The inn Maggie led us to was what I was coming to expect as standard. A two-story building with a sawdust covered kitchen and common room on the first floor with rooms for rent on the second. Hung above the bar, in the place of pride, was a plain bastard sword. It lacked any engravings or fine details, and while well kept, the sword had all the signs of years of hard use.

  Behind the bar was a chubby woman in her middle years with an almost physical cheer. The woman puttered back and forth behind her bar. Stopping with every patron to have a conversation before she moved onto the next. The woman smiled with a look of pure contentedness during a break in the flow and when she spotted Maggie, that content smirk shifted to a wide smile.

  “Maggie dear! How have you been?”

  “I’ve been good.” Maggie said with warmth as she approached, the four of us in tow. “I’m actually here with my flagship right now.”

  “And they look mighty fierce!” The woman laughed with a motherly smile for us. “Aw, come here, darling. I’m so proud of you!”

  The innkeeper came out from behind her bar and swept Maggie up into an embrace. She squeezed and lifted the smaller woman from the ground. It was only with Maggie in the air, her feet kicking gently against the innkeeper, that I noticed just how large the woman was.

  She had to be at least six foot five and packed with muscle under the required fat of an innkeeper.

  “How do you two know each other?” Nora asked, the only one of us so far to recover her voice.

  “I stayed here for a couple months when I first started my apprenticeship as an adventurer.” Maggie said and smiled warmly up at the woman now that her feet were on the ground.

  “You were so cute back then. All bright eyed and bushy tailed. You all should have seen the smile on her face when she came back with her first quest.”

  “Are you saying I’m not cute now?” Maggie asked, a little sister teasing her elder.

  Maggie and the innkeeper caught up for a while longer before she got us settled with five rooms and meals for tonight and the next morning. The price for the five of us was only five silvers. Which was the first time I’d realized how much Widow overcharged. The prices were low back in Hearthome as well, but I’d attributed that to the lack of customers they got there and figured once we were in Dustreach they’d rise again.

  Dinner wasn’t anything fancy, but it was good, filling, comfort food.

  “How many people have access to the bounty system?” Mika asked over a plate of mashed potatoes. Speaking for the first time since Tia’s office. “Seems like an incredibly useful tool for the Guild. I doubt there are enough bounties in the empire if everyone has access.”

  “Officially, anyone in good standing has access.” Maggie answered. “In practice, however, it’s only those with connections to the top brass and people proven to be loyal who get to use it.”

  “The only reason we have access is because of your dad, then?” Ellen asked, terse but not unkind.

