Chapter 12

A New Shoot

When Eren opened his eyes again, the sky above was pale gray, stone walls pressing in on both sides of his vision.

He was lying between the walls. Half a blanket under him, the other half thrown over his body. A freight crate leaned against the rock at an angle, blocking the wind.

The rabbit was tied behind the wall, ears pressed low, head down, chewing grass.

He tried to sit up. His left arm would not work; it took a long while of scraping against the stone before he could straighten against the wall and scan the space.

This was not the open ground where he had collapsed. The wind was much weaker here. The blanket was laid out. The freight was still here, and so was the rabbit. Only Nova could have done this.

But Nova was not here.

His mind ran through the possibilities. Nova had settled him and gone back out. That made the most sense. Maybe to see if the bandits had doubled back—Eren had taught him that. Or some other trouble had found him; ruins like these held every kind of trouble, and a child of twelve or thirteen alone was a walking target.

He let it go.

Then footsteps came from outside—light and quick, a child's pace.

Nova walked in, gripping a broken half of a dead branch. Seeing Eren sitting, he crossed quickly, dropped into a crouch beside him, and looked at his left eye.

"How is it? Better?"

"I can sit up."

Nova stared at him a moment longer before going on. "After you went down I loaded you onto the rabbit and brought you here. Stone on both sides—out of the wind."

"I looked around," he continued, "in case those three came back. You said to follow tracks—I followed them a stretch. They kept heading north. No sign of doubling back."

Eren nodded. "Good work." He paused. "Next time don't go alone. Too dangerous."

With Nova back, the knot in Eren's chest loosened. He rubbed the stubble along his jaw and ran through what was in front of them.

The waterskin was still more than half full; hardtack was low. They had traveled light—this was meant to be a same-day run.

Left hand useless. Right still worked, but if trouble came it would be hard going.

The sun had passed overhead. If night caught them out here... beasts might move after dark. One bad arm and a child—whether they could get out whole was anyone's guess.

He looked down at his left arm. The shoot was still restless under the skin. Old Qin had said this thing could kill you any moment. In this state he could not afford to wait; by the time they got back to town it might be too late.

When he had thought it through, all he could do was sigh and nod once.

He unclasped his cloak first, stripped the left side of his shirt, and bared his whole left arm and half his shoulder and back. The pale gray lines had long since left the wrist—climbing from the back of the hand past the elbow, tracking up the upper arm and shoulder and inward. He turned his head and caught his left neck in peripheral vision; a faint line showed under the skin too.

"Nova. Come here."

The boy came close.

"How far up have they got?"

Nova stared for several seconds. "Already below the corner of your eye. The leading edge is darker than the rest."

Eren hmmed. That shook him more than he had expected. In this short a time it had run from his hand to his face.

He had thought of cutting the limb off. Too late for that now—he could not gouge out half his face.

But he still had to do something.

From his belt pouch he took his small knife and found his firestone, heated the blade in the flame until the steel showed a blue-black burn line where the fire had licked it. He waited for the knife to cool, then handed the handle to Nova.

Nova took it and looked at him, puzzled.

"Cut just ahead of the darkest stretch," Eren said. "Just break the skin."

Nova tightened his fingers on the handle and did not move.

"I..." His voice wavered. "What if I cut wrong?"

"Slowly."

"But it's right by the eye..."

"Nova."

Nova went quiet, looked down at the knife, said nothing for a few seconds, and handed it back. "I can't."

Eren took the knife without a word.

He glanced at Nova—the boy's head was down, both hands gripping the branch, knuckles white. To put a blade beside someone else's eye—even he would hesitate. A child had no chance.

He dug through his tool roll and found a sliver of iron the size of a fingernail—spare stock from repair work, polished on both sides, one side able to catch light. He pinched it between his fingers, turned it toward the light leaking through a crack in the stone. The skin at the corner of his left eye showed in the metal, blurry but enough.

