Page 144 of Starside

“Just roll out of it,” I manage to get out, my voice tight with strain. I lift another inch.

With a bellow of agony, she rolls herself from underneath it, and I drop the branch, heaving.

Her bone is shattered. It’s sticking out of her ripped, bloody skin. Her muscle is flattened.

“It’s no use,” she scrapes out. Her face has gone pale. “I’m dead.”

She’s right. I can feel that spectral woman getting closer, her hunger an endless well that can never be filled, her misery bleeding through this forest. And she’s not the only starved creature in these woods.

“Who is after me?” I say.

Valen gives me a scathing look, as if I am a villain for not letting her die in peace. She’s clutching her arm, as if it would do any good. Finally, she says, “I don’t know. Some immortal told me about the bounty. I was told to bring you to a cavalry, if I caught you.”

My heart stills, remembering the hoof marks on the road. “Cavalry?”

She nods. She gasps with pain as that bone sticking out of her arm moves. “I followed them here. They seemed to know you were in the area. They—they’re not only after you. They’re after … after him. The head of the king’s guard.”

Raker.

My throat feels tight. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” she growls. She grits her teeth. I can imagine that right now death would be a mercy.

Those hoof prints were headed directly for that black lake. Could they really know he’s there?

I remember the curl of smoke from the hearth. The one I didn’t put out before I left. The one Raker set for my benefit, given that he stayed in another room entirely.

A rush of guilt seeps through my chest.

I try to ignore it.

Valen is still glaring at me, as if she didn’t, just minutes ago, try to kill me. I have no doubt that if she could reach for her weapons in her current state, she would try again now.

Still, I reach into my pocket. And I admonish myself for being so very stupid as my fingers curl around the vial of steelclaw saliva.

I need this. It’s invaluable; it could save me. But I can’t leave her here to die. I know it’s foolish, I know this is what I signed up for … but I just can’t.

I open the vial and pour it onto her arm.

Valen seizes. Opens her mouth to scream. But before she can, the bone lurches and rights itself. Her skin crawls together. Everything goes back to the way it was. She’s panting with pain. I can’t imagine that was pleasant.

A fold forms in between her brows as she looks at her arm with wonder. She turns toward me. “How—”

“Magic,” I say simply. “Now show me that wound of yours.”

There’s the slightest pause, in her wariness. Maybe she’s weighing whether she should reach for her bow in a flash and shoot an arrow right through my forehead.

Then she scrambles for the bandages on her stomach. Pulls them off. I pour the rest of the vial over the infected mess and watch it melt away, until the gaping wound is no more than skin.

I get to my feet. Step around her, toward the rest of the forest. The wind has lessened the slightest bit. Here’s my chance to make up some time.

Valen’s voice stops me in my tracks.

“Why?” she says, still on the forest floor. Looking at me with a mix of confusion and trepidation.

I shrug. “You’ve come too far to be taken down by a tree.”

Then I turn back toward my path.