A hand clamped over Selene's mouth, cutting off her gasp. She jolted awake, every muscle in her body tensing. The tent was a cavern of deep shadows and the familiar scents of stale leather and earth, and a fight here would only expose her and the secret she held so close.
Her eyes, wide with alarm, adjusted to the darkness. The man's face was a blur at first, but then a specific detail came into focus: he was still wearing a head bandage, the very one she had seen on a man sleeping in the medical tent, a man in the cot next to the soldier Selene had resurrected. He hadn't been unconscious; he had been "asleep," a silent observer of the impossible.
"Shhh," he hissed, his voice a low, gravelly whisper. "If you want to live, keep quiet."
The realization hit Selene with the force of a physical blow. Her secret wasn't a secret at all. He had seen it. The cold knot of dread in her stomach tightened as he quickly bound her wrists with a length of rope. He was methodical, his movements precise and efficient, not a desperate man but one with a plan.
He lifted her and carried her from the tent. Selene didn't fight.
The camp was a blur of shadows and the distant glow of dying campfires. She was a phantom, moving through the very heart of the army that had become her sanctuary. Panic began to rise in her throat, a muffled scream swallowed by the hand still covering her mouth. The man moved with a silent, practiced ease, hoisting her onto a waiting horse. As he mounted behind her and the horse broke into a trot, Selene's mind reeled. She knew exactly why this was happening: because of the power she had used to. The general's protection had been a fortress, but it had just been breached.
The man was stronger than her. He moved with a practiced silence through the sleeping camp, a ghost in the night, heading not for the woods, but toward the unforgiving mountain pass. A dark and sturdy horse waited for them, a saddlebag stuffed with supplies already waiting.
"What do you want?" Selene finally whispered, her voice tight with a mixture of fear and defiance.
His answer was a low, chilling laugh that seemed to vibrate through her body.
"You'll fetch me a lot of gold," he said, his voice laced with a knowing malice. "You'll see what a witch is worth."
Selene's mind raced, a frantic search for an escape. "I'm not a witch," she hissed, the words a desperate lie. "It was a fluke, a one-time thing. You don't understand what you saw."
He laughed again, a sound that scraped against the silence of the night. "Don't I? I saw a man rise from the dead. I saw you breathe life back into a corpse. I saw a miracle, and miracles are worth a fortune to the right people." He tightened his grip on the reins, and the horse picked up its pace.
Selene's heart hammered against her ribs. "Who are you?"
"Just a man who knows a good opportunity when he sees one," he replied, his voice a cold whisper in her ear. "And you, little miracle worker, are the best opportunity I've ever seen."
The words sent a shiver down Selene's spine. It wasn't just the threat in his voice; it was the casual, almost bored way he said it, as if kidnapping a woman with the power of life and death was no different from haggling over a sack of grain. He saw her not as a person, but as a thing—a commodity to be bought and sold.
"What right do you have to decide that?" she demanded, her fear beginning to curdle into a fierce anger. "You don't even know what you're dealing with. That power… it's not something to be controlled."
He chuckled softly. "Don't worry, little bird. I don't intend to control it. I intend to profit from it. There are sick kings and dying lords with coffers full of coin who would pay anything for a chance at another sunrise. A chance that only you can give them."
He dug his heels into the horse's flanks, and they rode off into the night, leaving the camp and the terrible secret she had tried so hard to protect behind them