Crow groaned and opened his eyes slowly, grimacing against the light. His head pounded, and his body ached, so he laid still to keep from making the pain worse. Disoriented from passing out, he took a moment to try and remember what had happened. He recalled leaving the camp with Hazel, and then running into Penelope in the woods. They had been spotted by a patrol of knights and were forced to run to get away. After that, everything was hazy.

[i]Did I black out again?[/i] He sat up slowly, bringing a hand to his head as a fresh wave of pain made him wince. It made sense. He must have lost consciousness while they were running and hit his head when he went down. [i]That’s twice now,[/i] he thought with a frown. [i]Twice that I’ve passed out because of this damn illness.[/i] Running his fingers through his hair in frustration, he looked up to take a moment to figure out where he was.

From what he could see, he was sitting in a small alcove behind a large boulder. He blinked as another piece of his memory came back to him. When he had been running with Penelope, she had led him towards a rocky slope. The recollection made him knit his brow in confusion. He remembered running towards the boulder with the knight, but he didn’t remember making it all the way there. If he had passed out before he had gotten to the hiding place, then how was he there now—?

[i]Penelope,[/i] Crow blanched and turned sharply to see her sitting at his side. He felt his heart skip a beat in his chest. She had to have seen him black out. [i]Oh gods,[/i] he thought worriedly, scrambling to try and think up an excuse for what had happened. He didn’t want to tell her the truth, because he knew it would just cause her to worry. He had to think of something else, some other way to write off his episode without alerting her about his illness.

After a moment, he came up with an idea. Meeting Penelope’s gaze, he shook his head to feign surprise, “Well, that was unexpected,” he offered her an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, love. I should have told you before, but I hurt my leg while I was in Younis. I think the run was a bit too much for me to handle.” He lifted his hand up to his head again, rubbing the spot he had hit when he had fallen and wincing as if it still pained him. “I can’t believe I managed to knock myself out like that. What bad luck.”