“I’d rather you didn’t.”
Another long pause. Then he picked up the knife again and gestured to the space beside him.
“Come here. Watch what I’m doing. The meat needs to be sliced thin enough to dry properly, or it’ll spoil.”
Her heart lifted, and she crossed the cabin on unsteady legs to learn.
The next two hours were an education in humiliation.
She couldn’t hold the knife properly—her grip was too loose, her angle wrong, and the blade slipped dangerously close to her fingers. He corrected her three times before she managed a single acceptable slice, and even then it was uneven, thicker on one side than the other.
“Again,” he said.
She tried again. And again. And again.
Her hand cramped. Her shoulder ached from the unfamiliar motion. Her burned palm sent spikes of pain up her arm every time she gripped the handle too tightly. But she kept going, slice after slice, until she’d worked through half the meat and her cuts had improved from disastrous to merely poor.
“Adequate,” he said finally as he arranged the slices on a drying rack, and it felt like high praise.
Next came fire maintenance—how to add wood without smothering the flames, how to adjust the airflow, how to read the coals and know when more fuel was needed. This she managed better because it required observation and attention rather than strength.
Then water again.
“Don’t try to lift the full bucket,” he said, watching her eye the container with undisguised wariness. “Fill it halfway. Make two trips instead of one.”
“You said that was inefficient.”
“Refilling it three times because you overestimated your strength is more inefficient.”
He had a point.
She filled the bucket halfway and found she could lift it—barely, with effort, her arms shaking by the time she reached the door—but she could lift it, which was more than she’d managed before.
Small victories.
By the time they’d finished the evening meal—a simple preparation of dried fruit and grain that she had assisted with under his watchful eye—she was exhausted in a way she’d never experienced. Every muscle in her body ached. Her hands were raw, her burned palm screaming despite the salve he’d applied. She could barely keep her eyes open.
But she’d helped. Actually helped, instead of just making more work.
Progress,she thought, settling onto the sleeping platform with a groan.Slow progress, but progress.
CHAPTER 6
The next morning, Ember woke to pain—deep, aching pain that seemed to radiate from every fiber of her being. Her arms refused to lift. Her legs protested the slightest movement. Even turning her head required a monumental effort.
“Muscle soreness,” Rykan said from across the cabin. He was already up, already working, looking disgustingly unaffected by yesterday’s activities. “It’s normal for someone unused to physical labor.”
“This is normal?”
“It’ll pass in a few days.”
A few days of feeling like she’d been trampled by a herd of something large and unfriendly.Wonderful.She forced herself upright anyway, gritting her teeth against the protest of her body. If she lay in bed waiting for the pain to pass, she’d lose all the ground she’d gained yesterday.
“Stay there,” he ordered.
“But—”
“Stay.”
