they were robbed, but still he couldn’t help but think of himself as a thief. He turned to look at the devastated camp. Everything was still fresh, the blood still glistened off the leaves, the ground was still muddy, but that was starting to dry a bit. The sun was all but gone now. They needed to go, needed to set up a new camp, eat, and get some answers.
As he rode he looked at the arrow he’d taken back from Sasha. It still amazed him. He had loved archery for so long, and what if it was part of his ancestry? He should be mulling over what had happened, but he couldn’t help but feel a little excited. His people made this, and maybe someday he could do the same. Or, maybe he would never do it, maybe the human side would take over and he would be a butcher. This bothered him. He never thought of being anything other than a butcher, and even if he went to the Elves he might just be a butcher there.
Sasha was riding next to him, looking off in the distance, her eyes unfocused. He wondered what was going on in her head. He hoped that she was all right. The men hadn’t actually raped her, but the commander came close enough, and that was reason enough for her to have issues. She’d be fine in a few days. Sasha was tougher than she looked; at least he hoped she was. Arkin pulled off into a clearing to the left of the road, going down next to the stream.
“We’ll camp here for the night. Keither, find some wood for a fire. Sasha, please make something simple for us to eat. It can be bread for all I care, but we need to eat. Kovos, tend to the horses and help Legon set up the tents. I’m going to walk the perimeter of camp to make sure we’re safe,” Arkin said and then walked off in the woods.
There was still no talking as they set camp. When they were done, Sasha went into one of the tents and changed her clothes, coming out with the bloody ones in her hands. She walked to the fire and tossed them in. No one stopped her. In fact, watching them burn seemed to make them feel better about their current situation. By the time they were burned and gone, Arkin was back and Sasha seemed to be feeling much better. They all changed and it did seem to make them feel cleaner in some way, almost like by taking off the old clothes and putting on the new ones they were cleansing themselves in the process.
They sat around the fire eating bread, waiting for Arkin to start. This was his show; he had the answers, and they were willing to wait for them. Arkin looked like he was thinking hard about what to say.
“Twenty years ago, a woman I knew and was close to married an Elf. It was rare for this to happen, but what was rarer was that she got pregnant. The couple knew it was a bad idea to raise the child where they lived.”
“Why?” asked Legon.
“In time you will find out, but not now.”
“It’s my past. Why not now?” he asked, his voice getting stern.
“Because I can’t tell you everything. I have taken many oaths, and no matter how much I may want to tell you everything, I can’t. Please trust me on this.” It was a question as well as a statement, and Legon knew that if he pushed his luck that Arkin wouldn’t tell him anything.
“They decided to move by Salmont, and that’s where they were going to raise you until they figured out if you were going to be Elf or human. After you were born, things were going fine. I was stationed in Salmont as protection.”
There was sadness in Arkin’s eyes and a helpless look. Never had Legon seen Arkin get emotional.
“It is my fault your mother was killed. If I had tried harder they would have never made it to her, they wouldn’t have…” he trailed off. At first when Arkin said that it was his fault that his mother was dead, Legon felt a twinge of anger, but that left as he watched him. Arkin had never half-hearted anything in Legon’s whole life, and he doubted that he had then either. In fact, he was sure that the man had been carrying this with him for