Chapter 99: Last days

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

This quote from my old world appeared tailored-made for Paul as he was forced to trust Ilan, a man he always despised, with his deepest secret and the security of his daughter. The situation left him no real choice, but contrary to his fears, Ilan kept his word.

After our confrontation, we returned to the cave to wait for Walmir and Jazor to wake up. I was unconscious at the time, but apparently, Ilan lied to them as soon as they woke up. He fed them a story about an animal that poisoned them, leaving only Ilan and me to defend our group during an intense fight.

This questionable version wasn’t told with much gusto especially since Ilan left many details unexplained, like the marks on the carriage created during the chase or the origins of the frostbites on him and Paul. The simple observation of Paul, Himara, or Seth’s strange attitudes was probably enough to understand that something wasn’t right.

However, Alianelle’s awakening had the effect of overshadowing everything else in an impressive way.

As it turned out, Ilan wasn’t the only one persuaded that Alianelle was more or less already dead and would never wake up, even if they never shared this belief with me. I would have been glad to see their surprised faces after proving them wrong, but unfortunately, I stayed unconscious long after this moment.

Despite Walmir’s healing, we had to stay two more days inside this cave after my awakening before my health allowed me to travel again. My physical wounds weren’t entirely to blame for that. Sure enough, the violent pummeling from Ilan had done its work, but my stubbornness to use my mana despite the paralytic poison coursing through my veins had done even more damage.

This poison, which Paul stole inside the devastated camp, was created by the Poison mage and was widely used by the soldiers around. Ilan had apparently crossed paths with this man on a few occasions and had even paid him to develop various resistances. Such a well-known poison was of course included in their deal. That’s why, Ilan was able to move around after being poisoned, which wasn’t the case for Jazor and Walmir who were rendered immediately unconscious and who stayed paralyzed for hours after their awakening.

Of course, resistance didn’t mean complete immunity. The poison didn’t have as much effect on Ilan as anticipated, but it had still done a part of its work. As I suspected, it was an aspect of the wind element amplified by his magical axe that allowed him to completely overcome this poison while costing him a good part of his mana.

This is how he was able to overcome the effects of the poison without any major setback later, which sadly wasn’t the case for me.

Fortunately, our cave proved to be a relatively safe haven, but it didn’t stay that way for long. The third attack that Jazor had to repel in two days was the only warning we needed to understand that things would soon deteriorate beyond our control.

Weakened and with bandages all over my body, I was forced to bear the pain caused by the constant shaking of a carriage moving at high speed on uneven ground. A necessary sacrifice for our safety despite Alianelle’s protests.

Unlike the rest of our group, she didn’t witness what horror this land could throw at us, and she will probably never have to because the following days made something clear.

We had already left the most dangerous part of the wilderness.

The number of daily attacks had clearly decreased and the few skirmishes we had on the way didn’t pose much of a challenge for Jazor.

Even more surprising than this and just as welcomed was the change in the relationship between Paul and Ilan. Far from harmonious, and just plain hostile sometimes before the incident, the situation between them had obviously undergone a massive amelioration. They were now cordially ignoring each other, which was really the best any of us could hope for from them.

I didn’t know if this kind of situation could last very long, but Ilan’s choice to keep Alianelle’s true nature a secret from Jazor and even from his friend Walmir had a real impact on Paul. This shared secret of Alianelle’s wings, whose implications only these two could truly understand, was apparently so terrible that even Ilan had reluctantly accepted Paul’s betrayal as understandable for their survival.

As a result, Ilan didn’t try to take revenge in any way on Paul and in turn Paul didn’t stir up any other incident or slowed down our group with his searches for plants like before. He mostly stayed silent beside his daughter, probably hoping to not attract too much attention to her for the rest of our journey.

Fortunately, a tight bandage around Alianelle’s waist along with loose clothes was enough to hide the budding but clearly growing wings on each side of her waist. Despite this rudimentary cover-up, and although Ilan's version of the incident was far from foolproof, neither Jazor nor Walmir seemed to have noticed anything amiss with Alianelle.

Wanting to keep it that way, I followed Paul’s example and chose to rest in silence far from them.

Of course, I had many things I wanted to ask, but I was afraid that our conversation would be overheard. Moreover, each time I met Alianelle’s gaze, I was reminded that any question I may have would have to wait for hers to be answered.

She certainly did her best to hide her desire for answers and seemed to have quickly accepted her new body parts, but her growing restlessness couldn’t be ignored.

