“It’s only within a short period that they will be thankful,“ said a voice in her head – the voice of a friend who had already gone ahead into the next life. “The questions will start soon. Answers will be demanded from you, Ysabel. What are you going to tell them?” Words spoken to her when she was younger and cared less about the world, at a time when she thought herself invincible and capable of ridding the world of its evils.

The woman knelt on the snow, surrendering what little food she had to the snow. She clutched at her stomach, catching her breath. With her head bowed, fine strands of her shoulder length coppery hair spilled from the fur lining of the hood. Her shoulder burned as if slowly being burnt and eaten at the same time. This must be how Rannor felt, minus the ugly wound and awful smell. If she started to see hallucinations, Ysabel wouldn’t be surprised. Still the challenge of not being found out was present. What she had to do to keep her secret was to act as if she was fine, which was farther from the truth than Cannor to Castermere. She shouldn’t have pushed it. Ysabel should have healed Rannor slowly, leaching the Warg’s poisonous essence from the older man’s body in regular intervals. That way she would have given her body to enough time to fight off the small doses before taking in more. However, like his brothers, Ysabel was afraid that Rannor was going to die within the hour.

Voices filled with emotions came from where she left Rannor, Gilly and Derrin. The other men must have gathered around her patient, but she was too busy heaving the contents of her stomach to the ground to be truly certain. She even failed to realize that the gray overcast had already cleared giving way to the glittering stars. It was only when a shadow fell over her that she looked up from the ground.

Turning her head slightly, she chanced a glance at the person who decided to join her. Perhaps he was the most curious of the group, already about to ask questions. Standing a little to her right was the blonde who had earlier expressed his doubt. Despite her condition, she couldn’t help but grace him with a lopsided I-told-you-so grin.

Feeling more confident that her stomach was done throwing away its contents, she wiped her lips with the rough exterior of her cloak then got up to her feet. The moment she did, her perspective went weird, the ground tilted and she instinctively grasped his arm for support. She went still for a few seconds, waiting out the wave of dizziness, until she thought she already found her balance. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, letting him go. 

Ysabel stood only a few inches shorter than the man. He looked different from his comrades, his coloring was definitely different. She wondered if he was a half-blood, possibly a product of a passionate night shared between a lonely soldier and a whore. She waited for him to say something, but somebody else beat him into it. 

Footsteps were muffled by the snow, but Greymount’s presence was fairly hard to miss. “What did you give him?” he demanded.

Ysabel tugged at the hood of her cloak, under the pretense that she was cold, willing the shadows to hide her face and the paleness of her skin. “Medicine,” she answered. “All the ingredients were from your supply. You should be smart enough to figure out which, but I shall not reveal the formulation. Why else should you lot keep your promise to help me get to Cannor safely?”