When I finally arrive, she looks up hopefully, but once she sees that it is just me who settles down on a branch opposite her, next to the bag that I had not even remembered dropping off, her voice shakes as she asks; “Where are they?”

I shake my head and close my eyes. She looks at the bag Iren had left and accepts this in silence, and I am sure she simply does not know what to say. I know that I do not, not that I could say anything even if I did.

Suddenly, the Wolves howl even closer to us. Iren only slightly flinches, presumably having to had sat here through every howl, but I jump slightly.

She sighs. “We can’t just stay here and do nothing.”

I look at her, my head slightly tilted as I try to think of what she is trying to say. There is no way we can help them now with Ebony injured, and only one person is not enough. Even disregarding that, we are exhausted. The kick that I had gained, likely from the trees, now that I think about it, was only enough to make me able to move again, and even then I am still in some pain with every twitch, and I think it is already starting to slowly wear off.

“We-” her voice breaks, but she continues uncertainly, clearing her throat, “We have to leave and make the trip to the council by our selves.”

My head lifts sharply to her. We cannot simply leave them here, not after what happened today!

She seems to read my thoughts as she answers, “Off as they might be, they are still their family. I don’t think they will heart them. There is nothing much we can do now against so many skilled witches, we just have to report them.”

I wish I could object with confidence, but I know she is right. Even if she doesn’t sound sure about their safety, it is the only thing we can think of. We cannot simply camp around and wait for Ebony to heal then try again, they will be looking for us, and if humans stumbled onto us…

I look slowly back to Iren’s pack and idly wonder what we would do with it if we do leave.

Moments pass, and finally, I nod, out of ideas.

They are with family that has never harmed them before, surly even however token over by inuriagi they are they still would never harm them.

Ebony follows my unfocused gaze to Iren’s bag and says, “We just have to leave it.”

I nod, standing through my aching body and shoulder my pack once more.

“Um… Can you carry some of the things in my pack in yours?” Ebony asks tentatively.

I immediately nod and help her slip the pack off and transfer as many of the small but heavy items as I could stuff into my bag.

Before we leave, I take the map from the front pocket of Iren’s bag, almost having forgotten it, and stuff it into my skirt pocket.

We stay in the trees for as long as we can, avoiding the climb down with Ebony’s wrist as it was. Eventually, however, we reach a gap in the trees that cannot be breach, and, having not heard the wolves in around an hour, we finally make our careful and supportive way down, me going down, dropping my bag, going back up to do the same with Ebony’s before using some of the last of my borrowed energy to form better grips and foot placements so that Ebony could only use one arm. Though she attempts to help, her plant magic is relatively weak, but it adds a centimeter or two to it.

Finally on the ground, I start making my way to the safest spot I can think of; the log where the letters came from. It is close enough to the human village that the witches would not look extensively there, and I had never seen signs of more than one human, that human being one we could dare to trust. We had passed it somewhat and had to backtrack closer to the human village than I would have liked to when-

Bang!

I jump and crouch, looking around. I look over at Ebony, who is still standing, her eyes wide. I notice that a bear trap had clamped itself deeply into her leg.

As if it took looking down at her leg to feel it, suddenly she puts her good arm to her mouth to barely stifle a scream.

I scramble around the trap with my hands, trying to find a release as Ebony poorly stifles her screams, each one rattling her body and making it worse.

I try and pry the teeth open but I am not strong enough, so I look around for a stick and shove it in Ebony’s mouth, cringing as I see her terrified face. I try to motion for her to take deep breaths and to help me pry the trap open, and after a minute she manages to calm herself enough to reach down and help. Finally, we manage to get it open, the adrenaline allowing Ebony to use some of her broken wrists strength, but there is a lot of blood as she drops to the ground, unable to stay standing.

I rip open my bag, realizing to late that perhaps we should not have extracted the sharpened teeth, letting her bleed more freely. I find cloth in my bag and, though it is not sterile, I quickly wrap her leg with it and tie it as tightly as I can, cringing as she stifles more screams.

