Chapter 1: Dray the QuackThe Luma town square, barely more than a dusty patch of earth ringed by weathered wooden stalls, vibrated with the usual midday bustle. Chis squawked, merts hawked their wares – coarse wool, sun-dried vegetables, and roughly crafted tools – and the air hung thick with the st of woodsmoke and livestock. Amidst this everyday cacophony, a different kind of otion was brewing, tered around a young man kneeling awkwardly beside a whimpering dog.

  This was Kray, or as the less charitable vilgers were starting to call him, “Dray the Quack.” He was eighteen, with a frame still hinting at boyishness, though his ear brown eyes and the determined set of his jaw suggested a man trying to bloom. Today, his usually sunny disposition was strained, etched with a familiar frustration. He held a poultice of bruised herbs, his hands fumbling as he attempted to apply it to the dog’s obviously fractured leg.

  “Mentle, Dray! You’ll scare the poor beast more than its broken bone already has,” boomed a thick voian Tiber, the town’s butcher, stood with arms crossed, his meaty face creased with a mixture of pity and thinly veiled amusement. A small crowd had gathered, their faces a kaleidoscope of mockery, impatience, and a morbid curiosity to see just how badly Dray would fail this time.

  Kray bit back a retort, f a shaky smile. “I’m trying, Master Tiber. Healer… css and all,” he mumbled, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. Healer css. The bel that felt more like a curse than a blessing. Every other vilger seemed to possess a useful css – Farmer, Bcksmith, even lowly Woodcutter. But him? Healer. A, healing eluded him like a phantom limb.

  He pressed the poultice again, perhaps a bit too firmly, and the dog yelped, scrambling back, further injuring its leg. A wave of snickers rippled through the onlookers.

  “Healer css? More like… Harm-er css, eh?” cackled a wiry woman with a missing tooth, earning loud guffaws from her neighbours.

  “Loser Dray, that’s what he is,” someone else chimed in. “Always has been, always will be.”

  Kray’s cheeks burned. He khey were just venting their frustrations, their small-town icism projected onto him, the easy target. Failed crops, stubborn livestock, the looming threat of bandits – life in Luma was hard. And in a world where magic was faint and blessings rare, a useless healer was simply another burden.

  Yet, the ents, though expected, still stung. He gnced down at his trembling hands, the herbal poultieared uselessly on the dusty ground. He was a failure. He couldn't even soothe a whimpering dog, let aloruly heal anyone.

  But as the ughter echoed around him, something within Kray remaiubbornly, almost foolishly, resilient. He straightened his back, f his gaze upwards and away from the mog faces, towards the familiar dirt path leading out of the square, towards home.

  Home. The thought was a balm to his bruised spirit. Home meant Grad Alice.

  Leaving the injured dog to its fate – Master Tiber would likely deal with it more effitly with a swift butcher’s knife – Kray turned his ba the jeering vilgers and walked with deliberate slowowards the edge of town. The path wound past small vegetable patches, heavy with summer growth, and finally opened onto their farm.

  It was a modest affair, a patchwork of fields green with leafy crops and den fruit trees, bordered by a gently babbling stream. The small farmhouse, built of sturdy timber and whitewashed stoood led amongst the greenery like a f embrace. Even from a distance, Kray could feel the tension easing from his shoulders.

  As he approached, the aroma of freshly baked bread wafted towards him, chasing away the lingering st of dust and humiliation. He stepped into the kit, warm and weling, sunlight streaming through the open window, illuminating motes of dust dang in the air.

  Grace stood by the hearth, her ba as she stirred a pot bubbling over the fire. Her dark hair, streaked with silver at the temples, ulled ba a practical bun, but even from behind, her gerength radiated outwards. Alice sat at the wooden table, polishing apples to a gleaming red sheen, humming a tuneless melody under her breath. She was older than Kray by two years, her features sharper, her eyes a brighter, more mischievous brown than his.

  “Kray, you’re back early,” Grace said, turning with a warm smile that instantly melted away the icy barbs of the townsfolk. “Did Master Tiber’s dog cooperate this time?”

  Kray managed a wry grin. “Let’s just say the dog might be better off at the butcher’s.”

  Alice chuckled, tossing a polished apple towards him. He caught it deftly, the smooth ess a wele sensation against his cmmy palm. “Don’t worry about them, Dray. They’re all just grumpy because the summer’s been so dry. Take no notice of their wagging tongues.” She winked, her eyes sparkling with pyful affe.

  He sank into the chair opposite her, biting into the sweet apple. The familiar, fortable rhythm of their kit, the love radiating from his mother and sister, washed over him, pushing back the ivity that had g to him in the square.

  Grace pced a steaming bowl of vegetable stew in front of him, the rich aroma filling the air. “Eat up, dear. You’ve been out in the sun all m. You need your strength.” Her hand brushed against his cheek, her touch feather-light and soothing.

  As he ate, Alice regaled them with tales of the market, exaggerating minor squabbles and funny mishaps, making Grace ugh, her deep, warm sound like music to Kray’s ears. He watched them both, a quiet te settling in his heart. Despite the world outside, despite his own failings, here, within these walls, he was loved, unditionally.

  Later, as dusk began to paint the sky in hues e and purple, a distant rumble of thunder echoed in the hills. Graced out the window, her brow furrowing slightly. “Storm’s ing. A big one, I think.”

  Alice shivered dramatically. “Oh, I hate thuorms! They’re so loud and scary.”

  Kray, despite his outward fidence, wasirely fond of them either. The raw power of nature unleashed always made him feel small and vulnerable. He remembered his father, gone now for three years, killed by a viper bite while hunting in the woods – a sequence of nature's uable cruelty.

  As the first heavy drops of rain began to sptter against the windowpanes, Granounced, “Alright, you two. Let’s get to bed. We have a long day tomorrow.”

  In Luma town, beds were a shared affair for families, especially in smaller households like theirs. It wasn't unusual, just practical and f. As the sted outside, the wind howling like a banshee and lightning illuminating the room in stark fshes, the three of them huddled together in the rge bed.

  Grace was in the middle, her arms loosely around both Kray and Alice. Alice, despite her bravado, pressed close to Kray, her body trembling slightly with each cp of thunder. He, in turn, leaned into Grace, seeking the familiar warmth and security of her presence.

  The air was thick with the st of rain and vender, a f mix that usually lulled him to sleep. But tonight, with Alice’s soft warmth pressed against his side and Grace’s arm draped protectively over him, a different kind of warmth was stirring within Kray. A warmth that wasn't just familial, but something… more. He could feel the gentle curve of Alice’s hip against his, the soft brush of her hair against his neck. Grace’s hand on his back felt less like a mother's f toud more like… a caress.

  He shifted slightly, a subtle movement that went unnoticed iorm’s symphony. The darkness hid the flush creeping up his neck, the burgeoning fusion and a hrill flickering in his chest. Lost in the f embrace of his mother and sister, amidst the raging storm outside, Kray drifted into a troubled sleep, unaware that this day of humiliation and familial soce was merely the prelude to a storm of a different kind, a storm that would irrevocably ge his life, and theirs.