The river had tried to keep him.

  Mallow remembered the first pull of cold water taking his legs and breath. He remembered the weight of his boots and the way the water turned it into an anchor. He remembered the way the world became a churning white current, and how quickly his body learned what it could not fight. He had spent his whole life believing spite would carry him through anything. The river taught him otherwise.

  He woke from the worst of it with the egg still strapped to his chest, the harness biting under his arms, the bundle held tight against his ribs as if it had become his heart. The wrap had soaked through and then frozen in places, stiff with riverwater and grit. Every time he moved, it rubbed him raw. Meanwhile the spear pressed hard against his back and side, and it was a wonder it hadn’t sliced through his thigh, considering his luck.

  Tanel lay face down in the gravel a few paces away, robes plastered to him, hair stuck in ropes against his neck. For a long moment Mallow watched the man’s back to see if it moved.

  It did.

  That rise stirred a hot, ugly relief in Mallow that immediately curdled into anger. He had dragged Tanel out. He’d hooked an arm under Tanel’s and hauled, knuckles tearing against rock, shoulder screaming from strain. He’d done it while a part of him whispered that the river could solve a problem rather cleanly.

  He told himself he’d done it because Tanel mattered to the group, because the egg mattered, because leaving a man to drown drew bad luck like blood drew flies. He did not tell himself the other truth until later, when the shivering stopped and the memory settled into something that didn’t taste like river water: he had done it because he could not live with himself if he became that kind of man, even if the river had offered it.

  And he had done it because Lain would have wanted him to.

  Tanel coughed and rolled, spitting water and grit. His eyes found Mallow with the slow focus of a person who’d given himself up for lost.

  “You –” Tanel tried. His voice broke into another cough. He pressed a hand against his ribs.

  Mallow rose to his feet. His legs wobbled, then steadied, except the bad leg had never once stopped its protesting, and now it was rioting against his insistence that they walk. He planted his boots harder until the earth accepted the claim, and until the leg ceased its yowling and paced back into its persistent but manageable throb.

  “Get up,” Mallow said.

  Tanel blinked at him, then looked away, shame-faced. He pushed himself up onto hands and knees. His sleeves left dark streaks in the gravel. He looked like a drowned scholar dragged out of a cistern.

  Mallow turned his attention upriver. The bank rose in uneven steps, rock shelves slick with spray, patches of winter grass bent flat by melt water. The river ran hard and fast beside them, full of churn and foam. Upstream, the gorge narrowed again, forcing the water into a faster run. Somewhere beyond the bend sat the place the bridge had been, the road above it, the watch post hidden in the hillside. Mallow tried not to picture Poe hanging over that water, tried not to picture Harka pinned and bleeding. His mind did it anyway, because his mind enjoyed punishments.

  The egg’s weight shifted against his chest as he started walking. He tightened the strap with numb fingers until it stopped bouncing. The motion sent pain down his forearms where the stone bridge had scraped his skin raw. His limp was more prominent than ever, a teeth-gritting walk that ached the full length of his hip and partway into his lower back.

  Behind him, Tanel staggered to his feet and followed.

  For a time they moved without speaking. Mallow kept them off the worst slick rock, choosing a path where the ground held. Tanel stumbled and caught himself on a boulder, palm sliding on wet moss. Mallow didn’t offer a hand; he kept walking.

  He could feel Tanel watching him anyway, words piling up behind Tanel’s teeth like they always did. Tanel’s kind, collected language in moments like this was worse than his silence, so Mallow didn’t prompt him.

  A stretch of bank narrowed. The river ate at it, taking bites out of the edge. Mallow thought about attempting to jump the gap, and for an instant his mind flashed back to the bridge’s drop, the way the world had tilted and snapped. His stomach clenched.

  He unsheathed the spear. Using it as a leaping pole, he managed to jump the gap, the sharp end catching in the soil on the opposite side. Tanel made the jump behind him. He landed, slid, and dropped to one knee with a muffled cry. He stayed there a breath, head bowed, as if waiting for a reprimand.

  “If you’re going to die,” Mallow said, “pick a spot where I’m not tempted to save you.”

  Tanel pushed himself upright, face pale. “If you’re going to hold it against me,” he panted, “You could have left me.”

  Mallow scoffed. “I considered it.”

  Tanel held his gaze. His eyes looked darker in this light. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t thank Mallow, either, which was more surprising.

  “What stopped you?” Tanel asked.

  Mallow shifted the egg’s strap again. “We need hands,” he said. “And you’re the only one who knows how to talk to those snake-licking Elders without getting us all caged.”

  Tanel’s eyes flicked to the egg. “It’s still alive.”

