Keer Jr. starts screaming at dawn. "Good morning to you too." More screaming. The—I am awake and therefore everyone must suffer—kind. I shove my blanket off and sit up. Kestria's gone—must've left before sunrise, the spot where she sl ept still dented in the furs. My hands are purple to the knuckles and my arms are hollowed out from last night's crushing and the paste is on the shelf, four new jars sealed with wax next to the one I had before, five total, which is better but not enough and I need to count the remaining petals because some of them might still be viable if I— Posts. The coop. Posts need to be at least two feet de ep for fox protection—wait. Do foxes even come around here? With the pack? Probably not. Probably zero foxes within five miles of this place. Foxes are smart. Foxes aren't suicidal. Still. Meh, two feet de ep. Just in case. Outside, the temporary holding area is chaos. Surprise, surprise. Keer Jr. pacing the fence line, feathers puffed, screaming at the sky. Nugget ignoring him completely, still pink. The goats huddled in one corner, watching the rooster with wariness of animals who've learned small angry things are dangerous. Smart goats. "You're going to lose your voice." He screams louder. "Your funeral." I gather the posts someone cut yesterday—not enough, need more by midday—and start dragging them toward the eastern ridge. The spot Keer picked. Good drainage, morning sun exposure, far enough that the screaming won't wake everyone but close enough I can reach the healing area fast if someone needs to bleed on me again. He was right about the location. I hate that he was right. Also I hate that when he showed me the spot yesterday, his shirt pulled across his shoulders and—post spacing. Post spacing. Two feet apart for the main frame, eighteen inches for the chicken wire section, My shoulders already ache from last night's paste work and my knees are going to stage a re volt by noon but the animals can't stay in temporary holding forever and also I have a splinter in my thumb from that rough post, should deal with it, ke ep forgetting. Someone's coming up the ridge. Rhen. And two others—Halek, a broad-shouldered wolf who didn't talk much, and a younger one with red-brown hair who helped move feed bags yesterday. Fenwick, I think someone called him. "Thought you might need hands." Rhen's already halfway to the post pile.
"Ohhh, yay. I do. Grab a post." No argument. They just start working. Rhen takes the heaviest posts without being asked, Halek starts measuring spacing with his boot, and the younger one— "Do you know how to dig a post hole?" "How hard can it be?" "HA! Famous last words. Here." I hand him the shovel. "Two feet de ep. If you hit rock, tell me and we'll adjust." "I'm Fenwick, by the way." "Melori. Dig." He digs. Gets about six inches before his shovel clangs against something solid. "Rock." "Shift three inches left." He does. No rock. Ke eps digging. "How did you know that?" "I've built a lot of fences." Marking the next hole with my heel, already thinking—if he's on hole three and Rhen's got the corner post, I can start lashing crossbars, which reminds me I need to check that the twine's long enough and also my left boot has been rubbing weird all morning. "Also I st epped on something hard there yesterday and almost broke my ankle." "You just remembered that?" "My ankle certainly did." Rhen laughs. He's got the corner post braced against his thigh, whittling the base to a point with a knife that's seen better days. "That knife's dull." He looks down at it. Looks at me. "It's tearing the wood instead of cutting. You're going to split the post." I hold out my hand. "Give it here." He hesitates. But hands it over. I pull out my whetstone and work the edge. Four strokes. Six. The blade catches the light differently. "There." Hand it back. "Try now." He draws the blade across the post. Clean curl of wood peeling off, smooth. "Huh." He turns the knife over in his hand. "You carry a whetstone." "I carry a lot of things. Comes from ten years of nobody else being around to hand me what I need." "That's a long time alone." "Wasn't always alone. Had chickens. Had goats too, until some of you ate them. Could've been you, even." I catch myself. "I didn't know it was you guys at first, obviously, but—anyways, yeah." Halek snorts from three holes over. Definitely a laugh. Rhen tests the edge again, watching me from the corner of his eye.
