By the fourth day of the red sap mixture, Pyk was still sick, but he no longer looked like a man being dragged downhill by the fever.
That was the best anyone dared say aloud. He did not stand. He did not eat like a healthy man. He still coughed, still sweated through his bedding, still needed Nella to threaten him before he would drink slowly instead of gulping like a fool. But his breath had changed. It no longer scraped in and out of him with the same wet fight. His fever had fallen enough that his eyes followed people when they moved, and that morning he had cursed at a boy for stepping on his foot.
Nella had taken that as a better sign than any prayer.
"If he has strength to complain," she said, "he has strength enough not to die before midday."
The Tree Speaker did not call it healing. He repeated that so often that some began to hate him for it. He called it a turning, a pause, a body answering, a door not yet shut. But the camp had eyes. It saw Pyk drink water and keep it down. It saw him take thin broth. It saw him breathe through pine steam without choking. By evening, the word had moved through all the fires even though Harrag had forbidden it.
Cure.
No one said it where Harrag could hear. That did not keep the word from existing. It moved under breath, behind hands, inside glances toward the weirwood ridge. It moved from the sick fires to the clean ones and back again. It reached Hokor before Torren could decide how to speak of it.
Hokor was sitting under his cloak when Torren came to the early cough fire. His fever had not broken, but it had not climbed much higher either. That should have comforted Torren. It did not. Waiting beside an unchanged fever felt like standing beneath a rockslide that had paused in the air.
"Pyk cursed at Nella," Hokor said.
Torren crouched at the boundary. "Yes."
"That means he is better."
"It means he is less close to dying than before."
Hokor looked at him. "You always make good things smaller now."
"I am trying not to make them larger than they are."
"That sounds like Da."
Torren almost smiled. "I know."
Hokor looked away toward the lower sick ground, where Pyk lay propped against folded hides while Nella forced broth into him with the expression of a woman feeding an enemy she had decided must live for practical reasons. "If it helped him, it should help others."
"Yes."
"Then I should get it."
Torren had expected that. Expecting did not help.
"You should," he said.
Hokor's eyes snapped back to him. "But?"
Torren took a slow breath. "But so should the ridge child. So should Sella. So should Keth, if Stone Crows tell the truth about his fever. So should anyone who starts breathing like Pyk did."
Hokor's mouth tightened. "I did not ask about them."
"I know."
"I asked about me."
"I know that too."
For a moment Hokor looked younger than his anger. Then he coughed into his sleeve, and the cough took the strength out of his face for several breaths. Torren stayed still. He had learned how to stay still. He hated that he had learned it.
When Hokor could speak again, his voice was rougher. "I hate that I understand."
Torren looked at him quietly.
Hokor pulled his cloak tighter. "Not all of it. But enough. If I drink next, they say Da chose me. If I don't, I sit here and wait because everyone is watching. Either way, I hate it."
"Yes," Torren said.
"That is all you have?"
"Yes."
Hokor stared at him, then gave a tired, bitter little laugh. "At least you are honest."
"I would rather be useful."
"So would I."
That answer hurt more than Torren expected. He had no answer to it, so he only nodded and stayed at the edge until Nella shouted for him to stop standing there like a post and come speak with Harrag.
...
Harrag had called the small council near the old root stone, not near the central fire.
That alone told Torren the matter was dangerous. The root stone had become the place where fear was given shape and rules were made before the camp could turn them into panic. Harrag stood with Nella, the Tree Speaker, Oren, Marra, and two watchers from different fire groups. The horn caps used for sap lay on a flat stone between them, clean and empty. Too empty.
Nella spoke first, because Nella believed waiting for men to circle a problem wasted air. "Pyk has turned. Maybe because of the mixture. Maybe because he was young and stubborn. Maybe because the gods like ugly men with bad manners. We do not know. But people think we know."
"They think tree blood saves," Marra said.
"They think it because they want to think it," the Tree Speaker said. "That makes it harder to kill."
Oren looked toward the weirwood ridge. "How much sap can we take from the grove?"
"Not enough," the old man said.
Torren looked up sharply.
The Tree Speaker saw it. "Not from that one tree. Not again and again. If we cut it every time a mother cries, we will kill the tree or anger it, and either way we will have less than we began with."
"There are other weirwoods," Torren said.
"Yes."
The answer came quickly enough that everyone turned toward him.
The old man leaned both hands on his staff. "The Mountains of the Moon are not the Andal fields. Their axes did not climb every ridge. There are white trees in old hollows, high cracks, blind groves, places even goats dislike. Weeping Grove is closest and strongest for us, but it is not alone."
Nella let out a breath. "You might have said this before."
"I said it when the question became worth the danger."
Torren stepped closer. "Where?"
Harrag looked at him once, but did not interrupt yet.
The Tree Speaker pointed with his staff toward the upper ridges beyond camp. "White Root Hollow. Three young trees, hard to reach now because the snow breaks badly above it. Red Vein Trees, near the old stream bed. Older, with natural cracks in the bark. Blind Grove, farther than I like, faces uncarved, roots deep. There are others, but those are the ones I would trust men to find before night takes them."
