Morning came without warmth.
Light filtered through the canopy in thin, broken shafts, turning the forest gray instead of bright. The glow in the moss faded slightly, replaced by a dull green sheen that made everything look sickly.
Damien opened his eyes and didn't move.
For a few seconds, he listened.
Breathing.
Seven sets. Uneven, but present.
No heavy snorting below. No scraping hooves. No movement close enough to mean trouble.
The boar was gone.
That didn't mean it wouldn't come back.
Damien sat up slowly. Every muscle protested. His arms felt like he'd spent the night holding something too heavy, too hot. There was a faint ache deep in his chest, not pain—fatigue.
Cost, he thought.
He scanned the outcrop.
Chris was awake, sitting with his back against the rock, eyes red from lack of sleep. Two others dozed fitfully. One woman stared into the trees without blinking.
The injured man lay wedged in the narrow notch higher up the stone. His face was pale, lips dry, jaw clenched hard enough to shake.
Damien climbed up to him.
"How bad?" he asked quietly.
The man swallowed. "I can feel my foot. Barely."
Damien looked at the leg.
Broken for sure. The bite wound on the calf was swollen and dark around the edges. The skin there looked… wrong. Not infected. Not yet. But the tissue didn't look like it belonged to the rest of him.
"That thing's bite," the man said. "It burned."
Damien nodded. He didn't like that.
He slid back down and gathered the others with a gesture.
"We can't stay here," he said. "But we can't move fast either."
No one argued.
"That boar will come back," someone said. "Won't it?"
"Yes," Damien said. "Or something else will."
Chris rubbed his face. "So what's the plan?"
Damien looked around the clearing again, really looked this time.
The rock outcrop gave height and limited angles of attack. But it trapped them. Food was nonexistent. Water, unknown. And carrying a broken leg through dense forest wasn't just slow—it was dangerous.
"We stabilize first," Damien said. "Then we move short distances. No blind runs."
"Stabilize how?" the woman asked.
Damien flexed his hands.
The heat answered immediately, faint but responsive. He didn't let it rise. Just acknowledged it.
"I can cauterize the bite," he said. "Slow whatever's happening there."
All eyes went to him.
"You can do that?" Chris asked.
"I think so," Damien said honestly. "I'm not doing nothing."
The injured man met his gaze. Fear was there. Pain too. But he nodded.
"Do it," he said. "Before it gets worse."
Damien knelt beside him and focused.
Not on fire.
On heat.
He remembered the moment before the boar hit the pressure wave. The sensation of air expanding. Of control without shape.
He placed his hand just above the wound and exhaled slowly.
Warmth flowed out of him—not a burst. Not a flare. A steady rise.
The air around his palm shimmered faintly. The smell came first. Burnt flesh. The injured man screamed and then bit down on a strip of cloth Chris shoved into his mouth.
Damien didn't pull away.
He held it until the edges of the wound darkened and sealed. Until the bleeding stopped.
Then he let the heat go.
He nearly collapsed.
Chris caught his shoulder. "Easy."
Damien nodded, breathing hard. His vision swam for a second, then cleared.
The injured man was crying silently now. Alive. Conscious.
"That helped," he said hoarsely. "I think."
"It bought time," Damien said. "That's it."
Time was currency now.
They rested another hour. No one slept. The forest didn't let them.
Damien took stock.
No tools.
No weapons.
No supplies.
But they had learned three things:
The creatures here hunted intelligently.
Fire—real fire—mattered.
And panic killed faster than claws.
"We move at first full light," Damien said. "We follow terrain, not instinct. High ground when possible. Noise discipline."
"And if the boar comes back?" someone asked.
Damien looked toward the trees.
"Then we don't fight it unless we have to," he said. "We learn it."
Chris frowned. "You're talking like this is a war."
Damien stood.
"It's worse," he said. "Wars have rules."
The forest shifted.
Not close. Not yet.
But something out there had noticed they were still alive.
Damien tightened his hands into fists and felt the heat answer, low and steady.
Morning hadn't made the world safer.
It had just given them light enough to see how dangerous it really was.