Found:
An end to past fears.
My hand shakes. My body shakes. Outside my little tent, the storm still rages, thunder and lightening cracking across the sky like an angry god. Inside, where it's warm and dry, Eithwyn twitches at every loud noise, whimpering softly in her sleep. I do my best to comfort her. I do all that I can to make her feel more at ease, but I know that it could never be enough. Not yet.
Today was but another in a line of traumatic days for the child. I hope, for her sake, that they're over now. I hope, for her sake, that I find safety for her, that she can put all this terror behind her and spend the years ahead as a happy, playful little girl.
I wasn't ready to face Thaelan. Would I ever have been? Out of all of them, he was the one I feared the most, the one face I most dreaded to see. I would have gone to see him. Wasn't that the point of this sojourn? To face all that I had left behind? To overcome those nightmares of my past? But I had planned to leave him until last, especially when I had a child at my side. Had I any choice in the matter, she never would have seen his face. But he didn't give me a choice. He found us. He took her. I had to follow.
I know he was her uncle. I know he was her blood. But that had never stopped him before, had it? I was his blood too, whether or not he wanted to acknowledge that. I couldn't just walk away and leave her with him. No child deserves that. I didn't. She most certainly doesn't!
I followed. We fought and he... fell off a cliff.
Oh, how I wanted to leave him there! Oh, how I wanted to let him claw his way back out or fall to his death. It wouldn't have been my fault. My hands would have been clean. He started it. He took the child. He led us to that place. He started the fight. I saw him hanging there, helpless and alone, and I felt... nothing. No remorse for his plight. No pity for him.
But Eithwyn...
The girl needs a role model, doesn't she? Someone to look up to, to show her the right path. In that moment, that person was me and although I had no real desire to help that wretched cur, still I tried. Would I have done so had she not been present? I honestly don't know.
I didn't drop him.
He slipped.
He fell silently into the rain soaked darkness as I lay there in the mud, one arm gripping a rock and the other hanging useless. I suppose I should have felt something at that time, regret perhaps that it had come to this, but I didn't. All I felt was relief that it was over, that she was safe.
I'll never forget the way her small hands gripped my ankles, her tiny body straining with all its might to pull me back from the edge. I'll never forget how good it felt to wrap my arm around her slender frame, to kiss her wet hair and tell her that it was alright, that she was safe now, that everything would be fine. I'll never forget the way she hugged me back, little arms clinging so tightly, her body shaking as she sobbed, how she sought comfort from me and I, even in my pain and shock, was so very happy to give it.
We picked our way back down the slope between the Wildemore and the Norcrofts, the path made treacherous by the cold and wet. We trudged back to our camp where all I could manage to make was a berry tisane to warm us up. The stew I had promised her... she was in no state to help me make it, too scared and shaky and I have only one working arm right now. I can't cut the few tubers she found or the dried meats in my saddlebags. She didn't complain though.
I waited until she was asleep to set my shoulder. A tree served that purpose. Although I do not think I've done it quite right. I know it should hurt, dislocations always do, but it still doesn't feel right. The ache is not just that of a wrenched muscle or a stretched ligament. It feels more alike something isn't quite where it should be, but there's little more I can do about that for the moment. I've bound my arm to my side as best I can. It will have to do until we reach Harwick. There's bound to be a healer there.
Thank goodness I'm ambidextrous or else we'd be in a world of trouble right now!
