Forged by Her Hand

The iron shears were cold against my scalp. Heavier than the ones Mother used for sewing, colder than the river in winter. I didn't hesitate. I opened them wide and brought them to the base of my neck, where my braid was thickest. The first cut was a brutal, grating sound. Not a clean snip, but a saw-like crunch of hair resisting its own murder. I had to work the blades back and forth, my knuckles white. A thick, black hank of it fell to the dirt floor, coiling like a dead snake.

I hacked away, tears blurring my vision but never falling. Crying was a luxury I’d packed away with my dolls and ribbons. The shearing was clumsy, leaving uneven tufts that stuck out at odd angles. When I was done, the stranger staring back at me from the polished water basin had my eyes, but nothing else. Her face was too soft, her jaw too gentle. But her hair was the ragged crop of a boy who didn't care for appearances. It would have to be enough.

Next came the binding. I took the long strips of linen Mother had left on my bed—her silent, terrified consent. I unwound the roll and started just below my breasts, pulling the fabric tight enough to steal my breath. The first wrap was a shock, a harsh compression that made my ribs ache in protest. I kept winding, layer over layer, crushing my chest flat against my bones. Each pull was a promise to my father, whose rattling cough was the only sound from the other room. Each turn of the linen was a nail in the coffin of Ashby, the daughter. By the time I was done, a dull, constant pain had settled in my torso. Breathing was a shallow, deliberate act. I was no longer a girl. I was a cage.

His armor was waiting. It smelled of him—of rust, old leather, and faint, lingering sweat. It was too big. The leather straps of the cuirass had to be cinched to their tightest holes, and still, the chest plate gapped away from my body, a hollow space where a man’s chest should have been. The greaves were heavy on my shins, the pauldrons comically wide on my narrow shoulders. I felt like a child playing dress-up for a war I couldn’t comprehend. I strapped his sword to my hip. The weight of it was immense, a solid, terrifying anchor pulling me toward my fate.

My parents were waiting by the door. Mother’s face was a mask of grief, her hand pressed to her mouth to hold back a sob. She reached out, her fingers brushing the cold metal of the breastplate, then flinched away as if it had burned her. She couldn't look at my face.

My father, leaning heavily on his cane, met my eyes. He was pale, his own breath coming in ragged gasps, but his gaze was clear. He didn't speak. He didn't have to. I saw the shame warring with the pride, the love fighting the terror. He gave a single, sharp nod. It was both a blessing and a death sentence.

I turned and walked out the door without looking back. I was Ash now. Just Ash. And with each step away from the only home I had ever known, the ill-fitting armor groaned, a constant reminder of the man I was pretending to be and the daughter I had left behind. The dirt road stretched out before me, leading to the recruitment post, and to a life I might not survive.

The recruitment post was a blur of shouting men and harried scribes. I mumbled my name—“Ash”—and presented my father’s conscription notice. The official barely glanced at me, his eyes already on the next man in line. He shoved a wooden token into my hand and pointed toward a muddy, sprawling encampment that stretched out like a festering wound on the landscape.

The moment I passed through the makeshift gate, the world dissolved into chaos. The air was a thick soup of smells: unwashed bodies, stale wine, human waste, and the metallic tang of blood from the practice yard. It was a stench so potent it made my eyes water. Men were everywhere, a roiling sea of rough-spun tunics and scarred knuckles. They wrestled in the mud, gambled with loud, guttural laughs, and sharpened blades with a grim intensity that chilled me to the bone. I kept my head down, my shoulders hunched, trying to make myself smaller, trying to mimic the swagger in their walk but only managing a stiff, awkward gait. The binding around my chest was a constant, suffocating pressure, a reminder of the secret I was guarding with every shallow breath.

A grizzled officer with a face like a slab of granite barked out tent assignments. When my token was called, he gave me a long, dismissive look that raked over my small frame and the oversized armor. He spat on the ground near my feet. “Tent seven. Try not to get lost, little man.”

Tent seven was a cramped, stifling space made of patched animal hides that did little to keep out the damp chill. Six straw pallets were crammed inside, leaving barely enough room to walk. The air was even thicker in here, heavy with the smell of sweat-soaked linen and leather. Three men were already inside, their gear strewn about with careless abandon. They looked up as I entered, their conversation dying. I felt their eyes on me, measuring, judging. I gave a short, jerky nod, my voice failing me, and quickly claimed the last empty pallet in the far corner.

