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The question threatens to pour more heaping piles of guilt on him, but there’s something about him that makes me want to know everything.
A stream of air exits his nostrils. “We had a bunker for storms hidden behind the barn. When the creatures approached, my parents told my brothers, Levi and me to run for it. We dashed away to the deafening screams of my mother, my heart pounding in fear. When we rounded the barn, a gang of creatures waited for us. It was as if they knew we’d try to escape to the bunker.” A stray tear rolls down his cheek, and I want to wipe it away, but I’m mesmerized by his story. “Frank told us to run for the bunker. He’d fight them off. I didn’t want to leave him, but Chilon gripped my hand and pulled me away. He flung open the metal door, our chests heaving as we stared down into the pitch-black hole. That’s when I turned around.” His eyes squeeze shut as if he’s trying to block out the memory.
“You don’t have to tell me.” I lift my hand to his face. The pain, now radiating through me as intense heat, is almost too much for me to take. “I can feel it.”
His eyes flick open, their intense blue drilling into me. “You can feel my emotions?”
“I can.” I don’t understand what’s happening between the two of us, but the invisible string has morphed into an iron rope. “You watched Frank die.”
He swallows, and the lump in his throat bobs. “Yes. And I heard Chilon die. He forced me into the bunker and ordered me to lock it as the creatures attacked. For five days, Levi and I drowned in our misery in that earthen hole. Partly out of fear that the Miscretes were lurking above, and partly because I never wanted to come up to breathe fresh air my family would never breathe again.”
Watching my mother succumb to the sickness seems like nothing after hearing Bastian and Levi’s stories. They also fill my heart with fear. As the savior, I’m to lead the wilderness against the First City.
“I wanted to burn them to the ground when I heard they took Lyden to the Ringlet Forest. To make them pay for what they did to my family.” He holds me so close I think I might suffocate, but I don’t complain. “They were too much. We’re not ready to face the First City yet.”
“Then we prepare for Avren.” A hollow feeling tells me I’m not ready to face the city I once loved. Where Flynn wants to be a soldier. To think of him as an enemy is ludicrous. “First we free the wilderness from bondage, then we free them from fear.”
“We need to find the other part of the prophecy. Without the second savior, our hands are tied.” He leans down and kisses my forehead. “Good thing I’ve got a lot more work to do with you.”
My cheeks heat. “Good thing.”
About midday, Bastian follows a trail up a hillside littered with the bones of animals. Slashed into the bark of the trees are symbols that appear to be warnings to the casual travelers. Most depict darkness—skulls, weapons, and beheaded creatures. Tin plates hanging from tree branches clang together in the breeze.
“Are you sure this is safe?” I lift my head and try to take more of a sitting position in his arms. Everything about this place has me on edge. There’s energy in the air, but it’s colder than the dancing electricity I felt when Levi and I entered Mafekadi.
“There are other nasty creatures around here we’ll need to avoid, but you don’t have to worry about Ben. Evie’s known him for a long time.” He rounds a massive pile of bones, and we’re suddenly surrounded by cottages.
People mill around campfires, hang laundry, and weave baskets using reeds from a nearby stream. Everything seems like a typical village except for their unusual obsession with animal bones. That, and that everyone is staring at us.
“Act normal.” Bastian puts on a cheesy grin.
“Right. Having an enormous man carry me into a village where the people decorate with bones is a very normal occurrence for me.”
He sets me down, but I keep an arm around him to balance as he proclaims to those nearby, “We’re here to see Ben Finch.”
An older woman with wiry gray hair hobbles toward us. Her cane is carved from the largest bone I’ve ever seen. “Ben heals the Mastria, not outsiders.”
“Come closer.” Bastian takes my hand and holds it out to the woman. “Touch her and you will see the truth.”
My hand shakes as the woman approaches. She raises a skeptical bushy eyebrow before resting her palm on top of mine. Her eyes widen before she turns back to the rest of the onlookers. “She is a savior.”
The more they use the word, the more uncomfortable I become. I’m a dressmaker from Avren. My father was on the Council, but other than that, there’s nothing significant about me.
A man steps out from a cottage about halfway through the village. He’s dressed in a tunic and cotton pants, nothing signifying him as a healer. “Bring the girl to me.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ben ducks beneath the low threshold, followed by Bastian, who has me in his arms again. The first thing I notice about the cottage is the pungent, earthy smell of herbs and ointments. A low fire burns in the hearth, providing limited heat to the small space. Muffled daylight comes in through the windows, illuminating the shelf with glass containers of strange concoctions.
After Bastian sets me on the small bed, Ben comes over to embrace him. “Bastian Hale. It’s good to see you.”
“Sorry I haven’t visited.” Bastian pulls away. “Training members of an army is no simple task.” He furrows his brow as he lifts a bone from the table to inspect it. “The days grow near, Benny.”
Benny? He knows this man better than I thought he did.
“Miscrete attacks on the southern border are more numerous. My brothers and sisters in Cina say they can no longer protect all the civilians. The First City’s building their army again.” Ben is younger than I thought a healer would be—only a year or two older than Bastian. In Avren, the healers are older and wiser Citizens, capable of performing miracles of medicine. Except for healing the sickness that took my mother. “The Supes and Redeemed need to band together and stop fighting each other.” He crouches and lifts my leg, resting my ankle on his knee. “And what do we have here?”
Bastian lowers himself to our level and holds a hand out to me. “Ben Finch, meet Maribel Windsong, the newest member of the Kindred Few.”
