The will was there to argue with Dakota. Strength, however, was not.

I laid where I was, head turning only to watch the woman use her spear to try and knock my shirt off a lower branch. Failing that, she leaned her weapon against the trunk and hefted herself into the tree. The bloody tunic drifted down a few minutes later. The woman stood balanced on one branch, her arm braced against the main trunk. She stood there a long time, at least I thought so. Then, very slowly, she began to stretch for other scrapped garments, pulling them from snarled branches and gathering them into her arms one by one. Snarled rips and the occasional curse whenever she lost balance settled into a sort of peace for me as I rolled onto my stomach. The ground, bits of frozen grass and dirt, stuck against my skin. It crackled and flaked off my skin and stayed embedded in the deepest scores. Even worse, glacial breakage from inside my shoulder felt like I'd just torn deep muscle.

My skin flinched and twitched of its own accord, narrowing pockets of flared pain that disappeared like sunstreaks into overall hellish agony. I felt like my spine was ripping open all over again, but more slowly, and much less clean. Dakota assured me I wasn't. Without even looking at my back. While I was saying I could most distinctly feel heat running over my skin again, heat that quickly slowed and cooled and thicken an awful lot like blood.

I thought I should be thankful that we were in some sense nearly indestructible in the Mid. But then a dress flomphed to the dust. Tiny flashes of memory pulled at my seams, memories I didn't want to acknowledge, memories I wished I could've died before experiencing.  I thought about what Akta had done to me, and, clenching frost-tainted fingertips, what perhaps he had released from me.

And what had he done to Chiro? I knew what I'd seen, but ...

Thoughts came quick and lucid. It was a struggle to stay conscious, it was a fight to reflect back on what had happened when it was still happening all across my body. My focus bounced from hours past to present and eventually settled in sleep.

*

When my eyes next opened the heat of the day had dissipated; not that I could feel the temperature shift. The only difference in position was how I'd twisted around in sleeping, but I'd still been abandoned in a glittering wide radiance. 

Starlight filled the carvings on the remaining stumps of Akta's cursed grounds. A few had been uprooted and destroyed by the withered vines. Thin clouds blotted the inky sky, shadowing it a dozen shades of tipped purples and teals. Gowns of varied shapes, sizes, and states of decay flapped ill on the night wind's sick breath. Dakota had managed to get most down into a dirty mass at the tree's base, while some bits, either too frayed, far, or high, ghosted on above. After a day of baking, the air had taken on a dried, corrosive scent, an odor that, as the wind hissed ash down the surrounding slopes, made my stomach churn. I shot upright to vomit, and in doing so startled my companion.

Shail leaped to his paws with a warning snarl, ears pinned against his plated hide. The cat was a pale shadow in the light. His clubbed tail squelched against Akta's corpse. I grimaced, felt extra stars twinkle in my veins, and tried to locate Dakota with minimal movement. Everything was stiff; everything was most certainly not healed. Healing, yes, I didn't feel tremendously torn, but one delicate touch to my spine confirmed the nasty truth that I had a long way yet before I was feeling, and thinking, like myself.

But I could stand, I decided. I'd managed to stumble around earlier; I could do it now. "Dakota?" I called, wiping my mouth as I took a knee, then another, and finally pushed off the frosted earth. Even my pants struggled to get going. They weren't, it seemed, 100% frost proof. Might be a big problem going forward, if my clothes started getting to the point where they were frozen solid. A little stiffness was alright, but...

"Hey," came a throaty, feminine voice from my right. Dakota clutched a horribly stained gown around her shoulders. Goosebumps dotted her arms and legs.

I hobbled out of my miniature tundra. "Hey."

"How you feeling?" Her eyes lingered on my hands, hands that I was currently using to prod a blade of intact weed. The plant stiffened, wilted. Its remnants crunched beneath my boot as I straightened.

