There were many misfortunes to take and give shape to a Thel Akai’s life, but Erelan Kreed’s feeble witticisms were among the cruellest of curses. They were enough to dampen Lasa’s ground-kicking mirth, and once more she sat up, her reddened eyes fixing upon the slab of meat now sizzling on the rock, her expression settling somewhat.

Stifling a groan, Hanako pushed himself upright. ‘I am for the stream,’ he said.

‘Then we’ll see what needs threading,’ Lasa said, nodding.

Impatient youth? Yes, I see that, Lasa Rook. Given our purpose, and that joyous decision that so started us on this march, the bear might well have saved me the journey. Sighing yet again, Hanako skirted his way along the terrace until he came to the tumbling fall of water and its momentary pool that filled the bowl it had worn in the stone shelf. His few clothes were sodden rags now and he left them on the ground as he stripped down.

The water was clear, clean and stunningly cold. The shock against the lacerations covering most of his body quickly gave way to blessed numbness as he stood beneath the falls. Hanako, who so hates the cold these days. So quickly chilled by an unseasonal breath of wind. Hanako, who once crawled across a frozen lake, what has become of you? There was an old saying among the Thel Akai. ‘Born in the mountains, she longs for the valleys. Born against the sea, she longs for the plain. Born in the valley, she sets eyes upon the snow-clad peaks…’ And so on, as if the point already made could never be made to perfection, and the axe swings eternal against the tree, until the leaves raining down bury us. There we stand, senseless to the tremble in our hands, blind to the mulch against our eyes.

Thel Akai, you are brutes among flowers.

The cold water washed away the blood, slowed the ooze from the wounds. Naked and chilled down to his aching, bruised bones, Hanako returned to the camp.

He found both Erelan and Lasa crouched at the fire, slicing greasy strips from the charred meat. Lasa’s brows lifted upon seeing him. ‘So this was tongue after all,’ she said as she licked her fingertips, and then she cocked her head, ‘leaving me to wonder at my ambivalence.’

Erelan frowned up at him. ‘Have you no other clothes?’

‘I have… some few scraps,’ replied Hanako. ‘But I need sewing up.’

Lasa rose and drew close. She set to examining his wounds, touching here and there, standing all too close – close enough to have something brush her thigh. Glancing down, Lasa hummed under her breath. She lifted her gaze and arched one brow. ‘Not a mountain’s mantle of bitter snow can shrivel bold Hanako. I pronounce you fit and in no need of awl and gut.’

‘Do you mock me?’ he asked.