Treeline

Chapter 16

A face hovered over mine. It was a kind looking face. A human one, but kind enough for that. He wore an expression of worry but became visibly relieved as my eyes gained focus. I tried lifting my head but was forced back down by both a hand and the dull pain.

"Shh, stay still. It's okay. You're safe now."

I frowned. Come to think of it, I did feel pretty safe. It wasn't the type of safe that came from being warm in one's home with a full belly; it was a safe of knowing that nothing bad would happen though. Which was strange considering my last few weeks.

My throat fell coarse and dry as if I had swallowed nothing but dirt. I used it anyway. "What happen, where?" After my pitiful attempt at speech I was tempted to summon a hummingbird just so it could speak on my behalf.

Zann's face moved from my view. I turned to see that we were in a little room. It was sparsely furnished with a simple wooden chair and table up against the stone wall on one side which held layers of blankets and then me. Directly across, only a few human steps was a blackened fireplace with a chute that led off somewhere; outside, I guessed, from the ever-so-faint bird call that filtered down it. Zann was stirring something in a pot over the fire. His uniform hung from ropes suspended from the ceiling and he wore a simple red tunic with black trousers. He looked much more comfortable when not in the uniform.

A small chunk of an apple was handed to me. I took it and instantly my stomach began to growl. The apple didn't stand a chance as I dug into it. Zann settled back on the chair.

"When you tripped down the stairs --"

I stopped him with a mouthful of fruit. "I not trip. I wash pushed"

"Hmm. Well, when you went for a tumble down the stairs you lost your token."

I decided against interrupting him with that point to let him know that I hadn't actually lost it.

"This is a safe haven for humans. If magical creatures enter without a permit then they are sniffed out and...removed before they can cause any trouble."

It was strange that humans needed a safe haven since they seemed to be the ones doing the most destroying. Maybe it was just a good way to keep most of them in one place where they couldn't cause as much trouble.

"The sniffer," Zann continued, "Is a Cu Sith." He stopped and looked me straight in the eye as if for emphasis. It meant nothing to me as I had never heard of such a thing. I reached out for another piece of apple.

"The Cu Sith carry you off to death if they catch you. They howl three times as they hunt. On the third hunt, they carry you away."

I stopped munching on the apple letting the juice dribble down my chin. The dream image of Rowan burning filled my mind.

Confusion crossed over my face. "Am I dead?"

He grinned. It looked strange on his face, like it came as a shock. It stretched his face weirdly wide and showed off his slightly crooked teeth. "Nope. I made a bargain with it for your life so it left before it could call the third howl."

I sat up straight in my makeshift bed, pain rocketed through my brain. "You bargained with a fae?" My hands clutched the sides of my head to keep it together. "What did you say?"

The grin faded from his face and was replaced by hurt; as if he were offended by my question. Just as fairies could be bound by humans, contracts could be written up the other way. If a human was in your debt and promised something then there was all sorts of nasty tricks you could play on them and they would have no way to get out of it. I wondered if they taught human children that important life lesson, but then again, it hadn't done me much good learning about the other way around.

"He told me all that he wanted was for me to take him to the battlefield."

I slowly let myself lay back down, staring up past Zann's head. "Why would you do that and not just let it get me?"

Zann gasped. "You don't just let people die, Treel."

Then it was my time to let out a tiny gasp. He sounded just like Rowan. Rowan wouldn't just let people die, no matter what type of creature they were.

He shook his head and pushed away from the table, back to the pot on the fire. "No way, I couldn't live with myself if I just handed you over. Now I know that I don't know you very well but you've saved my skin already and I'd like to think of you as my friend." He stirred the pot, gazing into the flames. My eyes widened as I listened to his words. "I'd like to think that maybe you would do the same if it had've been me."

Would it have been? No. he was just a human. I would have handed him over if I were not bound to his protection. It was the same for the monster in the marketplace. I was more than happy to hand him over then.

A wave of nausea mixed with something else came over me. Guilt? That was a strange feeling when it came to a human. Even the hunter who I convinced myself that I loved, I had no problems tearing him from his life. That being said I hadn't felt guilt for much at all. It was a strange feeling.

With all of that fresh in mind I fell back into a thankfully dream-less sleep.

Dedicated to JosephRussellAuthor who binge-read Treeline when he should have been working. His story, Lonely Worlds is also pretty epic, go check it out!