As I dropped my pack, my gaze caught on the fourth person in the tent. She was sitting on her pallet, back straight against the central pole, meticulously cleaning a set of throwing knives with an oiled cloth. She wasn't large like the other men, but she was solid, her body a collection of dense muscle and sharp angles visible even through her tunic. A long, jagged scar cut from her left temple down to her jaw, a pale white line against her sun-darkened skin. She moved with an unnerving economy, her hands sure and steady, her focus absolute.

Then she looked up.

Her eyes, dark and piercing, landed on me. It wasn't a glance; it was an appraisal. Her gaze moved from my unevenly cropped hair, down the ill-fitting armor that hung loose on my shoulders, to the sword at my hip that looked too heavy for me to wield. It was a slow, deliberate inventory, and with every passing second, I felt more exposed than if I’d been standing there naked. The linen binding felt paper-thin, my carefully constructed identity a fragile shell she could shatter with a single word. There was no flicker of welcome, no curiosity. There was only a cold, hard assessment that found me lacking. She saw weakness. She saw a liability.

My heart hammered against the cage of my ribs. I felt a flush of heat crawl up my neck, a purely feminine reaction I had to fight to suppress. I forced myself to meet her stare, to hold it for just a second, trying to project a confidence I didn't feel.

Her lips thinned into a line of faint contempt. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it was over. She dismissed me, turning her attention back to her blades, the polished steel winking in the dim light. She hadn't said a word, but the message was clear. I didn’t belong here. And she knew it.

The next morning, a horn blast tore through the camp before the sun had even breached the horizon. A command was shouted, echoing from tent to tent: “Fall out! Full gear inspection! Five minutes!”

Panic seized me. I scrambled to strap on the heavy armor over my tunic and bindings, my fingers clumsy in the cold, pre-dawn air. The other men in the tent moved with a practiced, grumbling efficiency. I was the last one out, stumbling into the neat lines forming in the main clearing. The air was frigid, my breath pluming in front of my face.

The unit commander, a barrel-chested man named Captain Bao, stood at the front. But it was the woman beside him who held everyone’s attention. Tania. She wore her own armor with the ease of a second skin, her scarred face impassive, her dark eyes sweeping over the rows of new recruits with an unnerving intensity. She was the one who would inspect us. My stomach twisted into a knot.

She started at the far end of the line, her movements sharp and economical. She would stop before a man, tug on a strap, tap a shield, run a critical eye over a blade’s edge. Her comments were low and clipped, meant only for the commander and the recruit. A quiet word of correction here, a sharp nod there. She was thorough, professional, and terrifying.

And then she was in front of me.

Silence. It was so absolute that I could hear the faint clink of a pot from the cook’s tent a hundred yards away. All other sound seemed to have ceased. I stared straight ahead, focusing on the gray fabric of the tent beyond her shoulder, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. The linen binding felt like a band of hot iron.

She didn't speak. Instead, she reached out and took hold of the pauldron on my right shoulder. It was too wide, sitting awkwardly high. She lifted it easily, showing the gap between the leather and my shoulder. “This is your father’s, isn’t it?”

Her voice was not loud, but it was as clear and cold as a winter stream, cutting through the morning air. Every man nearby heard it. I felt a hot flush of shame creep up my neck. I managed a stiff nod, my throat too tight to form words.

“A noble gesture,” she said, her tone devoid of any admiration. She let the pauldron drop with a dull thud against the breastplate. She tapped the center of my cuirass with two fingers. The hollow sound echoed in the quiet. “But sentiment doesn’t stop a spear. A blade slips under this gap, pierces your lung, and you die choking on your own blood. Slowly.”

She circled me like a wolf inspecting a lamb. Her eyes missed nothing. “The greaves are too long. You’ll trip running. The vambraces are too loose; they’ll catch on your own sword. You are a walking hazard.” She stopped in front of me again, her face inches from mine. I could see the fine lines around her eyes, the stark white of the scar. “Look at me, boy.”

I forced my eyes to meet hers. It was like looking into a deep well.

“War is not a story you tell your children. It’s a butcher’s yard. The man next to you depends on you to hold your ground. He depends on you to be strong enough, fast enough, and skilled enough to not get him killed.” Her voice dropped even lower, a venomous whisper that was somehow more humiliating than a shout. “You are none of those things. You are small, you are ill-equipped, and you are weak. You are a liability. Your presence here puts every man in this unit at risk.”

