Listening to her chatter, Raim let his body relax in the warmth of this place. Even the throbbing in his head had quieted down somewhat. He’d stay here for a few days, he decided. The morsels of Olyena’s positive emotions should sustain him for a little while, at least until his injuries had healed to the point that his vision returned and the physical pain receded.
Taking off his boots, he stretched out on the bed, welcoming the chance to rest at last.
Chapter 7
RAIM KICKED HIS FOOT, tossing the damn chicken off his leg. Judging by the pinkish haze behind his closed eyelid, it must be morning already. Whatever ointment Olyena put on his face last night had crusted hard overnight, making his skin itch. He felt that scratching at it would make it worse, though.
The past two days had been spent mostly lying in bed in Olyena’s home. By now, he knew this was indeed where she lived, alone save for the company of two annoying chickens. Unable to do much more than to lie in bed, Raim had been doing just that, diverting every smidgen of energy he managed to steal from Olyena into the healing of his physical body.
His eyes were still not functioning for him to visually inspect his surroundings, and he had been relying on his other senses to orientate himself.
A chicken jumped on his leg again, and he shoved it away.
“Hey!” he heard Olyena’s voice, still a bit gruff from sleep. “Be nice to Ryaba. She got us breakfast this morning.”
“The chicken?”
“Who else?” The noise of the woman moving through the small space reached him as she bustled about starting a fire and getting ready for the day. “Just about time, too. I haven’t had a thing from her for weeks. I’d started to think we should have chicken soup for dinner one day soon.”
“You still have the gold I gave you,” he reminded, sitting up and leaning with his back against the wall. His body protested with pain, but it was a dull ache now, one he could bare much easier. “Why wouldn’t you trade that for food? You said there was a village a day’s walk from here?”
She took her time to answer, energetically rattling with the dishes somewhere by the stove.
“So?” he insisted, wondering about the reason for her silence. “Is there a village?”
“Yes.” A hard note in her tone gave him notice. “Less than a day’s walk, actually.”
“There you go. All your food problems can be solved within hours.”
She didn’t reply, silently getting breakfast ready.
“You don’t want to go?” Raim asked, wishing more than ever that he could see what she was feeling.
This was by far the longest time he had ever spent in the company of a human. Having nothing but her voice to decipher her emotions by was proving extremely difficult.
“I will go,” she said softly. “Maybe. Once you get better.”
“Why wait?”
“Well, for one, I can’t leave you here all alone, can I?” she replied, somewhat abruptly. “You’re blind as a bat.”
Despite her tone, something new and warm flickered inside Raim’s chest. He knew he could count on Gremory to fight in his defence. However, no one had ever taken care of him before Olyena.
“I am sufficiently functional on my own,” he assured her. “Even blind.”
“All right.” There wasn’t much conviction in her voice.
He heard the noise of a bowl being placed on the stool next to him. Then, the now familiar, warm scent of her reached him as she sat on the edge of the bed.
Something flipped inside his stomach at her nearness—the feeling too unsettling to be enjoyable, yet too exciting to be unwelcome.
“Let me see how it is today,” she said softly, washing off the layer of whatever muddy goo she called ‘ointment’ that she had smeared all over his face last night. The stuff had dried into a hard crust since then. She soaked it with warm water, gently wiping it off as it turned softer.
The same putrid odour filled the air as it had when she first applied it.
“This thing is vile,” Raim complained, wondering once again why he allowed her to subject him to whatever ‘treatments’ she kept inventing.
Because fussing over him, oddly, created positive emotions in her, he reminded himself. It also brought her physically close enough for him to skim them.
“I’ve added a few things to my grandmother’s recipe,” she chatted, cleaning his face. “And I think I am onto something here. The swelling is all but gone now.”
Raim had no heart to tell her that being a demon, he would eventually heal no matter what. Had she rolled him in honey and chicken feathers or left him to soak in a mud puddle, all his injuries would eventually heal, one way or another—wholly and completely—regardless of her efforts or despite them.
Hearing how happy she sounded at the progress, though, he kept quiet.
“Would you look at this?” she exclaimed triumphantly.
“I would love to look,” he replied, more gruffly than he felt. “But I cannot, remember?”
“Just give me a minute.” She cleaned the remainder of the stinky stuff off his face, then rinsed the cloth and wiped around his right eye gently. “Can you try to open it, now?”
The healing skin itched, and he lifted his hand to his face to scratch at it.
“Don’t rub it,” she warned, quickly grabbing his hand. And he saw all her emotions at once, holding back from taking any.
She felt at ease around him right now, proud of the job she thought she’d done, hopeful . . . for him.
Slowly, he pried his eye open, looking forward to seeing her face again, much closer this time.
Her dark, expectant gaze greeted him. “And?” she asked, eagerly. “How does it feel?”
“I can see again.” He stared at the swirls of tantalizing emotions that curled around her lovely face. “Thank you, Olyena.” He skimmed them all, greedily, then immediately closed his eye again, lest she notice the blue light of their reflection in it.
Only then did he realize that this was the first time since he met her that he called her by her name.
