Poe kept his eyes on the ground ahead, trusting his own reading of it. Fog pressed low over the path, clinging to the scrub and the bent grasses at the cliff’s edge until the world shrank to a few paces of wet stone and blurred outlines. Moisture beaded on his lashes. It gathered on the loose hair at his temples, cold enough to sting where it pooled.

  The tether around his legs dragged with every step. This time it had been Harka tying it, and he’d done it cleanly. There were no lazy knots. It was a Warden’s work, even when the Warden’s hands still looked young. Poe could admire it if admiration did not feel like hunger. He measured the knot anyway, stored it in his mind the way he stored everything that might save him later. Harka kept a hand on the line, never yanking nor offering slack.

  Behind him, Mallow’s heavy boots scraped the stone. He walked like he expected the ground to betray him and planned to survive it through spite.

  Tanel followed more softly, robes brushing against bracken, trying to hide his discomfort, but the small amount of Veinwright sense Poe had made it clear to him that Tanel was not used to all this walking. He had one broken blister on his foot, at least – Poe could smell the blood. But he’d be able to smell Tanel’s blood anyway.

  The Veinwright craft in him ran thin. Diluted blood. He’d learned early what that meant. There was a lineage that rushed back through time to a people who lived on cliff faces like swallows. He had no feathers, but for a faint sheen on his chest, and these were so fine they might have been dense hair. It had come from a man that had arrived by ship and left the same way shortly after. The truth only emerged the day the Glinnel had arrived to test him for the skill. He wondered if her husband had forgiven her for the lie. But this was an idle curiosity. Mostly he couldn’t be bothered to care. They’d abandoned him; no use lingering on thoughts of them.

  He lifted his bound hands just enough to keep the rope from rubbing raw at the insides of his wrists. The skin there already burned. The bite of fiber had a way of getting into the mind. It reminded him of the ritualistic binding he’d been taught by the Brighthand – they made sacrifices on the road, sometimes, of goats and lambs, when a superstitious village had asked for additional protection from the Underserpent. The irony did not escape him now.

  Poe had walked this route before, years ago, under orders. The cliffs had not changed, nor the winds. Only the stakes had changed.

  He tasted iron in the back of his mouth as he tongued the wound he’d gained when Harka had clamped his hand over his mouth. Even now he could smell the faint scent of Harka’s skin under sweat and wool. Kelthi smelled different from humans. More earth, more salt, a bit like the sweetness of spring heather, the smell of warm fur. It stirred an old impulse in his blood that had never belonged to him alone. Veinwrights and Trackers talked about power as if it were hunger, but Poe suspected it began as protection, a craft bred for guarding the living and keeping the killing away. Then the guarding curdled. The same hand that barred the wolf learned to close around the throat of the lamb.

  They were coming to a river, and he began to hear it as they came down the hills. There was only one bridge for miles, and they’d have to walk a little south alongside the neck of the river to reach it. The water there was treacherous. It ran too fast even in summer. In late winter, it turned mean with icemelt.

  They reached a bend where the cliff face pinched the trail. The path widened again on the other side, as if the mountain had grown tired of trying to squeeze them off its shoulder. The fog thinned as they descended, breaking apart into ragged strands. The air carried more moving water now, with a mineral taste that clung to the back of his tongue. The breath of the river worked like a broom, sweeping the mist away before it could settle.

  Poe slowed his pace half a step. He didn’t want to arrive winded. The land opened into a long, shallow cut, a real road of packed earth studded with flat stones, wheel ruts pressed deep enough to catch meltwater, the edges reinforced with stacked rock where the slope threatened to crumble. Patrol road. Cart road. A vein of human work through what was once Kelthi country.

  Below, the river churned gray-green, froth gnawing at the rocks. The bridge across it was broad enough for two carts to pass if their drivers trusted each other, built for regular use. Heavy timber deck, thick planks scarred by wheels and hooves. Stone piers rose from the riverbed in blunt blocks, their faces slick with constant spray. Iron bands clasped the main beams at the joints with bolts hammered flat, the metal dulled by years of wet air.