I just sit besides her, trying my hardest to think of any healing herbs that I had learned, any healing spell that I had been taught.

Finally to overwhelmed to focus, I try to strain my attention on one easy thing first. I look at whatever is in front of me: the now-shut-again bear trap. The tips of the teeth had been sharpened more that I had ever seen, crudely as well so there were jagged razor bits of metal at the edges. I can only hope that none of that is lodged in Ebony. I look over to her, and see her slumped on the ground.

“Ebony!” I try to yell, but the words remain stuck in my throat still. I shake her violently, apologizing internally, and Finally her eyes open. She attempts to sit up, but uses her broken wrist and she stifles a cry as I catch her before she could hit the ground again. The bleeding has seeped through the cloth already and I rummage through my bag for more but find non. I go to her bag and find a thin blanket and roll that up, replacing the bandages. She hisses as I tighten it.

I look around and realize that we cannot stay here. If a human set this trap, they frequent this place, and it was almost definitely a human. My mouth draws into a line as I look at Ebony, terribly injured and muddy, for it had started to lightly rain, when it started I cannot say.

I sigh and search the area, hoping that if I just see something, I can remember some healing spell, anything at all.

I gasp as I find miniature white flowers with the smallest dot of yellow in the middle. Yarrow!

I grab a fistful and apologize to the plant, briefly explaining my situation, before running back to Ebony, who was already starting to soak through the second cloth. I untie it and give her the stick again to bite down on as I crush up the yarrow in my hands, releasing the juices, then stuff some in each gaping hole in her leg. I use the oils of the plant that are now on my hand to draw a small healing rune beneath each hole, knowing that none of this is enough, but hopping that it may help to hold her over. As I wrap her leg back up, I see the moon has set and the sky is starting to lighten ever so slightly.

We must leave this human tainted place.

I give Ebony time to rest, but soon I pick her up and help her hobble along, trying to mime that we are not far from my original destination.

I look down at her leg as we approach the log and see that while the yarrow and rune did help slow the bleeding, it definitely did not stop it.

Finally, we arrive as she begins to drip blood once more. For a moment I worry if the human that set the trap would track the blood with the nose of a dog, hoping it is whatever they were trying to catch, but I force this thought out of my mind, attempting to focus on the current situation. However, my heart still pounds ever faster.

We curl up in the downed log, the hollowed out portion smaller than was in my memory but big enough for me to huddle up and Ebony to sit in it with injured leg extended out. It had begun to rain ever more on the way, not helping the running of blood as the water drags it from her wound and washes the rune off.

Although the trees catch most of the rain from hitting Ebony’s leg, the amount that still hits it is concerning. As the rain begins to get harder, I switch places with her and sit in the rain so that her leg can be sheltered from the downpour.

We sit there for what feels like ages as the extra boost of energy that the trees had given me finally fully wears off.

The sun must have peaked it head out of the earth again at some point unknown to me, for the clouds overhead hid it from view. It feels as though I was kicked by a horse at every part of my body, and, drowsy as I am, I somehow cannot find it in me to sleep for more than a short burst.

I bite back a groan as I turn my head to look at Ebony once more, having been… nowhere in my mind, I was simply existing.

My eyes widen.

No.

I don’t even attempt to speak as I fight past the pain reverberating through my body to shake the once again passed out Ebony.

She is to pale.

There is to much blood.

No.

She is not breathing.

I stop breathing along with her for many moments.

There is no pulse.

I shake her, try my best in my already beyond overexerted state to use the little chest compression revival I know. Its all for nothing. How had I not noticed?

I sit back against the sodden tree, water dripping from my nose as it continues the soft misting that had begun…

When had it begun?

I stare at my hand, covered in Ebony’s blood, yet I see nothing. I curl up against the tree, knees to chest, and the tree invites me into its space. I stare at nothing.

I stare at nothing.

Unblinking.

Unmoving.

She is dead.