Cyrus wasn't too fond of the heat in Wellspring. 

It was to be expected. In Atlasdam, most days were temperate in the perfect way for him. When it rained, the weather remained warm enough for Cyrus to be comfortable. He was used to wearing a few thick layers of robes, but they had never quite bothered him the way they would have upset others. He was used to his routine, and he hadn't thought he would ever need to think of straying outside of it. 

That had been before he was sent out on his random sabbatical... Well, it wasn't necessarily random, but it may as well have been to Cyrus. He hadn't expected he would have a reason to wander the rest of the world so soon, but all things considered, Cyrus didn't have much to complain about. He had grown used to traveling Orsterra, and for the most part, he thought he had come to know the world well. It had taken a bit of adjustment after living in Atlasdam his entire life, but the travelers were the perfect group to ease Cyrus into this new period of his life. 

But none of the travelers could do much to help Cyrus with the excessive heat of Wellspring. Primrose was the most used to it out of the group's members, but she was still doing what she could do avoid the sun when possible. Cyrus had decided to spend his time in the inn until he started to feel better, but that promise of leaving the inn once he was ready to get back on his feet was quickly becoming harder and harder to fulfill. Cyrus didn't know if he would ever feel better. The heat of the desert was beyond oppressive, and Cyrus kept casting small ice spells to keep himself cool. It didn't entirely solve the problem at hand, but it did something to help him, he supposed. 

Unfortunately, no amount of ice spells could pull Cyrus out of his thoughts entirely. He wanted to forget about everything and just focus on pushing through the heat, but he wound up right where he started again each time he tried to distract himself. Of course he did. Cyrus shouldn't have been bold enough to assume that he would be able to force his mind to concentrate on something aside from the heat without his thoughts straying in the direction of Stonegard. 

Cyrus wanted to say that he had gotten over what happened. He had been a fool to believe Lucia without asking any questions about her true loyalties. Even so, Cyrus didn't hold that against himself after what Therion had told him. Therion was right; there was no way Cyrus could have known to expect the treachery in advance, and he couldn't go through the rest of his life waiting for somebody else to stab him in the back. It was no way to live at all. Cyrus knew that well, and so, he was willing to let go of being betrayed by Lucia. 

The situation with Therese had been a different story entirely. Cyrus knew that Therese was safe in Atlasdam now, no doubt being taken care of by the attendants of the royal family. She wouldn't be caught in the middle of a situation like that ever again as long as they had something to say about it. Cyrus was relieved... But he was nervous about it too. He could say all he wanted that he forgave himself for the consequences he had suffered at Lucia and Yvon's hands, but Therese was different. She was still a child. She was too young for all of this, and there she had been regardless, caught in the middle of a horrible situation she couldn't escape. She would carry the scars of what had happened to her for the rest of her life, and Cyrus would never be able to fix that damage. 

Cyrus should have known better. Risking his own safety was one thing, but he wished he had been smart enough to not put one of his students in danger. He hadn't known Therese would be there, but what did that matter? Therese would still remember what happened until the day she died, and there was nothing Cyrus could do about it. If he had known she was there, then he could have defended her. He should have been able to keep her safe. 

Cyrus' mind kept drifting in the direction of Saintsbridge too, but that never did him much good either. Of course it didn't help him. Therion had been snippy with him back in Saintsbridge, and Cyrus had done his best to stomach it despite the horrible feeling it gave him. Therion had claimed he would gladly go back on all of his words about Cyrus needing to stop blaming himself what had happened... No, he hadn't said exactly that. Therion had declared that he didn't give a damn about trust anymore though. Cyrus had been trying to use the same logic that Therion had used to help him, but it hadn't mattered in the end. Therion didn't want to hear him out, and while that was his decision to make, it hurt Cyrus regardless. 

