Elowyn shook her head, staring blankly into the snow.
The last thing she wanted was to lay bare her deepest scars only to be met with harsh judgment.
The fox healer had respected her silence without question, but she doubted a man like Ares would show the same grace.
"I... left," she replied quietly.
"You left?" Ares arched a single silver eyebrow, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. "You know, for someone making attempts to keep her guard up, your deceit is surprisingly amateurish."
Elowyn’s eyes snapped to his, flashing with a sudden defensive heat. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"Precisely what I said," he noted smoothly, gesturing toward her tense expression. "I have only been conscious for a short time, yet I can read your thoughts like an open book. It’ll take a strategist an even shorter amount of time to accomplish what I just did."
A hot flush of sheer frustration pricked her skin. Feeling cornered under his sharp analytical gaze, Elowyn pulled her eyes away, stirring the steaming tea with unnecessary force to avoid his stare.
"My past has nothing to do with you," she bit back, refusing to look at him. "Why so interested anyway? I am under no obligation to explain myself to you. So here– drink this and focus on getting better."
She thrust the steaming mug toward him, but Ares did not take it. Instead, an icy shadow fell across his handsome features.
Was that all he was to her? Some chore to fix up so he can be on his way? Did she truly despise his presence that much?
The atmosphere around them grew magically frostier.
He asked, "are you that eager to be rid of me?"
His absurd conclusion almost left her speechless. "What?! When did I say anything like that?!"
"You don’t have to say anything," he replied smoothly, averting his gaze to stare mournfully into the white abyss. "Your anger is answer enough. Rest assured, the moment my body allows, I shall relieve you of my intolerable presence. I would hate to force you to endure my company a second longer than necessary."
Elowyn stood frozen in the snow, still holding the wooden mug of medicine– a cup he was now pointedly ignoring.
She gaped at his averted face, utterly speechless.
How on earth can one being be so infuriatingly, maddeningly difficult?!
It was a cruel joke of fate that he had been blessed with such godlike beauty. She chose to believe that men who looked like this were cursed to carry the most absurdly insufferable attitudes in the realm.
She glared at the flawless, sharp line of his jawline, a small twitch walking its way near her left eye. She simply couldn’t wrap her head around him. Just moments ago, he had been on the verge of fainting, clinging to her for dear life. Now, it was as if a switch in his head had flipped, transforming him into a stone wall of sulking defiance.
But she had made a solemn vow to the fox beastman to keep this man alive, and she refused to let his petty pride get in the way.
Stomping aggressively through the snow, Elowyn planted herself directly in his field of vision, completely obliterating his view of the pine trees.
With a decisive snap of her wrist, she shoved the wooden mug right under his nose.
Ares wrinkled his nose in instant disgust as the pungent, bitter scent of the medicinal herbs drifted into his face. He leaned back slightly, his eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.
"I have no appetite for bitter herbs," he replied with infuriating smoothness, undeterred by her rising fury.
"It’s not a feast, it’s meant to speed your recovery," she snapped, her voice tightening with exasperation. "You are acting like a wounded bear. I am not trying to kick you out, nor am I eager to be rid of you. I am simply eager for you to stop risking your life and take your treatment! I want you to get better, or don’t you want to get better?"
Ares met her gaze for a moment.
Hearing her state so fiercely– and so loudly– that she didn’t want him gone satisfied something deep inside him.
He simply lowered his golden gaze, pretending to consider her words with dignified grace. Just as Elowyn reached her absolute limit, convinced her plea had fallen on deaf ears, his long fingers wrapped around the wooden mug, taking it from her hands.
"Your phrasing lacks refinement," he remarked coolly, taking a slow, unbothered sip of the pungent liquid without batting an eye, "However... apology accepted."
Elowyn felt a vein twitch violently near her temple.
Apology?!
She clenched her fists into her sleeves, forcing down the urge to snatch that cup back and dump it all over his silver hair. She refused to give him the satisfaction of watching her lose her temper entirely. Someone had to be the bigger person between the two of them, and it certainly wasn’t going to be him.
Ignoring his smug demeanor, she turned away and disappeared around the back of the shelter, returning a moment later with two heavy wooden pails.
"Where do you plan on going?" Ares demanded, his voice slicing through the crisp, morning air as his eyes locked onto the bucket.
"Our water supply is nearly dry," she said plainly, lifting the pails in her hands. "I need to refill this. You stay put. I will return shortly."
His golden eyes narrowed as he sat up straighter, his playful arrogance vanishing instantly into a sharp, protective alertness. "You intend to go alone? In these mountains?"
