I seize the small flask from the side pack, rip the stopper free with my teeth, and hurl the contents across the densest knot of snakes writhing near the roots. Vaedros sees the motion at once. Of course he does. He flings his dagger into the puddled oil where it catches the firestone fixed in the hilt.
Flame runs across the wet ground in a sudden bright sheet.
Heat drives the serpents back in frantic waves. The horse screams and rears clear. Smoke rises carrying the foul reek of burning scale and resin.
“Move!” he snaps.
We drag the beasts through the opening before the fire gutters out in the rain. Needles smolder behind us. Bodies thrash in black knots, then vanish beneath the earth as quickly as they came.
We do not stop until the pines give way to open rock. My head is splitting. Blood runs freely from my nose, warm over my mouth, down my chin, onto my throat. I brace one hand against a boulder and breathe through the nausea.
Vaedros catches my wrist before I can wipe it away.
“You waited,” he says.
Rainwater drips from his hair at last, ruining its impossible order. There is blood on his sleeve, snake or his own. A shallow puncture marks the back of his hand where one fang found skin.
“You survived,” I answer through the copper taste in my mouth.
His jaw tightens. “That is no longer an answer.”
“It keeps fitting the question.”
He pulls a cloth from his coat and lifts it toward my face. I should refuse. Instead I stand still while he cleans the blood from my upper lip with maddening care, fingers bracing lightly beneath my chin. His touch remains controlled, though the energy beneath it does not.
“You chose the moment to help,” he says quietly.
“Yes.”
“You could have acted sooner.”
“Yes.”
The cloth lowers. Rain ticks softly on leaves around us. Somewhere distant, thunder rolls like furniture dragged across stone.
His gaze feels more dangerous than anger. Anger is simple. This is understanding taking shape.
“You are deciding when I need you,” he says.
“I’m deciding when you learn what needing looks like.”
A pulse jumps in his throat. I should step back. I do not.
“And if I decide I dislike the lesson?”
“Then adapt faster.”
For a second I think he might kiss me or throttle me, which is unsettling for several reasons, foremost among them that I cannot tell which outcome would make the air feel less charged.
Instead he releases my wrist and turns to inspect the puncture on his hand.
“Venom?” I ask.
He flexes his fingers. “Mild, if any.”
“Show me.”
He offers the hand with one brow slightly raised, as though curious whether concern has finally outweighed strategy. I take it more roughly than intended and examine the wound. Two punctures, shallow, already swelling faintly. I clean them with water, then crush bitter leaves from my satchel between my palms until green oil coats the skin.