Notes: I'll be quick! (tho the chapter is v long!)

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It was not long before we stopped again. Gunther had kept up with my pace for the better part of an hour, but the longer we walked the slower he went, and even after we paused for biscuits and more willow bark, he continually fell behind. I forced my steps to match his, frustrated we were not going quicker and even more cross at myself for being frustrated at all. The fact that Gunther was managing to walk, and to do so without complaining, was a miracle I would not have expected of him, or anyone.

But it was almost painful to watch the landscape move by at such a pace. The sky had stayed flat and grey with cloud cover, and the dull, indistinct light was barely bright enough to catch on the snow and the crooked, half-naked shapes of the trees. It seemed as if I looked at everything through dirty glass. There were too many moments to recognize the markers I had burned into my brain yesterday, and they meant something entirely different today, something too much to get ahold of.

It will be easier the farther we move, I said to my feet, to the bird flitting through overhead branches who followed us down some of the path. They are only bodies now, and can follow us nowhere.

Soon enough, we stopped altogether. Neither of us had said anything for a good while, and I had been thinking of Sir Theodore, of the set of Sir Ivon's jaw when he had bid us farewell — the tears gathered heavy in my father's eyes as I prepared to leave the castle — when I glanced over and saw the glazed look on Gunther's face. He looked almost as if he were walking while asleep, his expression strange and vacant.

"You could have asked to stop," I said quietly later, when he tried to help me set up the tent and I waved him away.

He shrugged one shoulder, winced, then grimaced. "We have to get there somehow. Are you offering to carry me?"

It was the same sort of thing he would have said any other time — rudely, or with that teasing smirk, depending on how well we were getting along — but somehow I failed to answer in the right way. "I wish I could. Dragon could fit us both."

But he was not here. It was pointless to imagine he was.

"We need firewood," I said then, rather than saying something else worse.

We did, so Gunther could hardly say no, but I saw how his gaze followed me as I turned to go.

I found the wood slowly. I had intended to hurry, but my eyes meant otherwise, and they passed again and again over the snowed forest floor without seeing anything, thoughts moving through my head in a meaningless trickle. Perhaps there truly was something like an army beyond the border. This first group could have been the predecessor to a more formal invasion, seeking the first spoils before war could ravage anything. Or maybe the northern bandit group was the size of the first and was completely unconnected to any kingdom. They could be small enough to pass again through the forest rather than bothering with taking boats to the coast.

Perhaps they had already left and by now we shared the wood with them. How long could I defend the two of us if they came this way?

Eventually I had gathered most of an armful. I headed back, listening with one ear to my thoughts and the other to the small scritching off to my right, coming from what I suspected was a pine marten or a rabbit. Perhaps once I started a fire I would set some traps for it.

Soon I was close enough to see the shape of Gunther from between the trees. I could only see his back — he was mostly where I had left him, sitting now on a fallen log rotting itself into the ground. I slipped closer, staying behind the trees, my steps softening without my meaning them to.

His head was bowed. For a moment I waited, though I could not say for what. Despite the dried blood shade of his cloak, I swore I could make out the jagged shapes of real blood, a patch there, an outline by the shoulder — red caught up in the collar, darkening the tips of the pale lynx fur. I took a few silent steps to the side to see his face.

But there was nothing to see, for his head was in his hand. His hair was fisted in his fingers, black spilling from the gaps between them.

I stood still. It felt voyeuristic, a moment I had no business seeing. But still I watched. I saw his hand clench, as if he meant to jerk his hair out by the roots, then loosen again, the heel of his palm sliding down over his eye.

Finally I forced myself to move, my footsteps falling heavy and loud. Gunther sat up instantly, raking back the hair he had rumpled. His eyes slid away when I laid the wood beside him.

"Does your head still hurt?" I asked, after clearing my throat enough to regain speech.

"Like the devil," he muttered.

I focused on the motions of my hands, snow scraped aside, rocks placed here, twigs placed there. "Once we have a fire going I can make willow bark tea."

He had certainly looked as if he could use something warm. His voice behind me sounded relieved. "Oh, good."

I scraped some sparks from the flint and coddled the reluctant flames onto the wood. Gunther passed the pot, and then the tied leather packet of dried willow, wincing when I upended it into the pot along with a few handfuls of snow. "That was all that was in there?"

I nodded, hiding my frown. I had hoped it would last longer too. Casting a quick glance at his colorless face, I changed my mind about the animal traps. I did not want to leave him alone. Instead I sat next to him on the damp log, and we ate as the fire crackled and the pot heated — or I ate, hungry for more than dried bread and wary of our limited supply of even that. Meanwhile, Gunther took so much time nibbling at half a biscuit I would have thought it tasted far worse than the tea, which he tipped back in two burning gulps as soon as it left the flames.