She held my gaze for a moment longer, her expression one of pure, undiluted contempt. Then she turned away without another word, moving to the next man as if I had already ceased to exist. The inspection continued, but I didn’t hear it. I was frozen, trapped in a bubble of burning shame. The eyes of the other recruits were on me—some with pity, most with scorn. Tania hadn’t just criticized my armor; she had branded me. I was the weak link. The dead weight. The boy who was going to get them all killed.

Sleep was impossible. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Tania’s face, her expression of absolute disdain burned into the back of my eyelids. Her words echoed in the suffocating quiet of the tent, each one a fresh sting. Weak. A liability. The snores of the other men were a grating reminder that I was an outsider here, a fraud waiting to be exposed.

Anger, hot and sharp, was a better feeling than shame. It propelled me from my pallet, the straw scratching my skin. I grabbed my father’s sword, the cold steel a solid, unforgiving weight in my hand, and slipped out of the tent.

The camp was quiet under a sliver of moon, the tents like sleeping beasts in the pale light. I found a secluded clearing behind the stables, the air thick with the scent of hay and earth. Here, at least, no one could see me. No one could judge me.

I moved through the basic forms my father had taught me, my body a chorus of aches. My shoulders screamed from the weight of the armor, my thighs burned from the marches, and my back protested every twist. The sword felt clumsy, an extension of my own inadequacy. I pushed through the pain, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I repeated the motions again and again, sweat stinging my eyes, trying to force my trembling muscles into some semblance of competence. I was fueled by nothing but humiliation and a desperate, bitter need to prove that woman wrong.

“Your stance is open. A child could run you through.”

The voice came from the shadows, as sharp and sudden as a blade in the dark. I froze, my sword held awkwardly mid-swing. Tania stepped into the moonlight. She wasn’t wearing her armor, just a simple tunic and trousers that did nothing to hide the solid power of her body. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her scarred face impassive. She looked as if she had been born from the night itself.

My blood ran cold. I felt naked under her gaze, all my frantic, clumsy efforts laid bare.

She walked toward me, her steps silent on the packed earth. She didn't raise her voice. She didn't have to. “Your feet are too close together. You have no balance. A strong wind could knock you over.” She stopped just out of arm’s reach and gestured with her chin at my sword. “Your grip is wrong. You’re holding it like a farmer’s tool. You’ll break your own wrist on the first parry.”

Each word was a precise, surgical cut. There was no encouragement, no room for argument. It was a simple statement of fact. My failure was absolute.

“Show me a low block,” she commanded.

My mind went blank for a second before I clumsily moved into the defensive position, lowering my sword.

“Wrong.” She was beside me in an instant. She didn't touch me. Instead, she moved her own body, mirroring my position but correcting every flaw. Her feet were shoulder-width apart, her knees bent, her back straight. Her power was rooted in the ground. “Your weight is on your heels. It should be on the balls of your feet. Your elbow is locked; it should be bent. You’re fighting the sword, not guiding it.” She moved back, her dark eyes pinning me in place. “Again. Hold it.”

I shifted my body, trying to mimic her form. My muscles, already exhausted, screamed in protest at the unfamiliar strain. A fire started in my shoulders, a deep, searing burn that spread down into my biceps.

“Hold it,” she repeated, her voice flat.

Seconds stretched into an eternity. The sword grew heavier, impossibly heavy. My arms began to tremble, the vibration traveling from my fingertips all the way to my teeth, which I had clenched to keep from making a sound. Sweat dripped from my hair into my eyes. All I could see was her silhouette, unmoving, watching me.

“If you drop your guard now, you’re dead,” she said, her voice a low murmur. “The man you were supposed to protect is dead. All because your arms are tired.”

The trembling became a violent shudder. My vision blurred. The fire in my shoulders was an inferno, consuming every last bit of my strength. I wanted to drop the sword, to collapse, to curse her. But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

My arms gave out without my permission. The sword fell from my nerveless fingers, clattering onto the dirt with a sound that felt as loud as a thunderclap. I staggered, my legs barely holding me, my whole body shaking with exertion and failure.

She looked down at the sword, then back at me. Her expression hadn't changed. “You are weaker than I thought,” she said, and then she turned and walked away, disappearing back into the shadows as silently as she had arrived.

I stood there, gasping for air, shaking in the cold moonlight. Hate coiled in my gut, hot and venomous. I hated her for her cruelty, for her impossible standards, for seeing right through me. But beneath the hate, something else was taking root. A strange, twisted kind of determination. A burning obsession to one day hold that stance until my arms broke, and to see something other than contempt in her eyes when I did.

