Healer's Touch (Deadly Touch #1) [Complete]

Chapter 7: Surprise

When they returned to the inn the boys, Llew and Aris set about preparing the horses and hitching up the carriage. Llew's horse was a solidly built, gold and white-patched hack, far too beautiful for some highwayman to run into the ground. He dozed quietly while Llew attached her bedroll and canteen to the saddle.

"Here." Alvaro offered a wide-brimmed hat. It was rumpled, as though it had been shoved in the bottom of his belongings. "It'll keep the sun out of your eyes. And rain, if we get unlucky."

"Thanks." Llew took the hat and pushed it down on her head. Her eyes instantly relaxed from their squinting in the bright morning sun. She headed across to help Aris with the final check of the pack animals while the cousins carried on some sort of game between them, throwing punches and feigning injury.

"Hey!" Jonas exclaimed as something kicked up the dust at Llew's feet. She stooped to gather up the small object which, on inspection, proved to be a gryphon carved from a hard, dark, oiled wood. A shadow fell over her and she looked up. Jonas had an expression similar to the first she had ever seen on his face: this time his attention was focused on the object in her hand, not on her. She held the wooden creature out to him.

"What is it?" she asked as he took it.

"Nothin'," he said, returning to his own horse and pushing the object deep inside a saddlebag.

A gryphon, again: same as the design on the handle of his knife.

"Cut your foolin', boys," Aris admonished. "We're late enough getting on, anyways. Go, and help the ladies down."

Cassidy and Alvaro scooted indoors, still trying to beat each other at whatever game they played, and Jonas steadied Llew's horse while she figured out getting the correct foot in the stirrup and boosting herself into the saddle. Settling in place she felt pretty proud of her accomplishment. Then she watched him vault effortlessly onto the back of his own bay and white horse. She vowed to teach herself the same trick as she watched Cassidy and Alvaro repeat the feat moments later.

The group nudged their horses forward and soon they were on the road north. Alvaro and Cassidy took the lead again, followed by the carriage and the pack horses, with Jonas and Llew taking up the rear.

Glancing over at him, she could see the scar that extended around his throat. It was as though someone had gripped him with a burning hand, leaving the marks of their fingers. But if they had been burning, how had he not been more injured by the fire? She took a breath to ask him but thought better of it. Instead, she made idle comments on the weather. After a taste of winter's chill a few mornings earlier, summer had come knocking once more, and the heat was almost stifling. She had no need for her new jacket just yet. Jonas stared straight ahead, outwardly acknowledging little around them, much less Llew's chatter.

"How old were you when you lost your folks?"

For a moment longer she thought he was still ignoring her. Then he gave her a glance and started talking, still watching the road ahead.

"I was seven," he said.

She was about to ask what happened when she realized he was already preparing to tell her.

"We lived in Aldia, in northern Quaver. Turhmos, south of Quaver, had taken to raids targeting families on farms and isolated homesteads instead of facing us on the battlefields." He paused. "I was outside playin' with— I was outside playin' when riders came to our house. This knife was my pa's. But the Aenuks turned its power on him and my ma. By the time I realized what was goin' on and ran back to the house, it was too late. They drained them."

She watched him a while, imagining the little boy seeing his parents like that, drained of life like the man in the Cheer alleyway.

"How long you been on your own?" he asked.