YAN

  IT SEEMED TO BE an unending cycle. They walked. They rode on stolen horses. They walked again. Time blurred. Days folding into each other, then weeks. The sun rose and fell with mechanical cruelty. The moon was always watching.

  Yanick’s hand wasn’t healing. A dull throb that never quite faded. Like the bones themselves wanted to remember the breaking and resisted mending.

  Nemeth turned out to be tireless. Quiet when he needed to be. Loud when it served him. And careful. Always careful.

  He led them west at first, away from the wall, through bogs and tangled woods, through abandoned villages and one or two not-so-abandoned, where dogs barked and old women spat into the dirt.

  Then, once they’d doubled back south, once it felt like they’d been walking in circles around a ghost, they found the horses.

  Big, sullen animals meant for hauling carts and dragging plows, not for speed or grace. But Nemeth stole them anyway. No hesitation. He slit a throat with one hand and calmed the others with a whisper.

  They rode, awkward and lopsided. The beasts complained under their weight and pace, but they carried them far enough. Close enough.

  Now, from the hills, the next fortress along the Wall was visible. A black stone beast crouched against the sky. Smoke rose from its belly.

  Yanick pulled his coat tighter. His hand throbbed again.

  “We need new horses,” Nemeth said, and these were the only words he spoke that day.

  They waited until nightfall.

  The full moon loomed high above them, a pale coin pressed into the velvet of the sky. It laughed. Mocked the way Yanick shifted restlessly against a rock, trying to find a position that didn’t make his arm scream.

  It reeked now. A sour stench that crawled into his nose and settled there. He didn’t need a new horse. He needed hot water and lye soap. Clean bandages. A real healer. But most of all, he needed that godsdamned gauntlet cleaned. Properly. It clung to his wrist like guilt, leather straps soaked through, metal joints sticky. Every time he moved, it whispered pain. A reminder. A weight.

  Nemeth jabbed him in the ribs. Sharp enough to sting.

  “Up,” he said, already turning.

  Yanick groaned but followed, scrambling up the rocks with his good hand and teeth clenched. At the top, Nemeth crouched low and pointed down the slope.

  A patrol. Two riders. Two horses. Lantern light bobbing between them like a star on a leash.

  The moon caught Nemeth’s face, etched it in silver and shadow. Cold eyes. Grim mouth.

  “You ready?” he asked. “Do you know what to do?”

  Yanick nodded. He didn’t need the reminder. Run fast. Drop. Play dead. They did that before.

  He ran. Stones slipped beneath his boots, the cold night air burning in his throat. Down the slope, around the bend in the road where the trees leaned close.

  He threw himself to the ground. Didn’t need to fake the pain. His arm was a furnace wrapped in barbed wire. He curled around it and let the bile rise.

  The world spun in silence. Somewhere behind, hoofbeats grew louder.

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  “Who’s there?” one of the riders called out. A voice wary, tight.

  Yanick didn’t lift his head.

  “Help…” he moaned. His voice cracked, raw and honest. There was no need for performance. The agony was real. The cold had nested in his bones, and his arm pulsed like it held its own furious heart.

  The riders approached, slow and cautious, the way men do when they smell a trap but don’t have the choice to turn away.

  One dismounted. The other held back, reins tight, eyes scanning the rocks surrounding the road.

  The man on foot looked barely older than Yanick. A thin, patchy beard clung to his chin beneath a scarf he now pulled down. His brow furrowed as he knelt, as if he too couldn’t believe this was real.

  Where is he? Yanick thought.

  Nemeth hasn’t showed up. But there was no time. It had to happen now.

  Yanick reached up with his good arm, gripped the young man by the patchy beard and pulled. Wrapped the steel gauntlet around his neck and squeezed, despite the pain.

  The boy tried to fight back, gasped for air. Yanick tried not to let go. Pain cascaded from his wrist through the elbow up to the shoulder, but he held. He held. Moon laughed at those efforts.

  Finally, the boy’s body bucked once, then slumped. Eyes wide, mouth slack.

