Naro woke to the rasp of fibre sliding through palms.

  Someone was twisting the cord close to the fire—slow turns, a brief squeak when the twist tightened, then the steady scrape again. The sound shouldn’t have mattered. It did.

  It meant work was happening while he lay wrapped in hides.

  The camp was awake in the thin way it always was after a bad night: no shouting, no play, just bodies moving where they had to move. Outside the shelter, the fire sat low and red. Smoke clung to the hides and made his eyes sting.

  Naro lay on his side and tested himself the way he did every morning now. Fingers first. Wrists. Shoulders. His hands still obeyed.

  His leg answered last.

  He shifted an inch, and heat speared up his thigh. The wound pulled under the binding, and the muscles around it cramped, as if the boar’s tusk was still there, lodged in him.

  He set his teeth and pushed the hide flap aside.

  Cold air cut in. It carried the smell of damp reeds and yesterday’s broth.

  By the fire, Teshar sat with Arulan, speaking low. Kelon crouched nearby with a coil of nettle fibre, rolling it between his palms. His hands never hurried. His hands didn’t need to.

  Naro’s mouth went dry.

  They looked like a pair that had found its pace. Like, there was no gap left for him.

  Ketak hovered too close to Teshar, feet planted wide, trying to copy Torek. Raku copied Ketak and nearly slid on frost. Yarla stood behind them with her arms folded, pretending she wasn’t listening while she listened hardest.

  Naro watched the three of them and felt his face tighten.

  Children.

  They had no idea what it cost to come back bleeding. They hadn’t heard the camp go quiet at night and start counting what you’d eaten and what you’d given back.

  Teshar glanced up. His eyes flicked to the shelter.

  Naro held the look and didn’t give him anything. Not thanks. Not anger. Not the relief Teshar wanted him to show.

  He reached for the stick Siramae had shoved beside his bedding. Smooth wood. Cord-wrapped grip. A crutch made to look like a tool.

  Naro planted it under his palm and pushed himself up.

  Pain hit hard enough to make him blink. His leg trembled, then tried to fold.

  He forced weight onto it anyway.

  His knee buckled.

  He caught himself on the stick, shaking, and a sound broke out of him—half curse, half choke.

  Ketak turned. Raku froze. Yarla’s eyes widened, then narrowed, as if she’d caught herself staring.

  Teshar started to rise.

  “Sit,” Naro snapped.

  Teshar stopped.

  Naro hated that he’d had to say it. Hated that Teshar listened like it was normal.

  Kelon kept twisting the cord, but his shoulders tightened, and Naro saw it. Kelon heard everything. Kelon pretended he didn’t.

  Naro hauled himself out of the shelter and dragged his bad leg after him, one careful step at a time, until he could drop down by the fire as if he belonged there.

  Siramae’s eyes cut to him at once. She took in the strain on his face, the way he held his breath between steps.

  “You will tear it,” she said.

  Naro stared at the coals. “It will heal.”

  Siramae gave him a look that said she’d heard boys claim that before. “It heals,” she said. “Or it rots. Choose which road you’re walking.”

  She turned away.

  Naro clenched his hands until the knuckles showed pale under grime and smoke.

  Kelon’s cord was good. Naro could see it even from here—tight, even twist, no soft spots. Cord like that took time. It took quiet. Kelon used to do that quiet work with him.

  Now Kelon did it beside Teshar.

  Teshar spoke to the younger ones with the same flat patience he used on traps and nets.

  “Not that leaf,” Teshar said, taking a bundle from Ketak and setting it aside. “That one will give you a bellyache if you eat too much. This one you boil. The water helps when you cough.”

  Ketak nodded as if he’d been handed a secret. Raku leaned in, eyes bright. Yarla listened with her chin lifted, refusing to look impressed.

  Naro’s tongue pressed against his teeth.

  Where did Teshar get that kind of certainty?

  Teshar had always noticed things. This was different. This made people listen the way they listened to Arulan.

  Ketak scuttled away to deliver the plants to Siramae, chest out with pride. Raku followed. Yarla hung back, eyes on Naro.

  Naro met her stare.

  She didn’t look away.

  “You could tell us too,” Yarla said.

  The words landed clean.

  Naro almost barked at her to go back to the little ones. Almost told her not to talk like she belonged at the fire with older boys.

  Instead, he saw what she was doing: standing her ground, asking to be counted.

  Raku hovered behind her now, bold enough to listen, not bold enough to speak. Ketak lingered too, pretending to check his bundle again. They’d been hovering for days, watching him sweat and shake, watching whether he would vanish back under hides and stay there.

  Naro swallowed and kept his voice rough. “Tell you what?”

