Elowyn’s eyes widened to the size of saucers.
Was that a body?!
An actual, frozen body?!
That couldn’t be possible. Maybe she was seeing things.
Please let it be a weirdly shaped log, she prayed frantically. Please, by the ancestors, just be a log.
Unable to stop her own morbid curiosity, she sank to her knees in the drift and shuffled closer. Her trembling fingers brushed away a heavy layer of frost, revealing a very real, very striking, very frozen male face, his dark lashes dusting his pale cheeks.
Elowyn gasped, instinctively jamming the snow right back over his face and slapped it smooth.
Nope. Absolutely not.
She had seen nothing.
She was clearly hallucinating from chewing tree bark. This was just a summer-blooming hallucination tree growing beside a hallucination rock.
Yes!
She was an outcast with half a strip of pine-skin wrapped in her rag. She couldn’t even guarantee her own next breath, let alone play savior to a random stranger who had the audacity to freeze to death in her path.
"Look, I am truly, deeply sorry," she squeaked, backing away from the freshly re-buried face while holding her hands up in apology. "I am having the worst week of my life, and I am not qualified for this. May your ancestors send a better savior your way!"
Elowyn refused to let foolish pity ruin her chance at living. Walking away was the only sensible choice. She had to look out for herself first.
Turning on her heel, she sprinted into the trees, fleeing as if the corpse itself would rise and demand her aid.
She was a shiftless runt.
For all she knew, he could be a predator.
This was the right thing.
...right?
RIGHT???!
But... what if no one saves him?
What if he was dying right now because she was too much of a coward to help?
What if... what if...
Barely three minutes later, Elowyn came barreling right back out of the brush.
"I’m coming! I’m saving you!" she screamed into the frozen clearing, her guilt dragging her back like a taut leash.
She couldn’t do it.
She was a terrible liar to herself.
When she was just an orphaned child with no beast form, the late Chieftainess had taken her in and sheltered her when everyone else wished her dead. Kindness was the only true warmth in this world, and Elowyn refused to turn her back on another dying soul.
Sprinting back to the summer-blooming tree, she dove into the drift and frantically shoveled the snow off his body, tossing frozen powder in all directions. Leaning over his still frame, she pressed her cold cheek directly over his heart, straining to hear over the pounding of her own blood.
Thump... thump... thump.
A slow, heavy thrum vibrated against her jaw, making her gasp in relief.
He was still alive.
Now that the snow was gone, she noticed his attire was made of rich, unusual leather and woven clothes, looking nothing like the hides and fur she was wearing. Crimson stains crusted the deep slash marks tearing through his clothes, but she forced herself not to dwell on the blood. Regardless of whatever happened to him, she needed to get him out of this freezing temperature first.
"Stay with me, alright? Don’t you dare die!" she pleaded, hauling his heavy arms over her shoulders.
Positioning herself beneath him, Elowyn braced her boots against the icy ground, gritted her teeth, and heaved upward with everything she had.
But physics showed zero mercy.
The man was built like a mountain of solid iron. The moment his full weight hit her smaller frame, Elowyn’s knees folded like dry twigs.
"...!!"
A smothered gasp escaped her as gravity dragged them both down, sending her crashing face-first into the snow with the stranger collapsing heavily right on top of her.
Pinned beneath a mountain of unconscious male, Elowyn let out a muffled groan, spitting a mouthful of snow off her tongue.
That didn’t end well.
What was she even thinking?
She was a starved runt running on chewed tree bark. She couldn’t lift him an inch off the ground let alone carry him through the woods.
There had to be another way.
Elowyn squirmed, kicked, and wriggled like a trapped fish until she finally slithered out from under his side. She flopped onto her back beside him, her lungs burning as she stared at the canopy. Abandoning him here meant he would freeze before sunset, but dragging him bare-backed across the jagged ice would shred whatever was left of his torn clothes and tear open his wounds. Currently, she had every justifiable reason to leave him here.
But...
She couldn’t bring herself to do that.
Before the doubt could fully take root, a soft, ragged sound suddenly broke the silence.
Elowyn froze, her head snapping toward the stranger’s face. The stranger’s brows were pulled tight in a grimace of agony, his pale lips moving in a frantic, soundless rhythm.
Was he... trying to talk?
Holding her breath, Elowyn edged forward on her knees and bent low over his face, struggling to catch his faint, broken whisper.
"Please... don’t do this..."
A raspy sigh escaped his chest, and his head slumped sideways back into the snow, returning to total, eerie silence.
Elowyn slowly pulled back, her chest tightening as she stared at the dark crimson stains crusting his clothes. He couldn’t possibly be talking to her now.... could he? But what was he trying to say?
Don’t do what?
"D-don’t worry, you’ll be fine, okay?" She stammered softly. "Just... hang on."
Elowyn’s paranoia mounted, but her resolve hardened along with it. She didn’t want to give up on this stranger just yet.
But if she wanted to save him, she had to work smarter, not harder.
But... how?
Her eyes landed on the thick, braided vine snare she had tripped over minutes earlier, and a new idea sparked in her head.
Back in the IronFang tribe, the hunting parties always brought back heavy game using travois. If she could build one, she could use it to carry him to safety without breaking her back.
But she had to hurry!
Scrambling to her feet, Elowyn drew her flint knife from her waistband and set to work.
She chopped down two long, sturdy pine branches from the main runners. Crossing the thick ends into a narrow V-shape, she wrapped the severed vine around the joint, knotting it with raw, mechanical strength.
Across the frame, she interlocked dense, needle-heavy pine boughs, building a thick, springy litter. It wasn’t the exact technique she had secretly memorized while watching the hunters do it from a distance, but it only needed to survive the trip.
Satisfied with her work, she immediately returned to the injured stranger, grabbing the shoulder of his torn outfit.
"Don’t die on me, okay? You have to live."
Bracing her boots against the hardpack, she hauled backward with a ragged gasp. Her muscles strained against her bones until she finally leveled the stranger off the ground and rolled him onto the bed of pine. He let out a deep, pained groan that made her freeze, but his eyes remained unconsciously shut.
Taking no chances with his safety on the uneven terrain, she used a strip of liable inner bark rope to secure his waist firmly to the wooden frame. She didn’t pull away until she was certain he was properly secured.
Stepping in front of the V-frame, Elowyn wrapped the vine lead around her shoulders like a plow harness. She drove her body forward, leaning into the wind at a brutal angle while her boots clawed for traction in the slush.
"Come on..."
For three terrible heartbeats, the travois stayed frozen in place. Then, with a sharp crack, the heavy bough broke free from the ice.
Elowyn let out a ragged growl of effort as the improvised travois finally glided forward. Her legs screamed with exhaustion, her lungs burning like fire with every shallow breath of icy air. But she didn’t stop. Step by agonizing step, she dragged the heavy stranger through the drifts, leaving a deep furrow in the snow as she guided her unexpected burden toward any available shelter nearby.
If she could just find a neighboring tribe, she could leave him near their gates. Surely someone there would be able to help him out. His condition looked critical, and she knew she had neither the medicine nor the skill to nurse him back to health.
After dragging the heavy sled for what felt like hours, Elowyn finally paused to catch her breath. She leaned her hands against her knees, looking back over her shoulder.
She had covered a considerable distance—far enough that the summer-blooming tree was no longer in sight. The forest behind her was once again a wall of grey, lifeless timber and blinding white snow.
Elowyn blinked, her chest heaving as a chill ran down her spine.
Had she really walked that far? Or was her starved, freezing mind starting to play tricks on her?