They didn’t wait for morning.

  The whistle Lysander heard didn’t come with a second warning. It didn’t need to.

  He woke her with a hand hovering near her shoulder and a voice kept low.

  “Up.”

  Jina blinked, disoriented by firelight and stone and the way her ribs still ached when she breathed. For half a second she forgot where she was.

  Then the threads pulsed in her chest like a reminder.

  Not a dream.

  Not a fever hallucination.

  Reality, barbed and glowing.

  “Why,” she rasped.

  Lysander didn’t answer with words. He glanced toward the dark beyond the rocks, and she felt it—the shift in him. A tautness that wasn’t there when the only thing hunting them was the Wastes.

  Men.

  Jina’s stomach tightened.

  “Okay,” she whispered, pushing herself up. The world tilted, but less than yesterday. The Heal had bought her something, even if it cost her.

  Lysander packed fast. Extinguished the fire. Covered the coals with dirt until no glow remained. His movements were clean, practiced, almost quiet enough to be invisible.

  Jina watched and forced herself to copy the pace.

  No wasted noise.

  No wasted time.

  They left the shelter and moved into the broken land with the sky still black.

  The ravine came an hour later—a long split in the earth that cut through the Wastes like an old wound. The walls rose high on both sides, jagged rock narrowing the path. Shadows pooled at the bottom. Wind died down here, replaced by a stale, dusty stillness.

  Jina didn’t like it.

  Ravines were funnels.

  Funnel meant trap.

  Lysander led anyway, eyes scanning above, below, and behind in a constant sweep. His hand hovered near his knife, not touching. Ready.

  Jina tried to keep her breathing quiet. Tried not to stumble on the uneven stone.

  The threads streamed from her chest and vanished into the distance. In the dark they were faint, like lines of moonlight only she could see.

  Hot thread. Kaelen.

  Cold thread. The one who held fear like a weapon.

  Sharp thread. The one who smiled with teeth.

  Fire thread. The one that made her ribs ache when it stirred.

  They were quiet.

  For now.

  Jina stepped around a rock and felt the air change.

  Not colder.

  Heavier.

  Like the ravine itself was holding its breath.

  Lysander stopped.

  So did she.

  He lifted two fingers—silent command to freeze.

  Jina obeyed.

  Her pulse thumped loud in her ears. Too loud.

  Lysander’s nose flared slightly. He stared at a dark patch on the ground a few paces ahead.

  Jina followed his gaze.

  At first she saw nothing.

  Then the dark patch shifted.

  It wasn’t a shadow.

  It was something crouched low against the stone, skin the color of ash and old bone. Too thin. Too long. The shape of a beast, but wrong around the joints—as if someone had taken an animal and bent it past where it should have stopped.

  Its eyes opened.

  White.

  No pupil.

  No reflection.

  Just white.

  Jina’s stomach dropped.

  The creature lifted its head and sniffed.

  Its mouth opened and a thin line of drool slid down teeth that were too many and too sharp.

  Lysander didn’t move.

  He didn’t breathe.

  The beast’s head turned.

  Toward Jina.

  The threads in her chest tightened all at once like someone had yanked on them from the other end.

  Pain stabbed under her ribs.

  Jina bit down on a sound.

  The beast hissed.

  It didn’t leap.

  Not yet.

  It stepped forward slowly, claws scraping stone. Each step made a sound like metal dragged across rock.

  Lysander’s knife slid into his hand without a whisper.

  Jina’s fingers curled. Empty air. No weapons.

  She had herbs. A flask. A power that drained her into bone-deep weakness.

  Fantastic.

  “Back,” Lysander murmured, not to her. To the beast.

  It didn’t understand words.

  It understood prey.

  It lowered its body, muscles bunching.

  Jina’s brain went cold and clear.

  Fight or flee.

  Ravine. Narrow path. Cliffs above.

  Flee meant turning your back.

  Turning your back meant teeth in your spine.

  Lysander shifted one foot, placing himself between her and the creature.

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  “Don’t run,” he said quietly.

  Jina’s jaw tightened. “I wasn’t planning to.”

  The beast lunged.

  Lysander moved like he’d been waiting for the exact angle.

  He stepped into the attack, not away, blade flashing up in a clean arc.

  Steel met flesh.

  A wet sound.

  The beast shrieked—high, unnatural—and snapped its head sideways, trying to bite.

  Lysander twisted, dodging by inches. His knife cut again, shallow this time.

  The beast didn’t bleed like it should.

  Dark fluid seeped, thick as tar.

  It stank—rotting magic, sulfur, something rancid.

  Jina’s throat burned.

  She backed up a step anyway, keeping her eyes on the fight.

  The beast’s tail—no, not a tail. A whip-like extension of spine—lashed toward Lysander’s legs.

  Lysander jumped, but not fast enough.

  The lash caught his calf.

  Jina heard the impact.

  Bone against something hard.

  Lysander’s foot slipped on loose gravel.

  He recovered instantly—too fast for a normal human, too trained to fall.