"I should check on your wound," I said after a long while, pulling a fresh pan of water from the fire. I dipped the tip of a finger in, making sure it was not so hot it would burn Gunther. "Before it gets too dark."

He looked over at the sinking sun, which had never managed more than the thin soggy light from the morning. Barely any of it would make it through the weather-proofed tent. It was better to stay by the fire, which at least threw a delicate orange glow over everything. He blew out a breath. "Right."

Watching him fiddle one-handed with his cloak clasp, I could not help but wish it were warmer. This was hardly the time of year to be stripping down to the waist. Resignation painted his features as he tossed the heavy cloak to the side. He had less success with the armor padding beneath, even slit across the shoulder and side from when I had removed the arrow. After another moment of watching him wrestle with the thick side ties, I brushed his fumbling fingers aside. My eyes stayed low, focusing on picking apart my messy knots from the morning. "How do you feel?"

It was a cursed question, nearly worthless to ask. I helped him out of the padding. His face was a tired scowl, but he cringed when the bloodied left sleeve pulled away from his body.

"Bad," he said. He ducked out of his sweater and tunic and shivered.

I reached for his bandages. "Think of something distracting. It might help."

"Something distracting." He fell silent, and as I unwound down to where the dressing turned red brown with old blood, I worried suddenly that he was thinking of things even worse than his injury, of bodies in the snow, faint light trying to shine off the edge of the dull Frankian coin.

I swallowed. If he could not distract himself, then I would have to do it instead. I knew, after last night, what it meant to whirl around inside one's own head in dark and frightening circles. But though my hands moved just fine, my brain fell behind, casting sluggishly about for something to speak of. "Do you remember when we first met?"

He flinched as I pulled the last strip off the sticky ointment. His response had a hint of bite. "How could I ever forget?"

I dipped a rag into the steaming water at my side and squeezed it out, forcing my hands into a steady stillness and leaning in. "Did you ever wonder—"

The cloth scraped over his swollen skin and he hissed. "Saints above Jane, just go ahead and dig in there."

I was trembling almost from my grip on the rag and how careful my motions were. I continued to dab the old salve away, narrowing my eyes at the skin revealed. It looked pinker than it should have — but what did I have to compare it to? "Being snippy will not make it hurt any less, Gunther. I promise I am being as gentle as I can."

His teeth were clenched, but another sharp exhale escaped. "Sorry," he muttered, not sounding sorry at all, or even very aware of anything but the movements of the hot rag over his stitches. "What—" he let out a muffled gasp as the last of the ointment came away from the jagged red circle where the arrow had entered, "—were you saying?"

I paused a bit helplessly, staring at his wound and the rag and the discarded bandages on the ground. "Er. This is… ah. Wetter. Than it should be."

"That sounds bad."

"Well, it looks bad too."

"Encouraging, Jane. Exactly what I want to hear—" he glanced down, tucking his chin to see, and immediately blanched. "—Oh God. That looks awful. Was this a horrid sewing job or is it supposed to look like that?"

"Both. Maybe. I think—" I took a deep breath. "Gunther, I think this might be infected."

His head jerked up. "No," he said plainly, eyes narrowing.

"But look at it, it is inflamed and—"

"It cannot be," he bit out.

I paused. Scanned his face. There was an ugly tinge to his skin, and sweat sheened lightly over his forehead. "Well. We will have to keep watching it and see."

His eyebrows lowered, dissatisfied with my conclusion.

I let out a tight sigh. "I hope it is fine too. It is not as if I want this to get any worse. I will try packing it with bog moss this time. That should help at least a little." I pulled the medical kit closer. I could feel Gunther's eyes on me as I smeared new salve over the stitches, and I tried to ignore the way he was shaking. His hand looked like a claw where it dug into the sweater on his lap.

"Us meeting," he asked roughly, closing his eyes. "Why did you bring it up?"

"Oh." I pressed a coil of moss against the bloody hole and could not stop my answering wince when he shuddered. "I was wondering. Did you ever think then that maybe we could have been friends?"

His mouth was clamped shut, the red seam of scab running across his lower lip dangerously close to splitting open again. He let out an ambiguous noise in answer.