  Poe stopped at the edge and ran his eyes over the span, taking inventory of where rot might hide under a seam, where a beam sagged a finger’s breadth, where deck boards flexed near the center line from the weight of loaded carts. Mallow came up behind him, eyes going to the river first. He measured danger faster than anyone else.

  Poe stepped onto the bridge when Harka indicated. The river below drove spray upward in pulses, and the air around the bridge stayed restless, gusts of damp wind rising off the water and sliding along the rails. The road continued on the far bank, rising through a stand of trees and bending out of sight. He knew what waited beyond the bend. He had counted that distance in his mind more than once.

  Harka walked close behind, Kelthi ears angled forward in that alert way their kind had when they listened past noise for meaning. Damp darkened the fur at the base of his ears and laid the finer hair flat along his jaw. His tail – lion-like, heavier than a human’s balance could easily manage – moved with small corrections as the bridge swayed, as if the muscles there made their own quiet decisions to keep him centered. Pearled scales showed at his throat where his collar sat, catching the wet light for an instant each time he turned his head.

  Poe didn’t let his gaze linger on Harka’s body. He didn’t have the luxury of attention that didn’t serve a purpose. Still, he registered the way Harka moved over uncertain surfaces, the way his hooves found purchase on slick wood without slipping, the way his weight distributed with an ease human bodies had to learn and still often failed to master. It gave Harka an advantage on a bridge like this, and Poe knew to respect any advantage that belonged to someone holding his tether.

  Halfway across, the air changed. The river’s breath rose hotter, more saturated with mineral tang. Poe took two more steps and felt the span’s movement shift under him, a vibration running along the planks and into his ankles. The vibration came from below, from the stone and dark water.

  The tether at his legs went taut as Harka checked his footing behind him. Poe didn’t turn. A groan rose from the bridge’s belly, wood complaining where it joined iron, and then the quake hit in full.

  The deck lurched upward under Poe’s left foot and dropped away under his right, the motion violent enough to throw his balance sideways. The rail shuddered. A bolt popped loose with a sound like metal snapping a tooth. Water surged up in a heaving swell, slamming into the nearest pier and rebounding in a spray that struck the bridge with cold force. Poe threw his weight forward, trying to reach the far bank before the span tore itself apart, and the plank beneath his heel split lengthwise, wood fibers ripping with a wet crack. His foot slid into the gap. The tether jerked around his legs as the bridge twisted, and the line yanked him back a fraction, stealing the momentum he needed.

  Behind him, someone shouted – Mallow’s voice, rough with command – and then the bridge answered with a deeper sound, a long tearing groan that ran along the beams like a seam opening.

  The deck dropped in the middle.

  Poe’s trapped foot wrenched free with a rip of leather and a flare of pain up his shin. He stumbled, hands bound, body pitching toward the rail. He slammed into it hard enough to bruise, and the rail gave beneath his weight, splitting where resin had worn away and the wood had taken too many seasons of wet. He grabbed at it with his bound hands, fingers catching on splintered grain, and then the section of rail tore loose and went over the side with him half on it, half off.

  The river rose to meet him.

  He twisted, catching the bridge’s edge with his forearm. Splinters bit into skin. His tether snapped tight around his legs and stopped him from dropping cleanly, the line stretching back toward Harka like the last thread of a net.

  Harka moved fast, faster than most humans could manage on a shaking surface. He dropped low, hooves skidding, then lunged toward the nearest stone pier as the deck sagged. His hands closed around an iron band set into the stone, and his body swung with the bridge’s twist. His tail lashed as he fought the pull of gravity, the muscles there doing the work of a counterweight.

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  For a breath it looked like he’d made it.

  Then the broken deck shifted again, a whole section tearing away and dragging the tether line with it. The rope that bound Poe’s legs snapped over the edge, and the sudden drag yanked at Harka’s arm, pulling it away from the pier. He lost a handhold, caught himself again, and then a slab of collapsing decking slammed down against the stone, trapping his lower legs between beam and pier with a brutal crunch of wood.

  Harka snarled with pain. His ears flattened. He bared his teeth and tried to wrench free, but the beam held him pinned, and the bridge continued to break around him in jerking segments.

  Poe’s body hung half over the river, his arm burning from the strain, his legs tied to the same line that now pulled at Harka. If the tether went, he would drop. If it held and the bridge tore free, it would pull Harka into the river with him.

