"One's enough to start." She leans her head back against the bark. "You'll be fine."
"You don't know that."
"I know you." She touches my arm, quick and warm. "You'll be fine."
Keer comes back. I didn't notice him leave—he was just there and now he's walking out of the trees, and someone that large has no business moving that quietly. He looks at Kestria. Looks at me. Doesn't ask if she can walk—just waits. His gaze goes to Kestria's hand at her side, how she braces before standing. He doesn't reach for her. But he's ready to.
I help her up. She's steadier—the rest helped—but still careful, still guarded.
Nugget is investigating a beetle. I scoop her up before she can eat it—no idea if forest beetles are poisonous to chickensand I am not finding out tonight—and settle her back into the basket. She protests, loud and indignant.
"You're fine," I tell her. "We're almost there. You can eat bugs I've personally verified as non-lethal."
She doesn't believe me.
The forest gets darker. Denser. Trees pressing together with their branches woven overhead until there's no sky at all. More movement now. More rustling in the undergrowth, more life in the branches above us. I tighten my grip on the basket and keep my eyes on the back of Keer's head because that's easier than thinking about what's in the bushes.
"You know, most people make small talk on long walks." I catch a branch before it swings back into Kestria. "Weather. Favorite food. Whether they prefer their deer raw or lightly mauled."
Nothing. But his pace is different now. Somehow I'm not falling behind anymore.
"I'll take that as 'lightly mauled.'"
And ahead—voices. Faint but definite.
"Almost there." Kestria's hand finds my elbow.
"What do I do? When we walk in. Do I bow? Is there a protocol? Do I present myself to the council of wolves or—"
"Just be yourself."
"That's the worst advice you've ever given me."
I don't argue. My boots find the path and I keep walking.
Keer stops at the top of a rise and waits for us.
I step up beside him and the heat of him hits me first—even in the cool dawn air—and then pine and sweat, and I'm standing too close, close enough to see the pulse in his throat, the dark hair at his collar—
Bandage check. Kestria's due for another paste application in—four hours? Five? I need to figure out where to set up when we get there. Need a flat surface, clean water, somewhere to store the jars. And I need to find out if there's any moonbright growing near—
I look down.
Structures. Dozens of them scattered through a clearing in the trees. Smoke rising from fires, thin and blue in the early light. People—human-shaped, moving between buildings, talking, working. The first real color after hours of darkness and forest. More than thirty.
And every single one of them has stopped.
Every single one of them is staring at us.
At me.
At the small white-haired human woman carrying a pink chicken into their home.
"Well." I settle Nugget on my other hip. "This is going to be interesting."
Nugget fluffs her feathers, unimpressed.
That makes one of us.