I looked back at my hands. I may have only been ten when we started training, and Gunther less than two years older, but by then it was too late. I had known him for years already and my opinion was about as firm as it could be. "I used to wonder, if that first day had gone differently…" I trailed off, laying a bandage atop the moss as softly as possible, trying to relive that moment instead of this one. I could picture holding my father's hand as he bargained with the merchant, seeing Gunther sitting up in the cart. He had smirked even then, but who had said the first vile thing? Had he declared snobbily that I played in the dirt like a heathen, or had I laughed when his luxurious fur-lined coat grew dusty?

No. I reached around to wrap over his collarbone. I could remember. Gunther had hopped down to poke around among the barrels as I did the same, and when we began to play hide and seek in the gaps between them, his father had snapped at him to get back in the cart. 'Do not play with filthy little girls who have forgotten they are girls at all,' was what he had said.

I smoothed the edge of the bandage and started to knot it. Small, impressionable Gunther, motherless Gunther, loved his father more than anything. For an instant, only a second, disappointment had crept over his face. But then he straightened and glared at me, returning purposefully to his seat atop the bench.

And I, shameless Jane, after shouting his name and pointedly receiving nothing in return, had reached down to the grimy ground, snatched up a rock, and threw it. I never meant to hit him, simply to force him to pay attention to me, but my aim was bad even then, and poor Gunther got a bloody bump the size of an egg on his forehead.

So was born a feud. So grew our mutual dislike.

Gunther's hand loosed from the sweater now that I had finished dressing his shoulder. His voice was still unsteady, but amused now too. "If it had gone differently, I might not have a war wound to commemorate it."

I stared. "You do not."

He lifted his hair away from the side of his face. I leaned in. On the very edge of the bone right above his temple, there it was — a jagged oval of paler skin. The scar was miniscule, but still clearly there, and I gaped in shock. "No. Did I ever even apologize?"

He breathed in and out a few times. Each sounded better than the last. "Your parents made you come to the manor the next day, I think. You were none too happy about it."

"Oh yes, of course." That had been one of the few times I had seen the inside of the Breech family home. I could not even remember actually saying sorry, only sitting angrily in the foyer, kicking the legs of my chair with my heels as I waited for a maid to fetch Gunther. "Well. I may not have sounded it then, but I did feel awful." I glanced at where he still held the hair back from his face. "And now those fingernail marks on your hand. How many scars have I given you?"

"A fair few," he admitted, pressing his palm gingerly to the mound of bandages curving around his chest. "But no more than I have given you, I would wager."

My eyes travelled to the old burn standing out against his side, only a small portion compared to what I knew spread across his shoulder blades. But he had not wanted to talk of it before, and I selfishly did not want to say anything that would put space between us when we were speaking almost normally, despite everything that had happened.

I looked back at the tiny scar. It meant both nothing and something, and I found my thumb was reaching for it unbidden, brushing lightly over the small ridge. I could feel it just barely.

Gunther stared at me.

But I did not pull back. Instead I watched my fingers move, tracing the edge of his temple, then tucking his hair, tangled from sweat and days outdoors and not so smooth as I had always imagined it would be, behind his ear.

He was holding his breath, though I could only tell because he was so extraordinarily still. My fingertips followed gently along the line of his jaw. Distantly I realized they were trembling. For a few moments they rested at the soft place between his jaw and neck, where I could feel the quickened thrum of his pulse, and then my hand fell away.

He caught it on the way down, his skin cold despite wearing gloves most of the day.

I flinched. I could not help it. There were still traces of blood beneath my nails. But I did not want to pull away even so. Instead I sat frozen, watching nearly without breathing as he looked at my fingers. His face was unreadable, but I wondered anyways if he was thinking of a few hours before. Once we had left camp and reached the river I had knelt in the thin snow and scrubbed my hands clean like something possessed.

After another few moments he shivered and returned my hand to my knee. I waited for him to say something, but he just struggled back into his tunic and sweater and hunched towards the fire.

I blew out a breath. Perhaps it was better if neither of us explained ourselves. "You must be freezing." I nodded at the tent. "You should go in. I can put the fire out."

His eyes took a quick inventory of the sky, which had only gotten more grey as we sat.

"I know it is still so early, but—"

He nodded. "Better to rest and leave with the light tomorrow."

I nodded back. Our sleeping things were buckled against the two packs, and he unclipped them both into the one arm, heading to the tent.

I dealt with the fire, scattering the stones so our fire circle was less obvious. The bandages still littered the ground, and I picked through them, trying not to let my eyes linger, taking out those that looked clean. We would need them later, especially if we did not reach the edge of the forest soon.

Which we would. We had to.

