Some of his friends had come to say goodbye. Lara had asked him to not be a fool and take the first ship from Gemoia to the Kingdom of Brutarkia. Her father was close friends with professor Nari. Of course, she knew of his choice.

Brian had given him a bowl of spaghetti and had told him to imagine that the tomato sauce was blood. To live a fantasy in which he was a vampire and to delve into his nature as a necromancer.

Edwin had chuckled at that. Then, he had reminded Brian that to be a vampire a vampire needed to turn you into one and that, statistically, only one in every thousand survive the change. To which he had received a slight punch to the shoulder and a yell of “Bore, bore, mole and lore.” The to go to yell of Brian when he refused to listen to reason.

Others had come to give him parting words and sympathetic pats on the shoulder. The star pupil who skipped six whole years and healed all his trainee patients was only going to work in the navy, if even there.

Edwin had a plan, though. He was not going to go home or to Brutarkia. Hedge doctors existed everywhere. They had more freedom, got to be eccentric, and travelled a lot.

If a hedge doctor suddenly showed proper medical knowledge, then, who was going to complain? He was going to heal his way into the world. Carve a place for himself, right next to the prim and proper healers that would wait for a plague to spread into their home countries on the threat of war.

But, suddenly, he preferred not to be associated with such scum. People who vowed to heal everyone and turned their back on people because of politics. No, he was going to heal everyone he could. And he knew just where to start.

Now, he knew that the last question hadn’t been put in there just to test how cold-hearted they were as healers. Rumors were coming from Myrna, one of the five cities of Duria, if it could even be called such with its eight thousand and a little on top population.

Some people were coughing up blood. Now, he was sure that the cause of that was more mucus in the lungs, but for the entire population to show the symptoms the same time as the people of the Surian Theocracy that screamed of a curse.

He finished packing and took one last look at his room. It had been his home for the past two years. The place where he studied and theorized. Now, he was leaving it behind.

Edwin turned his back to the room and exited it. Then he headed down towards the entrance of the dorm. The grumpy secretary looked him up and down when he came to her.

“Failed, I hear. And here everyone thought that you were too good for this academy,” said the secretary with a mean smirk.

“I bow to the wisdom of my betters,” said Edwin as he gave his entrance badge.

“As well you should. Stepping on toes won’t take you far, boy. You remember that,” and with a nod of her head she dismissed Edwin, and he was out in the fresh, night air.

“Up the road I go, where to, I don’t know,” said Edwin to himself, and he began to walk towards the outstrips of the city of Mitestone. To be perfectly honest with himself, his mother had warned him that if he wanted to be a true healer, the academy wasn’t for him.

She was a wood’s witch. Knew her potions like no one else did. Could mend a bone and stitch a wound with the best of them. Her thesis on the twelve reasons for kidney failure was read by everyone, if not printed anywhere.

His mother was his hero and he vowed to make her proud, two years ago. He couldn’t go home now, disgraced and as a second class citizen. It will ruin her reputation, and it wasn’t fair for him to take some of her patients.

No, Myrna would be his big breakthrough. A mirror curse was possible and easy. He was not going to do the easy thing. He was going to travel to the capital of the Theocracy, once he found out how to heal the disease, and he was going to slip the hedge healers there the cure. Maybe the regular ones with a conscience too, if he could find any.

Edwin reached the exit gate to the city after three hours of walking. The guards snorted at him when they saw he was a second class citizen, but didn’t harass him. He was let on his way with a pat on the back and a snicker.

When Edwin made his first step outside Mitestone, he felt a panic well up within him. What if he wasn’t good enough? What if he got sick from whatever was plaguing Myrna and died? What if he died in a ditch somewhere with rats nibbling at his boots? What if someone stole his boots?

He forced himself to breathe and counted to a hundred. He was going to be fine. His mother had raised him without a man by her side and as an exile from Gemoia. He, at least, was still a citizen of Duria.

He walked in a much more unsure pace than before, while he was still in the city. Out here it was rural country. With small villages that had about twenty to fifty people to their names. With bandits and supernatural beings.

Edwin felt fear, and he pulled out his dagger, with which he channeled necromantic energy. If anyone tried to jump him in the dark, they were getting an early grave. And thereafter, they were going to follow him, as loyal guards.

“Do you even know how to use that?” Asked a voice from up a tree. Edwin clutched his dagger harder. He looked behind him to see that the gates of Mitestone were not visible anymore. He gulped and waited for his would be assailant to take the first step.