It happened in a breath.
One moment, fury consumed her, burning white-hot.
The next, she was falling.
She crashed hard onto her knees. My hand shot out, clamping onto her wrist just as her body lurched over the void. She dangled, one boot scraping rock, the other useless. Blood smeared her mouth. Wind howled past us. Below, the ravine gaped, jagged and bottomless.
"Don't let go," she sobbed, the voice small, shattered. "Please—don't—"
"I won't," I ground out, muscles shrieking under the strain. "I've got you. I promise."
Her fingers dug into mine, nails drawing blood. "I don't want to die," she whispered.
"You won't," I vowed. "Just hold on. I've got you."
Then something shifted in her eyes. A flicker. A terrifying resignation. And her grip faltered. Just a fraction.
The rocks beneath my own boot crumbled. I gasped, scrambling for purchase, but her wrist slipped through my grasp like smoke.
"No!" I screamed.
Her fingers slid free.
She fell.
Down. Down. Swallowed by the swirling fog below.
Absolute, and suffocating silence crashed down. It was Marco's voice that first came to me, "Gods... Iris—"
I couldn't move, couldn't answer, couldn't breathe, Not yet.
My eyes were locked on the empty space where Aila had been. My hand still clenched around nothing.
The silence left by Aila's fall wasn't broken by grief, but by a raw, scraping emptiness that echoed the ravine below. Marco's choked utterance of my name hung unanswered. Roan finally reached me, his hand landing heavy on my shoulder, pulling me back from the crumbling edge. His face was granite, etched with a pain that mirrored the chasm we all felt opening inside. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. The look he exchanged with Marco was enough – grim acceptance, the brutal arithmetic of survival.
"We move," Roan said roughly. "Now."
We turned our backs on the abyss, the image of Aila vanishing into the fog seared onto our retinas. Every step felt heavier, laden with guilt and the chilling proximity of death. We hadn't even gone half a mile, hugging the treacherous ledge even tighter now, when Roan stopped abruptly, head tilted, nostrils flaring.
"Wind's shifting," he muttered, eyes scanning the rapidly darkening sky above the opposite ridge. Thick, bruise-purple clouds boiled over the peaks, swallowing the weak grey light. "That's not wind coming in—it's hail. Big, fast, and mean." He pointed towards a darker fissure in the cliff face ahead, partially obscured by a tangle of thorny brush. "There, We make it before it hits. NOW."
We scrambled towards the fissure. Marco hacked at the brush with his knife, clearing the entrance just as the first fat, stinging drops of icy rain began to pelt us. We ducked inside, the sudden dimness was a relief. The space was shallow, barely more than a scooped-out hollow in the rock, damp and smelling of moss and old earth. It was cramped for three, shoulders brushing cold stone.
Then a choked gasp echoed from the deepest shadow.
We froze, weapons instantly drawn. A figure was slumped against the back wall, barely visible. A boy. Young, maybe Flynn's age or maybe a year older. He flinched violently as our blades caught the meager light, throwing his hands up in immediate, terrified surrender. His palms were slick with dark, drying blood.
"Don't!" he rasped, voice raw with pain and fear. "Please! I'm unarmed! I swear it!"
He kept his hands raised, trembling. That's when I saw it. His hands weren't just bloody; they were pressed tightly against his abdomen, fingers curled protectively over a dark stain spreading through the rough fabric of his tunic.
Stab wound. The realization coming to me that he wasn't the threat. He was the victim.
"Gods," Marco breathed, lowering his knife slightly, his eyes scanning the small space for hidden dangers. Finding none, the tension shifted from combat-ready to wary concern.
"Easy," I said, my own voice sounding hoarse and strange after the silence. I slowly sheathed my blade, holding my own hands up, palms open. "We won't hurt you. You're bleeding."
He flinched again as I took a cautious step closer. His face was obscured by grime and tangled, shoulder-length brown hair plastered to his cheeks with sweat and rain. His eyes, wide and startlingly green beneath the dirt, darted between us, filled with pain and desperate hope.
