Eujal steadied his breathing behind the tangled brush, the boy latched onto his shirt in a white-knuckled grip. In the clearing ahead, half a dozen deer grazed on tall, dew-laden grass, oblivious to the pair crouched nearby. The morning sun hadn''t yet burned off the lingering chill, and Eujal found his own teeth nearly chattering from a mixture of fatigue and nerves. He''d hunted small game before—rabbits, mostly—but never something as large as a deer. And never without a proper weapon.


    Still, hunger gnawed at both of them. They''d managed to sneak this close for a reason, and leaving empty-handed could mean starving by nightfall.


    He glanced at the boy. Dark hair clung to his gaunt face, his grey eyes fixed on the herd. There was no mistaking the desperation in that gaze. Eujal nodded once, and together they inched forward, pushing through the undergrowth with agonizing slowness. The deer continued to graze, occasionally lifting their heads to scan for threats. Eujal''s heart thumped harder every time one of them even twitched.


    It took them several tense minutes, creeping at a snail''s pace, before Eujal spotted a fawn—small and trailing behind the group. The mother was a few dozen strides away, distracted by a patch of tall grass. Eujal locked eyes with the boy, silently gesturing toward their likely target. The boy''s lips thinned, but he nodded.


    They lunged together. Their ragged shoes pounded the wet ground, adrenaline kicking in despite empty stomachs. The herd bolted in a flash of hooves and startled snorts. The mother deer bounded off with a powerful leap, but the fawn stumbled behind. Eujal tackled it, arms scrabbling to hold the flailing creature. The boy, unsteady on his feet, nearly tripped over a root but caught hold of the fawn''s hind legs. Its panicked bleating echoed through the clearing. With hearts hammering, they wrestled the young deer down.


    By the time it stopped thrashing, both of them were gasping for air, arms shaking from exertion. The boy collapsed onto his knees, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead. Eujal''s vision swam for a moment, his head light from hunger and lack of sleep. But they had done it. They had meat.


    Dragging the small carcass back into the thicker brush, they dropped it in an awkward heap. The boy leaned against a tree, chest heaving, and Eujal steadied himself with a trembling hand on a low-hanging branch. He forced himself to focus.


    "Alright," Eujal managed, voice tight. "I… I''ll handle this."


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    He knelt by the deer, realizing with dismay that he had no blade—he''d lost his dagger somewhere in the chaos with the Balakai. Muttering under his breath, he searched for a sharp rock, eventually finding one with a jagged edge that might do the trick. The boy watched, face drawn and pale.


    Eujal gritted his teeth and set to work, clumsily cutting into the deer''s hide. It was a messy process. He''d never properly skinned anything bigger than a hare, and using a stone made it worse. Still, he bit back disgust and pushed on, nearly gagging whenever the smell grew stronger.


    "Hey," the boy rasped, voice cracking from dryness. "What… year is it?"


    Eujal paused, blinking sweat out of his eyes. "What?"


    "What year is it?" the boy repeated, more firmly.


    "It''s 515," Eujal said, then resumed working on the deer. But the boy''s silence made him glance up. He found the boy staring blankly, confusion etched into every line of his face.


    "515," Eujal repeated. "As… in the year 515. Why? Does that—?"


    The boy shook his head slowly, looking down at the ground. "No. Nothing… I don''t remember that meaning anything." He swallowed, throat bobbing with visible effort. "Where am I?" he pressed on. "Which… which land is this?"


    Eujal laid the stone aside, taking a moment to wipe his bloody hands on some grass. "Asiran Kingdom," he answered. "Southern half, near the Jazedir mountains." He paused, uncertain how much detail to give. "I''m Eujal. I come from Khardouth, which—look, does any of that ring a bell?"


    The boy''s eyes fluttered with mounting panic. "I don''t… I don''t know where that is. Or… I don''t know anything." He pressed his hands to his temples. "I know what a deer is, what a tree is, but… I can''t remember where I''m from. Or who I am. Nothing."


    Eujal opened his mouth, then closed it again, unsure how to console him. He felt a tiny pang of empathy flicker in his chest—saw the desperation in the boy''s eyes, the cracks in his voice. But what could he even say?


    The boy tried to speak again, but his words tangled. Exhaustion weighed down his eyelids, and he slumped forward before he could finish his sentence. Eujal scrambled over, catching him by the shoulder just as he dropped into a feverish doze.


    "Hey!" Eujal hissed, patting the boy''s cheek lightly, but there was no response aside from faint, labored breaths. A sheen of sweat clung to his brow—hot to the touch. Cursing under his breath, Eujal gently laid him down against a mossy patch of earth. Then he turned back to the deer, breath hitching as he realized he was on his own with this half-skinned carcass and an unconscious stranger burning up with fever.


    He forced himself to keep working, hacking away with the jagged stone. The job took far longer than it should, and by the time he finally managed to strip away enough hide, his hands were numb and sticky with blood. Glancing over, he saw the boy''s dark hair plastered to his forehead, lips parted in shallow breaths, clearly in the grip of whatever sickness had taken him.


    "Great," Eujal muttered, flinging the torn hide aside. "Just… great."