The adrenaline didn't just fade; it crashed.
For two miles, Ciro had been a machine fueled by nothing but will. He had carried Elara through the heart of the ravine, wading through thigh-deep sludge that smelled of rotting vegetation, climbing over slick, moss-covered deadfalls, and navigating a labyrinth of stone and shadow.
But the body has limits, even for a weapon forged in the King's Kennel.
As the grey, suffocating light of the afternoon began to bleed into the purple bruising of twilight, the machine finally broke.
Ciro didn't simply stop walking. His legs, trembling violently from hours of exertion, folded beneath him. He stumbled, pitching forward into the mud with a wet, heavy thud.
Elara slid from his back, landing awkwardly on her good leg and biting her lip to suppress a scream as her sprained ankle jarred against a root.
"Ciro!"
She scrambled over to him, ignoring the sharp flare of pain in her leg. He was trying to push himself up, his hands clawing at the mud, but his arms shook like leaves in a storm.
"I... I can go..." he mumbled, the words slurring together.
Elara grabbed his arm to steady him, and the heat radiating through his soaked sleeve shocked her. It wasn't just warmth; he was burning. He felt like a furnace stoked too high, ready to melt down.
"No," Elara said, fear tightening her chest. "We stop. You're done, Ciro."
He blinked, his black eyes glassy and unfocused, sliding past her to stare at the ravine wall.
"Here," he rasped. His voice was thick, his lips cracked and blue from the cold. He pointed a shaking finger.
Ten yards away, the limestone wall of the ravine curved inward, creating a shallow overhang. A curtain of hanging grey moss shielded the opening. It wasn't a cave—it was barely a scoop in the rock—but it was elevated above the mud, and more importantly, it was dry.
It took ten minutes to move ten yards.
Elara had to become the crutch. She wrapped his arm around her shoulders, gritting her teeth against the pain in her ankle, and practically dragged him toward the shelter. Ciro tried to help, but his feet dragged uselessly through the leaves.
They collapsed into the space behind the moss curtain. The ground was hard stone covered in a thin layer of dry pine needles.
Ciro slumped against the back wall, his head lolling back. His breathing was ragged, shallow, and fast—too fast.
Elara knelt beside him. She peeled back the collar of his ruined tunic. The chemical burns from the Basilisk blood were angry red streaks, but the real danger was the arrow graze on his shoulder.
In the clean air of the castle, it would have been a minor injury. Here, after being dragged through river sludge and ravine mud, it was a festering disaster. The wound was swollen, the edges turning a sickly purple, oozing a yellowish fluid.
"Infection," Elara whispered, the word tasting like ash. "You are burning up."
"Dirt... from the fall," Ciro muttered. His eyes were half-closed, the pupils dilated. He was fighting to stay conscious, fighting the delirium pulling him under. "Need... Yarrow. Willow bark."
He tried to shift, his hand twitching toward his belt as if to start foraging, but a violent spasm of pain in his cracked ribs forced him back with a guttural groan. The Wolf had been run into the ground.
"Sit," Elara commanded. Her voice wavered, but there was steel in it—the first time she had used her 'Princess voice' since they jumped into the river. "You cannot move. Tell me what to look for."
Ciro blinked, fighting to focus on her face through the haze of fever.
"Yarrow..." he wheezed. "Feathery leaves. Small... clusters of white flowers. Stops bleeding. Cleans the rot."
"And the willow?"
"Tree. Near the water. Peel the bark. It tastes... bitter. For the fever."
"I will find them," Elara said. She reached down and tore a long strip from the hem of her ruined midnight-blue dress, tying it tightly around her waist to secure the tattered fabric.
"Don't go... far," Ciro whispered, his hand blindly seeking hers. His grip was weak, trembling. "The mist... the Rangers..."
"I will stay in sight," she promised, squeezing his burning hand. "I won't leave you."
She crawled out of the shelter and into the twilight.
The ravine was terrifyingly quiet, save for the dripping of condensation from the trees. The mist was thickening, turning the world into a ghostly grey corridor.
