The forest breathes shallowly tonight. Its pulse is faint — a rhythm I have learned to read in leaf-tremor and shadowfall. Even wounded, I can tell when something shifts against it. Footsteps. Light, but not cautious enough to be one of mine.

I tighten my grip on the knife. The movement sends fire through my ribs. The arrow lodged there hums like a cruel instrument — shallow enough to spare my life, deep enough to mock it.

The intruder draws closer. Branches whisper as if in warning. Then she steps through the mist.

Not an orc. Not a man. Elven — but not of Greenwood. Her bearing is too deliberate, her hair unbound in a way my kind do not permit in battle. There is confidence in her silence, not arrogance; she moves as if the forest itself makes room for her. A foreign emblem glimmers on her clasp — I know it, vaguely. Taur Im Duinath, if rumor serves. A realm that guards its borders like a mother guards her last child.

Her eyes find me. Not with pity. With assessment.

“Stay back,” I say, low and sharp. “The wound is not yours to mend.”

She does not heed. She kneels. The scent of crushed herbs follows her — clean, bitter, ancient. Her hands do not tremble. Mine almost do.

“You bleed on my soil,” she murmurs. “That makes it my concern.”

Arrogant. Or brave. Perhaps both. I almost laugh — and it costs me a breath I cannot spare.

“Do you treat all trespassers so kindly?” I manage.

“Only the ones who live long enough to regret it.”

The words cut, but there is steel I recognize in them. Not cruelty — conviction. When her fingers reach for the arrow’s shaft, I catch her wrist. My grip is weak, yet the instinct remains. “Touch it,” I warn, “and you will lose that hand.”

Her gaze meets mine, unflinching. “Then you had better not faint, Greenwood.”

The forest listens. Rain gathers in the leaves. For the first time in days, I cannot tell whether I am in danger — or reprieve.

I release her wrist. Slowly. The wound burns, but not from her touch.

“Very well,” I murmur, closing my eyes against the pull of pain. “Do what you came to do.”

When her fingers press against my side, the world narrows to heartbeat and breath — hers steady, mine ragged. A healer’s rhythm, precise as a bowstring. I should hate her for the intrusion. Instead, I find myself memorizing the cadence.