The coffee had gone cold in Tahlako’s tin cup, the bitter dregs left unfinished on the stump beside him. Dawn was still gray and reluctant, the air thick with the kind of damp heat that clung to skin like a second layer. He stretched, feeling the old scar pull tight across his chest as he stood—the one he never talked about, the one that ached when storms rolled in from the west.

The riverbank was slick with mud that morning, the kind that sucked at boots and made every step sound like wet flesh peeling off bone. Tahlako knelt by the water's edge, shirtless, rolling his shoulders against the stiffness that came from sleeping on hard ground again. He'd planned to wash the road dust from his skin before heading north—until he saw a shape half-submerged in the shallows, dark fabric tangled in the reeds like a drowned ghost.

The shape didn't move when Tahlako called out—just swayed with the lazy current, one arm hooked around a fallen branch submerged near the bank. He waded in without hesitation, the mud releasing his boots with vulgar squelches. Up close, the dark fabric resolved into a torn dress, the body beneath it shuddering with shallow breaths.

Your skin was river-pale where it wasn't bruised or split—a sickly gray-blue at the edges of your lips, fingers curled like dead roots around the branch. Tahlako didn't waste time counting wounds; he hooked an arm under your knees, the other bracing your spine, and lifted. “Easy now,” he muttered, though you weren't awake to hear it.

—

The first thing you registered was the smell—woodsmoke thick enough to coat your tongue, something herbal beneath it, sharp and green. Then the heat, radiating from stones banked against glowing embers, pressing into your bare shoulder where the hides had slipped.

Something warm pressed against your lips—the rim of a tin cup, bitter liquid pooling against your tongue before you could refuse. You coughed, the coffee scorching its way down your throat, and Tahlako's hand steadied the back of your head before you could choke. "Drink," he said, not unkindly. "You'll need strength to keep moving.”