Dawn was a bruise-colored smear over the mountains when the whistle tore through camp. We stumbled from our tents into the bitter air, breath fogging white, boots sinking into churned mud. My body still remembered the sword dropping from my hands; my shoulders burned like I’d slept with coals pressed under my skin. The day didn’t care.

We ran. Laps until my lungs rasped and my bound chest screamed. The men fell into a rhythm, boots thudding, curses puffing out like steam. I ran at the back, sucking air through my teeth, counting breaths because counting hurt less than thinking. The leather bit into my ribs with every stride. My legs went numb, then heavy, then something worse—like each thigh was a sack of soaked grain strapped to me.

“Keep up, Ash.” Tania’s voice cut through the stomp of feet. She jogged the perimeter of the formation like a wolf shadowing the herd, eyes flicking, noting everything. She didn’t sound out of breath. She didn’t sound human.

I forced my pace faster. Stars sparked at the edges of my vision. The man ahead of me slowed, and I almost crashed into him, catching myself with a jolt that ricocheted through my spine.

We shifted to drills. Shields up. Down. Up. Down. The wood bruised my forearm raw. The rhythm was too fast; my muscles lagged by a half second. Tania strode among us, yanking a shield here, kicking at a stance there. When she reached me, she didn’t stop. She smacked the edge of my shield with her palm. Pain shot to my elbow.

“Stop trying to outlast the wood,” she said, expression unreadable. “You will lose.” Then she moved on.

Sparring was worse. My partner was a barrel-chested boy with a broken nose that had not been set properly. He swung his practice blade like he’d been born with it. He caught my shoulder, then my thigh, then the back of my knee. I hit the ground and the jolt rattled my teeth. The binding bit deeper when I sucked air in too fast.

“Again,” he said, grinning, offering no hand. I got up. The next hit came low. I was too slow to parry. The shame of the eyes on me burned hotter than the impact. I tried to remember the stance Tania had forced on me. Ball of the foot. Elbow bent. Don’t fight the blade, guide it. My muscles trembled anyway.

By midday I’d collected a map of bruises. We marched with full packs along a ridge until my calves felt like they would split. My boots, too big, rubbed skin raw at my heels. The world narrowed to footfalls and pain and the stubborn insistence that I wouldn’t fall out.

Someone did. Not me. Not yet.

When we finally stopped, I bent over my knees, swallowing bile. Water tasted like metal. The food was worse. A lump of steamed grain that turned to paste in my mouth. The men ate, laughed, shoved. I kept my head down.

“Stables,” Tania said, appearing without warning, as if she’d stepped out of the air. She held out a shovel. Her eyes flicked to my blistered hands, then to my face. “Since you can’t keep pace, you’ll put the extra energy into making yourself useful.”

A few men snorted. I took the shovel. The stables were a humid slap after the cold: the ripe stink of manure, the heavy sweetness of hay, the soft huff of horses. My shoulders screamed at the first lift. The muck was a wet, heavy mess that clung to the shovel and slopped back onto my boots. I worked slow at first, then found a rhythm. Scoop, lift, dump. The ache settled into something almost manageable. When my arms threatened to give, hate filled the gaps.

When I finished one stall, Tania showed up again, as if she’d been timing it. She glanced at the uneven scrape marks, the damp patches I’d missed, the hay scattered in the walkway.

“Again,” she said. “And do it properly.”

By the time the last stall was done, dusk had salted the air. My stomach was a hollow pit. I thought I was free for a moment—until she pointed toward the latrine trench with an expression that wasn’t quite a smile. A bucket, a brush, and lime waited.

“You fall behind in drills, you clean what others don’t want to touch,” she said. “Maybe you’ll learn to keep up.”

My throat tightened. I nodded, because there was nothing else to do.

The stink hit like a slap. I breathed through my mouth and focused on the work. Scrub, scatter lime, rinse. Repeat. My body protested each bend. The binding cut into the soft skin under my ribs. My head pounded with a dull drumbeat that matched the scrape of the brush.

By the time I stumbled back to the training grounds, night had fully settled. They were still at it—forms by torchlight, steel glinting. I slid into my place at the end of the line without looking at anyone. My grip on the practice sword was slick with sweat and something else. Blister broken. Blood.

“Hands,” Tania said sharply.

I showed them. Skin split at the base of my fingers, dark and angry.

