The rain did not stop.
I sat with my back against the cold rock and listened to it hit the vines outside.
The two heat stones gave off a steady, soft warmth.
It was not enough to dry our clothes, but it kept the worst of the cold from settling into our bones.
Kaelen stayed near the entrance. He had torn a strip from his cloak and bound his shoulder as best he could. The bleeding had slowed, but the wound was deep. He did not complain. He simply watched the dark trees and the rain.
Isolde sat close to the heat. Her hands were still cold. Every few minutes she rubbed them together, then held them out again. She did not speak much. When she did, her voice stayed low.
"How long can we stay here?" she asked.
"Until morning," I said. "Maybe longer if the rain keeps the scent washed away."
Seraphina lay on the cloak Kaelen had given her. She could not move, but her eyes stayed open. She watched the roof of the cave for a long time, then looked at me.
"You are still bleeding," she said.
I looked down. The cut across my ribs had soaked through the coat again. The collarbone wound was slower, but it still wept. I tore another strip from the edge of my shirt and pressed it against the worse of the two.
"It will stop," I said.
Isolde turned her face toward the sound of my voice. "You sound like you have done this before."
"I have been cut before."
That was all I gave her. Toward her and Seraphina I could be direct. Toward the rest of the world I stayed closed.
Kaelen shifted at the entrance. "No movement yet. The fire at the keep is still burning. They will search the roads first. The forest will come later."
I nodded. That matched what I remembered from the original story. The Vanguard preferred open ground and roads. The Church hounds were slower to call in unless the scent was strong.
We had bought a night. Maybe half a day after that if we were careful.
I took the Purifying Water Flask and cleaned the worst of the mud from Seraphina’s face and neck.
She did not pull away.
The cloth came away brown with dirt and a little blood that was not hers.
I rinsed it and worked carefully around her eyes and the line of her jaw.
Her golden eyes stayed on my face the whole time.
When I moved to Isolde, she flinched once at the first touch of the cloth, then held still.
The black residue from the earlier curse extraction was still stuck in places along her cheek and temple.
I cleaned it slowly.
The purified water took most of it without hard scrubbing.
"The black residue is gone," she said quietly. "The burning in my eyes is gone too. Whatever you did in the keep... it worked."
"It worked enough," I said.
She reached out and found my wrist with her fingers. Her grip was light, but she did not let go right away.
"I thought you would sell me," she said. "When the cleric offered your titles back. I was sure of it."
"I told you. I don’t take leashes."
Seraphina’s voice came from the cloak. "Neither of us expected you to stay. Most men in your position would have run the moment the Royal force arrived."
I finished with the cloth and put it away. "Running would have left both of you dead or worse. That was not useful."
Kaelen gave a short, dry sound that might have been a laugh. "Useful. That is one word for it."
The quiet settled again. Outside the rain kept its steady rhythm. Inside the cave the heat stones glowed faintly. My rib still hurt every time I breathed too deep. The cuts would need real care later, but for now they would have to wait.
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes for a short while. Sleep did not come, but the rest helped. The sound of the rain and the low breathing of the others became the only things in the world for a time.
Sometime in the middle of the night Kaelen woke me with a light touch on the shoulder.
"Your turn," he said. "I need two hours."
I took his place at the entrance.
The rain had eased a little, but the trees still dripped.
No torches.
No hounds.
Only the dark and the wet.
I sat with my back to the rock and watched the slope below.
Every so often a branch would drop water with a louder sound, and I would freeze until I was sure it was nothing.
Behind me Isolde had curled closer to the heat stones.
One of her hands rested near the place where my coat had been.
Seraphina’s breathing had finally evened out into something closer to sleep.
Kaelen sat with his back against the wall, saber across his knees, and closed his eyes.
I watched the night pass.
When the first gray light of morning touched the vines, I woke the others.
We ate what little dry food Kaelen still carried - hard biscuit and a strip of dried meat shared four ways.
We drank from the flask.
I checked the bandages again.
The bleeding on my ribs had slowed enough that the cloth was only damp.
Kaelen’s shoulder looked worse in the daylight.
The flesh around the cut was dark, but he could still move the arm and hold a blade.
"We move after the rain lightens," I said. "North. There is a watchtower three miles from here. Stone path. No mud for the hounds to track."
Kaelen nodded. "I found it two days ago while tracking the wagons. The door still holds. It is the best chance we have."
Isolde stood with my help.
Her legs were stiff from the cold and the long hours of sitting, but she stayed upright once she found her balance.
Seraphina’s eyes were clear again.
The night of relative safety had not healed her body, but it had given her back some of the steel in her voice.
"If they come," she said, "we do not give them an easy fight."
"We will not," I answered.
We packed what little we had.
I buried the heat stones deep under the dirt and leaves at the back of the cave so they would not leave a warm trail.
Kaelen took the front.
I carried Seraphina.
Isolde kept one hand on my belt the way she had learned in the dark.
We stepped out into the wet morning forest.
The rain had slowed to a steady drizzle. The air smelled of wet earth and pine. For the first time since the keep, the immediate threat was not at our backs. The trees dripped steadily. Our boots sank into the soft ground with every step.
We walked north in silence for nearly an hour. The path climbed and then leveled. Kaelen stopped once to listen, then again a few minutes later. Both times he shook his head and kept going.
Then he raised a hand and stopped for real.
I set Seraphina down carefully against a tree and moved up beside him. He pointed through the trees toward the lower slope.
Far below, through the mist and the thinning rain, a single torch moved. Then another. Then the deep, low bay of a tracking hound carried up the hill on the wind.
They had entered the forest.
Not the full force yet. Scouts. But the real hunt had begun.