While his warnings were logical, the winter streams didn’t fetch themselves. "It is not my first time," she assured him, her voice steady and practiced."I will not be long. I have made this trip dozens of times with the healer. I know my way around."
Ares studied the stubborn resolve etched onto her face. Her earnest, cheerful reassurance did nothing to quiet the alarm ringing in his chest.The fact that he could not accompany her stoked a dark, bitter fire behind his ribs.
"Here," Elowyn said, reaching into the firewood pile and pulling out a thick, sturdy wooden branch. She propped it directly against his log within arm’s reach. "If you grow cold and can’t wait for me, use this stick to take the weight of your leg."
"I have no need for a stick," he sneered, casting a dismissive glance at the wood like it personally offended him.
His stubborn, haughty attitude– coupled with his dangerously refined looks– frequently made Elowyn question his true origin. Despite being stripped of his past, nothing about his voice, posture or his manner of speaking hinted at a humble, solitary life. If anything, she suspected this insufferable pride of his might be precisely how he had ended up half-frozen under a snowdrift in the first place.
At the very least, fetching water offered a silver lining. A few precious minutes of peace and quiet sounded wonderful right about now.
Ignoring his rejection, she left the stick resting right where it was anyway. "I’ll be back."
Without waiting for his rebuttal, she gripped the handles of her wooden pails and set off into the deep snow.
Ares leaned back, watching her slender silhouette retreat until he could see her no more. A heavy, hollow silence fell over the clearing. There was no rational cause for anxiety.
[•]
The trail to the creek was one Elowyn had walked a hundred times, but without the healer’s steady stride beside her, the forest felt vast and hauntingly quiet.
When she reached the bank, the familiar sound of rushing water cut through the stillness of the snow. Sunlight filtered through the frost-laden pine trees, reflecting off the crystal clear stream where the mountain runoff had pooled beneath a layer of thin ice.
Elowyn set the wooden pails down on a flat, snow-dusted rock and knelt near the edge. Pulling a small iron spade from her belt, she deftly chipped away the ice until the dark, freezing water well up to the surface.
She paused for a long moment, resting her hands on her thighs as she watched the ripples circle outward. The biting cold helped clear her chaotic thoughts, but the quiet routine only made her miss the healer’s presence.
In the brief week that they had spent together, he had given her more than medicine. He had meticulously organized their remaining winter supplies, leaving her with enough to endure the coming frost. He even showed her how to salt and smoke meat to last through the season.
Back in her tribe, fresh meat during the midwinter was always a rare luxury, reserved only for the strongest hunters while the rest scraped by. The simple wisdom she had been gifted with might have spared her people from the dark months, if she still had a tribe to take it back to. But it was of no use now.
She paused, the thought settling in her chest.
If they hadn’t cast me out...
She blinked down at her reflection in the icy water.
If they hadn’t cast me out, I wouldn’t know any of this.
If she was still back in the IronFang tribe, she would still be hiding in the shadows of her people, treated like a shiftless runt who owed her life to the mercy of others. She would have never met the healer. She would have never learned to cure meat, organize seasonal stores, or navigate the mountain alone. Her exile may be cruel, but staying would have robbed her of her soul.
In a strange, bitter way, the very tragedy that tore her life apart was the very reason she was strong enough to survive today.
Regardless of her tribe’s harsh rejection, she owed this newfound strength to the healer’s generosity. Closing her eyes briefly, Elowyn whispered a quiet prayer to the mountain wind, wishing him a swift and safe journey down to the capital.
Unfortunately, the capital was no place for someone like her.
Shaking her head to dispel the melancholic thought, she dipped the first wooden pail into the frigid stream with a soft splash, filling it until the clear current rose nearly to the brim. She repeated the action with the second pail, her forearms flexing as she heaved the freezing weight onto flat ground.
Nysa’s ultimatum was also drawing dangerously close.
The lingering thought sent a chill far colder than the winter air down her spine.
She had long since abandoned the futile hope of finding a mate to secure her place. That meant accepting the bitter truth that she would soon have to surrender her humble hut, the last tangible peace of comfort she built with her blood and sweat. She couldn’t squat in this temporary mountain shelter forever.
Once the season turned, she would need to forge a path entirely her own– whatever that might look like.
Just as she leaned down to wipe her damp hands on her fur skirt, the brittle crack of a breaking branch snapped through the entire forest.
Elowyn froze.
Her hands went instantly still against her skirt, her breath catching in her throat as her blue eyes darted toward the shadows of the frost-laden pine.