The cold was viscerally shocking, nearly stopping his heart, and for a moment he forgot about—

—the bear. The bear should have been on him. But there was no ripping pain, not yet. Instead it was several feet away, by Jainan, in a blur of movement. Kiem heard a grunt of rage as his brain caught up with his ears. Jainan stepped back out of reach of the armored claw, spun for momentum, and brought his makeshift quarterstaff around for another blow.

The bear reeled back. One of its paws came up to its snout while it scrabbled itself back with the other five. It and Jainan regarded each other warily.

Kiem tried to hold still in the water as he got his footing on the rocks below, panting in shallow gasps from the cold. The bear moved, but Jainan was quicker: he lunged forward and cracked the stick with surgical precision across one of the bear’s eyes.

A screech of animal pain filled the space between the trees. The bear stumbled back on its six legs, ducking its head away from Jainan. Jainan was in a defensive stance, as if he expected it to spin and attack, but it was already

skittering away across the snow.

Kiem pulled himself up the bank. His teeth chattered and he still couldn’t breathe properly, but he managed to get one sodden leg out of the water. And then hands were under his arms, dragging him out until he lay on the bank in the snow.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Jainan fell to his knees beside him. “Kiem, I’m so sorry, I thought it would go for me if it saw me moving.”

The note in Jainan’s voice galvanized Kiem into moving. He sat up, shivering, and resisted the urge to curl up. “Y-you meant it to go for you?”

“No,” Jainan said. “Yes. I don’t know. I thought I could draw it off. I didn’t mean it to be anywhere near you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Take my gloves.”

Kiem tried to wrap his arms over his chest, but it wasn’t helping. “Jainan,” he said, “that w-was incredible. You just fought off a bear. Shit, it’s cold. I d-don’t want your gloves,” he added, as Jainan tugged Kiem’s soaked gloves off his hands and replaced them with his own.

“Mm.” Jainan’s talkativeness had apparently run out. He gripped Kiem’s wrists and pulled him to his feet. Kiem followed the direction clumsily, too cold and soaked to do much thinking, and wasn’t expecting a full-on embrace.

He was too surprised to move. Jainan wrapped his arms around him, heedless of the fact that Kiem’s dripping coat was probably soaking river water into his own clothes. Kiem was too cold to feel much. It wasn’t even noticeably warmer, except on his face, where Jainan’s presence created a shelter against the breeze.