Phony Potions

Chapter 51

Mallow and I did not spend much time together in the following week, even though we knew we might not ever see one another again. Perhaps it was because we had spent so much time together since she was a kid, and reflecting on that with the new found insight of how much we loved each other was enough. Maybe it was because, with such an enormous event awaiting us, if we spent too long together we'd feel pressured to say something inspiring that neither of us could think of. It was only at dinners and over breakfast that we would chat. Usually she told me about the mundane lives of the locals, or speculated about how I'd do at the Mediceum if I were accepted. She always had the brightest smile on, as if being Contracted for the Proving didn't hold her down at all.

Either because he felt that a dad and daughter should spend their last week before a Proving together, or because he was inexplicably jealous, Bernard tried to encourage her to sit with Osoro and I during the days. Osoro was helping me brush up on my reading skills, but Mallow dismissed it as something she'd never use. She preferred to run off to mingle with the locals her age, or drag Bernard out on an adventure she'd conceived while exploring the small village. Being locked away for that week had somehow fed her already inordinate amount of wanderlust.

I was shocked by how large the language was that Osoro was attempting to teach me. He was trying to give me a technique to read words I'd never seen before. I hadn't read much since I was a child, and so knew most words for their rough appearance, seeing them hundreds and hundreds of times before. When I had to stop and sound it out, it was difficult. Still, he stuck with me. He said my vocabulary was already excellent from so many years in sales. I just needed the technique to read what I already knew.

On the sixth night, Osoro was wiping off the piece of slate in the backyard we had been using to draw on when I had the courage to ask. His powers had still not returned. He hadn't spoken of that once.

"Do you ever regret not telling someone sooner?"

"Hmmm?" Osoro asked, his hands still methodically swiping away the mess. He kept busy as he spoke, like when I met him handing out food to the poor.

"I mean, you know, guilty. About the sacrifices."

"Are you crushed by guilt about what you did, shilling those fake potions?" The words were biting, but he was more weary than battle ready.

I would not be deflected. "If I didn't, I'd not be training to be a healer. I've got to make amends."

Osoro handed the slate to me.

"My magic is gone. I question my path; there must have been a better way I could have done the right thing. However, I am happy to not have to keep those secrets anymore. "

A young man on horseback rode up to the cottage. I tensed, thinking perhaps this was it, the arrival of the BROS or Arcana Enforcement to drag us into the investigation finally. Then I noticed the color of the rider's vest, the neutral black and white checkered pattern. He was a messenger.

He stumbled off the horse, and as his hat tumbled off, I recognized that he was indeed the local message boy who delivered the scant few letters that arrived in this spread out village.