Chapter 25 - I Don't Want To Be

I really hoped someone out there was proud of me.
I’d managed to let Gryphon leave my cabin intact, but even then my mind kept racing. If he was going to Gold’s Lodge… that put him far enough away that if he went missing, it might not be immediately connected to me. While I’d been limiting myself to the common ways of travel, I did still have my Flight and Translocate spells. I could very easily get out there and back before anyone was any the wiser.
But I just… I didn’t know what that would do. Right now, I had one man with ash for brain who believed he knew the truth. Sure, he was right, but he was also openly hostile to almost every single person he interacted with. I had to believe that no one would honestly take him seriously. But… Frederick was searching. Gwendoline made that clear and I couldn’t imagine he’d ignore a report no matter how stabbable the source was.
I resisted the urge to scream invective, knowing the walls of my cabin did little to keep the sound in. I did not, however, resist the urge to punch the wall. There was a crunch and then I bit back a scream for a whole other reason. If there was a way to remove the stat limitations due to my choice to take a Utility class, I was going to have to figure it out soon.
Just as I was about to start pulling out the ingredients for a basic healing salve, there was a knock at my door. I wasn’t sure who’d decided they needed to come bother me so soon after Gryphon had left, but I had no patience for any of them and wasn’t about to pretend like I did.
“I’m busy, go away!”
This only prompted another knock and I groaned, trying to flex my slowly swelling hand. They’d get the message eventually and leave. I pulled out several things from my bag. Basic healing reagents, the small bit of Stoneboar dung I still had, the last of both the shredded Lion’s Dawn and its thorns were all among them, laid out on the table I kept in the common area. I’d take care of my hand, then think about what I could make to help with my lingering problem.
The frame that Gryphon had picked up was facing my way, a magically altered photo of an older woman and younger child that I’d kept through lifetimes.
“Corbin?” a voice called out, the door opening as Willow popped her head in. I mentally cursed myself and then told myself to actually add a lock to the front door. I mean really, what had I been thinking?
“I said go away,” I repeated, my attention focused on the ingredients as I started to mix the healing salve, my hand aching as I held the bowl in place.
“Sheesh… what happened to your hand? That pompous De Numont guy didn’t look like you’d punched him when he dumped the rest of our order on the road…” she said, closing the door behind her, ignoring my demand.
“I said–”
“Go away. I know, I heard you,” Willow said, annoyingly firmly, even if her nose scrunched when she looked at the dung I’d left on a table that under normal circumstances might presumably be meant for dining.
“If you heard me, you wouldn’t be in here right now,” I spat back, wincing as I mixed the salve a little faster, waiting for the color to start shifting.
“Okay seriously, what happened? I get why Danny and the crew are all riled up by that jerk, but you went rushing off out of nowhere. Mr. Ward mentioned you heading this way but when I got here, the stuff for the inn was getting dumped while De Numont was whistling like he was on top of the world… Did you two talk? Why was he–”
“Willow!” I said, raising my voice in a way I hadn’t since… well, since I’d died. It wasn’t much, but I saw her shrink back all the same. Even still, I didn’t lower my voice. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Boarshit,” she spat back. The momentary flinching had faded and she planted her feet, her arms crossing tightly. “I am so tired of men trying to tell me what is and isn’t my business. That jerk tried to turn the others against my brother, demand authority over my town, treated the goods for our inn like they were trash that he could just dump on the ground, and he’s clearly gotten you so messed up that now you’re lashing out. This absolutely concerns me.”
My hand stopped, the mix slushing in the bowl as I looked over at her, meeting her emerald eyes as they refused to relent. That wasn’t to say she looked intimidating, because there was clearly a bit of worry lingering in there and she was frankly a bit too small to really be threatening… But it meant that unless I became outright aggressive, she probably wasn’t going to go anywhere.
“Gryphon’s decided to try and blackmail me,” I finally said, turning back to the bowl and mixing it again. The color altered and shifted before turning a sickly green color.
[New Recipe Created!] Salve of Life Drain Batch Quality: Below Average Uses: 5
I sneered at the mixture, unsure how I’d managed to make the literal opposite of what I’d been trying to make. Maybe I should have just used the automatic Mix function, but doing it by hand was supposed to let me think. I looked at the ingredients, noticed I’d left the thorns and shredded Lion’s Dawn petals next to each other, then assumed that I must have grabbed the wrong thing while mixing.
I pulled out a bottle, tapped it to the bowl, and moved all of the mixture into it, leaving behind a clean work area to start again.
“How? And why?” Willow asked, having stayed silent while I restarted the process.
“He thinks he can use me to take control of Danwood,” I said, adding the shredded petals into the thickening mixture.
“Excuse me?” Willow said, eyes going wide. “And you thought that didn’t concern me?”
“It doesn’t because I’d rather bash my head into a wall than be blackmailed by a greedy little pissant like him,” I said, keeping my pace even as I mixed the salve this time. “Unfortunately for him, I like my head and I still refuse to be blackmailed.”
