Page 48 of Fate Unchained

Kyril didn’t respond.

The snow-swollen river swiftly swept them downstream. She tugged at him. Inch by inch, she dragged him through the water. They snagged on a submerged tree, and she clung to it, gasping. Pulling at Kyril, she helped him drag himself up the bank. They crawled up into the snow, and she lay there for a moment, chest heaving.

A low boom sounded through the forest, shaking the ground. The landing must have crumbled.

“Come on, we need to get moving,” she said.

Kyril wasn’t speaking, but he stood. He swayed, almost pitching back onto the snow.

Her teeth were chattering, and her limbs were frozen, but real ice froze her heart. He was really hurt. She grabbed his arm and stumbled forward, plowing through the snow. With every step, she dragged him through the knee-high snow until they burst forward onto a path glistening in the milky moonlight.

She almost laughed out loud. This was the path Kyril made through the snow earlier when they left the cave.

Lilah twirled around. They’d gone down river—right back to their cave. “Let’s go.” She pulled at Kyril, and he obeyed, but his steps were clumsy, not like a vulk.

Each step to the cave felt like a mile, but finally, she threaded through the entrance and entered the familiar, circular room.

She led him to the fireplace, where a pile of wood remained, and helped him sit. He winced visibly. Another clear sign he was really hurt.

It took longer than she wanted to spark flames from the flint with her hands shaking so hard from the cold, but finally, she got a blaze going on the kindling. She carefully added pieces of wood until the fire was fully caught, then more and more logs, so the cave glowed fiery red. Thank the heavens above Kyril had stocked so much firewood in here.

When she was done, she turned, and Kyril lay stretched out on his side, his wound visible, blood all along his side glittering in the firelight.

Lilah ignored the chilly pain from her own frozen clothes and knelt next to him. So much blood. “All right, you stay still. I’m going to fix this.”

And Lilah got to work.

19

“I’m no healer. I haven’t even read many books about healing.” She went to the back of the cave and grabbed the sleeping skins, the water canteen, and some jerky. Returning to him, she took one of the blankets and bunched it over the wound in his side, but not before she saw how deep it went. A glint of the bone of his rib showed. She gritted her teeth. “Reading about injuries makes me queasy. Once, I cut myself badly with a kitchen knife, and I had to sit down and put my head between my legs so I didn’t pass out.”

Kyril sort of huffed. “Great. Real encouraging.”

“No talking. Just lie there.” She pressed some of her weight over the cut. It was a clean slice, so she hoped Kyril’s healing would kick in and help him soon, but in the meantime, she needed to stop the blood. The fire licked across her, keeping her warm enough so she could ignore her cold, damp clothes and focus on Kyril.

An hour passed, maybe two. It was impossible to tell. The only times she left his side were to put more wood on the fire. The cave had grown warm, so she shrugged out of her sodden clothes and laid them to dry, keeping her bodice and underwear on. He made a low, pleased sound.

“Focus on healing, not ogling,” she said.

“I’d have to be dead not to look.”

She bit back a smile and examined his injury. His wound may not have completely stopped bleeding, but it looked better. “It’s taking a long time to knit back together.”

“Yeah. Silver got into my blood.”

Her heart thudded hard. She didn’t know what happened when the vulk touched silver, but it must be bad. “What can I do?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. We’ve got to wait for it to work its way out of my system.”

“All right, focus on healing now. Let me take care of you.”

Kyril didn’t move as she washed him, making sure all the silver flecks were out of his fur and gone from his skin and wiping away the blood on his side. “Are we safe here? I think we can assume Boris sent that shade, which means he knows how to target us.”

“We’re all right for now. I just spoke to Zann, and he and Finn are nearby. They returned to the warehouse and couldn’t find Boris or the leshak. They’ve been searching the woods, and neither one is around.”

“They aren’t injured?”

“Not as bad.”

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