I took a deep breath and ducked into the tent. Gunther had unrolled both our bedrolls and was sitting in the fur blankets of his, fingering the filigree carved into his sword belt. I knelt opposite him. His eyes met mine and stayed there, though both of us were quiet.

The question pressed up against my lips. Were you ready to kill someone? And another; we could have died. You could have died. What would I have done then?

Everything I could think of was stupid or painful. I did not want to see his face close off, could not stand for him to turn away. We had gone back to fighting so abruptly after that nonsense with him and Jester, and I was not sure how I could handle it now if he turned so cold again. It was better to say nothing. Safer. I unbuckled my armor and peeled it off, undoing the ties on the woolen padding by feel and setting both beside me. I knew he was still looking at me, but I turned my face away and tucked my legs into my blankets.

I could not tell him how unprepared I had been for this, or how terrified I still was. He had to trust me. I was the only one who could defend us now. There was no space for me to fall apart, to hand him the little weak and hurting pieces of myself when they meant his weakness as well.

I wrapped my arms around my knees. Beside me, Gunther shivered again and slid further into his bedroll.

"Are you still cold?" I asked without looking over.

He paused before answering, and I wondered if he was considering something snarky. "Yes," was all he finally said.

I glanced at him. He was looking straight up, his face shadowed in the near dark.

My eyes returned to my knees. When I had curled up against his side yesterday, it had been without thinking. I almost wished I could not think again, face growing hot. "It will be warmer if we share."

He was quiet for a second before I heard rustling. I almost stopped myself from looking over again, sure he would be able to see my blush even in so little light. But when I did I found he had shifted and made room beside him. His eyes went back up to the tent top. "I would rather not freeze to death," he said.

It was hardly a warm welcome, and yet the relief settled thickly around me as I slid over, yanking my bedroll along behind. "Me too," I said, then slipped in beside him, pulling my blankets atop both of us.

For a moment I hesitated, my arm against his, my body strung tauter than a bow string. But this did not need to be complex. We were both cold, and feeling his lungs move was a simple comfort.

I pressed to his side. He was still quivering a little. I had not realized the tightness to him until I heard it leave, his exhales changing to float warm and even into my hair, his body eventually stilling.

It was minutes before he spoke. "I should have woken you."

I could not tell what he meant right away. "Woken me? For — oh, for watch?" I blinked. I should have been on watch right now. The fact that I was not meant either that I doubted another bandit group was in the forest with us, or that I wanted so intensely not to be alone that I was willing to risk our safety for it.

I was not sure which it was. I tried to pay attention to Gunther's answer instead of my own thoughts.

"Yes," he said. "Then."

The truth was not so kind, and it took a second before I said it. "Yes. You should have." I felt him tense again beside me. "It was a mistake, Gunther. People make them."

We had talked of this so recently — I could picture his face half-lit by the spitting fire, and shouting almost that I was not his father and he was not his father and mistakes were not failures — but it had been different then. Mistake meant something different now.

His words came out harsh. "We could have both died. It was more than that."

"Perhaps." I thought of my bloody hands pressing to his hair, how I had kissed tears across his face. Could he remember that, or had he been in such a haze of pain and drink that he had not even noticed? "Whatever it was, you paid for it."

He said nothing.

"Is that not enough? Do you want someone to punish you for it?"

"No—" He stopped and tried again. "I am only alive because of you, Jane."

I turned my face up towards him, but could see only his chin and the line of his jaw. I had assumed that he would have woken when the bandits' footsteps came closer, whether or not I had been there. Had he assumed the opposite? They would have cut him down where he slept. Who could say what would have happened to me then? "We are alive because of each other. Neither of us could have fought them alone."

I thought of the three men, their faces, their hands, my heart working up into a sick, stuttering rhythm. Did it matter how they knew each other? Did it even matter who they were? They were gone, and because they were gone, we were still here.

My voice was so quiet in the dark. "Is it shameful to be glad for death?"

"I hope not," he answered softly. "It is all life is."

I thought of Sir Theodore, old and agelessly present. Of Dragon, who would continue on centuries after I died. Of the mere seconds it had taken for Gunther's sword and my dagger to take one thing and make it another, from life to death, like magic.

We were here, and because we were here, they were not.

My throat had closed in on itself. "You were so quick. So brave," I whispered. "I am sorry this is what you got for it."

I felt him shake his head. "But it was luck."

I could not keep the quiet and desperate confusion from my voice. "What else is there?"

Because it really was all luck, so much more than I had imagined it would be — luck, and choices, and in every version of the moment I relived behind my eyes, in every coming moment forever on, my choice would always be to save the people I cared for — and Gunther was one of those people. He always had been.

