Blood and Moss
The morning light crept through the trees like it was afraid to touch the earth. Cold dew clung to the moss and bark, shimmering like tears on the forest's skin. And there, beneath a tangle of roots and hastily stacked branches, we waited—for warmth, for safety, for anything that felt like home again.
He was still alive.
Barely.
The man—Derran, he said his name was—lay curled on his side, eyes half-lidded, a dark, crusted wound in his shoulder where the arrow had been. Blood stained his cloak and soaked into the moss beneath him. His breath was shallow, ragged, like each one might be his last.
I watched him closely.
I didn't trust him—not really—but I didn't hate him either. Maybe it was because he looked like someone who had already lost everything. Maybe it was because I saw in his eyes the same emptiness I had felt since the night of the fire.
Beside me, my sister Alia crouched silently, her knife in one hand, a strip of linen in the other. She didn't speak much, but every movement she made was careful, controlled. Focused. She was already stronger than me, already something more than a child.
And I hated that she had to be.
"Hold him," she said quietly.
I hesitated, but moved to Derran's side. He stirred as I touched him, his eyes fluttering open.
"Still alive," he muttered, lips dry and cracked. "That's a surprise."
"You won't be if you don't stay still," Alia answered flatly.
She pressed the cloth to his wound, and he screamed into his teeth, nearly biting through his own tongue. I flinched. Blood welled up from under the rag and ran down his chest like red paint on old stone.
When she was done, we wrapped him in a spare tunic we'd found abandoned in the ruins near the stream. It wasn't warm, but it was better than nothing. His face had gone pale, but he was breathing easier now.
We sat around the faint glow of a fire, its flames hidden under a ring of stones and branches. We didn't talk much. There wasn't anything left to say.
Alia passed me a half-rotten apple she'd dug out of the leaves, and I chewed slowly, not even tasting it. My stomach ached, but I couldn't tell if it was hunger or grief.
"I had a sister once," Derran murmured, breaking the silence.
Alia didn't look up. "What happened?"
He gave a dry, hollow laugh. "Same thing that happens to everyone who's not strong enough."
The words hung in the air like smoke.
No one responded.
Later, we heard footsteps in the distance. Three, maybe four men—moving slow, too heavy to be animals. Voices followed, low and cruel.
"They ran this way. Might still be bleeding."
"They're just kids. Kill the boy. Keep the girl."
I felt my stomach twist. My fingers clenched in the dirt.
Alia was already moving. She tossed dirt over the fire, burying its light, and pulled me down beside her. Derran dragged himself closer to a fallen log, clutching a broken branch in one hand, his face pale but determined.
The soldiers passed just beyond the trees. One of them stopped. Sniffed the air.
"Smoke."
"You're imagining things."
"We'll circle back. If we find them, we drag 'em to the captain."
Their voices faded, swallowed by the forest.
Only then did I breathe again.
The silence afterward was heavier than their footsteps.
"I should've let them take me," Derran said softly. "I'm only slowing you down."
"No," Alia snapped, sharper than I'd ever heard her. "That's not how this works."
She turned to him, her face hard. "We don't leave people behind. Not anymore."
Derran blinked at her. Then at me.
And for the first time, he smiled.
It wasn't a happy smile. It was tired, cracked, but there was something in it I recognized—hope, maybe. Or at least the shadow of it.
That night, we didn't speak again. We slept in turns. Alia held the knife in her hands until her knuckles turned white. I lay beside her, watching the stars disappear behind clouds.
In the morning, we would walk again. No plan, no map, no idea where we were going. Just forward.
Because the only other option was to stay behind.
And we knew what staying behind meant.
---