Finding Destiny

Chapter 6 Part 2

Not long after that, I found myself alone in the cabin with my brother. Zale offered us some privacy, which I gratefully accepted, knowing that I had a lot to explain.

"You have no idea how worried we've all been!" Den exclaimed, still smiling. "When your scouting group didn't report back, we feared the worst. We found the funeral pyre and figured someone must've survived, but with that storm... we didn't hold out much hope. There wasn't a lot to go on, but we picked up a trail and tracked it here. What the hell happened out there?"

"Trolls," I replied bluntly, "A lot of them."

"Trolls," Den repeated, furrowing his brow, "but there was enough of you to handle a group. Did they catch you by surprise?"

"They did, but that wasn't the problem," I told him, shaking my head, "There were at least ten of them, Den. I've never heard of a group of over three, but somehow there were ten. We didn't stand a chance. I only survived because I was knocked out and they thought I was dead."

"Ten?" Den repeated with a look of horror on his face.

"Ten," I confirmed.

Den immediately grasped the weight of that number. It took a minimum of six men to take down a single troll and survive to tell the tale. Since trolls typically traveled in groups of two or three at most, thirty men should have been more than enough to survive an encounter. But against ten, it was nothing short of a miracle that even one man survived.

"It was awful," I stated, trying to maintain my composure as I remembered the carnage of that fateful morning, "I missed a lot of the fight, since I was knocked out early on, but the aftermath was one of the worst things I've ever seen."

Den placed a comforting hand on my shoulder, giving me a moment of silence before asking, "But how the hell did you end up here?"

"After I burned the bodies, the storm hit," I explained, my voice strained as the memories came flooding back, "I was trying to seek shelter in the forest, but the storm was too fierce, and I got lost. Zale found me buried in the snow not far from here. He brought me to the cabin, treated my injuries, and said I could stay until the end of the season."

"Zale..." my brother murmured, his expression sharpening, "Is that the big one or the one with the messed up face I saw clinging to you?"

My eyes narrowed in displeasure at Den's choice of words, "Zale is the big one, yes. He's a bear beastman. And don't talk about Elio like that. It's not like he asked for that scar... and he's beautiful with or without it."

"Beautiful?" my brother scoffed, "He's a damned beastman, Bryn."

"I'm well aware of that fact," I replied stiffly.

"If you're well aware of that, then you're also aware that we're at war with them. Don't get me wrong, I agree that we should spare their lives since they rescued you. But if you go around saying things like that, people are going to get the wrong impression," Den lectured, speaking to me as though I were a child.

"Their impression wouldn't be wrong," I snapped without thinking. Den flinched at my tone and I immediately regretted my outburst. After taking a deep breath, I calmly tried to explain, "Den, I know this is going to sound crazy but–"

"Don't you dare!" Den interrupted, his eyes darting around us as if he thought someone might be listening, "Whatever you were about to say, don't. You got lucky. They saved you. Anything else you think you're feeling is just a byproduct of that. You've been through a lot, so it's only natural that you'd be confused. They've probably been filling your head with nonsense this whole time. What you were about to say is something you must never utter aloud. Now, I'm going to take you home and we'll never speak of this again."