Chương 51: You Should Go Home

Catriona dropped them off at a hut, built from the same wood as the rest of the houses, but furnished more spartanically compared to Grainne or Lamont's homes. The house had several rooms, each equipped with several beds, both singles and bunk beds, and storage trunks. Evan lay down with a relieved groan, breathing in the fresh pine scent of the bedsheets.

Now that Oliver's life was no longer in danger, the exhaustion from the strenuous trek through the Old Forest and the fight with the Earth Wyrm hit him like a freight train. Every muscle in his body ached, but despite feeling dead tired, he was the last of his friends to fall asleep. Lamont's words kept echoing in his head, and unwanted images of gruesome human experiments and piles of deformed, mutilated corpses kept invading his thoughts.

He had no idea how long it took him to fall asleep, but when Catriona knocked on their door the next morning, he felt like he'd barely slept. She unceremoniously dropped a tray in front of them. It held three wooden bowls, painted light blue. All three were filled with something that looked like super healthy cereal and some berries. Luca immediately dug in, chewing through his crunchy breakfast at record speed.

"This is great," he said, tapping the rim of his bowl with his spoon.

"I guess the stories about you guys eating human flesh weren't true after all." Catriona looked at him like he'd lost his mind.

"What?"

"Ignore him," Evan said quickly, silencing Luca with a warning glance.

"He's just being stupid. Thank you for the breakfast. We really appreciate the hospitality."

"You might want to eat quickly. Grainne sent me to tell you your friend woke up, and he's asking for you." Luca perked up.

"Is Ailie with him?"

"No, she was with him all night. She's asleep now."

"Ah, in this case… we can go there right after breakfast." Evan put his bowl down immediately.

"We can eat later. I want to go see Oliver now." Luca kept shoveling spoonfuls of cereal into his mouth, not even looking up. Evan nudged him in the shoulder.

"Come on, you can finish this later."

"But—""Later," Jasper said sternly. With a disappointed sigh, Luca put the spoon down and rose from his seat.

"To the healer then."

"You'll have to find your way there alone," Catriona said.

"I have to talk to Lamont."

"About what?" Evan asked. He felt a glimmer of hope that Catriona might try to intervene on his behalf. She didn't seem to agree with the Patriarch's stance of not sending warriors to fight the Professor and the Beasts. If Evan couldn't convince him, maybe she could? She was young, but already seemed to wield some authority, successfully scolding both Declan and Ailie yesterday. Unfortunately, Catriona did not grace him with an answer.

She just turned around and disappeared down a steep staircase, taking two steps at a time. Luca looked after her, shaking his head.

"Rude. Unlike Ailie. Ailie is—""Listen, Luca," Evan interrupted him as they got moving, following Jasper, who, as a tracker, of course had a way to find the route back to the healer's house.

"I'm glad you're making friends and giving up some of your prejudices, but you heard what Catriona said. You could really get Ailie in trouble, so maybe cool it down a little?" He'd expected another confident quip from his teammate, but to his surprise, Luca went quiet and made a thoughtful face. When they arrived at Grainne's house, Ailie was outside, on her knees, scrubbing something that looked like an oversized spot of bird poop off the platform wood slats with a rough brush and a bucket of water.

Luca immediately rushed to her side.

"Why are you doing this? You're a healer. You should study healing, not do menial tasks. Shouldn't you be in bed, anyway? Catriona said you've been awake all night." Ailie dunked the brush into the bucket and kept scrubbing, but she smiled brightly at him.

"You're very kind, but this is Spitbeak poop. If we leave it here, it will burn a big hole through the wood within a day."

"Still, you shouldn't have to—""It's fine, Luca. Keeping Grainne's house in order is one of my duties." Luca watched her scrape monster poop off the floor with the same slack-jawed, bewitched expression he'd worn yesterday.

"You're such a kind soul, Ailie," he said breathlessly.

"But please, if it has to be done, let me help you. Is there a second brush?" Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. Jasper watched him with a look of disapproval on his face.

"Hopefully Oliver is ready to leave soon," he said quietly to Evan.

"Lover boy over there is a disaster waiting to happen. We need to separate these two as soon as possible."

"Agreed," Evan said.

"Let's go in and see how Olly is doing." Ailie had left the entrance door to the house open, so they took the liberty of just stepping inside. When they entered the treatment room, they found Oliver sitting upright, his back supported by the old woman's hand, while she fed him a light blue potion. When Oliver saw them, his face lit up. He raised his hand to wave at them, but winced at the movement.

"Ouch, still sore."

"It will be for another few days, boy," Grainne said.

"Don't overstrain yourself, or it will heal wrong." Evan rushed to his friend's side.

"Man, you don't believe how happy I am to see you. That was a damn close call. If not for Grainne…"

"He would be dead," the old woman said nonchalantly.

"No doubt about that. That should teach you a lesson. Trampling around in the Old Forest is dangerous, especially for a couple of low-rankers such as yourselves. The Earthwyrm you fought isn't even close to being the strongest monster around here."

"We'll be more careful when we continue our journey." Grainne furrowed her brows.

"You should just go home."

