Isla's POV
The howls are getting closer.
I press myself against the cave wall, my heart hammering so hard it hurts worse than my broken ribs. Draven stands at the entrance like a silver statue, his eyes glowing that terrifying blue. Theron positions himself in front of me. Caspian spreads his wings, ready to fight. Silas coils near the shadows, deadly and silent.
We're surrounded. I know it even though I can't see them yet. The bear-men brought an army.
Then, just as suddenly as they started, the howls stop.
Silence crushes down on us. It's worse than the howling. At least noise tells you where the enemy is. Silence means they could be anywhere.
"Why?" I whisper. "Why did they stop?"
Draven's shoulders relax slightly. He turns to face us, and the blue glow fades from his eyes. "Testing," he says in his language, gesturing like he's poking something. "They test. See fear."
Silas uncoils with a hiss. "They'll be back tomorrow. With more warriors. We need to prepare."
"Or run," Caspian adds, folding his wings. "We could fly south before they return."
"No." Draven's voice is final. He looks at me, and something in his gaze makes my breath catch. "We stay. We fight."
Because of me. They're staying because of me.
The guilt sits like a stone in my stomach. These four strangers are risking their lives for a useless human who can't even speak their language properly. What have I done to deserve that?
My ribs choose that moment to remind me they're still healing. I wince and touch my side gently. The pain is less than yesterday—Theron's leather wrapping actually helped. I can breathe without wanting to scream. I can even walk without feeling like I'm going to pass out.
Which means I need to start being useful instead of a burden.
I push off the wall and take a careful step. Then another. Theron reaches out to steady me, but I shake my head. "I'm okay," I say in English, then repeat with gestures. Walk. Good. Me strong.
He looks doubtful but lets me go.
I make my way deeper into the cave, exploring for the first time since they brought me here. It's bigger than I thought—the main chamber branches into smaller spaces. One has their sleeping furs. Another has weapons—crude spears and clubs. And then I find the back chamber.
The smell hits me first.
My stomach lurches. I clap my hand over my nose and mouth, but it's too late. The stench of rot and decay is so thick I can taste it. My eyes water. I gag, barely keeping down the water I drank earlier.
What IS that?
I force myself to look.
Piles of meat. Huge chunks of it, stacked carelessly on the cave floor. Except it's not fresh meat anymore. It's green and black and covered in a writhing blanket of maggots and flies. The smell is so bad I can feel it coating my throat.
This is their food storage.
This is what they've been eating.
"No," I breathe. "Oh no, no, no."
Footsteps behind me. Draven appears, followed by the others. They see me staring at the rotten meat, and Draven's expression shifts to something defensive.
He gestures at the pile. "Food," he says firmly. "Good food. Fresh kills."
I shake my head so hard it makes me dizzy. I point at the green, maggot-infested mess. "Not good! Bad! Very bad!" I make gagging sounds, clutch my stomach, fall to my knees dramatically.
Draven's eyes narrow. He growls low in his chest—a warning sound that makes my survival instincts scream.
Caspian steps forward, his wings flaring. "Is she saying our food is poison?" He looks genuinely offended. "We've eaten like this our whole lives!"
"Maybe that's why you're all half-starved," I snap in English, knowing they can't understand but unable to stop myself. I struggle to my feet and march over to the pile, ignoring how my ribs protest. I grab a piece of the rotting meat—it squishes between my fingers, oozing black liquid. Flies swarm around my hand.
I hold it up to Draven's face. "See?" I point at the maggots. "Bad! Make sick! Kill!" I mime eating it, then clutch my stomach and collapse, tongue hanging out. Dead.
Draven's growl gets louder. He thinks I'm mocking him. Calling him stupid.
"She doesn't understand our ways," Silas says quietly, his golden eyes fixed on me. "Humans are weak. They probably can't eat what we eat."
"No!" I'm desperate now. I point at Draven, then at the rotten meat, then mime him getting sick. "You eat, you die! All of you!"
I grab Theron's massive paw and drag him toward the pile. He comes reluctantly, confused. I point at the maggots, at the green slime, at the black mold growing on the edges. Then I point at his healer supplies—the herbs and plants he uses to treat wounds.
"You heal," I say, gesturing between him and the herbs. "You know sick. This—" I point at the meat, "—make sick. Very sick."
Something clicks behind Theron's amber eyes. He leans closer to the meat, really looking at it for the first time. His nose wrinkles. He pokes a maggot-covered piece with one claw, then sniffs it.
His face goes pale under his fur.
"Draven," Theron says slowly. "She might be right. This smells like death. Like the infection that killed my sister."
Draven's growl cuts off abruptly. He stares at the food pile, then at me, then back at the pile. I see the exact moment he understands. His pack starved to death. But maybe they didn't just starve. Maybe they got sick from eating rotten food, too weak to hunt, too sick to survive the winter.
Maybe their death was preventable.
"What do we do?" Draven's voice is barely a whisper. All his alpha confidence is gone. He looks lost. Scared.
I take a deep breath, ignoring the pain in my ribs. This is it. My chance to prove I'm not useless. My chance to save us all.
I point at the rotten pile. "Throw away. All." I make throwing motions. "Get new food. I show—" I mime building something with my hands, "—how to keep food good. Not rot. Stay fresh long time."
"How?" Caspian demands. "Food always rots. That's just how it is."
I smile—the first real smile since I arrived in this nightmare world. Because finally, FINALLY, I have something they need. Something only a human would know.
"Smoking," I say, though they don't understand the word. "Drying. Salting. Preserving." I gesture wildly, trying to explain ten thousand years of human food storage knowledge through charades.
They watch me like I've lost my mind. Maybe I have. But I also might have just found our path to survival.
That's when Silas goes rigid. His golden eyes fix on the cave entrance, and his forked tongue flicks out, tasting the air.
"They're here," he hisses. "The bear clan. At the entrance. With twice as many warriors as before."
Draven's eyes blaze blue again. Theron moves to protect me. Caspian's wings snap open.
But I'm staring at something else. Something that just crawled out from the rotten meat pile.
A rat. Huge and mangy, its fur falling out in clumps. It takes two wobbling steps and collapses, convulsing violently.
Then it stops moving altogether.
The rotten food didn't just make the rat sick.
It killed it in seconds.
I look up at Draven, my voice shaking. "How long have you been eating from that pile?"
His face tells me everything. Too long. Way too long.
And outside, the bear-men are closing in for the attack.
We're poisoned, trapped, and outnumbered.
Winter is coming, and we're all going to die—if the rot doesn't kill us first.