Page 3 of The Lost Guard's Healer

“Why? Because the poison is most potent when it’s hot?” The words are out before I can stop them, before I can work through something smarter to say. An angle to work. Maybe I should have played dumb.

She gives me a small smile that softens her features. “No. Because berrybush tea tastes best when hot.”

So that’s what this is? Some kind of tea? I will not fall for that.

We remain there for a long moment, staring each other down. Her enormous eyes are so blue and captivating, but they are just the allure. The illusion. I see the real, calculating, haughty woman within.

I decide to try to appeal to that version of her. If I can get her angry, I can get her off balance. That’s the way to play this. “I can’t imagine it tastes good at all when it smells like a homeless man’s bathwater.”

She scowls at me, growing red with anger, and then throws the mug across the room. It crashes against a wooden trunk and shatters.

“If I wanted you dead, you foolish brute, I wouldn’t have spent so long saving you.” Her words come out like hisses. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have. You don’t seem like you were worth the time.” She looks like she wants to strangle me, her hands clenched into tight fists as she glares at me. But she doesn’t take another step toward me. No—she turns away and storms out in a huff, muttering words that sound foreign to me.

I try to see beyond the falling tent flaps but can’t make out much beyond the sunlight. As I lay back on the straw bed, staring at the curved roof, I wonder what had angered her so much. I almost feel a little bad and have to wonder if she was genuinely hurt, or if it was some kind of act. I can’t be certain about anything right now.

I have to stick with the facts. I almost died, and now I’m here. My legs don’t work and I’m weak as hell.

Have they been slipping me that tea in my delirium? Is that what has made me so weak? Or would that genuinely have made me feel better?

I look around freely now, trying to see everything I can. The remains of the clay mug lay by the trunk. The tea has stained the hard earth. It’s then that I notice another stain on the other side of the trunk, and my heart quickens.

The dark patch of old, dried blood is clear to me. But whose blood was that? Mine? If I’ve been here as long as she says… my throat thickens with fear.

Within a bundle of cloths nearby, a large bone is jutting out. It looks like a human bone. It’s been picked clean and polished.

With a sickening drop of my stomach, I suddenly know where I am. I’ve been brought to the Wildlands. I must have been found by the Wildmen. That means it’s a wonder I haven’t been skinned and eaten yet.

The Wildmen are a mysterious nomadic people out in the wilderness, known to be uncivilized savages. And cannibals. That blue-eyed woman hadn’t seemed like a savage and had appeared somewhat intelligent. But that must be a ruse.

I’m glad I didn’t drink that tea. Who knows what it would’ve done to me?

I have to find a way to escape before they tear me apart and roast me over a fire.

Or worse.

Chapter two

Rourk

It’s not until I drift back into consciousness that I realize I’d fallen asleep. The pounding in my head has lessened, but the lack of movement in my legs is very disconcerting.

I don’t know how long I’ve been out for, but it feels like some time has passed. A shaft of white-hot sunlight is streaming through a gap in the hut flaps, which are softly billowing in the breeze. I can hear muted voices beyond the hut but can’t make out any of the words. Just indistinct chatter. And bird chirps, I think.

I should try to leave before that woman comes back, but it’s soon clear that my legs will not be supporting my weight any time soon. And I still feel a lingering fatigue in my bones.

They must have drugged me. The broken shards of the mug are no longer there, and the tea stain has dried up. The old blood stain is still there, as is the bone in the cloths.

I pause at the sight of a knife hilt on top of a small chest across the hut. A sheathed knife is there. Waiting for me.

A hidden weapon would do me just fine. I need to get back home and check on May. I need to know if she survived the attack on the city. She probably thinks I’m dead. Everyone must think I’m dead.

I sigh as I heave myself off the bedding and begin crawling on my belly, pulling myself along with my hands and elbows. My useless legs drag behind me. My left shoulder burns with pain, but I ignore it and keep going. I pass the remains of the fire in the center of the hut and maneuver myself around the large trunk. The dark stain has the metallic stench of old blood.

Gods, I hate how weak I am, and how heavy my head feels. I’ve never felt so useless inside my own body before.

But I’m getting closer to the knife.

The hut flaps fly open and the woman enters to find my arm reaching out, inches away from the sheathed knife on the chest. With a huff, she springs into action and kicks the knife away to send it falling out of view.

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