Chapter 15
When Kathryn woke from her fitful sleep, it took her half a second to remember where she was. The light was bluish in the early morning, and the birds sounded so lovely that in that comment she thought she was back in her room at the castle listening to them sing outside her window. Until, of course, she felt the hard ground underneath her and remembered.
She immediately sat up and turned to check on Ren. The young bodyguard perspired heavily in his sleep, and every so often, a soft moan escaped his lips.
Kathryn tapped his shoulder, and his eyes flew open. He clenched his teeth to hold back a groan and sat up, brushing the fallen leaves off of his dirty and torn shirt. “How’d you sleep, Kat?” he began, his voice tight with pain.
She put a hand on his forehead. “You’re burning up.” Kathryn pulled a handkerchief out of her bag and poured water on it to lay it on his forehead.
Chance sat up with a yawn and stretched. “Good morning, lovebirds! You’re sure up early. I would have thought the former princess would want to sleep in a bit more.”
“We need to hurry up and get Ren to that healer,” Kathryn told him tightly, ignoring the barb.
He hurried over to also check Ren’s temperature, but Ren slapped him away. “Only Kat’s allowed to do that,” Ren told him firmly.
Chance rolled his eyes. “Right, my mistake. All right, I’ll get him to his horse and you pack up, Miss Kathryn.”
They were underway in minutes. Kathryn kept shooting worried glances at Ren, who was slumped in the saddle with glassy eyes and tightly pressed lips. Brenin, meanwhile, studiously looked away. Kathryn suspected he secretly couldn’t stand to see Ren in that state.
Every movement of Ren’s horse caused him pain, and he was surprised by how difficult it was to bear. After all, he’d only been wounded once before in his life, and he hadn’t expected a leg wound to hurt quite this much. The injury throbbed and the pain shot through his body.
He didn’t even hear Chance’s cheerful chatter as the other man commented on the weather, the singing birds, the cool breeze, and anything else he seemed to be able to think of. Without realizing it, Ren began to drift into a daze, and he didn’t hear Kathryn say his name repeatedly to try to stir him from his stupor.
Finally, Kathryn reached over and pulled his horse to a stop, snapping him back to reality. He shook his head to clear it and asked, “Why are we stopping?”
“Can’t you go and bring your healer here?” Brenin demanded of Chance. “He’s in bad shape.”
“I’m afraid Calix won’t come. If you show him an injured person, he’ll probably help you out. But if I just go there and ask him to help, he won’t.”
“He sounds like a really great fellow,” Ren muttered. “There’s nothing for it, princess. Don’t worry about me. A little scratch like this can’t kill me. I mean, it hurts like blazes, but it’s not as though pain will kill me.”
Before Kathryn could reply, a movement in the distance caught her eye. She quickly turned her head and saw a small figure about 30 yards away, simply standing still and looking at them.
Chance saw it too and exclaimed, “Hey, Cal!” He waved excitedly.
Kathryn shaded her eyes and could see that the figure was a boy of about 15 with unkempt dark hair and pale skin. He was very slight and short, as though he had lived most of his life malnourished. In his hands he held a basket full of herbs. When he saw Chance wave, he unhesitatingly turned his back on them and faded into the trees.
“Quite a friend you’ve got there,” Ren mumbled.
Then he started as Kathryn urged her horse into a gallop and dashed past him. “Wait, princess!”
Kathryn pulled her horse around, blocking the boy’s path. “Are you the healer?” she asked shortly.
He looked up at her. His dark eyes were suspicious, and his face was pale and drawn. There were purple circles under his eyes that betrayed many nights with poor sleep.
He said, “No.” He tried to walk around her, but Kathryn dismounted and caught his arm.
“My friend is hurt. Can you please-”
“N-no!” He shook her off, giving her a look that was more reproachful than angry. “Just l-leave me a-alone.”
The stutter made him seem even more vulnerable and young somehow. Kathryn suddenly felt strangely guilty for bothering him at all, and that feeling annoyed her. Ren’s life was at stake. “My friend needs your help,” she repeated firmly.
Chance trotted up, still waving happily. “Hey, Cal!” he called. He dismounted and grabbed the boy in a bear hug. “It’s good to see you! I’m sure you didn’t recognize me over there or you would have come to say hello, right?”
“No,” Cal wheezed, struggling.
