Aysel woke as slowly as ice melting in the spring, trickle by trickle. She noticed the steady up-and-down rhythm of movement first, and took a few hazy moments to ponder how it felt. Down and forward, up and back, like a boat rocking on a fast-moving river. It was cold like a river, too, especially around her mouth. The air she breathed in chilled her lungs. She closed her mouth and took a breath from her nose, but it seemed to be covered by something. She moved her face against it; it was a soft cloth smelling of smoke, sweat, and old blood.

She opened her eyes, but they too were covered by the cloth. She moved her hand to try to push it aside, but her hand refused to move. She tested the other one, but it was trapped too, and her legs as well. Sleep began to fall away from her as fear and claustrophobia set in. She had been bound too many times in the past few days to do anything but let panic wash through her, thinking that Enrick had decided to tie her up instead of kill her, thinking that she had died and this was the punishment the Ancient Ones had chosen--

"Aysel?"

She stopped struggling at the sound of Dunyasha's voice. She had saved her, hadn't she? Or had it just been another trick?

"Aysel, are you awake?"

The world tipped around her, then exploded into light as the cloth was pulled away from her face. Staring down at her was Dunyasha, looking more haggard than Aysel had ever seen. Her dark mane of hair straggled around her face, which was streaked with the crumbling trail of dried blood, but her eyes, though they were ringed with grayish dark circles, practically glowed at the sight of Aysel's face.

"You're awake!" she shouted, and tackled Aysel in a hug. Aysel gasped as Dunyasha pulled her from the ground and clutched her tight. She was making a strange gasping noise in Aysel's ear, and when she pulled away, Aysel could see her face was wet with tears.

"Aysel, you're awake!" she said again, half laughing and half sobbing the words. "Oh my stars, I was so worried you wouldn't wake up. I was so worried you wouldn't wake up." And she wrapped her arms around her again, shaking with emotion.

"Could you..." Aysel's voice sounded as though she was speaking through a throatful of rocks.

Dunyasha lifted her head from Aysel's shoulder and immediately said, "Anything."

"Could you let go?"

"Oh. Of course. I'm sorry." She pulled back. "Here." Without needing to be asked, her hands were busy unwrapping the furs and red crimson cloak she had wrapped around Aysel. "I'm sorry for making it so tight," she said as she finally freed Aysel's arms. "I was worried you'd freeze to death. Oh, stars," she said with a laugh. "You're not dead!"

"Enrick tried to kill me," she said. The words tasted false in her mouth. She pulled herself up so she was sitting and pulled the wrappings around her shoulders. "He tried to kill me."

Dunyasha's smile fell. "I know."

And at her words, she crumbled. Her shoulders slumped forward as if she was caving in on herself-- that's what it felt like, as if someone had scooped out her insides and replaced them with darkness. Darkness like the cave where someone she thought had been her friend had held her down and tried to end her.

But he hadn't. She hesitated before she said, "You rescued me."

"I did."

"So what you said back in the main cave, about siding with your uncle and killing my people..."

"A lie," Dunyasha said. "I knew Uncle wouldn't trust me fully, but I thought that if I could get him off his guard even a bit I'd have a chance to destroy his supply of powders. But then one of the guards said something about if Enrick was strong enough to do it, and I started to worry about you. I went to find you, fought off the people Uncle had sent with me, and got to you just in time." A smile broke over her face again. "I was so frightened you wouldn't wake, but you did and--" she started forward, then stopped. "Do you want to be hugged right now? I know you've just gone through a lot so I wanted to ask before I--"

Aysel stopped her by throwing herself into her arms. She buried her hand in her soft hair and her face on her shoulder and held her tight, as if she were the only thing in in the world. After a moment of surprise, Dunyasha wrapped her arms around Aysel's waist, pulling her closer.

"I'm so sorry, Aysel."

"I feel like such a fool," Aysel said into her shoulder. "I'm just a gullible fool. I trusted him."