  Mallow reached the collapsing edge farther back, boots skidding on wet plants. He threw himself toward the pier, arms out, and the deck beneath him buckled. For a moment his weight held on sheer stubbornness. He grabbed for Harka’s shoulder, got fingertips on his wet cowl, and then the span fractured again and swept him away as if he were a loose board.

  Tanel followed him, robe flaring as the bridge dropped under his foot. He reached for Mallow with both hands, caught him by the arm, and the river took them together. Their bodies vanished into the white churn, swept under a slab of broken timber and out into the current, where the water dragged them downstream with relentless speed.

  Harka looked down at Poe, pinned and hanging, and for an instant Poe saw the calculation in his eyes: the weight of rope, the break of wood, the current’s pull, the distance to the far bank. Kelthi eyes held a kind of brightness humans lacked, an alert shine that made them look carved from polished gems when adrenaline hit. Harka’s gaze flicked to the tether around Poe’s legs, then back to Poe’s face, and Poe knew Harka understood the same ugly truth.

  If Poe dropped, he would drag Harka with him.

  Harka’s hands went to his belt. His knife came free in one smooth motion, blade dark and wet. He reached across the broken span toward the line between them, leaning as far as he dared with his leg trapped, and Poe braced his forearm harder against the bridge edge, taking the bit of splinters at the cost of staying high enough for Harka to reach.

  The bridge jolted again. Poe’s shoulder screamed. His grip slipped a finger’s breath.

  Harka caught the rope and sawed.

  The fibers parted with two fast strokes. The tether snapped loose from the section of broken deck and went slack around Poe’s legs. Poe’s body dropped a handspan, then caught again on the bridge edge, his arm taking the full strain. The sudden release also loosened the pull on Harka’s arm, and Harka’s shoulders eased by a fraction as the rope stopped trying to drag him off the pier.

  Poe didn’t thank him. Gratitude wasn’t the first language that came to him when he’d been spared. Survival came first. The rest arrived later, if it arrived at all.

  Harka’s knife flashed again, this time cutting at the rope still looped around Poe’s legs. Poe held still, forcing his body to obey while the bridge continued to break around them, each jolt threatening to slam Harka’s trapped leg harder into the beam.

  When the last loop fell away, Poe shoved his bound hands under the bridge lip and hauled himself up with his forearms, scraping skin raw. He rolled onto the remaining deck on his side, chest heaving, water dripping from his hair onto the wood.

  He didn’t have time to lie there. The remaining span between him and the far bank narrowed to a broken run of planks and one beam that still held, wedged between stone anchors. Beyond it, the road rose into wet earth and scattered stones. It was close enough to reach if he ran.

  He sat up and looked at Harka pinned to the pier, knife still in hand. The river hammered the stone at his feet. Spray coated his face and made the scales at his throat shine. Blood seeped from somewhere under the beam – the scent made Poe’s pupils dilate to a dramatic black.

  Harka lifted his chin toward Poe, eyes hard. “Go,” he shouted, voice carrying over the river. It didn’t sound like a plea so much as contempt, as if giving him permission to do something he knew Poe would do anyway.

  Poe’s body leaned toward the far bank. His mind supplied the path beyond the trees, the bend in the road, the point where a rider could be waiting with a cloak pulled up against the wet. He saw it as clearly as he saw the beam trapping Harka’s leg.

  He also saw the river’s current, and what it would do to a Kelthi pinned and bleeding.

  Poe pushed to his feet.

  He ran for the pier.

  He dropped to his knees near the broken edge where the remaining beam met stone and reached for the rope line that had once been his tether. The cut end lay coiled in wet loops, half-caught on splinters. Poe grabbed it, pulled it free, and rose again, moving toward the far bank with the rope trailing behind him.

  The bridge bucked under him as another section tore loose. Poe kept moving, feet finding the surest boards. A plank snapped under his weight, but he jumped it, landing hard, ankle twisting, and the pain lanced up his leg. He didn’t slow. He reached the far bank, slipped in mud, caught himself on a stone marker set beside the road, then turned back toward the pier with the rope clenched in his bound hands.

