she jolted, panicked, but her arms were too heavy to flail and her lids were too weary to open. Something dug into her belly, and she realized groggily that he was carrying her over his shoulder. Hod. Hod the Toad, Hod the blind boy, was carrying her. She forced her eyes open, and the ground bounced below her.
“You are blind,” she rasped.
“Yes. And you are sick. You are also very light. Which is fortunate for me. I have never carried someone before.”
She was slung over his shoulder like a lamb, his right hand securing her legs, his left hand wrapped around his staff.
“It is not yet dark . . . Could you not have let me sleep a bit longer?” she groaned.
“You have been asleep for two days. I had to use a rune to make you wake.”
“A rune?”
He did not answer but lowered her gently into the creek where he’d taken her to drink before. She gasped as the cold engulfed her, but he kept a hand beneath her head, keeping her face above water. It was not deep where she lay. She could feel the rocks against her shoulder blades and the small of her back. Her feet floated up, but she would not be swept away in the current.
“C-c-could you not just bring w-water to me?” she said, teeth chattering. “Why did you have to put me in the stream?”
“Your skin needs to cool. You need to drink . . . and you need a bath. This was the easiest way to accomplish all of those things.”
“I do not need a bath.” But she did need to relieve herself. The urge was terrible, but though the water would whisk it away, she could not do something so intimate with him looking on.
“Go away,” she snapped. “I need some privacy.”
“I cannot see you,” he reminded her.
“But you can smell me,” she grumbled.
His brows rose in surprise and his nose wrinkled. Belatedly she realized what she’d implied.
“I do not mean that!” she said. “I only need to empty my water.”
He eased her upright as he rose and then released her hesitantly. She swayed and her head knocked against his knee. He waited a moment, like he didn’t trust the creek or her strength, but she swatted at his leg.
“Go.”
“You are already much better,” he remarked, but he did as she asked, retreating downstream in search of their supper. He’d caught two shining, silvery fish before she’d summoned the strength to do anything but sit in the stream.
“My flask is on the rock near your head. A bit of soap too, if you like,” he called out a few minutes later. She muttered to herself about him “listening and not leaving” but made thorough use of both.
“Are all young girls so ill-tempered?” he called when she didn’t answer him.
“Are all blind boys so nosy?” she hollered back.
“I don’t know any other blind boys. But I can’t help it if I hear—and smell—better than others do.”
“Ha. You don’t smell any better to me.” Actually, he did. He smelled quite lovely. He smelled of honey and peat and the bark of the needled trees near his cave. He smelled clean. It was an odd thing for someone to be so clean—almost as odd as his name. Her brothers had not smelled nice. Not ever. Mother had had to coax them to wash, and they never did a good job of it.
The thought made her ache.
“Your breathing has changed. Are you all right?” he called.
“You can hear me breathing?” she gasped.
“Yes . . . Are you still unwell?”
“I said I needed privacy, Hod,” she whispered, but he heard that too. Suddenly he was back, kneeling beside her. He pressed his palms to her cheeks, checking for fever.
“I am fine,” she said. “I feel fine.”
“The heat is gone,” he agreed. “Are you finished?”
“What . . . You can’t tell?” she snapped.
“Only you know whether you are finished,” he said softly. “I can’t hear your thoughts. I wish I could.”
“I have used all the soap, and your flask is empty,” she supplied, trying to control her irritation. Beneath the prickling was a welling terror. She wasn’t tired anymore. She could not sleep away the hours ahead, and there would be nothing to distract her from her predicament. She was lost. She was alone. And she had nowhere to go.
“Can you walk?” he asked, like he’d done on the beach.