Siramae’s hands moved without thought — folding cloth, soaking it, wringing it until water ran clear between her knuckles. The bowl beside her held what it always held now: ash mixed with water gone grey, and beneath that, the pink tinge that didn’t wash out.

  Two months since the Council had scattered, and the sickness had followed them home like a dog that wouldn’t be kicked away.

  She pressed the cloth to the child’s forehead. The girl — Mira, eight winters, maybe nine — didn’t flinch. Her eyes stayed closed, lids thin enough to show the veins beneath. Breath came shallow, rattling in her chest like stones shaken in a bag.

  Behind Siramae, the shelter sagged under the weight of too many bodies and not enough air. Someone coughed — wet and ugly — and the sound pulled at other coughs until the whole space shuddered with it.

  Siramae didn’t turn around.

  “How many today?” Raisa’s voice came from the entrance, low and careful.

  “Three worse. One better.” Siramae’s thumb rubbed the child’s wrist, feeling for the pulse. It skipped, fluttered, came back. “Mira’s holding.”

  Raisa stepped inside, bringing cold air that cut through the fog of sweat and sickness. Her face looked thinner than it had two months ago. Everyone did. Even the strong ones had that hollow look now, with eyes too large and cheekbones too sharp.

  “Ketak?”

  “Turned the corner yesterday.” Siramae finally looked up. “Ate broth. Kept it down.”

  Raisa’s shoulders dropped a fraction — not relief, just the loosening of one knot whilst others pulled tighter. “Good. Varek’s been asking.”

  “Varek can ask the sky for all I care.” Siramae wrung the cloth again, harder than needed. “I’ve got six here who need me more than his worry does.”

  Raisa didn’t argue. She crouched beside Siramae, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched, and looked at the sleeping child. “How long?”

  “For her? A day. Maybe two.” Siramae’s voice stayed flat, but her hand gentled on the girl’s forehead, smoothing damp hair back. “Depends on whether the fever breaks.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  Siramae’s jaw worked. She didn’t answer.

  Outside, the camp sounded smaller than it should. Voices carried wrong — too few, too quiet, the spaces between them too wide. No children shouting. No dogs barking over scraps. Just the low murmur of people trying to stay useful whilst their world thinned out around them.

  Raisa stood, knees cracking. “I’ll send Yarla with more water.”

  “Send her with another pair of hands if you’ve got them.” Siramae looked at the line of bodies wrapped in furs, most of them still, a few shifting restlessly. “I can’t watch them all at once.”

  Raisa’s hand rested briefly on Siramae’s shoulder — the only comfort she had time to give — and then she was gone, the hide flap falling back into place.

  Siramae sat with Mira until the child’s breathing evened out, then moved to the next body. A boy this time, older, maybe twelve. His name sat just out of reach. She’d known it yesterday. Today it wouldn’t come.

  She pressed her palm to his chest, feeling for the heat. It blazed under her hand, fierce and wrong.

  “Drink,” she said, though he didn’t wake. She lifted his head anyway, tipped water against his lips. Most of it ran down his chin. Some went in.

  Good enough.

  The next body. The next cloth. The next breath was measured and counted.

  This was what she did now. This was what they all did.

  Beyond the shelter, a different quiet settled. Ketak sat outside with his back against the windbreak, wrapped in furs that smelled of smoke and old sweat.

  But he was upright. That counted for something.

  Naro dropped down beside him without asking, close enough that their shoulders bumped. He held out a wooden bowl — broth, thin and grey, a few soft pieces of root floating in it.

  “Siramae said you need to eat.”

  Ketak took the bowl. His hands shook slightly, but he got it to his lips without spilling. The broth tasted of almost nothing, but his stomach took it without complaint.

  “You look like shite,” Naro said, watching him drink.

  “You say the nicest things.”

  “I’m serious.” Naro’s grin flickered, then died. “You looked worse last week, but that’s not saying much.”

  Ketak lowered the bowl, staring into what was left. “How many?”

  Naro didn’t pretend to understand. “Seventeen dead. Another twenty are still sick.” He paused, picking at a thread on his tunic. “Mira’s bad. Siramae won’t say it, but everyone knows.”

  Ketak closed his eyes. Mira had given him a carved bird once, back when he could still walk without his legs threatening to fold. She’d been proud of it, even though the wings sat crooked and the beak looked more like a lump.

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  He still had it. Tucked in his pack somewhere, wrapped in a scrap of hide so it wouldn’t break.

  “The others?” he asked.

  “Getting by.” Naro’s voice went carefully neutral. “Marlek’s out hunting with Torek. They’ve been gone three days. Teshar and Arulan are sorting supplies — working out what we’ve got left, what we need.” He glanced sideways at Ketak. “Everyone’s thinner. But we’re managing.”

  “And Vekarn’s camp?”

  Naro spat into the dirt. “Heard they lost thirty. Maybe more. Gismund died a week ago.” His lip curled. “Vekarn’s still standing, though. Of course he is.”

  Ketak looked up at that. “Gismund’s dead?”

  “Fever took him in two days. One morning, he was fine; the next, he couldn’t stand. By sunset, he was wrapped and waiting for the pyre.” Naro’s hands clenched into fists, relaxed, clenched again. “Waltar’s sick now. Laith, too.”

  The names hung between them. Vekarn’s inner circle, the ones who’d stood at his shoulder during Council, nodding along whilst he made examples of people.

  Ketak brought the bowl back to his lips and drank the rest in silence.

  When it was empty, Naro took it from him and stood. “Siramae said you’re not to do anything stupid. That means no walking further than the fire pit, no lifting anything heavier than your own arse, and no—”

  “I know,” Ketak said. “She’s already told me three times.”