He hadn't registered it as a bad thing initially though. At first, Cyrus had just thought that he was being overdramatic for applying Therion's reckless abandonment of trust to every other facet of his life... But as he sat there in his inn room, it was all Cyrus could think about. It didn't matter if Therion believed otherwise. That was all Cyrus could focus on. He was miserable enough with the heat, so how could he muster the strength to maintain a decent mood? He couldn't do it, so he instead let himself wallow in all the self-pity that he had forced himself to push through before he left behind Stonegard. 

The main reason for Cyrus' sudden change of heart was obvious to him even though no one else was aware of it. He had started feeling a nagging tug in his stomach when he was walking out of the lizardmen's cave, and when Cyrus got back to his inn room, he checked his side. As he had assumed, the sudden tug in his gut was all about his old stab wound. He hadn't reopened it or anything, but it had definitely been pressured just a bit too much during the battle against the lizardmen. Normally, Cyrus would have cast a healing spell and let that be the end of it, but his body wouldn't let him move on quite so soon. He was already struggling with the heat, so why not add something else on top of it? Cyrus just couldn't get a break, could he?

Cyrus didn't know how long he had been staring up at the ceiling of his room when he heard a knock at the door. Cyrus was halfway to sitting up when his stomach reminded him just how bad of an idea that was, and a thin hiss of pain pushed its way from his lips. Apparently, the person on the other side of the door had heard it, and they took that as their excuse to walk in without requesting permission first. Then again, Cyrus wouldn't have denied Ophilia anyway. 

Ophilia darted to Cyrus' side in the blink of an eye. "Cyrus! Are you alright?!" she cried out. She reached for her staff and raised it high above her head to cast another spell. It wouldn't fully fix the pain left behind by Cyrus pushing himself too hard, but it would at least let him settle down and get comfortable again... Though comfortable was a bit of a strong word. Cyrus didn't know how anyone could ever be comfortable in heat like this. 

As the silver light fell over him, Cyrus laid back down with a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Ophilia," he murmured, hating how quietly the words came out. "I did not realize that would..." Hurt so much. Why couldn't he just say that?

Thankfully, Ophilia didn't seem to mind that he hadn't finished his thought. "I'm glad I was able to help," she said instead. She took a seat beside his bed with a breathless sigh, and Cyrus realized just how flushed she was. She had changed clothes from the battle against the lizardmen earlier in the day, instead opting for something breezy that still gave her the coverage of skin she sought. "I hope you're feeling better about this heat than I am. I wasn't built for this."

"I admittedly don't know how anyone can be," Cyrus muttered. He thanked Ophilia for not lingering on the discussion of his injury. The last thing Cyrus needed to think about was someone else having to come and save him. The previous time that had happened, he knew how it had ended, and Cyrus really wished he could forget about it. 

Ophilia nodded her agreement, and she looked at the floor for a few seconds as she searched for a new direction to take the conversation. In the end, she settled on the blunt approach. "I want to know how you're feeling," she said. "I know the last few towns have been a lot of pressure for everybody, and... I want to do what I can to keep everyone's spirits up."

Despite himself, Cyrus smiled. "I appreciate that, Ophilia. I truly do," he told her, pretending he wasn't using the extra words to stall for time. He didn't think he could have held this off forever even if he tried, but it was certainly tempting to put in that effort out of some vain hope it would work. "I've been feeling... As well as I can."

"I understand that," Ophilia sighed. "It feels like everything has been on a constant downward spiral ever since Stonegard. I have to admit that I miss the days before then when everything just felt simpler."

"You can say that again," Cyrus hummed. Ophilila cast him a curious glance, and he knew he wouldn't be able to avoid this any longer than he already had. He had been lucky up to this point, but his good fortune was about to expire. "I've been thinking about a lot as of late... I wish I had been able to protect Therese from Yvon and Lucia. What they did to her... She will carry the scars of that day forever."

"So will you," Ophilia pointed out, and Cyrus' entire body stiffened, nearly threatening to send pain shooting through his abdomen all over again. "I understand you're concerned for your students, Cyrus, but... You were hurt that day too. You won't get away with anything by denying that."