“Wrap them,” she said. “Then join the last set.” She tossed a strip of cloth at me that smelled faintly of oil and smoke. For one stupid second my chest loosened, relief trying to bloom. Then her voice cut it down. “You don’t get to be tired when others depend on you.”

I wrapped my hands and lifted the sword. We moved through the forms. My arms shook. The world blurred at the edges, came back into focus, blurred again. Every time I thought I would drop the blade, her voice sounded—“Lower,” “Weight forward,” “Again.”

When she dismissed us, the other men staggered away laughing, trading insults. I stood alone, the sword still in my hand because I wasn’t sure I trusted my fingers to let it go without throwing it. Tania walked past me, stopped, and angled her face toward mine in the half-dark. Her eyes were tired but sharp.

“Tomorrow will be worse,” she said, not unkind, not kind. Just true. “Eat. Sleep. Show up.”

I swallowed, tasted iron and grit, and nodded. I would. Even if it killed me. Especially if it didn’t.

Morning came like a punishment. My hands ached under the fresh wraps, and every tendon felt frayed. We formed a rough circle on the packed dirt, steam rising off our bodies in the cold. Tania paced the ring, calling names. One by one, pairs stepped in and wore each other down while the rest of us watched, jeered, learned where the weak joints showed.

“Ash,” she said, voice flat. “Rogan.”

The circle muttered. Rogan was massive, a slab of muscle with a buzzed head and thick wrists. He grinned as he rolled his shoulders, swinging the practice blade like it was a branch he meant to snap over someone’s back. A bruise bloomed under his left eye—someone else’s lucky hit. He held his blade low, casual. A trick.

I tried to swallow and my throat clicked dry. I stepped into the ring and adjusted my stance, weight forward, knees bent, the way she’d drilled into me. The binding under my tunic was already too tight, my breaths shallow. I pretended my chest was empty, my lungs just bellows that worked because I told them to.

“Begin,” Tania said, and stepped back. She crossed her arms, face unreadable. She didn’t look at me for long. She didn’t need to.

Rogan came in fast, quicker than his size should have allowed. The first strike was a test—heavy, aimed for my shoulder. I parried but the impact rattled down my arms and made my fingers tingle. He laughed, low and pleased, and came again, harder.

I gave ground, measured, careful. He wanted me to panic and trip over my own heels. The circle’s dirt was uneven, pitted with earlier fights. I felt for traction and kept moving.

He feinted high and swept low with his leg at the same time, a dirty trick that would have taken out a better fighter if they’d gotten lazy. I jumped his shin and took the blow on my blade, pain sparking in my forearm. He grunted, amused.

“Get him, Rogan,” someone called. Laughter.

I waited. Let him think he was pushing me where he wanted. Let him talk to his crowd. He liked them watching him. He liked showy hits. When he slashed across my ribs, the wood thumped the binding and I bit back a noise, stepping away quickly enough that it looked like a slide, not a flinch.

He moved closer. Close meant smell—sweat and stale grain on his breath, leather and iron. He crowded my space, blades clacking, his elbow jabbing when the ref—there was no ref—wasn’t looking. He bumped me with his hip, purposeful. I stumbled and heard a few snorts around the circle.

Tania didn’t say a word.

Rogan reached with his off hand to shove my face, testing how much I’d tolerate. I ducked at the last moment, his palm grazing my hair. I angled right, feet light, and felt the ground’s give. Mud. There, near the trampled edge, was a slick patch two steps wide.

I started to pant, let him see it, let my shoulders lift with the effort. He grinned wider, confident I was fading. He pressed. I backed toward the slick.

He swung big—a wide arc he’d finished with a punch to the gut if I took the bait. I took the hit on my blade and let the force spin me, my boot sliding into the mud. He lunged to follow, already laughing, and that was the moment I had been waiting for. I planted my left foot on solid ground, dropped my center of gravity so fast my thighs screamed, and slid my right foot like a hook behind his ankle. At the same time, I snapped my blade up to knock his wrist offline.

Momentum did the rest. His own weight betrayed him. His foot skated on the slick patch. His knee bent wrong, his balance went, and his arms pinwheeled for a handhold that wasn’t there. I drove my shoulder into his chest as I twisted, using him like a door I meant to slam.

He fell hard, a gasp punching out of him when his back hit dirt. Before he could heave me off, my blade was at his throat, wood pressing into the twitching pulse beneath his jaw. My knees pinned his arm at the elbow so he couldn’t swing up. He stank of humiliation and churned earth.