  “Good. Because if you die after she spent two months keeping you breathing, she’ll kill you herself.”

  Naro walked off, leaving Ketak alone with the weak sun and the too-quiet camp.

  Ketak pulled the furs tighter and let his head fall back against the windbreak. The wood pressed hard into his skull, grounding him. Real. Solid.

  He’d been closer to dead than alive a week ago. Close enough that he’d heard Siramae and Varek arguing in low, furious whispers outside the shelter, Varek insisting they prepare for the worst whilst Siramae told him to shut his mouth and let her work.

  He’d drifted in and out after that, fever pulling him down into strange, shapeless dreams where voices called his name, but nobody had faces.

  When he’d woken — truly woken, not just surfacing for a breath before sinking again — Siramae had been there with water and broth and a look that said don’t you dare thank me.

  So he hadn’t.

  He closed his eyes and listened to the camp. Footsteps. Low voices. The scrape of wood being stacked. The crackle of the fire.

  Normal sounds. The sounds of living.

  He held onto those.

  Deeper in the camp, a different task unfolded. Teshar stood in Arulan’s shelter, staring at the supplies laid out before him. Baskets of dried fish, sacks of grain, strips of preserved meat hanging from the roof poles. It should have looked like plenty.

  It didn’t.

  “Half of what we had at Council,” Arulan said quietly, coming to stand beside him. The elder’s face looked carved from old wood — hard, lined, carrying weight that bent him forward more than it used to. “And twice as many mouths gone.”

  Teshar’s hands curled into fists, then relaxed. “We’ll need to hunt more.”

  “We’ll need a miracle more.” Arulan tapped his staff against the ground once, the sound flat and tired. “The game’s thinned out. Too many camps are hunting the same runs. And winter’s coming.”

  “Winter’s always coming.”

  “Yes.” Arulan looked at him, eyes sharp despite the exhaustion. “But we don’t always go into it this weak.”

  Teshar didn’t have an answer for that.

  They stood in silence, two men looking at numbers that didn’t add up, trying to make them stretch further than they could.

  “Marlek and Torek will bring something back,” Teshar said eventually.

  “Maybe.” Arulan’s voice carried doubt, but not defeat. Not yet. “And if they don’t, we start rationing tighter. Smaller bowls. One meal instead of two when we can manage it.” He paused. “The sick get priority. The hunters get priority. Everyone else makes do.”

  Teshar nodded. It was the only choice that made sense, even if it felt like choosing who got to stay strong while others got weaker.

  “Vekarn’s camp?” he asked.

  Arulan’s mouth tightened. “Worse than ours. Thirty dead, maybe more. They’re burning bodies every other day.” He leaned on his staff, suddenly looking older than Teshar had ever seen him. “The Council was meant to bring people together. Share knowledge. Trade goods. Instead, it gave everyone the same sickness and sent them home to die with it.”

  “Not everyone died.”

  “No.” Arulan’s gaze shifted to Teshar, weighing something. “Not everyone. You stayed healthy. So did Marlek, Torek, and most of the hunters. The children—” He stopped, then forced himself to continue. “The children died worst. And the old.”

  Teshar thought of Mira, lying still in Siramae’s shelter, breath rattling like stones.

  “We’ll get through it,” he said, though the words felt hollow.

  “We’ll get through it,” Arulan agreed. “But we’ll be different on the other side.”

  Night fell, and with it came the cold that didn’t care about sickness or grief or how many bodies lay wrapped and waiting.

  Siramae sat by the fire pit, hands extended toward the flames, feeling warmth that didn’t quite reach her bones. Around her, the camp settled into uneasy rest — people wrapped tight in furs, pressed close for heat, voices dropping to whispers that died before they finished.

  Yarla sat across from her, feeding sticks to the fire with methodical precision. Neither of them spoke. There wasn’t much left to say.

  A cough broke the silence — familiar now, the wet rattle that meant lungs filling with fluid they couldn’t expel. It came from one of the shelters. Siramae didn’t move. She’d checked an hour ago. There was nothing more to do tonight.

  “Mira?” Yarla asked softly.

  “Still holding.” Siramae’s voice came out rougher than she’d meant. “Fever hasn’t broken, but it hasn’t spiked either. She’s…” She trailed off, searching for a word that fit. “Waiting.”

  Yarla fed another stick to the fire. Sparks jumped and died in the smoke. “And Ketak?”

  “Better. Properly better, not just wishful thinking.” Siramae allowed herself a small, grim smile. “He’ll live. Probably be weak for a while, but he’ll live.”

  “Good.” Yarla’s face softened briefly. “Varek would’ve lost his mind if we’d buried another one.”

  They sat with that truth. Varek had already lost a cousin and a nephew to the sickness. One more loss and he’d have broken something — probably himself.

  Siramae pulled her hands back from the fire and rubbed them together, trying to work feeling into her fingers. “How many fires are burning tonight?”

  Yarla looked out over the camp. Most shelters sat dark, just low coals glowing at their centres. Only three fires burned properly — the central one, Arulan’s, and the healer’s shelter where Siramae had been spending her nights.

  “Three,” Yarla said. “Down from eight.”

  “We’ll need more wood.”

  “We need more of everything.”

  Siramae didn’t argue. She just stared into the fire and watched the flames eat the wood, patient and relentless, the way sickness had eaten through their camp.

  Tomorrow, she’d check on Mira again. Tomorrow she’d brew more bitter tea and press more damp cloths to foreheads and measure more pulses against her own steady heartbeat.

  Tomorrow the camp would wake thinner and quieter, and they’d count themselves lucky for everyone who opened their eyes.

  But tonight, she sat by the fire and let herself be tired.

  Tonight was for that, at least.