"Like we need to get moving," I croaked, clearing my throat. Any vocalization more intense than a grunt hurt. Hell, every time I took a breath it felt as though all my nerves were squeezing together. I glanced longingly at Shail. My body needed rest. If I could just crawl up on his back and keep healing, we'd be looking decent come sunrise. I balled my hands into a pair of fists, made for my tunic and tried to locate the leather that went over my chest.  Everything beneath my skin was burning in a volcano, but at least I couldn't feel the cold.

"How far back are we?" I managed, trying to steer my focus off my body and onto anything else. Dakota, careful not to touch me for any length of time, helped me finagle my shirt back on and the leather laced.

She blew on her fingertips afterward, blue eyes fixed on mine. "Really gotta turn this King Midas shit off," she said with a strained laugh.

"So you don't know?"

She shrugged. "Your Prince gave me a lift. We can follow the trampled trail back to the others, but I don't know how long it'll take. Seemed long going with him, let alone on these babies." She kicked out her foot.

"Speaking of..." Chiro wasn't where I'd last seen him, wasn't anywhere in the gloom, not near Akta's body, nor Shail, nor the tree. A good sign, maybe. I allowed myself a moment of hope, and then Dakota was speaking.

"He was alive, last I saw him." She carried on at the hoarse questions fired at her. What did she mean, last she saw him? Where the hell was he now? How was he? Why didn't she help him? The wind blew past, pulling in the sharp scent of rot. The woman shivered as she tried to bundle herself up more securely. "Crawled away like a wild animal to die alone in the brush I guess. I dunno."

"And you just let him go?"

She flexed a slimly defined bicep. "You think these arms have any say in the matter? Besides," she continued in a soft tone. "He's not my concern. One good deed doesn't erase whatever else he's done in his life."

Dakota, after some hesitation, pointed me off in the direction she'd seen him go. Before I left to search for him, I caught my breath, danced away from Shail before the cat could touch me, and found myself on the far side of Akta's antlers. On impulse my fingers wrapped around cooled tines. I pushed idly at some of the trinkets and finally ripped a small one from his antler, a little beaded feather, and shoved it into my pocket.

Good riddance, I thought, looking down at the priest's twisted, pale face, even now expecting those life eyes to flash open. I stepped over tangled hooves and headed into the night. In the mean time, Dakota curled up with Shail in the pile of dresses. Stepping beyond the ring of stumpsI tried not to think about how that must feel, wrapping yourself in a dead woman's clothes.

"Chiro?" I called softly after walking on several meters. Listened, called again. Took another few steps and tried again, and then a third time. I didn't see him until I'd nearly fallen across his feet. He didn't make a sound, not a single sound, until that moment. He sat with his back pushed up against a small boulder, surrounded by lanky weeds and five-foot tall saplings. The man was naked, as to be expected when you were previously a massive sabercat. And there was a lot of blood down his chest. More than I felt comfortable with, especially when I realized that the smooth skin of his chest was pocked with shadowed gashes and cuts.

"What're you still doing here?" he snapped.

I gripped the nearest sapling in one hand. Hoary magic rushed across the bough. A second later I released it before the entire plant died. The branch swung and crinkled, shedding dead needles. "And that's not including what's going on underneath the surface," I added, careful not to touch him as my legs willingly folded and I dropped down beside him. "I don't suppose there's an off switch you could tell me about?"

His attention ambled between my clasped hands to the tree and then a point far in the distance. It was too dark, and his ashen expression too grimly serious, to read into his thoughts on the matter. The Prince simply rolled his head back and sighed.

"So no switch then, huh?" I asked, biting my lip. Chiro kept trying to breathe deep from the sound of it, but there was a hitch accompanying every other breath, a tiny flash of pain that betrayed his stoic countenance. I frowned. "Are you dying?"

He shifted slightly, but didn't look any more comfortable as he held his gaze anywhere but on me. "Apparently not soon enough."

"It's a fair question."

"I'm not in the mood for your nonsense, Tay."

I plucked a blade of grass and turned it over thoughtfully. "It's just, if you are then I feel like there are things I should say."

He lifted his hand off his abdomen. Raw crimson painted his fingers, oozed from a deep, narrow puncture. The wound was fresh, deceptively silky on the blood-slicked surface, and it looked...looked about as terrible as a wound should look only a few hours old. Instinctively, stupidly, I reached out to touch his quivering stomach.