Silence dropped around us for one beat. Two. Then a few low exclamations, a drawn-out ooo that wasn’t friendly.

Rogan snarled and tried to rear up. I pressed the blade harder and pushed my weight lower on his elbow until his face tightened. I met his eyes and didn’t blink.

“Yield,” I said, voice steady enough to surprise me.

His mouth worked. The muscles in his neck shifted under the edge of the wood. For a second I thought he’d try to throw me anyway. Then he stilled and knocked the ground twice with his free hand.

I rose quickly, backing off. My hands shook, a tremor I couldn’t hide. Blood had seeped through my wraps again, darkening the cloth. I ignored it.

Rogan rolled to his side and spat, more pride than saliva. He got to his feet slower than he’d fallen, avoiding my gaze. The circle muttered in a different tone now—calculating, interested. Not kind.

I looked up without meaning to. Tania stood where she’d been, arms still crossed. For a blink, something shifted across her face, a tiny flicker like a candle catching a draft. Surprise. She tamped it down before it finished becoming anything else.

“Again,” she said to the circle at large. Then to me, quieter but not soft: “Use your brain when your strength fails. Good.”

It was barely praise. It still lit something inside me that no amount of pain had managed. I nodded once, careful not to show my teeth like a fool.

Rogan stomped away to nurse his pride. Another pair stepped into the ring, and the dirt smoothed under their feet, erasing our marks like it hadn’t happened. My body hummed with leftover adrenaline, my lungs dragging air like I’d won a secret no one could take from me.

I stepped back into line, eyes forward. Tania moved on, but for the first time since I’d arrived, I had the sense that she was not just watching me to see if I would break. She was watching to see what I did next.

The clouds broke like a drumskin, and rain hammered the camp so fast the first puddles became ponds. Mud swallowed our boots by the ankle, then the calf. The air turned to needles. Tents sagged, ropes went slack, and the smoke from the cookfires dissolved into choking steam that tasted like ash and wet wool.

“Secure the lines!” someone shouted. Men ran, slipping, cursing. My wraps were soaked in minutes; the cloth clung to my palms, slick with old blood now thinned to pink. The cold pressed into the bones. I grabbed a loose flap and tied it down until the knot bit my fingers. Around me, canvas bellied and snapped.

The first crack sounded like a tree breaking. Then a second, closer—a heavy percussion that made the ground tremble. I pivoted toward the supply tent just as its central beam gave way. The ridgepole split and dropped with a meaty thud. Canvas fell, smothering the crates stacked inside and the two boys hauling sacks of rice. One scrambled free, coughing, eyes wild. The other didn’t move. The tent’s center, where the beam had fallen, was a collapsed lung.

For a heartbeat, everyone froze. The storm made cowards of us all. Then Tania was in motion, cutting through the slop with her shoulders squared, her jaw set. I moved after her, not thinking. My body decided for me.

We reached the torn canvas at the same time. Rain sheeted off the fabric, turning it into a water skin that sagged with pounds of trapped air and liquid. Tania drew her knife and slashed a line, releasing a spurt of muddy water that soaked us both. She didn’t flinch. She plunged her hands into the mess and grabbed for purchase.

“Beam,” she said, voice calm in the chaos. “It’s pinning him. We can’t pull him free until we lift it.”

A whimper came from under the canvas—thin, wet. My stomach tightened. I knelt and shoved my arms under, feeling for an edge. My fingers brushed wood, rough and heavy. The beam had fallen across the boy’s thighs. His breaths were sharp little gasps, too fast.

“Takeshi,” he said, name or plea, I didn’t know.

“Listen to me,” Tania said, leaning down, speaking low and steady. “We’ve got you. Don’t move until I say. Ash, we need a fulcrum.”

There, near the collapsed wall, a broken wagon tongue jutted up, half-buried in sludge. I scrambled to it, slipped, righted, and dragged it back, the end knocking my knees. Tania cleared space with her shoulders, ripping canvas, muscles bunching under her wet tunic. I shoved the wood under the beam and rocked it into place. The beam didn’t budge.

“Again,” she said. “On my count.”

We set our hands where the wood was least slick, rain running into our sleeves. My arms shook already, cold leeching strength. Tania met my eyes, a brief snap of connection, and nodded. We lifted.

It felt like trying to move the earth. The beam rose enough that mud oozed under it and held. The boy cried out. The sound sharpened my focus like a whetstone. I grunted, teeth clenched, shoulders burning. Tania pressed her weight down on the lever, thighs braced, feet sliding wide for traction. Trust moved between us as sure as the rain.

