Chapter 61 — The Courage to Face One’s Fears, Part I

Jarrel winced as he squatted down to get a closer view of the bootprints he had noticed while looking around the large shed’s interior. The visceral had just about done him in. Really, he’d most likely be dead if it wasn’t for Ria’s scroll.

“You sure you’re alright there?” the farmer asked him, eyeing the bloodstained sack hanging from Jarrel’s belt.

“Yeah, my wounds look worse than they are,” Jarrel reassured the man. “And the sooner I can find your son and get back to town, the sooner I can get tended to by a healer. You said some supplies were missing?”

“Yeah, them barbarians that nabbed or prolly done in our boys took some rope, hammers, large nails that we use when erecting barns, and our travel lantern. The Emmer’s said they were missing some packs and lanterns, same.”

The bootprints were smaller than would be expected for barbarians, and likely were made by the boys. Jarrel didn’t correct the man though, finding the boys was going to be the only way to convince him anyway.

The family had even been fairly certain that he was a barbarian until he told them he was one of Lord Vorshan’s scouts and showed them the mission posting from the guild.

That the boys were smart enough to take supplies with them was a good sign, but with the amount of time they had been missing, Jarrel wasn’t particularly optimistic about their fate.

“Any caves near here?” Jarrel asked.

“Yah, southwest.” The man nodded. “You thinkin’ the barbarians might be hiding out there?”

“Working out the possibilities,” Jarrel hedged. No need to get the families any more riled up than they already were. “Are the caves used for anything?”

“Jus’ niter. ’Round slaughterin’ time, we collect salts for preservin’ meats. Cave don’t much produce enough to do more than that.”

Searching the area around the farm, Jarrel readily spotted waterworn tracks that suggested four young teens had passed by some time prior to the recent rains. The bootprints led to a trail which wound to the front of a boulder-strewn bluff with a modest waterfall.

To the side of the waterfall was a yawning entrance into the layered rock.

Just what he needed, exploring a cave where a monster might have recently eaten four boys—while wounded. Recently might not be the right way to think about it. Two weeks was enough time for it to be hungry again.

Jarrel lit a lantern and hung it from his belt. No sense delaying. The sooner he got this done the sooner he could get back to Ria. Even if Bastach had promised to look after the girl, Ria had a worrisome combination of intelligence, naïvety, and stubbornness that was sure to lead to trouble.

Having finished girding his determination, Jarrel entered into the bat-infested darkness.

Ria focused on keeping her breathing steady as she worked through the movements of the flexibility and balance exercises that Tina had assigned. She could reliably perform the exercises with body-strengthening, but they were still a struggle to complete when only using her physical strength.

As she wound between the newly-installed wood posts, striking, dodging imaginary attacks, Ria let her thoughts drift. The last two days had passed in a blur of effort as she and Keira had spent much of their time poring over legal proclamations and historical texts for law and precedents that might apply to Amilee’s case.

They had come up with a fairly straight forward argument to spare Amilee, but to say she was confident of the defense they had decided upon… legally it was sound, but success would depend on how it was received by the elders who would decide. And while persuasive in Ria’s opinion, the argument would be unpopular at best considering the current mood of the village.

Ria sighed and leapt up onto the shortest of the wood posts, carefully landing on one foot and only wobbling a little. Once balanced, she hopped toward the second, taller and narrower post. This landing was more precarious, and she had to resist the temptation to windmill her arms, instead, twisting at the waist and bending her knee to maintain her balance. Deep breaths. Focus.

This was the last day until the trial. A trial where she would have to face her new neighbors, many of whom were certain that she had charmed Lord Vorshan and Captain Bastach, and convince them that a necromancer should receive a lighter sentence for the crimes committed than was usual. In a way, the moment reminded her of when she decided to save Ranger from the wolves. Except this time, it was the life of a girl her age that rested on her success.

Circulating her magic through her muscles, Ria leapt for the third and narrowest of the posts—this one barely wide enough for the ball of her foot. Just as she was about to land, a crow flew down in front of her, its flapping wings drawing her eyes at the critical moment when her foot hit the post.

Ah… the third failure today.

Ria didn’t even try to right herself as she fell, relying on body-strengthening and the grass of the butcher shop’s back garden to absorb the impact. Acrobatics and landing on her feet were something to work on another day.

Lying on the ground with her arms flopped to either side, she looked up at the trio of posts. They were Tina’s idea and something that one of the village woodworkers had been willing to provide at a modest cost. Ria had installed them herself using body-strengthening, and they would be a significant part of her training for the foreseeable future. A balance beam would be added later once the woodworker had finished constructing it.

The truth was that she was procrastinating. The trial preparations were as done as they were going to be, except for one thing: Ria had yet to meet with Amilee and talk to her. Amilee had admitted to Keira what had happened, how things had ended up as they had. Much of it was as expected but with a few twists. That the girl had a spirit magic affinity according to her familiar was a surprise, and the rare affinity would certainly be an important argument for leniency. Though, unfortunately, none of that justified her actions.

Ria rolled onto her side. All that was fine and good, but Ria knew she needed to face Amilee herself—to take responsibility for her own actions and receive Amilee’s spite directly. Ria had no illusions that Keira’s friend would be in a forgiving mood.

She let her gaze drift over to Ranger napping in the sun. Her loyal familiar would no doubt tell her that honoring her word and doing what was right was far more important than how anyone thought of her. And he was right, but…

With a groan Ria rolled back onto her back and stared up at the clouds moving across the sky.

Grandma Fana exited the shop carrying a tin washbasin with the laundry. “To be honest, it’s a relief to see you lazing around and acting like a normal girl for once, instead of pushing yourself so hard. But if you’re bored, I wouldn’t mind the help.”