  The second rider shouted, yanked the reins, kicked the horse into a gallop.

  Yanick rolled, gasping, cradling his useless arm.

  From between the rocks, Nemeth emerged—bent at the waist, dragging one leg like it no longer belonged to him. Dust clung to his face, and his breath wheezed through grit-stained teeth.

  “Stop him!” he barked, pointing a trembling hand at the rider galloping away. “Stop him or we’re dead!"

  And that something Yanick wanted to happen when Nemeth confronted him in his chamber, happens again. Now. Without asking. Like it has a mind of its own.

  Yanick surges upright like a spring released. His left hand shoots to his side.

  The knife. Not the one from before. A different blade, on a different night. But the same motion. Not his motion.

  It isn’t him. Not really. It is the other mind. The thing buried deeper than thought, deeper than blood.

  It guides the wrist, lines up the shot before his conscious self can catch up. The knife leaves his hand with a whisper and a promise.

  It sails through the air, gleaming once in the moonlight and lands precisely where it needs to. Buries itself between the fleeing rider’s shoulder blades.

  The Faithful gasps, folds forward, and slides off the horse like wet laundry. He hits the ground with a hollow thud.

  But the horse keeps running, startled but unsure, until the second horse begins to follow. Herd instinct. No orders.

  A whistle cuts the air. Shrill, commanding.

  Yanick blinks. His hand still at his lips, two fingers in his mouth. He didn’t know how to do that. Never had. But the other mind did.

  The horses freeze. One tosses its head, the other paws the ground. Then they turn. Slowly. Meekly. And they came back.

  Yanick chuckled, still panting, still unsure if he was inside his own body.

  He stepped forward, reached out, and patted the muzzle of the first horse.

  “Good girl,” he said, voice low, cracked with something that felt too much like awe.

  Behind him, Nemeth limped into the clearing, saying nothing at all. Yet his face asked a thousand questions.

  But the only one that made it into words was Yanick’s.

  “What happened to you?”

  Nemeth’s head dipped. His shadow flickered in the moonlight.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “Old age seems to be catching up with me. I fell.”

  “How bad are you hurt?”

  “I can ride,” he said. “But you’ll need to help me into the saddle.”

  So the young wolf helped the old one. And once Nemeth was upright again, the silence between them softened.

  They rode side by side, saying nothing more. The moon watched and laughed. Not laughed. Yanick realised it was smiling at him, not mocking.

  They didn’t stop until morning. When the mountains came into view. Tall, skeletal, blue as frostbite against the brightening sky.

  The horses slowed. The air thinned. And finally, the path gave out altogether, dissolving into rock and mist.

  “You’ll have to climb from here,” Nemeth said, swinging a leg down with effort.

  Yanick looked up. Jagged stone, fractured ledges, a path carved by goats and ghosts.

  “What about you?”

  Nemeth’s hand touched the mountainside, steadying himself.

  “I don’t think I can,” he admitted. “Not with my leg. But I’ll follow.”

  Yanick frowned.

  “But how will I know where I’m supposed to go?”

  “When you reach the top… you’ll see. You’ll know.”

  Yanick said nothing more. Just turned toward the rocks and began to climb.

  The stone was cold beneath his fingers, slick with dew. His boots scraped for purchase. The wind whistled in his ears like whispers from forgotten gods. His hand screamed with pain and disgust from the smell.

  Fingers worked, but they trembled. Slipped. Ached.

  Twice, he almost lost his grip. Thighs burning. Chest heaving.

  Still, he climbed.

  Halfway up, he looked down.

  Nemeth was following. Far below, small as a beetle. His progress slow, but steady.

  Two cripples in the mountains.

  Yanick turned back to the climb. Reached. Pulled. Reached. Again and again.

  He wished the other mind would show up. Took the reins. He didn’t feel any pain then. But the other mind slept, waiting for a more appropriate moment.

  Sun hung high when Yanick crested the final ledge.

  His eyes widened. Breath caught in his throat.

  Just like Nemeth said. He saw it and he knew.