I turned into his side. He stiffened. Undeterred, my hand crept to middle of his chest, where the bandages cradled his ribs and heart.

There was a pause, and then his hand settled on top of mine.

I let out a long, slow breath. Luck, and choices, and us here together in a quiet tent in a still forest after it all.

His skin was still cold. I could feel the calluses on the pads of his fingers. After a second, he started to trace unhurried designs over the back of my hand, the ridges of my knuckles, the exposed part of my wrist. When I turned my hand over he repeated the patterns across my palm.

Once we get back, some part of me wanted to ask. Will it be like this?

But of course we had to get back first.

So many things that were painful to think of. And despite the comfort of his presence, so important, so needed, and in ways I could not apologize for or even question — really Gunther was only a warm shape beside me in the darkness, running circles, I was sure, from his own painful things.

I wondered what his painful things might be. They were easier to think of than my own. His apology, perhaps. Maybe how easy it had been for him to return to how he had been before, which disturbed me; not even Jester's acting was so good. His father. Always his father. Why did it always come down to him? Perhaps I could not help but bring him up because I was waiting for the time when the very mention of him did not erase Gunther to blankness or turn his veins to flame. If that would ever happen.

Because I was a fool, and because we were in the dark, and because Gunther's fingers still moved so softly over my skin, I opened my mouth. "Gunther."

He let out a sleepy noise. "Hm?"

"If I — if I asked about your father, would you answer?"

His hand clamped down on mine. His voice held no trace of weariness anymore. "No."

I waited for him to pull away, but other than the sudden tense pull of his body, he did not move. I blinked heavily. "Alright."

"That is it? Alright?"

"Yes." I paused almost uncertainly. "I would listen. If you wanted to talk."

"There is nothing to talk about," he shot back.

"Alright," I said again.

Gunther was quiet. His hand left mine, but still he did not turn away.

After another second of waiting, I tucked my head against his shoulder. My exhales created a little cove of warmth between my lips and the wool of his sweater. Slowly I felt him relax again.

Minutes passed before his fingers brushed hesitantly against my hair. The curls were hopelessly knotted. He twined a tangle around his thumb, smoothing it from my forehead, and then his hand slid down my back and curled into the fabric there, as if he needed to hold tight to something.

A few more minutes passed. I found the tiniest jewel of levity in the moment, knowing how lucky I was that I had not ruined everything with my question. "My mother would be infuriated we are in this tent alone together."

He snorted. "She tries to protect you in the strangest of ways."

"She wanted me to stay behind. She never said, but I could tell." I could have frowned, or rolled my eyes, but instead I found myself staring at the pattern of the stitches across the shoulder of Gunther's sweater. It was too dark, my eyes too close, and all I saw was fabric. "But even if Sir Theodore had not sent me — I would have asked it of him. I wanted to come." I paused. The silence stretched. The folds of his sweater looked like swelling waves. "I did not want you out here without me."

It was a confession, whether or not I had meant it that way. I thought of two months ago, the dark of Lavinia's room, how he had been nothing but a voice, hoarse, unsure. How I had searched the blackness for the shape of him, my heart swelling with the newness of our honesty.

I felt his eyes on the top of my head, but did not turn to look. His fingers had curled tighter into my sweater. There were so many things he could have said, but all he did say was, "You must regret it now."

"No," I said, and was quiet.

We spoke no more. After a long while his body went heavy soft with sleep around mine.

My thoughts turned awful in the silent dark. I tried to drown them out with one of Jester's ballads, reciting it in my head to the best of my memory. But halfway through the fifth verse I remembered it ended with a devastating battle, one that left none alive but the narrating bard, who then toiled for years alone on the empty moors to recall the names of all who fought. Sir Ivon had cried the first time Jester performed it.

I breathed out a soft sigh. Not the most comforting distraction. In its place I tried the lullaby my mother sang the royal children, the same one she had once sung to me.

At one point Gunther mumbled my name. I was silent, sure he was just talking in his sleep, but then he repeated it with a questioning lilt.

I shifted, fingers fluttering over his chest. "What?"

"Odd. That they would send such… such an injured messenger. Do you think…" But he never finished the sentence. I swallowed, staring up into the folds of the tent as his pause stretched into a doze and then passed back into sleep, his lips parting slightly, the furrow in his brow never quite smoothing out.

