“Help me. Please.” I started at the weak voice. I’d almost forgotten about the bound girl on the cot.
“Shh,” I whispered. “You’re going to be okay.” Reaching the girl on the cot, I took out a small dagger and began cutting the cords binding her. “What’s your name?”
“Tilly.”
“I’ll get you out of here and then you can run home.”
She shook her head as tears seeped into her rusty red hair. “I can’t.” I helped her sit up on the bed but she continued to sob. “Take me with you. Please.”
“I can’t do that.” I was an assassin of a hidden sect that dwelled in the mountains. Very few knew of our existence in the realm. It was no place for a lost young girl like Tilly. “The best I can do is take you home.”
“No! Please!”
I frowned, looking down at her. “The place I live in is awful,” I told her. “Life is hard. I don’t walk around looking like this every day.” I gestured at my lavish silk gown. “You may even end up dying in that hellhole.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, falling to the ground and bowing low. “I will follow you anywhere as long as you get me out of here.”
“Get up, girl!” I scolded, pulling her up. “You will make the injury worse.”
I forced her to stand up but Tilly swayed on the spot. “They sold me,” she whispered, looking at me with tear-filled eyes. “If I go back, they will do it again.”
“Your family sold you?”
She nodded. “My mother died many years ago. It’s just my brother and I. Father loves him better than me. When our crops failed this year, he sold me for a sack of grains to feed my brother.” She halted, swallowing down the sobs. “That’s all I’m worth. A sack of barley.”
I was torn between slipping out of the brothel and helping her.
Tilly’s life was so pitiful, it was moving me. I was taken to Linmoor at the age of five. No one asked me if I wanted to go. One day, I just found myself there. My memories before that time were lost. While life had been terrible there, if my master hadn’t taken me in, I would probably be another body on the cot with my wrists slit open.
“Please, Miss. Take me with you.”
“All right.”
She looked stunned for a moment. She quickly wiped away the tears with the ends of her tattered sleeves and looked relieved for the first time since I saw her tied up in the cot.
“Stay still. I will remove the needles.”
She stood motionless before me. I was glad to see she was obedient. She would fit in with us at Linmoor perfectly. I retrieved the needles from the fat man’s body as well, making sure I left no trace of my presence. Before we exited the room, I pulled off the corpse’s outer robe and handed it to Tilly. “Wear this over your dress. It’ll keep you warm.”
The brothel was quieter now. It was mostly drunken men who filled the place. A few women remained among them but they were older and probably hadn’t found any takers for the night. We were able to slip out without any obstacles.
I inhaled the fresh air deeply, willing it to chase away the stench of the brothel from my nostrils. Tuto, my ghost owl, flew overhead and gave out a high-pitched cry.
“Come on,” I whispered, shivering.
The night had turned cold. Emerging on the empty market square, my gaze went to the arch bridge in the distance. Disappointment weighed heavy in my stomach. I wouldn’t see Cain again that night.
Regret washed over me. He was the first man to make my heart pound with an emotion that wasn’t fear, anger or revulsion.
A part of me wanted to blame the shivering girl at my side, but even without her presence, I wouldn’t have gone to meet Cain. There was no way he could know about my identity. Even though I gave him my real name, my existence was the same as the night mist. Come daylight, I would disappear without a trace.
With one last sigh, I looked toward the path leading out of town and walked away.
Tilly kept up with my pace despite the blood she’d lost. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of cruel labor she endured under her father. The girl even had a ghost of a smile as she held my hand tightly.
Soon, we reached the edge of the woods. I recognized Tuto’s low screeches and spotted her in the far distance. She was perched on the branch of a tree, her snowy white body glowing under a shaft of moonlight. Down below, my horse stood waiting, his reins tied to the trunk.
A pang went through my heart, surprising me. I was still missing Cain.
You don’t even know him, I told myself, leading Tilly to the horse.
“We will wait for dawn to break,” I said. “It’s still too dark to travel through the forest.”
“Okay.”
She made no fuss about being cold or hungry but I could see exhaustion taking over her. Going to the horse, I searched for rolls of bread and the bottle of wine I’d stored in a bag tied to the saddle.
“Eat this,” I said, handing her a roll.
“Thank you, Miss,” she said gratefully.
“Call me Daria.”
She smiled at me.
“How old are you, Tilly?”
“Twelve.”
She stared at me, waiting for me to ask more questions. “Go on. Eat it.”
She tore into the bread and began wolfing it down. The girl looked starved. I uncorked the wine bottle and drank deeply from it. “Take a sip,” I said, lowering the bottle to her lips. She looked too weak to be able to hold onto it with her injured arm.
She drank thirstily and I had to stop her. “You will pass out if you drink like that.”
“Sorry, Miss.”
“Go on. Eat the bread. There’s more.”
She looked excited at the prospect and stuffed the rest in her mouth. “Easy now,” I said with a chuckle. “You don’t want to die choking.”
She grinned but waited patiently until I gave her another roll. I picked out strips of dried meat from the bag and called Tuto. She swooped down, her white wings spread wide open and hopped onto the forest floor.
“There you go,” I said, kneeling down and throwing her pieces of meat. She hopped closer and began gobbling them up.
“Is the owl your pet?” asked Tilly.
“She is more of a familiar but I suppose you could call her a pet as well.” Lowering myself, I sat down and rested my back against a tree trunk. “Sit with me, Tilly. We’ll be warmer together.”
Tilly scooted close to me. After the second bread roll, her head lolled onto my shoulder and within minutes she was snoozing. Without someone to distract me, my thoughts went back to the stranger I’d met that evening.
He was the second handsome man to appear before me.
The first one was a dark-haired hero with a mischievous grin and purple eyes that burned with an intensity. He appeared in my dreams every night, plaguing me with a need I didn’t even know I had. My heart fluttered at the easy smile on his handsome face. I loved the hardness under my palms when I placed my hands on his muscular chest.
It was strange how Cain made me feel the same emotions he had.
The dreams started a month ago. I kept a lookout for him everywhere I went but he never appeared before me. I was a witch but not one with the gift of vision. My powers came from my blood and the magic that Elga, my master, taught me.
I kept expecting to see the man with dark midnight-blue hair but as I thought about it, my heart was just as happy to meet Cain. A deep sigh escaped me. There was no point in yearning for either man.
Linmoor was no place for a man. Along with Elga, every other dweller was a female.
I closed my eyes, hoping to meet the blue-haired man in my dreams.
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