"I… I have a salve," I offered, slowly reaching for my pack. "A healing paste. Made it myself. It's strong. If… if you don't mind?" The offer felt absurdly mundane after what we'd just witnessed.
He stared at me for a long moment, then gave a jerky, pained nod. "I… I don't mind." The words were barely a whisper.
I knelt beside him, carefully peeling back the blood-soaked fabric of his tunic. The wound was ugly – a deep puncture just below the ribs, still oozing sluggishly. Not immediately fatal, maybe, but infection would be a death sentence out here. I pulled out the small, pungent jar of dark green salve Lorraine had taught me to make from bitterroot and yarrow.
"What happened?" Marco demanded, his voice low, eyes still scanning the cave entrance where the rain was now hammering down, a prelude to worse.
The boy sucked in a sharp breath as I applied the cool salve. "I fought," he ground out, teeth clenched against the sting.
Marco snorted, a harsh sound in the confined space. "Obviously. And lost."
The boy's green eyes flashed with a spark of defiance before pain dimmed it. "Five on one," he spat. "Ambushed me a mile back, near the old cairn. Wanted my pack. My knife." He swallowed hard. "They thought they'd finished me. Left me for dead. Took everything."
Outside, the sky cracked open. Not just rain anymore but ice. Hailstones the size of knucklebones began to pummel the ground beyond the cave mouth, bouncing wildly and filling the air with a terrifying, rattling roar. The sound was deafening.
We huddled deeper into the meager shelter, the icy fury of the storm making our recent tragedy feel both distant and horrifyingly immediate. The hour crawled by, measured in the relentless drumming of hail on stone and the boy's shallow gasps. I finished binding his wound with a clean strip of linen from my dwindling supplies, the salve's sharp herbal scent mingling with the metallic tang of blood and damp rock.
As suddenly as it began, the hail lessened, dwindling back to heavy rain. Roan peered out, his face grim in the grey light. "Storm's passing. We need to move. Sundown's in a few hours. We're already late." The unspoken weight of Kyklos pressed down on us again.
I looked at the boy – pale, shivering, but his eyes clearer now, thanks to the salve. He had nothing. No pack, no weapon, no food. Just the clothes on his back, torn and bloody. An image flashed in my mind, of Flynn and extra stuff and gear I'd gotten just for him. I had also kept in a pair of trousers and tunic along with the essentials. Giving it Zale now felt righteous and the thought of not trekking with double weight on my shoulders was comforting. Marco would be glad to give it away too.
"Here," I said, pulling out the tunic and sliding the pack to his side. It was dry, at least. "It's… spare clothes. I don't need them. You might." I held them out.
He stared at the bundle, then up at me, genuine surprise flickering across his grimy face. "I… thank you." He took it carefully, clutching it to his chest like a treasure. A small burden lifted from me, replaced by a different kind of ache.
As he gingerly started to pull on the dry tunic over his bandages, he looked between us, a hesitant question forming. "My name's Zale," he said, his voice gaining a little strength. "Zale Kylendor. I… I know these mountains."
Roan's gaze was sharp and assessing while Marco looked skeptical, arms folded.
"You're from here?", I asked.
Zale nodded slowly, wincing as he adjusted the tunic. "Tough climb from here. Especially after that storm. The lower path will be washed out. You'll need to take the Serpent's Back." He paused, meeting Roan's stare directly. "I can get you there. If… if I can join you?"
Marco and I exchanged a glance. Trust was scarce currency. But he was wounded, unarmed, and knew the terrain we desperately needed to navigate quickly.
Before either of us could formulate a response, Roan spoke decisively. "You can join," he said, his eyes never leaving Zale's. "If you lead."
Right. We didn't need anymore people attacking us from the back.
A faint, almost defiant smile touched Zale's lips, despite his pallor. He pushed damp hair from his eyes, a glint of something fierce returning to his green gaze. "Then you've just found yourselves in the company of the best damn pathfinder in existence." He pushed himself upright, leaning heavily against the rock wall, but his chin was up. With light finally touching his face, I found it weirdly familiar. Almost as if I had seen it before.
Marco snorted before he picked his pack up, "Let's move. Sundown won't wait, and neither will Kyklos."