Beneath the fabric was a body that didn’t belong to someone his age. His frame was lean but sharply defined, muscles honed like someone who had been trained for years. His skin was pale white, mark of someone who lose a lot of blood. Thin, deliberate cuts traced along his arms and sides. They varied in age, some faint and silvery, others still pink and raw, forming a pattern of wounds opened and closed too many times to count. The flesh around them bore the faint stain of old blood, as if the skin itself had grown used to being opened.

  Then Lina’s eyes fell to his abdomen. A bloodied bandage wrapped around it, soaked through at the center with a deep, rusty stain. When she peeled it away, the air hit the wound and the smell followed. The flesh beneath was angry and swollen, slick with fever sweat. A series of tight, uneven stitches zigzagged across the wound, pulling the skin together over what looked like infection trapped underneath. Small, blistered pouches bulged along the seam, taut, yellowish boils straining to burst, each one throbbing faintly with heat. Whoever had stitched it had not cleaned it first; they had only sealed the rot inside.

  The faint scent of dried iron and herbs clung to him, the scent of someone who had bled often, treated himself out of necessity, and survived by sheer stubbornness alone.

  This was the first time she found someone so young but so wounded. She knew the Reich employed children in war, but seeing it with her own eyes was different. Wounded soldiers had been common in her village back then—but most of them were older, much older than this boy. Now she realized the child soldiers probably died before they ever made it back.

  “Fucking hell, what happened to you?” Lina asked the boy

  The boy didn’t answer and just looked away. His eyes avoided hers—flat and distant, the kind that had already seen too much. He still tried to hide his pain, yet his trembling and sweat betrayed the effort.

  For a second, Lina hesitated. Back in her village she had only helped her mother prepare ointments and handle supplies, never tended a wound herself. Training with Albrecht and Strau had always been on dummies, not on a living body. She had read the books and memorized the steps, but this was the first time she had ever had to perform them for real.

  Her body loosened; it felt as if her spirit had slipped away, hollowed out by fear.

  Maybe he’ll be fine even if I don’t help him. The thought crept in quietly, denial more poisonous than a snake’s venom.

  She looked at the boy again. His ragged breathing, the fever sweat, it was clear that he wouldn’t last much longer.

  His lips had gone pale, the tremors in his arms fading into that dangerous stillness that came before collapse. Even the shallow rise of his chest seemed to argue with itself, fighting for every breath.

  The smell of blood and fever filled the air, thick and suffocating, sharp enough to sting her nose. She placed her hand at his forehead. The heat coming off him was unnatural, the kind that ate the body from within. She could almost see the fever crawling under his skin like a living thing, devouring him inch by inch.

  Lina swallowed hard. Fear coiled in her gut, but beneath it came a different ache, pity, fierce and sudden. Whatever this boy had gone through, he didn’t deserve to die here, alone in the dark.

  Lina clenched her fists.

  Fuck. I trained with Albrecht every day for situations like this. And now it’s life or death, and I freeze?

  Damn it. I need to get my shit! What if this was Vierna instead?!

  That realization steadied her. But this isn’t Vierna. It’s just me and him.

  And somehow, that made it easier. The risk was only their lives, not Vierna’s. She could live with that.

  The rune the boy carved was the only thing keeping the mana beasts from sensing them. If he died, the rune would fade, and she would die soon after. So she had to save him, if only to save herself.

  And yet, that thought brought an odd kind of calm. If it were just her life on the line, she could accept failure. Dying alone in some forgotten forest was fine—she had made peace with that long ago. But if it were Vierna’s life depending on her hands, she knew she would freeze. The fear of failing her would turn her into stone.

  That was why she could move now. It wasn’t courage, not really. It was the kind of resolve born when love was far enough away to be safe.

  She breathed out slowly, hands still trembling. Whatever happened next, she would act.

  I need to be useful. I need to do this.

  Then she faced the boy. “I need to treat this as soon as I can.”

  “No! I don’t need your help. I don’t know you! Stay away.”