"So did I," Dunyasha said, bending her head down so her cheek pressed against Aysel's. "And I feel terrible for not seeing it sooner, for letting him take you. But right now..." She felt Dunyasha smile against her. "I'm just happy you're awake. You're really awake," she whispered, and it wasn't until Aysel felt water down her own skin did she realize Dunyasha was crying again.

She pulled back and wiped a tear away with her thumb. "Don't cry," she whispered. "You're the one who comforts me, remember?"

Dunyasha laughed and leaned into Aysel's hand, letting it cradle her cheek. "I'm just so relieved you're okay," she said, her lips tickling Aysel's palm with every word. "You were asleep for two days."

"Two days?" Aysel jerked back as her head spun.

"Yes. You must have had just about as much of that stuff as your body could handle."

Mind still reeling, Aysel looked around. The moonlit forest seemed almost familiar. "Where are we?" she asked.

"I think we're by your village," Dunyasha said. "I remembered the map we drew. You pointed to where you live, so I'm taking you there. We need to warn them about what Uncle and Enrick are planning."

"And save my brother," Aysel said.

Dunyasha's eyebrows raised in confusion. "Your brother?"

"That's right, you never knew about the deal..." she hastily explained her broken agreement with Enrick. "Which I now realize he never planned on keeping, even after I found him out," she said darky. "But you'll help him, won't you?"

Dunyasha fixed her eyes on the snow. "Aysel." Her voice was more quiet than the light wind blowing through the leafless trees.

Aysel knew in her heart what she was going to say, but she pushed it down, clinging onto hope for a moment longer. "You'll fix them all," she said. Her voice was shaking, so she said louder, "And they'll be fine."

"Aysel," she said again. "I don't know..."

"Elkin is going to be fine," she said, forcing the words out as if saying them would make them true. "They'll all wake up. Because you know how to fix them."

"Aysel, I can't."

"You can. They'll all wake up. They'll all be fine."

"I don't know how. I don't think Enrick knew how, either. I think that was a lie too."

She shook her head. "No."

"Yes. Aysel, I'm sorry--"

"No!" she screamed. "No! No..." a sob built in her throat. "Don't tell me that you can't save him!" she shrieked. "You need to save him!"

"Aysel, I don't know if anyone can save him."

She balled her fists so tightly that her nails broke through the woolen fabric of her gloves and dug into her skin. "No. You have to save him, because otherwise, this would have been for nothing."

"Not for nothing," Dunyasha said quickly. "No. We can save a lot of people, Aysel. We can warn them--"

"But what about my brother?" Aysel screamed. "What about him?"

"I--"

She didn't let her finish. "What about those Letters who had killed themselves once they got captured by Enrick's father? What about the woman I killed to save him? What about the People and the Letters who are going to die when we tell them what's about to happen?" she asked. A great fear gripped her. "If we tell Letters what Enrick and his father are planning to do, they'll kill them," she whispered. "And they won't stop when they're dead. They'll just keep on killing all People because they'll be even more afraid."

Dunyasha's face was grim. "I think we can stop them."

"And if we can't? They'll kill you," Aysel said, her voice trembling like a branch in the wind.

"They won't!" Dunyasha protested. "And you're the reason why."

"I can't protect you," Aysel said sorrowfully.

"Aysel, you don't need to," Dunyasha whispered gently. "Did you know, you're the most remarkable person I've ever met?"

Aysel scoffed. "This isn't the time, Dunyasha."

"Just listen to me." Dunyasha took her hand. "Before you, I had tried talking to Letters many times. I sent out ambassador parties when I was the leader of my village, just to try to talk. But no one listened until you. They were too afraid and too angry to listen."

"But I was afraid and angry at first, too," Aysel confessed. "I wanted to kill you. I thought you were an animal."

"Yes, you did. But you changed your mind. And that is why you are remarkable," she said simply. "They'll listen to you."

"Why would they?"

