‘Listen. We can’t stay here. If someone comes for her, we’ll be in trouble. And we can’t get her back to town, because we’d go running right into their arms. We don’t have a choice.’
Miles was advocating for leaving Berla behind. The logic behind it was sound. She herself had told me that we had done more than we should’ve already. That it was not in our best interest to help her, a sentiment Miles wholeheartedly agreed with. However, there was that one remaining option that we hadn’t talked about yet.
“You could come with us,” I said to her.
Her response came with an utterly bewildered expression. “And then?”
“We’ll leave you somewhere relatively safe, where you at least have a chance. We just can’t go back to Alarna.”
Our intention had been to go to Cerus and plan our next steps there. We would hopefully be able to stock up, and maybe we would even be able to stay for a few days. However, this would probably not work out if we took her with us. She might go and alert the authorities as soon as we arrived in town, so staying in Cerus wouldn’t be an option. We weren’t doing bad out here, however. It had been three days and we didn’t have so much as a scratch yet. If we could just get some food and stones, we would be able to look for another town or settlement to rest at. It was a compromise, but it would solve my conundrum.
To me it sounded like a decent plan, but Berla looked at me as if she didn’t comprehend what I was saying at all. After a moment, however, she seemed to realize something. “You don’t understand my situation, do you? My life is over. It doesn’t matter where you leave me.”
Not once in my life had I ever thought about what would happen when you became unable to do your job. I had never seen a guard that wasn’t in peak physical condition, not to mention one that was missing a limb. There were also very few old people in town. I didn’t know anybody who was taking care of their old family members, and there was no official place for them to go. It came as a shock to me when Berla explained to us that the old and the disabled were “put to rest” when they could not contribute to society anymore. Apparently, this was something most young adults would learn from their parents or guardians after their ritual, but this hadn’t been the case for me. Mother hadn’t gotten the chance...
When Berla tried to get us to go back, she was just trying to fulfil her mission. Her last mission. “Now, if you aren’t planning to do me a final favor and become my prisoners, you can leave.”
Still stunned by this revelation, I just stood there, staring at the ground with a sad expression. Riala seemed to pick up on my feelings, but I didn’t think she truly understood what Berla and I had been talking about. She took my hand, maybe in an attempt to soothe me.
‘You want to take her with us, don’t you?’ Miles said, slightly annoyed.
“Come with us.”
‘Of course you do...’
Berla just rolled her eyes at me. “I get that you mean well, but even you should be realizing that is nonsense. What’s your plan? Do you want to take care of me for the rest of my life? Carry me around? And where exactly would that take place? Here in the woods? The authorities established these laws for a reason. It’s better for everyone.”
Her no-nonsense attitude reminded me a little of my father. She was living for her job and now she was considering her life to be over. However, she shouldn’t have anything to complain about in that case.
“If you think of yourself as dead, you might as well come along, right? Every additional minute is a bonus.”
I walked over to the tree she was leaning against and offered her my shoulder. She looked at me in disbelief, but seemed to consider my offer for a moment. Eventually she resigned and leaned on me without saying another word.
Together, the three of us made our way back to our camp from last night, where I had left our heavy bag. When we arrived, Berla’s eyes went wide. “What happened here!?”
I almost forgot about this... “Uhm, it was kind of an accident. The attack I tested was stronger than expected.”
She was even more slack jawed than we had been and looked back and forth between me and the fallen trees.
‘She’s going to love hearing about me.’
***
When Berla joined us, the sun had just risen above the trees. I didn’t want to lose any more time and we immediately started moving again. Originally I thought we would reach the road to Cerus today, but with Berla in our group we weren’t able to move quite as fast anymore. We had to make camp once more in the evening, but I was hopeful to get out of the forest by tomorrow afternoon.
If she was to travel with us, she would inevitably see us using scripts, so we didn’t even try to hide it. While she stared in wonder at Riala producing a cup of water with a script on her hand, I stood a few meters away, arguing with Miles.
‘I’m not necessarily saying we shouldn’t have taken her with us, but you could’ve thought this through first. You have no idea what she’ll do. Also, one reason we didn’t go back for Zara was because we would’ve needed to protect her. And she could’ve at least run from a beast!’
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“I know, but the alternative was not an option for me. We also couldn’t stay there, so this was the simplest solution. Think about it like this, we can still leave her behind anytime, right?”
‘Riiight,’ Miles said sarcastically, ‘and when you go to look at puppies, you won’t take one back home with you.’
“What?”
‘I’m saying you won’t leave her behind, now that we have taken her with us.’
“No, probably not...”
‘And you told her that we’re on the way to Cerus. What if she alerts the authorities once we get there?’
“I don’t think she’ll sell us out after we saved her and we got to know each other.”
