And he’d have to sense her field. There were bound to be more of those wretched creatures in the ground there, causing the wheats and vegetables to grow weak.

  He resumed walking, helping the plants grow, removing the creatures that hurt them and paying close attention to any change in his thinking. He wouldn’t fall to Wood the way he’d fallen to the other elements.

  He noticed the diminishing light, but didn’t let him stop his ministration. So many of the trees needed his help to thrive. And it wasn’t like a lack of light bothered him. Thirst wasn’t something that affected him. He didn’t even have to think about the water essence in him anymore. Hunger made itself felt, but he ignored it. What was it, compared to so many trees that were stunted because they weren’t tall enough to get the full light essence the sun sent for them? Or those whose roots had become bound in stone and couldn’t draw the essences they needed from there.

  Then he came across the injured animal. It had a long gash in its side where blood and life essence leaked onto the sharp rocks. It had also broken a front and hind leg in the fall, keeping it from moving away from Tibs.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered over its hissing, etching purity. “I’m going to make it all better.” The etching broke apart from the pain as it clawed his arm. “I’m trying to help.” He coated the arm with earth and etched it again, then applied to the animal’s side.

  With the danger of it dying gone, he focused on the limbs. He stopped halfway through that etching. As soon as it started healing, it would run off, causing itself more damage. He needed to make splints before—

  That was odd. The reserve in his bracers, where he kept life essence, now contained Wood. Many of them did. It made sense. Those elements were all around him to pull on. Wood was the only one he needed to keep a reserve of. The one element he never wanted to be out of.

  As for the splint? That was simple enough to resolve. He channeled his element and—

  Tibs staggered in shock, and the swipe missed his head. He hurried to step away from the snarling large cat and applied a Purity etching on his cut.

  He stared at the animal.

  What had he been thinking?

  That it needed his help. That everything needed it.

  He looked back the way he’d come. He saw nothing different, but he sensed it. All those trees he’d help glowed with Wood essence.

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  Would that help them?

  If he just filled someone with life essence, he’d hurt them. Were plants different? Could they deal with too much essence? He doubted it, but what would happen if he just pulled that out now?

  The annoying thing was that he didn’t know when the element had started affecting him. He’d been walking, intent on heading to the dungeon, as he channeled it and…

  He’d killed those worms without hesitation. Even now, their death didn’t bother him, they were just worms, but it was the casual way he’d taken their Life essence away. Absorbing it hadn’t even entered his thoughts.

  And his bracers? They were needed because he needed to have access to multiple elements, and he’d replaced nearly all of them with Wood without thinking about it. He figured the reason he hadn’t done purity was that he kept using small etchings here and there on the plant to fix damages. As for Darkness? Maybe because he was always maintaining the etching over the brand.

  He looked at the cat. It had settled, panting, and eyed him.

  What had been his plan toward it? In the moment? Making the splints. And after? Even now, its life essence was dangerously thin. He knew there was little he could do about that. With a person, making sure they rested while their essence rebuilt was the best he could do. But under the influence of Wood, would he have filled it with essence the way he’d filled the trees with Wood?

  He’d needed to help, but did so without thinking of the consequences, of how he could hurt them and others in the process.

  His stomach groaned.

  How late was it?

  Neither Torus nor Claria were visible, so it was either early in the night or late. He should go back to the village, but without them, or the sun, he had no idea where it was. Until sunrise, he was lost.

  “If I had jerky,” he told the cat, “would that make you not want to eat me?” he should get back in that habit. If he had some, he’d have something to eat. “Luckily for you, I don’t have to get close to help.” He paused in the process of forming the splint. “But I can’t.” He shouldn’t feel bad about it. It was an animal, not a person. It couldn’t understand what he’d done. “I can only maintain the splint if you stay in my range, and you’re going to run off as soon as you feel better. I can’t follow you, not that you’d like that. And once you ran out of it…”

  The etching on the gash had healed it, and was healing more of the internal damages. He paid attention to the parts that approached the bones and undid that before it could heal them. His etching didn’t fix bones. It mended them in the positions they were, even if that was bent wrong.

  In a person, it would be easy, if unpleasant, to straighten the leg and arm, and then apply the etching. In the cat? He’d need the splint to put them the right way, and it would run off.

  But if he did nothing, he was leaving it here to die of thirst and hunger, unable to move, to hunt. Leaving it to suffer.

  That had been one of Wood’s lessons. Sometimes, what needed to be done was painful.

  Was that his option here? Do the hard thing so the animal wouldn’t suffer? What else would happen if he couldn’t heal it fully? And he knew it wouldn’t let him heal it. It was an animal in pain. It would run off the instant it felt like it—

  “To the abyss with their lesson.” He stood. “You’re not going to like this, and I’m sorry. But you need to be healed, that you like it or not.”

  He pulled the earth over the large cat’s torso and it trashed, clawing at it with its good limbs, injuring itself further in the attempt to escape. A bone broke through the fur as it tried to push away before he had the earth over that, and it was hard enough to fully immobilize it.

  It screamed and hissed, and Tibs hardened himself against the pain he knew he was causing it. This needed to be done. He made the splint and held it in place as he softened the ground around the leg. He used it to align the bones, so the break in the flow of essence was as little as possible. It wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t good enough with his essence to fix that fully, so it would have to be enough. He applied the Purity etching and moved on to the other limb, doing the same.

  The cat stopped struggling and screaming: its panting heavy.

  He sat away and let the essence work, and using the time to refill his reserves with a better selection of essences.

  The sky had turned pale sunrise-ward when the etchings were done with their work. He coated himself with earth in case it decided to hold him accountable for the pain, then let the mound holding the cat fall apart and undid the splints.

  It was up and running without even a glance in his direction.

  He sensed its essence until he lost it among the background essence of the forest and considered what to do next.

  His stomach made the decision for him.

  The sun was up, so he knew where he’d find food.

  Maybe returning empty-handed from a hunt would make him normal in the villager’s eyes.

  * * * * *

  Tibs’s return to the village was eclipsed by one of them being deathly sick. The woman had injured herself in the fields days before, a deep cut she’d tended there, and resumed working. She’d been fine for the next days, but the day before had been unable to get out of bed, sick with fever.

  Tibs visited her along with others, hoping he could help, but knowing he wouldn’t be able to. The injury had healed, but her essence had become poisoned in the process by an essence that wasn’t corruption, that wasn’t one he had, so he could do nothing for her. Applying a purity etching would repair the damage, but it would just stretch her suffering.

  He knew what the hard decision was. He could see in the other’s eyes they knew it too.

  But he was no more able to offer an end to her suffering than they were.

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