Thayloryn Tuth counted six wagons at the tree line and knew she had run out of days. The slavers had swept the frontier for a week, taking any child no one would come looking for. Those were the children she meant to save. She had picked a valley two ridges south where she would teach orphans how to move without being seen, how to throw a blade without counting, how to survive the way she had survived. She could not build that place if the students were already chained. She watched from the low roof of the Edgewatch Inn, flat against the thatch. Thessameth Weth lay beside her with his repeating crossbow across his forearms. He was half a step slower than her in a fight, so they had learned to work opposite angles. Below, a broad dwarf in a fur-collared coat walked the line of wagons with a ledger. Gretch Sludgewick. He owned the caravan and the guards and the locks. Eleven children sat roped together on the last cart. Thayloryn recognized two from the alley behind the kitchens. "Front and back," Thessameth said. "I take the drivers. You take the locks." She nodded. She slid off the roof into the stable shadow and waited. Stillness was the skill she trusted most. When the cook shouted about a fire in the woodshed, the guards turned, and she moved. She threw knives as she ran, not counting, keeping the one in her left inner pocket where it belonged. Two guards dropped before they saw her. Thessameth's bolts took the drivers off the benches. She cut the rope on the last cart and told the children to run for the trees. Gretch came around the wagon with a short axe and swung for her ribs. She stepped inside the swing, put her shoulder under his arm, and buried a blade in the soft place above his belt. He folded against the wheel and did not get up. Eight children reached the trees. Three did not. One boy took a bolt meant for a guard and died before she reached him. A girl ran the wrong way and a rider caught her before Thessameth could reload. The last child, a small one with a shaved head, stared at Thayloryn from the cart and would not move, and by the time Thayloryn cut her loose the second wagon of guards was on them, and she had to carry the girl out over her shoulder while Thessameth covered the road. In the woods, after, she counted the ones she had saved and the ones she had not. Eight was not enough and was also everything. She had a valley to reach before dawn, and now she had children who would be hunted for the rest of the season.

Two miles into the woods, Thayloryn stopped the line of children and knelt by the smallest boy. Blood soaked the left leg of his trousers from hip to knee. A crossbow bolt had grazed him during the ambush at the caravan, and she had not seen it until he stumbled. She pressed her palm against the wound. The bleeding did not slow. She had bandages for cuts and a needle for shallow work, but nothing for a torn vein this deep. Dawn was four hours away. He would not last two. The valley she meant to reach with these eight children would hold seven if she kept walking. She knew one person close enough to help. The shadowroot hollow lay a half hour east, off her route and away from cover. She told the older children to wait under a fallen pine and to stay flat. She lifted the boy against her chest and ran. Branches cut her face. She did not slow. She found the oracle at the edge of his clearing, barefoot, staff in hand, watching the trees as if he had heard her coming for miles. She said the boy was bleeding out and she had nothing. Thorne Blackroot looked at the leg. "Deep vein. Not the artery. He has an hour." He turned and walked into his hut. She followed. He pulled a compact bundle of tied heel wraps from a shelf and unrolled two. "Pack the wound. Bind above it. Do not loosen the bind until morning." He handed her a small clay jar. "Chewed root. Put it in the wraps first. It closes the small vessels." She started to ask what she owed him. He shook his head once. "Not from you. From the one who brought you here." She did not understand. He did not explain. He watched her pack the wound with the paste and the soft cloth, and when the bleeding slowed under her hands, he nodded and stepped back. She carried the boy back to the fallen pine before the sky changed. His breath was thin but steady. The other seven were where she had left them. She counted them twice and lifted the boy again and started south for the ridge. She had bought the child a night. She had also taken a debt she did not set the terms of, from a man who traded in future favors, and she was already carrying one debt bigger than any single job. The valley was still two ridges away. The children still had to be hunted for a season. But the smallest one would see the valley, and that was the shape of the sanctuary she had promised herself she would build.