Page 30 of Stormvein (The Veinbound Trilogy #2)

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 moving him 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.”

The hour passes too quickly. When Varam signals time to move, the carriers take their positions with grim determination.

This time when they lift the stretcher, Sacha’s eye flies open, and a soundless gasp parts his lips.

Raw pain breaks through his carefully held facade for less than a second, before he forces it back under control.

The glimpse of it twists something in my chest.

Our journey continues under a sun that offers warmth but no comfort.

I continue with my promised distraction, despite Varam’s warning glances, telling Sacha about anything that comes to mind.

College courses, favorite books, and hot chocolate on winter mornings.

I don’t even know if my words are reaching him as he drifts in and out of consciousness, but I keep talking anyway, my voice a thin thread connecting him to the living world while his body tries to surrender.

High sun brings another short rest, another check of worsening wounds, another argument I can’t win about needing more time. The carriers rotate again, fresh fighters taking the burden from those whose muscles tremble with fatigue.

Late afternoon brings the first sign of danger. A scout returns breathless from his forward position, face tight with worry.

“Authority patrol,” he reports to Varam in hushed tones. “Six soldiers ahead. Standard search pattern.”

Varam calls an immediate halt. The stretcher is lowered, and fighters move into defensive positions around Sacha. My heart stutters in my chest, fear a living thing clawing up my throat.

“Options?” Varam asks, his voice calm despite the threat.

“We can’t fight.” Mira’s voice is flat. “Not with Lord Torran in this condition. We’re outnumbered.”

“We could hide,” another suggests. “Let them pass, then continue.”

“How long?” I don’t take my eyes off Sacha. His fever has climbed steadily throughout the day, his skin hot again, his breathing too shallow and coming in irregular patterns that terrify me.

“Hard to say,” the scout answers. “Could be half an hour, could be they won’t even see us.”

“Too long,” Sacha whispers, his voice startling all of us. His eye is open, fever-bright but lucid. “Alternative route.”

“There is another path, my Lord,” the scout offers hesitantly. “Through the ravine below. It’s steeper, harder, but it would bypass the patrol entirely.”

Varam considers this, clearly weighing risks against necessity. “It hasn’t been used in years. It might not even be passable.”

“It’s our best chance,” I argue. “We can’t wait, and we can’t fight.”

No one disagrees.

The decision is made quickly after that. We change direction, heading toward a gap that will lead to the ravine’s path. The stretcher carriers adjust their grip, bracing for a walk that won’t forgive a single misstep.

As we approach the edge, my stomach drops at the sight below.

The descent looks impossible for men carrying a stretcher.

The ravine walls plunge almost vertically in places, with barely enough ledge to call a path.

Loose stones skitter down when tested with a boot, disappearing into darkness that seems to swallow itself.

“This is madness.” Lysa’s words echo my thoughts.

No one argues with her assessment, but they don’t suggest turning back either. The Authority patrol behind us leaves us with no alternative, not if we want to survive at all.

I imagine the stretcher slipping, Sacha falling, and fear tightens my throat until I can’t breathe.

“We’ll need to create a relay system,” Varam decides. “Two men securing the stretcher with ropes from above, two guiding from below. One section at a time.”

Even with this plan, the descent is brutal.

Despite the fighters’ best efforts, the stretcher catches on rock protrusions, tilts at dangerous angles, and requires constant adjustment.

They have to stop every few feet, bodies straining against gravity and the weight of responsibility.

Sacha’s breathing is erratic, face white, but every time they pause, he opens his eye and demands they carry on with nothing more than a look.

This isn’t strength anymore. This is madness. It’s refusal to surrender. It’s the last thing he can give them. The illusion that their Vareth’el is still in control, still making decisions, still leading from a stretcher that might become his deathbed.

I stay as close as the narrow path allows, one hand often resting on the edge of the stretcher, my eyes glued to his face for signs that the journey has become too much. The thought almost makes me laugh out loud. This journey became too much the second it began.

His skin is ghostly pale except for where the fever burns high on his cheekbones. The energy coiling inside me responds to my fear, threading through my fingers when I touch his hand. I don’t know if it helps, but I can’t stop trying.

“We’re almost at the bottom,” I whisper to him during one pause. “Not much further. Please hold on.”

His eye opens, finding mine in the growing darkness. There’s a moment, a heartbeat, when I see beyond the mask. Where I glimpse something human. “Authority?”

Unwilling respect for his stubborn focus tilts my lips into a tiny smile. Always the strategist, even at death’s door. The question should be absurd—his body broken, his life hanging by a thread—yet it’s perfectly him.

“No signs of pursuit. I don’t think they saw us. We’re safe for now.”

His eye closes, the smallest nod acknowledging my words.

Night has fallen completely by the time we reach the ravine’s floor.

Somehow, the mist stalker is already there waiting for us, sitting with its head tilted, tail swishing.

The fighters produce small lightstones that cast just enough illumination to move without revealing our position to anyone watching from above.

I keep my cloak wrapped around me, hiding the shine under my skin that refuses to dim as best I can.

“We’ll continue for another hour, and put distance between us and the path. Then we’ll rest until dawn. Moving in complete darkness will be too dangerous.”

No one argues. We’re all exhausted. The carriers physically, the rest of us mentally, from hours of hypervigilance and dread. Sacha continues to drift in and out of consciousness, each return to awareness briefer than the last.

When Varam finally says we’ve found a place to stop for the night, the fighters create a small sheltered space against the ravine wall. There’s a small stream nearby. I can hear the water trickling in the darkness.

The stretcher is lowered for the last time today, and Lysa immediately assesses Sacha’s condition.

“The fever is getting worse again. Several wounds are reinfected. He needs proper treatment I cannot give him here.”

“How far to Southernrock?” I ask Varam.

“Another two days at least.” His eyes are on Sacha’s inert figure.

If Sacha survives is the unspoken condition . If the Authority doesn’t find us. If we don’t lose him to infection before we can reach safety.

So many ifs, each one a knife edge we balance on.

I arrange my cloak beside him, and seek out the stream so I can wet a cloth.

Then I return to Sacha and lie down, pressing the cloth against his burning forehead.

In the darkness, I listen to his shallow breaths.

Each inhale sounds harder than the last, each exhale potentially his last. The space between them stretches longer each time, leaving me suspended in dread, holding my own breath, until his next one finally comes.

I think of the prophecy, of the whispers that followed me in Stonehaven, of the title they gave me— Varel et’Arvath .

I still don’t know what it means, and right now I don’t care.

Because all I can think about is how losing him now will be losing part of myself.

A part I didn’t even know existed until I touched that tower wall.

“Please stay with me,” I whisper. He gives no sign of hearing me. “You don’t get to die yet.”

Whether command or prayer, the words hang in the cold night air, unanswered but necessary. Because giving voice to fear is better than letting it consume you in silence. Because hope, however fragile, is still hope.

And right now, it’s all I have.