And her name is…

“What are you doing?” I ask the woman, Nyx, after a moment.

Her big eyes meet mine and her brows crinkle together. “You’re injured, I’m a healer.”

“Kheliq never sends a healer,” I say, almost like a thought I should have just cataloged away.

She looks sad now and she reaches for my hand but I pull it away. She can’t do much more damage to my clearly broken ankle, but my hand works perfectly fine. After a moment’s consideration I rotate my leg to carefully pull my foot towards myself and scoot further into the bed.

Her face looks a little defeated when she says, “we’re not working with King Kheliq, Kheliq,” she corrects herself. “We are a part of a settlement just outside of his kingdom in what is affectionately called the Sun Set court, because we are on the opposite side of the mountain range. He’ll have a hard time believing you got this far on your own, if he was allowed to search our domain, but Tiago was able to use his affinity to get you all here once they found you. It would have taken an experienced hiker a week to hike over the mountain here… They also faked a trail for bit in another direction… so you’ll be safe.”

I glance over at Tiago who looks proud of himself. “It was finding you that was the hard part. We were searching too close to where you came from. Didn’t expect you to make it so far on your own with no provisions, but once I started thinking like myself and where I would go we found you at that little lake.”

“And.. shot me?” I question.

They seem to be trying to gain my trust, but things aren’t adding up yet. It’s going to be a tall order from me before I can even begin to trust anyone again let alone any Sioga, .. but, I do need somewhere to stay while I recover. Even if I don’t trust them, but they trust me….

“We thought you were a guard,” one of them says disdainfully, rolling his eyes. “You know, one of the however many you said that know your name and have been combing the woods for you.”

“Ealdian,” Ignacio hisses and I know Ealdian will be the one to slip up or tell me more than he should. “We figured you would have ditched the uniform along the way, and to be honest you seemed too calm to be our runner…”

“Your…?” I scoff a laugh. “So you’re just someone that wants what Kheliq had. Did you hear about me at one of his parties and then paid one of my guards for the info when I escaped? I won’t be someone’s prisoner again. You can let me go or I’ll take as many of you as I can down with me.”

I hear a huff and a hand strikes the bed, bringing me back to Nyx. “For fuck’s sake, we have an informant in his domain, Kheliq’s, and when you got out they sent us word to find you in the woods. It said you were very important to him and your name is Theodosine, but we had to act fast because you only had supplies for a half day of hunting and were already in bad shape from a lengthy stay in their secret dungeon.”

“Secre… well that makes more fucking sense,” I mutter and they look at me but I don’t elaborate.

Ofcourse I wasimportantenough to him to be in a secret cell block.Now it coming out into that sitting room makes sense.

Still I need to be cautious with this group. “What do you know about me?”

“I imagine from a six year stay in their secret cells your physical andmentalhealth is questionable,” Ealdian mutters and he’s already becoming my favourite.

“We don’t know much,” Nyx admits. “Just what I told you. The note was very brief as it’s difficult to send messages so far without someone intercepting. That we got it at all is likely only because it had a high ranking, official seal on it. As for your physical health, I would love to asses that and get you some help if you’ll let me.”

I look at her sincerity, and at the others, and then nod. She moves from the floor onto the bed beside me and gently pulls my leg to stretch it out and look at the ankle. I wince as she squeezes and pokes it, gently feeling all the ways I’ve ruined a bone this time, and I gasp as she runs a nail up the side, checking for swelling around the indent and how fast the skin eliminates the line.

“You’ve shattered it pretty good, looks like it twisted and snapped,” Nyx confirms.

“Yea, it felt like a twist and snap,” I nod, trying not to laugh. “How exactly does this work? What do you want from me?”

“What would we want!?” One of the others finally speaks up.

He looks as quiet as he’s been. Blond hair, honey eyes, and a build that tells me he probably draws the maps on their adventures. I glance at him, showing my clear annoyance at his interjection, and raise one eye brow.