"Your shoulder." It's out before I mean it. "The scar. Does it still pull?" His hand goes to it. Unconscious. "Sometimes. When it's cold." "The stitches were too de ep on the lateral side." The words ke ep coming. "If you ever want me to look at it, I can't undo the scarring but I can probably ease the pull with some targeted—" Stop talking. "If you want." "Maybe." Amused. "After the coop." "After the coop." The frame goes up faster with four, and I'm directing without thinking about it—posts here, de eper than that, foxes dig— "Foxes don't come around here."Halek doesn't look up from his post. Ha. I was right. —gate facing east, no that beam goes on the outside—and they're just listening. Following. "Why does the gate face east?" Fenwick. Arms dirty to the elbows, sweating. "Morning sun. Chickens wake up easier, lay better." "You just know that?" "Fenwick, we have established this." I wave generally at myself. "Alone. Years. With chickens. For a time, goats—OH, I had turkeys for a few months but they DID NOT like the chickens—doesn't matter. You get the gist." Fenwick blinks at me. "What happens if they don't get morning sun?" "They get cranky and stop laying and start eating their own eggs." "That's disgusting." "Yupp." He looks at Nugget, still pecking happily beyond the holding fence. "She seems nice." "She's perfect. She'd eat you if she could figure out how." Rhen is tying off a crossbar. "You named the rooster after Keer." "He earned it. Have you heard him?" "The whole territory has heard him." "Then you understand." Halek, without looking up from his post: "Keer know?" "His eye did a thing." I try to make my eye do the thing. It's mostly just an aggressive eyebrow situation. Halek snorts again. "That's not it." Fenwick, helpfully.
"No shit, Fenwick. I have two eyes." I pull a nail from between my teeth. "Kestria couldn't breathe for ten minutes." Rhen's mouth twitches. "His eye does things." "It really does." The work continues. Sun climbing higher, sweat on my neck, dirt up to my elbows. Check the post d epth on the downhill side—is that a blister forming on my palm or just the splinter situation getting worse? "You're staring at your hand." Rhen, not looking up from his crossbar. "I'm deciding whether this is a blister or a splinter." "Which is it?" "Both, probably. My hands don't do anything by halves." "Let me see." "It's fine." "You just told me to let you look at a scar I've had for ten years. Let me see your hand, girl." Fair point. I hold it out. He takes it—grip careful, calloused fingers turning my palm toward the light—and pulls a thin splinter out of the heel of my thumb with his fingernails. "You're welcome." He drops my hand. "I would've gotten it eventually." "When it's infected." "That's not—" It's exactly what would've happened. "Fine. Thank you." The main frame is standing by midmorning. Solid. Posts de ep enough nothing's digging under, and the gate swings smooth on the hinges I found in my bag exactly where I thought they'd be, under the dried herbs. "Chicken wire section next, but I need to—" Shouting. Not animal-related. Different. Wolves running toward the tree line. Voices raised, urgent, overlapping. Every head turning at once. I drop my tools and go. The crowd is thick by the time I push through but I'm small and quick and people move without thinking about it. Three wolves emerging from the trees. Two supporting the third— barely conscious, blood soaking through his shirt on the left side, dragging his feet. Behind them, a woman staggering, arm pressed against her ribs, blood between her fingers. And behind her— A human. Male. Hands bound. Face bloody. Being dragged by rope around his wrists. Three wounded. Unconscious one is worst—blood volume, breathing. Woman with the ribs is second. The third is walking so he waits. The human is bleeding but bound so not my problem yet, and my kit is by the coop—left boot still rubbing, ignore it—leather bag, brown, next to the gate— "Get him down. Flat on his back. Now."