"Because people trust you," she said. A small smile flickered to her lips. "You're just too bad at lying for people to do anything but trust you."

Aysel didn't smile. "People are still going to die."

Dunyasha bowed her head. "They will. But we can make sure that its as few people as possible."

She swallowed. "Elkin is going to die."

"Don't say that yet," Dunyasha said. "Maybe we can do something. We can at least try."

Aysel bit her lips and nodded. "I'll show you the rest of the way. We're very close now."

"Good. I ran through the night to get here."

"You must be half dead."

"Feels like it. Though I did stop for a little snack. Do you like your new cloak?"

Aysel tugged the fur closer around her, and noticed it was made of a scraped tree elg hide. It wasn't very soft, but it did a good job of keeping the cold off her. "You remembered," she said.

"I promised to catch an elg and make you a new coat, and I don't forget my promises," she said solemnly. Aysel's mind flashed to Enrick, how he looked in the winter sunlight as he promised never to lie to her. Her heart broke a little bit more.

Dunyasha continued. "There's what's left of the creature in the pockets, cooked up for you. Now climb on. I have a little farther yet to run."

And run they did, through the river valley that Aysel called her home. The closer they got, the more and more familiar the woods became, even hidden under their blanket of snow. Here was where she had set her first binding circle. The snow-buried stream was where she had fallen in as a child and nearly gotten swept away by the surprisingly strong current. That flat rock, blanketed in white, was where Elkin had demonstrated how to skin a rabbit after she had gotten frightened.

Elkin. His name pounded in her heart with every beat of Dunyasha's bare feet upon the ground. Elkin. She would see him again. She had returned, like she promised she would, but without a cure. Would he look different? Oh, Ancient Ones, would he look worse? Or would he be wrapped in white, waiting on a pile of dried branches, people murmuring prayers to gods who didn't seem to listen?

Aysel shook the thought out of her head and the tears out of her eyes. She would see her brother soon, one way or another.

Dunyasha saw the lights of her village with her sharp eyes long before Aysel did, but she could tell from the pattern of the trees and the curve of the land under the snow that she was home. As they drew closer, she realized that it was familiar in more ways than one. It held the same hushed, snow-bound as that night she had run off into the darkness with a bag full of skins and a heart full of fear for her brother.

With this though in her mind, Aysel bid Dunyasha to stop and dismounted. The snow came up to her knees when she hopped off.

Dunyasha stood upright again. "You want to walk back home yourself?" she asked, a soft smile on her lips.

"It's not that. I want to walk back home alone." She pointed past the archway hung with the old bell, past the houses with the smoldering remains of fires flickering in their hearths. In the middle of the village was a bare wooden arch. "That used to be hung with People's skins," she said. "I don't want yours on there." She took a deep breath. "Perhaps you should go."

"No," she said. "I'm staying with you."

"It's dangerous. If we get caught--"

"I know. But if we want them to change their minds, I have to talk to them. Before that, though, let me see what I can do to help your brother."

Aysel bit her lip and looked away. "Even if... even if you can't..."

Dunyasha stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her in a tight embrace. Aysel hugged back, pressing into her chest as if she could draw strength from the steady beat of Dunyasha's heart. "What if he's already dead, Dunyasha?" Aysel whispered into her. "What if I'm too late?"

"Then I'll be by your side." She ran a hand through Aysel's shorn hair, stroking her reddish curls, before gently kissing the top of her head. "No matter what, I'll be with you," she murmured into her hair.

She pulled away, sniffing, and roughly wiped her tears away. "It'll do no good for Elkin to see me like this," she said with a wavering smile. "He always hated for his little sister cry."

"Then don't cry," she said, and took Aysel's hand. "Come on. You lead the way."

And so Aysel stomped a path through the thick snow for she and Dunyasha to follow and they walked inside the circular ring of houses that made up the tiny village, but it wasn't until she was standing at her door that Aysel realized she was home. Her door looked the same as it always did, weathered wood worn smooth by cycles of winter wind, but what was behind it had the possibility of destroying any sense of home for her. If Elkin wasn't there, it couldn't be her home. It couldn't be.