Cyrus tried to find some rebuttal to that, but nothing came to his tongue. He should have expected that, but it tasted like bitter betrayal anyway. "I suppose so," he murmured. "Still, I'm an adult, and Therese... She's still young. She shouldn't need to face the worst of the world. I want to do what I can to protect her and the other youth of the world, but I cannot do that if people like Yvon and Lucia are taking advantage of them."

Ophilia nodded. "You've always been really good at protecting people," she agreed. "You certainly helped me a lot when we first met. I don't think I would have made it this far without you at my side." Some deep part of Cyrus wanted to glow with pride, but he couldn't find the strength to show it outwardly. "But you're too hard on yourself when you fail to protect others even for just a short while." 

Ophilia's words hit Cyrus like a punch to the stomach, and he instinctively wrapped an arm around his stab wound like he thought her verbal attack would aim there next. "What... What do you mean?" Cyrus asked slowly, and once again, he could feel himself stalling. 

"You want to keep all of us safe. You feel a responsibility to that because you're so much older than most of us," Ophilia went on. "But you can't do that all the time. You can't do nothing but look after other people without them being there to keep you stable. It's not healthy, and it won't help you either. You especially shouldn't hold yourself to impossible standards over things you had no way of knowing."

"But I should have known," Cyrus insisted. "If I had thought ahead a little bit more, then I would have known that it was a trap. I would have known that--"

"You would be stabbed in the back?" Ophilia cut in, and Cyrus thanked her for not saying stomach instead. "You had no way of knowing that. You trusted her. You had experience with Lucia, and that was enough to tell you she was someone to be believed... But you didn't see the truth until it was too late. That's not your fault. You couldn't have looked into the future to know that she would betray you. It's not right to hold something against yourself when you had no way of knowing otherwise."

"It would have saved Therese a lot of trouble and trauma if I had figured it out sooner," Cyrus muttered. "She came to Stonegard to save me, but if I had--"

"If you had what?" Ophilia challenged, and Cyrus pressed his lips into a thin line. "You would never use that logic against the other people who had been betrayed. You wouldn't tell Alfyn that he should have just looked a bit harder to keep from being betrayed by Miguel. You wouldn't tell Primrose that she should have just trusted a bit less so Simeon didn't attack her. Why are you holding yourself to standards that you would never ask of other people? What makes you the exception?"

Cyrus hesitated for an agonizingly long time before sighing. "I... I suppose I'm not."

"Exactly," Ophilia declared. She reached out and took Cyrus' hand in her own, and he realized this was probably the first time their hands had touched directly without any gloves in between them. "You shouldn't treat yourself that way. You deserve better than that, and if you can't see it for yourself, then I'll just tell you until you're ready to face it."

Cyrus smiled despite the countless threads of negativity trying to tether him to a frown. "Thank you, Ophilia... I needed to hear that." He let out a heavy sigh, and his wound mercifully did not react accordingly. "I think I have a lot of apologies to dole out to past versions of myself."

"Maybe," Ophilia smiled. "But I'd be happy to talk you through it if you'd like." She gripped Cyrus' hand a bit tighter, and he felt his smile deepen too. 