Chance let him go and rumpled his hair. “You’ve grown! Maybe a whole inch since I saw you last. Come to think of it, that’s not very much, kid. Have you been eating properly?”
“I d-do not want you h-here,” Cal insisted. “G-go away!”
He turned to go, but caught a glimpse of Ren as he turned. His beady little eyes took in the bloody bandage, pain-twisted face, and glazed eyes, and he hesitated.
Chance saw the pause and said encouragingly, “That’s right, Cal; we need some help. We’ll get out of your hair after that. Promise!”
Brenin grumbled, “We’re wasting time. Is the little brat going to help, or not?”
Without a word, Cal walked off. Chance gave Kathryn a cheerful thumbs up. “That means we can follow him.”
A few minutes later, they reached a small, overgrown path that was barely visible and went down into a little valley. The horses couldn’t follow the narrow path, and Brenin tied them up and helped Ren down. “Come on, boy; it’s just a little further,” he said shortly.
Which was a lie, Kathryn determined after they had struggled along the path for nearly twenty minutes. Ren’s pain was increasing by the minute. Cal seemed quite confident of his way and chose his steps easily, but the path dropped off sharply on one side into the valley, and Kathryn, Ren, and Chance had to be careful not to fall.
Once, Kathryn stepped on a loose rock and nearly lost her balance. She had to reach out and grab a branch, which scraped and cut her hand. She winced in pain, but kept quiet.
They reached the bottom of the valley and the path branched out. Calix took the west path. After several more minutes, the path was completely gone, but Cal pushed resolutely through the trees and bushes.
They found themselves at a small cavern that was hardly more than a crack in the wall of the valley. After squeezing inside and spending a couple terrifying minutes struggling through the narrow, rocky path in complete darkness, the party reached the other side.
It took Kathryn a minute for her eyes to adjust. When they did, she said out loud, “It’s beautiful.”
The tiny clearing surrounded by dense trees and the wall of the valley had a brook running through it and several large, flowering willow trees. The leaves bent gently in the light breeze. Right in the middle of the clearing was a cottage surrounded by vines and herbs and flowers. It was a surprisingly cheerful, peaceful scene that seemed quite unsuited for the gloomy appearance of the young healer.
“You moved,” Chance said accusingly.
Calix glared at him over his shoulder. “Y-you two and th-the girl stay outside,” he snapped.
“Sure. But we haven’t had much to eat. Okay if I dig up a few potatoes and make a fire?” Chance questioned.
Calix didn’t answer. He went into the cottage. Ren hesitated to enter behind him. He could see how pale and worried Kathryn looked. “I’m going to be all right, princess,” he told her.
“Of course.” She smiled at him and took his hand. “Let him take care of you and don’t worry.”
“I’ll take care of her, and I won’t even try to woo her,” Chance promised cheerfully.
Ren rolled his eyes. “Like I’m worried about that. You’re really just a-”
“G-get in here!” Cal’s annoyed voice sounded from within the cottage.
“Right, coming!” Ren hurried in.
Kathryn sat down next to the brook and splashed water on her face, which was dirty and hot after her exertion. Chance sat next to her, while Brenin stood leaning against the cabin with a grumpy face and his arms folded across his chest. “You know, you’re really doing quite well,” Chance remarked. “I expected a former princess would be a bit more delicate. You know, ‘oh dear me, I’m so tired. I can’t go any further.’ That sort of business.”
Kathryn didn’t deign to reply.
When they heard a cry of pain from inside. Kathryn flinched and Brenin unconsciously clenched his fist.
They heard Calix’s frustrated voice. “Hold still! You’re moving too much. You’re going to lose more blood that way. Here, drink this and shut up.”
“He stopped stuttering,” Chance remarked. “He always does when he gets really into something.”
“I’ve never seen Ren in so much pain,” Kathryn muttered.
“I wouldn’t worry about him. If Calix can’t heal someone, then they’re already dead and decayed.” Chance leaned his head back to look up at the sky. “He’s quite a kid, really.”
“How did he become a healer?” Kathryn questioned.
“Hmmm…I like stories, but I feel like he might kill me if I tell you that one. I’ll just tell you how I met him. It was when I was running an…ahem…errand of sorts for Illian. I got wounded by a Viper dagger and poisoned.”
Chance’s eyes lit up the way they always did when he was getting into a story. “There I was, crawling along, with every vein in my body on fire. The poison was messing with my brain, and I could barely breathe. The world seemed to be spinning around me, and I finally started crying out for help, or for someone to kill me. I wasn’t particular which, at that point. You’d know if you’d ever been stabbed by a Viper.
