The walk back to the herbalist's own hut was long. I had put Brenna on my back, as she was simply too heavy for me to carry all the way in bride carry. The sun was still high, and the forest still alive, for now all my duty required me to head back the Herbalist to show her of what had passed. I will be judged by her, and by the Chief, by the villagers if need arised, or by a passing bard if the spirit of our land truly wanted to see justice done upon my acts. There was little else I could do.

The fires within the Herbalist's home was alive. As it should've been, and her garden where it had always been. The trail back was still well walked, the dirt compact and the plants respectful and polite of not blocking its way. Doireann was still sick, and the herbalist was nearby. Now she was weaving, something she never would have the time to do before. She was a wealthy woman, being a herbalist for a small village, or rather, even despite being a herbalist of a small village she had enough goods and metals to live purely off of trade. Some villages did not have herbalists of their own, and would make do with what she could create.

I walked towards the entrance, and knocked on the wall next to it, so that I could grab her attention. The herbalist turned to face me, quizzically at first.

"What is it?" she began, before noticing that Brenna was on my back. Brenna was too prideful of a girl to let someone else carry her, and the herbalist knew her daughter well enough to know that. Which only meant that something bad had happened, or she was passed out from some sort of exhaustion.

"What happened?" walking up to me, and seeing my face, the herbalist's own face grew worried. "Set her down, Attie." I nodded, walking inside a bit more and laying Brenna near the center of the home. Not close to the fire, which itself while close to the center wasn't the center. I removed the cloak that covered most of her body, although not her face, revealing her less than modest dress. I didn't dress her up again, I didn't want to risk upsetting her.

The blood that was there before I had no washed off. She was as she was when I first spotted her, after awaking, after miraculously being allowed to live. The herbalist, seeing the girl's naked chest and then more importantly the blood, hurried and crouched beside her alongside me to check on what was wrong.

"Did something attack her? A bear? Wolves?" The herbalist checked all along her body, and I stood up and made way closer to the entrance. Perhaps I wanted to run, my legs taking me to the closest place where I could make my escape. But I have done something that shouldn't be ignored, and I'm not such a coward as to run away from my errors. The herbalist finally made her way to the neck, stopping her hands. Slowly she crept up and laid her fingers on the wound.

"Attie. This is a knife wound." My master's voice was calm. Deathly calm. She turned to me and looked me square in the eyes. "Who did this?"

My heart clenched itself. My hands would not move, I couldn't will them to. Long seconds passed before I finally gained the ability to once again move, through the warm beating of my own heart, and the prickling sensation of my blood running cold. I pointed at myself.

"Where is the blood on you then? Where is the knife you stabbed my Brenna with?" I took out Brenna's knife and began to walk, but then stopped by the herbalist's words. "Don't move."

She got up and walked over to me, her hands shaking, and her eyes still dead set on mine. She took the knife from my hands, careful not to touch me, and looked at it. She stopped then, waiting a moment, before running her fingers around the handle, feeling the dried blood and the wood that she herself had carved long ago. "Take off your tunic. Or if there is blood on you elsewhere, take off everything."

I've been tasked to do this more often than I would like. But I listened, taking off my tunic. The dried blood of my wounds were still present, along my forearm and through my abdomen, and behind in my lower back. "Turn around." I nodded, and turned around. The herbalist placed a finger on my lower back, on my left side, and scratched me. Probably to scratch off the blood that had been stained there.

"I see." The herbalist was quiet. "I understand. Attie, go get Ronan." Her voice trailed off as she went back to her daughter, turning her back away from me, her hands still on Brenna's knife. I began to walk towards the village. "Wait," my master's voice came behind me, I turned around and faced her again. "Show me your knife." I nodded and then took out my own knife, hidden away within my belt.

Walking up to me once again she took and inspected it, her eyes focused and making certain no sign of guilt was present. There wasn't any, as I had not used that knife in my murder. She gave me back the knife, her hands quivering slightly, and slowly made it back to her home. Her steps slow, and her back seeming to become smaller with each step. "Take a black cloth with you." I nodded, and awkwardly shifted around outside. Should I head back inside in order to get what she had told me to? Or should I find my own from my parents first?

"Inside." Seeming to answer what was in my own mind, I headed inside and quickly tried to find a black cloth. But that work wasn't necessary, as the herbalist herself had been shifting around within her cabinets, getting a single small square of black dyed textile. She held it out towards me and placed it in my hand, nearly an afterthought, as she walked robotically towards her lying daughter.

