The witch had saved him.

It went against everything Theiden believed about her kind, and he wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't been watching the entire fight.

At first, after seeing the eerie creature peer into the cottage through the kitchen window, Theiden had hidden in a crouch behind the armchair, hardly daring to move.  He stayed there while the thing then continued its assault against the door, listening to each creak and groan of the protesting wood and battered metal hinges.  It had had been so close to breaking in and killing him.

But then she had arrived.  When Theiden heard the witch's voice outside, curiosity had gotten the better of him. Despite Kettle's protests, he had crept over to the sitting room window next to the front door and peeked out through the gap in the curtains.

The faun—for that was what the witch had called it—had wanted to kill him. The witch had objected, and she had fought to protect him.

Now, as his captor lay unmoving on the ground after the faun's departure, Theiden felt a surge of guilt run through him. It would have been so easy for her to have just given him up to the faun. And although she had eventually won the battle with the horned creature, it had come at a terrible price.

Is she even still alive? Theiden wondered. He got his answer a few long seconds later, when the witch finally stirred. The woman rolled over to her right and gently propped herself up to a sitting position with her one good arm. The wisp nuzzled her side in encouragement, and the witch managed to get to her feet. She stumbled on her first step, and Theiden gave a start.

His sudden movement must have caught the witch's attention, for she suddenly looked up, and their eyes briefly met. Theiden jumped back from the window and let the curtain drop.

He didn't care what happened to the witch, he reminded himself.

The door opened a minute later, and the woman shuffled into the cottage. She stepped out of her boots at the doormat and headed over to the pantry at the far side of the kitchen. She acted as though nothing was wrong, but Theiden didn't miss the way her left arm hung uselessly at her side. Shwei trailed behind her, his light a sickly shade of turquoise.

Kettle, who all this time had been peeping out from beneath her upturned pudding bowl, now jumped up and hurried over to grab a metal pot out of a lower cupboard and hoist it up to the kitchen sink. As the witch sorted through the bundles of dried herbs hanging from the pantry ceiling, the tomte filled the pot with water and set it on the stovetop.

"Is there something I can do?" Theiden finally asked.

The witch ignored him, but the tomte looked up with a glower.

"You've done plenty already," Kettle spat. "Go to bed."

Theiden stayed where he was.  "I want to help."

"Help," the tomte sneered. "That's amusing."

"Look, I'm sorry that I made too much noise and attracted the...thing," Theiden began. "But how was I to know that I had to keep quiet? If you had just told me, none of this would have happened!"

"Would you have listened?" the witch murmured. Theiden jumped, not realizing she had come up right behind him. Her voice had sounded almost right in his ear.

"I..." Theiden hesitated. "Probably not," he finally admitted.

The witch nodded calmly before brushing past him to reach the stovetop. Shwei, still in fox form, managed to spit a small flame into the firebox beneath, and as the water heated, the witch began to break up the dried herbs with her one good hand and sprinkle them in the pot.

It was then that Theiden noticed the drops of blood on the floor. In the dim lighting, the blood hadn't been visible until the stove was lit, and even then, it was still hard to see.

"You should sit down," Theiden said.

The witch ignored him and continued to tear up the leaves in her hand and drop them into the water. When the kitchen began to smell like sage, she set aside the remaining leaves and took down a jar of salt from the shelf near the window. A good third of the jar was emptied into the stovetop concoction before the witch was satisfied.

Shwei made some sort of tired noise and left to curl up underneath the armchair in the main part of the cottage. Theiden looked back down at the trail of blood on the wooden floor, gleaming black in the dim light

"Really, I don't think it's good for you to keep standing," he tried again.

"I am perfectly fine, thank you," she answered, but Theiden didn't miss how she swayed on her feet after speaking and gripped the edge of the countertop.

Kettle had mashed up some cloves of garlic in a mortar, and dragged the container over to scrape out into the pot of now-boiling water.

"Spoon," the witch told the tomte breathlessly. When Kettle scrambled back with the wooden instrument, however, Theiden intercepted it.

A flutter of her eyelids was all the energy she had left to show her surprise.

"Sit," he said firmly.