They obey. He hits the ground and my hands are on him—side, de ep gash, bleeding heavy but not spurting. No artery. His breathing though. Wet. Rattling. "Broken ribs. At least two." Ear to his chest. Rattling louder on the left. "Might've punctured something. Pressure on this wound—hard, both hands—and someone get me my kit. Leather bag by the coop." "I'll get it." Rhen, already running. A young woman drops beside me—light hair, freckled, I've seen her hauling water near the stream. "I can help." "Pressure here." I guide her hands to the gash. "Firm. Don't let up even if he screams." "How firm?" "As firm as you can manage. Pretend you're kneading bread that owes you coin." She presses. He groans. "Stay down. Don't move." "Arrow," he manages. "Got... arrow..." "Where?" "His shoulder." Dara. There, beside me, braided back, steady. "The other one—Liara—she's got it worse." I look up. The woman who was staggering—Liara—is sitting against a tree, arm pressed to her ribs, face pale, sweat running down her temples. And the chicken wire still needs finishing on the coop—Liara first. "Ke ep pressure." I leave the unconscious wolf—Soren, someone said his name—and cross to Liara. "Move your arm. Let me see." She does. Hissing through her teeth. Arrow wound. Shaft's been broken off but the head is still inside, embedded de ep, skin swelling around it. The edges going dark. Going gray. My stomach drops. "Is that poisoned? The arrow—was it coated?" Liara's eyes widen. "I didn't—it happened fast—" "The edges are graying." Five jars on my shelf. Five. One and a half for a treatment course, which leaves three and a half, which is—not enough, never enough—"Dara, I need the paste from my dwelling." Dara doesn't question it. Goes. "The arrowhead comes out first. It's going to hurt." "I know." "I mean really hurt. And I need you still." "Just do it." "Someone hold her shoulders." A wolf I don't recognize moves behind Liara. I look at Liara's face. Scared. Hiding it badly.
"One—" Don't wait. Dig into the wound, fingers finding the arrowhead, metal slick with blood, and she screams—raw, terrible—but the hands behind her hold and I ke ep going. Working the head loose. Careful not to push de eper. "Almost. Two seconds—" Free. Blackened at the tip. Coated in something dark and oily. Moonbright. Weaponized. Blood wells up and I press my palm over the wound. "Bandages. Now." Pack the wound. Wrap tight. The gray at the edges is spreading— not fast but steady. Without paste she's got two hours before it hits her bloodstream. "Dara!" "Here." Two jars. I crack the first seal, scoop paste with two fingers, pack it directly into the wound. Liara cries out. "I know. I'm sorry. It has to be in the wound itself." Working fast— paste meeting blood meeting poison. The gray edges slow. Stop. Hold. "It's working. Don't move for an hour." "Wasn't planning on it." Breathing hard, tears cutting tracks through the dirt on her face. Rhen's back with my kit. I take it, already turning—Soren, still breathing, the woman still pressing on his wound, his color holding—and the other one sitting to the side with a gash across his arm. "Sit. Let me see that." "I'm fine." "Everyone who says that is lying. Sit." He sits. Young. Twenty, maybe. Trying hard not to look shaken. I clean the gash, check the edges—no gray, no poison, just a clean cut. Wrap it tight. "What happened out there?" "Patrol." He's gripping his bandaged arm with his other hand, knuckles white. Not from pain. From the effort of holding still. "Six of them. Armed. We only saw four and then two more came from behind. Arrows." "Poisoned arrows?" "Liara went down first. Then Soren." His eyes cut toward the bound human, then away. Fast. "He was with them. Guiding them. Showed them where our patrols run. Knew the route. Knew where we'd be." A guide. Someone feeding them information about patrol routes. Either they've been watching long enough to learn patterns or— "How long have they been watching?" "Don't know. But he knew things." Still gripping the arm. "Shift changes. Which paths we use at dawn versus dusk." Weeks. At least weeks.
Focus. The wounded are stable. Soren's breathing is wet but not worsening—bruised lung, not punctured. Rest and binding and monitoring. Need to check the rib wrap on the left side, might be too loose. I sit back on my heels. My hands are red to the wrist. "You need anything else?" Dara, back at my side. "Someone on Soren for the next four hours. Any change in his breathing, new bleeding, come get me immediately." "I'll stay." "And Liara—four-hour reapplication. I'll show you the amount before I go." "Show me now." I open the jar. Two fingers, packed de ep, covering the wound edges where the gray was worst. "This much. No more. Pack it in, don't smear. The paste needs contact with the poisoned tissue." "I've watched you do it." "Watching and doing are different. Get it wrong and she loses the limb." Nothing on her face moves. "Show me again." I show her again. She watches with those sharp eyes. She'll get it right. She's good. The human prisoner is watching me. Has been the whole time, apparently. Through the extraction, the paste, the orders. Head tilted, blood drying on his forehead, mouth set in contempt. I wash my hands in the water someone's brought—blood swirling pink then clear—and Keer's here now. Standing at the edge of the group. When did he get here? Every wolf in the clearing goes still. Attention shifting. The air tighter, charged, and I know what's coming. My hands should be wringing bandages but they're hanging at my sides and I'm watching the way he holds his weight, feet planted, shoulders loose. Ready. I lose count of the bandage strips I've already used. Had the number a second ago. Gone. Bandages. Wring the bandages. Keer st eps forward. The crowd parts. He stops in front of the human. Looks down. The prisoner is kneeling, hands bound behind his back, and he meets Keer's eye without flinching. Stupid. Or brave. "Who sent you?" Not a question. The human spits blood onto the dirt between Keer's boots. "Go to hell, monster."