  “How to hunt,” Yarla said. “How to see the ground. You used to see things.”

  Used to.

  Naro’s jaw flexed.

  He looked at them and felt a cold truth settle in: they were waiting. If he sent them away, they’d drift back to Teshar and stay there.

  He shifted his bad leg, and pain flared. His breath went thin.

  He hated needing anything. He hated that the camp could hear it.

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  “Bring me your sticks,” he said.

  Ketak’s eyes widened. “Now?”

  “Now,” Naro snapped. “If you want to stop looking like fools.”

  Ketak grinned and shoved his crude spear-stick forward. Raku handed it over. Yarla held hers a moment longer out of pride, then passed it to Naro without blinking.

  Naro took them one by one and turned them in his hands.

  “This knot here,” he said, tapping Ketak’s shaft, “will split when you hit bone. Don’t pretend it won’t. Find straighter wood.”

  He ran a thumb along Raku’s point. “Too blunt. You’ll bruise a rabbit and lose it. Scrape it clean. Heat it. Don’t burn it black or it goes soft.”

  He looked at Yarla’s stick last. Her point was better than the boys’. Her grip was wrong. Too tight. Too far back.

  “You hold it like you’re frightened it will run away,” he said. “Move your hand up. Here.”

  Yarla did it without arguing.

  “Don’t stand like Torek,” Naro added. “Your legs are shorter. You’ll fall. Stand like you. Keep your weight under you.”

  Ketak nodded hard. Raku stared as if Naro had just stepped back into the world. Yarla watched him with a narrow, serious focus.

  Naro shoved the sticks back at them. “Go practise by the thorn line. Don’t wave them around near the shelters.”

  They trotted off at once, the three of them trying to copy what he’d shown them. The smaller children under ten clustered around them and shrieked, too young to understand the difference between play and training.

  Naro sat back, breathing through his teeth.

  His leg still hurts. His pride still burned.

  But the camp’s sound shifted a notch. The younger ones had somewhere to point their energy. Someone else’s hands were busy.

  Kelon rose at last with his cord coil and walked towards the outer shelters.

  Teshar followed a moment later with the watch-stick under his arm.

  Together.

  Naro watched them until they were nearly out of earshot.

  “Kelon,” he called.

  Kelon stopped. Teshar turned too, eyes already narrowed, already ready.

  Naro hated that readiness. It made him feel like a threat in his own camp.

  “Where do you go?” Naro asked.

  Kelon’s face stayed blank. “Work.”

  “What work?”

  Teshar’s voice edged in. “Naro—”

  “Don’t,” Naro snapped. “Don’t talk down to me. I was here before you were the camp’s favourite mouth.”

  The words came out uglier than he meant. He saw Ketak glance over. Saw Yarla pretend she hadn’t heard.

  Teshar didn’t flare back. He didn’t give Naro the fight he wanted.

  Kelon’s eyes flicked to Teshar. A question. Permission.

  That pause told Naro everything.

  Naro’s stomach dropped. “You’ve got secret work,” he said, low. “Of course you do. You and Teshar. And I—”

  His voice cracked on the last word. He hated it. He shoved his stick into the ground and hauled himself up, ignoring the pain tearing through his thigh.

  “I’m not lying in there while you become men,” he said.

  Teshar’s mouth tightened. “You’re healing.”

  “Healing,” Naro spat. “That’s what people say when they mean wait and be quiet.”

  Kelon took one step forward, then stopped.

  Teshar held Naro’s gaze. “If you come,” he said, “you come to work. Not to prove something.”

  Naro’s throat went tight. “I can’t even—”

  “Then you do what you can,” Teshar cut in. “Or you do nothing and rot. Siramae wasn’t wrong.”

  Naro flinched. He’d used those words himself. Hearing them back made them sound like what they were: self-pity dressed up as anger.

  He set his jaw. “Fine,” he said. “Show me.”

  Kelon’s eyes slid towards the elders by the fire—Arulan with his staff, Varek standing too close, Siramae moving between tasks. Kelon looked back at Naro.

  “Quiet,” Kelon said.

  Naro bared his teeth. “I can be quiet.”

  Kelon’s eyes narrowed. “You can be quiet while you’re angry. That’s different.”

  Teshar’s mouth twitched, almost a smile, quickly gone.

  Naro’s face burned. He followed.

  They didn’t go far. Just to the edge where brush piled against a fallen log and the ground dipped towards reeds. Damp smell. Rot. Water close under earth.

  Kelon knelt and pulled aside the brush.

  Naro saw the bent sapling. The scraped wood. The coil of cord was thicker than fishing line, tucked beside it.

  A bow.

  Naro’s first breath caught. The second came out harshly.

  “You made this,” he said.

