The Last Unforgiven: Cursed

by Marina Simcoe

  The realization that Olyena herself was basically starving churned in his gut, and he hated the feeling.

  Raim knew very little about human food, and even less about the ways to find it. Personally, if he needed to procure anything, he approached it the way Incubi did when they required any supplies for the Base—they purchased them. Raim gave Olyena enough money to buy as much food as she wanted. Her obvious reluctance to use the gold for that purpose puzzled and even disturbed him.

  “You know the gold I gave you would buy you a lot of meat,” he brought it up again, carefully scanning her emotions. “No need to bother with the traps at all.”

  “To buy anything I’d need to find someone who would sell it to me,” she muttered gruffly under her breath, but he heard her well enough.

  “Wouldn’t there be people willing to do that in the village?”

  “Maybe.”

  Her replies made him only more confused, proving he knew nothing about interacting with humans, after all.

  “What stops you then?” he asked directly. “I am well enough to stay on my own now, trust me—”

  “I know,” she cut him off abruptly. A flush of something dark inside her caught his attention.

  “Why are you afraid of them?” he asked, venturing a guess.

  “I’m not.”

  “I’ll go with you,” he offered on impulse. “Would that help?”

  She took hold of the door handle as they arrived at her cabin.

  “Watch the chickens,” she mumbled, getting in.

  “Olyena.” Following her inside, he caught her by the arm and kicked the door closed. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” She tried to free herself from his hold, but he flexed his fingers, not letting her flee his gaze either.

  “You are scared to go to the village—”

  “Not scared. Just . . . I’ll do it later.”

  “I’ll be gone later.” In a few days, he should be well enough to get on his way back to the Base. “Would you rather go alone?”

  “No . . .” She bit her bottom lip between her teeth.

  “Let’s go now, then. I’ll come with you. Whatever it is that scares you—”

  “Do you think you can protect me from all of them?” she challenged, finally meeting his eye straight on.

  “You know I can.” He held her gaze. “I’m much stronger than a human, remember?” He tilted his head in the direction of the wood piled outside of the cabin. Wood he had chopped using a flimsy axe and despite of having a number of serious injuries.

  She freed her arm from him as he had loosened his grip. Taking a few steps back, she lowered herself onto a stool by the stove.

  “They call me a witch,” she said softly.

  “But you’re not—”

  “Of course I am!” She glared at him. “I come from a family of witches. My grandmother was one. She just hid it well. They thought my mother was one, too. That’s why they killed her.”

  “The villagers killed your mother?”

  She nodded slowly. “They put her through the test of water, but she passed.”

  “What test?”

  “You don’t know?” She regarded him carefully. “Do you know anything at all about witchcraft?”

  “The witchcraft you speak of is purely human imagination.”

  “It’s not!” she protested with passion. “The water test is a real way to expose a witch. Everyone knows that. If you toss her into a deep water, the true witch will float. Her power would prevent her from drowning. The innocent will sink . . .” Her voice broke. “My mother drowned. She wasn’t a witch. That’s why they let my grandmother and me live. They thought we were innocent, too. Although, my grandmother already knew I had her gift . . . or her curse, as it may be.”

  “Were you there? When it happened?” He winced at the darkness spreading inside her from her memories, but his desire to learn more about her, to understand, would not let him stop the questions.

  “I was small.” Olyena diverted her gaze to the far wall, as if staring into the past. “But I remember. It was in the dead of winter. Freezing cold. They had to hack through the ice to get to the water in the river. Mother screamed when they shoved her in. Her red shawl floated on the surface long after her, but then it, too, sank . . .” Her lips trembled. “I’ve hated winter ever since. The water in the river freezes over, and I feel like she is trapped in there, in cold and darkness . . . She didn’t have the magic to keep her afloat, not that it would have helped her. If she did float to the surface, they would have burned her as the witch. Then they probably would have done the same with grandmother and me. As it was, they drove us out of the village.”