The salve finally shifted and turned into a pleasant pastel red. I immediately dropped my entire damaged hand into it before the tooltip even formed. The fluid was pleasantly cool and immediately went to work, causing me to sigh in just a bit of relief.
“Corbin… you have to realize how obvious it is when you’re avoiding saying something…”
“And yet you pry anyway,” I said, still a bit sharper than intended.
“If he thinks he can blackmail you… that means he thinks that—“
“Willow!” I didn’t say it quite as loud this time, but it did stop her in her tracks all the same. I pulled my hand out of the salve, reaching for a hand cloth and wiping the remnants off my now healed hand. “Why does it matter what he thinks he can blackmail me with?”
She didn’t immediately reply, actually seeming to consider the question. I didn’t even begin to hope she was going to let it go… but for some reason, outside of my protests, I couldn’t find it in me to forcibly make her stop either.
“Because it does.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Yeah, it’s annoying, isn’t it?”
We stared at each other for a moment, neither budging before I finally relented, even if I did try to still contain the damage.
“He thinks he knows about my past. Okay? If I don’t cooperate, he’s going to point the wrong people in my direction.”
Willow didn’t exactly relax, but I no longer felt quite like she was about to smack me with the nearest hard object.
“The wrong people? Wait, so… is Danwood in danger? Because if it is then we really need to work on your way of defining what does and doesn’t concern people.”
“No, I don’t think it is… or, maybe I hope it’s not? There’s no reason for things to go that way… I’ve made sure of it so far but…” I said, trailing off as I looked at a window in my cabin that had a decent view of the road.
“I… I don’t get it,” she said, a frown pulling at her lips as she looked down at the table. She scanned the ingredients I had out. “All of this can’t just be for your hand… what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to prevent a problem before it can affect anyone else. That’s it.”
“Stars, Corbin… ‘Prevent a problem?’ What does that mean? Are you going to poison him or something?” She asked. I looked at the reagents for a moment, then back to her. “Corbin, no!”
“I have no intention of poisoning him,” I said. She took a small step back, looking over the table again.
“Corbin…” Willow’s voice had lowered, her eyes widening as she saw past my non-answer.
“There’s three options, Willow. I can either let him think it’s okay to blackmail me and go along, effectively forcing Danwood into a deal that would destroy it; I can let him leave and do exactly what he threatened he would do; or I can prevent this from going any further,” I said, clearing my mixing bowl and looking at the ingredients I still had out.
“Those can’t be the only options… there’s got to be another way…”
“Not with petulant, entitled brats like that. Aristocrats, minor nobles, all of them. They only care about what others can do for them and dusk forbid anyone who stands in the way of what they think is theirs,” I growled, leaning forward onto the table. “Just… pretend like you didn’t come here… the village doesn’t need to know about this. Let them believe Gryphon just left and nothing came of it.”
“You… you can’t be serious… Corbin, you’re not a killer…” she said, clearly becoming less and less sure, until she finally added, “are you?”
It wasn’t exactly a whisper, but it was more than obvious that for once, she didn’t want to know the answer.
“I don’t want to be…” I admitted after several long, long seconds. “But how do you think I handled the Mana Nymphs? They didn’t leave because I asked nicely. I killed their queen, drove them into a Stoneboar… and then killed that too.”
“Those are manaspawns, not humans!” Willow shot back, trying to find her voice again.
“I’m not sure I’d call what Gryphon is a human either.”
Willow was searching me, trying to find any hint that I was exaggerating or acting on bravado. I knew she wouldn’t find it.
“What happens if you do this? Does his family investigate? Even if you… if you kill him in Gold’s Lodge… any investigation would lead them back here… the other couriers and the new villagers saw him insult Danny. What if they blame him for De Numont’s death?”
“It won’t come to that,” I said, and she shook her head.
“You can’t know that! Let him leave, let whoever’s looking for you come here! What’s the worst that will happen if they come? They don’t own you, Corbin. You don’t have to hide from them!”
“It’s not a matter of what they’ll do!” I said, my voice raising and she flinched back again. “If they come, everything I’ve built, everything I’ve done here will be for nothing. It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when, Willow.”
“You… you talk like your future’s been decided by the Fates… like you’re wrapped up in a prophecy like—“
“Don’t…” I protested, my voice barely above a whisper
“Like the Tale of Dusk and Dawn… Stars… Corbin are you…”
“Willow… please…”
“Are you actually supposed to be with Prince Frederick? Are you the missing companion Sister Gwendoline’s searching for? Are… are you the Stranger?” she asked, stepping back up to the table tentatively. I didn’t look at her, instead looking across the table until the frame was back in my line of sight.
“I’m not—“
“No… Look me in the eyes, Corbin… Look me in the eyes and tell me you’re not,” she demanded, and I found myself hesitating. I didn’t look at her… I just couldn’t bring myself to for some reason.
“I don’t want to be…”