  But the beast took the opening.

  It slammed into him.

  They went down.

  Lysander landed hard on his shoulder, knife still in hand. The beast’s weight pinned his torso. Claws scraped for purchase on his chest, aiming for throat.

  Jina’s breath caught.

  Lysander’s eyes flicked to her.

  Not fear.

  Instruction.

  Don’t come closer.

  Jina ignored it.

  She grabbed a rock the size of her fist and ran in.

  The beast’s head whipped toward her. White eyes fixed on her like she was the true target.

  The threads yanked again—pain lancing through her sternum.

  Jina stumbled, nearly dropped the rock.

  The beast hissed and lunged off Lysander toward her.

  Lysander slashed upward as it moved, cutting a deep line along its belly.

  Tar-black fluid splattered stone.

  The beast didn’t slow.

  Jina had one second.

  She threw the rock.

  It hit the side of the creature’s skull with a dull crack.

  The beast’s head snapped to the side.

  Not stunned.

  Angrier.

  It turned back toward her, mouth opening wide enough to show a second row of teeth.

  Jina’s mind screamed no.

  Her body did something else.

  Heat gathered behind her sternum like a match struck inside her ribs.

  The Gift.

  Heal wasn’t the only thing this body could do. She could feel it now—the larger current, the heavier power behind it.

  It wanted to come out as a word.

  A command.

  Jina swallowed hard and clamped her mouth shut.

  No words.

  No Commands.

  She pushed the power outward anyway—not as an order, not as control, but as force.

  Like shoving a door closed with your shoulder.

  The air in front of her thickened.

  Not a wall.

  Not visible.

  Just resistance.

  The beast hit it mid-lunge like it had slammed into an invisible pane.

  Its body bucked.

  It screeched, claws scrabbling at nothing.

  Jina’s knees nearly buckled from the effort.

  Lysander’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second.

  Then he surged up.

  He drove his knife into the beast’s throat with both hands.

  The blade sank deep.

  The creature convulsed. Its claws raked wildly, scraping Lysander’s forearm.

  Blood flashed red against his skin.

  Then the beast’s body went limp.

  It collapsed with a heavy thud, tar-fluid pooling beneath it.

  Jina released the pressure in the air and nearly fell to her knees.

  Her head swam.

  Her bones felt hollow.

  The power she’d shoved out wasn’t Heal. It wasn’t delicate. It was raw, heavy.

  And it had a cost.

  Lysander stood over the corpse, chest rising fast. He kicked the body once, hard, checking for movement.

  It didn’t move.

  Good.

  Then he turned to her.

  “Are you hurt,” he demanded.

  Jina wanted to laugh.

  Of course you ask me.

  She shook her head, because if she tried to speak she’d probably vomit.

  Lysander’s gaze swept her quickly—face, hands, chest—then dropped to his own arm.

  Blood ran down his forearm from three long claw marks.

  Not deep.

  Still bleeding.

  He ignored it.

  Instead, he crouched and grabbed his calf, wincing as he tested it.

  Jina’s stomach clenched.

  “Your leg,” she managed.

  “Bruised,” he said.

  He tried to stand fully on it.

  His leg shook.

  Then he shifted his weight, and the beast’s tar-fluid underfoot made his boot slide.

  Lysander went down hard again—this time on one knee.

  His breath hissed through his teeth.

  Pain.

  Real pain.

  The kind you couldn’t grit away.

  Jina’s pulse kicked.

  Her brain snapped back into triage.

  Knee. Ankle. Calf. Tendon? Fracture?

  She moved toward him, hands raised like she was approaching a frightened animal.

  “Don’t move,” she said.

  Lysander’s head snapped up. “You shouldn’t—”

  “Shut up,” Jina said, and immediately regretted it because her voice shook. “Just—hold still.”

  Lysander froze, eyes hard. But he did it.

  That obedience hit her wrong.

  She didn’t have time to unpack it.

  Jina knelt in front of him and ran her hands over his calf carefully, feeling through fabric.

  Swelling. A hard knot.

  Not bone protruding. Good.

  She pressed lightly.

  Lysander’s jaw clenched. His hands tightened on the ground.

  Pain, controlled.

  “Can you wiggle your toes,” she asked automatically.

  His brows drew together. “What.”

  “Do it,” she snapped.

  His mouth tightened, but his toes moved.

  Okay.

  Not severed.

  Not catastrophic.

  But he couldn’t put weight on it.

  And they were in a ravine.

  With men possibly tracking them.

  And beasts that hunted by smell.

  Jina glanced at the dead creature.

  Tar-fluid pooled like it didn’t want to sink into the ground.

  The air around it felt… wrong. Even without the threads, her skin crawled.

  “Does this attract more,” she asked.

  Lysander didn’t look away from her hands. “Sometimes.”

  Great.

  Jina swallowed.

  “We have to move,” she said.

  Lysander’s gaze flicked up the ravine, then back to her. “I can.”

  He started to shift to stand.

