Chapter 6
K.
I am outside before the echo fades.
The staff feels right in my hands—weight balanced, length familiar. I do not remember selecting it from the downed branches around the cave, but my grip knows where to settle.
The night is sharp. Clear. Stars crowd overhead in patterns I almost recognize.
I scan the slope. Listen.
Rock-fall. Distant but distinct. Something moving through scree below the ridgeline, dislodging stones in its passage.
Not human. The rhythm is wrong. Four-footed, purposeful but unhurried.
I track the sound east, toward the tree line where pine gives way to exposed rock. My breath fogs. The cold registers but does not concern me. I have been colder. I know this without knowing how.
There.
Movement between trees. Low to the ground. A shape darker than shadow.
Mountain lion.
The knowing arrives complete, instant. Male, judging by size. Old enough to be confident, young enough to still hunt these elevations. He has caught scent of something; perhaps the remains of fowl I cleaned earlier, perhaps the smoke from our fire.
Not a threat. Not yet. Just investigating.
I remain still, letting him pass. He moves with liquid grace, pausing once to test the air. His eyes catch moonlight—pale gold, bright.
Like mine.
The thought comes unexpectedly. I push it away.
He continues downslope, satisfied we are not prey worth pursuing. The sound of his passage fades into the larger silence of the mountain.
I turn back toward the cave.
Mara stands in the entrance.
My body reacts before thought—stepping between her and the tree line, staff raised. Protective instinct so sharp it leaves no room for question.
“I told you to stay in the cave.” The words come out rougher than intended.
“Is everything okay out there?” she asks, ignoring my disapproval.
“It’s gone,” I say, but I do not lower the staff.
“Was that—?” Her voice catches. “Was that a mountain lion?”
“Yes.”
“Are we… are we safe?”
I study her. She has wrapped my cloak tight around her shoulders, but her hands shake where they grip the fabric. Not from cold. From the bone-deep understanding of being prey in a predator’s territory.
“We are safe,” I tell her. “He was curious, not hunting.”
“How do you know?”
“His approach. The way he moved.” I lower the staff finally, leaning it against stone. “A hunting cat is silent. That one wanted us to know he was there.”
She processes this, then nods slowly. “Okay. That’s… that’s good, I guess.”
I gesture toward the cave. “You should be resting.” I’m surprised to see her standing unassisted. But then, everything about this situation has been unexpected.
“Yeah, well.” She manages something that might be a smile. “Turns out I’m not great at lying still while mountain lions wander around outside.”
Fair.
I follow her back inside. The fire has burned lower. I add two logs, watching flames climb.
She settles onto the sleeping pile but does not lie down. Instead, she pulls her knees up, arms wrapped around them. The movement would have been excruciating for her just hours ago.
Impossible healing for an impossible injury.
I do not say this aloud.
“So.” She breaks the silence first. “You can tell the difference between a curious mountain lion and a hunting one. That’s… specific knowledge.”
“Yes.” I tilt my head. “Much like a tiger.”
“Tiger?” She frowns.
“You spoke of a tiger. In your dreams,” I tell her.
She gnaws on her bottom lip. It’s plump and pink. “Tiger…” Something clicks into place. “Tiger! I dreamed I’d been bitten in half by a tiger shark.” Her smile is rueful. “I guess the imagination fills in the gaps when the unthinkable happens, right?”
“Yes,” I say. Silence lingers once more.
“Did you grow up out here?” she asks suddenly. “In the mountains?”
I search for an answer. Find nothing. “I don’t know.”
She watches me for a moment. “But you know how to track. How to read animal behavior. How to survive in conditions that would kill most people.” A pause. “That has to come from somewhere, K.”
“It does.” I keep my voice level. “But I cannot tell you where.”
The frustration in her expression mirrors something in my chest, the reaching for information that will not come. Images without context. Skills without memory.
“What were you doing out here?” I shift the subject. “When the… iron bird fell from the sky.”
“Iron bird?” Her brows pull together. “Oh! You mean the helicopter?” Her lips pinch. “Don’t they have a word for helicopter in Romanian?”
I shrug, not sure how to answer.
“We were working,” she says. “Geological consultants. Surveying the northern ridges for mineral deposits. Exciting stuff, right? Rocks and more rocks.” The brightness in her voice is forced.
“Luke—my colleague—he knew these mountains like the back of his hand. Said they were rich in rare earth elements or something technical. I mostly just documented.”
Consulting. Minerals. Elements.
The words mean little to me, but I recognize the cadence of a story told too carefully. Rehearsed edges, polished by repetition.
She is lying.