"How much can be taken?" Harrag asked.
"Drops. Smears. No deep cuts. No cutting the faces. No stripping bark. Each wound sealed with clay and crushed leaf. If any man comes back with a cup full of red, I will throw it into the snow and have his hand bound for blasphemy."
Nella folded her arms. "If he comes back with a cup full, I will use it first and bind his hand after."
The Tree Speaker turned on her. "No."
Nella met his stare. "Do not growl at me, old man. I am saying what half the camp will think."
"That is why half the camp is not going."
Harrag nodded slowly. "Who is?"
Torren answered before anyone else could. "I am."
"No," Harrag said.
Torren turned toward him. "I know what to look for."
"That is why you stay."
The words landed hard and clean. For a heartbeat Torren thought he had misheard them. "That makes no sense."
"It makes all the sense there is," Harrag said. "You saw the vision. You remember the mixture. You know the order, the bowls, the steam, the markings, the amounts. If you go and fall, or take fever on the path, or get trapped by snow, what comes back? A horn cap and men who think they remember what you said."
"I can tell them."
"You will. Then you will stay."
Torren felt anger rise, fast and familiar. "Hokor needs more sap."
"Hokor needs you here remembering what to do with it."
"I can bring it back faster."
"You have not slept. You are angry. You want sap for your brother more than you want safe hands near a holy tree." Harrag stepped closer. "That makes you exactly the wrong man to send."
Torren stared at him. "You think I would cut too deep?"
"I think you might decide one more drop is worth it."
The accusation stung because Torren could not honestly say it was false. If Hokor worsened while he held a knife against white bark, what would his hand do? How much would fear weigh against the Tree Speaker's warning? He wanted to say he would obey. He wanted to believe it.
Harrag watched that answer fail to come.
"You stay," he said again, quieter now. "This is not punishment. This is where the need is."
Torren looked away first.
That felt like losing.
...
The Tree Speaker chose the sap gatherers before the camp could offer heroes.
He rejected the first three men who volunteered. One was too eager, one had slept near an exposed fire, and one asked whether a deeper cut would give more if sealed quickly afterward. The Tree Speaker told him he had answered his own dismissal. He did not choose the strongest fighters or the loudest scouts. He chose people with quiet hands.
Marra was chosen for Red Vein Trees, not because she was gentle but because she obeyed ugly rules even when she hated them. With her went a young woman named Talla, who had worked hides since childhood and could cut thin without tearing. They would take the old stream bed path and return by the upper stones.
Oren was chosen for White Root Hollow because he knew the snow breaks above it and could read bad ground before it swallowed someone. With him went Brannoc, who looked startled to be chosen and then tried to look as if he had expected it. The Tree Speaker pointed his staff at him and said, "You are not going because you are brave. You are going because you learned to leave goats behind. Leave sap behind too."
Brannoc nodded very seriously. "I can do that."
Nella muttered, "He had better."
For Blind Grove, the Tree Speaker chose two older women, Edda and Rill, both from fires with no sickness yet and both known for gathering herbs in places men considered empty. Harrag hesitated at sending them so far, but the Tree Speaker insisted. "Blind Grove does not like boots that stomp. They know how to walk where roots listen."
A final pair would go to a smaller white tree near the frost crack above the western slope, close enough to return quickly but exposed to wind. For that, Harrag chose Rusk and a boy named Marren, not because Marren was experienced, but because Rusk could stop him from doing anything foolish.
Torren listened to the choices and hated not being among them.
Then the Tree Speaker made him teach them.
That was worse.
They gathered near the root stone in a half circle, each holding the things they would carry: clean horn caps, bone slivers, small clay packets, crushed leaf paste, short knives boiled and wiped, strips of clean hide to wrap the caps, and hooked sticks for moving anything that did not need hands. Torren stood before them with the Tree Speaker at his side and Harrag behind him.
He told them once.
Then again.
"Do not cut the face," Torren said. "Do not cut deep. If frost has cracked the bark, use that before making a new mark. If there is no crack, make a cut no longer than the width of your thumb and no deeper than the edge of the bone sliver. You are not opening a throat."
Marra nodded. Oren watched him closely. Brannoc looked like he was trying to carve every word into his own skull.
"One drop is useful," Torren continued. "Two is good. Three may be greed. If it runs more, catch what comes but do not widen the wound. Seal it with clay and crushed leaf. Press until the bleeding slows. If it does not slow, stop taking and seal harder."
"What if the tree gives none?" Rill asked.
"Then take none."
Marren looked confused. "But if we climbed all the way—"
Rusk hit him lightly on the back of the head.
Torren looked at the boy. "If the tree gives none, you bring back none. Empty hands are better than a dead tree."
The Tree Speaker grunted approval.
Torren kept going. "Do not mix sap from different trees in the same cap unless you have no choice. Mark the caps by path. Do not touch the inside. Do not taste it. Do not let anyone else touch it. If someone coughs on the way, that person stops handling the cap."
Brannoc raised a hand, then seemed embarrassed by himself and lowered it. "What if the one carrying the cap coughs?"
"Set it down," Torren said. "Step away. Someone else wraps it. If all of you cough, leave it and mark the place."