One of the dining chairs wandered over to them from the kitchen table at just that moment, and the witch sat right where she had been standing. Satisfied, Theiden began stirring the pot with the spoon.

"Don't let..." the witch began, but trailed off. Theiden looked down to find her struggling for consciousness. The hole in her shoulder glistened a dark reddish-black in the stove light, and was dirtied with pieces of dead leaves and clumps of mud.

Theiden frowned. Now was the perfect opportunity to kill the witch, or at least try to escape. But there was no telling if the faun was still lurking outside, hidden among the trees. And it seemed wrong to take advantage of her injury, after she had rescued him from his own mistake. He still hated her, but he would have other opportunities.

Besides, the drawer with the knives was still locked.

"I've treated a few hunting wounds before," Theiden said, hoping his voice would help the witch stay awake. "Some of them required a poultice—not this recipe exactly, but similar. I won't let the herbs burn at the bottom."

"You had better not," Kettle snapped from near Theiden's elbow. He turned to find that the tomte had gone to fetch clean strips of linen in the short amount of time he had been talking.

"Here." Kettle held out the pieces of cloth. "Soak these in the pot."

Theiden did as instructed, and the tomte jumped down from the counter to scurry over to the witch, who now looked feverishly ill.

Kettle clambered up the witch's skirt and then climbed higher up to perch on the witch's collarbone, above the injury. Ever so slowly, the tomte began reaching down to pick out the bits of forest that had gotten in the wound and drop them on the floor.

Theiden turned his attention back to the fabric strips in the boiling water. They were about ready to be used, so he rummaged around in one of the drawers that did open for him, until he found a sharp pair of kitchen shears.

The witch's eyes had fallen shut, but they snapped open again with the alarmed squeak from Kettle, who then promptly fell off her perch and onto the floor.

Theiden heard the sharp intake of breath as the witch's eyes locked onto the sharp instrument in his hand. The expression on her face was similar to that of a cornered, wounded animal, and Theiden stopped his advance. The witch's entire body had tensed up, ready to flee.

"Lenesa," he said, slowly and firmly. It was the first time he had ever used her name, and her gaze broke from the blades to look up at him in surprise. "I'm not going to hurt you."

She took a deep breath.

"Why not?" she whispered. "You've always wanted to. Here's your chance."

Theiden clenched his jaw. "Maybe another time," he replied. "But tonight, you...saved me. It just wouldn't seem right."

The witch twitched an eyebrow. "Life is hardly fair," she said.

"I'm not foolish. Right now, you're the lesser of the two evils in these mountains." He took another step towards her. "I might end up regretting it if I killed you at this time."

"Yes, how inconvenient for you that would be." Her reply was cold and bitter.

The witch turned away, but Theiden didn't miss how the tendons in her neck twitched when he brought the shears closer. Hiding below the chair, Kettle growled up at him.

"It will be more efficient to cut the sleeve away," Theiden told them both, deftly slipping the scissors underneath the tattered and bloodstained fabric at Lenesa's shoulder. "I'll be able to reach the wound more easily."

The witch didn't respond, and didn't even relax when Theiden finished and stepped away, pulling off the ruined sleeve as he did so.

"It happened long ago," she finally said, when Theiden continued to stare at the grotesque scar that started at the witch's inner elbow and ran the length of her upper arm. The old wound trailed up around the witch's shoulder and disappeared beneath the back of the ruined dress. "It was before I had perfected my healing spells."

"Was it the same time as...?" Theiden trailed off, glancing at the scar on Lenesa's face. The witch shifted, and her hair covered the mark from view.

"Yes," was her simple reply.

Theiden turned to take out a strip of cloth from the boiling water, looping it around the wooden spoon in order to take it out of the pot without scalding himself. While he waited for the fabric to cool, he dragged over another chair and sat next to the witch, inspecting her injury.

When the cloth finally touched her skin, Lenesa jumped, but didn't say anything as Theiden pressed the steaming linen against her shoulder and cleaned away the blood.

"Why did that creature want to kill me?" Theiden asked as he worked.

"Because people from the city kill those of us who dwell in the mountains," she replied.

