Page 61 of Stormvein

I walk beside them, close enough to touch the edge of the stretcher, my attention divided between watching for dangers in the dark, and monitoring Sacha. His face remains set in rigid lines, eye closed, jaw tight. In the dim light, shadows play across his features, accentuating the angles of a face already too thin.

“I promised you a distraction,” I say softly, leaning close so only he can hear me. “What should I talk about?”

His eye half-opens. “Anything.”

So I talk in a slow whisper. About Chicago at night, the way skyscrapers light up against the dark sky. About electric lights that come on with the flip of a switch. About televisions, and movies, and neon signs, and streetlamps. About things that must sound like magic to someone from this world.

I don’t know how much he understands, or if any of it matters, but I keep going. As I speak, a change comes over him. Not relaxation, but a shift in focus, from the agony of transport to a curiosity in the things I’m describing. His breathing eases. It’s not much, but it’s something I can offer when medicine is nonexistent and comfort is a luxury we cannot give him.

Once or twice, when I pause, his eye opens in a silent request to continue. So I do, describing my apartment, the sound of traffic, the way snow falls between buildings. Anything to keep his mind somewhere other than this stretcher and these mountains and the wounds that should have killed him.

We travel through the night, putting distance between us and the cave, the carriers rotating every two hours to keep their strength up. Each transition brings fresh tension to Sacha’s face, a spasm of pain he can’t suppress fast enough. Fresh determination not to show what it’s costing him. But the moonlight catches the sweat on his brow, and the trembling in his hands that he tries to hide.

He never asks to stop. He doesn’t say a word beyond the occasional one-syllable response to my stories. But I can see how much it’s taking for him to stay conscious by the way he’s holding himself, the strain around his eye, the almost imperceptible flinch when the stretcher shifts.

So I keep talking. He asked me to distract him. And that’s all that matters.

Dawn finds us having covered less ground than hoped, but more than feared. Varam signals for us to take a rest in a small clearing sheltered by twisted mountain pines. The stretcher is lowered gently, bringing visible relief to the exhausted carriers.

I check Sacha’s condition, concern and anxiety forming like a lead weight in my stomach. His skin is too pale, his breathing quick and shallow. When I touch his forehead, the heat radiates against my palm. I’m scared the fever is returning, that movinghim has set all the healing back. That we’re still going to lose him after everything we’ve done to save him.

“Drink some water.” I reach for the waterskin and hold it to his lips. Water spills down his chin when he tries to swallow.

“Check his wounds.” Lysa joins me, digging through her remaining medical supplies, face tight with worry.

Together, we examine him and discover what I was worried about. Several wounds have reopened during the journey, fresh blood soaking through the bandages. The sword wound that was almost healed before we left now looks angry again, the skin around it hot to the touch. His breathing catches when we touch it, the only indication of pain he allows himself.

“This is bad,” I whisper to Lysa.

She nods, lips pressed into a thin line. “Moving him was always going to be a risk. We need to clean this before infection spreads again.”

Sacha tolerates the process without a sound, but the rigid tension in his body, the sweat beading on his forehead despite the early morning chill, tells a different story to his silence. By the time we finish, his eye is glassy and unfocused.

He’s barely conscious, skin ashen beneath the bruises and wounds. He’s burning up, and nothing we’re doing is enough. I don’t know if it’s the movement or if I’ve made things worse with what I did back in the cave.

“He can’t continue like this,” I tell Varam when he comes to check. My voice breaks, emotion I can’t contain spilling into the words. “The wounds are reopening as fast as they’re healing.”

Varam studies Sacha, a muscle ticking in his jaw. I can see the conflict in his eyes—loyalty to Sacha warring with the reality in front of us. “If we stayed where we were, we all would have died. If we don’t reach Southernrock, he’s going to die anyway. Either from his injuries or when the Authority finds us. Better this than sitting and waiting for death.”

The brutal truth silences all my protests. We have no good options, only varying degrees of terrible.

“How far have we come?” I ask instead.

“About six miles.”

“And how far do we have to go?”

“At least thirty.”

The numbers are devastating. If six miles nearly killed him, how will he survive thirty more?

“We can rest for an hour, then we’ll continue until high sun.”

One hour. Barely enough time for the carriers to recover their strength, nowhere near enough time for Sacha to stabilize. But time is the one resource we cannot afford when Authority soldiers could find us at any moment.

I stay beside Sacha during the break, one hand resting lightly on his arm, watching him breathe. I’m not sure if I’m imagining it, but each breath seems to take more effort than the last, his body struggling against damage still too extensive for even his iron will to overcome. The rise and fall of his chest becomes my world. Each inhale a victory, each exhale a prayer for one more.

“Please hold on.” I have no idea if he can hear me. “Just for a little longer.”