Aloisia glanced over her shoulder, not wanting to take her eyes off this man for too long.
“Why are you waiting?” Tristan called back. “Run!”
“He was going to kill you.”
“Hence the running. Come on!”
“I want to know why. And, if he were going to kill you, who else has suffered at his hands? I am not about to let a murderer escape justice.” Fury burned within her as her thoughts turned to Fynn, wrongly accused of such crimes whilst a criminal hid under their noses, his crimes unknown.
“I am no murderer, girl,” the man snarled.
“Not how it looks from here.”
Tristan trailed back to Aloisia. “We’re really not running?”
“I have killed no one.” The man cradled his wounded wrist to his chest.
“You would have, though. You’d have killed him if I hadn’t stopped you.”
“And yet, here we stand,” Tristan said, “still talking to him.”
The man cast his gaze downwards. Shame flitted over his features.
Aloisia pulled her bowstring taut, keeping the arrow trained on his heart. “For what reason, murderer, would you have killed him?”
“Like I said, there are cruel gods who govern this forest.” He stepped forward, drawing his shoulders taller. “They need appeasing.”
“Is that your justification?”
“Better his life than mine.”
“Charming,” Tristan muttered.
“I am no murderer. It disgraces me I would have even considered killing him. I have killed no one.” He folded back the right sleeve of his jerkin, revealing an intricate tattoo – winding in swirling knots – just below his wrist. Close to where the arrow now protruded. “I am a shaman, a healer. I wouldn’t, ordinarily, harm anyone.”
A shaman? Aloisia knew the word. She also knew shamans had not existed in Teneria for centuries. Nor had the magic they practised.
“Then how do you appease these gods, if not by sacrificing others?” she asked.
“There are plenty of animals in these woods, on a good day.”
“Why not find them then? Rather than killing him?”
“I have tried. The gods are restless. They demand more. What I provide does not satisfy them.”
“Why not leave then? There are plenty of other places to call home. Places these gods do not rule.” She supposed, at least. She hadn’t the faintest idea what gods he spoke of.
The shaman breathed a laugh. “It would be nice to think so. To believe they could not roam beyond these woods. But they marched southwards, moments ago. Perhaps they shall leave me in peace for a short while. However, I do not like to take chances.”
Aloisia stilled. He couldn’t mean…? “Southwards? You can see them, these gods?”
“Of course. All gods are embodied in something.”
Tristan scoffed.
“These cruel gods… are they embodied by shadow monsters?” she asked.
“Ah.” The man grinned. “You saw them.”