Despite missing many things during her more than two months of coma, she was far from stupid and had obviously already guessed that her father had hidden many things from her over the years. I could give her a few answers, but many details still eluded me, not to mention the fact that I was not a member of her family.

It wasn’t my role to tell her the truth.

This burden was for Paul alone to bear.

A heavy task for a man who was so afraid and ashamed of what he had done to his own daughter over the years that he chose to betray Jazor and me, despite everything we had already done to save them both and reunite them together.

No one could tell what would have happened if he had chosen to confess his past mistakes and explain the truth to Alianelle or if he had chosen to trust us with a part of the truth.

However, one thing was sure: lies call each other.

They followed one another, the next covering the old in a dense web of deceptions that progressively became too difficult for him to extract himself from.

For years, he lied to his daughter, everyone around him — friends and enemies alike — and probably even to himself.

Now, Paul’s deceptions were exposed along with his acts and no more lies would be able to cover him this time.

The opportunity for them to talk presented itself a few days later when our group had to stop to finally let the Vrapy have some much-deserved rest. However, Paul didn’t seize it. I saw him push her away, surely pretending that the place wasn’t suitable for this kind of discussion.

The kind and shy girl I knew momentarily gave way to the stubbornness of youth. However, any protest or request on her part was met with a firm rejection. Disheartened, she walked away, choosing a few minutes later to teach a game with sticks and stones to Himara and Seth on the other side of the carriage.

I watched everything unfold while sitting on the hardwood floor of the open-air carriage. Walmir was strangely stretching his back, surely sore from all the time spent sitting on the coachman’s seat, with the support of a tree while Jazor and Ilan were both patrolling the area.

For a few minutes, I observed Himara and Seth do their best to chase away their gloom — constant since their failed escape — with this new game. Although my promise to free them had somewhat pacified them, I would be delusional if I didn't realize the little trust they both had in my words. They couldn’t be blamed for that as they had to give up on the freedom in front of their eyes for a distant hope.

However, until we reached the Advanced town, there was nothing I could do for them, which wasn’t the case for Alianelle, who was just as gloomy as they were while playing their game whose rules eluded me.

With a sigh and a grunt of pain, I forced my sore body to stand up. I immediately regretted it as dizziness was the only reward I got for my effort. Suppressing it as best I could, I took a few careful steps and finally got down from the carriage.

The distance separating me from Paul, sitting against a tree, appeared disproportionally far away. It was certainly not the need to move my legs that made me decide to endure this discomfort.

“Paul?” I asked tentatively while sitting heavily in front of him on the wet grass.

Clearly surprised to see me out of the carriage for the first time since our departure from the cave, Paul didn’t immediately answer.

“How are your wounds?” he finally asked awkwardly.

“Never felt better,” I grumbled.

“Sorry…”

Paul apparently took my frustration over the time I needed to recover as reproaches. He was certainly responsible, at least partially, but I wasn’t so petty as to remind him nearly a week later. I was certainly much more vindictive in my previous life, proof that I had matured somewhat after all.

“I'm not the one you should be apologizing to.”

Of all the blames I could have made, this one was the harshest. However, it was the hard cold truth, and Paul knew it.

“You were looking?” he uttered with a broken voice.

“I’m not here to judge you, Paul. I just wanted to remind you that you won’t be able to avoid her forever. She needs answers.”

“I know, it’s just that… I need time, and this is not the right place,” he slowly explained.

“There isn’t a right time or a right place for that. I know it’s harder to face your mistakes than to run away from them, but if you want Alianelle to forgive you one day, you don’t have a choice. Even if she never forgives you, it’s the only way for you to try to get rid of the regrets in your life,” I tried to explain as solemnly as possible.

“Are you really a child?” he mocked.

“Just turned ten a few months ago,” I smiled back.

“Then, what do you know about regrets?” he asked bitterly.

“More than you could possibly imagine.”

I was tired, in pain, and not disposed to play the part of the naive child. After everything we went through on these lands, after everything I had to do to survive and protect our group, I doubted that Paul considered me a child anymore. Maybe my other companions had doubts about my true nature as well.

However, I didn’t care anymore.

I was really too weary for that.

For that reason, I didn’t have the leisure to care about what he thought about me. He could think of me as a precocious child who had seen too much, a member of a different species, or anything else that made him comfortable. All I wanted at this moment was to say my part.