“Sure.” Ria rolled to her feet and followed Grandma Fana to the stream where a bucket was used to fill the washbasin with water.

Cleaning powder was added to the water and they took turns stirring the clothes with a paddle. Each item was then rinsed in the stream before being wrung out and hung up to dry.

Grandma Fana reminisced about how she used to wash the laundry like this with Carli. How Carli had been so excited to help with big girl tasks and how as the years wore on her daughter would go to great lengths to avoid laundry duty. But when the time of her marriage began to draw near, Carli realized that doing chores with her mother was a precious time that would soon disappear and made sure to help each time. Grandma Fana said that she arranged for extra laundry to wash that week.

Ria wasn’t sure if the lesson applied to her current situation with the trial, but it did make her think back to all the times she had complained about helping her mom with the daily chores. Was there a time when she had been eager like Carli? She would eagerly jump at the chance now.

There was the time spent with her dad to think about as well. Learning tanning and cobbling from her dad would have been more exciting if it wasn’t so difficult and stinky. Even so, she had always been eager when offered the opportunity, eager to compete with her brothers.

Her apprentice training and cooking lessons were new enough that she had wanted to prove herself, but she hadn’t thought to treat that time as precious time spent with her parents.

Even the time spent training with Jarrel, she had viewed it as necessary and important but hadn’t thought to consider it as something precious that could soon be gone. She hoped that Jarrel was okay; he had been gone almost a week now.

Suddenly, Ria was drawn into a hug and squeezed tight. “I’m sorry, Ria. That story was probably insensitive of me.”

When Grandma Fana let her go, Ria shook her head to deny it. “No, I think it helped me realize something important. Thanks, Grandma Fana.”

“If you’re sure?”

“I am.”

Grandma Fana hugged her again and made a sly smile. “The aprons are next, you know.”

Ah-!

Trying to get the bloodstains out of the work aprons was probably worse than washing Grandpa Orlan’s old underwear.

The amused chuckle from Grandma Fana told Ria that her expression had given her thoughts away.

“I’ve been washing the aprons by myself long enough to be fine alone. You’ve already been a big help. Go upstairs and work on your magic. When I’m done, we can go out together to look at the festival decorations going up.” Grandma Fana offered and made a shooing motion with her hand.

Ria hugged Grandma Fana back and with an apologetic smile left the woman to her work.

The shop was busy when she passed through on her way up to her room. She felt bad about not helping out, but her head was a bit of a mess, and she probably did need some time to herself to think things through.

As her gaze settled on the bookshelf with the books bought from Master Rigure, she couldn’t help thinking that her original plans to improve her understanding of divination had been pushed aside by adventuring and spending time at the manor lately. Ria selected A Study of Divination Rituals and Derived Magicks from her shelf and sat down to read. Even with spending the past days at the manor mostly researching law, the time she had spent on magic hadn’t been wasted. After two sessions with Master Marlow, Ria expected that she’d be viewing the contents of her books with fresh eyes compared to before, and she wasn’t disappointed.

But before long, her thoughts wandered to the offer Priest Dohan had made on the way to the house where Amilee was sacrificing the animals, specifically, his offer to perform a divination for her—to ask the gods about the questions that she wanted answered.

The truth was she had declined at the time because she was scared, scared to know with finality the fate of her family. It was easier to just go about her new life as if she had moved on. But… denying the parts of her life that were suddenly gone gnawed at her even if she pretended to put them out of mind… by not facing it, she was running away.

It was the same with Amilee. Facing Amilee was facing the very real consequences of her actions.

Ria sat back in her chair and closed the book. If she could muster the courage to face the truth about her family then facing Amilee would surely be easy in comparison.

When the time came to set out with Grandma Fana, Ria had a sack of the items she would need for the divination sitting in her basket, but it wasn’t until after they had spent some time touring the decorations and had finally arrived at the well in front of the chapel and the lord’s manor where the trial would be held that she made her decision.

“Grandma Fana, I want to go to the chapel. There’s something I need to do there.”

Grandma Fana eyed her suspiciously. “You’ve been thinking about something awfully hard these last two days. This isn’t because you’ve decided to become a baker’s wife after all, is it?”

Ria almost laughed but slowly shook her head. “No, it’s something different. Something that I’ve been putting off for too long. Something, I need to do alone.”

Her reply drew a concerned eyebrow raise. “You weren’t mistreated at Lord Vorshan’s manor?”

“No. They’ve been very kind to me.”

“Then it’s about the trial of the necromancer girl, isn’t it?”

“Well… I wouldn’t say that it isn’t. I intend to speak on behalf of Amilee at the trial tomorrow.” This time both Grandma Fana’s eyebrows shot up in concern, but Ria hurried on before she could object, “And Priest Dohan may be able to give me the answers that I need to be properly prepared.”

“You’re not involved in this necromancy are you, Ria?” Grandma Fana quietly asked.

Ria shook her head then corrected herself. “I mean, I am, but not the magic. I was the one who found the place she was using for her rituals and the one who alerted Captain Bastach. It was my scroll that led the captain to Amilee.”

“Don’t you blame yourself, girl!” Grandma Fana chastised her. “This Amilee girl is responsible for her own actions.”

“I get that, but… if it wasn’t for my meddling…”

“Something worse would have happened,” Grandma Fana stated unequivocally then sighed. “I suppose if you need to hear it from Priest Dohan instead, there’s no reason for me to fight that. Ranger, make sure she comes home in time for dinner.”

Ranger solemnly nodded. “Woof.”

“Go on girl.” Grandma Fana waved her on. “I’ll wait here until you go inside.”

Ria nodded and gulped. There was no turning back now. Ria put one foot in front of the other and climbed the chapel steps a step at a time. Fighting against the fear of her choice as she continued forward was the hardest thing she had ever done.