The morning fog hung like torn silver gauze among the great branches of Eldermyst Forest. Ling Yue woke to the chill of dew beading on the blades of grass and falling onto his eyelids. The sensation was so vivid, earthy with a hint of a plant's faint bitterness, that it slid along his lashes into the corner of his eye and pricked him into sudden wakefulness.
At first his vision was only a blur of green. Fronds layered over fronds swayed before his eyes, their veins as if traced delicately in ink, even the cobwebs clinging to them catching pinpricks of light. He flexed his fingers. His fingertips met damp, spongy humus, and a few clover plants pressed to his palm, their down brushing his skin and making it itch.
"Hiss…"
A sharp pain lanced through his head, as if a fine needle kept stabbing his temples. He propped himself up to sit, only to find his body leaden, and something icy lay against his lower back. It was a bronze medicine box polished to a shine. The cloud motifs carved on it had been worn pale by years, and the corners bore scratches of uneven depth, as though struck by something.
Who was he?
The question dropped into the chaos of his mind like a stone, sending out only blank ripples. He remembered how to identify the pale-violet blossom before him as zi hua di ding, the violet herb that treats heat-toxin sores. He remembered, when his fingers touched the soil, instinctively judging that the moisture here was fit for planting dang gui (dong quai). He even remembered that the box should hold three fine silver needles, each needle's tail engraved with a tiny character "Ling." Yet he could not recall his own name, nor why he lay in this strange forest. Even what "home" looked like had faded to a blur of warm light.
"Tom! Tom, hold on! I'm going to use a healing spell right now!"
A girl's voice, tight with tears, burst from behind the brush ahead, shattering his thoughts. He looked toward it and saw a girl in a gray-blue apprentice robe crouched on the ground, both hands lifted, a weak white glow in her palms that trembled badly. Her flaxen hair clung in tangles to her cheeks, the tip of her nose reddened, eyes brimming as she stared at the boy on the ground in sheer panic.
The boy called Tom lay sprawled, his right pant leg ripped open. Three gashes scored his calf down to the bone, the skin around them already turning black. The blood oozing out was not bright red but a sinister dark purple. He clenched his teeth, sweat slick on his brow, the pallor of his face shading toward ashen blue as his breathing grew ragged.
"Lily… it won't work…" Tom's voice came in broken bits, each word hauled in on a hiss. "It's a magic-corrupted hare's claws… the toxin spreads too fast. Your basic healing spell… can only slow the bleeding…"
Lily's tears finally spilled, pattering onto the back of Tom's hand. "But I don't have a high-grade magic crystal, I can't brew a purification potion… and Master Grey in town won't come out to the forest…" The light in her palms thinned and died. Her hands dropped helplessly to her thighs, her shoulders shaking.
Ling Yue frowned at the wound. Magic-corrupted hare? Toxin? He had never heard these words, yet his body moved before his mind. He crawled over almost by instinct, and when his fingers brushed the edge of Tom's wound he clearly felt a chaotic, feverish energy crawling beneath the skin, like countless little insects gnawing at the vessels.
"Who are you?!"
Lily's head snapped up. At the stranger who had appeared, she flinched back, hands lifting again on reflex. "What are you doing? This is magic poison. Without magic you can't treat it at all!"
Ling Yue ignored her challenge and fixed on the worsening cast of Tom's face. His fingers skimmed swiftly through the nearby growth, and soon he pinched up a few jagged-edged dandelions and honeysuckle bearing tiny white blooms. He pressed hard with his fingertips, crushing the fresh stems and leaves. Dark green juice seeped between his fingers with a clean, bitter herbal scent.
"Don't touch him!"
Lily moved to stop him, then froze at what he did. He crouched by Tom's leg, hands moving with the fluency of a thousand repetitions, and laid the crushed herbs over the blackened gashes. His fingers pressed with just the right weight to cover the area where the toxin spread. Then he felt in a side pocket of the bronze box and drew out a fine silver needle, as slender as a hair, glinting cold in the morning light.
"What are you doing—using a needle? That will make the toxin spread faster!" Lily's voice pitched high. She lunged, but Tom held her back.
Tom looked at Ling Yue's intent profile. The stranger wore a short blue-green tunic Tom had never seen the like of, the cuffs and hems stained with soil, and yet he somehow inspired calm. "Lily… let him… I've got… nothing left to lose now…"
Ling Yue's hand was steady. Pinching the fine silver needle, he aimed at a slight rise on the outer side of Tom's ankle: the Jiexi point, which guides the blood-energy of the lower limb and slows the toxin's upward climb. He offered no explanation. As the tip slipped into the skin, he gave it a small half-turn.
"Mm…"
Tom grunted, surprised to feel no pain. Instead a cool sensation rose from his ankle. His cramped calf began to ease, and even his breathing smoothed.
Lily's eyes widened as the black edging the wound receded at a speed visible to the naked eye. The dark-violet blood gradually brightened to a normal red. She leaned so close her nose nearly touched the gash, yet the reek peculiar to magic poison was gone. Only a faint herbal fragrance remained.
"Th-this… how is this possible?" she muttered, her wary stare shifting into disbelief. "You didn't use magic, so how could you…"
Ling Yue withdrew the needle and wrapped Tom's wounds with leaves for a simple dressing, then finally lifted his head. His face was still a little pale, a sheen of sweat on his brow. The sequence had looked simple, yet it had cost him strength. He looked at Lily, his voice rough and with a trace of confusion he himself did not notice. "I don't know the magic you're talking about. These are herbs. They can treat his injury."
Tom wiggled his toes and blurted in delight, "It doesn't hurt! It really doesn't! And… I don't feel feverish anymore!" Bracing himself up, he sat and looked at Ling Yue with open gratitude. "Thank you. You're amazing! I'm Tom, she's Lily, we're from Brookwood Town. And you? What's your name? Why are you here?"
A name?
Something seemed to tug at Ling Yue's heart, and that familiar ache surged back. He opened his mouth, but no word came that could stand for "himself." He lowered his gaze to the silver needle in his palm. The character "Ling" on its tail flashed in the morning light, and a blurred syllable rose in his mind.
"Ling…" He paused, then said uncertainly, "Perhaps… you can call me Ling Yue."
As for why he was here, he could only shake his head, a flicker of loss passing through his eyes. "I don't remember. When I woke, I was lying in this forest."
Lily glanced at the bronze medicine box in his hands, then at Tom's clearly improved wound. Her wariness ebbed. She bit her lip, as if making up her mind. "Ling Yue, Brookwood isn't far. Since you don't remember anything, why not come back with us first? There's a mayor in town, maybe she can help you find some leads. And…" She looked at Tom's leg. "Your herbs are useful. There are many more people in town who need help."
Ling Yue looked toward the depths of the forest. The morning mist was thinning. Sunlight sifted through the leaves and laid dappled patterns on the ground. He did not know where he ought to go, nor how to walk the road ahead, yet the kindness in Tom and Lily's eyes and the familiar scent of herbs from his box made him nod.
"All right," he said.
He slipped the silver needle back into the box and held it carefully to his chest. It was the only thing he could grasp for now, and perhaps the only clue to the riddle of who he was.
Tom rose with a hand on Lily's shoulder. His leg was still a little weak, yet he could walk. The three of them followed a path through the trees toward Brookwood Town. Sunlight fell across Ling Yue's blue-green tunic and drew his shadow out long, as if in this strange magical world he had finally pressed a first, shallow mark into the earth.