After the battle at Relkingham, the group got some information about our lost friends. The ship that we had seen attacking our village seemed to have stopped in a harbour called Marshport, at some days riding distance.
We left Relkingham with a new member of our party, one young Relkingham ranger who asked to come with us to the north. He has not talked much yet, maybe he's shy... or maybe he would talk if my two sisters would ever stop. Sometimes even the dwarf priest looks exhausted with their chattering.
The trip to Sylfren was blissfully boring. No wild animals, no undead, just the landscape and some time to think about Gesh.
We passed through our home in Leavendale and verified that everything was safe. The village is getting back to life, but many people are missing and families have been broken. They were happy to see us, but we did not have the news they wanted to hear. We went on to Sylfren, where we found mum. She was doing fine, although she was getting tired of depending on our relatives' hospitality. I was happy to be able to help her and with the money from the three of us, she will have no problem for the time being.
After the others had gone to bed, I had the chance to have a long conversation with mum. She had seen inmediately that something was wrong and was waiting for me.
I told her everything, how I had felt the first days, the places we had visited and how my mistakes had taken me to Relkingham that day. I told her that I did not know what to do, how gilty I felt and that I was afraid of going on and hurting one of my sisters (if I ever hurt one of them, I want it to be because of MY decision, and because not some evil priest's spell).
She listened to me quietly and after I had finished she told me a story about our family.
One day as we were playing in the yard, something terrible had happened. The three of us were fighting as usual while mum was in the house and not really paying too much attention. As always, Sariel tried to boss us around because she was the oldest, and as always, we did not want to do what she wanted. However, this time Adolfiel and me decided to join together to fight against her and started beating her. She grew really afraid, felt cornered and helpless. Out of panic, she yelled and streched her arms. A blue bolt of energy rose from her fingers and struck Adolfiel, leaving her on the ground motionless.
It took some days to heal Adolfiel, but since that day she has that strange tic in the face that makes her so unpopular with boys.
The family learned that day that Sariel had a talent for magic, that she did not know how to control it and that we could be dangerous to each other, specially Sariel.
That night, it was decided that Sariel would leave us, go to the north to study magic and learn how to control her powers. The family broke apart.
I did not understand why mum was telling me this story, I knew it already.
She explained to me that for many years she had felt gilty for what had happened. She should have been there to stop us. She had felt like as she had lost a daughter because of her mistake that day, until Sariel returned. And she had finally realized that the losses of the past had bought happiness later.
She said that Gesh's death was a tragedy and that it was good that I was sad about it. But she said that I had to accept the responsibility of my acts and make sure that it never, never happened again. But I had to go on. I did not have the right to stop or act depressed, our enslaved townsfolk and my sisters needed me.
That night I did not sleep, I stayed up thinking. Mum's words did not help me feel less guilty. What she wanted me to do was to accept my mistakes and go on.
I would do it.
For the moment.