“How are you feeling?” she repeated.
The worry in her tone prompted Raim to open his eye. He quite liked the sight of the light, colourful cloud framing her youthful face. The idea of anything marring it displeased him.
“Better. I’m definitely on the mend. Thanks to your skill and expertise.” The lie was definitely worth the effort. Her pale cheeks flushed the prettiest shade of pink, a warm tendril of orange brightening the kaleidoscope of her emotions.
“The forest spirits must be on your side. I’ve never seen anyone recover from wounds like yours before.” Shifting closer, she gently slid the tunic off his shoulder and started changing the dressing on his wound there, too.
As needless as Olyena’s ministrations were, Raim didn’t mind her fussing, enduring even the revolting smell of her potions. Watching her from under his lashes, he continued skimming every single positive emotion felt by her. Aware of the occasional light brush of her fingers over the bare skin of his chest or shoulder, he resisted taking any outright, not wanting to scare her with the chilling sensation again.
“Is the pain better yet?” she asked, not lifting her gaze to his.
“It is.” He wasn’t really paying much attention to the physical pain at the moment, busy filling himself with her emotions.
“Good. I’ll dress your shoulder again but will leave your face uncovered. Sometimes healing is better in the fresh air,” she talked animatedly as her hands continued their work. “Now that you can see again, I feel better about you being alone for a bit. I’ll leave you some soup for lunch and will go check some of my traps deeper in the woods today.”
Having finished her work on his wounds, she got up. He watched her move around the tight dark place inside what appeared to be a log cabin with a dirt floor. Two brown chickens scratched, near the stone stove in the corner.
Olyena brought over a clay plate and placed it on the stool by his side.
>
“I’m not hungry.” He shook his head at the sight of a fried egg.
“You keep saying that.” She shoved a crudely made wooden spoon into his hand. “I told you that to keep getting better you need to eat. Are you worried I won’t be able to provide for both of us?” She narrowed her eyes at him.
He resisted gliding his gaze down her figure under her stare, but even without a close examination, it was obvious that Olyena hadn’t eaten her fill for some time now. The long, wide skirt and the thick shawl she had tied over her shirt across her chest couldn’t hide how painfully thin she was.
“No, I am confident in your abilities,” he replied mechanically, unable to shake the unpleasant feeling growing inside him.
“Well, then, you eat when I tell you to eat.” She shoved the plate closer to him. “And leave it up to me to find the food. You paid me to take care of you, remember?”
He was paying her for a quiet place to heal and a chance to have her close enough to feed off her emotions while he was healing. As for the rest, Olyena somehow had taken it all upon herself on her own. Dressing his wounds and feeding him food was unnecessary for him, but obviously meant something to her.
The discovery that she had been sharing the food she could hardly spare, gave him a sour taste in his mouth. His insides suddenly felt as if filled with acid.
“Do you want me to come with you?” He tried to sound casual, not even looking at the fried egg. “To check on the traps?”
“Why? No, you need to rest.” She gestured at the bed. “I won’t be long.”
“Well, you have this then.” He thrust the plate with the egg her way. “If I’m staying in bed all day, I don’t need the energy this would provide.”
“You have to get better,” she protested stubbornly, even as her gaze flickered to the egg.
“I . . .” he drew in a lungful of air, making the sudden decision to come clean, right then and there. “I really don’t need to eat, Olyena.”
“What do you mean?” She cocked her head. “All men eat.”
“Men do, but not me.”
Silence hung in the room, following his words.
After a moment, her eyes opened wider. Curiosity, surprise, and a hint of the old mistrust filled her. But the sense of wonder that he had recognized in her before, eventually prevailed.
“Are the forest spirits really protecting you?” she asked finally. “Is that why you’re healing so well? Is it because you’re one of them?”
“Something like that.” It was best to let her believe in whatever made more sense to her.
“Is that truly so?” Sitting on the bed next to him, she stared at him openly. “You are a forest spirit? I’ve never met one of you before. My grandmother did, she told me herself. She saw a forest spirit in the woods one night.” Her gaze roaming along his face and body, Olyena lifted her hand to touch the edge of his jaw, then to stroke a strand of his hair that had fallen over his shoulder. “You look so . . . human, though. Grandmother spoke of hair like a mane of grass and leaves, skin coarse like a tree bark, arms long and knotted like oak branches . . .” She traced her fingers down his sleeve, wrapping her hand over his. “Your skin colour may be somewhat similar to that of a young oak’s bark, but these are a man’s hands.”
He kept his eye open, staring straight at her, as he feasted on her wonder and excitement. This time, he allowed her to see the light of their reflection as he skimmed them. With a soft cry, she leaned away from him.
“Your eye . . .” A dark flare of fear flashed inside her at the sight of the blue light in his eye.
“Not that human after all, is it?” He gave her a reassuring smile, not enjoying seeing Olyena afraid.
Thankfully, any trace of mistrust or fear in her disappeared quickly, replaced by hope.
“Did you come here to protect me?”