  Her fear of people made perfect sense to him now.

  “You’re afraid they’d kill you, too?”

  “I don’t think they will now.” Her voice didn’t hold much certainty, though. “They need me. Grandmother taught me everything she knew—how to brew potions, heal wounds, make ointments, and birth a baby. I even know how to help a woman get pregnant with child, or prevent that from happening. Many come to see me whenever they need my help.”

  “But they don’t want you in the village?”

  “I don’t want to be there, either,” she scoffed, defiantly. “I’m fine where I am.”

  “Until you run out of food,” he remarked, and she snapped a glare at him.

  “Early spring is always tough. But it’ll get better as it warms up.”

  “What are you going to eat until then?” he couldn’t stop asking, finally recognizing the feeling that had been gnawing at him—his concern for her.

  “I will be fine.” She got up from the stool and started working on bringing the fire in the stove back to life. “This was not the first tough winter for me. Nor will it be the last. The summer will be here soon enough. The forest will have berries, nuts, and mushrooms that I can eat—”

  “Until then, you’ll be starving,” he wouldn’t let it go, he simply couldn’t. Seeing her almost emaciated body disturbed him in more ways than he could explain. “With enough gold in your pocket to feed you like a queen for a year or even longer.”

  Her chest rose with another huff as she turned to set a pot of water over the stove.

  “There is a market in the village in the summer,” she said, her back to him. “Lots of people come from other places. I’ll trade the gold then.”

  Raim considered her words for a moment. Having learned about the hostility of the villagers towards her, imagining Olyena going to that place on her own did not sit well with him.

  “Is there anyone in the village who could trade you some food for your gold now?”

  “Someone always could,” she replied quietly. “The question is whether they would.”

  “Oh, they would,” Raim promised. “I’ll come with you. I can be very good at persuasion.”

  Chapter 9

  A TWIG SNAPPED UNDER Raim’s boot, sending a chipmunk dashing for cover from under their feet.

  “Maybe I should set traps here,” Olyena wondered out loud as the two of them walked through the forest towards the village. “I could empty them on the way back.”

  “On the way back you’ll have no need to trap chipmunks, woman.” Raim shook his head. “We’re on our way to trade your gold and buy you food, remember?”

  She nodded, although not with much conviction in the gesture.

  “No one will touch you,” Raim said, using the same firm voice he did when he had made his promise to her earlier.

  Despite staying away from the heavy cloud of dark apprehension hanging over Olyena all morning, Raim could almost taste it, as if the putrid flavour was already burning his tongue.

  “You know I won’t let anyone hurt you.” He swung his sword, chopping off a few branches of a hazelnut bush in their way. “They won’t come near you unless you want them to.”

  “They won’t need to come close to hurt,” she replied, her voice barely audible, as she drew the grey rabbit-fur shawl tighter
around her shoulders.

  “They wouldn’t dare,” he assured her, although not entirely certain what exactly she meant.

  She threw him a side glance, a smile ghosting her lips, probably at the sight of the eyepatch she had mastered for him from a piece of leather last night.

  Raim couldn’t understand a number of things from the past few days that he had spent one-on-one with a human. Right now, however, the most puzzling of these things was why the mission to get food for a woman he barely knew seemed so important to him.

  He had much bigger plans and ambitions on his mind. The urgency to get on his way to return to the Base never left him. Still, he had delayed his departure, choosing to spend this day to serve as Olyena’s guard, escorting her to the village.

  She stumbled over a root in the ground, and he grabbed her elbow, steadying her. They had been trudging along the muddy forest floor since before sunrise. Olyena was definitely getting tired by now, and Raim made a mental note to buy a horse she could ride on the way back.

  By the afternoon, the forest around them had thinned, the dark trunks of oak trees and occasional pines gradually replaced by the pristine white of birch trees.

  “Not far now.” Olyena gestured at the wide, open plain spreading out in front of them as they came to the edge of the forest. “Behind the river, just across the bridge.”