  His leg betrayed him. He hissed, hand slamming to rock.

  Jina’s chest tightened.

  Her instinct screamed Heal.

  She could stabilize his leg. Reduce swelling. Numb pain. Reinforce tissue.

  But Heal was expensive.

  And she’d already spent power on the invisible shove.

  Her body felt like it had less blood in it than it should.

  She licked her lips. Tasted iron again.

  Lysander’s eyes held hers.

  Don’t.

  He didn’t say it out loud.

  But she saw it.

  He’d rather limp and bleed than watch her collapse.

  Jina’s jaw clenched.

  That’s not how emergencies work.

  “I’m doing it,” she said.

  Lysander’s eyes narrowed. “No.”

  Jina leaned closer, voice low and sharp. “If you can’t walk, we both die.”

  That wasn’t drama.

  That was math.

  Lysander’s jaw flexed.

  He didn’t argue again.

  Jina closed her eyes.

  She reached inward for the warmth.

  It responded—heavier now, sluggish, like it didn’t like being dragged out twice.

  Jina swallowed and guided it into her hands.

  Heat gathered in her palms, tingling, bright, almost painful.

  She placed one hand on Lysander’s calf and the other just below his knee.

  “Breathe,” she told him, because she needed him calm. Because tension would make it worse.

  Lysander did.

  Jina pushed warmth into the injured muscle.

  Not flooding.

  Controlled.

  She pictured the tissue like strained tendon, bruised muscle, swelling pushing against bone.

  She pictured pressure easing. Blood flow improving.

  She wasn’t curing.

  She was buying function.

  Warmth sank into him.

  Lysander’s breath hitched once. His hands tightened.

  Then his shoulders eased—just a fraction.

  Jina opened her eyes.

  His expression had changed.

  Not softened.

  Shock.

  Like he hadn’t expected kindness to hurt less than punishment.

  “You feel that,” she said, voice rough.

  He didn’t answer.

  His gaze stayed locked on her hands like he was afraid to blink and lose it.

  Jina pushed a little more warmth through.

  His calf stopped trembling.

  The swelling didn’t vanish, but it stabilized.

  The angry edge of pain in his face dulled.

  Jina’s own vision started to blur at the edges.

  Cost.

  There it was.

  Her arms went heavy.

  Her stomach rolled.

  She swallowed bile and kept going for two more breaths, then cut it off sharply before she drained herself into the ground.

  She pulled her hands away and sat back on her heels, breathing hard.

  Lysander flexed his foot experimentally.

  His brows drew together.

  He put weight on the leg.

  It held.

  Not perfect.

  But it held.

  His eyes snapped to her face.

  You look worse.

  He didn’t say it.

  Jina said it for him.

  “I’m fine,” she lied, and her voice wobbled.

  Lysander’s jaw tightened.

  He grabbed his cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders like it was instinct. Like he could keep her upright by force of fabric.

  Jina didn’t fight him.

  She didn’t have the energy.

  She focused on the one thing she couldn’t ignore—

  The threads.

  As she’d healed him, they’d changed.

  Not yanked.

  Not stabbed.

  They’d… responded.

  A pulse rolled down the hot thread—Kaelen—sharp enough to make her ribs ache.

  Then the sharp thread flickered, amused, like it had tasted something interesting.

  The cold thread tightened with sudden alertness.

  The fire thread flared.

  All at once.

  Jina sucked in a breath.

  “No,” she whispered.

  Lysander’s head snapped up. “What.”

  Jina’s hand went to her sternum automatically. The threads burned against the inside of her chest.

  They weren’t reacting to the beast.

  They weren’t reacting to Lysander’s injury.

  They were reacting to her.

  To her using power.

  To her saving him.

  They had felt it through the bond.

  They had felt her choose to spend something on someone else.

  And that choice—small, human—had reached four men tied to her ribs like chains.

  Jina’s throat tightened.

  The hot thread pulsed again—angry, yes, but underneath it something else sharpened.

  Attention.

  The cold thread snapped taut, and with it came a wave of fear so sudden it made Jina’s breath stall.

  Not her fear.

  Someone else’s.

  Somewhere far away, a man she couldn’t name had just realized something.

  Or seen something.

  Or been attacked.

  Jina gasped, fingers digging into her own chest.

  Pain flashed white behind her eyes.

  Lysander grabbed her shoulders. “Breathe.”

  Jina tried.

  The fear surged again through the cold thread—tight, controlled, desperate.

  Then a new sensation tore through the fire thread—heat, violence, something waking up hungry.

  Jina’s vision swam.

  “Lysander,” she rasped.

  His grip tightened. “Which one.”

  Jina swallowed hard, teeth clenched against the pain.

  “The cold one—” she choked. “He’s—he’s in danger.”

  The thread yanked.

  So hard it felt like it tried to rip out of her ribs.

  And far away, through a bond she couldn’t sever, someone screamed into her bones—loud enough that even the Wastes seemed to listen.

  [Bond Flare]