My jaw clenches, and I let out a huff.
Abet. He killed those who went to the meeting with me and tried to kill me. He threatened my bride. A man I had worked alongside for weeks. I had been so sure that he was a man worthy of trusting.
I had been wrong. Stupidly so.
A part of me wants to keep walking, to let him lie there.
But I hear a feeble cry for help.
It agitates my soul, which answers before my mind can object. I walk forward and drop to my knees. My hands shake from the anger and frustration, and I lift the tree.
Beneath it, Abet cries out. The sound pricks at my ears.
"I can't move," he moans.
Begrudgingly, I use my tail to wrap around his non-crushed leg and pull him out. He barks in pain, and I drop the tree and turn to him. His graying hair is caked with snow and blood, and when I kneel to grab his face, he lets out a grunt. His skin is cold to the touch.
Too cold to survive for much longer.
His lips have already gone half purple, and the bottom half of his body is entirely soaked in blood.
I look down at him, and he stares up at me, not full of ire and spite... but sadness.
"I should leave you to die,” I seethe.
He stares at me, a wheezing sound coming with each breath.
"It would be the right thing to do," he responds.
I tighten my fists. "You killed men in cold blood. You tried to kill me!"
If his body weren't already so broken, I would've shaken his shoulder. Thrown him to the ground and stomped on his throat. But he continues to look up toward me, pitiful and wholly at my mercy.
All the fury and bitter words melt off of my tongue, and as I look down at him, I can only think of one single, solitary word.
"Why?"
He looks up at me and struggles to breathe. "My woman was taken by the giants a month ago. They told me that she would be questioned. They told me that if I wanted to see her alive again, then I would do as they wished."
For a second, it is just us. The breeze, the blooming morning, and two men, once friends, now enemies.
And then I think of myself. What I would do for the woman I hid in a cabin. I let the air push out of my body and swallow thickly.
I think of what the giants did to Queen Estela. How she skirted around the camp, eying the water with mistrust. I thinkof what they did to my sweet Melisa, how they cut her and threw her in a pit to starve. What things must they have done to this man's partner?
He leans forward and lets out a hacking cough. Blood sprays over his shirt, my pants, and the snow.
"You were a strange-looking human, but you look... right, as one of those trolls," he says a second later. "I always knew you were keeping secrets."
"I didn't think you kept secrets. I thought you were a good man when we worked together," I say.
"Good, bad, what does it matter? We all die in the end. No god is waiting to receive me in the afterlife," he labored bitterly.
"I do not relate to someone who would betray his friends,” I reply.
"The giants believe they do good by their family. I did good by my family, too. She was all I had,” he says after a minute.
I take a deep breath. "You did good by trying to ruin your people’s chance at freedom. For what? To keep her serving under the giant’s thumb?"