"Yes," Cyrus whispered. "I would appreciate that."

~~~~~

Primrose hadn't been ready to hear what Erhardt had to say. 

Going into Wellspring, she had been certain that whatever Erhardt told Olberic, she would be happy to hear it. She was looking for any distraction she could get her hands on after what Simeon had done. In this case, that meant preparing to drive her dagger into Erhardt's heart. Primrose didn't exactly have a shining impression of the man after hearing from Olberic that he murdered the king of Hornburg. She wasn't one to talk when it came to judging others for killing people, but she still couldn't bring herself to fall for Olberic's occasional reminiscences on better time. Primrose knew better than to drop her defenses to let someone else shatter her again, so she had been ready for a fight. 

Primrose hadn't imagined Erhardt would share a tale so eerily similar to her own. He too had lost everything due to circumstances entirely out of his control. He couldn't have stopped the town of Grynd from burning to the ground, and Primrose couldn't have stopped Simeon from plunging a dagger into Geoffrey's neck. Even so, they had tried to continue through the path of revenge... But what light was there to be found down a road like this? 

When Erhardt spoke, Primrose saw in him her own damnation. She had long figured out that her purpose was a futile one. She would not find peace in destroying the crows for the sake of tearing them down. Instead, Primrose had only found value in ruining them as long as she was able to help others. She had felt good when she murdered Helgenish, but it had largely come down to him finally getting what he deserved rather than as an act of revenge. Rufus had harmed countless people, and when he met his end, it freed the women who had been enslaved under his watchful eye. Albus had brought nothing but misery to the town of Noblecourt, and when Primrose stabbed him, she cared little for the idea of vengeance. It was as hollow in her chest as it could have been, but the idea of helping the people of Noblecourt helped her to see the light again. There was more to the world than simply revenge, and Primrose wished she had brought herself to see it soon. 

She especially hadn't imagined Olberic would hear Erhardt out and then spare him. When Olberic decided to raise his blade to Erhardt, Primrose was certain that would be the end of it. Erhardt would be put to rest, and with him, the strife of Hornburg's final surviving knight would end... But that was not what happened. Instead, Olberic chose to not pursue the path of vengeance. He knew better than that. In hindsight, it did not surprise Primrose in the slightest. Of course he would understand to not lose himself to something so foolish. Still, it caught her by surprise, and as Olberic escorted Erhardt back to Wellspring, Primrose wondered if perhaps she could find the same salvation. 

After trying--and failing--to distract herself, Primrose found her way back to the inn. She had picked up a traditional dancing outfit from the Sunlands while out on the town. The poor excuses for clothing she had been given back in Sunshade had always been bastardizations of the culture, and now, Primrose could finally embrace the land that she had spent so many years in without insulting it. She looked forward to seeing what this new outfit and shining opportunity would bring her... But she couldn't see it through until after she spoke with Erhardt. If anyone would have the answers she was searching for, it would be him, and Primrose couldn't let it sit for a moment longer. 

So Primrose walked into the room he had been set up in and closed the door behind herself. At first, she thought Erhardt was asleep, his eyes closed with his head tilted up to the ceiling, but when she drew near, his eyes opened. Erhardt watched Primrose for a few moments, confusion and muted shock flickering in his gaze before it faded away. "You're one of Olberic's friends," he said flatly. 

Primrose wished she could have done a better job of holding back her shock at being caught. In the end, she stared at Erhardt for a second before snapping herself out of it. "I am," she replied. "My name is Primrose, and... I have a few questions for you."

Erhardt frowned suspiciously, but he ultimately found no reason to refuse her. "Go on then," he instructed as he sat up in his bed. He didn't like the disadvantage he was at when he was laying down, and he was willing to do whatever he had to in order to win back his power. "What do you want to know?"

"It's... It's about the fall of Hornburg," Primrose replied slowly. "If you could go back to that day and do things differently... If you could choose to not slay the king... Would you change your decision?"