Elara scanned the undergrowth, panic fluttering in her throat. She was a Princess of Morvath. She knew the names of flowers from her embroidery lessons and garden walks, not their medical uses. She knew how they looked in silk thread, not how they looked growing wild in the mud.
Feathery leaves. White flowers.
She moved painfully, hopping on one foot, dragging her swollen, useless ankle through the wet ferns. Every movement sent a bolt of lightning up her leg, but she shoved the pain down. Ciro had carried her with broken ribs. She could do this.
Think, Elara. Use your eyes.
She pushed aside a rotting log, disturbing a nest of beetles. Nothing. She clawed through a patch of thorns. Nothing.
Then, she saw it.
Growing stubbornly in a patch of gravel near the stream bed was a stalk with delicate, fern-like leaves and a flat cluster of tiny white flowers.
Achillea millefolium. Yarrow. She remembered the Latin name from a dusty book in the royal library.
"Got you," she whispered.
She tore the plant from the earth, roots and all.
She turned to the stream. A young willow sapling bent over the water. She crawled to it, finding a sharp piece of slate rock on the ground. With clumsy, desperate movements, she scraped at the branch, peeling away strips of the inner bark.
She gathered her harvest—a handful of green and brown—and scrambled back to the shelter.
When she crawled back behind the moss curtain, her heart stopped.
Ciro had passed out.
He was slumped sideways, his head resting on his chest. He was shivering so violently that his teeth chattered in his sleep.
"No, no, no," Elara whispered. She dropped the plants and placed her hands on his face. He was hotter than before. "Wake up, Ciro. Please."
He didn't stir.
Fear, cold and sharp, pierced her chest. She had the medicine, but she didn't know how to prepare it. There was no fire to boil water. No mortar and pestle to grind the paste.
Think. What did the stable masters do?
She remembered a groom tending to a horse with a cut leg. He hadn't used tools. He had used his mouth.
Elara looked at the dirty, bitter roots in her hand. She looked at Ciro's dying face.
She shoved the yarrow leaves into her mouth.
She chewed.
The taste was vile—bitter, astringent, and grassy. It made her gag, her stomach rolling in protest. Dirt gritted between her teeth. But she kept chewing, working her jaw until the leaves broke down, mixing with her saliva to form a thick green pulp.
She spit the poultice into her hand.
Gently, terrified of hurting him, she peeled back Ciro's tunic. The wound looked worse in the dim light. She took a deep breath and pressed the green mash directly into the infected gash.
Ciro flinched in his unconsciousness, a low, pained growl escaping his throat, but he didn't wake.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, tears stinging her eyes. "I'm so sorry."
She took the strip of silk she had torn from her dress and bound the wound tightly, securing the poultice against his skin.
Next, the willow bark. She couldn't make him chew. So she took the strips of bark and carefully slid them between his cheek and gum, hoping the medicine would seep into him as he slept.
"Please," she whispered, stroking his damp hair back from his burning forehead. "You carried me through the sky. You cannot die in the mud."
Night fell completely. The temperature plummeted, turning the ravine into an icebox.
Elara knew that despite Ciro's fever, the cold was the real killer. His body was burning fuel to fight the infection; he had nothing left to keep himself warm.
She lay down beside him on the hard stone floor. She pulled his heavy, unconscious body toward her, pillowing his head on her lap. She took the remains of his thick wool tunic—which he had given her days ago—and draped it over both of them, tucking the edges in to trap every ounce of heat.
She wrapped her arms around his broad chest, holding him tight. She could feel the labored, frantic beat of his heart against her ribs.
For the first time in her life, she wasn't the damsel. She wasn't the prize to be married off or the victim to be saved.
She was the shield.
The wind howled outside, rattling the moss curtain. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled, lonely and hungry.
Elara's hand drifted to the ground and found the sharp piece of slate she had used to cut the bark. She gripped it until her knuckles turned white.
"Rest now, my Wolf," she whispered fiercely into the dark. "I have the watch."
Outside, the mist thickened, hiding them from the world, while the Princess stared into the shadows with dry, hard eyes, daring anything to come close.