"So we met again," He declared. Suddenly, I was missing the bandits.

"But what are you doing here?" He asked me while I still had the cloth stuffed in my mouth.

"Do you know her?" Asked the other man who was with him.

"I might," He answered, giving me a dark look while I laid there, glaring at him and waiting for him to remove the cloth from my mouth and untie me. The other man gave him a pointed look before he looked down at me again.

"So... what do we do with her?" The other man asked. The peasant was going to respond, but within this time, someone came and told him that they didn't find much from the bandits. The peasant nodded, and the man went away.

"We're taking her with us," The peasant answered his friend, who was still looking at me strangely.

"Are you sure?" The other man asked him, looking very unsure, but the look on the peasant's face irked me. The same look said he knew something about me that I didn't.

"Yes," He asserted before his friend gave me a last look and left to join the rest of the group, leaving the two of us alone briefly. In the background, the other men were collecting the bodies by the stream. I took this moment to look at the peasant... or that's what I thought him to be when I saw him last time on that ship. This time, he looked like anyone but a peasant. He was dressed more like a merchant tonight, but that strange aura oozing off him remained the same. It was the same aura that made me feel oddly gravitated to him and, at the same time, made me want to run for the hills.

Who was he? I wanted to ask, but my mouth was still stuffed with the cloth. He was still studying me with that same knowing look, yet there was slight bewilderment in his eyes.

"Untie me," I gritted as soon as he took the cloth out of my mouth. At this, the tip of his lips slightly curled up, and something gleamed in his eyes.

"I think I like seeing you tied like this," he commented, gently moving a strand of my hair away from my face. I was about to threaten him to untie me, but before I could do that, he declared, "We cannot stay here for long," and scooped me up. Suddenly, those strange sensations exploded all over my skin like fireworks, making something flutter in my stomach and making my heart thrash against my sternum.

"Where are you taking me?" I demanded, glaring at him and wishing those strange sensations running up my arm and down my spine would stop so that I could focus more on finding a way out of there instead of finding a way to his—

Suddenly, I reminded myself of the shrine and a certain someone named Vittoria waiting for me there and to be honest, it sobered me up for a bit.

"You'll see," He answered, looking ahead. I noticed that his group was already preparing to leave after collecting the dead bodies by the river. The way they had piled those bodies, it was as if they were trying to send a message to someone... or set an example. Whatever it was, the sight was sickening and gut-wrenching.

"No, you have to tell me now!" I demanded.

"Are you in a hurry?" He asked.

"Yes,"

"Where do you have to be at this time?" He asked, glancing down at me again with a funny look on his face. "You look different than the last time I saw you," He commented.

"You too," I couldn't help but comment. "Aren't you a peasant?" I asked him while he caught up with his group, who had already crossed the stream and were now threading through the deep woods in a way that reminded me more of a platoon than a group of merchants. The weapons they were carrying made it hard for one to believe that they were merchants.

He sighed deeply before answering with a sarcastic tone, "Yeah, I decided to change my profession. The feudal lords took my land away anyway," I stared at his face for a whole minute to see if he was lying or if that was the truth.

"What about you? Have you given up whoring?" He asked in amusement. I gave him a death glare while he continued, "Seems so. You aren't dressed like one this time. I'm assuming you changed your profession recently as well,"

"Yeah," I sighed, matching his tone, "I'm a healer now. Whoring didn't seem to be my cup of tea,"

"Well, I'm glad to know that," He returned as a dark look flashed in his eyes briefly, but it was gone soon. "Since you said you're a healer now, and I saved you for the second time, you should heal a friend of mine who seemed to have stepped on a curse trap. I'd hate to lose him tonight," He told me.

I froze and didn't say anything, so he continued, "What do you say?..." He trailed off, glancing down at me briefly again. "What? Don't you have a name?" He pressed when I didn't say anything. "What are you called?"

"What makes you think that you're entitled to know my name? Did you tell me yours? " I shot back.

"You want to know my name?" He asked, cocking an eyebrow and looking at me as if I had asked him something I shouldn't have, as if I had almost committed a crime.

"Yes," I demanded. He stopped walking for once and looked down at me pensively for a whole minute. It was semi-dark like the night on the ship. The flickering flames of the merchant's torches cast shadows on his face, and when his entire face was drenched in darkness for a moment, the rim of his eyes glowed, intensifying those strange sensations running up my arm.

"Call me Nico," He told me, breaking the silence.

"What do you mean by call you?" I asked him, narrowing my eyes, "Isn't that your real name?" I pressed. His eyes darkened a bit before he answered, "It's one of my names," and resumed walking. I wanted to question him further, but the group decided to stop and set up a camp. I watched in surprise as they set up the camp in a matter of a few moments. I had never seen people work so fast. It looked superhuman.

Soon, I found myself sitting by a fire, still tied, watching one of the merchants from the group roasting a deer. Nico had disappeared somewhere briefly. I decided to use this opportunity to find a way to untie myself. When the merchant wasn't paying any attention to me, I edged a bit closer to the fire and tried to hold the ropes closer to it. I was risking burning myself, but that was worth it if it meant that I could be free.

I got slightly excited as the ropes caught a few sparks, and they burned a bit but soon went out, making the ropes looser. I tried that again until someone cleared their throat, making me look up to find Nico standing by, holding a knife.

