Chapter 57
Thealina
Retracing steps through Eklin was hard, and longer, than I thought, but I made it to the healer’s hut mostly unscathed.
My grazed palms and bloody gash on my shin itches and throbs.
Scraping the shinbone as you topple over a fallen tree is not fun.
I bet Rafe could give me a fun fact on shins if I asked.
I wonder what he’s doing right now, if by each day he’s a little less sad. Little less angry.
Is Sam taking care of him like I hope.
My snicker is audible. He doesn’t need Sam to take care of him, he has a wife to do that.
I shake the thought of husband and wife from my head, stretching my legs in front of me as I sit on the wooden stairs to the hut, waiting for the healer to come home.
Tes, I’m sure her name was.
Judging by the sun’s low position and from where it was when I arrived, I’ve been waiting five-ish hours.
I refuse to let my hope dwindle as more minutes pass me by.
She’ll come home soon, I’m sure of it. Dinner is the most important meal of the day right.
She wouldn’t miss it, I’m certain. Because who misses dinner.
Not me, I think, as I nibble on dry oat crackers. Not a good meal to eat when my waterskin is only half full.
My butt tingles, numbness spreads through muscles, and my skin becomes shivered as the last beams of sun break away for dusk.
Dusk soon becomes twilight, and twilight soon becomes night, where those eerie owl hoots and rustling bushes come back to haunt me.
I shift to the corner of the decking, the wood shielding me from the monsters that lurk in the darkness.
The healer never came.