  Squinting with his one functioning eye, Raim could already make out the thin wisps of smoke from house chimneys against the pale sky.

  “Well, let’s go then.” Sensing her tension, he took her hand in his, hoping that it would give her some reassurance.

  It seemed to work. With a deep inhale, she squeezed his hand tight, then took a determined step towards the village.

  THE WHISPERS WERE LOUD enough to reach him.

  “The witch is here . . .”

  “Has anyone invited her? What for?”

  “What is she doing here?”

  Raim knew Olyena heard them, too, as they walked along the main street. The grip of her hand on his was so tight, it nearly cut off his blood circulation.

  “Who is that with her?” someone asked.

  “A leshy from the swamp?” A woman giggled.

  They were talking about him this time. Only the insult didn’t offend him. Leshy—the old and ugly forest spirit—must still be a step above nechistiy since no one had attacked him with an axe yet.

  “Here.” Olyena stopped in front of the largest home on the street. With ornately carved wood trim and brightly painted window shutters, it was also the most remarkable one.

  “This is where the blacksmith’s cousin lives?” Raim rested his hand on the pommel of his sword at his hip.

  Something in Olyena’s emotions when she spoke of the blacksmith and his cousin, Kasimir, put him on guard. According to her, though, Kasimir was the richest man in the area. He traded regularly and was undoubtedly the one who had enough silver to break her gold into smaller, more usable for her, currency.

  “Let’s go then.” He shoved at the gate with his shoulder, without knocking.

  It seemed like the whole village had followed them here, curious faces peeking from every window and behind each fence. Raim had no doubt the occupants of Kasimir’s house had been made aware of their visit, too, by now.

  And indeed, as soon as he and Olyena set foot in the spacious fenced yard, a large male exited the house.

  “What are you here for?” he asked, reproachfully, thumbs hooked in the richly embroidered belt under his sizeable belly—obviously the winter did not bring starvation to his house.

  Olyena flinched under his stare, but then straightened her slim shoulders and took a step forward. “To trade.”

  “What do you have to offer?” The man asked, his expression bored. Something in his eyes though, as he slid his gaze along Olyena’s figure, made Raim focus on the man’s emotions more closely.

  “I have gold,” she replied firmly, holding her chin up.

  “Gold? Where did you get it from?” With a flicker of interest flashing through his greed, the man threw a glimpse Raim’s way.

  Several people of every age and gender had spilled into the yard from the house by now. Even more entered from the street through the gate. A number of heads with curious expressions on their faces were peeking over the fence. At Kasimir’s question, all of them openly ogled Raim.

  Right now, the predominant feeling among the crowd was curiosity as they took in his eyepatch, his foreign clothing, and the unusual for this area colouring of his skin. Some trepidation and disgust mixed in whenever their stares landed on the ugly scars spreading from under the eyepatch over the left side of his face.

  “It doesn’t matter where I got my gold. What’s important is that I’m willing to part with it.” Olyena came closer to the man, who Raim had guessed must be Kasimir himself, and held out a coin on her palm. “I’ll need to break this into silver, but I would also trade some for food. I’ll take flour, spelt, oats, a half-dozen chickens—”

  “Is it even real?” Kasimir grabbed the gold, lifting it to his face for inspection.

  “Of course, it is.”

  “I’m not so sure.” He squinted at the coin, bit into it, then raised it to his eyes.

  A woman poked her head from around Kasimir’s shoulder, tossing a curious glance Raim’s way. She then focused her glare on Olyena.

  “I can’t believe you dared to show your face here,” she bit out, huddling into a flowery wool shawl against the spring chill.

  Olyena moved her gaze to the woman.

  “Just returning your visit, Yaroslava,” she replied calmly, even as Raim saw her emotions darken and churn.

  “Shut your mouth,” the woman hissed, but Kasimir had already perked up with attention.

