Chương 89: 24 – Alone at Home

"I'm… so sorry, Mom," I said, while trying to shake the unnerving feeling that she was still lying, and that she hadn't escaped her bodyguard quite so cleanly as she'd told me.

"It's alright. It was a long time ago. More importantly, if it hadn't happened, I'd likely have never met your father."

"I thought Dad was from the border near Rechin? What was he doing in Estermont?" I asked. Mom smiled.

"Work, of course. His entire family decided to leave Madulka after the Summer. Most of his family came here… which is why we came here after we escaped the Rift."

"Oh. I see." Mom had been through so much. She'd escaped the rift itself… hell, she hadn't even finished the story, and I… well. I'd nearly been killed by trolls and goblins and an Aeromancer who called herself a queen.

"When… when did you meet Maulander?" I asked. She scoffed.

"Gods. I forgot why I even started this story. What do you care about a dead man?"

"Of course I care!" I shouted.

"I… I know that probably wasn't easy. Thank you for telling me, though." She leaned over and hugged me.

"Thank you as well. For telling me about April. I don't understand what's happened to you, but I'll try to find out."

"It's okay. You don't have to–!"

"I do!" she insisted. I pulled away from her.

"Well, I wouldn't turn down answers if you can find them, but I don't know if there are going to be any. Something about the situations makes me think it's beyond regular magic."

"I'll look anyway," she insisted. There would be no fighting her on this. She'd search for a cause for my dreams and my connection to April, no matter what I said.

"Thanks, Mom," I said eventually. She nodded.

"Now… where was I? Oh. The trial. There were multiple witnesses. He was caught trying to move Amanda's body out of his home, and later evidence led to three more bodies buried a short way out of town. All servants or staff of the castle. There was obviously a trial, and Maulander was… a vocal, enraged voice of madness, insisting that his brother would never do anything like this, despite the evidence stacked against him."

"How?" I asked.

"With so much evidence…"

"Hah! Evidence was worth less to him than one of Eschal's paper notes! He ignored everything! The bodies? Coincidences. Amanda? The work of a conspiracy to frame him. Me? Well… I was the one spur in his argument. He couldn't directly accuse me, lest he accuse the duke's daughter of lying, which would've been career suicide. So… he terrorized me. Showed up to talk to me when I went to the markets. Accosted me in the library. Tried everything he could think of to convince me to recant my statements."

"He wasn't arrested?"

"He didn't do anything wrong, technically. But he grew more and more desperate as his brother's execution approached. I didn't see Lundryth until the day of his execution and I never spoke with him again. I didn't want to. Maybe I should've. I heard that he even admitted his crimes to Maulander. Bragged about it! The man refused to believe. When Lundryth… when that bastard's head rolled, the way Maulander looked at me…" Mom shuddered and stared at me.

"I'll never forget it. It scared me almost as much as his brother did." We were quiet for a long while, but I reached out and hugged Mom again.

"You were probably right, not to tell me," I said.

"I don't think knowing would've made me less wary around Maulander. I'd only have been more afraid of him."

"I didn't want you to see the man at all. Avoiding the draft entirely would've been for the best, but once you'd seen him, I had no way to tell if he would target you for revenge against me. Your father joined as insurance against that possibility. But the man you described… he's not who he was, I don't think," she said sourly.

"Much as it pains me to admit it, I think he's grown."

"He's fucking awful! He ordered that raid on Pretyr, and he was going to have me flogged just for criticising him! Not to mention the sheer incompetence of letting an army of trolls and goblins sneak up on him!" Mom sighed.

"We've already discussed this. You were the one in the wrong in that conversation. Any general would likely want to have the foreign presences in a village inspected, but it probably wouldn't have been anything worse than that. They'd have been released with a few bruises, and that would've been the end of it!" I disagreed, but we had discussed that till we were both sick of it. It seemed April's world had led me to a few false assumptions about this one. Gaps in knowledge just like anyone had. More's the fool me.

I assumed I lived in a country without barbaric practices like flogging its own men. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. There were plenty of stories where men and women were punished like that but I assumed they were just that. Stories. I'd been shown the error of that, but thankfully had avoided actually being whipped myself.

"So!" I said sharply.

"Are we really sure? Food trumps fire?" Mom obviously noticed the abrupt subject change but accepted it as the olive branch it was. I loved my Mom, but also wanted to kill her sometimes.

"If not for the crossbow, I'd likely send you to do the trading. It would probably be safer than being here, and I think the fire magic would be our only option. But with it, and with the walls Travis is building, food is our main priority. If you're really serious about trying to feed the entire villlage for the winter. Mera… windfalls like this aren't common… your idea of going to grab Reid, your father, and his stupid brother, is still on the table." The idea was tempting. I missed Dad and Reid.