Heading out towards the village, tunic once again on and black cloth rolled in hand. The world still dyed in orange and yellows, the villagers still harvesting their crops. Children helped in, mostly sheaving the wheat into bundles and aligning them together so they stand. The village chief would work his own fields, although with the help of various bothans, men who held no property of their own but were still part of our village, and I needed only to meet him there. It would've been easier if the herbalist came as well, but leaving her daughters alone and with no aid would be terrible. I understand why she didn't come.

Each step I took cemented the feeling of dread that welled up within my stomach. I could run away, I had given back the body but I had no ability to defend myself. I had no words, and the one most distraught, who knew the circumstance most, wouldn't be willing to defend me, most likely. But if I ran there would be fines. I would become an outlaw regardless of my innocence. My family would be forced to pay the fines, and in doing so they would not likely be able to keep their land. Worse comes, they will be treated worse than I ever was. Death wasn't a far off conclusion.

Ronan could be seen, his large, almost oversized frame bending over to cut at the wheat below. His sickle was made of copper, shiny and sharp, I doubt he'd have to be heavily persuaded to take a break from field work for a while. I would provide that. I ran over to him, ignoring my thoughts and ignoring the looks of the servant brothans and his wives, and stood next to him. He had heard me coming and looked over to me, one eyebrow raised.

I raised the black cloth in front of me before he could ask me what I wanted. Casually looking at the piece of square cloth, he wiped his own forehead with his forearm and looked. Until his mind once again started, and he caught on to the message.

"Is someone hurt?" I nodded, then beckoned him to come with me. "Is it Doireann?" I shook my head, assuming he could see my head shaking from behind. He had begun to walk with me, not mentioning to anyone else that he would be off for a while. "Dorcha?" I shook my head. "Then it's Brenna. Damn not being able to speak, boy, what is so urgent that you want me to come?"

I starting walking faster in response. The walk wouldn't take long at all, but it would be faster if we ran. But I assume my master wouldn't want me to bring a tired Ronan when I could bring one ready to accept the news. My fate will be cemented by our arrival.

We arrived. Peering inside the entrance, the herbalist could be seen staring blankly at her daughter's face. Doireann's coughing could be heard, but there was nothing the herbalist could do to help with that anymore. Her fever had left again, and she hadn't been taken, she could still recover. But Brenna would not. Her daughter's knife being played with in her hands, careful not to remove any of the blood.

"Dorcha, what happened?" Ronan placed a hand on my shoulder and moved me out of the way, something that he didn't really need to do. As was normal he had to bend down to get inside the house, something he had to do with everyone's home but his own.

"Brenna is dead." A husk of a voice came back. Taking an empty gulp, my master continued. "Attie killed her. I could not hear his story, but he brought her to me, and he listened to my words in retrieving you. Blood is on his body, but not in the way there would be blood if he had killed her upfront, in the way her wound presents itself."

Ronan stopped moving, looking at Brenna's face. Then he looked over to me and asked, "Did you do it?"

"It wasn't murder. I don't think Attie would've murdered her." The herbalist starting to speak up in my defense. Why she was so quick to place trust in me, I truly don't know.

"Show me her body." Ronan walked over to Brenna and crouched own next to Brenna, my master almost began to protect her daughter as if in defense, but she quickly realized what she was doing and took a more neutral position once again. She placed a finger on the single stab wound to the neck. As the copper knife was broad, the wound too was broad. I had woken up with the sight of Brenna on the ground next to me, that same wound apparent. Without a knife in her neck. Most likely she took it out herself.

"Are there any other wounds?" My master shook her head. "Did you strip her?"

"Yes, I checked. That's the only one."

"What about Attie, then? Why isn't he bloody, if this wasn't a cold blooded murder then what else can it be?" Ronan's voice tore at my heart. I started to quiver, a slow feeling of nausea seeping into my senses.

"Attie, take off your tunic." My master didn't look at me, keeping her eyes looking vaguely forward, low and to the ground. Unfocused. I nodded and with quivering hands took off what was requested, and dropped the tunic on my floor. My unscarred, unwounded, but bloody body being in full display. Ronan got up and walked over to me, his full height in display and his hands ready to catch, or attack, me at a moment's notice. I didn't meet his gaze.

"Look at the blood. One looked as if it came from a stab wound, his trousers are bloodied from it. His left forearm is even more gruesome, as if torn up. Turn around, Attie." Meekly I turned around and showed Ronan my back. "More bloodstains, this time larger and rounder. I don't think he splashed himself with blood in order to convince us of some innocence."

"What are you trying to say? He is not wounded. There are no wounds on his back, his stomach, there are no wounds on his forearms. This means nothing. Your daughter was likely murdered by this man, Dorcha. What are you thinking?"

