The prince reached for the buttons of her jacket.
"What are you doing?"
Elena grabbed his wrist. The grip was weak due to her trembling fingers, but there was not a drop of girlish embarrassment in her eyes.
"I said I'd examine the injuries. You're covered in blood, Victoria. If infection sets in, in these conditions, we won't be able to save you."
Elena slowly unclenched her fingers. If there's no magic here, ordinary sepsis would kill this body faster than any monsters.
"Your Highness, allow me! It's not proper for a prince to touch... such a woman!"
Ian literally jumped up, his face twisted in indignation.
Elena shot an angry glance at the already quite annoying teenager.
— Such a woman?
"Ian, enough! Will you take responsibility for Lady Victoria's death and the wrath of her family? The wrath of Count McShane?"
The prince carefully, trying not to breach propriety more than necessary, helped her remove the jacket, leaving the girl in a torn shirt.
When the jacket's fabric peeled away from her back and the blood-soaked shirt became visible, silence fell over the cave.
Even the chatty mage froze, dropping the kindling.
On Victoria's white skin, which had previously known only expensive creams and silk, there were deep, ragged furrows. The edges of the wounds were uneven, clogged with dirt and small splinters.
Elena clutched the jacket to her chest, her body trembling.
"Ian, bring water. Mark, prepare the bark."
When the pant leg was carefully cut with a dagger, the prince frowned. The wound on her leg was deep; the wolf had clearly tried immodestly to tear off a chunk of flesh.
The blood on the wounds had already darkened and crusted in places.
The prince tightly pressed fabric to her leg, stopping the blood.
Then, with careful movements, he began extracting stones, splinters, and fabric remnants from the injuries. Elena remained silent, not letting any curses escape her mouth.
The wizard returned with pieces of wood and started acting like an origami master, folding several containers.
After finishing the surface cleaning of the wounds, His Highness kindled a fire.
Hot stones lay in the flames.
Ian returned with two waterskins full of water. He poured the water into the crude bark bowls that Mark had assembled. The containers looked unreliable but held their shape.
Hot stones were thrown in, the water hissed, and the surface bubbled.
Ian and Mark repeated the process several times. More water, more containers. Everything was boiled.
When the water had cooled enough, the prince took one of the bowls and carefully tilted it.
Warm water poured onto Elena's wound.
Dirt mixed with blood flowed down in dark streams. The earth clogged in the tears didn't come out right away.
The prince washed it again and again, not sparing the water. With fabric, he removed what didn't wash off immediately.
The girl's shoulders were tense, her eyes tightly closed.
After washing and bandaging all the places with torn flesh, the prince carefully pressed his fingers along the sides of her ribcage. Elena sharply inhaled and hissed in pain.
He didn't touch that spot anymore.
The ribs weren't protruding. Victoria breathed carefully, shallowly, but each breath was even, without wheezing. If there were any injuries, they weren't serious.
When everything was done, Elena was laid closer to the fire and covered with the jacket.
The fire crackled.
Everyone sat by the campfire. Mark brewed tea from unknown leaves, Ian twirled a spear in his hands.
The prince took a sip of boiled water.
"Staying here is pointless. I suggest we leave at dawn."
His Highness looked at "Victoria." The girl nodded briefly.
"We'll head toward the explosion. If the airship crashed, the wreckage should be there. Perhaps we'll find some supplies."
Everyone looked tired.
Ian, who had been sitting quietly for a while without interfering, sighed.
"We'll take turns on watch. Mark, you're first. I'll relieve you in two hours."
Mark obediently sat at the cave entrance, hugging his knees.
Ian, glancing at Elena, settled in the corner on a pile of dry grass.
Elena lay on the stretcher, but sleep wouldn't come. This strange underground realm stirred her mind.
About an hour passed. The silence of the cave was broken by a strange rustling outside.
Mark, who was supposed to watch the entrance, seemed to have dozed off, leaning against the wall.
Elena sharply opened her eyes.
— Something's wrong.
She slowly, trying not to disturb her leg, propped herself up on her elbows. At the cave entrance, right behind the sleeping Mark's back, the grass was moving slowly.
Elena peered into the bushes. The rustling was quiet. It didn't seem like a wolf there.
The girl turned her head toward the prince; he was asleep. Ian too. Elena returned her gaze to the grass.
Her heart skipped a beat.
Many pupils were staring at her.
Her hand instinctively jerked to her belt, where her dagger usually hung, but her fingers found only the rough fabric of the stretcher.
From the dense vegetation at the cave entrance, creatures began to emerge.
They were small, with long ears and huge shiny eyes. The critters resembled a cross between a rabbit and a squirrel.
They looked cute, but Elena didn't relax. In a world with man-eating flowers, there could be man-eating squirrels too.
One of them was dragging some object. The critter stopped a couple of steps from Mark, twitched its nose, and, ignoring the sleeping mage, looked straight at Elena.
It carefully pushed its burden forward. It was a leather pouch on a strap.
Elena didn't move. The creature made a quiet sound, like chirping, and the whole pack, flashing their eyes one last time, instantly dissolved into the night darkness.
After waiting a bit, the girl slowly approached the gift. Each movement echoed with aching pain in her body. Her fingers touched the cool leather.
The pouch was intact, though smeared with soot. Elena untied the tight knot.
Inside, she found three glass vials with thick emerald liquid and a bundle of dried meat.
She carefully uncorked one vial. A sharp herbal smell hit her nose.
This wasn't a magical elixir that required mana to activate. This was alchemy—concentrates of healing herbs.
Elena looked at her leg. The bandages were soaked with blood.
She didn't know who this bag belonged to, but right now it didn't matter.
Elena scanned the surroundings for any witnesses and drank the contents of one vial. The taste was bitter, astringent, but almost immediately a pleasant warmth spread through her body, and the pulsating pain in her shoulder and leg began to subside.
— Seems like I got lucky.
Removing everything tied below the knee, she opened the second vial and dripped it onto the wound. The flesh hissed, the girl rolled her eyes, but remained conscious.
Pouring a quarter on her leg and another on her shoulder, she hid the vials and the jerky inside the pouch and pushed it under her stretcher.
This was her loot. You can be generous only when there's something to share.
Putting the bandages back in place, Elena finally closed her eyes. Now that the heat from the wounds had subsided a bit, fatigue took over.