Cregan was coughing hard by the time Torren and Osric reached the lower root shelter.
Nara was already there. She had one hand on Cregan's good shoulder and the other holding a cloth near his mouth. The arrow wound high in his other shoulder looked worse than it had before. The skin around it was hot and swollen. The sickness was in his chest, but the wound had its own fever.
Torren crouched near the entrance and looked once.
"That wound is bad," he said.
Nara did not look up. "I know."
"I don't know wounds like that."
"Good. Then don't touch it."
Torren nodded. "Fair."
Cregan coughed again, then spat into the cloth. His brother, a younger Mist man with grey paint smeared under one eye, was standing too close and breathing too fast.
"Do something," the brother said.
Osric set down the bowl. "Move back."
"He is my brother."
"And you are in the way."
The young man glared at him but stepped back.
Someone brought water. It was hot, not boiling. Osric touched the side of the pot and immediately turned his head.
"Boiling," he said.
The woman carrying it hesitated. "It was boiling."
"Then it stopped."
"She came all the way from the upper fire," the young man snapped.
Osric looked at him. "Then she can go back."
Torren almost spoke, then stopped himself.
Osric saw the movement anyway. "What?"
"Nothing."
"You were going to correct me."
"No."
"You were."
Torren looked at the water. "You already did it."
Osric held his gaze for a moment, then gave a short nod and sent the woman back.
Nara gave Torren a sideways look. "He needs to learn while men shout, yes?"
Torren looked toward the great tree, where Mother Maera sat somewhere in the fog. "Apparently."
Cregan coughed again.
Osric's face tightened, but his hands did not shake.
...
The second pot came boiling.
Osric prepared the steam himself. Pine first. Then sap-water. Small measure. No extra. One of Cregan's kin muttered that he looked worse and needed stronger medicine.
Osric snapped, "Worse breathing gets steam. Not more sap."
The man shut up.
Torren said nothing.
Osric looked at him anyway.
Torren nodded once.
That was all.
Nara helped hold Cregan upright. The first breath of steam brought another cough, long and ugly. The wound pulled when he bent forward, and Cregan cursed through his teeth.
Nara said, "Good. Swear. Better than choking."
Cregan rasped, "You are a cruel woman."
"Yes. Breathe."
Osric held the cloth too close at first. Torren caught himself before speaking. Osric noticed the mistake and moved it back.
"Air with steam," Osric said, mostly to himself.
"Yes," Torren said.
"I know."
"I know you know."
"Then be quiet."
Nara snorted. "He is learning."
The steam loosened Cregan's chest after a while. Not enough to make him well. Enough that the panic in the shelter eased. His brother stopped hovering. Nara checked the wound again and frowned.
"That is still the bigger problem," she said.
Torren looked at Osric. "Then keep the breath from becoming another bigger problem."
Osric nodded. "Again when the bowl cools."
"Yes."
Nara pointed at the younger brother. "You. Sit outside the line. If you want to help, bring clean cloth. If you want to be useless, keep standing there with your mouth open."
The man left.
...
Near midnight, an old woman died in one of the watched shelters.
She had been sick before Torren arrived. Very old, Maron said. Fever had taken her strength, and then the cough had taken the rest. The steam had made her breathing easier for a time. It had not turned her back.
Her daughter cried quietly. No one tried to stop her. But when she reached for the bowl beside the bedding, Maera's voice came from the fog.
"Not that bowl."
The daughter froze.
Maera was being carried nearer in her chair by two Trees men, Osric walking beside her. Her blind face turned toward the shelter.
"Burn the cloth," Maera said. "Clean what can be cleaned. Break what cannot. Cry after."
The daughter's face twisted. "She is my mother."
"Yes," Maera said. "And you are still alive. Do not make her death greedy."
It was harsh.
It worked.
Maron stepped in and took charge of the body. Nara took the cloths. Osric handled the bowl. Torren stood back and did not touch anything. He hated that he was relieved not to be needed there.
Cael came to stand beside him.
"You look like you expected to save everyone," Cael said.
"No."
"Good."
"I expected to feel less useless when I didn't."
Cael looked at him. "That goes away?"
"No."
"Good to know."
They stood in the fog while the old woman was carried out.
...
By dawn, the valley had not healed.
Cregan was still alive. His breathing was better than it had been in the night, but his wound fever remained. Nara did not leave him for long. She cleaned the wound again and told anyone who asked that no, he was not fine, and no, she did not care if he had slept.
One of the fevered children had slept through most of the night after a weak dose. Another had vomited and needed less next time. Osric remembered that without Torren saying it. The old woman's shelter had been cleaned. Two new coughs had been reported instead of hidden, which Maron called progress and Cael called embarrassing.
Mother Maera called both true.
At the lower station, a young Trees woman tried to add more sap-water for a man whose breath had worsened near morning.