“Hold,” she said, breath steady, though I could see the strain around her mouth. “Hold.”

“Now,” I ground out. “Pull him.”

Her gaze cut to me, one second of calculation. Then she shifted her grip, keeping the lever pinned with one hand while she reached under and grabbed the boy by the armpits. I slid my knee under the beam to keep the lever from slipping, pain sparking down my shin as wood and weight pressed bone. The boy’s fingers caught canvas, then my sleeve. I peeled his hand off and guided it to the edge of a crate for leverage.

“Kick with your free leg, Takeshi,” Tania ordered. “Push.”

He did, weakly at first, then stronger when his knee cleared. Mud sucked and released like a mouth. He screamed when the beam dragged across his other thigh. I held the lever with everything I had left and forced my focus into the mechanics. Angle, pressure, breath. Don’t think about bones cracking. Don’t think about how the rain made everything twice as heavy.

“Almost,” I said, useless encouragement, but he responded anyway, body shuddering as he strained. My palms slipped. I corrected, digging my nails into the wet wood.

Then he came free, rolling onto his back, eyes blinking up at the sky like he’d never seen it. Tania let the beam down slow enough that it didn’t smash my leg, then released the lever and went to her knees in the mud. She ran a hand over his thighs, firm and clinical, her fingers pressing for swelling, deformity. He hissed but didn’t pass out.

“Nothing broken,” she said, relief tucked away so deep most people wouldn’t have heard it. I did. “Can you stand?”

His mouth trembled. He nodded, then shook his head, eyes glassy. Tania hooked his arm over her shoulder and looked up at me. Rain plastered her hair to her face, dark and slick, and for a beat, there was no sound but the storm and our breathing. Her eyes held mine—no mockery, no dismissal. Just acknowledgment. It hit like heat through the cold.

“Help me,” she said.

I stepped in, took the boy’s other arm, and we lifted together. Our hands brushed. Mud smeared across both of our wrists, indistinguishable. We moved in unison without speaking, weaving through the men who had finally converged, eager now that the worst was done. Someone held the tent flap aside; someone else shouted for the medic. We didn’t stop to answer.

We got Takeshi to the edge of the medic’s awning and eased him onto a pallet. He clutched my sleeve again, panicked.

“I can’t feel my toes,” he said, tears mixing with rain.

“You’re in shock,” Tania told him, firm, her voice the kind that made you believe it. “Warmth. Food. You’ll feel them soon.”

The medic arrived, hands already moving, and we stepped back. Mud released our boots with obscene little pops. I realized my leg throbbed where I’d braced the beam; my skin would bruise dark. My hands shook as the cold rushed back in, the adrenaline fleeing like a flock of birds. I looked at Tania. She was breathing hard, chest rising and falling under wet cloth, nipples hard peaks beneath from the cold; the sight flashed and burned before I dragged my eyes up. Her mouth was set, but the corners had softened.

“Good thinking,” she said, quiet enough it didn’t carry. Not a smile, but less than a scowl. “With the lever.”

I nodded, breath fogging. “You would’ve done the same.”

She held my gaze a second longer than necessary, and something unspoken traveled the small distance between us—recognition, maybe, or a truce that could survive until the next storm. Then she turned, barked orders at the gawking men to retie the lines, redistribute the crates, clear the channels so water wouldn’t pool. Her voice cut clean through the pounding rain.

I stood for one more heartbeat, listening to the men move, the snap of rope, the thud of wood. Then I went back into the downpour and did as she’d taught me: used what I had, kept my head down, and worked. The cold bit. The mud dragged. But under it, something steadier held.

Night came mean and early, hammering us flat under the weight of it. The rain slackened to a bitter drizzle, fog lifting off the churned ground like breath. We crowded around a miserable ring of flame that someone coaxed from damp kindling and desperation. Smoke clung to our clothes and hair; it burned the back of my throat and made my eyes water. My fingers had gone stiff and pale, wrinkled from hours of wet. I held them close to my ribs and tried to rub heat into them, listening to the crackle and the hiss as the wood argued with the water.

Men swore in low voices. Someone laughed, too loud and sharp. Someone else coughed—a deep, racking sound that made me think of old barns and dust. The ground near the fire had turned to a greasy stew of mud and ash. Every time I shifted, my boot sank and let up with a soft, obscene noise. I kept my knees tight, my shoulders hunched, every part of me guarding the seams of my disguise. My binder chafed, soaked through, and each breath dragged across it like a rasp. I focused on the flame and on not shivering so hard my teeth clicked.