  Teshar kept his voice low. “We tried.”

  Naro’s hands shook. “Without me.”

  Kelon’s eyes dropped to the bow and back up. “You were sick.”

  “That’s not—” Naro started, and stopped. Because he knew it was true and not the point.

  Teshar watched him. “If you’d known before it held,” Teshar said, “you’d have dragged half the camp here to watch you shoot it.”

  Naro opened his mouth to deny it.

  He remembered the way he used to call the younger boys over when he threw. The look he liked in their faces when he hit true.

  He closed his mouth.

  Teshar went on, still quiet. “And Torek would have taken it. Or Varek would have called it wrong. Or Arulan would have made it a rule before it was ready.”

  Naro stared at the bow pieces. Their caution made sense. It still stung.

  Kelon shifted, awkward. Kelon was good at silence, bad at anger.

  Naro lowered himself into a crouch, bad leg screaming. He put a hand on the sapling.

  The wood was smooth. Scraped thin. Patient work.

  A short laugh broke out of him—one sharp bark that startled a bird in the reeds.

  Teshar stiffened. Kelon’s head snapped up, eyes scanning.

  Naro clamped his mouth shut. He hated that sound. It made him feel small.

  He looked at Teshar. “So what,” he said, low, “I’m meant to sit and watch you do it? Like Ketak watches you carve marks?”

  Teshar didn’t soften. “No,” he said. “You’re meant to help.”

  Naro blinked.

  Teshar nodded towards the cord. “You know trapping,” he said. “You know where cords slip. Kelon twists well. He hasn’t had enough seasons to know how things fail when your hands are shaking.”

  Naro’s mouth tightened. “I know how things fail.”

  “Good,” Teshar said. “Use it. We need straight shafts. Clean notches. Points that don’t shatter. We need something on the back end so they don’t spin.”

  Naro stared at him.

  Work. Real work. Sitting at work. Work that mattered.

  “You’re giving me children’s tasks,” he said, because he needed to bite.

  Teshar’s voice went quiet and hard. “I’m giving you the part that keeps us fed when winter closes in.”

  Kelon held out the cord coil. “Judge it,” he said, stiff as if the offer cost him.

  Naro took it.

  The twist was tight and even, but one strand thinned where Kelon’s hands had tired. Under heavy draw, it would stretch first. It would take the load and fail at the worst time.

  Naro tapped the thin spot. “Here. Double it. Or braid over it. If it slips, it starts there.”

  Kelon’s eyes widened a fraction. He nodded once.

  Teshar watched Naro without blinking, waiting.

  Naro swallowed. “We do it as three,” he said.

  The words scraped out of him. He let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding, and his fingers tightened on the cord until it bit his skin.

  Kelon’s shoulders eased.

  Teshar held his gaze. “As three.”

  They wrapped the bow parts again and hid them under brush and mud until the ground looked untouched.

  On the way back, Naro leaned hard on his stick. Sweat cooled on his spine. Pain chewed at his leg with every step.

  He didn’t complain.

  At the fire, Ketak and Raku practised their stances. Yarla watched them with disgust and still corrected Raku’s foot when he slipped.

  When she saw Naro return with Teshar and Kelon, she said nothing.

  Her chin lifted, like she’d seen a door open.

  Naro dropped onto a fur with a grunt. He tried to swallow. Siramae’s eyes flicked to him. She saw the sweat. She saw how he held his leg.

  “You walked,” she said.

  “A little.”

  “You’ll pay for it.”

  Naro’s mouth twisted. “I’m used to paying.”

  Siramae studied him for a second, then reached into the scraps near the pot and tore off a strip of dried fish, no bigger than two fingers. She held it out.

  Not kindness. Not charity. A tally mark.

  Naro took it. “Don’t spill it,” Siramae said.

  He ate.

  The fish was tough and smoke-dry, but the oil warmed his tongue. It tasted like being allowed to stay.

  Across the fire, Arulan watched without changing his face. He tapped his staff once, softly.

  “Tomorrow,” Arulan said, voice carrying, “the youths learn cord. Not play cord. Cord that holds shelter. Cord that holds nets.”

  Naro kept his eyes on the coals.

  His leg still wasn’t his. Men beyond the reeds might still be watching.

  He rolled the nettle fibre between his fingertips anyway, feeling the twist, feeling where it wanted to loosen. Across the camp, Ketak and Raku were still practising, their voices low now, their hands adjusting their grips the way he’d shown them. Yarla corrected Raku again without looking at anyone for approval.

  Naro chewed the last of the fish and swallowed. His throat still hurt from the bitterness he hadn’t spat out.

  Under brush by the reeds, the bow waited. It needed all three of them if it was going to live.