Osric caught her wrist.
"No."
"He is worse."
"Steam."
"He already had steam."
"Then fresh steam."
She looked past him to Torren.
Torren did not answer.
Osric noticed. "Do not look at him. I am telling you."
The woman lowered her eyes. "Fresh steam."
"And no drink until he can swallow without coughing."
"Yes."
Osric let go of her wrist and measured it himself, slowly enough for the others to see. Torren watched from a few steps away.
By morning, Osric no longer looked at him before touching the measure.
That was when Torren knew he could leave.
...
Cael and Maron came to the great root after sunrise.
They had both been awake most of the night, but neither looked ready to fall over. Cael had sent Mist runners to watch the outer paths and keep anyone returning from the raid separated until checked. Maron had cleared two more root shelters and moved the worst breathing closer to the steam station. They spoke in short pieces, already knowing each other's meaning.
"Outer men stay by the mist stones," Cael said.
"Watched or clean?" Maron asked.
"Watched first."
"Wounded?"
"Nara sees them."
"Coughing?"
"Osric first."
Maron nodded. "Good."
Torren sat with his back against a root, too tired to stand unless required. "You have it."
Cael looked at him. "Do we?"
"Enough to continue."
Maron glanced toward Osric, who was correcting the steam cloth at the lower station. "He has the measure."
"Nara has wounds," Torren said. "You have the paths. Maron has the shelters. Maera has everyone afraid to be stupid."
Cael's mouth twitched. "That part is true."
Maron looked toward the old woman's chair. "Mother says you should go before the valley starts thinking you belong here."
Torren turned his head. "She said that?"
Maera answered from behind them. "No. I said it better."
Torren closed his eyes for a second. "Of course."
She was carried closer and set down near the root. Osric was not with her this time. He was busy. That, too, mattered.
Maera turned her blind face toward Torren. "You told no one else?"
"No."
"Good. Keep being clever by accident."
Cael looked between them. "Told no one what?"
"Nothing useful to you," Maera said.
Cael looked unconvinced.
Maron said, "If Mother says it is not useful, it usually means it is dangerous."
"Usually," Maera said.
Torren stood, slowly. His legs felt weak, and he hated that everyone could see it.
"I should go back," he said.
"To your own?" Maron asked.
"Yes."
Cael nodded. "You have been away long."
Too long. Hokor. Harrag. The Painted Dogs. The first cough fires. Pyk. Nella. The Tree Speaker. Torren did not know what he would find when he returned, and the not knowing had begun to sit heavier than any prophecy.
Maron handed him a small token: a piece of pale root carved flat, tied with grey cord and one red leaf pressed beneath the binding.
"This gets you through our outer paths," Maron said.
Cael added, "Once."
Torren took it. "Only once?"
Cael shrugged. "Come back alive and we can argue about twice."
That was fair.
Maera held out one hand. Torren stepped closer and let her find his wrist. Her fingers were thin and cold.
"Go home, pale boy," she said.
"You called me here."
"And now I am done with you."
"That easy?"
"No. Leave anyway."
Torren looked at her for a moment. "Will you tell them?"
"Your dream?"
He did not answer.
"No," she said. "Not unless silence becomes worse."
"That is not comforting."
"It was not meant to be."
He nodded. That was probably the best he would get.
Maera's grip tightened once. "Do the work in front of you."
"I heard you the first time."
"You are young. You need things twice."
Then she let go.
...
Osric came before Torren left the inner roots.
He had sap-water stains on his fingers and a tired look in his eyes.
"Cregan breathes easier," Osric said.
"And the wound?"
"Nara says it is ugly."
"She said that?"
"She used worse words."
"Then she is probably right."
Osric held out the bone measure Torren had been using since the Painted Dog camp. "You forgot this."
Torren looked at it. For a moment, he almost told Osric to keep it. Then he thought better of it. Every clan had made its own measure now, or would. This one had begun with him. He still needed it.
He took it. "Thank you."
Osric nodded. "If men shout, I can still measure."
"I saw."
"Good."
That was all. It was enough.
Cael sent two Mist runners to guide Torren back to the first mist stone. Not farther. Everyone had limits. That seemed to be the rule of the mountains.
As Torren followed them into the thinning fog, he looked back once.
The great weirwood stood behind the shelters, larger than anything else in the valley. Mother Maera was only a small bundled shape beneath it. Osric had already turned back toward the steam station. Cael and Maron were speaking with Nara near the lower path. The valley had not been saved. It had been given work it could keep doing.
For now, that had to be enough.
Torren turned south.
He carried more tokens than he wanted, less certainty than he needed, and a dream he had been told to keep quiet. Ahead lay Red Smith stone, Milk Snake road, Howler dens, Moon Brother fires, and finally, if the mountain allowed it, home.