“Nathan… tell me the truth,” she said. “Please.”
She had nothing else to say to him. She didn’t want to beg, nor did she want to be a nuisance, but she thought she was entitled to an explanation. Not only had she followed Nathan all the way there, helping him search for his past, but she had also followed him through the night farther and farther from the only big town they had found.
Who knew what lurked in those woods? Who knew how much more they and their horses would last like this? Without a plan, they had little chance of finding what they wanted.
And without the truth, Freya couldn’t help him.
Nathan seemed to deflate under her hand, his shoulders sagging as if the only thing that was keeping him together was the speed of his horse and now he was fraying apart at the seams. Freya could hardly take seeing him like that. It pained her, but it also filled her with an uncertainty she hadn’t felt since he had woken up that day in her hut.
“I remember.”
That was all he said, his tone flat and emotionless. Nothing about him betrayed how he felt about it, and Freya didn’t know what to think either. She could only stand there and watch him, her mouth hanging open in shock.
There was so much she wanted to ask him. Had he remembered everything? Did he know who he was? What would happen now between them?
Did he have a family? Someone waiting for him back home?
A wife?
Freya dreaded the answer to that question and so she refrained from asking it. What she said instead was, “Everything?”
Slowly, Nathan nodded. His light brown strands fell into his eyes with the movement, and he pushed them back, revealing the frown between his brows. Freya saw him as if in slow motion, the world tilting around her, her vision tunneling.
She couldn’t afford to panic now. They had finally reached the point they had both been waiting for, for such a long time, and though Freya had been dreading it, she had never managed to be as selfish as to truly wish he would not remember.
He remembers everything now. This is what he wanted.
“Me name is James MacGregor,” he said.
He wasn’t her Nathan anymore; he was a stranger, a man she had never truly met.
She hoped that maybe the man she had known and the man standing in front of her were one and the same. Surely, not everything had changed. Surely, much of James was in Nathan, and so much of Nathan would be in James—or at least so she hoped. The thought of losing the man for whom she had come to care so deeply in the span of a single night was simply too much to bear and the moment it flashed through her mind, it cut her breath short and made her eyes sting with unshed tears.
“And who are ye, James MacGregor?” she forced herself to ask, the words barely audible as she spoke around the knot in her throat. “Who are ye, truly?”
“I am… someone who will be killed on sight if found in these lands,” said James. It wasn’t the kind of answer Freya wanted to hear. She wished he would have told her he was still the same man, that he would have reassured her he hadn’t changed, but instead, he had only managed to frighten her even more. “These are the lands of me enemies.”
“Ye have enemies?” was the only thing Freya could ask. Who was this James MacGregor? She had always known he had had a violent past, what with all the scars on his body, but she had never expected he would have so many enemies. If those were their lands, as he had told her, then that could only mean the entire clan that ruled the area was against him.
Were those men that had followed them part of that clan, she wondered? Was that why they had come after him?
And if that was the case, did it mean that they were still searching for him, even in that moment? What had he done to them to provide such a reaction?
“Aye,” was all James said before he took the reins of the two horses and walked past the first line of trees, towards the direction where Freya could hear rushing water. Reluctant to stay near the path on her own, she followed him through the woods, stepping over large, twisting roots and rocks, her feet sinking in muddy patches here and there.
The entire time, neither of them spoke. Freya had too much and too little to say all at once.
Their rest was brief; just enough for the horses to recuperate from the grueling ride and enough for Freya and James to have some water and a bite to eat from their reserves—some cheese and dried meat, along with an apple each. They ate in silence, with James reluctant to speak about his past or his identity to Freya.
More than anything, it was this reluctance which scared her. What was there in his past that he had to hide from her? Was it a woman? Was it a child, a family? Or was it something more sinister, like a crime?
No, that couldn’t be it, she thought. His gentleness wasn’t a result of the loss of his memories. No matter who he had been, no matter who he was now, he wasn’t a violent man. He was capable of violence, that much was certain; Freya had seen him kill a man with his bare hands not so long ago. And yet, she knew it was only because he had no other choice. The man before her was not someone who would kill just because he enjoyed it.
His manners and his clothes, even tattered as they were, didn’t speak of a thief either. Whoever James was, he was not a criminal.
So, what was it that he was hiding from her?
Whatever it was, perhaps he would tell her once they were not in danger anymore, she thought. All this time, he seemed ill at ease, stiff and always looking behind his shoulder. He could not truly rest, nor could he have a conversation with her about all this while they were trying to flee the enemy territory. Freya simplyhad to be patient, she told herself. She simply had to trust that he would soon reveal everything to her.