“That was when Calix appeared. It was a moonlit night, and I found myself looking up at the palest face I had ever seen (Cal doesn’t get out much), and I cried out, ‘help me, please!’ And he just looked at me without an ounce of pity in those dark eyes, turned, and walked away. He really did! But a moment later, he returned. He put a cloth over my face that smelled funny, and I was unconscious a minute later.
“When I came to, the burning pain was gone, and I knew I’d been saved. I was lying in his little cottage staring up at the ceiling. He came in and said, ‘G-guess you’ll live.’” Chance’s stutter was a convincing imitation of the young boy’s. “He hated having me there, of course. He complained constantly. It was a bit odd, too; as you’ll see yourself if you spend any time here, he likes to play around making poisons. Tests them on rats, I guess. I was a bit worried I’d ended up with a crazy fellow as a roommate.
“But then someone from a nearby village came by begging Cal to help because there was a Tor epidemic. If you’ve never heard of that, it’s because you’ll only see it on the border near Tephraya,” Chance explained. “It’s a pretty serious illness, though you can only get it once, and most people die of it. I’ve never seen someone move so fast. Cal had all his herbs and medicines packed up and was gone before I had a chance to sit up. The outbreak was bad, and a couple of kids would have definitely died if not for him. He never said a word; just cared for everyone tirelessly, without eating or sleeping.
“Finally, he collapsed in a heap, burning up with fever. That’s when I realized he was pretty sick. I took care of him the best I could, using his medicines. I nursed him back to health. After that, he showed he was grateful by complaining only five or so times per day and cooking nice meals for me. I didn’t really want to leave; it was so nice and peaceful, but I knew I had to get back to my life eventually. So I did, and I left the kid by himself. That was a couple years ago.” Chance sighed. “I tried to get him to come with me. But he wasn’t interested, of course.”
“It’s quiet in there,” Kathryn said distractedly. “Do you suppose Ren is-”
Calix pushed the door open, brushing the back of his hand across his forehead to wipe away the perspiration. “The b-bolt is out,” he said tiredly. “H-he’s s-sleeping. He’ll be f-fine.” Kathryn breathed a sigh of relief. Brenin’s face didn’t change, but his eyes were suspiciously moist.
“Sleeping? You mean you knocked him out,” Chance said wryly. “Say, I’m too lazy to make dinner myself, Cal. Can you make us dinner for old time’s sake?”
Cal glared at him. “L-lazy bum,” he muttered. Then he looked at Kathryn. He seemed fascinated by how her face transformed into a radiant smile when she heard Ren would be all right.
She said quietly, “Thank you so much.”
He shrugged uncomfortably and ambled over to his garden. He started digging up potatoes. Kathryn knelt next to him and started helping, but he pushed away her hands and gave her another reproachful look.
Chance laughed and called, “He doesn’t like anyone touching his garden, Miss Kathryn. Except me, of course.”
“I can understand that. I’d like to help with something though, if I may.” Kathryn was determined to be of some use.
Cal gave a frustrated sigh and dropped the potatoes into her lap. He pointed at the cabin. “B-boil them over the f-fire.”
Kathryn complied. Chance clapped cheerfully. “Excellent, Miss Kathryn; keep up the good work!”
“Why don’t you h-help?” Cal demanded.
Chance shrugged. “I can’t cook,” he lied shamelessly.
Cal rolled his eyes. He glanced over at Kathryn, who kept shooting anxious looks at the cabin. “You can ch-check on him,” he invited begrudgingly.
“Thank you; I’ll be quick,” she promised, hastening to the door.
Cal watched her go in and then tapped Chance on the shoulder. “Is she his w-wife?” he questioned.
Chance shook his head. “Nope. It’s too bad, really. Don’t they make an adorable couple?”
Cal only grunted in response.
Meanwhile, Kathryn stood at the bedside of her friend and looked down at Ren, who was fast asleep. The lines of pain were gone from his face for the first time in weeks, and Cal had re-bandaged the wounded shoulder. She could see bruising and minor cuts all over his torso, and she felt a lump in her throat. “Ren,” she muttered. “Why are you such a fool?”
She sat next to the bed and touched his hand. He stirred and opened his eyes. “Kat?” he mumbled.