"In a heartbeat," Erhardt said without even thinking about it. "I didn't know it at the time, but there's more to life than vengeance. You cannot fully fix the wrongs that have been done upon you, but chasing the bloodshed of others will not help you to feel any better. The best thing you can do for yourself is move on and find a better future instead." His eyes seemed to pierce straight through Primrose's heart, and she wondered just how obvious the question had been. She didn't know if he had figured her out, had realized why she was asking him in the first place, but she supposed it didn't matter much in the end. He had given her the answer she sought. 

"I see," Primrose hummed. It wasn't as if she was shocked to hear something like that. If anything, all it did was prove her preexisting suspicions. She had been spiraling downward for so long that she didn't know how to snap herself out of it. How could she find a new purpose in life when revenge was all she had ever thought about for over a decade? Even after she joined with the rest of the travelers, Primrose struggled to find a purpose in them. They could try to guide her toward the light all they wanted, but it never worked as they had all hoped it would. She was too damn stubborn for her own good, and she would not seek out the unfamiliar when she grew scared. Instead, she would sink her teeth in and wait until something tried to tear her away in a flurry of blood and bone. 

Erhardt continued to study Primrose for a few long seconds, and he let out a heavy sigh. "I know that look in your eye," he muttered. "And I can tell you right now that whatever you're thinking of doing isn't worth it. Revenge never is. You can tell yourself all you want that you want it, but it won't help you in the end."

Primrose worked the skin of her bottom lip between her teeth for a few moments more. Of course Erhardt would see right through her and call her out on her problem for what it was. He would know better than anyone just what it meant to lose yourself to the cycle of violence, and he had seen it happen over the course of his time in the service of Hornburg's king. The last thing he would want was to wish that upon another person. Primrose was a mirror that showed the Erhardt of eight years prior, and he could not stand by without doing something to shatter the glass. 

In the end, Primrose leaned back in her seat as much as she could stand to without tipping backwards. "In all honesty, I was hoping you would say that," she confessed. She didn't know why she was giving so much information out to someone who she had hoped would die just earlier that day, but once she started talking, she just couldn't stop. Maybe the mirror between them was less distorted than she thought. "Any excuse I can take to stop all of this is a good one."

"Are you goin' to stop?"

Primrose's heart nearly stopped at the sound of Alfyn's voice, and she looked up to see him standing in the doorway. His eyes were wide, his muscles stiff, and he shook his head to snap himself out of it. "I'm sorry for listenin' in. I was comin' back in to check on Erhardt when I heard..." Alfyn sighed and sat down across from Primrose on Erhardt's other side. "Do... Do you really mean that? Are you goin' to stop this?"

Primrose hesitated for a long time, unsure as to how she was meant to respond to that. She didn't think she would ever plan to kill people the way she once had been when revenge had been her only reason for being. She was more than happy to leave that in her past... But she couldn't abandon the idea of killing just yet. Simeon was still out there, and this was about more than just wanting to take out the men who had murdered her father. Simeon was a dangerous man, and if he was allowed to roam freely, then he would hurt others too. Primrose had been one of his victims, but she knew better than to believe she would be the last. Simeon would try to aim for others again, and Primrose couldn't just stand back and watch that happen. As long as there was something she could do, she had to try. She owed it to her father and the past version of herself that had lost so much in his arms. 

"I'm going to try," Primrose eventually said. "I need to stop Simeon first. I can't let him get away with hurting people again. He's done more than enough damage to this world, and I..." She shook her head. "After we finish in Everhold, I'll call that the end. I'm not going after Simeon for revenge anymore. I just need to make sure he never hurts anybody again."

Alfyn nodded slowly, processing each word like he had to chew on it first. He stared down at his hands, and when he noticed them trembling, he folded his fingers together so he wouldn't have to watch that. "Good," he finally choked out. "I'm glad to hear that."

"Let me guess," Primrose started, eager to turn the topic away from her as soon as possible. "You've been thinking about Miguel." She was vaguely aware of the fact that she and Alfyn were not in there alone, that Erhardt was listening to everything they said, but she couldn't bring herself to care. There were bigger matters to handle first. 

