God! Aries was right. They were still at least six miles from Chroma. There was no chance of stumbling upon another traveler out here, and leaving Lekyi to run for help would take too long. Collin’s gaze darted wildly over the trail.
“There!” He pointed to a long, fallen branch. “Maybe we can build a stretcher.”
Aries’s face lit up—then quickly fell. “We don’t have anything to build it with. I have Hadria’s seaweed, but I doubt it’ll hold together.”
Lekyi’s voice was barely a whisper. “I have supplies. Bag... and bedroll. Off the trail, by a chestnut... back there.”
They carefully lowered Lekyi to the ground. Aries stayed with him while Collin ran back, shouting directions back and forth with Aries to find the bag.
When Collin finally located it, he tore through the contents. Pencils, a notebook in Lekyi’s neat handwriting, a few more yellow handkerchiefs, but no first aid supplies. There was a coil of thick leather thongs, a knife, a hand ax, and a small shovel. It would have to be enough.
Collin and Aries quickly chopped down two saplings of equal length. They stripped the scraggly branches and laid smaller sticks across them, tying everything together with the leather cords. When they ran out of leather, they pulled tough vines from nearby trees. They spread the bedroll across the top and lashed it tightly.
They tested the stretcher first. It creaked and groaned like an old house about to fall, but as the vines tightened and the branches settled under the weight, it held.
They lifted Lekyi carefully. Between the two of them—Aries in front and Collin behind, it wasn’t too hard to carry him, but the rough bark of the poles bit into Collin’s hands almost immediately. He was exhausted, but he shoved his aching body to the back of his mind. They had to keep moving.
To keep Lekyi’s mind off the pain—and their own minds off the urgency—Collin and Aries talked. They recounted their meeting with Logan. Aries grumbled about an argument he’d had with Hadria involving one of her friends.
“Was it about Stella? The Daughter of Venus with the red hair?” Collin asked, rolling his eyes hard enough to make the gesture audible.
Aries glanced back at him, the corner of his mouth twitching. “You know her?”
“Her younger sisters are my students,” Collin said flatly.
“You don’t like her?”
“She’s fine,” he replied with a shrug, “but she keeps inventing reasons to linger around me. Last week she asked to borrow ink, from a chalkboard. The other day, she tried to sell me perfume made out of crushed violets and something that made my eyes water.
Aries gave a short laugh, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “She’s creative, I’ll give her that.”
Lekyi groaned from the stretcher. “We need to stop. Parts of me are falling through the bottom.”
They’d covered only a few brutal miles. Collin didn’twantto stop—not with Chroma still several miles ahead—but his body ached with relief when they finally did. They collapsed near the creek they’d been following, its steady trickle the only sound besides their ragged breathing. He told himself they couldn’t afford to rest, but part of him was grateful for the chance to sit still, even just for a moment.
Collin plunged his hands into the creek, and for a few seconds, the ache in his body blurred into nothing. Cold numbed his skin, cleared the fog in his head. He closed his eyes. Just for a moment.
He splashed his face and peeled off his shirt, scrubbing away sweat and dust in slow, deliberate strokes. He dunked the fabric in the stream, watching the dirt swirl off like smoke. “This takes me back. Remember when you broke your leg, Lekyi?”
“Oh yeah,” Aries said, crouching at the edge to splash water over his face. “Collin and I had to drag you all the way to the hospital.”
Lekyi propped himself up just enough to dip his fingers into the water. “I remember. Except back then, I fell out of a tree. Nothing blew up around me.”
Collin let out a low chuckle. “Right. You were a noble knight storming a haystack fortress. Got as far as the first branch before gravity betrayed you.”
Lekyi managed a weak smile.
“I think we used a wagon door as a stretcher that day,” Collin added. “Aries kept tripping. I was accused of dramatizing your injuries for attention.”
Aries snorted. “Well, you did ask three passing girls if they wanted to help ‘save a fallen hero.’”
Collin shrugged. “I was twelve. And theydidhelp. Sort of. Emotionally.”
The water pulled tension from his limbs and softened the knot in his stomach. His shoulders dropped for the first time in hours. Even Lekyi stirred beside him, grimacing through another mouthful of water, but still alert, and that was enough for now.
They settled into a brief silence, drinking and washing up.
Collin gazed up at the canopy above. The tangle of branches carved the blue sky into a thousand shapes, like shards of glass spread across a table. It was strangely beautiful.
