Between Ash and Ice

Blood and Bargains

My shoulder burned with every breath. The wound wasn’t deep enough to kill me, but it was enough to slow me down—**enough to be dangerous in a place like this.**

Ravena watched me closely as we moved away from the ruined chamber, her expression unreadable. The tension from the fight still clung to the air, thick and suffocating. **We had barely survived.**

“You’re going to bleed out if we don’t stop,” she finally said, breaking the silence.

I exhaled sharply. “I’ll manage.”

She snorted. “You’re stubborn. I can respect that. Doesn’t mean you’re not an idiot.”

I rolled my eyes, but the movement sent another sharp lance of pain through my shoulder. **Damn it.**

We kept moving, weaving through the broken ruins. The air here was colder, and the weight of unseen eyes never left us. I didn’t ask her where we were going—**I wasn’t sure she even knew.**

Then she stopped.

A ruined alcove nestled between two collapsed walls. It was small, but sheltered from the open.

“Sit,” Ravena ordered.

I hesitated. She crossed her arms. “You need that wound treated, unless you’re planning to die of infection.”

I sighed and lowered myself onto the stone ledge, wincing as my shoulder flared in protest. Ravena knelt beside me, pulling a small dagger from her belt.

I arched a brow. “If you’re planning to kill me, now’s not a great time.”

She smirked. “If I wanted you dead, you’d already be.”

Comforting.

She dug into a pouch at her hip, pulling out a vial filled with a dark, thick substance. It smelled **sharp—like herbs and something metallic.**

“What is that?” I asked warily.

She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she poured a few drops onto a scrap of cloth and pressed it against my wound.

I **hissed.** It felt like my skin had been set on fire.

“Oh, stop whining,” she muttered, pressing harder. “It’s a healing tincture. It’ll keep you alive.”

I gritted my teeth. “It burns.”

“That means it’s working.”

I exhaled through my nose, forcing myself to breathe as the pain dulled into a slow throb. Ravena worked quickly, wrapping a strip of cloth around my shoulder with practiced efficiency. **Too practiced.**

I narrowed my eyes. “You’ve done this before.”

She didn’t look at me as she tied off the bandage. “You could say that.”

A long silence stretched between us.

Then, finally, I asked, “Who was that back there?”

Her hands stilled for half a second before she sat back on her heels, expression carefully guarded. “A hunter.”

“For you?”

Her jaw tightened. “For anyone who doesn’t belong.”

I didn’t miss the way she avoided the real answer. I leaned forward slightly, ignoring the ache in my shoulder. “They had you chained. Why?”

She exhaled, looking past me into the ruins beyond. **We were surrounded by ghosts of a place long forgotten, but some ghosts were still living.**

“I used to be one of them,” she finally said, voice quiet. “A hunter.”

The words settled between us like a blade.

I didn’t move. “And now they want you dead?”

Ravena’s lips curled into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “No. They want me back.”

A chill ran down my spine. **That was worse.**

She stood, brushing dust from her hands. “We need to move. They’ll regroup, and next time, they won’t underestimate us.”

I rose to my feet, testing my arm. It still hurt, but it was manageable. “Where are we going?”

She turned to me, the firelight catching in her dark eyes. “We make a deal.”

I frowned. “With who?”

She hesitated, then said, “The only people who hate the hunters more than I do.”

Something about her tone made my stomach twist.

But I nodded anyway. “Lead the way.”