Page 38 of The Lost Guard's Healer

I know I should tell him we should push on. I know I shouldn’t want to be alone with him a second longer than I have to. But what I know and what I feel are two entirely different things. I say, “I’m in no rush to get back.”

Rourk grins rakishly at me, and I regret, for just that moment, pulling away from him this morning. What would it have felt like to let him have his way with me? He says, “Neither am I.”

There’s a group of high rocks ahead which will give us shade and something to lean against while we rest and eat. We sit beside each other and enjoy the quiet stillness of the air. We’re quiet for a long while until Rourk speaks up, as if the silence is wholly unacceptable to him.

“Tell me, Galene,” he says while chewing the tough meat, which I think is some kind of venison. “What do you want most out of life?”

I give him a confused, thoughtful look, silent for a moment. “What do you want most out of life?” I finally ask.

Rourk looks up at the bulging clouds in the sky. “To not be forgotten. To not die alone.”

I watch him for a while as his words settle within me, soaking into every bone in my body. To not be forgotten. I want to promise him I will always remember him. But I say instead, “Do you have anyone back home? To go back to?” Someone else to remember you? Someone to be there when you die?

“My daughter,” he says. “She’ll be worried about me.”

I nod, though I’m truly panicking on the inside. He has a daughter. Which means he has a lover—and he and I—this morning… I swallow thickly. “I’m sure your wife will worry about you as well.”

“She would always worry about me,” Rourk says. “She had the biggest heart I’ve ever known. She worried about everyone.”

The past tense is a sharp knife. A burning question I cannot ignore. But he doesn’t make me ask, either. He continues, “She was taken by an illness. The red cough. It’s a disorder some people have. There was nothing we could do for her.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” I say, my voice full of emotion. How horrible is it I feel relief just as much as I feel sadness for him?

“That was ten years ago, though,” he says. “We find ways to move on after loss. Even if the person is always with us.”

“Around the same time my mother was taken from me,” I say dully. I’m trying to sympathize, to show him that some small part of me understands even a little of what he went through, but…

Thoughts of my mother race through my head.

I can no longer meet Rourk’s eyes.

“Galene,” Rourk says. “I want you to know that I’m deeply sorry for what happened to your mother. I know it won’t bring her back, or ease your pain, but I will look into the matter when I return home. I will find out why she was killed.”

I shake my head. “There’s no need. It happened and cannot be undone.” I swallow thickly and force myself to meet his gaze. “For what it’s worth, I can see you’re not who I thought you were. You helped us during the Wildmen attack, and you helped repair the village in the following days. You looked out for Freddick, who was grieving his father. And you stayed back for me when the others left. I can see you are a good man, Rourk. But that does not mean I can truly trust you. Or like you.”

He stares for a long moment, then nods. “Fair enough,” he says. “I’ll take what I can get.”

I give him a small smile. Some of the tension has seeped away, leaving a warm familiarity.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he says finally. “What do you want most out of life?”

I chew the inside of my cheek while I go back to considering the question. But the answer is more obvious now than it was before. “To have a peaceful life, filled with love and acceptance. And safety.”

Rourk slowly nods. “I like that. I hope you find it someday.”

We finish the last of the food and decide it's time to head back. A golden ribbon of light in the sky catches my attention. It’s like an eel, I think, but it’s drifting casually and intentionally through the air. Its scales are golden and a faint golden aura is emitting from it.

“What is that?” Rourk asks, pointing.

I study it for a moment, absorbing the details before I give him an answer. “A sky eel, of a kind I have never seen before.”

“You’ve seen a sky eel before? I didn’t think there were any around here?”

“Once. Far to the north, near the coast. When I was younger. When the world felt safer. This, however… must be a fiorin.”

“You mean a magical creature?” he asks.

I nod.

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