Chapter 7
1741 Words
I stormed straight into the tent. It wasn’t like I could knock on a tent anyway. I found Dozan crouching next to his father, who lay on a bedroll on the floor, looking pale and weak. He seemed much older than I would have expected. Dozan was feeding him soup and cringed when I burst in, nearly spilling the entire bowl onto his father’s chest.
He quickly set the soup down and would have scrambled backward if his father had not been in the way. He just cowered there on the floor, staring up at me in terror.
Had I been in any other mood, I might have felt sorry for him. I was, after all, the source of his terror. But I had no patience for that right now. I sighed sharply and said, “I’m not here to hurt you.”
He stopped shaking, but remained huddled on the floor. I noticed his burns were gone and he had a clean shirt on. A small pile of scorched material lay crumpled in the corner. Two large packs full of who knows what sat in another corner. Other than that and two bedrolls, the tent was pretty sparse.
“You brought this disease here,” I said, keeping my tone even, determined not to lose control this time.
“Wh-what?” Dozan blinked at me.
“You heard me.”
“We-we didn’t know. Honest. We thought we were outrunning it.”
“Outrunning it? You didn’t find it odd that you would show up in a healthy tribe, and by the time you left, it was full of sick people?”
He looked away and stared at the soup. “I didn’t want to believe it.”
“What happened to your father in that cave?”
“I don’t know.” He dragged a hand through his curls. “He barely speaks anymore. He’s like a hollow shell of what he used to be.”
I felt a twinge of sympathy and glanced at his father. A white, scraggly beard covered half his face, and dark circles smudged under his eyes. He turned his head then, fixing his dark, sunken eyes on me.
“Don’t blame the boy.” His voice was raspy, and I could tell it took a lot of effort to speak. “I should never have gone into that infernal cave.” His eyes drifted to a spot somewhere next to my head.
“What was in there?” I asked, needing to know.
His eyes snapped back to mine, fear lurking in their depths. “Evil.”
“What was evil?” I crouched down next to him. “What caused this?”
He doubled over into a coughing fit, then laid his head back down, exhausted by the effort. I looked to Dozan, hoping he might rouse the man for further answers, but he just shook his head. “He needs to rest.”
I growled with annoyance. This man knew something! “There’s nothing more you can tell me?”
“I’m sorry.” Dozan pulled a blanket over his father’s chest. “He never spoke about it.”
I sighed. There was nothing more I could do here. No point in terrorizing the poor guy any further. I stood and headed for the exit. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Sember,” he called.
I stopped and turned around.
“I’m really sorry about, you know, earlier.”
I met his apologetic gaze with indignation. “You should be.”
“Not that it excuses my actions but . . . I only do it to . . . escape. To forget”—his eyes flitted to his father—“all this.”
Unexpectedly, this struck a chord in me. I shook off the unwanted sympathy and turned to leave.
As I exited the tent, Siena and Remi had just reached the little clearing. Both of them looked apprehensive. My jaw tightened with irritation. No trust.
“Don’t worry,” I snapped. “Everyone is still alive and well.” I opened my hands wide in front of them. “No barbecue this time.” I stalked past them, not bothering to wait for a reply.
I decided to go to the large cabin that served as an orphanage. Nirrin was clearing toys off the floor when I entered.
“Sember!” She was clearly surprised to see me. I rarely came to find her. I was such a bad friend. “You look awful.”
I could always rely on Nirrin to say what she thought without mincing words or worrying about the other person’s feelings. She said things as she saw them, and I decided that I actually liked that about her. Sure, it stung sometimes, but you always knew where you stood. I think she was probably the only person left who didn’t tiptoe around me anymore.
“Bad day,” I said, plopping down on one of the small beds. She doubled over in a coughing fit, and I finally noticed the feverish sheen to her skin. “You’re not looking so great yourself. When did this start?”
“Not long.” She waved a dismissive hand in the air. “I’m fine.”
Sensing she didn’t want to talk about it, I changed the subject. “So how was your, uh, meeting with Dozan?” In light of Dozan’s gift, I was really curious how that went. Nirrin didn’t seem upset at all.
“Oh, he was so charming.” Her eyes twinkled. “And such a good kisser!”
“Oh yeah?” I pretended like I didn’t know, but Nirrin was right. He really was a good kisser. “What else did you guys do?”
“Ohh . . . you know . . . ” She smiled coyly. “This and that.”
This was the first time she’d ever not spilled every last detail, so I had a pretty good idea what she meant. “Did you like it?”
Her eyes darted around the room before she whispered, “I loved it.” Then she giggled and said, “Dozan is so much fun!”
Fun? Maybe that was my problem. I was pretty serious about my personal space. I debated whether I should tell Nirrin about the source of Dozan’s “charm.” I didn’t want to ruin the cheerful mood she was in, but if it was me, I’d definitely want to know.
“Nirrin, I recently found out that Dozan is Gifted,” I began.
“He sure is.” She almost swooned saying it.
“Wait, he told you?”
“Told me what?”
This was a little harder than I expected. “Um, Dozan has the gift of”—how was I supposed to describe it?—”seduction.”
She gave me a blank stare. “Come again?”
“Umm . . . okay. You know how my gift is fire and heat and all that destructive stuff?”
Nirrin nodded vigorously.
“Well, Dozan has the ability to . . . make you want him.”
Nirrin blinked for a moment, then her eyes lit with comprehension. “Really? Huh.” She sat on a nearby bed and seemed to think about this some more.
“You’re not mad at him?” I watched her, but she didn’t seem the slightest bit outraged. Had I overreacted?
Suddenly she grinned. “Well it makes sense! As soon as I touched him, I was lost. Like, in a good way. I forgot about everything except for how he made me feel. It was nice to forget about life for a while.”
“So, you don’t feel . . . violated?”
“Not at all. I had a good time. I don’t think we’re soul mates or anything, but I wouldn’t mind ‘meeting’ with him again,” she said with a wink.
I once thought I was pretty open-minded, but hearing this from Nirrin made me feel like a prude. Maybe I had overreacted in a big way. Or maybe we just had different views on intimacy. I was two years younger than she was. Maybe I would feel differently about it when I reached her age. It sounded like she and Dozan both used it to escape from something unpleasant. Which led me to wonder, what was Nirrin trying to forget? She always seemed so bubbly. It offset my tendency to brood. Maybe that was why we ended up friends.
“Nirrin, are you happy?” I asked her.
“Of course I am,” she said, a little too brightly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
I shrugged. “Just wondering.” I picked up a little rag doll and tossed it into the toy box. “Would you tell me if you weren’t?” It occurred to me that, as much as she talked, she rarely shared her actual feelings.
Her face sobered, strangely devoid of its usual playfulness. She regarded me, as if wondering whether I was trustworthy or not. “I think I would,” she said with a little smile. She busied herself by getting up and smoothing the bed, then said, “You know, no one’s ever asked me before.”
“That’s because I’ve been an awful friend.” I hung my head at the truth of the words.
She gave me a sidelong glance, a teasing glint returning to her eye. “Well I wasn’t going to be the one to say it, but . . . ”
I laughed and threw a pillow at her. “Thanks, Nirrin.”
“For what?”
“I feel less alone now.”
Her eyebrows flew up after my admission, and she strode over and hugged me. “Me too,” she said when she pulled away. “You have no idea.”
- Writer
