“I trusted you,” she said.
The grimace on his face was real. Then it smoothed over into a grin, which was fake. He wiped the sweat-plastered hair away from his eyes. “Who told you to?”
She stared at him until he backed down, until he dropped his eyes and turned away from her hooded figure to stare at stray bricks in the alley instead.
“I trusted you,” Hellebore repeated. He could hear her teeth grit.
Quick as a fox.
He ran away in the middle of the night, as he was wont to do when trouble and pressures and failure mounted up into twenty tons of obligations that he could no longer face and no longer carry. I won’t be missed, he reassured himself, refusing to look at the small town that he was leaving behind. Hellebore’s still there. She’ll find a way. They’ll be alright.
There was no pit of uncertainty in his chest. There was no hint of hesitation in his mind. He refused to acknowledge those thoughts, those feelings, those unspoken cries and broken whispers of maybes. His legs moved across the uneven grounds, ignoring the black tar that streaked the rocks and the burn marks that plagued the trees, unwilling to look back at the city gates where rows of pikes held the shrunken heads of those who had crossed that man’s law.
One of those heads were fresh.
Fii knew its owner. The owner was a child.
His fists gripped the strap of his travelsack harshly, and his feet struck the ground harder. Failure happened. It pervaded. It defined. It burnt. He hadn’t meant to go there with a companion -- the child followed Fii of his own accord. I want to free my people, the child had said, and there was such conviction in his eyes that Fii would not say no. It’s going to be dangerous, Fii had warned, but done nothing more. Keep him safe, Hellebore had said, the hour before they set off.
But a child was a child was a child, and there were some places a child should not set foot in. The bowels of a corrupt warlord’s stronghold was one such place. Now, the child was dead, and Fii was alone, and the town’s people were still not free, and Hellebore was still there.
Soft as a shadow, Fii thought. Something was caught in his throat. In his chest. His eyes gleamed in the dark as he darted into the trees.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said through the thin opening of a mostly closed door.
He stood at the fringe of the doorway, dragging his roughened knapsack across his shoulders, an apologetic smile wryly spreading across his face. The orange hue of a new sunrise peeked in behind him, lighting the heavy bruises that ran up his bared arms and one side of his face.
“I’ve got the evidence,” he murmured. “The one we were looking for with… with that kid. From the stronghold.”
She gave him one long, steady look. “Good. And you’re not dead.” Then she pulled the door open wide and stepped aside. “Come in, won’t you?”
“Thanks,” he said, relieved.