Nothing. No reaction. Just that stillness—all that control wrapped tight, held so close the seams don't show—and my neck is hot and his forearms are doing the thing where the tendons stand out and I need to stop looking at his forearms. Bandages. Wring the bandages. "Try again." Quiet. "You think any of us are scared of you?" The human's voice is rough, ragged, but the conviction is real. "Your time's over. All of you. Every one of you beasts." "How many?" "Enough." Blood-teeth grin. "More than enough. Every settlement from Blomstradal to the coast. We're done hiding from you. Done letting you pick us off." Cold in my stomach. Every settlement. Not a hunting party. Not a patrol gone wrong. This is organized. My fingers are still sticky with Liara's blood. I wipe them on my trousers. The poisoned arrowheads—someone is manufacturing them. Someone who knows the pr eparation, who's figured out how to coat weapons with— "When?" "Soon. Sooner than you think." Leaning forward against the ropes. Still grinning. "By the time you see us coming, it'll be too late. Every man, woman, and child. We're going to burn you out of these woods and salt the earth behind us." The clearing holds its breath. "How did you know our routes?" "We've been watching. Weeks." The grin widens. "You think you're so careful. So hidden. But you're animals following patterns and patterns can be learned." "How many scouts?" "More than you've spotted. We're everywhere. In your trees, watching your fires, counting your heads." He laughs, wet and ugly. "You don't even know how much we know." Weeks. "You attacked my wolves with poisoned weapons." "And I'd do it again." The prisoner's jaw sets. "Watched your bitch go down screaming when that arrow hit." His eyes slide toward Liara. "Should've finished her off." The control thins. Just for a second. Not in Keer's face—in his hands. His fingers curl, then straighten, then hang loose again, and the entire motion takes less than a breath. Bandages. Paste. Chickens. Oh—chicken bath?— "Keer." Axan's voice, low, at his shoulder. "We should—" Keer moves. One hand on the human's jaw. One on the back of his skull. Sharp twist. Crack. "Oh—shit."
The body goes limp. I'm standing near the healing supplies, hands still wet, and I watch the body crumple and hit the dirt. The crack sits in my ears. I've set traps that broke spines. I've cut throats for meat. The man on the ground was trying to kill the people standing around me. Keer's eye finds mine across the clearing. I hold it. Don't flinch. Don't look away. He looks away first. Turns to Axan, voice low, and they move together toward the edge of the clearing. The pack disperses around me, murmuring—settlements, attacks, poisoned, weeks—and I go back to my supplies because that's what I do. The paste jar I opened is half full. Seal it. Set it aside. Check Soren —breathing wet but stable. Change Liara's outer wrapping. Clean the arrowhead I extracted and set it on the table because I want to study the coating later. If I can understand the poison pr eparation, I can improve the cure. "You should eat something." Dara. Arms crossed. "I had breakfast." "You didn't." "I had a thought about breakfast. Close enough." "Eat this." She holds out bread. "You're very bossy for someone who's supposed to be my apprentice." Her eyebrows go up. "Eat the bread, Melori." I eat the bread. She watches every bite go in, and also the bread tastes like sawdust but my body doesn't care because bread is bread. "Liara's next dose in four hours," I say around a mouthful. "You can handle it?" "You showed me." "Twice." "I learn fast." She pauses. "The arrowhead. The coating. I saw it." "Oily. Concentrated. Different from what they put on blades." "Adapted for penetration wounds. Releases slower." I stop chewing. Look at her. "Yes. That's exactly right. How did you —" "I've been thinking about it since you pulled it out." Her face gives nothing away. "If they're adapting the poison, the cure might need adapting too." "You're good." "I know." "Don't let it go to your head." She huffs, smothering a smile.
