I dropped my dagger and braced my back against the vuk’s side. My legs burned as I pushed, straining to roll the beast off him. It shifted slightly, enough for me to drag the Lirien free.
His bloodied body sagged against me, his breaths ragged but steady. Relief washed over me, but it was short-lived. Deep gashes marred his neck and shoulders, and the vuk’s black blood coated him from head to toe.
I should leave him here. I should?—
No. He saved my life.
Crouching beside him, I pressed a strip of cloth to the gashes on his neck. Blood soaked through immediately, a stark red against my trembling hands. He didn’t stir, his chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven breaths. Alive, but barely.
Killing him now would be cleaner. Smarter. Seth wouldn’t care that this man had saved me or that I owed him a life debt. All Seth would see was a threat—a Pendaran soldier on Viori land.
But I faltered.
Hesitation was costly—I’d learned that lesson the hard way with Esme.
Yet I hesitated anyway.
Something about him gave me pause. Not just his reckless bravery—charging a vuk—but the way he’d looked at me before the fight began. Like he didn’t see me as an enemy. Knew me. Or maybe I imagined that.
Mother’s voice echoed in my mind, calm and unwavering: A debt of a life is always paid with a life. Anything less invites ruin.
It wasn’t just the Pendaran belief—it was survival. Refusing a life debt invoked a curse, the kind no Pendaran could outrun. Mother had seen it firsthand, and I’d grown up on her warnings.
Still, it wasn’t curses or tradition that twisted my resolve—it was Esme. The memory of her cries as she was taken clawed at my thoughts. I’d failed her because I’d hesitated, because I’d tried to weigh my options when action was needed.
Esme’s absence pressed against me like a second shadow. Guilt had been my constant companion these past five weeks, whispering reminders of my failure. If I left this man to die, would I ever shake that guilt? Or would it twist into something even darker, another voice reminding me of my cowardice?
Not this time.
I bit down hard on my lip and sheathed my dagger. If I had to face Seth’s wrath, so be it. I wouldn’t let another life slip through my fingers.
Even if that life belonged to someone who might kill me when he woke.
The Lirien groaned, his head lolling to the side. Up close, his features were sharper, more defined, though exhaustion and pain had etched lines into his handsome face. A warrior, no doubt, but not one who’d expected to end up here.
His piercing blue-green eyes fluttered open, glassy and unfocused at first. Then they snapped to mine, sharp and assessing despite the blood caking his skin.
“Still alive?” I asked.
“Barely,” he rasped, his voice like gravel. His gaze darted past me to the dead vuk, then back, narrowing slightly as if piecing together what had happened. “You … didn’t run.”
“I don’t run.” The words came out sharper than I intended. I didn’t like the way his words made me feel. Like he expected me to abandon him.
His lips twitched, almost a smirk. “Good. Makes saving you less of a waste.”
I bristled, stepping back. “Saving me? You nearly got yourself killed, and now I have to drag you back to camp before something else finds us.”
He grimaced, trying to sit up, but his body betrayed him, sagging back to the ground. “Camp? What camp?”
“Mine.” The word was curt. Let him think I was leading him somewhere safe—or to his execution. It didn’t matter. I crouched and started packing the makeshift bandages more tightly around his wounds. “You’re lucky I’m not leaving you for the scavengers.”
He winced but didn’t complain. Instead, his gaze lingered on me, uncomfortably sharp, as if cataloging every detail—the braid falling over my shoulder, the curve of my dagger’s hilt, the tension in my jaw.
“You’re not like the others,” he said finally.
I froze, hands hovering over the bandage. “What others?”
“The Viori. You don’t move like them.”