When sleep finally came for me, it came uneasily. I stirred fitfully what seemed to be every few minutes, drifting in and out of countless dreams, one with Jester, another with the queen (I always wanted more sons, she whispered, standing in front of the throne and holding the hand of a dead twin on each side, forming a trio of pale, lanky figures atop the gleaming dais). Another focused on the court wizard. I could count on one hand the number of times I had seen him in real life, but here he looked sort of like Sir Theodore and sort of like my father and sort of like the king. He was kneeling in front the ptarmigan Gunther and I had eaten two days ago. His hands pressed to its bloody breast, and it came alive again, wings shuddering — they pressed down and it collapsed once more. Alive, dead, alive, dead. Stop, I shouted, but my voice was Gunther's.

Every dream ended prematurely. I awoke always with a sick start, certain I had heard an army's feet outside the tent when really there was nothing.

…

Gunther did not demand to help with the tent the next morning. Instead he sat on the rotting log while I pulled it down, and his face was strangely, painfully blank.

"Done," I said, when it had been rolled and placed back into Gunther's pack. For a moment I stared down at the coated leather bag, weighing the straps in my palm. Then I slipped it over my shoulder, tilting it so it would not bump too much against my own.

Gunther was still staring off at nothing, and I swallowed. "Did you hear?"

He blinked, meeting my eyes as I stopped in front of him. "Yes."

"Ready to go, then?"

His eyes trailed behind me and finally his face shifted. "Jane, no. You cannot carry two packs."

I did not move my fingers from where they curled around both sets of straps. "And you cannot carry one."

His eyebrows twitched, but he said nothing. No retort, or challenge, or even a simple refusal, and his face even looked wrong — blank still, caught up in something other than our conversation. My nails dug further into the straps. An empty feeling dropped through my stomach, as if a cold stone were falling and falling down a long well.

But then he stood as if everything were perfectly fine. His gaze slid away from mine, his steps steady, and he headed back towards the hunter's path. "You can give me my pack back in a few hours."

When I feel better was implied. I followed him, but it was only a few minutes before he slowed and I fell into the lead. We walked without speaking, the trail clear enough to follow without much effort. Our pace was an agonizing plod.

But it was not too long before I heard Gunther's boots stop behind mine. I paused, turning to see him a few steps back, palm pressed against a tree trunk.

Worry plummeted through me again, feet taking me back to him. "Are you alright?"

He nodded. His breath came fast. "Just thirsty. I forgot…" He trailed off, frowning, and his other hand moved an inch or so to gesture at the waterskin on his belt. He flinched at the motion, and I immediately pulled the skin from my own hip, offering it.

"I thought you had filled yours too," I said uselessly, though if I truly thought about it, I was not even sure he had drunk anything at all the day before. The coldness in the pit of my stomach sank even further. It was almost beginning to make me feel ill. I thought again of the pinkness of his wound, how it had been leaking far more than seemed normal.

He leaned back against the tree and gulped from the skin. I watched his throat bob too quickly. "Finish it, if you need to."

His side glance was doubtful, but I nodded. "Go ahead. I can put some of the wetter snow in and have more in no time. Here, I can fill yours too." I unhooked the skin from his belt, walking across the path to where the snow was cleaner. The fresher top layer was easy to scoop in, and I filled the skin until it crunched with the cold weight.

"Thanks," he muttered when I gave it back, looping it up beneath the edge of his armor where it would melt quicker.

I nodded, heading to fill my own waterskin, which now felt almost entirely empty. I squeezed it a bit nervously. I had handed Gunther one of Pepper's biscuits to eat while I took down the tent, but he had made a face and handed it right back. And he had barely eaten anything yesterday either. He would make himself sick at this rate.

But he did look a little better when I turned back around. Perhaps he truly had only needed something to drink. We headed off again, and this time I stayed at his side despite the thin trail. I tried not to make it look as if I was watching him from the corner of my eye, but he kept glowering at me and I realized I was not managing to hide my concern at all.

"We can take a break if you want," I started casually, when I had met his eyes one time too many to pretend it was an accident any longer. "Have something to eat."

He scowled. "We will never make it out if we keep stopping."

I frowned back. "We will never make it out at all if you cannot pace yourself."

"This is pacing myself. We have barely moved."

I could not argue with him when he was right. Luckily he was peering out at the path ahead and did not see my face twist.

"How far away do you think we are?" he asked.

I swallowed a few different truths — not far for me, but far for you — mere minutes as the dragon flies — and found something else. "Not so far that we should ignore your injury."

His scowl deepened, but he did not answer.

I took in a deep breath. "You will only start to feel better if you manage not to overextend yourself. We can make up for any lost time tomorrow."