  “It’s stubborn,” Mallow replied.

  “So are you.”

  Mallow didn’t answer. Compliments landed on him like rocks thrown by children – annoying, sometimes painful, never useful. He kept moving.

  As they walked, Mallow couldn’t stop recalling the moment on the bridge. He saw Poe’s bound wrists, the way the tracker had looked at the world like it wanted to bite him; Harka’s posture, knife in hand and fear hidden behind duty. Mallow tried to tell himself he didn’t care what happened to either of them, that he cared only about the egg and the path ahead. But his body didn’t listen.

  Eventually, as dusk was ushered in by thickening cold, they were forced to stop and make camp to dry their clothes and rest. Mallow’s sleep overtook him like a pillow held to the face, suffocating and inescapable.

  The next morning he woke stiff and hungry, but of course there was nothing to eat. They moved back to the path along the river. Mallow’s pace quickened until his lungs burned. Water slapped against stone beside them, sending cold spray onto his face. The draft off the river cut through wet clothing. Tanel kept up as best he could. Mallow heard him stumble again, heard the scrape of boots in slippery rock, but he didn’t slow. The moment he slowed, the river would catch up in his mind and pull him under.

  He tracked the sun as an hour passed, then two. They rounded a bend where the bank widened into a small shelf above the water. Broken willow branches littered the stones, jammed there by the current. A patrol marker, one of the old road stones carved and worn, sat half buried in gravel as if the river had tried to swallow it too and failed.

  Mallow paused. He lifted his head and scanned the slope above, spotting movement.

  Two figures came down from the higher bank, picking their way toward the river path carefully. They moved close together, shoulders brushing now and then, leaning as if the shared weight made the path easier. One of them laughed under his breath, short, surprised, the sound of someone who hadn’t meant to.

  Mallow’s hand went to the haft of the spear without thinking, fingers curling hard enough to bite through the numbness. His pulse jumped. Anger rose first, fast and instinctive, then relief came behind it like a fist to the ribs.

  Poe.

  He had no rope about his wrists. His hair was still damp, face drawn with exhaustion, but he was clearly upright. Harka limped beside him, one leg held stiff with a bandage dark against his wool. Harka’s posture stayed proud anyway, tail raised stiffly, even while he leaned into Poe’s shoulder for support. Their heads were close enough that Mallow could see the mingled shape of their breath in the cold.

  Tanel gasped behind Mallow, a small sound of disbelief.

  Mallow watched them come nearer, the impossible sight of two men who should have been broken walking toward him like they’d found a reason to keep moving. Harka leaned into Poe, and Poe let him. Their heads tipped toward one another again, and for a moment – so fast Mallow almost convinced himself he’d imagined it – Harka’s tail curled up around Poe’s waist, a brief coil like a hand claiming purchase.

  Mallow felt the heat climb his neck. He didn’t know why. It had no clean name. It wasn’t jealousy. It wasn’t disgust, either. It felt like being made a fool by the world’s refusal to behave.

  Poe finally looked up.

  His gaze landed on Mallow and whatever expression crossed Poe’s features lasted only an instant, gone before Mallow could pin it down. Poe slowed, and Harka slowed with him. Harka’s knife hand shifted reflexively, then stopped when he saw it was only them.

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  “Mallow,” the Harka said softly, an uneasy tilt to it like Poe’s freedom was weighing down one end of the word.

  Tanel stepped out from behind Mallow. His eyes went straight to Harka’s bandaged leg. He took one quick step forward. “Harka,” he said.

  Mallow stared at them for another beat, then a shocking laugh erupted from him. “Alright,” he said, wiping at his mouth as if the sound had surprised him. “So we’re not tying up prisoners anymore. Good to know. But before anyone starts feeling tender, I’m going to clarify something for the record: I’m not kissing the priest.”

  Harka’s ears flicked with annoyance. “No one asked,” he said, clipped. His gaze moved to the egg, strapped tight against Mallow’s chest. “It’s still with you,” Harka said, clearly relieved.

  “Seems the river isn’t interested in omelettes,” Mallow said.

  Poe’s eyes slid across Mallow’s face, then to Tanel, then to the river, taking the river in the way he always did. “You’re both alive,” Poe said. He seemed faintly surprised by his own words, as if he expected the river to do a cleaner job.

  “Thanks to him,” Tanel said, nodding at Mallow.

  Mallow didn’t like the way Poe’s gaze flicked to him at that, measuring. He didn’t like being measured by a man who’d spent his life as a tool.

  “Save it,” Mallow said. “We need to find a way across the river.”

  “We need heat,” Poe corrected. His eyes went to Harka again. “He needs food.”