Dunyasha pressed her fingers tighter around Aysel's hand. Aysel clutched her hand back, blew out a breath, and opened the door.

It was dark inside, and that was to be expected; the moon was setting behind the trees. Her father's altar candle was the only light, and it wavered as the cold wind from outside blew in. Aysel shut the door behind her and Dunyasha, and once she did, she noticed that her house still smelled of blood, so thick and heavy it caught in her nose and turned her stomach. But she was happy. If there was fresh blood here, it meant her parents were still trying to save their son. It meant Elkin was still alive.

Wordlessly, she walked to the family altar and picked up the candle, saying a prayer to the Ancient Ones as she did. She held it up to illuminate the room-- and gasped.

No wonder their cabin stank of blood; it was drenched in it. It ran off the altar in black, congealed gobs and had been left to drip on the floor, staining it like dye. It was spilled across the wood, smeared by footprints and dotted by drips and dried pools. Aysel looked at the flood in horror. How much blood had her parents spilled?

Heart in her throat, she tiptoed to their bedside. Instead of being neatly nestled under the covers like rabbits in their burrows, her parents were sprawled across the covers, faces exhausted, day clothes still on. Both had purple circles beneath their eyes, dark as a bruise. Their long sleeves covered their arms, and for that, she was thankful. While she was comfortable with using the blade on herself, seeing her parents do it always made her a bit sick. She was glad she didn't have to look at what she was sure would be line after line of cuts made in an attempt to save her brother.

Elkin. She turned, and let the light from the candle in her trembling hand illuminate his face. Aysel almost dropped it. He looked worse, much worse. The hollows in his cheeks had deepened since the last time she had seen him, as if there was nothingness beneath the skin. His eyes had sunken too, and the skin around them was so fragile that Aysel could see the fine, feathery veins. His dark skin retained none of its warm glow, instead it was gray, like the inside of a dead tree. But he wasn't dead. No, he wasn't dead, because his chest still slowly rose and fell beneath the blankets their mother had so lovingly wrapped him in.

And if he wasn't dead, there was still a chance.

Aysel set the candle on the table and turned to Dunyasha, who stood solemnly by her side, hands together. Her eyes asked the question for her.

Dunyasha bit her wide lips together. "I've never seen this before," she confessed. "And I'm not a healer like Enrick is. But maybe there's something I can do."

Aysel swallowed, then nodded. "Thank you."

"Aysel, don't thank me yet," she said sorrowfully.

"Thank you," she repeated. "For trying. That's all I could ask of you."

"Aysel?" asked a voice she hadn't heard in days. She turned. It was her father, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and blinking in the dim light of the candle. Soundlessly, he put his hand on her mother's arm.

Beside him, her mother stirred and sat up in bed. Her eyes went wide as soon as they were opened. "Aysel," she whispered.

Aysel felt a smile spreading over her face for what felt the first time in ages. It was so good to see their faces again, even if they were haggard with exhaustion and colored with confusion. Something between a laugh and a sob bubbled out from between her lips. "I'm back," she said. "I'm sorry for leaving."

Her mother rose from the bed, eyes still wide and fixed on her daughter's face. Aysel opened her arms and her mother came rushing forward, grabbing her tight. Aysel leaned into her, fresh tears beginning to flow.

But instead of hugging her back, her mother pulled her off her feet. She tossed her roughly back on the bed and spread her arms wide in front of her like a shield. "Behind me!" Her father caught her and wrapped his arms around her.

"Mother, father, what--"

And then Aysel saw that her parents' eyes were not on her, but on Dunyasha, who stood poised over her dying brother's bedside like a monster out of an ancient tale. It was in a terrible voice that her mother screamed, "Get away from my children!"

And she brought her blade whirling down.