The change is immediate. Her gold-flecked eyes go wide, pupils dilating until they're almost black. Her breathing shifts to match his—shallow, labored. When she speaks, her voice carries an odd distance, as if she's narrating something happening far away.
"Water tastes wrong. Bitter. He drinks it because he's thirsty from the hunt." Her head tilts, tracking movement I can't see. "Stomach burns. Gets worse. Falls down, but people keep walking. They leave him."
My blood chills. Not because of what she's describing—though the image of a hunting party abandoning one of their own makes my skin crawl—but because of how she's describing it. As if she's watching it happen. As if she's somehowthere.
"Someone he trusted. She smiles when she hands him the water skin." Eira's voice hardens with an anger that doesn't belong to a five-year-old. "She wants him dead."
Poison. The word crystallizes everything—his labored breathing, the gray pallor beneath green skin, the way he's positioned himself to die with dignity rather than fight an inevitable end. Someone poisoned him and left him to die alone in the snow.
I should be relieved. A dying orc poses no threat. Should make it easier to walk away, to focus on getting Eira to safety before this storm turns deadly.
Instead, I find myself kneeling beside them both.
"What kind of poison?" The question surprises me even as I ask it. "Can you tell?"
Eira's brow furrows in concentration, her connection to whatever visions flow through her touch deepening. "Burns like the bad mushrooms. The ones you said make your belly hurt and your skin hot."
Nightshade family. The knowledge surfaces from half-remembered lessons, fragments of botanical lore mygrandmother shared during long winter evenings in the bunker. Most of those plants work slowly, attacking the nervous system and organs over hours rather than minutes. Survivable, if treated quickly enough.
Ifbeing the operative term.
I study the orc's face—the strong jaw beneath those polished tusks, the network of old scars that speak of battles survived. He looks older than I first thought, maybe late thirties, with the kind of weathered competence that comes from years of responsibility. Leadership, perhaps. The pendant suggests someone important enough to own heirloom jewelry.
Someone worth killing, apparently.
"Can you see anything else?" I ask Eira, though part of me already knows what I'm going to do. The part that remembers my grandmother's stories about mercy being its own kind of strength.
"Hurts," she whispers, and I'm not sure if she means his pain or her own. "Like fire in his blood. But... but there's good things too. Warm things. He misses someone. Wishes he could see snow fall on water."
The detail hits unexpectedly sharp. Snow on water. Such a simple image, but one that speaks of someone capable of finding beauty even in exile. Someone who notices the small graces that make survival worthwhile.
My hands move before conscious thought can interfere, checking his pulse at the throat. Strong but irregular, skin fever-hot despite the gathering cold. His breathing remains shallow, but there's no blood on his lips. No sign of internal hemorrhaging. Whatever poisoned him works slowly enough to leave time for intervention.
IfI choose to intervene.
The smart choice is obvious. Take Eira and keep moving. Find shelter and let the storm cover our tracks. Let this orc die ashis enemies intended and count it one less threat in a world full of them.
But the image of him drinking from that water skin, trusting someone who smiled while planning his death, won't leave me alone. The way Eira described his abandonment—hunting party walking away while their leader collapsed behind them. There's a cruelty in it that makes my stomach twist, a violation of bonds that should matter even between enemies.
She keeps going, telling me every detail that must be playing through his mind. And then suddenly, she trails off, like she's being sucked into the poison, too.
"Eira, I need you to step back now." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "Can you gather some of those pine boughs? The ones with the most needles?"
She blinks, the vision-distance fading from her eyes as she focuses on me. "We're going to help him?"
"I think... yes. I think we are."
The decision settles with surprising finality. Right or wrong, smart or catastrophically stupid, I can't walk away from this. Can't leave him to die alone while snow covers his body like a shroud.
Eira nods gravely and begins collecting branches, her small hands surprisingly efficient at the task. Meanwhile, I inventory what I know about nightshade poisoning and what resources the forest might provide.
Willow bark for the fever. Pine needle tea to help his system flush the toxins. Charcoal if I can make a fire hot enough, though that poses its own risks. More immediately, I need to get fluids into him and shelter over us all before the temperature drops further.
I check his water skin first, unsurprised to find it empty. Either he finished the poisoned water or had the presence of mind to dump it once he realized what was happening. Theleather shows no residue, no lingering scent of bitter almonds or other telltale markers.
Professional work. Whoever wanted him dead knew their craft.
Snow crunches under my knees as I position myself beside his head, hands hovering over his shoulders. He's even larger up close, broad enough that my arms barely span his chest. The muscle beneath his leathers feels solid as stone, though fever-heat radiates through the layers.