I go back to the coop. Because the coop still needs building and the chickens still need housing and the world doesn't stop for dead men. My hands won't stop shaking. They'll stop when they're holding a hammer. Rhen is there. He's finished the crossbars on his own. Neat and solid. "You didn't have to." "You say that a lot." "Because people ke ep doing things they don't have to." "Maybe they want to." He hands me the hammer. "Maybe stop arguing about it." Walls up, nesting boxes outlined, chicken wire stretched and nailed. My shoulders are screaming and my knees hate me and it's real work, tangible work, something growing under my hands while my brain chews on the paste math—one and a half jars used today, three and a half remaining, another half jar tomorrow for Liara's second dose, three if there's no new attack— "Settlements are gathering." Rhen. "That's what it sounded like." "If they find out you're here—" "I know." "They'll call you a traitor. Worse." "Probably." He's watching me. "Why are you still here, Melori?" I look at him. The boy in the ditch was barely alive when I found him. This man is solid and quiet and spent his morning building me a chicken coop. "Because people need help." We finish by early afternoon. Rhen, Halek, Fenwick, and me. Solid walls, clean gate, de ep posts. Nesting boxes rough but functional. I'll line them with straw later. I move the chickens in. Nugget first—she waddles through the gate. Head high. Unbothered. The hens follow. Keer Jr. goes last, screaming the whole way, but once he's inside he goes quiet. For two seconds. Then he screams again. Proprietary this time. His territory. "You're welcome." More screaming. The sun's lower than I thought. My shadow stretches past the gate. The hunters brought back a deer—large, heavy with autumn fat— and by evening I'm at the fire pit with Kestria, helping pr ep it.
She found me an hour ago. Didn't say anything about the clearing. Just started working beside me. Didn't ask if I was okay. Didn't bring it up. Just—knife, meat, hands moving. My knife slides through the deer in clean strokes. Footst eps behind us. Kestria's knife pauses for half a second. Resumes. The footst eps pass. Fade toward the far fire. "You saw what happened." Lower. Hands still moving. "I saw." "And?" My hands ke ep going. S eparating meat from bone. The question sits for a second. "He attacked our hunters with poisoned arrows. Was sniffing around our territory for weeks. Keer questioned him, got what he needed." Shrug. "Made sense." "Most people would be horrified." "I would imagine." Knife through a cut. "Also—you're going against the grain." She looks down at her knife. Adjusts. "Better?" "Better." Quiet for a minute. Fire crackling, smoke rising. "The poison on those arrows," I say. "It's moonbright. Same pr eparation humans use on blades, but adapted for arrowheads. Thicker. Liara's wound was graying within minutes." "How much paste did you use?" "A jar and a half today. Another half tomorrow. If they attack with poisoned weapons—a real attack, not a skirmish—I could go through everything in one night." Her hands stop. "I need more moonbright. The field Keer told me about. Half a day's walk. I'll need someone with me. Dara, probably. She can learn the full harvest process while I gather enough to stockpile." "Keer already said he'd take you." My knife finds a very interesting piece of sinew. Very complicated sinew. Requires my full attention. "Dara needs to learn the harvest. It makes more sense to—" "Mel." "What? It's practical. She's my apprentice. She should see the full process from field to jar, and if I take her instead then Keer can stay here and do Alpha things and nobody has to—" "Be alone in the woods with him for half a day?" "I was going to say nobody has to leave the territory unprotected."
"Sure you were." I cut the sinew. "You've thought about this." "Have you met me?" She snorts. "Keer's meeting with Axan and the senior wolves tonight." "And?" "You could be there." "Me?" "You know humans. You know settlements. You know the poison and the cure. And you know what they're capable of." "I know how they think because I lived with them until they decided I was too weird to ke ep. That's not exactly—" "It's more than anyone else here has." I look at her. She's watching me with that too-perc eptive expression of hers—the one that says she's already figured out what I'm going to do before I've figured it out. "I'll think about it." "You're going to say no and then show up anyway." "You don't know me that well." "I know you exactly that well." She's grinning. Even with everything today, she's grinning at me.