Low moved through the undergrowth with the stealth of a hunting mongoose, her small frame a fleeting shadow amidst the tangled roots and fallen leaves. Borin sat propped against a tree, the very tree Leonotis was now tied to, idly sharpening a curved skinning axe on a whetstone. He hummed a tuneless, grating melody, blissfully unaware of her silent, deadly approach. Each scrape of stone on steel set Low's teeth on edge.
Leonotis, facing away from Borin but able to see the edge of the clearing from where he was bound, watched her arrival with a surge of desperate hope. His singed hands, tied cruelly tight behind him, throbbed with a fiery agony that made his vision blur, but his eyes, when they met Low's for a split second, held a spark of rekindled, defiant fire. He gave the slightest, almost imperceptible nod.
Low reached the edge of the clearing, her bare feet making no sound on the thick carpet of mossy ground. She took a deep, steadying breath, the crisp scent of pine and damp earth mingling with the sharp, unavoidable metallic tang of Leonotis's blood that had guided her here. A surge of cold, controlled fury welled up within her, a feeling so intense it felt almost physical, a tightening in her chest, a humming in her ears. This oaf, this careless brute, was part of the group that had hurt Leonotis, that had treated him like an animal.
She moved. Not with her usual hesitant, scavenging steps, born of years of avoiding notice, but with a newfound, explosive fluidity, a coiled spring of primal energy unleashed. The hunter, Borin, startled by the sudden flicker of movement at the edge of his peripheral vision, scrambled clumsily to his feet, the sharpened axe flashing in his meaty hand as he registered the small, darting figure.
He lunged, a clumsy, telegraphed overhand swing that, a few days ago, would have easily caught the old Low, the one who relied on luck and speed born of fear. But this Low, the one forged in recent fire and infused with an inexplicable new awareness, saw the movement before it fully registered in his dull eyes. It was as if time had subtly stretched, fractured into a thousand tiny moments, allowing her to perceive the shift in his considerable weight, the tightening of his brutish grip, the almost imperceptible telegraphing of his shoulders. She sidestepped with liquid grace, the heavy blade whistling past her ear with a sound like tearing silk, the wind of its passage ruffling her hair.
Borin grunted in surprise, his small, piggish eyes widening slightly at her unexpected agility. He swung again, a wider, more powerful horizontal arc meant to cleave her in two. Low ducked beneath it, her spine bending with an impossible ease she hadn't known she possessed, the axe head passing inches above her. Her muscles felt coiled and ready, her limbs light and astonishingly responsive. It was as if the very air around her hummed with a faint, empowering energy, guiding her, amplifying her movements.
He came at her a third time, a frustrated, bestial snarl escaping his lips. This time, he feinted high, a crude attempt at deception, then brought the axe down in a brutal, two-handed chop aimed at her shoulder, a blow meant to maim if not kill. But Low was already moving, her reflexes, sharpened to a razor's edge, seemed to anticipate his intent before he fully committed to the strike. She twisted her torso with a dancer's precision, the heavy blade grazing her arm, leaving a thin, stinging red line – a shock of pain – but it was a flesh wound, far from the intended crippling blow.
The hunter stared at her, his initial surprise morphing into a dim, confused anger. His confidence was visibly shaken. He was bigger, stronger by far, heavily armed – yet this scrawny, slip of a girl was moving like a phantom, a wind-sprite, evading his every attack with an almost casual, infuriating grace. He couldn't understand it. He'd fought wildcats with more predictable moves.
Low, meanwhile, felt a strange, fierce exhilaration cutting through the pain in her arm. The fear was still there, a cold knot in her stomach, a familiar companion. But it was overshadowed, almost eclipsed, by a burgeoning sense of power, a thrilling awareness of her own capabilities. The harsh years of scraping for survival in the orphanage, the constant adrenaline of their recent escapes, the strange, potent magic they had encountered – it felt as if it had all coalesced within her, awakening something ancient, something dormant, something powerful.