“Why aren’t you afraid of me?” he wondered out loud, puzzled by the reactions of this woman. She feared him when she thought him a man, yet seemed much more comfortable now that she had learned he was not.
“Should I be afraid?” She tilted her head. “Are you an evil spirit?”
“Most people don’t take the time to figure any of that out before attacking me in terror.”
“Most people,” she echoed, “are worse than any evil spirit could be.”
Chapter 8
OLYENA WENT TO CHECK her traps later that morning. Before she left, Raim insisted she tell him what chores needed to be done around the house. She mentioned an old oak tree that fell near her cabin over winter and said she was planning to chop some of it for wood.
After she was gone, he searched around her small, dark cabin, managing to locate an old axe. Shoo-ing at the chickens to make them stay at the back wall, he opened the front door and left the cramped space.
From the outside, the cabin appeared even smaller. Dark logs, with dried moss stuffed in between, were carved with symbols and letters in a language even he didn’t recognize. Strings with dried frogs and chicken feet hung from the rafters and the wooden shutters on the small window. On the gable above the door, Raim saw the head of a black goat, complete with horns and a long beard.
Made of dark, weathered logs and with those odd decorations, the cabin had an eerie, unwelcoming appearance—quite different from its cramped but cozy interior.
‘Maybe I do have that power.’ He recalled Olyena’s words from the day they first met.
The power to do bad things to others.
Raim had seen inside her. He had tasted her emotions. Nothing in this woman spoke of any energy from another world. He was confident she was just a regular human, like the rest of them.
Circling around the cabin, he examined its spooky décor. The dried bat wings, some odd stick figures dangling off strings, the goat head over the entrance—all had the obvious purpose to warn and intimidate.
He recalled the hostility he had glimpsed in Olyena when she spoke of humans, back when she thought him to be one, too. Instead of fighting the accusations of having the power of the black eye, she seemed to have embraced it, using it as her defence, as means to enforce her isolation from others.
Curiosity kept his thoughts on his hostess as he tramped through the undergrowth in search of the fallen oak she had mentioned.
He found it a few hundred paces away from the cabin. The trunk was rotten and hollowed from the inside, but thick. It would have taken at least two men to wrap their arms around it when it was a living tree.
Ripping his tunic off over his head, Raim tossed it aside and got to work.
“HOW IS YOUR SHOULDER?” Raim heard Olyena’s voice behind his back.
“Fine.” He straightened, turning around.
The sun had moved well towards the west by now. Despite the flimsy axe that threatened to snap in his grip, he had managed to cut a couple of short round logs from the trunk and had chopped them into smaller pieces that would fit into Olyena’s stove.
“What is that?” She pointed at the amulet around his neck. The teardrop soros stone glowed softly in the afternoon sun.
“My amulet.”
“It’s pretty,” she said, her attention moving to his bandages.
His shoulder ached more than before, fresh blood seeping through the cloth of the dressing. Absorbed in his work, he hadn’t paid much attention to the pain.
“I shouldn’t have told you about this tree.” Olyena shook her head. “You’ve re-opened your wounds.”
Something in her tone made him pause and examine her emotions more closely.
An entirely new, pinkish glow inside her lured him in. Then he spotted the matching blush on her pale cheeks as her gaze slid down his bare torso.
“It’ll be fine,” he insisted, his own voice sounding a bit husky to his ear. “I’m not human, remember?”
She lifted his shirt off the ground and held it out to him.
“How could I forget,” she muttered, then added a little louder, “Human or not, I can tell you’re still hurting from
your injuries.”
The ever-present agony of hunger, much stronger than any physical pain, brought him closer to her. She pressed her hand with his shirt into his chest, avoiding his gaze now.
“Get dressed.” Her voice was pleading. “It’s still too cold this time of the year for prancing half-naked in the woods.”
Making an effort not to snatch that tantalizing pinkish glow through the skin-to-skin contact of her hand on his chest, he rushed to skim it, barely able to wait until it slipped out of her.
Her interest in him, which clearly had a tint of sexual emotion for once, rushed over him with a shudder, coursing through his veins with intense pleasure and satisfaction.
“See?” She misunderstood. “You’re shivering already. Put this on.” She thrust his shirt into his hands then took a step back, away from him. “What’s your name?” she asked unexpectedly, watching him pull his shirt on over his head. “I’ve never asked.”
“Raim.” He wiped off the sweat that had beaded on his forehead from the wood-cutting.
“Raim? Definitely not from this world.” She grabbed the axe from the ground where he had tossed it. “Well, thank you for chopping all this wood. It will last me all the way until the summer, now. Come.” She turned to go back to the cabin. “Dinnertime is soon. I still have some dried mushrooms left from last fall. I’ll make some soup again.”
“No luck with the traps?” Only now did he notice that her hands were empty of any game.
“No, not today. I’ve reset some of them. I’ll go check again tomorrow.”
They walked in silence for a few paces.
For the first time in his life, Raim did not need to worry where his next meal would come from. Having Olyena at his side staved off the agony of starvation that plagued all of his kind.
The Last Unforgiven: Cursed Page 4