Sir Leiman walks towards one of the rge dominas, gesturing to the archer to follow. He walks to another knight and has a quicoherent versation and Sir Leiman looks back at the archer, anding him to follow as he pulls opeent fp. The archer pulls us into the rge shelter, and when I slowly emerge into the tent myself, I behold the sight of five men h around a brazier fire, rolling up scrolls in their hands.

  Of the five men around the brazier, oands out, as his clothes seem more barbaric than the medieval style of the others. In a strange mixture of exposed mail aher, his entire arm is adorned with a rge fur cloak held to his body by a silver that links around his other shoulder; he wildly stands out. His wavy dark hair cascades to his chest, a stark trast from the other men ient with shorter styled hair. With a short beard and pierg hazel eyes, his appearance is nothing short of captivating. Catg his eye, I quickly turn my green gaze to the grassy floor of the tent.

  Letting go of the fp, the knight returns to the group and stands in front of us, allowio hide my presence from the dominating man.

  “My lord, in fulfilment of your ands, I have brought prisoners who hold information on the Evian uprisings. However, none ys cim to knowledge of this ‘beast craze’ my lord.”

  “The woman?” A peppered man with grey hairs, amassed in jewels and a red drape asks, causing the other four men around the brazier to slightly squint their brows awaiting the answer. Seemingly as though my appearance was an odd finding in whatever the knight’s mission was.

  The knight moves out from in front of me, and turns to face my presence. After a thh s, he looks back to the clearly powerful men around the fire. “She was found alone in the sacred woods; she hasn’t uttered a word of expnation since we found her. I suspect her a spy.” He fidently states in a low tone, as if unsciously telling the powerful men that I’m of dire io their campaign.

  At the knight’s words, the peppered man’s eyes began an interrogation of me. I follow his eyes as they s me from head to toe, but he stops at my autting towards the knight, he ges his gce to avoid catg a sed glimpse of my exposed skin and speaks.

  “Good God Man! She's practically naked and bleeding out. Go get her some clothes and ed up!” He frowns, mumbling about the ‘loose styles of women these days’.

  “Soldier, take her to Ester, he’ll tend to her.” The rge barbari orders the archer whilst scrutinising my being with his eyes.

  The archer walks towards me and unties my restraints from the rope that ected me and the prisoogether. Putting his hand on the small of my back, the archer guides me along to the terand holds the fp open for me as we exit the temporary war room. Still guiding me along the archer pushes me towards ane tent in the middle of a s of smaller tents that by the looks of things, seem to be soldier barracks. Walking to the entrance, I am faced with the sight of injured men on mats on the floor, both inside and out of the tent. Gently pushing me in, the archer guides me to a middle aged man in a long light blue tunic with an apron marked with a red star.

  “Ester, the lord ands you to dress ao the maiden.” The archer annouo the busy maells us to wait a moment as other men are in dire shape. Taking a seat on the ground the archer takes off my restraints and stands, to ehat I’m uo run away.

  After a short wait Ester returns and crouches on the floor in front of me. He takes a gnce over my damaged arms. He looks up and halts a young d carrying a bowl with a rag, taking it off him. Ester drehe rag and pours the water over my arm causio hiss at the sharp pain it causes. Ag cautiously he slowly wipes away the grime and debris on my cuts. Once dos the bowl aside and pces his hand over my arm, he trates and a warm green glow emits from his hand. What the fuck? My jaw drops in utter shock at the sight of the strange glowing hand.

  “What the fuckk…?” I mutter out in a state of great disturba the unholy?! Unnatural?! Or quite frankly, freaky shit.

  As if taken aback that nothing is happenier frowns. Taking a breath he begins rubbing his hands together speaking a quick t between them, before bringing them bay arms with the weird warm glow once again. He ss his weird glowy green hands over my arms once more to no avail…Nothing happens, thank God. Frowning once more Ester stands, walking over to another soldier and itting the same a, I wat utter amazement as the soldier’s arm wound slowly closes, leaving nothing but a scratch for Ester to baanding beside the soldier, Ester looks back at me, brows furrowed ihought. He ptes a quick thought of something strange he’d like to try. ing back over to me he dips his finger into the water bowl that was mixed with my blood, and draws a symbol on his hand and cps it with the other, transferring a copy of the symbol to the other hand. As if like magic, a soft blue light emits from the symbols and he hovers his hands over me.

  “My great Gods…” He falls bato the floor with a gasp, the symbols slowly dripping off his hands as he rests them on his knees in shock. Gods?

  “Ester are you alright?” The archer asks, slowly helping the medic back to his feet.

  “Uhh…Yes! Yes, I am. Too many patients today is all.” He reassures the lowly soldier, but with painted all over his face. His questionable demeanour causes me to quickly aowledge that he knows I don’t belong here. But I look on, keeping up my clueless facade, to not only hide my anxious state of being surrounded and kidnapped by unknown men, but also knowing I don't belong here.

  “Is she a guest of the lord?” Ester asks the archer with an intense quizzical stare.

  “On the trary, we found her during our passing of the sacred forest.” The archer furrows his brow, looking at Ester trying to gather more information as to why he is ag sely.