  Harka’s eyes widened when he realized what Poe had done.

  Poe threw the rope’s free end in a tight arc. It slapped against the stone pier and fell, too short. The river’s spray made the rope heavy and unpredictable. Poe yanked it back, gathered it again, and threw it a second time, aiming higher. This time is caught on the iron band Harka had grabbed earlier, the rope looping over it and holding.

  Harka reached up, snatched it, and wrapped it once around his forearm. He braced his back against the pier, then pulled, using Poe’s rope as leverage to shift his body upward and take some weight off his trapped leg.

  Poe dug his heels into the mud and hauled. His wrists burned where the rope binding them cut into flesh, and his shoulders shook with strain, but he kept pulling, keeping the line tight, forcing the rope to do the work his hands couldn’t do alone.

  Harka gritted his teeth and freed his pinned leg with a brutal yank. The beam scraped along bone. Blood spilled faster, dark and thick as it poured down his hoof and into the river. Harka’s body sagged in an instant, ears flattening with pain, then he grabbed the rope higher and began to climb, hauling himself up the pier in sharp bursts, hooves scraping against stone for purchase.

  Poe leaned back and pulled, dragging Harka’s weight up and out of the river’s reach. The rope bit into Poe’s bound hands. He couldn’t adjust his grip properly. The fibers sawed deeper each time he hauled, and the sting of it made his vision shimmer at the edges.

  Harka reached the broken edge of the far bank with a last heave and rolled onto the mud, gasping. He lay there a heartbeat, face turned toward the ground, tail limp. Blood ran from his leg and pooled under him, mixing with rainwater.

  Poe dropped to his knees beside him.

  Harka tried to push up. His arms shook. His leg gave.

  “Stay down,” Poe said.

  Harka’s head snapped up, eyes blazing. “Do not –”

  Poe didn’t argue. He twisted his bound hands and brought them to Harka’s wound, close enough he could see where the beam had torn him open. The cut gaped along the inside of his cannon – on Poe this would be the calf, but Kelthi legs were different. It was deep enough that the muscle showed pale under blood. Kelthi blood looked no different than human blood. But the smell of it made Poe’s mouth water in a way no human’s ever did.

  Harka watched Poe’s hands with suspicion. “If you touch me –”

  Poe met his gaze. “You will bleed out,” he said. “Argue afterward.”

  Harka’s nostrils flared. His ears twitched forward again, catching the shift in Poe’s tone, catching the fact that Poe wasn’t reaching for Harka’s knife. Harka’s hand tightened on the knife handle, then loosened, calculation matching Poe’s.

  Poe drew in a breath through his nose and pressed the pads of his bound hands against the skin above the wound, where the blood ran in fast pulses. He closed his eyes, because he needed focus, and because he didn’t want to see Harka watching him for any sign of trickery.

  The craft in him answered in a small, stubborn way. He didn’t have the strength for elegance. He didn’t have the lineage for the rites of the Veinwrights. He had enough to push his will into a body and ask it to hold.

  Words rose in his throat, tongue syllables shaped by instinct. He let them out under his breath, low and urgent. Heat moved from his chest into his arms. His skin went cold in patches as his body gave up its warmth to fuel the bind.

  Harka sucked in a breath as the blood’s flow slowed under Poe’s hands. The change wasn’t miraculous. It didn’t seal the cut, or knit the muscle. But it steadied the worst of the bleeding, coaxing the vessels to tighten enough to keep Harka alive for the next hour, the next mile, the next decision.

  Poe held it as long as he could.

  His vision narrowed. The river’s roar dulled as if someone had stuffed wool into his ears. His arms shook, sweat breaking out along his spine.

  He opened his eyes and saw Harka’s face close to his, the Kelthi’s expression caught between anger and a new wariness, as if he didn’t know what shape to put Poe into anymore.

  Poe tried to speak, to give instruction about pressure, about keeping his weight off the wound, and binding it higher, and finding cloth. His mouth wouldn’t cooperate. His stomach rolled, and the world tilted.

  He slumped forward, into Harka’s chest.

  Harka caught him with one hand reflexively, and Poe’s last coherent awareness was the feel of that grip, strong and real, holding him upright for an instant before his body gave out.