They worked until their hands were raw.
By nightfall, the cabin looked less like a hole and more like a place that might endure.
Edrin sat by the fire box, staring at the flames.
His body hurt. His mind hurt more.
He waited until the others slept.
Then he slipped outside alone, cloak pulled tight, knife in hand.
The wind hit him, cold enough to steal breath. Snow squeaked underfoot.
He moved through the pines like a shadow.
He found the rock cleft.
He knelt beside the corpses.
The smell was different now. Not fresh blood. Cooling meat. The first hints of rot, even in cold.
His stomach churned.
He picked the first corpse, the lead scout. He cut the chest open with careful strokes, fingers numb.
He took the heart.
It was warmish still, soft in his palm.
He stared at it for a long moment.
This is insane, the modern part of him said. This is cannibal-adjacent madness. This is a disease.
Then the other part, the part shaped by death and return said: And yet it works. And you need it. Because you are sixteen in a world that kills grown men like flies.
He brought the heart to his mouth and threw it . No, I am not doing it.
He sat back on his heels, shaking.
I'm becoming something, he thought. And I don't know what.
When he cleaned his knife in snow and wiped his hands on his cloak. He covered the corpses again and left.
On the way back, he paused at the ridge and looked south.
A smear of smoke still marked where Hollow had been.
He stared until his eyes burned.
"I'm sorry," he whispered into the wind.
The wind did not answer.
Days became a grind.
They hunted. They trapped. They gathered what roots they could find beneath snow. They patched the cabin and then patched it again.
Rowan healed slowly, moving her arm with a grimace.
Lysa began to speak less, but she worked more, as if work was the only thing keeping her from collapsing into grief.
Tym and Jory learned quickly. Hunger was a good teacher.
Edrin drilled them in small things, modern things disguised as common sense.
Boil water when you can.
Keep food stores separate so one fire doesn't take all.
Always have a second route out.
Never all sleep at once.
Rowan took to the patrols like she'd been born for them. She could move through the trees without snapping a twig. She could read snow like a book.
One night she came back with her face tight.
"More tracks," she said.
Edrin's gut clenched. "How many?"
"Ten," she said. "Maybe twelve. Not scouts. A hunting party."
Lysa's hands flew to her mouth. Tym swore softly. Jory turned pale.
Rowan looked at Edrin. "They're searching. They know survivors exist."
Edrin felt his mind click into cold mode.
Objective: survival. Constraint: limited manpower. Threat: superior numbers, unknown weapons.
He thought of Hollow's raid. Thirty wildlings. They had burned everything fast.
A hunting party of ten or twelve could still kill five.
Unless five weren't five.
Unless five were a trap.
He looked at Rowan. "Can you lead them?"
Rowan's eyes narrowed. "Lead them where?"
"Away," Edrin said. "Make them chase ghosts. Make them think survivors went deeper north, not up the ridge."
Rowan's mouth tightened. "You want me to bait them."
Edrin met her gaze. "You're the best runner," he said. "And you're the best at not being seen."
Rowan stared at him for a long heartbeat. Then she nodded, once. "Fine," she said. "But you'd better have something waiting if they catch me."
Edrin's jaw clenched. "I will," he said.
He didn't know if it was true.
But he had to believe it.
They laid the trap at dawn.
Rowan went out first, leaving a deliberate trail in the snow, prints too clear, too obvious, leading away from the cabin toward the deeper woods.
Then she circled back, moving through scrub and gully, and took position in a tree line overlooking the valley.
Edrin and the boys prepared the cabin.
They set trip lines with bone chimes, little pieces of antler that clacked if disturbed.
They piled rocks above the slope, ready to roll.
They set sharpened stakes near the entrance, hidden beneath snow.
Lysa stayed inside with a knife, face white.
"You can't fight," Edrin told her quietly.
Lysa's eyes flashed. "I can," she said, voice shaking. "I've seen enough men die to know I can."
Edrin softened his voice. "You can," he agreed. "But you're worth more alive than brave. If it comes to it, you run. You take Tym and Jory and you run."
Lysa's jaw trembled. "And you?"
Edrin's mouth twisted. "I buy time," he said.
Lysa stared at him like she wanted to hit him. Then she nodded, because she understood.
In the Gift, there was always someone buying time.
The wildlings came by midday.
Edrin smelled them before he saw them; sweat, old fur, smoke, the sharp tang of rendered fat.
His Awareness prickled. The world narrowed.
They moved through the valley in a loose formation, weapons ready. One carried a crude horn. Another carried a torch even though it was daylight, flame flickering like a promise.
They stopped where Rowan's false trail began.
They bent over the prints, muttering in a harsh tongue Edrin did not know well.
Then they followed.
Edrin watched from behind a pine, breath held.
Rowan did her work.
She stayed just ahead of them, seen and then not seen, a flicker of movement that kept them convinced they were chasing prey. She led them away from the cabin, deeper into the wrong direction.
For a while it worked.
Then one of the wildlings stopped.
He sniffed the air.
Edrin's stomach dropped.
Shit, he thought. He's a tracker. He's not following prints. He's following scent.
The wildling's head turned toward the ridge.
Toward the cabin.