Escape from the Witch Hunters
Chapter 23

She dropped his shirt and moneybag, her mouth gaping. “Excuse me.”

She quickly turned tail and scurried back down the stairs out of the inn and into the woods. What was he doing? What was he thinking? she breathed heavily, trying to keep her eyes dry.

How could he? Does he not know how much it’ll hurt me? How did the girl even get in there? her emotions won over her will, tears starting to fall. Couldn’t he have at least waited till I was gone?

“Ryia?” he called as he ran down the stairs and out the door. His head was pounding and he felt like it would split open any moment. “Ryia!”

He saw a flash of red dash into the woods and he ran after her. He knew how bad it had looked. Another girl in their room.

But it wasn’t how it had looked.

He caught up with her when the trees started to get denser. “Ryia stop!”

He grabbed her arm and whirled her around. “Listen to me.”

Her face was tear stained and, as much as he hated to admit it, was glad that it affected her as much as it did.

She tried to yanked her arm away, but Gillian had a firm grip on her arm. “It wasn’t the way it looked.”

“Then tell me, what was it all about?” she looked at him with contempt, and Gillian hoped she would never look at him like that again.

“She came into the room and well. She kind of threw herself on me.” he ran a hand through his hair, and Ryia noticed he had haphazardly put his blue shirt on, not bothering to button it up.

“And you couldn’t stop her?” she shook her head, disappointed in his excuse.

“I was pushing her away when you came in.” he told her. “You have to believe me.”

“I can get to Carenthia now. I can make it by myself.” she let her gaze drop.

“I’m not letting you go by yourself.” he brought her chin up, making her look at him.

“Once I’m gone you can go gallivanting off with whoever you want.” she told him bitterly.

“I’m married and I promised not to do that! You have to believe me when I tell you I didn’t want it to happen!” he banged his fist against a tree, regretting it immediately. Pain shot through his arm. He rested his head against the tree and tried to calm himself down. “You have to believe me when I say that I don’t care about any other women.”

He looked back at her. “I told you about Chloe, remember?”

She looked down and nodded.

“Look at me,” he held her chin in his hand, “I didn’t love her. I thought I did. But I was in love with the idea of her. I wanted to be like my father. I wanted a beautiful wife. It was her looks that attracted me. Not her personality. Nothing about her except for her looks. When we were together, she was demanding. She would manipulate me and make me buy things for her. She took advantage of me and my money. I just wanted her for her beauty. As much as I detested the man, I wanted to be like my father.”

Ryia frowned. What does this have to do with anything?

“I’ve never loved any girl before.” he looked at her sadly. No girl besides you.

“I’ll never be with any other woman. I promised you that when we were married. Even if I won’t be with you for another week, I’ll never be with anyone else.” he told her.

You’re almost like my sister, his previous words rang in his ears. It made this situation awkward, considering he told her that he thought of her as a sister.

Ryia was silent.

“So will you please let me go to Carenthia with you?” he said softly.

She looked up at his blue eyes. “Alright.”

He smiled. “Let’s go.”

They walked back out of the woods. “I have something to tell you.” she broke the silence.

He nodded, encouraging her to continue.

“I, literally, ran into the marshal after I bought your shirt, and he knows who I am. He said that some other officers will probably be coming either tonight or tomorrow.” she looked fearfully up at him.

“We definitely need to go.” he muttered. “My head hurts.” he tottered uneasily.

Ryia quickly wrapped her arms around his chest, trying to support his weight. “You’re heavy.” she grunted.

“Hardly.” he retorted. He smirked. His head wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t walk straight. But she didn’t need to know that.

They came to the inn.

“You shouldn’t leave me, otherwise that lady might come back.” he told her solemnly.

“Right.” she answered mindlessly. Her concentration focused on keeping Gillian upright.

“I think I can manage from here.” he took hold of the banister and wobbled up the stairs and into their bedroom.

“Thank the Father she’s gone.” Ryia murmured.

Gillian smiled and picked up some of their possessions. “I guess we’ll have to pay for the spoiled sheets as well, huh.”

He took note of the spoiled sheets.

“Probably.” she nodded and followed him out of their room.

They walked to the front counter and Gillian put some coins down on the counter. “That’s for the room.” he set a few more on the counter. “And that is for the sheets.”

“Right.” the person behind the counter took the coins and nodded sleepily.

Gillian and Ryia made their way out the door and towards the stables. He went into the stables and soon reappeared with Red on his tail. “Ready for more riding?”

He paid the stableman and helped Ryia onto the horse. He took a deep breath before getting on Red.

His head still hurt, and he imagined he looked like an idiot with his head wrapped up in bundles of white. “Hi-ya!”

They galloped out of the town and down the dirt road.

I’m really beginning to hate riding, Ryia sighed and leaned back against Gillian, hoping to maybe catch a bit of sleep.

“Hey sleepyhead.” Ryia felt herself being shook.

“Huh? What?” she opened her eyes and tried to rub the sleepiness away.

It was dark out, and the small critters had started to come out, chirping away like a musical group.

“I didn’t sleep all day, did I?” she looked skeptically at Gillian. No way.

He grinned. “You did. Now come on and get down.” he grabbed her waist and helped her off of Red.

