My head feels like a million miners are hacking at it with pickaxes and hammers and whatever other pointy and painful tools miners use. Needless to say I don’t know a lot about mining. I groan loudly.
“Morning sunshine.”
I sit bolt upright, startled. Looking around in confusion, I ask, “Where am I? What happened? How long have I been out? Jkahl—” But when I turn to look at him, Jkahl isn’t there. In his place is a boy about sixteen years old with wild, sandy brown hair and bright blue eyes, tending a fire. I yelp and jerk backwards.
The boy laughs. “You must be really out of it.”
“Who…” I’m so lost I can barely speak. “Just—just explain, please.”
“Alright,” he sits back on his knees. “To answer your questions, you’re about a couple miles from where I found you being burned at the stake. As to what happened, you’re going to have to tell me, because I found you about to go up in flames. I cut you free and extinguished the flames and brought you here. And you’ve been out for a good few hours now.”
I look around at my surroundings, as everything from yesterday comes rushing back to me. The sun is low on the horizon, and the fire the boy made illuminates a small camp with a makeshift lean-to and bags next to it.
“And who are you?” I ask, drawing my knees up to my chest.
“My name’s Xale,” he smiles. “Sounds like exhale said really quickly. You?”
“Adi.” I feel a pang of hunger in my stomach and wince. “Do you know where my stuff is? I had it when I met the crazy woman with the ring.”
Xale shoots me a concerned look. “I think you should probably get something to eat before you tell me what happened.”
“I had food, plenty of it. Do you know—?”
“If you had any food, it wasn’t with you in the other clearing.” Xale replies.
“Jkahl is going to kill me,” I mutter.
“Who’s Jkahl?” Xale asks, getting up and moving over to the bags near his lean-to.
“He’s my, uh, friend,” I reply, not really sure if that’s what you’d call us.
“Oh, your friend,” Xale winks, pulling a metal tray out of one of the bags.
“No!” I blush. “Not like that.”
“I see.” Xale grins. “So you’re out in the wilderness with your friend because…?”
I stiffen. “I’m not sure I’m allowed to disclose that information.”
“It’s fine, I was just curious.” He places slices of meat on the tray. “So we’ll be looking for him tomorrow?”
“We?”
“I thought you might like some help.” He places the tray on the fire and sits down next to me.
“Well, you thought wrong,” I don’t meet his eyes.
“Alright, I guess I’ll just have to eat this delicious dinner all by myself,” Xale says in a joking tone.
“Go ahead.”