"We can't," Oliver said.

"I'm very thankful for your healing and your advice, but we need to get going soon. Going home is not an option. We need to find my brother, and of course all those other innocent people. We're tracking—" Grainne cut him off with a dismissive hand wave.

"Yes, yes, I know. Catriona told me all about your quest. You should still go home."

"But my brother—""Is probably dead. Or worse, no longer resembling your brother at all…" Evan swallowed hard when he saw Oliver's confused and concerned expression. He'd informed Luca and Jasper about what Lamont had told him last night, but he still had to reveal to Oliver that his brother might very soon become a guinea pig in a messed-up magical experiment.

"Grainne, could you leave us alone for a moment? I need to talk to Oliver." The old woman mumbled something, but followed Evan's request and stepped outside. Oliver's concern was growing quickly.

"What is that all about? Why did she say that about Felix?" Evan took a deep breath and started talking. He tried to leave out the gruesome details, but he knew his friend needed to know what they were heading into and what might await them when they found the abducted villagers. With each word he spoke, Oliver's face darkened. By the time Evan had finished, his friend was shaking with anger. Or was it fear?

"I know this all sounds bad," Evan said, forcing his voice to be calm, "but remember what we've talked about. Rushing into danger headfirst is going to help no one." Oliver gritted his teeth and balled his fists, clearly fighting for control over his emotions.

"There's a time for caution and a time for action, and now is the time for action. We leave right now, and if Jasper thinks I'm going to sit by idly and wait for Alexandera to arrive while this crazy guy is torturing my brother, he's very mistaken." Evan just quietly nodded. He knew it was probably smarter to wait for help to arrive, but he also knew that he wouldn't be able to stand by and do nothing. That just went against everything he believed in.

Once they got to the Vason Estate, Evan would do everything he could to save those people and put a stop to what the Professor was doing, even if the chance of failure was high.

"I think Luca is on board," he said.

"Not so sure about Jasper." Oliver shrugged his shoulders, causing another wince of pain.

"I don't care. We know where we have to go now. We no longer need him. He can join us, or he can run off." With a determined expression, he jumped off the treatment table, but Evan held him back.

"Wait… you don't want to leave right now, do you?"

"Of course I want to leave right now. He's torturing Felix! I'm not going to waste another second." Evan pointed at the bloody bandage wrapped around Oliver's shoulder and arm.

"You can barely move your arm. Are you going to fight the Beasts one-handed?" Oliver gave him a defiant look.

"My health is already at 34%. I can recover the rest on the way there, I'm sure."

"You heard the healer. If you don't rest, your shoulder could heal wrong."

"I don't care!" Oliver nearly yelled.

"But I do!" Evan yelled back, taking a deep breath to calm himself down. He understood why Oliver was losing his mind, but he needed to snap him out of it somehow.

"I'm not going to sacrifice our entire team just because you feel guilty about your Mile's death." Oliver stared at him, teeth grinding.

"This is not about Miles."

"Of course it is, and I get it. I get it, Oliver. And we're not going to let the same happen to Felix, but if we want to stand the slightest chance against the Beasts, we need you in top shape. Or at least not immobilized and down two-thirds of your health bar." For a moment, Evan thought Oliver would just punch him in the face and run off to take down the Professor alone, but then his shoulders slumped and he let out a breath. He rubbed a hand over his face.

"You're right. I know you're right. It's just so damn hard to be reasonable. All I can think about is what they might be doing to my little brother right now." Evan gently put his hand on Oliver's shoulder.

"One more day, okay? I don't want to waste any unnecessary time either, and at the rate you're recovering, your health bar should be mostly full by then." Oliver nodded.

"Okay, one more day. But we leave first thing tomorrow morning." Evan smiled, relieved that he'd managed to talk some sense into him.

"Deal." Grainne agreed to let Oliver return to the guest quarters with the rest of the group, although she shoved a small crate with potions into Evan's arms.

"One of those every hour. It'll help with the healing," she explained. Luca wanted to stay at the healer's house to "help Ailie with chores." Jasper had to drag him away from the pretty Whisperleaf girl by the arm. Just the short walk back to the guest house left Oliver winded, and he took a nap almost as soon as he lay down in one of the freshly made beds. Evan had to forcibly wake him up an hour later to make sure he took the healing potions Grainne had given him.

Oliver downed the bottle in one go and let out a satisfied sigh afterward.

"I don't know what she put into these potions, but they're great. They taste better than a normal healing potion, and they work amazingly. The pain is almost gone." He carefully rolled his shoulder to test out his range of motion.

"See, as good as new." Catriona stepped through the front door unannounced.

"Don't overdo it. The potion helps with the pain and speeds up the healing, but it's not a miracle potion. Even Grainne can't heal an injury like yours in a day."

"Thank you for being another voice of reason," Evan said.

"Has your conversation with Lamont gone well?" Catriona put a wooden box she'd been carrying down on the dining table. She looked over her shoulder before pulling the door shut behind her.

"Close the window shutters," she said.

"I've brought a gift from Lamont, but it's better if the rest of the tribe doesn't find out about it."