She doesn't wait for instructions. She's already pulling the pack from my shoulder, already assessing what she has to work with, moving like she has done field medicine in worse conditions than this. I sit against the cave wall because thealternative is showing her I'm having difficulty staying upright, and I've shown her enough of what she wasn't meant to see.
"Take the coat off." She demands.
I listen to her. The shirt beneath is dark and sticking, and removing it produces a sensation I don't make a sound about. She works without reacting—hands moving across skin that isn't straightforward to navigate. I watch the cave entrance and keep my breathing even.
"You abandoned your position." Not an accusation. A fact being handled.
"Yes."
"Theren looked like he wanted to kill you himself."
"Theren can want things."
Her hands pause briefly, then resume. "Why did you come down?"
"The ambush list had your name on it and you were separated."
"That's a tactical answer."
"It's the only one I have."
She doesn't push it, which means either she believes me or she doesn't want what's behind it any more than I want to give it. Her fingers reach the upper edge of the cut where it crosses into older damage, and the care in that pressure is worse than roughness would be.
"You frightened me." Quiet. "Out there. The way you were?—"
"I know."
"I've seen people fight. I've fought. That wasn't?—"
"I know what it was." My voice stays level. "It's what I am. You should remember that."
She freezes in place for a moment. Then she finishes, ties it off, and sits back on her heels and stares at me. The cave gives us almost no room. That makes her harder to ignore.
She is so near that I can see the ash caught at her temple. I can see her cut above her ear has slowed but not stopped, and when she reaches for another strip of cloth, her knee brushes mine and neither of us moves.
Her eyes drop to my mouth. I should move first. Away from it with the same clean certainty I know blade angles and escape routes and how many men are needed to hold a pass against superior numbers. Instead, I admire her mouth too.
The cave narrows around the silence. Her hand is still against my side, warm through blood and bandage, and the instinct in me that has survived every battlefield by cutting away weakness does not move quickly enough.
I lean half an inch before I stop. Half an inch is enough to ruin things. Her breath changes. Mine doesn't, because I do not allow it to.
I move my eyes to the cave wall instead of her face. She is still connected to the fire. Still technically under my authority. The power between us hasn't shifted because we've shared a hard week and she's stopped looking at me like something she's planning to survive. All of it remains true. None of it has been resolved, and I will not pretend otherwise because the alternative is the kind of mistake that can't be walked back once it's made. I keep all this fixed in my mind and breathe through the rest.
"Get some sleep. We move before dawn."
She doesn't answer. I listen to her settle against the cave wall and I watch the entrance. Seven years hunting this woman, and I never once prepared for this. I don't know how to win it. I'm no longer certain I want to.
9
CORRINE
He doesn't ask where I'm going when I move toward the cave entrance. He pulls his coat on and follows, and that's the entirety of the conversation. Outside, he starts to lean left, toward the higher ground.
"Not that way," I quickly tell him.
He stops. Not because he trusts me. Because the slope catches the wound and he has enough sense not to waste blood proving a point.
"North is where Theren wants them looking," I repeat what was decided. "East and west are where the ambush closed around us. South is ugly, but it has old service routes."