‘But you don’t know, that’s the issue.’
“I didn’t know whether I should trust you either, Miles. But I chose to. Twice.”
At this, he became quiet. Meanwhile, Berla and Riala were sitting at the campfire and my ears perked up when I heard Riala say something I had asked her not to mention for now. “He’s just talking to Miles.”
Uh oh...
“Miles?” Berla asked as the girl at her side hurriedly covered her mouth with her hands.
Sooner or later I would have to tell her. However, I had hoped to get to know her better before I did so. Riala had readily accepted Miles, but I didn’t think that it would be the same with an adult. Especially not a Fighter. But now that his name had come out, I thought that maybe I should just get it over with. I needed to be able to talk to Miles and it would be much easier if I didn’t have to hide it.
‘Go on, tell our travel companion,’ Miles said. He was certain this conversation would not go well.
I sighed and walked closer to them.
“I’m sorry,” the young girl said.
“It’s okay, Riala,” I responded with a gentle smile.
I turned to Berla, who was looking at me expectantly.
“Miles... is my Calling. I’m hearing his voice in my head.”
It was difficult to judge her expression at this moment, but she appeared confused and worried. It was obvious that Berla immediately understood the implication, unlike when I had told Riala. I was a little anxious about what she would say, but at least she would not be able to do any harm in her current state. That’s what I thought at least, when she suddenly jumped up, tackled me to the floor, and held a dagger to my throat.
“You’re a Mad One!?” she shouted in my face.
“I’m not!” I said in panic. “Look at me! I’m not insane!”
“You aren’t normal either! With that air around you and the ability to create water!”
“I swear! I’m not dangerous!”
“Not dangerous!? Are you kiddi—” she started, but she was cut off when a stream of water pushed her off me. It wasn’t enough to actually hurt her though, all it did was give her a push. Riala had chosen the script Miles and I had initially written to defend ourselves against the guards.
I quickly got to my feet and grabbed a blue stone from my pocket, in case she tried to jump me again right away. This had been a good decision, as she only stopped because she saw both me and Riala with raised arms, aiming at her.
“Not dangerous my ass! Are you going to kill me now!?”
“I saved you and took you with us, why would I want to kill you!?” I snapped back. “Does anything you’ve ever heard about Mad Ones match me!?”
She was agitated, but I felt like she was at least listening. “Mad Ones are killed as soon as they appear because they’re aggressive and try to hurt people!” I said. “That’s not me!”
“Then what are you?” she asked apprehensively.
“I honestly don’t know. Miles has some theories though...”
She twitched at my mentioning of him, but didn’t otherwise move.
“My ritual was over three weeks ago, and it didn’t come with these abilities. All I had was that voice in my head. I was terrified when I thought I was a Mad One, that I might hurt people, but nothing happened.”
“What is this voice telling you? Did it instruct you to destroy the water source? Does it want to hurt people?” she asked.
It hadn’t occurred to me that this would be one way to interpret everything that had happened. I was hearing a voice, it affected me, and one way or another it had caused these incidents, or at least contributed to them. For a brief moment I started to question myself. What if Miles wasn’t real? Was I just imagining him? Maybe that’s what happens to Mad Ones... I thought. The voices tell them to do things... to hurt people. What would Miles be in that case though? A well-mannered Mad Calling?
“Miles is nice! He wouldn’t hurt anyone!” Riala said all of a sudden.
Berla wasn’t happy about her joining in, however. “Shush! How would you know!?”
“I talk to him when Tomar is sleeping!”
It hadn’t been an easy day for Berla. She had almost died, lost a limb, and now we were throwing more and more weird information at her. It was clear that she was starting to get lost in the craziness. When she started to slowly lower her weapon, I lowered my arms in turn.
“How can I trust you?” she asked me.
“If we meant you any harm, we wouldn’t have saved you. And we definitely wouldn’t have taken you with us. You said it yourself, it’s not in our best interest. And why am I the one who needs to justify myself anyway? You just tried to kill me!”
It took several seconds of scrutinizing looks from her until it seemed like I had gotten through to her. She kept eying me warily, but she at least put away her dagger.
This reaction was what I had always been afraid of. The mere mention of voices or the Mad Calling terrified people, and a Fighter’s first instinct would be to eliminate any danger. I slowly walked up to her and offered to help her up. “Give me a chance.”
Berla took my hand and I walked her back to the campfire, where we all sat down. The rest of the evening I noticed her occasionally glancing in my direction, but she didn’t say anything. At my explanation that Miles would keep watch, she only nodded briefly.
When Riala was already fast asleep, Berla and I were still sitting there in silence. Will it be safe to sleep tonight? I thought, but eventually I nodded off.