The line sat just below the corner of the eye, the skin slightly raised over it.

"Show me where it ends."

Nova leaned in. "Here."

Eren found the spot in the reflection, adjusted the angle, and fixed it in his mind.

Then he set the knife tip and cut.

Not deep—just through the skin. Pain detonated from the corner of his eye; tears started down his face. He waited two seconds for the eye to settle, then checked the metal again.

The cut was open. He could see something inside—not blood, but something else. Pale gray, nearly translucent, pressed tight against the tissue beneath the skin like a hair's breadth, edges catching cold light.

Nova turned his head away. He did not dare look.

Eren set the knife down. Right index finger and thumb went to the edge of the cut and closed on the fine strand.

It was there under his fingertips—harder than he had expected. Like pinching a short length of fine wire, but not quite; a little give, and the moment he squeezed it contracted slightly, as if it were alive.

When he squeezed harder the far end of the strand jerked like a snake caught by the tail. The whole patch of gray lines flared restless, color shifting from gray toward brick yellow, dull, like sparks in dead embers. Heat ran up the strand and flooded back into him. Eren made no sound and rode out the wave.

He pulled a little outward.

The burn sharpened; his vision blurred and swelled. He did not let go, kept pulling, and dragged that short section out through the cut—perhaps a few centimeters.

"Cut it off."

Nova heard him and looked. Seeing the pale gray strand pinched between his fingers, pulled out from the corner of the eye, he froze a moment, then took the knife. Hands shaking, he severed it at the root.

The strand broke. The severed end snapped back. The dark yellow under the skin retreated in sections, and the scald faded into a dull ache.

Nova set the knife down, stepped back half a pace, squatted where he was, and let out the breath he had been holding.

What remained outside clung to his fingertips—slightly thicker than a hair, pale gray.

Eren laid the strand on the stone and checked the cut again in the metal. Blood was seeping; the gray line inside was no longer clear. Fine twitching ran under the skin—the shoot was withdrawing deeper.

Cutting alone might not be enough. He had to block the shoot's path so it had nowhere left to grow.

He looked into his tool roll again and took out a few small things—two iron nails, a length of fine copper wire, a chip of Crystone slag.

His eyes stopped on the slag. The shoot grew in Crystone too; maybe this would do something.

He picked up the slag and ground it on the stone until he had a pinch of pale gray powder, then scraped it aside with the back of the knife.

The pull on the strand had scrambled his right eye too; trying to look deeper through the metal reflection, he could not fix his gaze.

"Can you see inside the cut?"

Nova leaned in, looked, and nodded. His face was still pale.

"Press the powder in. All the way to the bottom. Pack the opening shut."

Nova stared at the cut still bleeding and did not move at once.

"Nova."

"I know." He drew a breath, pinched a bit of powder from the edge of the pile with his fingertip, and came closer.

Eren turned his face, held still, and bared the whole cut. He did not hurry him.

Only then did Nova press the powder in. It clotted the moment it touched blood. He did not look at Eren's eyes—only at the cut, pushing with his fingertip. Press, dab more powder, push deeper.

"Enough."

Nova pulled his hand back, stepped away, wiped his fingertips on his trouser leg, and said nothing.

"Thread." Eren said.

Nova knew Eren meant to stitch the wound. He found needle and thread in the pack, passed the needle through the flame once, and handed them over.

Eren took the needle in his right hand, looked in the metal, drew the skin on both sides of the cut together, and stitched—four uneven stitches, wide spacing, closing the wound.

Then he took medicine powder from his belt pouch, dusted it along the wound, pressed cloth over it, leaned back against the stone, and closed his eyes.

Nova crouched there, hands on his knees, both fists clenched, silent.

Eren leaned against the stone. The restless urge slowly faded.

How long it would hold, he did not know.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe a month from now. Maybe tonight.

He leaned against the stone with his eyes closed and said nothing. Wind crept through the cracks in the stone, colder than before.