“I don’t know the whole truth, so maybe I’m not the best to say anything to you. However, remember that we all make mistakes. The important part is to be able to live with them. Delaying or running away never makes mistakes disappear, it only makes things worse, until it is too late… So, don’t make her wait anymore,” I concluded heavily.

Running away from his mistakes was the worst choice he could make.

I knew this better than anyone else as this was precisely the decision I made after my brother’s death. I never confronted my mother and our family and instead chose to run away. I did it to avoid giving an explanation to those who nevertheless deserved it, all because my guilt and shame were too strong for me to face.

In the end, I will never be able to explain myself or make amends for what I did and I had to live with this everlasting regret.

Paul still had a chance to fix this.

Unlike me, he didn’t have to bear this burden forever.

I desperately wanted to make him understand that.

However, I didn’t say another word to convince him.

This choice was his alone, and my role in this affair was over, whether he chose to follow my advice or not.

Without another word or another look at him, I simply walked back to the carriage to rest once again.

Later that day, I watched from afar, as Paul started to speak with Alianelle away from prying ears.

I witnessed her usually calm face slowly crumbling, tears gathering in her eyes before slowly sliding along her cheek reddened by emotions she had trouble controlling.

She shook, cried, screamed, and even hit Paul’s torso with her arms too weak to truly hurt him, but this wasn’t necessary for each time her small clenched fist collided with him, it was as if he was hit by a blade.

We were all too far away from them to clearly hear what they were saying and none of us made any effort to listen.

We should have probably interrupted and warned them that they were making too much noise but no one intervened either.

Ilan was the only one who understood Alianelle’s nature and the reason for Paul’s choice to betray us while I was the only one aware that Paul had poisoned his own daughter for years. We both held a part of the truth which wasn’t the case for Walmir or Jazor. However, we all chose from a common silent accord to stay away from them.

When Alianelle rejoined me later and cried on my shoulder, I didn’t say a single word either.

I simply accepted the weight of her body and tears while our carriage resumed its course.

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“This is boring.”

“I know.”

“Are you really sure it’s the right way to learn?”

“As sure as I can be,” I assured her once more with a tired voice.

Ten days had passed since Paul and Alianelle spoke together. What Paul confessed to her, I didn’t exactly know, but Alianelle had asked me, immediately after calming down, to teach her magic. With my clothes still drenched with her tears, I didn’t dare to refuse or indicate that Jazor would probably be a better teacher. I simply accepted her request to learn how to defend herself.

An understandable demand considering what she had to go through.

Fortunately, she already had some basic magic training, meaning that I didn’t have to spend time teaching her how to sense her mana.

Just remembering the time and effort it took for a reincarnated person like me to accomplish something so trivial for most people in this world made me want to scream in frustration.

When she learned that contrary to her I had trouble sensing my own mana, Alianelle’s confidence skyrocketed. However, the next part of our training proved to be much more humbling for her.

“It’s boring,” she complained once more.

“I know,” I repeated relentlessly.

Amanda made me summon my magic time and time again until my reserves of mana were completely depleted. A boorish training meant to develop my ability to handle my mana and certainly effective to make magic less awkward and more natural.

However, this wasn’t an experience I wanted her to have.

For once, carelessly summoning magic inside the wilderness wasn’t the brightest idea.

Moreover, there was something much more important that could be done in our situation.

Developing her ability to sense mana.

This ability had saved my life when I was blind on my own inside the wilderness, but this wasn’t why I wanted her to learn it. In addition to being an extremely useful skill to have during a battle, it was also a good way for her to familiarize herself with the nature of the wind and its secrets.

As the main, and probably only, element available to her was the wind, it would remain mostly useless if she developed it as the Dorell kingdom advised. You could change the speed and shape of your wind all you wanted with the best control in the world, but wind will still remain hardly usable in a real fight.

That’s why many people in the Dorell kingdom considered the wind element as the weakest element.

Of course, all those who said that didn't know anything about magic, but they still had a point.

Only understanding and developing an aspect of this element would allow her magic to become truly usable.

I could guide her and explain to her all I wanted, but in my opinion, the best way was still to feel and see for herself the true nature of this element. I was more than aware that grasping a part of an aspect that I used to move faster didn’t make me an expert of this element. What she will see and understand with this ability to sense mana will probably be completely different from what I had understood myself.

My role wasn’t to give her the few answers I had but to give her the tools and means to discover and forge her own path as a mage.

However, such training was indeed boring and probably far from what she imagined when she asked for my help.

“Thank you.”