  “Fucking idiot. If I wanted to harm you, I’d have left you when I had to run. And like I said—I need you alive. So either you let me do my thing, or I knock you out and treat you. Your choice.”

  “You fucking ogre of a woman!”

  “I don’t fucking care. I have a girlfriend out there, and I am not going to be mana-beast food here.”

  The boy locked his gaze on Lina again, but she didn’t relent. He understood, finally, that one way or another she would treat his wound.

  “Okay, fine, you damn hag.”

  “Fucking ingrate.”

  Using healing magic in this situation would probably save Lina a lot of effort, and yet healing magic required a high amount of mana. Since the boy had stopped her from using even a simple detection spell, she couldn’t risk using it without attracting the mana beast’s attention. So she had to rely on non-magical healing.

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  “I need to light a fire. Would it attract the beast back?”

  “It will.”

  “But if we don’t treat your wound, it’ll be fatal!”

  “Don’t you have flint or something?”

  “I have, but look around you—there’s nothing to burn.” Her voice wavered.

  The boy’s face was pale, his breaths shallow. Every second she argued felt stolen from his time.

  “All right,” The boy said. “I’ll pour some mana into my runes, but I can’t do it for long. I already spent most of my mana using that spell when we ran.”

  Lina nodded. She conjured her storage rune. She had wanted to make the cure for Vierna outside the village to avoid suspicion, so she’d bought a mortar and pestle she had ‘borrowed’ from Aila’s apothecary. She then took out her waterskin and three small ceramic bottles—each containing dawnwillow, ashmire bloom, and veilfern she had gathered before. They weren’t as effective as yarrow or comfrey in this situation, but they would have to do.

  Then she drew a knife, cutting fabric from her sleeve and skirt, exposing her delicate skin and leaving her hem lifted high above the knee.

  First, she crushed the dawnwillow and ashmire bloom in the mortar. Then she poured water from her waterskin into the ceramic bottles. She cut the linen pieces into thin, long strips and tied them neatly around the bottle mouths.

  “I need to light the fire now, do it.”

  “Okay.”

  The boy lifted one of his hand, a pale white light conjured forming a magic circle with a weird inscription on it. The rune that the boy carved a moment ago glow and yet it was still dim.

  With one hand, Lina held the fabric tied around the bottle’s mouth, suspending it in the air. With her other hand, she lit a basic fire spell beneath it. She boiled the water while carefully controlling her magic so her Grace wouldn’t leak out.

  But so far, she had never been able to prevent it completely. A small amount always slipped through, no matter how hard she tried. She could only hope the boy wouldn’t be able to sense it.

  After a while, the boy then talked. “I can’t fucking hold much longer now.”

  “Okay! Okay! the water’s boiled already, you can turn it off.” Lina said as she extinguished the fire and set the ceramic bottle carefully on the dirt. She poured a bit of the hot water into the mortar, stirring until it formed a paste.

  When that was done, Lina examined the wound again. She took a piece of fabric and poured some hot water onto it. A few drops splashed against her hand, but she only whimpered softly, forcing herself to bear it. Vierna had endured worse—Lina wanted to share a fraction of that pain.

  She pressed the cloth to the boy’s wound. He muffled his scream, trying his best to hide it, though sweat beaded on his forehead and his arms trembled again. When she finished, Lina spoke.

  “I need to light a fire again. I want to heat my knife—those swollen pouches need to be punctured.”

  “Why didn’t you do it back then? I can’t light the rune again.”

  “I only have two hands, you brat. We need to do it quickly before my water gets cold again.”

  “Okay! Okay! I’ll see what I can do.”

  With great effort, the boy flared his rune once more. It burned dimly, like a dying firefly. Lina paid it no mind. She took her knife and lit a small flame in her palm. When the blade glowed deep red, she stopped, then gagged the boy with the empty waterskin from before. Her hands trembled despite the heat spell. Every motion reminded her that this was no lesson in the safety of a clinic—this was real, raw, and human. And yet she steeled herself. She needed the boy alive; otherwise, she’d become beast food—and she would never get to kiss Vierna again.