"I know what happened to my daughter." I had turned around to face both Ronan and my master at this point. Ronan stopped menacing me, and instead looked over at master in perplexion. Master was fiddling heavily with her daughter's knife, tears running down her face. I wouldn't have guessed it considering how calm her voice was.

"What happened, then?" My master stayed silent, perhaps she wasn't really sure herself.

Ronan gave up with both reasoning and waiting for answer. He looked at me in disgust, grabbed my wrist painfully and dragged me back towards the village.

"Wait! Please wait, Attie wouldn't kill her, not like this. He wouldn't do that." Master suddenly started from her position and caught up to Ronan, clutching at his tunic, her eyes wet and her voice finally beginning to show her despair.

"Then who did? Who was with her? Was she attacked by someone else, then, and by who?" Ronan almost shouted, not looking at the herbalist but instead to the side, but not at me. Master let go of him and held her hand to her chest. She looked down and stood silent. Ronan looked at me. I'm not sure what his expression meant to convey, perhaps a look of contempt and a look of pity. "You gave us her corpse, and you brought me over. I will ask you, then, what happened. Were you wounded by Brenna?"

I looked down at my my bare flesh. Even despite not having wounds, I would answer honestly. I wouldn't lie. Master looked at me intently, hoping for an answer to what had happened. I nodded.

"Where are your wounds, then?" I stood silent.

"Were you attacked by anyone else?" I shook my head.

"With whose knife did you stab her with?" I pointed at the knife still in my master's hand. He looked at the knife, then at me.

"Is that your knife?" I shook my head once again.

"It's Brenna's, I carved the handle myself. I know it's Brenna's. His knife is clean," my master said.

"A clean knife means nothing. He could've cleaned it off from all it's blood. Are you guilty of murder, Attie?" I held my breath. Both Ronan and my master looked at me, heavy silence falling. I felt guilty, by the gods was the feeling pervading into me. Tears welled up within my eyes, the warm feeling of hot water flowing down my cheeks. I looked down, grabbed my trousers tightly, and nodded.

In a blur my neck was tightly squeezed and my eyes forced towards the ground, the power of the grip forcing me down into my knees. "You will get your compensation, Dorcha. We will decide if Attie is deserving of death, or if you want something else from him then simply speak up. Now would be preferable." As if the case was already a thing of the past the chief spoke, tightening his hold in the back of my neck. I couldn't see what my master was doing, or anything but what the state of the ground was. The grab was rough, Ronan's calloused hands clawing itself as deep as his my own flesh could give. For a long moment the only sound that could be heard was Doireann's coughing. She wasn't coughing too roughly anymore, thankfully. She had been asleep for a long while.

"Don't hurt him. Something is wrong here, Ronan."

"I take you don't want to sue for his death?"

"Ronan, let go of Attie." The pressure on my neck was released, but I didn't dare look up or towards any direction other than to the ground. My knees still firmly planted into the dirt, I kept my position.

"Dorcha. Your daughter is dead, everything points to Attie having killed her. For what reason, we can't know. But he has admitted to his guilt. The attack on Brenna was brutal. A single strike to her neck, whatever happened between them only points to Attie having cleanly and mercilessly taken her life. His punishment, and the fine, will be decided, you will be compensated by both him and his family. Brenna was murdered by a boy ungrateful of the protection and gifts you offered him. Accept it." Ronan grabbed me by the hair and lifted me up, forcing me to my feet and dragged me towards the village.

The herbalist said nothing in response. The pain of his rough handling was nothing compared to the sound of silence my master offered me.

"I won't sue for compensation, Ronan. I can guess at what happened, I don't think he is truly to blame. My daughter listened to the wrong words." My master suddenly shouted, running up to me and grabbing my hand, pulling me away from Ronan. His grip on my hair did not relent.

"Think about what you're saying. Meditate on what has happened for a few days, Dorcha. What do you want me to do with the murderer if you do not sue him? He is guilty by his own admittance. If you do not sue then I will."

"Banish him. Make him leave the village an outlaw. I had prepared for the death of one of my daughters, I have not prepared for the death of two of them, and definitely haven't prepared for one of my daughter's death being by the hands of Attie. He was healed of his wounds, most likely on the brink of death, by a spirit. If my hunch is true then he will be saved by that very same spirit, or spirits. Heed my word, Attie, if you do not come back to this village in a year's time, your family will pay for the price of my daughter's death." My master took my face and scrunched my cheeks together with a single hand and flayed my mind with her eyes.

"And If you do not come back I will assume you dead, and you will be proven a murderer, and I will do everything in my power to make sure your family suffers the same fate as you had. Prove me right, and both yourself and Ronan wrong."