28
It’s another small quiet town, much like the one we stopped at on the way to Wendil. Another dirt road, more wooden houses and the strong smell of smoke working its way back into my body. I resist the urge to pull my cloth back over my nose, if only so we don’t draw anymore attention to ourselves.
Cole directs me towards a tavern and I start to walk over to ask the worker for a room, when he grabs my hand and pulls me in a different direction. “Let’s eat first.”
I take my hand back but follow along, suddenly all too aware of the growing knot of hunger in my stomach.
This tavern is slightly nicer than the last one we were at a couple of days ago.
It’s completely made from wood, with chairs and tables lining the floors and a bar running along the back wall.
There’s more warm light filling this room, making the space feel cosier than the last tavern.
Yet still not where I would prefer to be.
We find a table in the back corner of the room and sit across from each other. I glance to the side and look at the people around us.
There’s men playing cards, eating and drinking and ahead of me, there’s men sitting along the bar. I only see a few women amongst them but they all look like they’re hired company. I feel a twinge of sadness run through me and guilt builds in my stomach.
Cole senses the change in my emotions and follows my eyesight, letting out a sigh.
“I sometimes wish we could change all this.” He says as he waves a lazy hand around us. “Xander and I have spent hours discussing it but it’s not easy.”
“You have no idea.” I say through gritted teeth. This could have been my life, this could even be Abigail’s life. The voice in the prophecy chamber only ever said that she’s alive, what if this is what her life has come to?
I shove that thought away, out of my mind where it belongs. That won’t be true. This isn’t Abigail’s life.
Cole looks at me and waits for me to explain.
“I tried to free some, long ago, when I got my first pay cheque from the jobs I had done with the Agency. I was very young and naive. I gave them my money to get them out of towns like this. But I didn’t show them other ways, I tried to tell them but they’d grown up in places like this.
This is all they knew and in a lot of cases, their owners were abusing them, they were scared. So they blew it all on booze and jewels and I had made no difference.”
Cole looks at me like he can’t believe what I’m saying, like even though he knew I wasn’t a monster, he didn’t realise I’d go this far in the opposite direction. That I’d care enough to try and save these women who we know too well, have a terrible fate ahead of them.
Though I failed to mention that before I had given the women the money, I had been searching for answers about whether Abigail had been picked up by the monsters that led these women down this path.
That was before I had to push her away into the deepest parts of my memory.
I had found no answers and got punished for even trying once Erix found out. It was useless so I gave up.
“The difference was made when you tried.” Is all Cole says and I could have sworn he was referring to me rather than the women I had tried to save.
I look into his eyes for a few moments before we’re interrupted by a massive bang by the front entrance.
I palm my dagger as I look across to see what happened.
The door is laying flat on the wooden floor, like it’s just been sprung off its hinges.
There’s a group of men in front of the entrance, swords in hand, dressed in maroon.
I recognise them immediately and whisper to Cole without taking my eyes off them.
“Hidale.”