They walked up to the farmhouse and knocked on the door.

“Huh? Who’s there?” a harsh voice came from inside.

“Weary travelers.” Gillian answered.

Ryia hid behind his back.

The door swung open. “Well ya can’t stay here! I’ve got a sick wife and a sick girl. Go away!”

“I’m very sorry, we’ll be on our way.” Gillian told the man and turned back around.

The man slammed the door.

“Well.” Gillian held his head in his hands. “What do we do now?”

“We can’t just, uh. sleep in the woods?” she offered.

“I’d never expect to hear you say that.” he smiled tiredly at her. “But come on. We’ll make do.”

He took hold of Red’s reigns and they walked back into the woods till they found a small clearing. “I’ll find some firewood, you can rest here.”

“I’ll help you. You aren’t well enough to do it by yourself.” she said and started to gather some sticks.

“You’re sick too.” he told her. “You should be resting.”

“I’m over it now. And you have an injured head. If anyone should be resting, it’s you.” she continued to pick up small branches and sticks.

He huffed. “Fine. Stubborn woman.”

“Says the man who didn’t want to eat his porridge.” she retorted.

“You’re bringing that up now?” he kept gathering firewood.

“It just happened a couple days ago.” she informed him. “Not that long ago.”

“Well I did eat it.” he countered. “As bad as it was.”

“I suppose you did. But this makes up for the times that I’ve done what you wanted. I don’t like being lazy.” she dumped her load of sticks in the clearing before heading out for more.

“You were obstinate from the beginning. I told you to keep off your leg, and what did you do? You insisted upon fixing supper, washing clothing, cleaning the house, everything!” he rolled his eyes. “You rarely did what I asked you to do.”

She scrunched her nose and picked up a big branch from a fallen log. “Well...I...yes I have! I, uh...I’ve-”

“Exactly. You haven’t.” he took her load and they walked back to the campsite and dumped the firewood down.

“But, since you insist upon helping, I suppose you could get some of the dried meat from my saddlebag.” he organized the wood and started playing with his flint and steel.

She smiled evilly and grabbed the dried meat from his bag and started to cut it up with his knife. “Where’s the pot?”

“Somewhere on Red.” he muttered and kept trying to get the fire started.

“Poor Red. He’s carrying so much.” she patted Red’s mane and grabbed the pot from the load on Red’s back.

“Yep.” Gillian answered absentmindedly. “Ah-hah!”

Orange flames leaped, lighting up the dark, cloudless night.

“Here we go.” she handed him the pot with water in it.

He hung the pot over the fire. “What’s this?”

“Water. What does it look like?” she grinned cheekily at him.

“We aren’t having that for supper, are we?” he creased his forehead.

“Yes.” she nodded. “Although we aren’t having just water. Although what we are having does include water.”

He sighed in relief. Then frowned again. “How are you going to make something out of that?”

He pointed to her scant ingredients.

“Go to sleep, Gillian.” she pushed his head away. “I’ll manage.”

He shook his head, but rested his head on his bedroll anyway.

She worked frantically to get everything ready and put it in the pot to simmer for a little while.

During that little while, she rested her head for a minute, and ended up falling into the depths of sleep.

“Ryia?” a voice pulled her from her drowsiness. “Is the pot supposed to do that?”

She jerked awake. The pot had boiled over, the liquid making a mess down the side of the pot.

“No.” she cringed and carefully took the pot off of the fire. “But it looks like it’s done.”

He sniffed. “Smells good. But I’ll see how it tastes.”

“Your faith in my cooking is so encouraging.” she held her hand over her heart sarcastically.

“You never know.” he fed himself a spoonful of the stew.

“How did you do this?” he gave her a surprised look. “I didn’t have this much good stuff in my saddle bag.”

“The Great Father provides.” she told him mysteriously. “And there aren’t that many ingredients in it.”

He kept eating from the pot, sometimes burning his tongue.

“Save some for me.” she looked at the almost empty pot.

“Sorry.” he put the spoon back in the pot.

“That is so gross.” she looked at the spoon that Gillian had used.

He shrugged. “I’m not sick.”

“That is still kind of gross.” she stirred the stew with the spoon. “I’m not quite so hungry anymore.”

“It’s not that bad.” he wrinkled his nose. “Don’t be picky.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. But it’s probably not warm anymore.”

She took a spoonful and cringed before sticking a bit in her mouth.

“Not terribly cold.” she swallowed and continued eating till the pot was empty.

“Well I’m going to get some sleep.” Gillian spread out his blanket and unrolled Ryia’s.

She lay down and shifted uncomfortably. She was barely two feet from him. She glanced over at him and found looking back at her. She quickly looked away, her cheeks burning up.

“Why do you do that?” he asked her.

“Do what?” she looked back at him.

“Look away whenever I look at you.” his head was resting on his arm.

“I don’t.” she shook her head.

“Yes you do. You did this morning. You did tonight. Probably more times than just that.” he remarked. “I don’t look that bad do I?”

“N-no.” her cheeks, if possible, got even redder, “I just, uh, um. I no. You look fine.”

He tried not to look too amused at her discomfort. “You’re funny.”

He turned to lie on his back, looking up at the stars.

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