Not entirely—pieces of truth threaded through fabrication. But the core is false.
I do not challenge her. We all have things we protect.
“Your colleague,” I say instead. “Luke. He escaped.”
“Yes, you said that they both got out.” Her eyes search mine, looking for confirmation. “He and Ember. The other consultant.”
“Yes.” The memory is clear. Figures moving away from the wreckage before the fire consumed everything. Too distant to identify, but alive. “They escaped before the fire.”
Relief crosses her face, stark and immediate. “Good. That’s—okay. Good.”
“You care for them.”
She nods. “Luke’s solid. Responsible. The kind of person who actually reads instruction manuals.” She picks at the hem of the shirt. “And Ember… She’s brilliant. Young, but brilliant. They’re good people.”
“And you believe they will search for you.”
Something complex moves through her expression. “I don’t know. Maybe? If they get back to safety and think there’s any chance…” She swallows. “But they also might think I’m dead. The crash was… K, you saw it. Nobody should’ve walked away from that.”
“Yet you did.”
“You walked me away from it,” she corrects. “Carried me, more like. I was unconscious. Or dead. I’m still not clear on which.”
I don’t say anything. Just study her face—the slight tremor in her jaw, the way she keeps touching her chest like she’s testing her own existence.
“Why?” she says abruptly. “Why did you save me?”
I cock my head. “I…” I pause because I don’t have a clear answer. “Because… I could.”
She frowns, apparently not satisfied. “You could? That’s it?”
“Yes,” I say, still not understanding the strange pull I’d felt when I heard the crash. The overwhelming need to get there.
She huffs a breath. “You really are a fountain of information, you know that?”
“No,” I say because I know sarcasm when I hear it. I don’t offer more, just sit and let the crackle of the fire fill the space between us.
“Where are we?” she eventually asks. “Exactly?”
“The mountains.” I gesture vaguely toward the cave mouth. “High elevation. Perhaps two days’ walk from the lower valleys.”
“Two days.” She ponders on this. “So, we’re pretty deep in the wilderness.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t know these mountains? Like, specifically where we are?”
I try to summon details. “There is a valley. Two peaks that mirror each other, like…” I form my hands into matching shapes. “Beyond that, a river that runs east.”
“You’ve seen this? Or you’re guessing?”
“I…” The frustration rises again, familiar and suffocating. “I know this. But I do not know how I know this.”
Understanding dawns in her eyes. Not pity; something closer to recognition.
“The amnesia thing,” she says quietly. “You really don’t remember anything? Not where you’re from, or how you ended up here?”
“No.” The admission comes more easily this time. “I woke… I do not know when. Days ago. Perhaps longer. The mountain was simply… here. And I was in it.”
“That must be terrifying.”
The word strikes something in my chest. “Yes,” I say, because there’s no point in pretending otherwise. “But less so, now.”
“Now?”
“Speaking it aloud makes it…” I search for the right word. “More real. But also less consuming.”
She studies me with those sharp eyes. “You’ve been alone since you woke up? No one else around?”
“Yes. Until the iron bird fell.”
“The helicopter,” she corrects automatically, then catches herself. “Sorry. I shouldn’t give you a hard time. Your English is pretty good for a local.”
I shrug, again not knowing how to respond.
“Did you learn it in your village?” she prods. “I’m guessing you must have come from somewhere near here.”
I think on this for so long that my head starts to hurt. “I don’t know,” I say eventually, annoyed at hitting yet another block. “All I know is that the mountains feel like home, and some words are lost to me.”
“Probably because Romanian is your mother tongue and you’re speaking to me in English,” she says.
Sounds reasonable. “Perhaps.”
“What about your name? K… That’s all you’ve got?”
“It is all that remains.”
She’s quiet for a moment, then: “Well, K’s not bad. Short. Mysterious. Very ‘lone wolf in the mountains’ energy.”
Despite everything, my mouth twitches. “Lone wolf.”
“You know—solitary. Rugged. Probably really good at survival stuff.” She waves a hand. “The kind of person who can build a fire and hunt deer and has, like, seventeen wilderness badges.”
“I do not know what badges are.”
“Of course you don’t.” She laughs, and this time it sounds more genuine. “God, this is surreal. I’m explaining Boy Scouts to someone who literally lives in a cave.”
“I do not live here.” The clarification feels important. “I simply… found it. When I needed shelter.”
“Right. Because you woke up on a mountain with no memories and had to figure out survival from scratch.” She shakes her head. “That’s actually kind of incredible, K. Most people would’ve frozen to death or fallen off a cliff by now.”