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The man whose warm hands were still pressed against my wound, that warm heat of him radiating over my body, was hovering over me. He looked half starved, with angular features that were made sharper by the chin length blonde hair that curled around his face, his brown eyes somehow both muddy and bright as he flashed a smile full of teeth that were impossibly white and straight.
He looked like so many of the Fae that I had hunted and killed for so long, except even with him so close I felt nothing from him. No tingle of warning, not even the faintest of buzzing as I had felt with Theadore. If anything I felt a warming that washed over everything, more like I had been placed too near a fire. It was only him and that ridiculous smile as warm as the light that danced over the roof of the wagon.
“Where am I?” The words creaked against a dry throat as I forced them out and he turned, the warmth leaving as his hands did.
“Here, drink,” he pressed a rough-hewn mug to my lips, cold water splashing into my mouth before I could even fully process that the water might be laced with something.
Although I doubted it, no one who went to the trouble to heal you would also drug you. Besides, I could still feel each branch of my magic, the tendrils of them as weak as I was, but still there. Barely.
Whatever wound I had received had nearly drained my magic completely.
“Where am I?” I asked again, the second the cup left my lips. Thankfully the words didn’t hurt to say that time.
“You’re safe, trust that. Although a thank you wouldn’t be amiss.” His smile stretched, the look jovial even though there was a darkness behind his eyes that time, a warning I was sure no one was foolish enough to disregard.
I would have, but I found myself saying the words anyway.
“Thank you,” that time the word was a croak turned into a gasp as he turned and I saw his arms. He wore no tunic, and no cape. He was dressed only in worn breeches and a sagging sweat-stained shirt that was rolled past his elbows.
Although his face was angular and looked half starved, his arms were corded with muscle, the flesh sun tanned and absolutely covered in tattoos of swirling gold. The lines glittered as though the ink that was used to pen them there was still drying, the spirals of ink catching the light as it swayed. I had seen these tattoos before, and I knew exactly who was fool enough to cover themselves with them.
Lightens.
I shifted as much as I dared, looking over the shelves until I saw the door at the back of the carriage where the large yellow sun had been painted on the door of the rickety old cart. A yellow and red sun, with a single curved branch in the center.
It was their sigil as much as the tattoos that covered each and every one of them.
“You’re safe friend, I told you to trust that,” his voice was still that endless calm, even though he had clearly caught sight of the way I had tensed, the way my heart was now racing.
I would have died from that wound if I had not been found, but to be found by them…
I had never been around any of them. But I knew enough, their devotion to the Goddess, the way they prayed and howled to the moon every night. The way they would send their women to bed traveling men for their seed ‘in name of the Goddess’. I was suddenly pressed with the urge to make sure I was still wearing my britches. By the cold and the feel of his hands against my flesh my shirt was most certainly gone. I shifted, thankful to at least feel the rough fabric against my ass.
My belt and blades, however, had been removed.
“Where are my blades?” That time I couldn’t stop the snarl. Didn’t even try.
“They are safe, as are you,” he said again, as though continually reminding me I was safe was going to make anything actually feel safe. He turned, his eyes lingering on me for a second before they shifted away, the sound of water being pressed and wrung mixing with the creak of the wagon.
“We have put them where all weapons of those who travel with us are stored, we don’t allow them with us, you see.” His voice was calm as he placed a cloth soaked in icy water over my wound.
“I am not traveling with you,” I tried to snarl, even as I winced against the chill and wet of the rough cloth. “You had no reason to take my weapons. I did not ask for this. Give me my blades and I’ll be on my way.”
I tried to shift my weight, to throw my legs over the side of whatever cot I was on and push him aside, find my blades and get out of there. Screw the Lightens and everything about them, I needed to get to the Queen. I wasn’t able to shift more than an inch before that pain lashed through everything again.
My scream of pain raked through the dank space, the horses whinny echoing in answer. A woman’s voice called from above my head, the words indiscriminable from the ringing pain that was rippling through my head.
“All is well, Lyani. I will call if I need.” Wood slid against wood, fabric was wrung through cold water and I winced as the rough cloth was placed over my wound again.
“You may not have asked for it,” he said as he wiped the fabric over my bare skin, the cloth somehow warm that time. “But without us you would have died. It is the Goddess who led you to us, it is by her will that you are still with us. It is by her divine fate that you have been saved.”
“I don’t need to be saved.” I cut him off, I didn’t want to hear more, especially with how his voice grew airy and awed as he stared at the ceiling. With my snap he looked down, that awed look he had been throwing at the sky turning serious.
“The hole in your gut says otherwise,” he wrung out the fabric again, the smell of blood spiking briefly. His brown eyes narrowed as though he was debating a question.
I already knew what it was.
I didn’t need him asking how that happened. I didn’t need him knowing anything about me. I was alive, I was awake. I could take care of myself. I didn’t need help, and certainly not from Lightens.
