Chapter 9
Aislinn could feel the muscle under her hand and the heat coming off of Camdyn’s body as he pulled her closer. The heat made her feel more comfortable, especially here in the highlands after a storm and in the middle of the night. They headed through the trees and Aislinn hoped that Camdyn knew where they were, for she could not have remembered the direction for the life of her.
Camdyn was heading for a small clearing he knew of not too far away from where they had set up camp. A stream was to one side of it and during summer months if his men stopped here it was usually to take a dip in the water to wash off the dust and dirt of travel. But today, just after the storm, that stream would likely be swollen but there were some areas to sit there that were not on the muddy ground.
The silence that surrounded them was calming, putting them into their own world, separate from everyone else. No one could touch them here. Most would not see this as any sort of romantic setting, the ground was soft, slippery mud that every so often would not release a foot without effort. The sky was not starry with a large moon, but was heavy with dense cloud that still threatened rain. As they entered the small clearing, the stream which would have been a gentle, tinkling, trickle of water to pleasantly watch had become a torrent of raging water bringing the excess water from the mountains around them. For Aislinn and Camdyn though it allowed them to be themselves with a person who did not expect them to be anything else. Though neither would have admitted that to the other.
Camdyn stopped at a small boulder and directed her to sit upon the damp rock. He decided she might be more comfortable without him looming over her, and took the boulder adjacent to hers and angled his body so he could view her, and the forest behind her to check for any danger to come their way. Most of his attention, however, was on the woman before him. She seemed familiar in some way, but he truly had never met her before, of that he was sure. Maybe it was how comfortable she made him feel he hadn’t felt this at peace with another person since his mother had left this world.
“You want to know why I was in the middle of the forest, during a storm and on my own. Or did I guess I wrong?” She looked out towards the water, her face in profile as the corner of her mouth lifted in a sad facsimile of a smile. He wanted to let her know that she was no longer alone. He knew though, if he distracted her with touch she may not speak as he wanted her to. “I think it may help me to protect you. You may think it is only your physical wellbeing I have sworn to protect, but for you your emotions are a big part of you, and if your emotions are not protected, I have a feeling you will let that after you physically. Like whatever it was that made you wander into the forests alone before a storm.”
She nodded at what he was saying but surprised him by her next words. “Not just before the storm. Months I have been on my own in these forests. Though this last storm was the worst.” She went silent for a moment, and Camdyn worried if she would be able to get through this unscathed, he knew by the end of this tale something would be different though he couldn’t tell how.
Aislinn gather her thoughts. She knew she needed to get this out to someone. Why she felt the need to tell this to Camdyn she didn’t know. Just how much should she tell him, definitely not about the twilight world, he just wouldn’t understand. The rest she may be able to tell him, and maybe, just maybe he could protect her. “I grew up in a small village about an hour’s run from the edge of the forest just past the furthest mountain in the range. I know how long it takes to run because a group of us used to run it when we were younger. We’d race,” a small laugh though nothing happy escaped from her.
“I beat most of the boys, not that they’d admit that mid you.” Camdyn smiled to picture her as a child racing across the land, hair flowing behind her laughter floating around her. She must have been fast, he could tell the reaction she probably got from the boys she beat, though he doubted they minded too much with how he thought she’d look all flushed and happy. “Those sound like happy times, not something to leave you alone in a mountain range full of wild animals.” That rueful smile was back on her face.
“No. No, they were never happy times.” She couldn’t look at him and get through this, she looked out at the stream, a tiny strip of moonlight managed to peek through the cloud coverage allowing a silver light to bounce of the water. She was mesmerised by it for minutes until the cloud reclaimed the light, and her story continued. “I didn’t find out until recently but my parents were never my true parents. Both by birth and by action. They never treated me as anything but a burden. As a child I was mostly ignored, unless I made too much noise…I soon learnt not to make too much noise. It was just better if I was nowhere near the house most of the time. So from a young age I wondered the forests. Sometimes I spent days in here, here with all the wild animals and dangers I wasn’t so alone and I felt safer than at any other time.” She hadn’t realised but when she looked down she had reached out to Camdyn, her hand seemed tiny in comparison to the large warmth of his. He gave her hand a squeeze and that gave her the strength to carry on.
