Teddy wasn’t sure how far downriver they’d come. While the water carried them faster than they ever could have gone on foot, it could have carried them too far beyond the caves. He had no idea where they were.
He tried to shove down his panic so Stella wouldn’t feel it, but the sun was dropping low on the horizon and it was getting colder. His breath came out in little white clouds as he climbed the steep hill.
When he reached the precipice, he caught a glimpse of light reflecting through the thick pines. It had to be some kind of structure. He stumbled toward it.
Stella groaned at being jostled, but she hadn’t fully woken since she collapsed beside him at the river. He’d been walking for at least a half-hour.
He carefully approached the small cabin. Chopped wood was stacked neatly by the dark green door, to the right of which was a well pump that Teddy prayed was functional.
He stayed close to the wall, peeking in the cabin’s window, but, as he suspected from the lack of smoke coming from the chimney, it was dark inside.
He jostled the doorknob and, mercifully, it opened. The cottage was stuffy and dusty, but not overrun by cobwebs. It looked like someone had been there recently. The wood bin by the fireplace was well-stocked, and the bed was covered in a white linen dust sheet, but the rest of the furniture was uncovered.
Teddy crossed the small room in quick strides. He awkwardly tugged the cover off the bed, laying Stella gently on the quilt. She didn’t stir, and when he saw the state of her split armor and the side of her shirt, he understood why. She’d been bleeding much more than he thought. Her undershirt was soaked and even the waistband of her pants was drenched in dark blood.
Panic threatened to overtake him, but Stella needed him. He stacked logs in the fireplace and summoned the dregs of magic he had left to get a fire started.
He pulled the few things he could find from the pantry. There wasa jar of honey, some dried tea, potatoes, carrots, an onion, jerky, and nuts. He set them all in a line on the counter.
In the cabinet beneath the counter, he found a heavy cauldron, a kettle, and a large metal bowl. Teddy stepped outside and filled each one with water. He set the cauldron and the kettle over the fire, then ran to Stella’s bag. It had opened during their time in the river and all of her clothing was drenched. He wrung it all out just outside the cabin door and draped her shirts, pants, and undergarments over the drying rack by the fire. Then he yanked off his soaked vest and shirt and hung them over the kitchen chairs in front of the fire.
He rifled through his bag in search of anything dry. Most of his clothes were wet, but finally, at the bottom of his bag, tucked inside the enchanted pouch his mother had gifted him for his birthday two years ago, he found one dry set of clothes and a small satchel of chamomile. He quickly stripped out of his wet pants and pulled on the dry pair as he cast a glance at Stella. She was still out cold. Her skin was so pale that she blended in with the ivory linen pillowcase and her lips were almost blue.
He needed to get her out of her wet clothes, but he also didn’t want her to stab him for seeing her naked, not that she seemed to mind when she was teasing him at the Temple of Desiree.
Still, it was different when she wasn’t conscious.
He crossed the room and pressed a hand to her cheek. Her skin was cold and smooth under his callused palm, but she didn’t stir.
“Stella, wake up. I have to change your clothes.”
She didn’t move. Teddy unlaced her boots and pulled them off. He tried to shake her awake, but she remained unconscious. Carefully, he unbuttoned her trousers, closing his eyes as he hooked his hands into the sides of her pants and undergarments and peeled the wet fabric down her legs. Fortunately, they came free with a bit of shimmying.
He hung the clothes over the arm of the plush chair by the fire and grabbed his dry shirt. He went back to the bed and sat Stella up, shifting his body behind her. The leather of her armor vest creakedas he unbuckled it and slid it free. It hit the ground with a metallic clang thanks to the stays tucked inside it.
“Stella,” he said, a little louder than before. But her head lolled against his shoulder.
Teddy crossed his arms over her chest and grabbed the hem of her shirt. He pulled the damp linen away from her skin, catching the edge of her bandeau. It took more effort than expected to peel the wet clothing off of her limp body and wrestle her into his dry shirt.
He moved out from behind her and laid her down on the bed, rolling her onto her right side and pushing the shirt up so he could look at her wound. The skin was red and angry and crusted in blood. The cut was small but deep—a puncture wound. It had stopped bleeding, but he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. He knew she could still bleed out internally, and gods knew what kind of sediment she’d been exposed to in the river.
He needed to find something to protect against infection. His mind was sluggish, and the forest was almost dark outside. He frantically tore through his memories. Isla had drilled into him the importance of having basic field herbalism memorized, but his exhaustion and anxiety were weighing on him. He didn’t know exactly where they’d landed after their trip down the river, but it was safe to say they were somewhere south of the Border Lands.
Calla root was common enough around here and the bright orange stalks would be easy to find even in the dusk light. He vaguely remembered seeing some when he was walking back from the river.
He held his hand to Stella’s forehead and checked her pulse. It was steady.
Teddy hurried out of the cabin and into the woods, retracing his steps. The cold air stung his bare chest, but he ignored it, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. Half a mile down the trail, he found the bright orange stalks sprouting from the roots of a large oak tree.
He used his dagger to pry a few stalks loose, since the base was the most concentrated part of the herb. His breath burned from the cold air as he ran back to the cabin.
Stella was still asleep when he returned. He poured some boiling water from the kettle into the metal bowl, cut off the top of the root, and dropped the bottoms into the bowl. After letting it boil for a few minutes, he removed a few stalks from the water and placed them in a smaller bowl he’d found in the cabinet above the counter. He left the rest of the stalks in the water to make a healing tea. He took the bowl with the drying roots outside to cool.
The minutes ticked by too slowly. His heart rioted in his chest. Despite his best efforts to hate Stella, she’d gotten under his skin. He cared about her. He’d come to like her confronting personal questions and the way she talked in her sleep. He’d even come to enjoy the way her constant complaining about being hungry distracted him from the worry loop in his head.
She had saved him. If she’d let him go in the river, she would have survived on her own. She wouldn’t have had to use all of her magic to ease the way for him, and she probably could have healed herself once she got out of the water.
But Stella had protected him. As much as he wanted to blame it on the bond alone, he knew her. Stella wanted to protect everyone. That was just who she was. It made her both fierce when it came to standing up for the people she loved and gentle in how she always hesitated before a killing blow. That same softness plagued him with the persistent fear that she was going to get herself killed in this competition.
