The thick ice covering the lake groaned and cracked as the garm leapt onto its silvery surface and ran towards her.

Desperate, Kham dove for the cave opening, sliding across the last few feet of frozen pond. She grabbed at chunks of ice and stone with her left hand and kicked at the pond’s frozen surface with her right foot in an effort to drag herself to safety. Rivulets of icy water dripped down on her from the waterfall, soaking her hair and the skin of her neck as she passed beneath it. She pulled and kicked, dragging and propelling her body farther back into the long cave where Wynter and his brother had played as children.

The garm had reached the cave’s mouth. Khamsin rolled on her back, plugged her ears, and kept pushing with her good leg to shove herself deeper into the cave as the garm shrieked, spewed its freezing vapor, and ripped at ice and rock in an effort to get to her.

Her boots went white with frost, and she lost all feeling in her toes. She screamed and kicked at the garm’s nasal slits, its eyes, its jaw, trying desperately to land as many blows as she could while avoiding the rows of deadly, gnashing teeth.

“Get away from me, you Hel-cursed monster!” she screamed. “Get away!” She slammed the heel of her boot into the beast’s nasal slits and pushed off. Her good hand closed around a sharp edge of stone. Warm blood filled her palm as the stone sliced her skin, but she tightened her grip and yanked herself a few more inches deeper into the caves.

Suddenly, the garm went still. The sensory hairs on the back of its head flattened, pointing in the direction of the cave opening. It tried to turn, but the cave mouth was too small for the garm to maneuver, so with one last snarl and a halfhearted attempt to bite her feet, the beast began backing out of the cave.

Kham heard a roar—deep and furious—then the garm jerked and screamed like she’d never heard anything scream before. Its eyes rolled. Its head, chest, and forelegs shook and writhed. Then a frothy, blue liquid gushed from its mouth and nasal slits, and it collapsed, tongue lolling across rows of razor-sharp teeth.

A moment later, the garm’s body started sliding backward as someone or something dragged it out of the cave. Light flared briefly, then a new shadow blocked out the filtered sunlight shining through the cave’s mouth.

“Khamsin? Are you there? Are you hurt?”

Wynter. Khamsin collapsed, shaking, on the damp stone floor.

“I’m h-here,” she tried to say, but to her embarrassment, her voice cracked, her throat closed up. A sob broke past her lips. Horrified, she clapped a trembling hand over her mouth to stifle the sound, only to sob again in complete mortification at the feel of warm wetness trickling from the corners of her eyes.

She was crying. Crying! Like some weak, spineless coward.

In front of him.

The shame of it burned like a fiery spear to the heart.

His cool hands ran gently up her legs, pausing briefly as they encountered the bloody wound on her thigh. “I have to get you out of here. Tell me if I hurt you.”

He gripped her hips and pulled her towards him. Each bump and scrape across the uneven stone floor made her wounds throb with pain, but Khamsin would die before making another sound. As he pulled her towards the mouth of the cave, she hastily scrubbed away her tears and flung an arm over her face to hide her reddened eyes and blotchy skin. The thought of Wynter’s seeing her so weak and weepy was more than she could bear.

With such gentleness he nearly made her cry anew, Wynter checked her bones for breaks and inspected the wound on her thigh. She heard rustling followed by the distinct sound of ripping. Curious, she peeked out beneath her arm and saw him using his hunting dagger to slice long strips of leather from the bottom of his vest. He braided the strips into a multistrand leather rope, then sliced a long rectangle of fabric from his linen undershirt. He folded the linen into a pad and placed it over her wound.

“Forgive me, min ros. This may hurt, but that cut is deep. I’ve got to stop the bleeding.”

Wynter slipped the braided leather rope under her leg and tied the makeshift bandage securely in place. The pressure on the wound sent pain spearing up Kham’s leg, and her body jerked in instinctive recoil. Then the stab of agony passed, and her multitude of wounds began throbbing again.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“M-my b-b-back.” As shock set in, her body began to shake.

He pulled her into a sitting position, cradling her against one side of his chest as he inspected the deep furrows scoring her back. “Did the garm do this?”

She tried to speak, to tell him what had happened, but the words wouldn’t come out. All she could do was shake her head and tremble from head to toe.

Quickly, he made a second bandage and tied it in place over her back. Then his arms closed around her, muscles bunching with effortless strength as he gathered her up and held her close. She felt the cool press of his lips against her hair, breathed his crisp, woodsy scent. His heart was beating so fast and so loud, she could hear it through the thick layers of cloth, fur, and leather he’d donned for the Great Hunt.

The tears she’d fought so hard to battle back welled up again. She gave a choked sob and turned her face into his chest, gripping the fur of his outer vest in one fist and clutching his shoulder in the other as she utterly broke down and began sobbing against him.

His arms tightened further. “Hössa, min stiarna. The garm is dead. It cannot hurt you anymore.” His voice sounded gentler than she’d ever heard it before. Steady, soothing, almost a croon. His kindness only made her cry harder.