“As I grew, I noticed that how I was treated by my family was completely different from how my friends were treated. We all had it tough, not much to eat, everyone had to do chores. But the little touches of a mother or a father ruffling hair, I had none of those. That all became more apparent when a new baby arrived to the joy of the household. A little boy, a little brother to teach how to walk and talk and give cuddles. Well so I thought. Then I saw how much the treated him differently. I thought I was just about him being a boy, but then I was told to not go near him. That he was better than I am and was not fit to be called his sister. Eventually that attitude was spread around the village, parents warned their children to stay away from me. I ended up running to the forest on my own by the time I reached ten summers.”
An arm came around her shoulders. When Camdyn had sat on the little room left on her boulder she didn’t know, but she was extremely grateful. She leaned her head against his shoulder clearing the sudden lump that appeared in her throat. “You don’t have to continue now if you do not want to.” She shook her head, grateful for the chance for a reprieve, but she would not be able to get this out again if she stopped now.
“As soon as Kade was old enough to understand he started to act towards me as his parents did. I found it harder to be invisible at home. Things would happen around the cottage, a broken bowl or something would move from its position and couldn’t be found. I would get the blame, I wouldn’t want to be around then, but the few times I was in the forest or doing chores the pain was worse. There were times when I couldn’t move afterwards, but there was no one left who cared.” Standing now she made her way slowly through the mud to a position nearer the water’s edge. She could feel Camdyn’s eyes upon her and knew he had stayed in the same position waiting for her to dictate the next response. She turned to look him in the eye, she needed to know what he thought of her.
“It was all I knew, I thought eventually I would marry and I would find love that way. That’s the only way I thought I would survive. Until I overheard my parents. They argued a lot over the years, but this, it was bad. I wanted to get out of the way, but I eventually had to come back, I was on the stoop of the back door trying to work up the courage to enter. That’s when I heard them, well the whole village probably heard them, but I wasn’t really paying attention at that point.” In truth, she remembered, she had had a visit to the twilight world hours before and the revelation it had given her had her so shaken she probably would have walked straight into the fight, if they hadn’t been so loud.
“It started as a usual argument, but quickly escalated into other topics, ones I’d never heard them speak of before. Father accused mother of ruining their lives, because she didn’t accept enough money for the whelp, me. Or how she could have accepted the money and then dumped me somewhere, and they would not have had to deal with me as their problem. They were blaming each other for the way their lives had turned out. But they ended up agreeing I was their main problem. That if it wasn’t for me they would be a lot better off. Though I don’t know how. The agreed to talk with Rodric about the possibility of marrying me off to him, I was 17 winters at this point and at 34 winters Rodric had just buried his third wife. You can probably imagine that I would not want a marriage to so odious a man. He looked at all the girls in the village in an odd way that I didn’t understand at first, but I vowed right then in that door way that I would die before I married him.”
Camdyn could see her shivering and could no longer hold himself back. She was 18 summers, and already she had been through so much. She had survived alone in the forest for months and for her to still be alive at this point she had his admiration. “Did you leave then or collect some supplies first?” He wrapped his arms around her and was pleased when she placed her hands at the bottom of his back, taking in his heat. “Both, I had a small pack stowed inside the forest. I needed a second plan just in case. That didn’t last me long. At first I could live of the trees and vegetation and the occasional rabbit. But of late with winter soon approaching it has become harder and harder to find things to eat. I do not think I would have lasted much longer if you had not found me.”
They stayed there quietly in each other’s arms for what seemed like hours, but eventually Camdyn felt her start to shiver again. Rubbing her arms, he suggested they make their way back to camp to get her to warm back up again. The twins were probably wondering where they were and while he valued them for keeping secrets, if it was not a specific secret they could gossip like women.
It took them sometime to make their way back, picking their way through the mud and around large puddles. Camdyn helped her over fallen logs, and stopped Aislinn from tumbling forward quite a few times. He did enjoy holding her against him to keep her safely upright in those moments.
Back in camp he handed her quietly into the tent, while he would have like to have joined her, he knew he could not. After wishing her pleasant dreams he headed back towards the guard line to keep the twins company until the next guards rotated in.