"Fucking priests," he hissed, knocking my wrist away. "Fucking Witch."

"You're not healing," I said, biting back the questions.

He responded much more amiably this time. "Hexed," he grunted, looking away.

"You need help."

"You need to leave." From the look on his face and an honest assessment of the situation, it was clear we didn't have all night to bicker.

"Fine," I said, staggering up onto my feet in a flash. My back constricted in a painful surge. I huffed and puffed a few moments, leaning against the boulder myself. When I'd recovered enough, I reached around my waist for the knife and crouched beside him. This time it was his turn to ask the questions as I pressed the chilled steel against his chest. "This right here is the spot you pushed your sword through me," I told him in the quiet. 

"Yes," he conceded in a husky sigh. Grey eyes fixed on mine, clear and focused. I thought, and I wasn't sure why his particular look struck me in such a way, I thought almost for just a second that he wanted to kiss me.

The blade pushed harder against his skin. His eyes never left mine. The dead wind blew between us, and then I dropped the knife to the ground and turned on my heel.

"Welcome to the bridal party," I said, taking just one more look at the man where he sat slouched. "All we've got are dresses, I'm afraid." 

Dakota helped patch Chiro's wounds the best she could, and then, because I was not taking no for an answer and he'd lost too much blood to do anything more than grit his teeth and growl at us, we loaded him carefully onto Shail. The ice that touched my fingers finally ebbed in the morning light. I was too frightened of it lasting this long again to try summoning at will. It was another day and a half before we rounded up the others, got Chiro back into some proper clothes, and returned to the serpentine ruins of the fallen Lord Yerik. The demon took back his horse at that point, and though he was in some serious pain, preferred to lick his wounds without any one else going near him. We managed to limp out across that final dusty stretch without a fight, walking in the tracks of other unfortunate souls.

And then, as our weary frames crossed into the shadow of the palace the sky seemed to split apart to the sound of a bellowing hunting horn. Dakota, and several of the other women, flinched. Dot cried out. Val and I had to drag her forward. Her bare feet scrambled and pushed against us, but the only way out alive was forward through the imposing gates.

On the other side, I leaned against Shail, panting. The crag cat bumped his head against mine and as he did, the weight of what we'd done fell over my shoulders.

The Hunt as we knew it had drawn to a close.

I remember what happened then and forgot a good more of it. I remember the relief crossing under that stone arch, lifting Akta's jewelry into the air and shaking it at the rotund frame of the Walrus. I remembered seeing stunned looks as our ragtag group hobbled and clattered and chattered through the great hall, a hall many of the girls had never seen before. The girls kept talking to me, asking would happen next. I didn't know. The Walrus interceded then. We were to be given food, water, real clothes, a chance to bath and relax. And then he'd pulled me and Chiro aside to ask the big question: who belonged to who?

The Prince looked at me and shrugged.

The horn sounded through my reply. Heads turned. The gates groaned. Several minutes later in strode a tall, dark-skinned man with a grin wider than my own. He yanked eight crying women behind him. Before I could so much as blink Chiro grabbed me by the elbow and tugged my ear close. "You can't help them," he said. "You aren't meant to save everyone."

With Dakota's assistance I wrenched myself free and headed around the far side of the table. I'd taken about ten paces forward, thinking I would smile, congratulate Lord Whomever, then stab him in the neck, when a young boy stepped in front of me. I hit the breaks so hard I banged against a chair.

"What?" I snapped, looking down at the poor kid, some wide-eyed little imp that looked too wholesome to grow into a monster like the one who, now alerted to my actions, sneered back at me.

"You're to come with me, Lady Wilson. You're due an audience with the King."

I glanced back. "What about—"

A giant, sweaty palm clamped down on my shoulder. "Won 'em fair you did, lass," said the Walrus, pushing me after the child. "I'll see to it myself they're put up somewhere nice until the ceremony's made things official."

"Ceremony?"

"You've caught your brides, but you haven't married 'em yet, have ya now?"