Tania stood just outside the circle of light, a dark figure outlined by embers. Her hair hung in a wet rope down her back. Steam curled from her shoulders where the heat touched her. She was not talking, not even to the lieutenant who hovered, waiting for orders that wouldn’t come until morning. Her gaze moved, counting. Checking. When it landed on me, it was quick, a hit-and-run, but it stayed in my nerves.

She stepped forward without warning. The men closest to her shifted like the tide, making space the way animals do around a larger one. She didn’t look at them. She held out a small metal flask, its sides dented and dark with use. Her hand was steady. The gesture wasn’t kind; it was efficient, like handing over a tool.

I met her eyes because not doing so would have been more suspicious. There was nothing in them I could use—no softness, no smile. But there wasn’t contempt, either. She tilted the flask a fraction, as if to say, take it or don’t, but choose.

I took it. The metal was cold and slick against my palm. Our fingers didn’t touch. She was that precise. The lid was stiff; I worried the edge with my thumb until it gave.

The first swallow punched heat into the back of my throat so hard my eyes watered anew. I swallowed again, smaller. The wine was rough, the kind that tasted like cheap vinegar and smoke, and it went down hot, spreading through me, waking nerves in my hands and feet like embers catching. I coughed once, quiet. The burn settled into my stomach and began to bloom. I hadn’t realized how empty I was until that moment.

“Pass it,” someone muttered, hopeful.

I ignored him. I lifted the flask again, took one more swallow that made my lips go numb, then held it out. Tania took it back, fluid, no brush of skin. She didn’t drink—just capped it and slipped it into her belt like she’d only ever meant to loan it.

“Good work today,” she said, so low only I could hear. It was bare, a statement of fact with no ribbon on it.

I nodded. My mouth felt clumsy, heat and cold fighting for ground. “You too.”

Her mouth twitched as if she might say something else, but a shout from the far side of the camp cut across us. She looked over my shoulder toward it, reading the sound for trouble, then back to me as if weighing what mattered more. Whatever she had been close to saying, she closed it in her teeth and swallowed it.

“Get dry if you can,” she said, the closest she’d ever come to concern. “You won’t be useful if you get sick.”

She turned and walked away, shoulders set, boots leaving deep, brief impressions in the mud that filled as soon as she lifted her foot. The men watched her because they always did. The commander passed through the light, murmuring with his second; faces turned, then turned back to the fire as if it could answer any of it.

I dragged my hands over my forearms, feeling the sting come back into my skin. The wine drew a thin, bright line through the fog in my head. My leg throbbed where the beam had bit it. My palms were scraped raw beneath the wraps, but I didn’t want to take them off. The pain felt clean. Earned.

“Did she just—” Rogan began, from across the flames.

“Shut up,” I said, but without venom. He did, surprisingly, more interested in his bowl of slop than picking a fight in the rain.

I watched the spot where Tania had stood until staring felt like pulling on a thread that might unravel something. I tucked my chin and leaned forward, letting the fire burn my face. My skin tightened in the heat. My clothes began to steam, faintly. Around me, the men edged closer, the ring cinching tighter.

When the flask came back around finally, hand to hand, no one said it was hers. It landed near my knee like a dare. I didn’t look for who sent it. I took another swallow and passed it left. The heat held steady in my chest, a new center of gravity that didn’t depend on anyone else’s approval.

I sat there until my shivering eased into a manageable tremor. The noises of camp softened—voices draining down into murmurs, the last of the ropes creaking as the wind shifted, a snore breaking off into a choke. Rain picked at the top of the tent where a thin patch had formed, dripping in a slow, relentless measure. I counted the drops until numbers lost their shape. My eyelids stuck when I blinked, grit and smoke turning them heavy. The wine smoothed the edges of everything sharp: the day, the cold, the knowledge that nothing had changed and something had.

When I lifted my head again, Tania was a silhouette on the edge of the tents, speaking with the night watch. She moved like she had more heat than the rest of us combined. For a second, the fire popped, and light caught the side of her face. It made the scar at her temple shine pale, a faint crescent. Then she turned away, back into shadow.

I curled my hands inside my sleeves, pressed them to my ribs, and let the warmth from the wine and the fire sit between my bones like a pact I hadn’t agreed to out loud. The truce didn’t have words. It didn’t need them. It was a flask, offered and returned, a heat that held just enough to get me through the night.