A soft knock interrupted the thought, and the door creaked open just a hair. “Haldis?” came a soft, disembodied voice from behind it.
“Come,” the woman beckoned, still fixed on her work.
A petite woman with thick auburn hair, soft features, and eyes like a clear morning sky stepped into the room. She wore a white linen blouse with a dark blue overskirt and a black belt. Garren found himself thinking how perfectly ordinary she was. Yet, he instantly lost the thought as her subtle, lyrical voice rang out again. “You’re awake?” she said, cautiously coming to his bedside.
“Ah, yes,” Haldis cut in, bringing whatever salve she had just made with her as she joined them. “Oriana is the one that found you in the field and brought you here.” Her face fell into a frown momentarily as her eyes darted to the young woman so quickly he almost didn’t catch it. “Oh my! I just realized we don’t know your name.”
“Garren,” his voice came out gruffer than intended, hoarse from disuse.
“Well, Garren, it’s very nice to officially make your acquaintance. You gave us quite a scare for a while. We weren’t sure you would ever wake. But yesterday, your wound made exceptional progress. If I didn’t know better, I would say the Gods looked kindly on you.” Haldis dipped two fingers into the paste she had just prepared and rubbed it onto Garren’s side. “Quite extraordinary.”
“Thank you,” Garren interrupted, turning to look at Oriana. “For bringing me here.” He took a moment to assess her stature. How had this girl brought him here? She looked to weigh about as much as his right thigh. She couldn’t be any taller than his shoulder.
She smiled meekly in response, looking down at her interlaced fingers held tightly in front of her.
“Lucky she found you when she did.” Haldis began as if she had never stopped talking. “If you had still been in the wood once the full moon rose…well you would have been lost forever, merely a whisper among that dreadful place. How did you make it through the forest?”
Garren observed as Oriana furrowed her brows ever so slightly at Haldis’s words. He shifted his focus back to the older woman to see her weary shoulders shrug upward at her reaction, which only seemed to make Oriana frown further.
“I honestly don’t remember.” He could remember bits and pieces, but it felt fuzzy in his mind, and his head hurt trying to bring it back into focus.
A silence fell between them at his words before Haldis said, “I’ve a few books I need to look through downstairs. Don’t go anywhere.”
He only nodded in response as she slowly took her leave.
Another, far more awkward silence filled the room as Garren glanced at the auburn-haired woman, narrowing his eyes at her twig-like arms.
Oriana’s voice was gentle–almost harmonic–when she finally spoke. “I’m glad to see you’re awake and faring well after your injury. What sort of blade cut you? Your wound was full of a gruesome black poison.”
He looked away from her, furrowing his brow in contemplation. “It was not a blade,” he murmured.
It was rare for a demon to succeed in injuring Garren. In fact, he could only recall two instances beforehand. It wasn’t that he couldn’t be hurt or sliced; it just took a lot of force to do so. Neither of those wounds had carried a poison or venom, and none had knocked him down this hard. But this demon had been far different than any he had faced before. Each one he came across seemed more menacing than the last. They were getting stronger.
“Then what cut you?” Oriana questioned. Her face had grown somber and her eyes intense, almost glowing with curiosity.
“A monster,” Garren said, watching as an indiscernible flash of emotion passed across Oriana’s face.
She opened her mouth to speak but was cut off as Haldis walked back into the room, setting a book onto the table. “You need your rest if that wound is to continue its healing. Come, Oriana, let's leave him be. We’ll come back with your supper in a few hours.”
He watched as Haldis shooed Oriana out of the room, shutting the door behind them.
Alone, Garren stood up, his head pounding for a few moments from the sudden rush of blood. His side pulled tightly where the newly healed skin had created an angry, puckered scar. That’s different, he thought.
Garren sighed solemnly, closing his eyes and rolling his shoulders back, stretching the tightened muscles. How had he been out for two days? Nothing had ever kept him down that long–or at all, now that he really thought about it. He raked a hand through his hair in consternation. Every wound a demon had inflicted upon him had healed within minutes, never a few days or even a few hours. It was unsettling. And the fact that he had stumbled around that forest for almost two days unawares and then been comatose for another two days was more than unsettling. It was downright terrifying. What did it mean?
Had it been the forest that had somehow slowed down his healing, making the wound worse than it actually was. He understood why Haldis had called it cursed, something about it had felt unnatural, but he couldn’t quite place his finger on why. There was no place in Svakland that even compared.
He touched the swollen skin on his side and wrinkled his brows as the unease continued to sweep its way over him. He searched the small room for his sword, which was leaning up against the far wall. Walking over to it, he snatched the blade from its resting place before releasing it from its sheath and slashing it against his palm. Red blood welled, but the wound healed within seconds as if it had never been there.
The young woman said the wound was poisoned, which undoubtedly hadn’t helped, but the uneasy feeling in his gut lingered, telling him that the forest had done something to him. In its depths, secrets lay hidden, and he would uncover each and every one of them.
10
Oriana
2nd day of the Eleventh Month, 1774
Oriana stood outside Garren’s door, a bowl of stew in her hand. She’d told Haldis that she’d bring him his supper, eager to question him more about the monster he had spoken of. The demon–that’s what he had called it when she found him in the forest. But that couldn’t be. There weren’t any other demons, only her. And if more dark creatures were roaming around this world, then that would mean…she pushed away the thought forming in her mind. No, it can’t be that . More likely they truly were monstrous beasts that had somehow evolved in the centuries that she had sequestered herself to this small section of the continent.