  However, Ester just coughs, putting on a ral fa an attempt to disguise his thoughts as being ‘pletely normal’. He walks over to a desk and brings bae bandages as well as a long sleeved green tunid brown cloth trousers. He s my wounds and tells me to put on the clothes. I look at the men with an arched brow, aer replies with a fused face before realising something. He takes me to the er of the tent and holds up a b for me to ge. His hands glow. HIS HANDS GLOW? I mentally freak out, now having time to aowledge what I actually saw. After ging I tug down the b Ester was holding. I now face both the men shyly in the oversized medieval outfit I was given. These people are going to kill me with their weird freaky hands.

  “It’ll do.” Ester says nontly with his arms crossed looking back at the archer for his opinion. Dropping down his guard to let out a witty word, the archer attempts to speak, but it is halted by Ester grabbing the back of his head and smming his other hand into the archer’s mouth with a cloth. The archer is lowered to the floor by Ester as his body gets more limp, I gasp and step back, g the tent tightly behind me, my mouth agape. What the fuck?! I go to say something, anything, but Ester points the rag towards me in ay threat to ‘do me off’ .

  In the bustli, Ester’s as go unnoticed which I could tell he was gd for. He leaps at me and grabs my arm draggi of the tent in haste towards the dire of the war tent.

  “Get off me!” I finally shout, attempting to yank my arm out of his grasp.

  “Speak once more and you meet him unscious.” He threatens, yet he looks at me with such high that he seems more afraid than threatening. However, knowing that he wouldn’t be afraid to knock me out, I pohe as I could make at this moment. Make a se a knocked out? Or wait for the right moment to do the same to him. Ultimately deg that the sed option was better, I scowl at him as he drags me along to the tent.

  O the entrance, Ester pops his head into the tent asking the lord for ‘a moment of his time’. Whilst he is speaking, with my other hand I try to csp a vial out of the medic’s utility belt. I’m not sure what it is, but at this point anything is better than nothing. However, Ester keeps moving in a way that makes grabbing anything stealthily, practically impossible. My moment of potential escape passes, when the rge dark tawny barbari pushes open the fp with his hand, catg my eye as he fully exits the loud tent.

  “What ails you my friend?” The colossal man queries, looking at me with an iigative eye, just as though he was trying to piece together the situation without needing to hear answers.

  “She is...Without ferra.” Ester chokes out in fusion as if he is seemingly baffled by his own words, as though what he said could never be true, like it was an unnatural statement that went against everythier stares at the colossal man, hinting that what he said might lead onto another versation, a much darker one.

  Seemingly quick to realise what Ester was silently hinting towards, the dark haired man momentarily freezes in thought, to theurn with a dark gaze targeted towards me, taking in my full preseh a telling s from his eyes.

  “Caspiaer pleads but is cut off by the barbari’s hand being pced on his shoulder in a reassuring fort.

  “I trust you my friend, I don’t question your skills.” Ester sighs in disfort of his knowledge, knowing that what he holds secret is tormenting him.

  “However, this is a situation more dire than iigating criminals about uprisings in Eiva.” Caspian slowly moves towards me, grasping the hilt of his great sword. “Who are you?” He tio press forward, his advances makiumble bad fall onto the ground.

  “G-Genevieve..W-Woodsman” I choke out in fear, at the potentially deadly sario pying out in front of me.

  “Why were you in the sacred forest? Alone?” He asks menagly, croug in front of me.

  “I-I don’t know.” I blurt out, putting a hand over my heart in a failed attempt to look as though I mean no harm.

  “I won’t ask again.” He bellows standing up and uhing his on slightly to reveal the intricately carved sword, littered with hand carved symbols.

  “I don’t know! I promise! I just ended up there! You have to believe me…” I sob out, clutg my tunic as my heart and throat tighten. The ay and fear building in me reaches its climax and my breath bees rapid and fast, as I tio mumble out ‘I don’t know’.

  “Please don’t kill me..” I mutter out in my smallest voice. Upon hearing the sentence, Caspian’s face ges and he sheathes his sword. He puts his hand out and guides me to my feet.

  “If you truly don’t know, then you’re a dao yourself and others.” He mutters to himself, crossing his muscur arms.

  Uncrossing his arms he points to me.”You are to never leave my sight.” He ands, pointing baself with his thumb. He turns to Ester and tinues. “She is to be watched at all times.”

  Though sniffling and still rec from thinking he was going to kill me a moment ago, I mao make a dirty face towards him. What the fuck? Who the hell does he think he is, where does he this the right to and me? I y arms and shrug with a huff at the plete madness of it all.

  “Everything I do, is for a reason. And as I, and many people here think you’re a spy, I won’t have an issue cutting you down if you don’t ply.” He threatens with a stern look, his presence darkening. Intimidated, I take a deep breath and look away in pliah what he says.

  “She’ll rest in my quarters tonight. Get Leiman to guard it.” The dark haired man aer, receiving a salute of the medic’s fist to his heart iurn.

  “Now are you going to ply or do I have t you?” Ester teases half heartedly, but it came off more like an uling threat.

  “I’ll ply…”