Siena (Forestfolk, Book 1)

Chapter 2b

I could smell dinnertime long before it was actually ready. The aroma of roasting meat wafted about the compound soon after the hunters returned. Aberrations and those taken from other tribes were always the last in line for food, so we were lucky to get any scraps. They liked to keep us underfed so we remained weak, pliable, and grateful for what we got.

As I awaited my turn, Nily approached me. She was one of three Aberrations living with this tribe. The third was Stobon, a tribe-born marksman who began shooting bullseyes as soon he could lift a bow and arrow. Nily was his mother.

She peered at me with keen eyes as gray as her long tresses. She was brought here the same way my mother was, forcefully. She tilted her head and examined my face, flicking her eyes over my nose, my ears, my hair. Nily's unnatural skill was reading into one's very soul. It scared a lot of people.

She peered into my eyes. "You are not like the others."

And sometimes she just stated the obvious.

"Your deeds will be remembered," she continued.

Other times she made broad, cryptic statements that made people think she was crazy. I didn't think she was crazy, but sometimes I wondered if she might occasionally be wrong. The people around here didn't seem to remember that I helped them, too blinded by their own prejudice.

She finished by stroking my hair once and saying, "You are a fountain of good. Your footprint will be significant."

I blinked as she wandered away, wondering at the meaning of her words. There was a rumor around the compound, as there often was, that Nily once whispered something into Chief Magar's ear, and that when she left, his eyes were shiny with unshed tears. Magar did his best to quash this rumor, of course, but some things just can't be killed.

I took my scraps back to my hut and found Grash there. His large, muscular body lounged lazily in the chair. One of tribe Zurbo's finest warriors. A lot of girls swooned over him and his bushy beard, but he made my skin crawl.

He sat up straighter when I entered, and his eyes raked over my body from head to toe, lingering on my budding breasts. A tiny shard of fear pricked my stomach as my heart began hammering.

I set my food down as calmly as I could. "Are you injured, sir?"

He smiled at my dutifulness. "As a matter of fact, I am," he said with a leer. Then he pulled out a knife, which startled me, and proceeded to carve a line high on his thigh. Blood trickled down the side of his leg as he looked at me and said, "Well? You are obligated to lay hands on me, are you not?"

My hands clenched into fists, but I avoided eye contact. "Yes, sir."

Dread was an ugly flower blooming in my stomach as I approached Grash, who spread his legs and leaned back again. Only my fingertips touched the wound, but he grabbed my hand and yanked it closer. "Do it right, girl."

I ignored the growing stiffness against the side of my hand and concentrated on healing the wound as quickly as possible. When I finished, I reclaimed my hands and stood up, but not before he swung an arm around my waist to pull me against him. I went rigid and looked frantically at the doorway, hoping maybe the guard would stop him, but that wasn't likely to happen. It was more likely the guard would join Grash in assaulting me.

As the upper echelon, warriors took whatever they wanted, insulted whomever they pleased. If my mother had not been pregnant when she was taken, I might have been sired by a Plainsman.

My heart pounded now, as I began to struggle. That's when Shandy came stumbling into the hut for the second time that day. "I think it might be my other foot this time," he said, his speech slightly slurred. He stopped when he saw Grash, his eyes darting from me to him, and then back to my pale, frightened face. Understanding subtly registered in his eyes, and he said, "D'ya mind, Grash? I don't want my toe falling off."