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“Drink this,” she said, tipping a vial into his mouth. It burned on the way down and he felt his body go numb and light as a feather. Whatever was in that vial knocked him out entirely.
The second time he woke, he blinked and turned toward the other captives. They looked terrified and shivered in their wet clothes. He looked down to find his own body had been covered with a blanket. He didn’t feel cold. He actually felt quite hot, feverish even.
“What’s your name?” a man asked him. He didn’t feel like talking, let alone to one of the Coyotes. The man tapped his shoulder roughly with his foot. “I asked you a question, boy.”
“Eli,” he croaked.
“Eli,” the man repeated. He donned a smug grin. “You got what you deserved. Your type had it coming.”
“My type?”
“We know the things you’ve done. Stealing and killing with no consequences. Well, they’re coming to you now.” He chuckled and bared his teeth.
Eli could’ve laughed, perhaps from blood loss. The whole situation was comical. “I’m not from Rysburg. I’m from Andus. I’m a prisoner…was a prisoner.”
Now he had no idea what he was.
He pulled up the sleeve of his shirt and his metal shackle glistened in the sun.
The Coyote studied him for a moment. Eli didn’t catch what he said next. Fatigue overwhelmed him and he closed his eyes and fell back asleep.
When Eli woke in the middle of the night, his surroundings had changed. They were in an open meadow now, and the other refugees were nowhere to be found. He was alone with the Coyotes. He felt abandoned, and an ache tugged at his chest.
This all felt like a sick joke. Every time he thought things couldn’t get worse, they did.
Eli groaned as a healer replaced the bandage on his side. He nearly vomited when he saw the blood oozing from his wound. He was lucky the sword hadn’t damaged any organs, but it was deep, and he felt the pain radiating every time he moved. So he lay still.
She checked his ankle, pushing it in different directions and stretching it. The more she moved it around, the less it hurt. Probably just a sprain.
Part of him wished he were dead. He’d seen enough of this world to know he didn’t want to see any more of it. He wished his body would succumb to the pain, to the injuries of the past few months. His body had withstood more trauma than most people experienced in a lifetime. But it kept on persevering, and he was forced to mentally persevere with it.
The healer gave him a concoction to drink. It was a concoction he’d grown familiar with. As he downed the vile liquid, he knew sleep would settle upon him in just a few minutes.
“What happened to the others?” he asked her, thinking about the shivering bodies that had sat next to him in the forest. He hadn’t recognized any of them, but found it odd that they were now missing.
Her eyebrows scrunched together, and she patted his shoulder tenderly.
“They’re gone now.”