Surely by then we could make it beyond the trees. We had passed that farm near the edge of the forest, and they had to have a horse. I could beg the farmer to borrow it. And, failing that, technically as knights of the realm we could commandeer horses when the kingdom was under attack.

Though we were not knights yet. I still needed to figure out that part.

"Fine," he conceded finally. "But only for a minute to eat."

We paused beside some dead-looking underbrush. Gunther brushed the snow from a rock and sat. While I pulled out food, I glanced at the trees around us, seeing if any were familiar enough to mark from our passage before. But I recognized nothing. I handed Gunther a biscuit and stood to eat my own, ignoring the way my stomach rumbled for something more, something warm. How far had we gotten today? Was the edge of the forest still a full day's run away?

I washed the stale food down with a few swigs of water. Gunther would not be able to run tomorrow. The week I had spent in bed after my injuries had been excessive, practically luxurious, but even so, it would be weeks before Gunther was anywhere close to his usual self.

I eyed his shoulder. He held himself awkwardly, his posture too stiff.

"Before we left," I started abruptly.

Gunther tilted his head my way, but gave no other indication he was listening.

"Left the castle," I clarified. "I made Sir Theodore a promise."

"I hope it was not that you would bring me back intact," he said a touch bitterly.

I paused, stricken with something — not guilt, but something that tasted the same. "No. It was to tell you if something is wrong."

His eyes flew to mine. "Well what is it? What is wrong, then?"

"No no." I shook my head, confused almost. "It was for both of us. To tell each other."

His brow knit.

I was not saying this at all the way I had meant to. I blew out a breath. "You would tell me, right? If something was wrong?"

He stared at me for a moment. His voice, when he spoke, was deadpan. "Yes, Jane. Something has gone disastrously awry. I did not want to worry you, but — I have been shot."

My lips pursed. "Gunther…"

He pushed himself to his feet. His short sigh sounded more tired than frustrated. "Look, we have to make it to Lynwood. If you have some suggestion how to get there that does not involve me walking, by all means, share it. Otherwise, we need to keep moving." He paused, and then added somewhat reluctantly, "I swear I will tell you if I need to stop."

I raised my chin. "You will?"

He nodded.

I shouldered both packs again. "Good. You lead."

We set off.

The snow was old enough to crunch. I listened to us break it, slow and rhythmic, ready for any sound out of the ordinary. I had seen old wolf paw-prints miles back, but I was still more troubled by the idea of a human presence than an animal one.

At one point an old oak, bent like an elbow, caught my eye. When we had passed that two days ago, I had been wondering what would happen when we caught the bandits. How I would ever summon the nerve to kill someone.

My gaze flitted to Gunther. He had fallen into a silence that might have felt as sullen as those from before his apology if I were not so concerned. I could see his strained breath crisp the air, and the faint pink smeared high over his cheeks. But Dragon always said my nose turned a nasty ripe shade of red when it was chilly. Surely it was the same for Gunther.

"We should not risk a fire tonight," he said out of nowhere a few minutes later. "There is a chance another group is coming through the woods. If they see…"

He was right, but I did not have to like it. "Will you be warm enough without one?"

His tone was vague but still disparaging. "Does it matter?" Then, at my look, "Yes. I will be fine."

"Are you cold right now? Or hot? Your color—"

"Unless I am purple I do not want to hear it, Jane."

My eyes narrowed. "What about blue? I assume you want to make it back with all ten fingers."

"Well, if they freeze, it can be your turn to hold my hands and rub the warmth back."

I started at the reminder of our time in the guardhouse. That had been less than two weeks ago. The bandits were already passing through the forest by then. Shorne had stood untouched, unaware of what was to come. That child had still had a family.

Gunther had not seemed to notice how my breath caught or the expression on my face. He had a trace of a scowl directed down at his trudging feet. After another moment of watching him, I realized his eyes were actually slightly out of focus. He was looking at nothing again.

I bit my tongue. What was I supposed to believe, when he sounded nearly normal? Gunther's face never showed all I wanted it to, and of course he was in pain, of course he should not be walking at all. My mind caught on fragments of images and sounds and lingered, as achingly slow as my feet — my arrows missing, my arrow hitting, eyes widening, the noise the man had made when Gunther's sword slid into his armpit — the quiet pant beside me. Each minute I decided again to say nothing. The death I felt was behind us, not ahead.

Eventually we stopped for water. We had gotten nowhere, and slowly. I wondered if Gunther knew it too and was only not saying so for my sake. He had never asked for his pack back. While I was glad I did not have to play keep-away with him, it was yet another concerning sign in a list that was beginning to encroach at the edge of my every thought.

