“Your ankle looks twisted.” He carried the conversation when it became clear she couldn’t. “Do you hurt anywhere else? I, uh, didn’t check too much, because I didn’t think it’d be appropriate...” His words trailed off and his eyes looked to the fire. “And what I could see... It-” His hand fisted around the wood flute. “It was hard to tell what injuries might be new amongst all the scars.”
Dnara instinctively hugged herself. The scars, she knew, were numerous. Most were across her back, each line representing food she had snuck from the kitchen, times she took too long with her duties, being where she shouldn’t, or getting caught with a book. Those were the most numerous, her book scars, like pages in a story. Each one had been worth the price.
“I’ve never seen scars like those before,” he said. “Most keepers lash their slaves on the back. Never seen one go after the arms. Must be a right sick bastard, your keeper.”
Her arms? Dnara glanced down at them in confusion then began wiping away the mud coating her skin. Never had she been beaten on her arms, but there beyond the flaking dirt were hundreds of tiny scars, threaded together in a pattern matching the paths of her veins. White and jagged, like lightning.
The man tilted his head at her, stepping closer. She tugged down the sleeves of her dress, the fabric torn so badly on one arm it barely covered anything at all. He took a step back, hands and flute raised.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to pry. Just curious is all, I promise.” And once again, his smile seemed friendly, almost familiar.
As if she had seen it a thousand times, or some semblance of it, at least. A hundred-thousand times in pointless wishes for freedom made by the disillusioned mind of a child fueled by an imagination that had died years ago under a keeper’s lash. Dnara closed her eyes to this man’s smile, too. It would only be a matter of time before he sold her, or took her for himself.
The fire’s crackling refrain filled in the silent space left between them as she remained unresponsive to his words. Perhaps if she remained quiet, he would grow bored and leave her alone to the woods and the wolves. The damp, dirty linen curled under her fingers. He should have left her in the mud to die.
Live. The wind tussled her hair and whispered through the leaves. She had wanted to live.
“Are you hungry?”
Dnara opened her eyes to his easy smile. He remained at a distance, now crouching to be eye level with her hunched form. His flute had been moved to a latch on his belt, and instead his hand held out a sharpened branch with a indiscernible hunk of cooked meat on the end. Without warning, her stomach growled its reply.
He let out a laugh, though not mocking nor snide, and stretched the branch closer. “Go on, then. It’s briarbear. Caught and cooked it myself. Now, I know what you’re thinking – briarbears aren’t the best meat, and truth be told, I hate to kill the cute buggers myself, but, well... the elk have been scarce this summer, what with the encroaching blight and all.”
In that moment, with the meat held out close to her nose, she didn’t consider if the small woodland mammals called briarbears were cute or not. The smell of the meat intoxicated her, and a stomach that hadn’t eaten in two days left little to be argued in the man’s choice of game. With hands covered in thicket scratches, she took the branch and sank her teeth into the flesh.
“There we go,” the man said. “A peace offering, that.”
She didn’t know anything about peace, but the meat tasted even better than it smelled. Tender and greasy with an unexpected sweetness, it far outmatched any of the rare meat scraps pilfered off used plates in the scullery. Those has been dry, sour, overcooked carcasses of overpriced fowl or young cattle bought by the mages, not that she had a palate to judge such things. What food there had been for her had always been better than none at all.
Or, so she had thought. This meat was succulent. Grease dripped down her chin with each ravenous bite until her front teeth hit bone. Even then, they scraped and tore for every last morsel the briarbear’s sacrifice would give.
“Gods, you are hungry,” the man said on the cusp of an amused laugh. “I got more, or maybe some dried fish? Also snagged some winterberries from the briar I found you in. They’re on the tart side, but good.”
Mention of the briar brought Dnara back from her stupor, and she eyed the man suspiciously over the skewered remains. He was a man, no doubt, but not old like her keeper, even perhaps younger than the apprentices that had made fun of harassing her with no end. Older than she, most likely, with shaggy, dark brown hair, bright hazel eyes, and tanned skin that spoke of time spent in the forest or tilling the land. There was a subtle strength to him, and she wagered he could move quickly if needed. Powerful but lithe, like the elk he said had been run off by the blight.
Blight? Dnara’s lips parted, curiosity forgetting the collar not even a day off her neck. Before she could produce a sound, the man spoke again.
“I’m Athan, by the way. Athan Ateiros.”
Ateiros. It sounded like a southern name to her, but what did she really know about the northern hamlets outside the small world of the Thorngrove forest and the mage tower it surrounded? Not much, if she chose to be honest with herself.
“So...” Athan drew the word out then pointed from himself to her. “Athan...?”
He wanted a name, obviously. A lie
