I stay on my knees, turning over what I just witnessed. The way he touched her hand. How his voice changed when he spoke to her. He was gentle, kind, the complete opposite to how he speaks to me.
“You can get up.” The woman’s soft voice breaks through my thoughts, and I look up. She’s standing in the spot Cairn vacated, unfolding a bundle of clothes.
“Come. Dress.”
I rise slowly, while she shakes out the tunic and pants and holds them out to me. I hesitate before reaching for them. She smiles.
“Take your time. That thing can’t be comfortable.” She nods toward the tunic I’m wearing. “Put these on. You’ll feel a little better wearing them.”
Once I’ve taken them from her, she turns away, giving me privacy to change.
The small kindness undoes something in me. My throat tightens, and I have to press the ball of my palm against my eyes and breathe through the ache until it passes.
What have I become that something as simple as this makes me want to cry? What has he turned me into?
I swallow hard. It doesn’t help, so I focus on changing instead, pulling the clean clothes over my head. The tunic falls past my hips. The pants are loose at the waist. But I’m covered from head to toe. I’m wearing clothes instead of that humiliating rag that left everything exposed.
But my relief is short-lived when she next speaks.
“Are you dressed?” She turns without waiting for my answer, her gaze sweeping over me, pausing on my bare feet. She tuts. “Thankfully, the ground is dry, but we’ll need to do something about that. Come.” She moves toward the entrance.
My entire body freezes up.
Outside. She wants me to go outside.
“No. I can’t … I can’t go out there again.” Not after yesterday with all those eyes following me, the hatred in their gazes.
She turns back to look at me. “Follow me.” Her voice is firm.
“You don’t understand. Yesterday?—”
“I know.” She pushes through the entrance without waiting for me.
I stand there, frozen. Every instinct screams at me to stay here, to hide, and never set foot outside this shelter again. What will happen if I refuse? What will Cairn do if he comes back and finds out I disobeyed?
I force my feet to move, and follow her outside, bracing myself. But she doesn’t take me toward the center of the camp. She walks a different way, and we don’t pass anyone.
The further we walk, the quieter it gets and my heartbeat starts to slow. After a few minutes, she stops in front of a shelter and pulls open the entrance.
“Inside.”
I do as she says. The interior is dim, and it takes a second for my eyes to adjust to the soft glow. There’s a pallet of furs against one wall, and on it a fae male is lying on his back. I back away,my mind racing through all the reasons she could have brought me here. None of them good.
“There’s no need to run.” Serath’s hand touches my back, slowing my backward motion. “This is Caelum.”
I focus on the male. His chest rises and falls, and his eyes stare upward. But there doesn’t seem to be any awareness there, no sign that he knows anyone is here. Serath moves past me and kneels beside the pallet, brushing the hair back from his forehead, the gesture so gentle it makes my heart ache.
“Cairn comes to see him every day.” Her voice is soft. “Come. Sit with him.”
“Why?”
“Because he needs company.”
She pats his cheek, then rises and moves back toward the entrance.
“Wait ... where are you going?”
“I’ll come back soon.” And then she’s gone, and I’m alone.