She saw an opening as Borin shifted his weight ponderously for another clumsy, enraged swing. Instead of simply dodging, she exploded forward, closing the distance in a heartbeat. Her hand, small but surprisingly strong, shot out and clamped onto his thick wrist with the tenacity of a steel trap, halting the axe mid-swing. His eyes widened further in genuine shock, not just at her speed, but at the unyielding strength in her grip.
This wasn't the weak, fearful, easily intimidated orphan girl he'd dismissed at a glance. This was something… different. Something that had been forged in the crucible of hardship and inexplicably tempered by something wild and fierce.
An idea sparked, primal and instinctive, a solution born of desperation and this newfound, vibrating energy. Her gaze fell upon a large, jagged rock half-buried in the leaf litter beside the tree line. It was heavy, easily thirty pounds, the kind of stone she would have struggled to even lift properly a few days ago. Now, however, that strange, empowering energy thrummed insistently beneath her skin, a newfound, almost intoxicating strength she hadn't yet begun to fully comprehend but was eager to unleash.
With a silent, focused surge of adrenaline, Low moved. She darted towards the stone, her movements fluid and swift, surprising even herself with their efficiency. The bounty hunter, still trying to wrench his axe-hand free from her unexpectedly vise-like grip, could barely register her shift in focus until the last moment. His eyes, already wide, threatened to bulge from their sockets as Low, with a grunt of effort, hefted the jagged rock. It felt surprisingly, almost impossibly, light in her hands, the rough edges digging into her palms, a welcome, grounding sensation. Before he could react, before he could even form a word of warning or a bellow of mockery, Low pivoted, her whole body uncoiling, and swung with all her might.
The rock hurtled through the air, a crude but brutally effective projectile. It struck the bounty hunter squarely on the side of his thick skull with a sickening, resonant *thunk*. His eyes rolled back in their sockets until only the whites showed. His face, moments before contorted with rage and confusion, went slack with stunned disbelief. His massive frame wobbled precariously for a long moment, like a felled tree, then crumpled to the ground in a boneless heap, his axe clattering harmlessly beside him into the dirt.
Low's chest heaved with ragged breaths, a strange mix of wild exhilaration and stunned disbelief washing over her. She had done that. She, Low, the scrawny, overlooked orphan, had taken down a grown, armed man, a brute of a bounty hunter, with a single, well-aimed blow. A shaky laugh escaped her lips.
She didn't linger on the thought, the adrenaline already beginning to fade, leaving her trembling. Leonotis was still bound. She rushed to his side, her nimble fingers, though shaking, working quickly and expertly at the thick, cruelly tightened knots. The rough rope chafed against his burned, blistered hands, and he winced, hissing in pain, but his eyes, when they met hers, held a profound, almost overwhelming gratitude that made her own chest ache.
"Low… you…" he began, his voice hoarse, cracked.
"No time for talking," she said, her voice a little breathless but already regaining its customary sharpness as she sawed at a particularly stubborn knot with a sharp shard of flint she'd kept tucked in her belt. Finally, the last strand parted, and Leonotis's wrists were free. He rubbed them gingerly, his gaze fixed on the unconscious, sprawling form of the bounty hunter.
"How… how did you do that?" he asked, his voice filled with a genuine, awestruck wonder. "You were so… fast. So strong. I've never seen you move like that."
Low just shrugged, a flicker of her own confusion and unease in her eyes. She flexed her fingers, feeling the lingering thrum of that strange energy. "I don't know," she admitted, her voice barely a whisper. "I just… did." The feeling of that sudden, inexplicable strength was still humming within her, a strange, unsettling, yet undeniably thrilling power.
Leonotis didn't press. He was free, his hands were a mess, and Low had saved him. That was all that mattered in that moment. He looked at the unconscious hunter, and the earlier spark of defiance in his eyes now ignited into a cold anger. "Let's make sure he stays down, and can't follow those other two." He glanced around, his gaze falling on the patch of thick, thorny vines he had noticed earlier, already imagining them wrapped tightly around the brute. He might not be able to command them with the same finesse as with his root-sword, especially with his hands so damaged, but he could certainly use them, and the man's own ropes, to ensure Borin wasn't going anywhere soon.
