Chapter 18: Trauma.

The days passed, but nobody, not me, not father and not the old man, none of us managed to understand what really happened inside of that cave.

We even went back there once, but where there once was the stone head of Edric, now there was only dust.

Whatever it did, it wasn't something we could detect, but that wasn't a bad thing, it also meant that whatever it was it didn't have any real effect on me, at least that's what I, the old man was of an entirely different opinion.

He went on a wild goose chase to find out what that thing was, from medical and physical to magical analyses, anything he had the means to do, he did, but nothing.

Father was the same, but he didn't do anything, after all, if the old man, who had much more knowledge and magical ability than him, couldn't find anything, then he would probably find nothing too.

The fact that none of the two doubted my words warmed my heart, well, having seen the petrified head before taking me away from there helped a lot.

It soon went back to normal though, I even managed to get a few days worth of physical training together with Roman in my usual clearing in the woods inside our walls.

The first morning I went back to practice, he even managed to understand that something was wrong with me after a bit of time, "Avys, are you alright?"

"I'm perfectly fine, why?" I asked, while inwardly remembering the despair and powerlessness I felt while standing in front of that mere decapitated head.

"You seem somewhat different than usual, a bit more… weary?"

"Nothing to worry about, but thank you."

"If there is anything I can do to help you, just ask me, okay?" he said while fidgeting, something I completely ignored.

"Thank you, but it's nothing I can't handle on my own." were my final words before I went back to concentrating on my practice, with much more zeal than I had ever done.

Not that I didn't put in effort before, but I now had one more driving factor, I didn't want to feel that powerless ever again.

But my this didn't only impact my physical training with my sword, but it also extended to my research, now, even while knowing that it would bring many problems to my body, I cut my sleep time to six hours from the previous eight.

This was something I deeply regretted, I loved sleeping after all.

But that wasn't without its own fruits, I had finally read every single book in our house's library and most of those in the old man's, to a total of around five hundred books on magic.

It didn't make me a master in any sense of the word, those books had mostly repetitions of various other books, they were old and lacked the new magical breakthroughs after all.

What was good, was that I had finally grasped a bit about barrier magic.

And what I did grasp, was that they were an absolute mess to learn.

They varied in size, power, source of power, materials, reason to exist and the funny thing was that there were combinations of every kind!

Fortunately the source of power for most was only mana crystals, something that we didn't lack.

Mana crystals were the solid form of mana, nothing more, nothing less, as far as I knew, they were born deep underground thanks to the pressure smashing large amounts of mana in a small space.

They could be in any shape or size and could be used in an infinity of different ways, unfortunately I didn't really care at the moment, I cared far more about how to become more powerful and I couldn't see how creating magical trinkets could help with that.

But barriers were another story altogether, they could protect, attack, confuse, stop teleportations and much, much more.

But my break didn't last long, soon the trip to Bonehorn had to begin, we had postponed it for five days and it was a really long trip, we even had to pass through Honeyfall on the way.

The problem was that I really didn't feel like going, I dreaded the possibility of feeling that call again, I knew that it was an irrational fear, but what could I do?

Every time I closed my eyes I found myself in that cave, with Edric staring at me with his empty eyes and with his pressure pressing upon me at full power.

I told my fear to father and his answer was, "It's okay dear, it's perfectly fine if you want to stay in the city for sometime until you get over this, I had this problem too, once."

"Really?" I found it difficult to believe.

My father had never been one to feel fear of such irrational things, he had always been a fixed point on which I could always rely on.

"Obviously, I was just like you, long ago, but guess what, I was scared of the beasts, on this front you're much braver than I was."

"Why would you be scared of the beasts?"

"I know that you're used to them, but the first time I saw them I was ten years old and I was infinitely worse than you are with magic.

To me, those beasts were gigantic mountains I could do nothing against, the first time I saw one I almost passed out!" he chuckled, causing me to chuckle too.

"How did you get over your fear then?"

"At the time I was traveling together with Sigmund, neither of my parents was a mage, and after seeing me scared like a little boy he said to me, 'Boy, either you stop shaking like that or I'll throw you into a swarm of beasts.' and it was at that moment that my fear for beasts, shifted into a fear for him."

I started laughing, the way he said such silly things with a completely straight and serious expression made it really hilarious to me.

"Jokes aside," he continued, "the old man didn't let me hide inside, away from the things that scared me, he took me, by force I might add, and brought me outside to face them.

I'm not going to force you to do the same, you're my little princess after all, I'll give you all the time you need, but I hope that you can defeat everything that is scaring you, I raised a fighter after all." he patted my head with a big smile on his face.

What a dumb man, if he said it like that it was no different from forcing me, I had my pride as the greatest, cutest, most beautiful and most talented mage in the Wild Lands, there was no way I could let something as puny as fear dictate my life.

I took a deep breath to calm down all of my emotions, looked at him straight in the eyes and told him, "I get it, I'm coming with you."

"That's my girl!" He said while ruffling my hair, "We're leaving tomorrow morning, same time as always, prepare everything because we have a journey far longer than usual."

"How long is it?"

"Two months, one to go and one to come back."

"How are the beasts on the way?"

"Around the same as the trip to Rockkeep up until Honeyfall, but it gets a bit worse the second half of the way."

It seemed fine, I wouldn't be able to train together with Roman for a good amount of time, but I could get real combat experience against the actual enemy.

"Are you sure you want to come? You can come the next time if you don't feel like it, you know?" I asked, the worry evident in his tone.

"Yes dad, I'm sure."

I said that, but I absolutely didn't feel like it, but I had to force myself to go, damn me and my stupid pride, nothing good ever comes out of it.

Maybe thing like this are the reason Edric said that hubris would be my downfall, but at least this time it wasn't hubris, I wasn't overestimating myself, just forcing myself to do something I had done thousands of times before, to get up and fight.

Father then left my room, where I was about to sleep, but there was absolutely no way I could go to bed in my current state.

I was sweating and my heart was pounding far more strongly than usual, I had the chills and I felt my palms numbing, the thought of going to sleep as far away from me as it could possibly be.

So I did the only feasible thing that came to my mind, I took my sword and went training.

That night, I didn't sleep.

I felt more hyperactive than ever before in my life, I swung my sword more than in any practice, until my muscles became numb and I was forced to use my healing spell until even that no longer had any effect.

I kept swinging and swinging and the thing I was swinging at was my own mental image of Edric the bastard, the person I met in my nightmares with his horrifying appearance, he was there, just looking at me with his eyeless face, sneering at my weakness and incompetence.

I desperately swung my sword at him, but no matter what I did, nothing could reach him.

I shouted, used spells, tried to use my sword to chop him and stab him, but nothing worked, it was like the difference between us was immeasurable, but the true was, that it was all in my head.

The next morning, my father called me for breakfast, but I didn't answer.

"Avys," he knocked on my door before opening it with a worried voice, "it's time for breakfast, wake u… Fuck."

The room was empty, my bed a mess as usual.

He panicked and darted his eyes around the room, hoping that I was doing him a prank, but what caught his eyes was the empty scabbard of the sword that he had given me long before, calming him down a bit.

He grabbed it and went down the stairs.

"Where is she?" asked his wife with a confused expression.

"She's not home, but I know exactly where she is." he showed her the scabbard in his hand, hoping that she'd understand too as he left the house to go to the place where his daughter spent most of her time outside of her house.

But what he saw after reaching the place unsettled even him.

It could be only be described as scorched earth, the ground had evident signs of fire magic, earth spikes where coming out of the ground, still melting shards of ice impaling the trees around.

At the middle of it all, a girl curled up in a ball and mumbling disturbing words.