Low's chest heaved with ragged breaths, a strange mix of wild exhilaration and stunned disbelief washing over her. She had done that. She, Low, the scrawny, overlooked orphan, had taken down a grown, armed man, a brute of a bounty hunter, with a single, well-aimed blow. A shaky laugh escaped her lips.
She didn't linger on the thought, the adrenaline already beginning to fade, leaving her trembling. Leonotis was still bound. She rushed to his side, her nimble fingers, though shaking, working quickly and expertly at the thick, cruelly tightened knots. The rough rope chafed against his burned, blistered hands, and he winced, hissing in pain, but his eyes, when they met hers, held a profound, almost overwhelming gratitude that made her own chest ache.
"Low… you…" he began, his voice hoarse, cracked.
"No time for talking," she said, her voice a little breathless but already regaining its customary sharpness as she sawed at a particularly stubborn knot with a sharp shard of flint she'd kept tucked in her belt. Finally, the last strand parted, and Leonotis's wrists were free. He rubbed them gingerly, his gaze fixed on the unconscious, sprawling form of the bounty hunter.
"How… how did you do that?" he asked, his voice filled with a genuine, awestruck wonder. "You were so… fast. So strong. I've never seen you move like that."
Low just shrugged, a flicker of her own confusion and unease in her eyes. She flexed her fingers, feeling the lingering thrum of that strange energy. "I don't know," she admitted, her voice barely a whisper. "I just… did." The feeling of that sudden, inexplicable strength was still humming within her, a strange, unsettling, yet undeniably thrilling power.
Leonotis didn't press. He was free, his hands were a mess, and Low had saved him. That was all that mattered in that moment. He looked at the unconscious hunter, and the earlier spark of defiance in his eyes now ignited into a cold anger. "Let's make sure he stays down, and can't follow those other two." He glanced around, his gaze falling on the patch of thick, thorny vines he had noticed earlier, already imagining them wrapped tightly around the brute. He might not be able to command them with the same finesse as with his root-sword, especially with his hands so damaged, but he could certainly use them, and the man's own ropes, to ensure Borin wasn't going anywhere soon.
Leonotis, his injured hands throbbing with a dull, persistent ache despite the rough, leafy poultice Low had fashioned, watched the path Jacqueline had taken. It was a narrow, winding track that disappeared quickly into the mist-shrouded, unforgiving heights of the Water Mountain.
A fierce, almost painful protectiveness surged through him, a primal, inexplicable need to ensure her safety despite her earlier, stinging abandonment. "We have to go after her," he said, his voice firm, though it wavered slightly with the pain in his hands. He tried to brook no argument, but he knew Low.
Low, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her gaze fixed on the securely bound and still unconscious form of the hunter they'd left trussed up like a holiday boar, snorted derisively. "Go after her?" she repeated, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "The girl who ditched us the second things got a little hairy? The one who used us as a distraction to make her own getaway? Let her fend for herself up there with her precious shrine. We finally have a chance to get away, Leonotis. A real chance. Let's take it, find a healer for your hands, and then head for the Capital like we planned."
Betrayal still stung Low, a bitter, familiar taste in her mouth. Jacqueline's departure had echoed the countless times she'd been left behind, dismissed, forgotten in the cold, uncaring halls of the orphanage.
"But what if they catch her?" Leonotis argued, his eyes pleading as he met Low's hardened gaze. "She helped us. She stopped the river, remember? She healed my leg, and your injury too. We can't just leave her to those… those monsters."
He remembered the genuine sadness he'd glimpsed in Jacqueline's eyes, the fleeting moments of shared laughter, the quiet strength she possessed. Beneath her aloof, almost ethereal exterior, he sensed a deep vulnerability she tried desperately to hide. "She might act like she doesn't need anyone, but I don't think that's true."
Low's jaw tightened, her expression unyielding. "She made her choice, Leonotis. Just like those bounty hunters made theirs when they grabbed you. Every man, or girl, for themselves out here, right? That's the first rule of survival."
She gestured impatiently towards the horses the bounty hunters had left behind, tethered to a nearby tree. "We could be miles away from this cursed mountain by nightfall. Safe."
Leonotis's gaze hardened, mirroring the stubborn set of Low's jaw, though his was born of a different conviction. "And live with ourselves, knowing we left someone who helped us to face those brutes alone? That's not who we are, Low. That's not what a hero would do. It's not what Gethii would do."
He took a tentative, painful step towards the mountain path, wincing as his injured hands protested even that small movement. "I'm going."
Low watched him, her initial, justifiable anger warring with a grudging, infuriating respect for his unwavering, almost foolish sense of loyalty. She still felt a knot of bitter resentment towards Jacqueline's betrayal, but the raw, unwavering determination etched on Leonotis's young, dirt-smudged face chipped away at her resolve. He looked so small, so vulnerable with his bandaged hands, yet his spirit burned with a fierce, unyielding courage that shamed her own cynicism. He was right. Abandoning someone, even someone who had abandoned them, didn't feel right. It wasn't what she, deep down, wanted to be either.
With a heavy, exasperated sigh that seemed to carry all the weariness of her short, hard life, she pushed a stray, sweat-dampened lock of hair from her eyes. "Fine," she conceded, her voice still grudging, but the fight had gone out of it. "Fine! We go after the runaway princess. But don't expect me to hold her hand and sing campfire songs if she gets herself into more trouble. And if those other two hunters are half as tough, or as ugly, as this oaf," she kicked Borin's unconscious form lightly, "we're probably walking into a death trap."
She glared up at the mist-shrouded, silent peaks, a deep sense of foreboding settling in her stomach like a cold stone. "Just… try not to get captured again, alright? My rock-throwing arm is getting tired."
Leonotis nodded, a flicker of profound relief and gratitude softening his determined eyes. "I won't. Thank you, Low. Really."
He started up the treacherous, upward-winding path, his steps uneven but resolute. Low hesitated for a moment longer, her gaze lingering on the unconscious bounty hunter, a silent, bitter promise of self-preservation warring with the undeniable, exasperating pull of their unlikely, hard-won fellowship.
With another sigh, heavier this time, she followed Leonotis, the rugged, unforgiving terrain leading them deeper into the looming, misty embrace of the Water Mountain, towards a destiny none of them could yet foresee.