"Move," I breathe against Mara's ear. "Quiet as you can. Follow my lead."
We crawl across the snow-covered ground, Eira pressed between Mara and me, all three of us moving with desperate care to avoid disturbing the surface enough to leave obvious signs. My heart pounds against my ribs, but my breathing remains controlled. Panic serves no one. Survival requires clarity.
The fallen log offers more cover than I'd hoped, its massive trunk creating a natural blind between us and the downstream approach. I position myself so I can see over it while keeping Mara and Eira completely hidden, their bodies warm against mine in the confined space.
Footsteps crunch through snow, deliberate and unhurried. Two sets, possibly three. They're following the stream's path justas we did, tracking signs I should have been more careful to obscure.
"...trail goes cold here," a voice carries across the water. Rough, scarred by smoke and battle. Redmoon accent, thick with the guttural consonants their clan favors.
"He's wounded," another responds. "Couldn't have gone far."
My jaw clenches. They know about the poison, which means Sareen succeeded in her assassination attempt even if I survived it. Knowledge of my condition would have reached their war council, influenced their strategies. How much of Wintermaw's territory have they claimed in my absence? How many of my people have died defending lands I should have been protecting?
Eira trembles against my side, her small body radiating the kind of fear that penetrates deeper than physical cold. I tighten my arm around her, willing my presence to provide comfort even as my own mind calculates distances, weapons available, likelihood of successful combat against unknown numbers.
The footsteps move closer, pausing directly across the stream from our hiding place. I catch a glimpse of red clan markings, the gleam of well-maintained weapons. Three of them, as Eira predicted. All seasoned warriors by their movements, all equipped for tracking rather than pitched battle.
One of them kneels beside the water, examining something I cannot see from this angle. "Blood trace here, old but persistent. He's been drinking from this stream."
"Might explain why the trail fragments," the second scout observes. "Following water rather than maintaining straight-line movement."
They're good. Better than I'd hoped, worse than I'd feared. Professional trackers who understand their quarry's likely behavior, who can read signs most hunters would miss entirely.
Eira's breathing catches, and I feel her magic stirring—that strange warmth that seems to emanate from her when her giftsactivate. She turns her face against my chest, her whisper so quiet I have to strain to hear it.
"They're going to spread out. One goes upstream, one downstream, one stays here to watch the crossing."
Tactical information delivered with the matter-of-fact certainty only her abilities can provide. My mind immediately begins calculating possibilities, escape routes, the likelihood of moving three people through forest terrain without leaving a sign these scouts can follow.
The odds are not encouraging.
But as the Redmoon scouts begin implementing exactly the strategy Eira predicted, as I hold these two precious lives against me and feel snow settling on our hair like scattered stars, something crystallizes in my chest with startling clarity.
I want them. Not temporarily, not as an obligation or debt to be discharged, but permanently. I want Mara's quiet strength and sharp intelligence as part of Wintermaw's fabric. I want Eira's laughter echoing through our longhouse, her strange gifts adding to our clan's capabilities, her bright presence bringing light to halls that have known too much darkness.
I want them under my banners, protected by my name, claimed as mine in every way that matters.
The recognition steals the breath I cannot afford to lose while Redmoon scouts patrol barely fifty yards away. But the want remains, fierce and undeniable, even as the practical impossibility of the situation becomes increasingly clear.
We are running out of time. Running out of places to hide. And I am running out of reasons to pretend that letting them go could ever be an acceptable option.
13
MARA
The fire crackles between us, sending sparks spiraling into the dark sky like tiny prayers to gods who stopped listening long ago. I watch them rise and disappear, each one carrying a wish I don't dare speak aloud. Eira sleeps curled against my side, her small body radiating the steady warmth of deep childhood slumber, but rest eludes me completely.
The image of those Redmoon scouts burns behind my eyelids every time I close them. Three warriors moving through the forest with deadly purpose, hunting the man who sits across from me now, sharpening his knife with methodical strokes that speak of habitual preparation for violence. Each scrape of stone against metal reminds me that our fragile sanctuary exists on borrowed time.
Between his knowledge and Eira's magic, we stayed hidden until they gave up and left. But Nelrish and I have been silent since. Probably thinking the same thing: they’ll find us soon enough.
My mind churns through possibilities like water through a broken dam—chaotic, destructive, impossible to control. Where can we go? The eastern bunkers trade women when supplies runlow; they proved that when they handed me over to Redmoon without a second thought. The western settlements shoot strangers on sight, paranoid after years of orc raids that left their communities gutted and afraid. North means deeper into the fighting, south leads toward where humans serve as little more than livestock.
Every direction feels like a trap waiting to spring.
I stroke Eira's hair, feeling the slight warmth that always emanates from her skin when her magic stirs in sleep. She murmurs something unintelligible, pressing closer against my ribs as though seeking protection from dreams I cannot fight for her. How do I keep her safe in a world that sees her as either an abomination or a prize to be claimed?
Trust. The word sits bitter on my tongue, foreign after years of learning that safety exists only in self-reliance. But watching Nelrish these past days—seeing how he teaches Eira to identify safe berries, how he ensures the fire burns steady through the night, how his presence transforms our precarious camp into something that almost feels like home—cracks have formed in the careful walls I've built around my heart.