Alianelle’s soft voice brought me back from my thoughts.

“Why?” I asked, baffled. “It’s still too early to know if this kind of training will be effective for you,” I explained helplessly, not understanding why words of complaint were replaced by sudden words of gratitude.

“Not for the training… For everything else,” she said softly, taking my hand not covered in bandages.

I wanted to say to her that it was still too early as we weren’t safe yet. However, it wasn’t true anymore. According to Walmir, we were almost there and nothing could possibly prevent us from reaching our goal. Not our tiredness and our injuries from our last confrontation, not the pitiful state of what was left of our carriage, and not even the exhaustion of the two Vrapy pushed to their limits.

“Really… Thank you, she breathed with a sad smile on her lips and tears in her eyes.

Was it the lies of her father that made her eyes moistened or simply the realization of how close she came to death when she was slumbering?

I had no way to know, but such words told with so much emotion and gratitude strangely didn’t let me be insensitive. I was so flustered that all I could do was smile back and accept her gratitude in silence as we resumed her training.

For the first time since my reincarnation, I had the feeling that everything I went through wasn’t in vain.

I didn’t know the reason for this rebirth, but just saving this young girl from her cruel fate made it all worth it.

Even our impending separation in the first Advanced town didn’t appear as bitter as before for it would mean that I had truly succeeded.

A silent acknowledgment of her gratitude was all I could give her and apparently all she needed. Our training resumed in the same way as before, only disturbed by the bumpiness of the road we had to take to reach our destination.

We were now so close to that goal that has seemed unattainable for so long that Himara and Seth had to return inside their cage several days ago despite Alianelle’s protests. She quickly became close to the children making it all the more difficult for her to accept their treatment and by extension our alliance with slavers. Nevertheless, contrary to Paul, she never made her displeasure known, probably because she knew that as a hidden Beastman member herself, she had to stay as discreet as possible.

Having children behind bars just a few steps away from me seemed surreal just like knowing that they would soon be sold as mere objects.

Their sale will take place probably a few days after Walmir reported to his employer. My artifact, fortunately now inert on my thumb, would apparently be enough to buy their freedom. After that, I will still have to escort them as discreetly as possible to Tegralle, my birthplace. A small, peaceful town that had already accepted the presence of another Beastman member without discrimination was probably the best place for them to live until they became able to fend for themselves.

Seeing Gaya, another beast tribe member, living there safely will probably also help gain their trust.

I couldn’t repress a surge of nostalgia when the name of my little friend crossed my mind. Himara was very similar to her. Shy, frightened, and not cut out to confront the cruelty of this kingdom that had sentenced their whole kind to slavery.

I wondered what happened to her or if she even remembered me. We were pretty young when I was abducted after all.

I let my mind wander with more questions that will only be answered after my return when I noticed that Seth’s deep gaze was stubbornly fixed on me. His scrutiny, heavy with meaning, was difficult to bear as it reminded me of the commitment I had taken to them when I had chosen to spar Ilan.

A particularly difficult choice for Seth to accept. He was obviously still mad at me for not killing Ilan when I had the chance and couldn’t easily trust my promise to free them after that. He probably wanted to trust me, but was afraid to do so, preferring to expect another betrayal which was without a doubt the saddest thing about him.

The people of this world had made such a young child so distrustful, that even everything I did to protect them throughout our journey could not overcome this. To him, no matter what I had done for him and his sister before, I was still the one who had denied them freedom. I knew that no excuse could change that. So I didn't even bother to try to explain my choice to him, to try to make him understand that I didn't want the blood of a man I respected on my hands. I didn’t even try to explain to him the details of the contingency plans I had made in case my artifact wouldn’t be enough to buy them. Words didn't matter anymore. All I could do was do everything I could to keep that promise and give them the freedom they deserved.

My resolve was finally clear, I was prepared to do anything to free them, so I didn’t turn my gaze away from him. I was ready to bear this responsibility even if it meant delaying my long-awaited return to my family because that was the only way for me to truly live without regret.

The only way for me to truly live this life to the fullest.

After long seconds, Seth finally seemed appeased and looked away to sit next to his sister who had her head buried in her arms. Just like no word could appease his worries, nothing Seth would say or do could reassure his frightened sister.

However, it was alright.

After miraculously crossing the wilderness together and after awakening Alianelle when all hope seemed lost, this last task appeared much more manageable. I also knew Jazor would help me because, just like me, he wouldn’t accept a bitter end to this journey.