  Harka’s ears angled forward, offended. “I’m standing.”

  Poe’s chin lifted toward the slope above the bank. “Barely.”

  The bandage on Harka’s leg was dark, the cloth stiff at the edges where blood had dried, and the smell of it rode under the river’s damp breath.

  Harka shifted his weight as if to prove a point and nearly paid for it. His hand went to the wrap with a competent press, like he could command his own body back into order. Mallow watched him do it and his stomach tightened.

  “You should have Mallow examine that,” Tanel said, gesturing at the bandage.

  “I don’t have my kit,” Mallow said, because he needed the words out in the open before someone tried to make him into a saint again. “No herbs, no poultice, no clean cloth. I can’t fix that. He’s better off keeping it wrapped.”

  Tanel’s eyes lifted to him. “You can. With the serpent.”

  Mallow could feel Poe’s attention on him, like a blade resting against his skin. He could feel Harka listening too, ears angled forward despite the pain, dignity braced in every line of his posture.

  “I didn’t heal those others without my kit,” he said. “I can’t do miracles.”

  Tanel stepped closer. “You don’t need herbs to call,” Tanel said. “You need will and breath. And you need to stop arguing with the gift you’re carrying.”

  Mallow’s hand went to the egg without thinking. The warmth under the wrappings felt stubborn and alive, like it didn’t care whether he believed in anything.

  Mallow hadn’t wanted to touch anyone again. Not after every stranger’s hope tried to take a piece of him. He especially didn’t want to lay hands on Harka, because Harka looked at him with respect and thoughtfulness, and he was afraid of how that look would change if he thought Mallow was holy.

  Tanel’s voice came again. “If the serpent is listening,” he said, “this is what it listens for.”

  “A bleeding leg?”

  “A choice.”

  Mallow’s mouth twisted. “I swear to the saints, Tanel – keep your mouth off me.” Mallow let out a breath. He looked at Harka. “Sit.”

  Harka did as he was told. Mallow crouched. The smell hit him, iron and damp wool. He reached for the bandage, and pressed his palm against it.

  At first, nothing happened. The cloth stayed cloth.

  But then the glow rose under his skin, blue-white and steady, as if it had been waiting for his reluctance to crack. He slid through his hand and into the wrap, into the torn flesh beneath. Mallow’s stomach lurched with a sudden, visceral certainty that he had opened a door he did not know how to close.

  Mallow didn’t pray. He didn’t know how. He spoke to the wyrm inside him instead, spoke to its curiosity.

  He told it to live.

  Not because you deserve it. Not for me, not because I’m good. Because we need you.

  The glow brightened. Mallow felt it move, a slow surge through meat and blood, coaxing the body back toward itself. The foul heat under the bandage eased. The relentless seep slowed.

  Harka’s breathing changed. He made a sound in his throat, caught between a curse and disbelief.

  Poe went still. Mallow felt his stare, stunned, as if this was the first time Poe had watched power used without chains.

  Mallow’s palm burned with effort. He could feel his strength draining into the work, pulled out of him in a steady draw. His vision narrowed. A final wave of warmth moved through Harka’s leg, and then the glow faltered, thinned, and eased back under Mallow’s skin.

  Mallow pulled his hand away.

  Harka stared at the bandage. He flexed his ankle carefully. His face shifted, pain still there, but it didn’t seem to be climbing with every breath.

  He touched the wrap with his fingertips. His eyes lifted to Mallow.

  For a heartbeat, he looked achingly young.

  Then the Warden shape returned, controlled and guarded. “What did you do?” he asked.

  Mallow wiped his palm on his trousers. His hand trembled. “I don’t know.”

  Tanel watched him with a quiet intensity that made Mallow want to slap him. “You called the Underserpent,” Tanel said.

  Mallow’s laugh came out thin. “It showed up, at any rate. Not sure I had much to do with it.”

  But Mallow put a hand to the egg anyway, and closed his eyes, and he didn’t pray, but he did know how to say thank you.

  Poe made a decision without asking permission, which was either arrogance or competence; Mallow couldn’t tell which, and hated that he cared. “We need heat. And food. And crossing. Follow me. There’s a cut in the hillside. It leads to a small village. They’ll be happy to house an Elder, I suspect.”

  Mallow didn’t move. “You expect me to trust you?”

  Poe met his stare unblinkingly. “You expect me to care what you trust?”

  Harka shifted, a small wobble he tried to disguise as he stood. Poe’s hand slid to Harka’s elbow and steadied him. Harka didn’t pull away.

  Mallow sighed, then gestured for Poe to lead them.