"Not everyone from the city is a murderer," Theiden defended. "Besides, all of your kind kill us."

"Not everyone from the mountains is a murderer," the witch answered, twisting Theiden's defense back at him. "But there are some from both sides who are unable to see that there is a difference."

"That's ridiculous," Theiden spat, perhaps pressing the cloth to Lenesa's shoulder with a bit more force than necessary. "The faun can't distinguish between a hunter and a witch hunter?"  Never mind that he had applied to join the witch hunters, he thought.  He wasn't one yet, and that was all that mattered.

Lenesa sounded tired when she replied, "And you can't distinguish between a Turned witch and a good one."

Theiden gave a bitter laugh. "A good witch? Is that supposed to be you? You're just as evil as the rest of them—cursing children and taking prisoners.  In case you'd forgotten, you turned my daughter green."

The witch sighed. "I have my reasons.  But you aren't ready to listen."

Theiden frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

But the woman merely shook her head and closed her eyes with another tired sigh. Theiden was left to mull over her words and reflect on the memories that they had brought—of mangled bodies carried back from the forest, of the witch hunters' heartening oath of revenge, of his wife...

Theiden pulled himself from his musings at the small pitter-patter of approaching feet. Kettle, reassured that Theiden was not going to try killing the witch anytime soon, had scurried out from underneath Lenesa's chair and run off to fetch more strips of cloth to use for bandages. Now, the little tomte was almost comical on her return trip, appearing only as a bundle of fabric with little stick legs and gray clogs. Theiden had wondered how she could see with all of her hair in front of her face, and now, he figured, Kettle must have had some sort of magic to navigate through the cottage with so much obscuring her vision.

"Here," the tomte said, dumping more of the bandages on the counter. "You're welcome."

Before Theiden could respond, she had jumped down and scurried off again.

After the fifth strip of sage-and-garlic soaked cloth, the witch began to nod forward in her chair, too exhausted to stay awake any longer. Theiden took some of the dry bandages and wrapped her shoulder, then, hesitantly, tapped the back of her hand.

"Hey..." he began, but the witch merely slumped sideways before unconsciously jerking back up to keep her balance.

Unsure of what to do, Theiden hesitated. He couldn't just leave the witch like this.

"Lenesa," he whispered. His voice sounded too loud in the comparative stillness of the cottage.

Slowly, the witch's eyes blinked open. It was only then that Theiden realized he had been leaning in, and he quickly drew back. The witch, too, seemed unnerved by the closeness, and abruptly stood up from her chair.

"You should go to bed," she said stiffly, not looking directly at him.

"So should you," Theiden replied.

"Do not tell me what to do."

"Do you ever sleep?" Theiden asked, unable to stop the irritation trickling into his words. He had only been trying to be civil, but she had flung it back in his face. "Or do you only take quick naps when I'm not around to see, because you're worried that I'll kill you then, in your weakest moment?"

"I am not weak." The witch rounded on him with a terrifying intensity in her dark eyes. Long shadows cast by the stove light flickered across her face, and her hair hung in thick tangles. She looked completely different in that moment—not human at all, but rather wild and vicious, like some beast from the forest. Even her fingers had clenched into claws at her sides, as if the witch was only just restraining herself from tearing Theiden apart. "If I had been worried about you killing me, I wouldn't have bothered to save your life!"

Was it just his imagination, or had the room grown colder and darker? Theiden raised his chin and did his best not to seem intimidated.

"No one can be strong all the time," he said. "But if you want to deny that and bleed to death instead, be my guest. It would save me the trouble of trying to kill you later."

With that, he stood up and stormed into the main part of the cottage, over to the loft ladder, and scaled the wooden rungs. Yet when he reached his makeshift bed, despite his best intentions not to, he immediately fell asleep.

~~

Chapter dedicated to TheHeraEra who designed this amazing new cover.  Check out her Fantastic Graphics and Where to Find Them if you're looking for something to spruce up your story too.  Thank you Hera!

So, any guesses as to what happened to Lenesa?  Let me know your ideas or just your thoughts about this chapter in general!  Thanks for reading!