Shadow Weaver (Back on Wattpad 2020!)

Chapter 5

Kel's trembling and sniffling has given way to dreamless, exhausted sleep. I lie curled around him, my bandaged arm hooked across his waist. My eyes burn like they're on fire. After I'd dealt with my arm, Tug brushed my eyes with a warm, smelly paste. Now my eyes are sealed shut, which means Kel and I are as good as blind. It hurts so much I am afraid my sight will be permanently damaged. My hate and rage for our captors is only subdued by the fear.

Outside, Tug and Brin move about, clearing up. The crescent moon will have risen by now, draping pale blue light across the forest. After a while, boots crunch across the compact snow, heading away from the camp. I push up on my elbow and reach through the mind-world to follow. I hesitate on the outskirts of Tug's mind, wondering when I push inside whether it will spin me into the high-walled labyrinth of dead-ends and secret passages. But it is surprisingly easy to remain near the outskirts where the memories form and slide back on a constant thread.

His senses are sharp and detailed as though I have moved inside his skin. I shudder at the bulk and strength of his body, the power in his legs and arms, the feel of his hands twice the size of my own. Embers and pine leaves prick my nostrils, the fresh, wet snow lies on my tongue and in my chest.

Brin leans against a spindly tree that rises tall into the soft night, his fishnet-head illuminated by moonlight. He chews on a piece of cinnamon stick, spitting bark from time to time. Tug folds his arms, drinking in his companion's animosity as though absorbing it through the pores of his bare chest.

"Keeping her is a mistake," Brin says.

"You took the boy."

Brin spits and wipes his mouth with his forearm. "What's one thing got to do with the other?"

"Everything," Tug answers, eyes straying to the forest darkness. I remember the wolf dog wrapped in his arms while I was cleaning my wound. Perhaps he has a weakness for underdogs and broken things.

"We should take her to the tundra camps."

Tug snorts. "Don't be ridiculous. A week to get there and a gold sovereign for our efforts. We sell her in the Hybourg, we'll get fifty times that." He cracks his knuckles, then stretches his thick, naked fingers. I wonder how the cold does not reach his hands and his torso. "Have you never seen one with their eyes settled?" Tug asks.

"Course not. And I'd rather it had stayed that way."

"Listen, if you want to keep her out of your head, build a wall."

"A wall?" Brin asks, confused.

"A wall in your mind."

"A wall?"

"Forget it." Tug straightens his broad shoulders and the muscles ripple and settle into place. "We're keeping her," he says. He turns from his companion, strolling back towards the camp where tent poles stand visible between long pine trunks.

"Well, we can't stand her up in the Pit and sell her along with the boy," Brin calls after him. "We'd end up dead."

Tug keeps walking and Brin catches him up. "We'll set out feelers," Tug says. "Find the right buyer. Someone discreet."

"She's going to get us killed," Brin mutters.

The flap of the tent whips up in the wind. I grow rigid as one of the men sets himself down beside me. An unpleasant scent of wet dog and fish wafts through the air so I know it is the Beast-face. His arm brushes my back. I gulp with rising panic, but he lies down and a moment later, Brin enters and lies down on the other side of him. There comes a faint whiff of smoke as the lantern is blown out.