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Once we reached our destination, he gently put me down and I ran over to my pack, legs working better now. I opened it and nudged the items around until I saw the spine of the book. I touched it and thumbed the edges of the pages, luckily able to confirm they were still dry. Elias was too busy inspecting his own pack to notice what I was doing. He pulled out what looked like long pieces of cloth and I realized they were makeshift bandages, ripped from one of his items of clothing.

“Sit,” he ordered. I complied, happy to get a few more moments of rest for my aching body. I sat there as he gently wrapped my arms from wrists to shoulders, protecting the open wounds and stopping them from bleeding. Luckily my legs were fine, as my high-quality leather pants protected them. I would thank my uncle for the pants again later.

When he finished and I assured him I was fine, Elias said we should go a little deeper into the forest then make a fire to warm up. The thought of a wolf lurking in the woods spooked me, but I continued to tell myself that it was all in my head, and obliged.

I had noticed that when Elias spent the last mile carrying me, his body radiated heat. Somehow, I knew he wasn’t planning on makinga fire for himself, but for me. I couldn’t keep from shivering, I was so cold.

We put our dry boots on and walked a little ways into the woods, the rest of our clothes wet and uncomfortable. When we finally found a good spot to make camp, Elias made the fire. “You’ll warm up faster if you get out of your wet clothes,” he told me. We both carried a set or two of spare clothes in our packs.

“You too,” I told him. He nodded. “I’ll get dressed over here,” I said, pointing to a few large bushes, “and you can get dressed over there. No peeking.”

Elias chuckled slightly. “You have my word,” he assured me. I trusted his word, for whatever reason. Even though I barely knew him.

I pulled a pair of spare trousers, stockings, and a tunic from my pack and made my way to my designated changing area. As I began to pull my sticky clothes off, I couldn’t help but wonder if my trust in him was valid. Wonder if he was looking towards me. Most men would. I peered over the side of the bush and saw him as he tossed his wet vest and shirt aside. I was about to quickly glance away, now feeling guilty that I was the one who peeked, when I noticed the scars on his back.

His back was a mess of old, healed wounds – everything from long, deep cuts to what looked like burns. I nearly gasped, but forced myself to pull my attention away from him. It looked like he had been to war and back, or was victim of some sort of torture, or part of a fighting ring or something. Thoughts swam in my head of what Elias could have been through during his life.

I finished dressing and unraveled my hair from its messy braid, knowing it would dry faster this way. “I’m finished,” I shouted in his direction.

“Me too,” I heard him reply. I stepped out of the bushes as he beganto pull some food from his pack. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

“I think I may have worked up an appetite after all that,” I confirmed with a laugh.

Without a word, he tossed some of his food to me. Other than the apple he gave the other day, this was the first time he offered me any of his own, as we had each been eating from our own packs. Yet another act of kindness from him I wasn’t expecting.

While we sat and ate, and my body warmed up from the fire, I interrupted the silence. “I wanted to thank you again,” I began. “You saved my life.” Elias said nothing as the flames of the fire danced in his golden eyes. “You could have just let me go, let the river take me,” I continued when he didn’t reply. “You could have taken all of my money and my things and left. But you chose to save me.”

“We made a deal that I would get you to the Forest of Torment safely, and I am a man of my word.” His eyes remained fixed on the fire.

I watched him as he stared into the flames with no expression. “I think it’s more than that. You’re not the hardened criminal I thought you were. You’re a good person.”

“No,” Elias growled, standing up now and taking a few steps away. “You don’t know anything about me, or what I’ve done.” His face grew dark.

The way he abruptly shut me down took me off guard. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” I said.

Silence.

“I just meant, I think you’re kind,” I continued. “Perhaps a bit rugged, but…gentle.”

Elias’s eyes finally met with mine, and I saw hatred in them. Maybe not towards me, but at himself. “If you knew the things that I’ve done, you would not be saying such words,” he sputtered.

I thought back to the scars on his back and wondered if theycorrelated with what he was saying. But then I quickly felt offended. I was trying to compliment his character, and he was not taking to it kindly.

“What are you saying? That I should be afraid of you?” I demanded.

Elias’s eyes darkened. “Yes,” he growled. A shiver went down my spine.

I set the feeling aside, still angry. “And you’re telling me I shouldn’t trust you, even though you just saved my life? Because you think you’re a bad person? No. I don’t believe that.”

“You should,” he growled.

“Well I don’t,” I shouted back, standing now to match his energy. “What about last night? What about the stars, and the nightmare? If you’re such a bad person, why would you do those things for me?”

The words came out before I could stop them. The inner thoughts I had about what Elias had done for me were now out in the open. Would he deny them? Would he come up with an excuse as to why he was so kind to me? Perhaps it was pity and nothing more. If it was, I didn’t want to know. I suddenly wished I hadn’t said anything.

Elias hesitated, a mental battle clearly going on inside his mind. I waited. As he began to open his mouth to form his rebuttal, he was interrupted by the distant sound of a woman’s blood curdling scream.

CHAPTER NINE