***
Leonotis, his injured hands throbbing with a dull, persistent ache despite the rough, leafy poultice Low had fashioned, watched the path Jacqueline had taken. It was a narrow, winding track that disappeared quickly into the mist-shrouded, unforgiving heights of the Water Mountain. A fierce, almost painful protectiveness surged through him, a primal, inexplicable need to ensure her safety despite her earlier, stinging abandonment. "We have to go after her," he said, his voice firm, though it wavered slightly with the pain in his hands. He tried to brook no argument, but he knew Low.
Low, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her gaze fixed on the securely bound and still unconscious form of the hunter they'd left trussed up like a holiday boar, snorted derisively. "Go after *her*?" she repeated, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "The girl who ditched us the second things got a little hairy? The one who used us as a distraction to make her own getaway? Let her fend for herself up there with her precious shrine. We finally have a chance to get away, Leonotis. A real chance. Let's take it, find a healer for your hands, and then head for the Capital like we planned." Betrayal still stung Low, a bitter, familiar taste in her mouth. Jacqueline's departure had echoed the countless times she'd been left behind, dismissed, forgotten in the cold, uncaring halls of the orphanage.
"But what if they catch her?" Leonotis argued, his eyes pleading as he met Low's hardened gaze. "She helped us. She stopped the river, remember? She healed my leg, and your injury too. We can't just leave her to those… those monsters." He remembered the genuine sadness he'd glimpsed in Jacqueline's eyes, the fleeting moments of shared laughter, the quiet strength she possessed. Beneath her aloof, almost ethereal exterior, he sensed a deep vulnerability she tried desperately to hide. "She might act like she doesn't need anyone, but I don't think that's true."
Low's jaw tightened, her expression unyielding. "She made her choice, Leonotis. Just like those bounty hunters made theirs when they grabbed you. Every man, or girl, for themselves out here, right? That's the first rule of survival." She gestured impatiently towards the horses the bounty hunters had left behind, tethered to a nearby tree. "We could be miles away from this cursed mountain by nightfall. Safe."
Leonotis's gaze hardened, mirroring the stubborn set of Low's jaw, though his was born of a different conviction. "And live with ourselves, knowing we left someone who helped us to face those brutes alone? That's not who we are, Low. That's not what a hero would do. It's not what Gethii would do." He took a tentative, painful step towards the mountain path, wincing as his injured hands protested even that small movement. "I'm going."
Low watched him, her initial, justifiable anger warring with a grudging, infuriating respect for his unwavering, almost foolish sense of loyalty. She still felt a knot of bitter resentment towards Jacqueline's betrayal, but the raw, unwavering determination etched on Leonotis's young, dirt-smudged face chipped away at her resolve. He looked so small, so vulnerable with his bandaged hands, yet his spirit burned with a fierce, unyielding courage that shamed her own cynicism. He was right. Abandoning someone, even someone who had abandoned them, didn't feel right. It wasn't what she, deep down, wanted to be either.
With a heavy, exasperated sigh that seemed to carry all the weariness of her short, hard life, she pushed a stray, sweat-dampened loc of hair from her eyes. "Fine," she conceded, her voice still grudging, but the fight had gone out of it. "Fine! We go after the runaway princess. But don't expect me to hold her hand and sing campfire songs if she gets herself into more trouble. And if those other two hunters are half as tough, or as ugly, as this oaf," she kicked Borin's unconscious form lightly, "we're probably walking into a death trap." She glared up at the mist-shrouded, silent peaks, a deep sense of foreboding settling in her stomach like a cold stone. "Just… try not to get captured again, alright? My rock-throwing arm is getting tired."
Leonotis nodded, a flicker of profound relief and gratitude softening his determined eyes. "I won't. Thank you, Low. Really." He started up the treacherous, upward-winding path, his steps uneven but resolute. Low hesitated for a moment longer, her gaze lingering on the unconscious bounty hunter, a silent, bitter promise of self-preservation warring with the undeniable, exasperating pull of their unlikely, hard-won fellowship. With another sigh, heavier this time, she followed Leonotis, the rugged, unforgiving terrain leading them deeper into the looming, misty embrace of the Water Mountain, towards a destiny none of them could yet foresee.