“You stayed up.”
His voice is rough. Combat-raw. The words don’t sound like praise.
“You told me to.”
“Most people don’t listen.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Don’t know why he’s still looking at me like I’m a puzzle. Don’t know why my heart is pounding harder now than it did during the fight.
His eyes drop to my mouth. Brief. Barely noticeable.
He looks away.
“We need to move.” He straightens and turns toward the ravine’s exit. “More will come.”
I can’t stand.
The realization arrives with embarrassing clarity. My legs won’t take my weight. My magic has hollowed me out, consumed whatever reserves I rebuilt over the last two days, and left nothing but exhaustion in its place.
Kaster makes it three steps before he realizes I’m not following.
He stops. Turns. His expression doesn’t change, but his body goes still in a way that reads as a decision.
“I need a minute.”
“You don’t have a minute.”
“Then I need thirty seconds.”
He closes the distance between us in four strides. Before I can protest, he crouches beside me and slides an arm behind my back, lifting me to my feet with effortless strength.
The contact is?—
Heat floods from his arm into my back, cutting through the magic-cold in my limbs. Not just warmth—pressure, solidity, the specific weight of something that has decided not to let me fall.
His body against mine. His arm holding me upright. Dragon fire pouring into my exhaustion-cold limbs. His face inches from mine, near enough that I see the individual lines of old scars across his jaw.
“Walk.” The command comes out low, private. “I’ll hold you up.”
“I don’t need?—”
“You don’t have to need it.” His grip tightens. Not painful. Secure. “You have to do it.”
I walk.
We makeit out of the ravine before the next wave arrives.
I hear them coming—the distant sound of movement through dead forest, clicks and calls that carry in the unnatural silence. More hunters. Maybe the same pack, rebuilt. Maybe reinforcements.
It doesn’t matter. We’re not staying to find out.
Kaster half-carries me for the first hundred yards, taking most of my weight while maintaining a pace that shouldn’t be possible given his injuries. Blood still runs from the wound in his side. He hasn’t stopped to treat it. Hasn’t acknowledged it exists.
My hand rests against his ribs for balance. I feel the damage beneath his skin—the wet seep of the gash, the way his muscles tense with each step as if fighting through pain he refuses to voice.
He should be resting. Should be letting the wound close before he pushes farther.
He’s not stopping.