  “Take a deep breath, boy. This is going to hurt.”

  “No take that knife away from me! Are you trying to kill me?”

  “Fucking hell, I already told you I want to save you. Now stay still or I will knock you out before doing this!”

  The boy’s protest died into a ragged inhale. Lina watched his fingers unclench, saw the fight drain from his eyes and the way his shoulders sagged a fraction. He flinched whenever her blade moved, but he did not pull away.

  He relented maybe because she was already halfway through the treatment; his gaze flicked to the wound, then back to her, and for a moment something like trust—or at least resignation—passed over his face. Lina took it as permission. She told herself he must have believed she meant no harm.

  Lina drew a steady breath and let a faint shimmer of heat run along her blade until it glowed a deep, smoldering red. If the infection had already reached his core, this wouldn’t save him—but she had to try. She steadied her hand and pressed the tip near the edge of the first swollen pouch, angling it just enough to pierce without cutting deep.

  The boy tensed instantly—his whole body jerking as a muffled groan tore through the waterskin clenched between his teeth. His fingers dug into the dirt, knuckles whitening, every muscle in his abdomen locking tight.

  She pushed a little deeper. The thin membrane gave way with a soft pop. Thick yellow pus oozed out, streaked with watery blood, trickling down his side in slow, sick lines. The smell hit at once—sharp, sour, metallic. Lina swallowed hard, fighting the urge to gag. The scent burned through her nose and into memory.

  He bit down harder, the leather creaking between his teeth, chest heaving with shallow, ragged breaths as she moved to the next one. Each touch of the heated blade drew another wince, another strained exhale. The fluids ran together, pooling dark beneath him, until the angry heat under his skin finally began to fade.

  When Lina saw that she had drained all the pus, she poured more hot water over the fabric and wiped the wound again, drawing another cry of pain from the boy. She waited a moment—long enough for the flesh to cool—before carefully pressing the herbal paste she had made onto the wound.

  Then, using the torn fabric, she tied it around the boy’s waist, firm enough to hold yet loose enough for him to breathe. He flinched at the touch, then went limp—unconscious. Lina could only hope the rune would stay active despite his condition.

  She rested his head on her lap and looked out from the cave. Steam rose faintly from the herbs clinging to her skin. Her fingers still trembled, phantom heat pulsing through her palms as if the knife were still glowing.

  Something rustled outside the cave seems like an animal or a mana beast rustling around her. She steadied her arm, preparing to shoot her fire if anything come to the cave. And yet there was nothing.

  She exhaled and looked toward the sky outside. It was gray, like an ashen day. Not long after, the heavens began to weep; the soft drizzle came, and its sound was strangely comforting, steadying even, proof that the world still moved, even when everything else paused. The rain fell steadily beyond the cave, and she could only hope the boy would wake once he had enough rest.

  Lina checked the boy’s breathing and body. His chest still rose unevenly, but the rhythm had steadied, less desperate, less fevered. The heat on his skin hadn’t vanished, yet it no longer burned to the touch. It wasn’t a full recovery, but at least his condition had stabilized a little.

  She couldn’t help but feel proud. Her first real surgery, done with makeshift tools and stolen herbs, had gone surprisingly well, if she could say so herself. She wondered what Albrecht and Strau would say if they heard about it. She’d finally have something to gloat about when the mission was over.

  If she was still alive by then.

  She laughed softly.

  Would Vierna pat my head for this? Would she praise me and let me rest on her lap?

  The thought warmed her heart and pushed back the dread of the black forest around her. It steadied her spirit. She had Vierna’s cure in her hands now; the only thing left was to get out of this cursed forest.

  Lina then took a good look at the boy’s face. His skin was rough, marked with scratches, as if he’d been through something brutal. Then she noticed the mark beneath his eyes.

  Lina’s eyes widened as she recognized the mark. It was the same as Vierna’s mark.