“No one helps a stranger just for the hell of it. Everyone wants something, and you were clearly desperate to get me here since you didn’t even give me the chance to refuse. I serve a purpose for you, and you won’t convince me otherwise,” I scoff and Tiago laughs.

“She’s seen some shit Ricard, can you blame her?” Tiago says, smacking the other man on the back and, to his credit, he doesn’t move.

“We don’t want anything.” Ignacio tries to assure me. “We were asked to rescue you, so we did.”

“I don’t have anyone in my life that would want me rescued forme.” I return. “So if it’s all the same to you, you can just return my shoes and point me in the direction of Darlenton….”

“Darlenton?” There’s another woman I had barely noticed.

She looks like she could be related to the honey eyed one. They have the same soft face and gentle expression, as well as the hair colour. Siblings maybe? Her eyes lock with mine and I see the sadnessthere. I know what she’s going to say.

“The human town, right? I’m … I’m sorry Theodosine, that town was destroyed.”

I pull my ankle back from Nyx and jerk it straight, making a loud sickening crack, and everyone cringes, but I need the pain. “I know. Kheliq did that when he kidnapped me.” My words are short but their surprise is real.

“Then… that was your home? You’re human.” It isn’t said as a question and I resist laughing.

“It was my home,” I return, answering only the question that they couldn’t infer from everything else.

“He…”

“Vera,” Tiago interrupts, shaking his head. “She knows. She was there.”

“I’ve changed my mind, you’re my favourite,” I return to Tiago, trying to focus my own life energy to the ankle so I can walk.

I don’t have enough energy to fix it myself, and healing my own injuries has always been more difficult. I don’t want them to know what I’m doing as I wrap my hands around it to try and squeeze it into shape, fix the bone, and leave the bruising.

I catch Tiago smirk and chuckle, “I’m her favourite,” to Ignacio.

“Not that this isn’t fun…” I drawl, fanning my shirts as the heat from the fire across the room makes me sweat in my multiple layers, “but …”

Nyx huffs and smacks my hands away from my foot. She starts to massage the area painfully and I grit my teeth through the pain to keep from making any sounds. The woman doesn’t seem to be the type to hurt someone for kicks, so I wait for her process to bare fruit and slowly the pain eases. The colour returns to normal and I canfeelthe bones knitting back together in my skin the same way I did with the injury in my cell.

After a few minutes she removes her hands and I know the break is fully healed based on the absence of pain, but there is also a slight panting in her chest. “There.”

“Thank you,” I return, gently tapping her hand.

“You’re welcome. Please excuse our decorum. It’s not often we find ourselves with guests we know so little about,” Nyx tries to explain, but I find myself unsympathetic.

“It’s not often I find myself enacting my escape and ’rescued’by people I didn’t know existed. Can I call it that, or do you just want me for my magic too?” I eye them all carefully, checking their faces for signs of deception or lying.

“We don’t even know what your magic is,” Ealdian admits. “Like Nyx said, we didn’t get much information about you in the message. Just that there was a woman Kheliq had in his cells, that escaped, and that you were important. Honestly that was enough for us to act. Anything that fucks up what he’s got going on is right up our alley, and our new informant is important enough for us to want to keep himhappy.”

“Though we are dying to know,” Ignacio admits and my eyes narrow on his thin face.

I can tell he works out, and his light hair accentuated his bright blood orange eyes. They’re piercing, and it feels like they could stare right through me but I hold onto his gaze. He won’t be the one to intimidate me, but I’ll need to be very aware of his affinity.

“The last time I told someone outside of my town what I can do, everyone I’ve ever cared about was slaughtered in front of me. He wanted me to know that only he and his men knew about me and there was no one to miss me let alone try to save me.” I see some of them wince, and Vera visibly shrinks from my words. “If you want my trust, earn it. I’m not looking for a repeat experience and I wouldn’t trust a stranger with my life let alone my secrets.”

That takes them back another step, the venom in my words clear. Other than Nyx, everyone is far enough away that I can’t easily siphon any energy from them, and she already looks tired from healing my ankle. I’ll take that small kindness and do a good turn by not taking anything form her.