  They climbed off the river shelf and into a narrow cart track that wound between scrub and broken rock. The air grew colder as they left the water’s churn. Above them, the sky sat low and heavy, the light thinning toward evening.

  They made it to an inn before full dark, half frozen and raw from the effort. Tanel did the asking. Mallow did the standing with the egg pulled to his chest and his cowl pulled high, while the room weighed them the way people weighed a storm cloud.

  The boatman who owned the barge came in limping, cursing his knee and the river and every saint who had ever pretended to love a poor man. He’d slipped on the bank earlier and torn himself open on a rock. The cut had gone ugly fast: swollen edges, red streaking up the calf, the sort of wound that turned into fever in a blink.

  They would have turned Mallow away if he’d been only a stranger. They didn’t, because the rumors had done their work. They watched him in that hungry, frightened hope people saved for miracles. Mallow hated it.

  But he did it anyway.

  He knelt by the boatman, pulled the cloth back, and put his hand to the torn flesh. The glow came through his skin, blue-white and steady, and the room went still. The boatman’s breath stuttered. Mallow felt the wound’s heat under his palm, the infection’s bite, the body’s frantic effort to keep itself whole.

  He pressed. He held.

  Warmth moved. The swelling eased. The angry red softened. The boatman’s face shifted from pain into a stunned, disbelieving relief that made Mallow’s stomach twist with resentment at the worship, at the way people needed him to be a symbol because symbols don’t ask to be loved back.

  Across the room, Poe stared as if he’d been struck.

  When Mallow pulled his hand away, the boatman touched his own leg like he didn’t trust it to still belong to him. Then he grabbed Mallow’s wrist, hard, and tried to speak through the thickness in his throat.

  “You’ll cross us,” Tanel said quietly before the room could turn into a shrine.

  The boatman looked up, eyes wet and fierce. “You and yours.”

  They were pushed generous portions of stew and bread. By the time the fire burned down to coals, the sharpest edges of the group had begun to dull. For the first time, Mallow had the smallest hint that he wasn’t alone out here.

  Poe sat closer to the hearth, and Harka joined him, shoulder to shoulder, as if the others wouldn’t notice. Tanel spoke with the innkeeper and blessed a woman who pleaded with him to tell her that her husband, recently deceased, was with the Underserpent. Mallow kept one hand on the egg until he found his bed upstairs across from Tanel and sleep took him in ugly, fractured pieces.

  By morning, the river looked less like an enemy. The barge cut across gray water in a steady line, the boatman’s oarwork practiced and tight. When they reached the far bank, their boots hit mud, and for a moment it felt like stepping into a world that might keep its promises.

  Tanel’s face held color again. Poe moved with less of that hollowed-out shaking, though his eyes kept flicking to the horizon as if he expected it to spit out riders.

  They hiked through a pass in a pine forest, where the air was mild and the birds sang tentatively. They came to a hill which broke into a gentle descent down into the bay.

  The land opened toward water here, wide, slate-blue, ruffled by wind. A modest fishing village filled in the hillsides, gulls careening and crying overhead. The smell of salt reached him, brilliant and briney, and it did something to his chest. He hadn’t realized how long it had been since he’d smelled the coast.

  The smell brought with it an image of his little brother, Willfred. Will, or Willy, if Mallow was teasing him. A memory came of Will, digging for clams at low tide, his slacks rolled to his knees, his bare feet brown with sand.

  He’d been buried in the quake at Lethen Bay, along with his parents. Along with Mereth, the Kelthi girl he’d loved.

  Poe came up beside him, close enough that Mallow could hear his breath. “The Bellborn is near,” Poe said.

  Mallow didn’t look at him, so he wouldn’t see how his heart lurched. “How near?”

  Poe’s gaze stayed on the waterline, on the distant shape of roots clustered low against the shore. “She’s in this village.”

  Mallow’s mouth went dry. Hope and dread moved together inside him like twin currents. He wanted to sprint. He wanted to stay planted and let the world stop moving for a single breath so he could brace for what he might find.

  Poe knows she’s alive, he reminded himself.

  The knowledge didn’t soothe him. It only made his fear more specific.

  Out in the bay, dark shapes broke the surface – sleek backs, quiet arcs. Dolphins. A small pod traveling along the shallows, breathing bright plumes into the air before vanishing beneath the chop.

  He pictured Lain by the sea: her white hair, her strange grace, her being alive somewhere in that village with water at her feet. The image filled him with a sudden, aching relief and an equal terror.

  He touched the egg’s strap, grounding himself in the only certainty he could carry.

  Then he turned, nodding, and started down the slope toward the roofs. The others followed. The sea wind met them head-on, clean with salt, and Mallow walked into it like it might either cleanse him or cut him open.