"Looks like you don't need this anymore," He said, pocketing the knife.

"NO! Please, untie me! I cannot feel my legs anymore!" I told him. I wasn't lying; my legs were starting to feel numb. He cocked an eyebrow at me and argued, "Why? You seem to be helping yourself just as fine,"

"Do you want your friend healed or not?" I shot back.

"You were trying to escape to heal my friend? I didn't know people had such pure hearts nowadays," He laughed dryly while I glared at him.

"Fine, I will free you, and in return, you have to heal my friend and tell me your name. What do you think?" He asked. I blurted out yes even before his second demand adequately registered in my brain. He nodded before kneeling before me and starting to cut the ropes one by one. I watched his huge steady hands work through the ropes, setting those strange sensations whenever and wherever they touched me. Meanwhile, I tried my best to be as still as possible.

When he was finally done undoing the last rope, I couldn't help stretch while he watched me with curiosity and something dark in his eyes.

"And don't even think about that," He gave me a simple warning when I spotted a trail disappearing somewhere in the woods.

"I'd be leaving one time or the other," I told him, rubbing the rope marks on my wrist. In response, he looked at me as if I had just challenged him for a duel.

"What makes you think that?"

"What makes you think that I'd be staying with you after this?" I asked him back. Something dark flickered in his eyes briefly.

"My group needs a healer who could travel with us", He answered, "Us Merchants, our journeys are far and wide with paths that often have death tailing us. A healer would be convenient, and besides, you'd have steady pay and an assured safety from bandits," He added the last part with a satiric undertone.

I tilted my head and pretended to give this new job prospect a thought before nodding, "That sounds promising,"

"It is, but before that, you'd have to prove to me that you're are, as you claim yourself to be, a healer,"

"What? You don't trust me that I'm a healer?" I asked, feeling offended for some reason.

"Well, it's hard to trust whore," He returned, unknowingly wounding my pride. I clenched my jaw hard and looked him dead in his eyes.

If only he knew who I was...

"Let's get going. My friend doesn't have much time left. I hope you are who you claim to be," He spoke, his voice coated with grimness.

"What if I'm not?" I dared ask. He didn't answer right away. Instead, he stood there and bore his eyes into me until I could feel their crushing weight. His body looked unexpectedly tensed. A wave of uneasiness washed over me the more he watched me with something uncertain, unsettling simmering into those dark eyes of his, with his features shrouded by a pensive and precarious countenance. I virtually turned a statue, waiting for him to answer.

"We have a lot to lose then," He answered eventually in a callous manner, sending a shiver down my spine. I decided not to question him further.

He took me to one of the small tents at the very end of the camp. I saw a man coming out there, covered from head to toe in clothes.

"How bad is it?"I asked Nico.

"Extraordinarily bad. They haven't seen anything like that before," He replied, staring forth into the dark woods. His face was void of emotions through something vengeful flickered in his eyes.

"Was it one of the tribes?" I asked carefully, attempting to get a rough estimation of the curse.

"We don't know," He told me before handing me some protective covering. I glanced at it briefly before looking at the tent. Without the protective covering, I entered it. Nico opposed behind me, but I told him to stay outside. Inside the tent, I found a man lying down. He looked nearly normal until I noticed some black scars on his body.

I wasn't a healer, but I was familiar with those black scars in a way I shouldn't be. I stilled briefly, not trying to think of the incident which familiarized me to them. I studied the black scars on that man's body, trying to recall their treatment.

Fortunately, I learned how to cure them but not how a healer would have. First, I made sure that no one was there to walk on me performing a spell. It was clear that Nico wouldn't be delighted to learn that I wasn't a healer. Given this, I was guaranteed that his vexation would reach the moon if he ever discovered that I was, in fact, a priestess in training.

Oh, how people feared our kind. The only ones worse than us were the gipsies. Just their presence was enough for people to abandon towns and villages. Us priestesses, our reputation wasn't as tarnished; regardless, it was sufficient for people to either avoid us like the plague or hound us like some exotic animal—no wonder why we travelled in disguises and lived on an isolated, enchanted island.

After ensuring that no one could interrupt me, I checked the man's breaths. They were getting weaker and weaker, so I had to hurry up. I found a blade and split his palm before squeezing blood on a small fire burning in a bowl. As I watched his blood drip and sizzle in the fire, I muttered the spells under my breath, hoping they would work. Even though I knew how to do the procedure, it was the first time I was doing it.

If things went wrong there, I already had a knife to cut the tent fabric and escape from the other side without anyone noticing me. However, I was hoping that I wouldn't have to resort to that.

I squeezed more and more blood out of his palm until I heard him gasping. I let out a sigh of relief as I saw his chest rising and falling as he gasped for air.

Quickly, I cleaned the blood and put away the fire. I found it peculiar that the man's wound had healed by the time I was done hiding all the evidence of the spell I had performed.

"I heard something! Did you kill him accidentally?" Nico enquired out loud.

"Come look for yourself," I replied, watching those black spots disappear gradually, leaving a bitter taste of those unpleasant memories.

Meanwhile, Nico stepped inside the tent cautiously. His eyes fell on the man breathing heavily. He studied him for a second long and glanced at me.

"Well, looks like you are a healer," He commented darkly with that same look that said that he knew something about me that I didn't.

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