  “What do you mean?” He turned to the woman at his side. “Did you really go to see her? Why?”

  “Don’t listen to her.” Yaroslava seemed to be ready to incinerate Olyena with her glare. “The witch is lying.”

  The atmosphere in the yard thickened, heavy with resentment towards Olyena.

  Stretching his neck side to side, Raim stepped forward, placing himself between her and them. Hand on the handle of his sword, he pulled it out by about the length of his palm, letting the rays of the afternoon sun bounce off the curved Persian blade.

  “Gold for food.” He tipped his chin at the coin in Kasimir’s hand. “It’s a business transaction, nothing more.”

  “You see, I’m not sure I want to trade with her.” Fisting the money, Kasimir rolled out his belly, placing hands on his hips in challenge. “What if I wanted to ask her some questions first?”

  “Then you’ll have to say goodbye to that coin.” Raim came flush with the man. Keeping his attention on the emotions of the human, Raim was aware of the effect his gaze had on people when he searched inside them like that.

  A shiver shuddered Kasimir’s shoulders. The bravado and arrogance he had tried to pass for courage and confidence wavered under Raim’s stare.

  “Trade now,” Raim said slowly, enunciating every word, “or we will leave.”

  The human blinked, his throat bobbed with a swallow. “What do you want for it?”

  “Whatever she said.” Raim released the man from the snare of his glare and stepped aside, bringing Olyena back in the view. Shoving the sword in, he kept his hand firmly on the handle. “Add a horse, too.”

  “Um, like I said . . .” Olyena cleared her throat. “Flour, chickens. A length of wool and one of linen, seven elbows each. Oats, butter, honey, too . . .”

  Under Kasimir’s orders, his household rushed to comply with Olyena’s requests, piling up the goods in the yard, in front of her.

  Feeling bored, Raim stood aside, watching the commotion and keeping an eye, still his only eye, on the overall atmosphere around Olyena. The hostility was still there, but it had subdued somewhat to the point that he could be fairly confident no one was planning to pounce on her or him.

  “All done,” Olyena e
xhaled, catching her breath.

  The nerves, as well as the level of activity, must have sped up her breathing. Her cheeks blushed, and a dark strand had made its way out of her braid, falling over her face.

  Raim swept his gaze over the yard, pausing it on the horse being led from the barn by one of Kasimir’s helpers.

  “We can leave,” Olyena said quietly when the horse had been harnessed to a small open wagon now laden with food and other goods.

  “As soon as you get your change.” Raim nodded, moving his gaze back to Kasimir.

  “It’s fine, really . . .” Olyena tugged at his sleeve.

  Raim assessed the wagon’s content. He didn’t know much about the value of the food. However, whatever knowledge he had gained about the value of the gold during his travels told him that what Olyena got must be below the value of the coin he gave her.

  “Unless these chickens lay golden eggs, he owes you change.” He glared at Kasimir.

  Greed warred with fear in the human. His avaricious nature, however, didn’t prove to be strong enough to combat the cowardice in him.

  “Fine.” Kasimir produced a thick purse from under his belt. “Here you go.” He tossed a few silver coins Olyena’s way.

  They fell in the dust at her feet, and she quickly bent over to pick them up.

  “You—” Raim pulled his sword out, lunging Kasimir’s way. The disrespect this human showed to his hostess enraged him as if it had been against himself.

  “Raim!” Olyena caught him by the arm.

  Her grip would not have stopped him, but her voice did.

  “It is a fair amount of change, Raim. Let’s go. Please.” She took the horse by the bridle, steering it from the yard while tugging Raim by his sleeve.

  A glimpse at her emotions revealed the heavy unease inside her, convincing him to get her out of there as quickly as possible.

  “Right.” With one last glare of warning Kasimir’s way, he followed her out.

  Chapter 10

  “ARE YOU SURE YOU DON’T want any?” Olyena asked Raim for probably the thousandth time, shoving a piece of pancake in her mouth.