Alfyn didn't bother with trying to hide it. He simply nodded and let out a heavy breath that nearly collapsed his entire body. "I have," he confessed. "And... I've been thinkin' about what you and Therion do. Well, what all of us have been doin' for the last few months." Primrose's blood went cold, but she did her best to not let it show on her face. She nodded stiffly, and Alfyn watched her for a moment before choosing to stare at his forcefully stilled hands instead. "We've all been doin' things that most people probably wouldn't be proud of, but... We're doin' what we can to help people. I guess that's the best any of us can do... Just to try."

"You're right," Primrose found herself agreeing. "But it's much easier said than done." She had certainly taken a while to realize what she was doing with herself. She was pursuing the men of the crow because it was the easiest course of action even though it was far from the best one. Primrose had been so desperate to carry out her purpose, no matter how wrong it may have been as a goal, and she hadn't looked beyond the haze to do it. She had changed though, and Primrose had no intentions of ever going back to the way she had been again. She wanted to change her path for the future, and if it meant tearing apart her previous expectations... That was simply a sacrifice she would need to make. 

Alfyn sighed again, and Primrose distantly wondered if perhaps that was the only way he could remind himself to breathe. "I've been thinkin' about it constantly ever since we left Saintsbridge," Alfyn went on. "We've done a lot of things on this journey that others probably wouldn't like... But we're doin' what we can to help people. It may not be the perfect logic for everythin' we've done, but it's the best we've got at this point."

Primrose nodded, and she let out a heaving breath of her own. "It took a lot for us to make it here," she muttered. "We can't let ourselves fall apart now. There's too much for us to do after this to crack. There's a lot going on in the world, and... Simeon is just the start of it. I'm not going to let him get away with everything he did. It won't be easy to face him again, but I'll do it if I have to."

After a few seconds of heavy silence, Alfyn allowed himself a smile, and for some reason, it pierced through all of Primrose's defenses in one quick stab. "I'm proud of you, Prim," Alfyn murmured. "I really am." There were a thousand other things he wanted to say to that, but he couldn't find the strength to confess them. Instead, he looked down at Erhardt where he was on the bed between him and Primrose. "And I hope you'll stop all of this as soon as you can... For your own sake and for the rest of us."

"It's not about revenge anymore," Primrose assured him. "That's not what this is about. I just... I can't let Simeon do that to anybody else. He did it to me, and that's enough. Things are going to change from here on out. I promise you."

"Good," Alfyn hummed. "I'll be expectin' you to hold true to that." Primrose nodded vacantly, and Alfyn pushed himself to his feet before approaching a stack of herbs near his mortar and pestle where he had set them on a nearby table. "Hold tight, Erhardt. I'm goin' to brew you up another pain medicine. I can tell the one from before is startin' to wear off."

Erhardt stared at Alfyn in quiet shock before he nodded. He had thought his presence had been forgotten in the midst of the conversation between Alfyn and Primrose, but the opposite was clearly true. Erhardt had a thousand questions in his mind, and he yearned to understand what Primrose and Alfyn were discussing, but he didn't ask them what had happened either. He knew everything he needed to by assessing the haunted darkness in their eyes. The three of them had a lot more in common than they could ever care to admit. 

But hopefully, they would be able to leave that mirror and its matching shadows behind soon. 

And hopefully, the future would be all the better for it when they did. 

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We're almost to the end of Olberic's third chapter! Woohoo!

I loved writing this chapter honestly. It really feels like the travelers are finally pulling themselves out of their recent rut, and they're doing it together. While a lot of them put up walls between each other after Stonegard, Saintsbridge, and Noblecourt, their defenses are finally starting to come down. It's nice to see them connecting with each other again, especially since the conversations in this chapter have been a long time coming. Cyrus has needed to talk about Therese for ages, and Primrose has needed to talk to Alfyn for almost as long. It's nice to have that weight off their shoulders now. 

Next chapter will be the last one of Olberic three before we move into Therion three. I'm hoping Therion three will be a decent bit shorter since the travelers are on the upward climb at long last. We'll just have to see how it all pans out. Either way, I'll definitely have the chapter threes done by chapter 182 at the absolute latest. We're getting close, everyone... We're getting really close. 

Next week, we'll wrap up Olberic three at last. Until then, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Feedback is appreciated as always. Have a nice day, everyone!

-Digital