Nevin jerked his arm free of the hole in the floor and away from the unknown source of the vision. Numbness stiffened his fingers, and thin streamers of fog escaped his lips as he struggled to control his rapid breathing.
What was THAT? The vision was already beginning to fade from his mind, even as he turned its contents over and over in his thoughts. He'd slipped while reaching around in the hole, banged his head again, he was sure of it. A concussion dream, that's all.
Still...it felt like he'd been in that strange space for hours...
Somewhere else in the abandoned cabin, a door opened, and Nevin suddenly remembered what startled him into the hole in the first place.
The boots!
Lowering his cheek to the floorboards, Nevin peered beneath the angled writing desk, but the doorway to the study was empty. He strained his ears, ignoring the adrenaline-spiked blood racing through them and tried to hear any further movement from the other room. Pottery shards crackled beneath careless boots as someone walked about Ishen's treatment room.
Nevin cast an appreciative glance at the writing desk. Due to the way it had been shifted into the middle of the room, the desk completely obscured his body from the view of anyone standing in the doorway. It had been the only reason Nevin wasn't immediately discovered by whoever was creeping about the cabin.
“Hello?” called a man's voice, deep and authoritative. “Your door was open. I was hoping someone could help me.”
With its distinct, smooth baritone, Nevin quickly realized he wasn't familiar with the voice. And while that didn't necessarily guarantee the man wasn't from Elbin, the fact that he had barged in uninvited, open door or not, did.
No one in town was that brazen. Not since the Milton Winslow incident.
Holding his breath, Nevin inched to his feet, watching the door with unflinching eyes. There was no going out that way, he knew. The chances of slipping through the treatment room unnoticed were practically zero, and depending on where the intruder was standing, he doubted he could even make it to the door at full sprint before getting grabbed.
His only option was the window. Nevin silently cursed Ishen for his insistence on framing the edges of the glass within the wall itself. “No leaks that way,” he'd say.
No way to sneak through it, either, you old goat.
At over five feet tall, fitting through the opening wouldn't be a problem, so long as he turned sideways to squeeze his shoulders past. Breaking the glass was sure to cause a racket, but with any luck, the intruder would simple charge into the study to see what had happened, allowing Nevin time to disappear beneath the overgrowth. All he'd have to do from there is wait until the stranger found what he was looking for or gave up, and Nevin could slip away to join up with Aidux.
His only concern? Would the glass break easily, or would he simply bounce off, knocking him flat on his ass and giving the intruder all the time he needed to rush in and grab him?
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
He looked around. Maybe if he smashed the glass by throwing one of the stone busts through first...
“I wouldn't, not if you value your skin.”
Nevin flinched, jerking his head toward the source of the words.
Too late.
At half a head taller than Nevin, the stranger filled the doorway, the golden skin of his chiseled arms nearly brushing the frame on either side. Dark eyes bore into him from beneath a prominent brow, their intensity lending a certain ferocity to the toothy white smile he offered. Waves of black hair fell onto a pair of three-piece polished leather pauldrons, and his matching vest did little to disguise the corded muscle beneath. One hand rested on the ivory hilt of straight sword, the scabbard tilted to point behind him. From the pauldrons all the way down to his calf-high boots, the man was a picture of utilitarian fashion, purposeful and meticulously maintained.
The stranger twirled a finger as he spoke. “I've seen that injury before. Glass doesn't leave particularly clean wounds, and the shards are ferociously sharp. Digging out the pieces with your fingers tends to either shred the hands or drive the bits even deeper. I wouldn't chance it, not without some longer sleeves and some sort of face covering.”
Faced with the unexpected stranger, the young man took a small step backward. The man spoke with an odd sort of musical quality, one that stood opposed to the vaguely threatening nature of his message. “That's...I wasn't...”
The stranger ignored his stammering. Instead, he took in the length of Nevin, his gaze sweeping the younger man from head to toe and back again. “My, my. You're not at all what I expected to find out here. Not of the typical inbred village stock, are you, my friend?”
“I...uh...” Nevin trailed off, unsure of how to respond to such intense physical scrutiny. Hot blood filled his cheeks.
The man knuckled a small smile. “You'll have to forgive my forthrightness. Most of the men and women I've encountered today were but a pair of horns or pointed tail away from being hunted for sport. To come across someone even moderately good looking...well, it just caught me off-guard is all. I hope I've not made you too uncomfortable.”
Nevin shook his head and offered his own weak smile, but something about the way the man spoke, his tone, his careful inflection, not to mention that bit about injuries from broken glass...he couldn't help but wonder if discomfort was precisely his intention.
“Well, that's good to hear.”
“I'm sorry, but...what are you doing here?”
“Of course, where are my manners?” He placed a hand on his chest and offered a modest bow. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Vincht Morfren, consul to the Origin Knights and esteemed ally of the Lancowls of Comelbough. It wasn't my intention to just barge in unannounced, but I found the door open and thought it prudent to inquire on the state of the cabin's inhabitants. Imagine my surprise to find its contents in disarray and its owner absent.”
Nevin folded his arms across his chest. “What makes you think I'm not the owner?”
The man called Vincht chuckled. “I've been told the owner, a man named Ishen, is quite a bit older than yourself, and unless you share a bed with him, I'd wager you live elsewhere.” He cocked his head to the side. “That being said, you still haven't told me your name.”
“It's Nevin.”
He bowed again, deeper than before, and sweep a hand in the air before him. “Well met, Nevin.”
(Continued in Part 2)