The Titanoboa's blood trail still shimmered under the pale moon, a black, viscous line cutting through the sludge. Varig didn't look back. He sat on a twisted root, his hands trembling as he tried to cover his left arm with filthy rags. The greyish skin now displayed small, hardened ridges, as if the bone were trying to carve armor from beneath the flesh.

  Lira's silence, standing three meters away, felt heavy. Renn and Garr had been left behind, ground between the serpent's scales. She gripped her own knife, but the tip trembled slightly toward the ground.

  "You're not just some scrawny kid, are you?" Lira broke the silence. Her voice was low, devoid of Renn's disgust, but sharpened by caution. "That arm... you're one of them. A Vorin."

  Varig froze. He expected a scream or flight. His left arm throbbed, a dull ache that seemed to pace with his heartbeat. He pressed the limb against his chest, feeling the cold plates beneath the cloth.

  "I'm what's left of South Village," Varig replied. "If you want to run, the path is that way. I won't go after you."

  Lira didn't move. She let out a long sigh and sheathed her knife in its worn leather scabbard. She approached slowly, each step making a wet, sucking sound in the mud. She crouched near him, watching the haphazard bandages Varig was trying to tighten with his teeth.

  "Run where?" she asked with a dry smile. "I'm alone in the middle of these woods, and you're the only one who didn't die trying to play the hero."

  She reached out and took the end of the cord from Varig's hands. Her touch was cold from the rain, a mundane gesture that made him release a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

  "Let me do that. You're tying it like it's a sack of potatoes," she murmured, redoing the knot. "In my village, the old Vorin who lived by the well... people called him a monster. But when the elves came, he was the only one who didn't run. I don't care what you are, as long as you help me get somewhere that doesn't smell like a snake."

  Varig swallowed hard. He was used to kicks and looks of contempt, not someone tightening a bandage with care.

  "She's useful, my son," the necklace whispered, Vitor's voice warm and brief, like a piece of advice in his ear. "A father knows how to recognize a good ally. Keep her close."

  Varig felt the weight of the jewelry go cold immediately after. He took a piece of dried meat from Renn's pack—which he'd had the coldness to scavenge before fleeing—and tore it. He gave the larger piece to Lira. The smell of salty meat was the only real thing there.

  "The Hunter," Varig said, chewing slowly. "He sold out my father. I just want him to pay."

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Lira chewed her piece of meat, staring into the darkness of the swamp.

  "You know that by killing him, the others will come after you, right? Elves don't like loose ends."

  "I know."

  "And you're going to do what? Become a one-man army with that stone arm?" She wiped her hands on her pants and shrugged. "It's stupid. But I've lost everything anyway. My brother, my home... if I'm going to die in this hole, I'd rather be looking at that traitor's face when he realizes the fire he lit didn't burn everything out."

  Varig looked at her. Lira didn't look like a warrior, just a woman tired of running.

  "You don't have to go, Lira."

  "I know I don't," she retorted, standing up and brushing the dust off her clothes. "But you share your food and you don't try to rob me while I sleep. In the swamp, that's practically a marriage. Let's move before the smell of blood attracts something worse."

  Varig felt a snap in his left elbow, a new bony plate settling under the skin. It hurt, but he didn't complain. He justified the pain as the price of her safety.

  "We are growing, hatchling," the necklace murmured, short and satisfied.

  Lira reached out to help Varig up. It wasn't a dramatic gesture, just the help of someone sharing the same mud. They walked for another hour before stopping under the carcass of a weeping willow, its branches touching the black water. Exhaustion was a mist thicker than the swamp's own. Lira sat down, leaning her head against the rough trunk, and let out a sigh that seemed to empty her entire body.

  "You don't stop, do you?" she asked, her eyes half-closed. "The arm... doesn't it get tired?"

  Varig looked at the greyish limb. It was heavy, but not in the way a muscle gets exhausted. It was a weight of stone, constant.

  "It doesn't feel much," Varig replied, sitting a short distance away. "Sometimes I forget it's mine."

  Lira gave a cynical smile, looking at her own dirty hands.

  "Lucky you. My legs feel like they're made of lead and regret."

  There was a long silence. It wasn't uncomfortable; it was just the sound of the swamp trying to retake the space they occupied. Varig began to mess with the bandage, trying to ease the pressure of a new bony plate that had emerged near his wrist. It hurt. A dry snap echoed.

  "Let me see," Lira said, extending her hand.

  Varig hesitated. He justified to himself that he didn't need help, that a Vorin should be self-sufficient. But her gaze was calm, lacking the judgment he expected. He yielded.

  As she redid the knot with slow, precise movements, the necklace gave a slight tug on Varig's neck.

  "Careful, hatchling," the necklace whispered, Vitor's voice short and sharp. "Human hands tremble."

  Varig ignored the prickle of cold at the back of his neck. He watched the sensory detail of Lira's nails, broken and dark with earth, and the way she bit her lower lip while concentrating. It was something terribly human.

  "What are you going to do when you find him?" Lira asked without looking up.

  "Whatever it takes."

  "That doesn't answer anything, Varig."

  He looked at the black water.

  "I just want him to stop breathing the air my father can't anymore."

  Lira finished the knot and gave the grey arm a light pat, as if testing the strength of a wall.

  "Fair enough. I just hope that after that, there's enough of you left to tell the story."

  She settled in to sleep, closing her eyes before he could respond. Varig stayed there, on guard. His left arm pulsed rhythmically, a stone sentry in the dark, as he thought about the simplicity of that friendship born from nothing.