  “Pretty much.”

  ~~~***~~~

  Like the meal, my room wasn’t anything fancy, but it was cozy. A large bear skin rug covered the oak flooring and a knit quilt patterned with flowers draped over the bed. A spotless dresser and side table the only other furniture in the room.

  With gentle care, I put my bag down in the corner, careful my shaking hands didn’t get too much rock dust on the floor. The mattress was plush and soft and it took me a couple of tries to get into a comfortable position to meditate.

  I wasn’t meditating to gain mana or activate a skill, but to calm down from the test. Throughout the day, I’d noticed myself walk with my head down or flinch when I caught someone looking at me for too long. I thought I was past behavior like that, and to revert to weakness like that again had me frustrated enough to scream.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  A knock, quiet but insistent, interrupted my meditation before it could even really begin. After I got up, the sound of my booted feet against the floor and the door’s lock chain swing against wood were the only sounds as well-oiled hinges swung open to reveal Maggie.

  The sight of her was a punch to the gut. My lungs robbed of air. The Grace Mother was kind enough to spare my feelings, but I knew I’d failed. I knew it in my core, in my very soul, that I had allowed my weakness to rule me. I’d thought I’d hidden my shame well from the rest of the group.

  Oh, the elder noticed, of that I have no doubt. But I’d thought – hoped, really – that my shame had gone unnoticed. The fact Maggie was here told me I had not done as well as I’d hoped. It was just another way I’d failed.

  “I wanted to see if you were okay?” Maggie said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  Maggie started to say something but stopped and peered down the hallway where a [Merchant] couple bickered over whom to sell their glass to. An argument they’d been having loudly for the last ten minutes.

  “Can I come in?”

  Every part of me screamed to say no, but curtesy demanded she be allowed in.

  “Don’t see why not.” I said and pulled the door open fully.

  Maggie closed her eyes and took a breath before she marched into my room. She moved like a woman about to tie herself to the lashing post and sat at the foot of my bed. With a sad smile, Maggie patted the mattress next to her.

  I closed the door and sat, back stiff and straight as if I was next to my executioner. Was it not enough that she knew my shame? Why did she have to drag it out like this?

  Maggie said nothing for a long while, and let me stew in my own thoughts while she composed hers. She tried to hide it under an air of casualness, but I could see her struggling to frame what she wanted to say.

  Anger, embarrassment, and shame built in me like a flash flood to heat my neck and cheeks with petty fire.

  “I’m worried about you.”

  Four words caved in my chest. A mountain of shame fell upon my shoulders. I’d failed so massively that Maggie thought me a liability.

  “What for?” I asked, hoping against all hope that she would not press.

  Maggie looked at me and instinct honed at the edge of an auric blade sent my gaze back to the wall. Embarrassment and anger fought a war within me as I cursed my own cowardice. My knuckles in an ice white grip on my knees, and my jaws so clenched they shook, I tried to take deep breaths. Trembling as if I faced a wyrm, I forced my eyes to meet Maggie’s.

  I’d already shamed the Grace Mother, my family, my daughter, and my home with the display in Tia’s office. I refused to do so again here. I met Maggie’s brown eyes, so filled with concern, and required myself to keep eye contact with her. My hands shook until it got so bad I could barely keep my grip on my knees.

  Brown eyes slowly brightened, afternoon sunlight glowing from behind them until they reached an ocean deep amber. Exposed brick and stone work slowly fell away to rotted bark, scattered moss, and ruined tapestries.

  I looked away before the phantom pains could return and felt tears pool at the corner of my eyes. I fought desperately to keep from crying and fought even harder to keep from curling into a ball and going catatonic.

  When I thought about it, I could still feel the wind that blew through the gaps in the walls. The cold inferno of a scalpel as it slid along my tendons, the pinpoint explosions as a carpenter’s hammer shattered bones, the aching void of missing fingernails and teeth. Most of all, I could feel the blade of aura peel back the layers of my soul to examine them thread by thread.

  I’d worked so hard to keep it all back, to lock those memories in a box at the back of my head. I tried so hard to look people in the eyes again. But I just couldn’t do it.

  “That.” Maggie whispered. “I’m worried about that.”

  “Noticed that, did you?” I asked.

  Shame boiled into anger as it threatened to consume me. Anger at Maggie, at Tia, at the world, but most of all at myself.

  “I did.” Maggie trailed off as she struggled to find the right words.

  “And?” I asked tersely. The anger allowing more of my accent to slip out.

  I didn’t want to be angry with Maggie. She’d done nothing wrong. She’d taken us to an individual who gave us an opportunity, and I’d failed the test in front of me. My failings weren’t her fault.

  I knew all that like I knew water was wet, but no matter what I did, what exercises I led myself through, or what I told myself, the anger built.

  Who was she to come in here and look at me as if I was a kicked dog? Who was she to look down on me like this? Was she not content to let me shame myself? Did she have to further pile on the humiliations?

  “I want to know if you’re okay. I also want you to know that it’s my job to look after you guys, and that includes your mental health.”

  Part of me understood she was coming from a place of empathy, but in the months after I was returned, I heard endless variations of ‘you can always talk to me’. This was just more of the same empty words paraded out once more to make her feel more comfortable after witnessing my shame.

  “I’m okay.” I said and hoped more than anything she’d read my tone and leave it be.

  “Are you sure? Aunt Tia should’ve never done that. I know having an aura imposed over you can be difficult, but –“

  “Maggie!” I roared and stood. Accidentally speaking her name in the Low Chant. The syllables stretched and almost melodic.

  From her place at the end of the bed, Maggie stared up at me with so much sympathy it made me want to scream and crawl into a steam box.

  “My apologies Maggie.” I said in the Trade Tongue, anger still controlling my accent. “I should not have shouted at you; it was uncalled for and will not happen again. With all due respect, I met you two weeks ago. Not out of attraction or comradery, but because you see an opportunity to advance your career in me and I, an opportunity to extract more from the Guild in you. We do not know each other nearly well enough for this conversation, and you have no right to demand answers from me.”

  Maggie looked at me as if I’d slapped her. I didn’t need to look into her eyes to see how the blood left her cheeks, or the slight jaw opening. Her slight shock didn’t last long, though, and soon pity replaced it. Somehow, that look caused me even more shame.

  “I…You’re right Bran. We don’t know each other enough for this conversation yet. It was arrogant of me to assume otherwise. I’m sorry, truly. But, for today, I need you to know that I meant what I said. I truly do. I want nothing but the best for your four and I can only hope that someday we’re close enough that you feel comfortable sharing your pains with me.”

  Maggie patted the soft mattress once and got up. She left after a gentle squeeze of my shoulder and the light click of the latch. I dreaded the group dynamic tomorrow. No matter how this confrontation went, Maggie was going to look at me differently. I was no longer the [Warrior] from the forest; I was now damaged goods. She’d seen my shame and there’d be changes because of it.

  That night I tried so hard to work on Beginner’s Hammer Art. I’d gotten the skill up to level four, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t activate it. The System required clear headed permission to take your mana and no matter how I tried, I just couldn’t clear my head enough for it.

  It was well past twilight by the time I finally gave up and went to sleep.