His gaze wandered over to my face. He was leaning back against a tree. "We should make a plan," he said. "In case we are not alone in the forest. However unlikely that is."

"Right. We should." I sipped from my waterskin and met his eyes. "Here it is. I fight. You run."

His glare was immediate. "Jane."

I took another swig. "Gunther."

"Do not be a fool." His jaw tightened. "You would die if you fought them alone."

Usually I might have sounded at least defensive, if not angry. But instead my voice was quiet. "You would die if you fought them at all."

As I looked at him I knew it was unkind. How would I feel if he told me to leave him by himself to fight? I could be at death's door and still I would demand to be there next to him, with my sword tied to my arm if I were too weak to hold it. We had not been taught to fight together only to abandon it all now. "We should both run. Find somewhere to hide until they pass."

It could not have been a less knightly plan. But he nodded anyways. And then he paused, long fingers reattaching the waterskin to his belt, eyes still on mine. He was watching me the way I had watched him all day. When he spoke, he somehow sounded more like himself than he had since the night I had kissed him. "You think we will hear them coming?"

I did not answer for a moment. "I will."

It was the only chance he had. I could keep any promise that would keep him alive. I knew I could. I had to.

His eyes held mine. Then he gave a short nod, and his hand lifted from his belt, and his feet lifted almost steadily over a snowy root back to the path, and we returned to walking.

I did it without thinking. Thinking only made things complicated. His leather-clad hand dangled at his side, and I reached for it. Pressed our palms together, the same way as when we had danced in the practice yard weeks and weeks ago, then settled my fingers between his, the same way as when we shivered together in the guardhouse.

He did not look up from his moving feet. But his thumb crossed over mine, pressing tight, making a clumsy x. For a few minutes we walked like that, until I let my hand slip away, and he tucked his into his cloak.

We continued in silence. It suited me now, for I was too busy listening to the weight of Gunther's footsteps and the air through the still trees, to the world beyond me and the world beside me, moving at an ever-slowing pace.

The breathing grew louder. Grew faster. And the pace grew slower. And slower.

Until it stopped, and I turned from where my gaze had caught on a light I had worried was a torch but was only an iced trunk turned just so towards the sun, and saw the end of the motion, but not the beginning, as Gunther fell to his knees.

I leapt forward, too slow to do anything but land beside him, catch his arms, pull his face up from where it dipped, my voice shaking, shaking. "Gunther—" I slipped to my knees too, hands going to his cheeks. They burned against my skin. "You promised," I accused. His lungs were working in a laborious rhythm, his ribcage shuddering in and out too hard, too fast. "You swore you would tell me!"

For a horrible moment his eyes did not focus, only reeled wild like an animal's, but then they landed on me. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but then clacked it shut again and breathed out from between his teeth, a hissing stretched sound, water poured by the bucketful over Smithy's forge. His hand came up over his heart — no, higher, up to where the stitches started, where I had cut through him to pull the metal away. "Jane—"

"Where does it hurt?" I demanded, already pushing his cloak from his shoulders.

His fingers vised over the fabric and the wound like a small cage. "Everywhere," he muttered.

I tore at the ties of his padding, slitting apart those that were knotted tightly. Tossing my dagger into the snow, I pulled the padding away, then his sweater. He was beginning to shiver, his teeth rattling faintly, and when I yanked his tunic off next it was damp with sweat.

I tried to go slowly then. I peeled away each bandage more carefully than the last, listening to his breath hitch painfully. The last few were wet. Finally I plucked off the bog moss, which had soaked through, and revealed his injury. Both of us stared in silence. The arrow hole and stitches were puffy and oozing, weeping liquid past the greasy salve.

But that was not what we stared at.

Faint scarlet streaks inched down towards Gunther's armpit. Wide, like the marks of a belt tightened too far. Like foul snakes pulling out from his wound, infection raising red through his pale skin.

I sat back on my heels. Gunther's eyes met mine, and in them I saw what neither of us wanted to voice.

There was no way he could make it back to Lynwood.

So, ending on an odd note here. A question — unrelated to this story but please answer if you have an opinion. How do yall feel about JatD smut? (only at the proper ages, of course.) Is it something this fandom is even interested in? theres surprisingly little sex around and I'm not sure if it's because we're so teeny, or because people aren't into it, or are maybe too young since it's a kid's show. Toss your two cents my way! (And if it's a yea vote or even a hell yeah, you'd read some — to what point? What's good what's gross?)

Let me know if you have opinions, and see you all in at least three weeks! (after Janther week is over wow who else is PUMPED)