"That wastes sap."
"That keeps sickness off it," Nella snapped.
Torren nodded. "She is right."
Nella looked annoyed that he had agreed with her before she could argue more.
He explained the sealing again. Then the caps. Then the return paths. Then the washing at lower stones. Then who would receive the sap first: Tree Speaker, then Nella, then Harrag's witness. He repeated that no one was to speak of how much they carried. No one was to promise a cup to any sick person on the path. No one was to say cure.
By the time he finished, the group looked more afraid than ready.
The Tree Speaker touched Torren's shoulder with the end of his staff. "Enough."
Torren looked at him.
"If you put more fear in their hands, they will shake."
Torren closed his mouth.
Harrag stepped forward. "You heard him. You heard the Tree Speaker. This is not a raid. There is no glory in bringing back more than ordered. There is no shame in bringing back little. Shame is cutting wrong because fear made you greedy."
Marra looked toward Torren. "If the Red Vein Trees are cracked like he says, we may bring enough."
"Maybe," Torren said.
She snorted. "You sound like the old man now."
The Tree Speaker said, "Good. Someone should."
...
Before the groups left, Torren went to Hokor.
He did not want the first thing Hokor heard to be someone else saying Torren had stayed behind. He found his brother sitting upright near the early cough fire, breathing through pine steam while pretending the steam annoyed him more than it helped. His fever had not improved, but he was alert. That had become the shape of Torren's gratitude: alert, not worse, still angry.
"They are going for more sap," Torren said.
Hokor looked at him. "You are going?"
"No."
Hokor's expression shifted before he hid it. "Da said no."
"Yes."
"Because you are useful."
Torren flinched despite himself.
Hokor saw it. Some of the bitterness left his face. "I did not mean—"
"Yes, you did."
Hokor coughed once, short and dry, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Maybe."
Torren crouched at the boundary. "He is keeping me here because I remember the method. If I go and something happens, they may bring sap back and ruin it."
"That sounds true."
"It is."
"That does not mean you like it."
"No."
Hokor looked past him toward the upper path where the selected gatherers were being given final instructions. "So other people go get what I need."
"Yes."
"And you stay here telling them how not to ruin it."
"Yes."
Hokor was quiet for a while. Then he said, "I hate that too."
Torren nodded. "So do I."
"Good."
The word was small, but there was less poison in it than before. Hokor leaned back against the folded hide and closed his eyes. "If Brannoc goes, tell him not to get bitten by the tree."
Despite everything, Torren almost laughed. "I will."
"And tell him if he brings back nothing, I will say the goat was braver."
"I will not tell him that."
Hokor opened one eye. "Coward."
Torren looked at him for a moment, memorizing the color in his cheeks, the sweat at his hairline, the stubbornness still alive beneath fever. "I will tell him after he returns."
Hokor closed his eye again. "Fine."
It was not comfort. It was not enough.
It was something.
...
The sap gatherers left in four directions before midday.
No drums. No shouting. No painted faces except the old ash marks some had kept from habit. It looked nothing like a raid, and because of that, the camp did not know how to watch them leave. Men understood warriors going downhill with axes. They understood hunters going out with bows. They did not understand careful people leaving with horn caps, clay, and orders not to be brave.
Marra and Talla took the stream bed path first, moving low and steady toward the Red Vein Trees. Oren led Brannoc upward toward White Root Hollow, pausing once to correct the way Brannoc carried the clay packet. Edda and Rill went toward Blind Grove with the calm of women who had walked more dangerous paths for mushrooms no one had praised them for finding. Rusk and Marren disappeared toward the frost crack, Rusk speaking quietly while Marren nodded too much.
Torren stood beside Harrag and watched them go.
Every part of him wanted to follow one of the groups. Any of them. To move, climb, cut, carry, do something with his hands that might become Hokor's breath later. Instead he remained at camp with the vision in his head and the sick fires below him.
Harrag did not look at him when he spoke. "Let them walk. Your work is here."
Torren's mouth tightened. "I know."
"You hate knowing."
"Yes."
"That may keep you careful."
Torren looked toward the path Oren and Brannoc had taken. "If they cut wrong?"
"They were told."
"If they forget?"
"They were told twice."
"If they do not come back?"
Harrag turned to him then. "Then we deal with that when the mountain gives it to us. Do not spend fear before it arrives. We have enough already."
Torren said nothing. That was another true thing he did not want.
Below, Pyk coughed but did not choke. Hokor sat under his cloak at the early cough fire, watching the paths until the last gatherer vanished. Around the camp, people tried not to look too hopeful and failed. Hope had entered the Painted Dogs like another sickness now, and Harrag's rules would have to hold it back as carefully as fever.
The trees were many. That did not make them jars. The sap existed. That did not make it safe. The gods, if they had answered, had not given them enough to stop choosing. They had only made the choices sharper.
By the time the last group disappeared behind stone and snow, Torren understood the cruelty of staying behind. He was the one who had brought the method back, but other hands now carried the knives. Other feet walked toward the white trees. Other people would decide, in the cold and fear of the wilds, whether one drop was enough.
And he would wait again.