My uncle as well… but I truly thought I could support them better by building something worth having on the front lines, and I could do that. In order to build though, people had to have their necessities taken care of, and I needed the whole town for the things I had in mind. I might've gotten lucky on my deal with Omoali, but Mom was an expert at trading even when she barely had anything to bargain with. Mom with coin to burn? She'd likely come back with a sizeable dent of Denarla's own storage.

We could only hope. I shook my head.

"No. It's time. I need a fire mage, and we need food so I can prepare. I have an idea. Two actually, but I'll work on the second one once I'm sure the first one is viable, and you're back from Denarla."

"Okay then," she said.

"I suppose we're off the bar. I'll need to take anyone not glued down in order to protect the food for the trip back." I grinned and pulled the staff off my back, proffering it to Mom.

"My foot's finally feeling good enough that I can get around. Might still use a crutch for a few days but this isn't helping me anymore. You might ask Nemikkel if he's willing to lend it to Akkiwa's father. The man would love a chance to do something and guarding a food caravan sounds like exactly what he might need." Mom took the staff. Her eyes widened as the effect suddenly washed over her, but they narrowed quickly.

"And what exactly are you and Akkiwa going to get up to while both of your parents are gone, hmm?" she asked playfully. I blew a raspberry at her, and she chuckled.

"Well… No sense waiting around. I'll go to town tonight and hopefully be on the road by morning," she said, before standing up from the bed. I stopped her with a hand on her arm.

"Mom? Thanks. For telling me," I repeated.

"I think I needed to know." She nodded.

"Hopefully you'll never have to see Maulander again, but if you do… tell him I forgive him, and to be lenient on my stupid daughter?" I growled.

"Tell him yourself." She chuckled.

"See you later tonight. Also, you're crazy if you think Nemmikell will let this staff leave this town without him," she said as she opened the door. I snickered and hopped up too. The foot was ginger, and I felt the loss of the staff as I walked under the effect of my own regular strength stat. It was healing nicely, though. A few more days, a few more excruciating breaks and re-healing to get it facing the right direction, and I'd be good as new.

I followed her to the door, but she put a hand on my shoulder and pushed me back to the bed.

"Not tonight. Get some rest. Normuran will be by for another healing in the morning. Tomorrow you can start whatever project you have cooking in that mind of yours," she said. She… might actually have a point. I wanted some time to think about everything she'd told me anyway, and sleep didn't sound very bad. The sun had only just set. Normally, I'd stay up for at least another four hours at the bar telling stories or spending time with Hadra. All the things I needed to do kept swimming in my head.

Burnom's Masonry would be invaluable, and I desperately needed to talk to the new Miner. I still hadn't managed to get much closer to Sebinet since gaining my talent, but the more I thought about his needs' requirements, the more sure I was that what he needed was actually a mine cart. How my talent would create that, and how flashy it would be, I didn't know, but I wanted to find out. I'd need both of them, and every idle hand in the village, but it could probably wait just one night.

"Okay, Mom," I said, sitting back down.

"You might be right."

"I'm always right."

"You're always in right's general neighborhood," I countered.

"It's not the same!"

"Close enough," she said.

"You'd best be asleep when I get back!"

"Yeah, yeah!" I said, waving her off.

"Good luck rounding up a party! Don't steal my Smiths! Or Burnom! I need him!"

"Gods, who'd have thought anyone would ever say that," Mom said before she turned and walked away toward the bar. I was determined to spend some time thinking over everything. It wasn't just making the weapon for Berkenem and the army. It was organizing the construction of the wall, and making sure that the granary was built and ready for Mom's return. Spending wisely and making sure coin made its way to everyone so they'd be able to afford to buy all the food we were bringing in! It was economic stimulus!

That wasn't even mentioning all the new crafts I needed to build, and where my free points needed to go! It… Your Mana Regeneration skill has improved! Huh. Bout time on that one. The truth was that I was exhausted just thinking about it, and I fell fast asleep before Mom even reached the bar. It felt like an eyeblink. Not more than ten hours later, I stood waving goodbye to my Mom as she left with Uraleka, a few other townsfolk, and Nemmikel himself.

It seemed, rather than giving the job to Akkiwa's father, he'd just decided to join Mom himself. He'd jokingly told me he'd have many more stories when he came back. I stood wearing hardly a coat as I used fire magic to spread a thin film of the oily substance around myself and periodically sparked the oil with warmth. Where everyone else was shiverring, I actually felt pretty good in the brisk morning air. Mom would be back soon. For now, I had weapons to build. It was time to visit the smith.

I turned and began to slowly walk away, hoping Mom fared well in Denarla and Uraleka got to see her daughter while she was there. I'd demanded a letter back from Hadra and sent one of my own with her. Then they were gone. For the first time in my life, I was completely alone. It didn't take long for me to reach the west end of town, where the mine and the smithy were, but before I got there, I was greeted with an unusual sight. A wagon train was rolling into town.