Kathryn didn’t trust herself to speak. She just held his hand in silence. He smiled up at her sleepily. “You’re beautiful,” he told her.
A short laugh escaped her. She was sweaty and dirty from her climb up the mountain, and her clothes were torn. But he looked like he was seeing an angel.
She softly leaned over him and kissed him on the forehead. “Rest,” she told him. “You earned it.”
Ren squeezed her hand. “I love you,” he whispered before closing his eyes.
Kathryn looked down at him for a long moment. And once his breathing was deep and even once again, she said quietly, “I know.”
When Kathryn emerged from the room, Cal had succeeded in forcing Chance to help make the meal. He seemed to feel there was no point in asking the grumpy old veteran to take part. Kathryn paid them back by serving them all, to Cal’s discomfort.
Chance said, “So, Miss Kathryn, I suppose we have to go in a few hours? ”
Kathryn was startled. “But Ren-” she started to say.
He shot her a look and continued, “I know you need him to protect you, but I really do think you should give him a bit more time to recover. Still, I understand; after all, he’s only a servant.” Kathryn saw the side glance he gave Calix and guessed the meaning behind his words.
Cal bristled. “H-he’s not going a-anywhere,” he insisted angrily. “H-he’s not w-well enough.”
“But Cal, we can’t presume upon your hospitality,” Chance said innocently. “And we have nowhere else to go, and Miss Kathryn needs Ren to protect her, so I’m afraid we’ll have to leave together.”
Brenin hid a smile.
“Y-you rat,” the boy growled. “Fine. You all c-can stay.”
Chance smirked and nodded appreciatively. “You’re such a good boy. Isn’t he, Miss Kathryn?”
“I’m just grateful for what you’ve done for Ren,” Kathryn told the boy. “I wish to repay you for it.”
Chance raised an eyebrow. “Do you actually have money though?” he questioned.
“I have this.” Kathryn reached into her bag and pulled out a verdant opal.
Cal’s eyes sparkled as he took it from her hand. It was nearly the size of his fist. “Th-this will sell for a lot.” Then he looked up with sudden suspicion. “H-how long are you g-going to stay here?”
“I want to remain until Ren is completely healed. I realize that is a great deal to ask, but I will try to prevent this fool from interfering with your quiet life,” Kathryn assured him as she gestured at Chance.
“Hey! Do you think so little of me? I’ll be as quiet as a mouse; you won’t even know I’m here,” Chance said mock-indignantly.
“B-but y-you could stay in one of the t-towns,” Cal protested.
“It is hard to explain, but we can’t do that. It would put Ren in danger at the moment,” Kathryn began.
Chance put in cheerfully, “She means she’s a dangerous criminal on the run, and this is the best place to hide, Cal.”
Cal rolled his eyes, unconvinced. But then he saw the look on her face and exclaimed, “Y-you’re on the r-run?”
“Yes,” Kathryn said quietly. “I take it you don’t hear much news here. I am the former Princess Kathryn who was falsely accused of murdering the Navinorian prince.”
Cal turned even paler, if that was possible. He retreated from her, shaking his head insistently. “No, no, n-no. Y-you can go now!”
“Oh come on, Cal! Don’t be silly,” Chance groaned. “No one can find you here. What’re you worried about?”
“Th-that man! E-everyone says there’s a d-demon who is ch-chasing you!”
Chance gripped him by the shoulders and said pleasantly, “He’s not all that scary, Cal. Besides, if you send them away now, do you really think they’ll survive?”
Calix hesitated. His eyes darted back and forth between Kathryn and Chance.
Kathryn said, “Chance, let me talk to him.”
Chance shrugged and released Calix, stepping back. Calix turned to Kathryn, looking wary.
Kathryn asked, “What should I call you?”
“C-Calix is fine,” he muttered.
“Calix. I swear to you that I would not be asking for this if I had anywhere else to go. I have no desire to put you in danger, especially after what you have done for Ren, but I am not guilty of what they accuse me of. I believe that you do care about people; even that obnoxious fellow over there,” gesturing to Chance, who rolled his eyes. “Ren and I will not be able to survive if we leave now. Ren will die trying to protect me. And I don’t want him to do that. Do you understand?”
Calix dropped his eyes from her unwavering gaze. “Y-you can stay f-for now,” he muttered.
“Thank you,” Kathryn said softly.
Subscribe to the blog to get notified when the next chapter goes live.
Loyalty Fallen Hub 