Cian woke to the sound of his own teeth chattering. It was a rhythmic, uncontrollable clacking that vibrated through his skull.
For a long moment, he didn't know where he was. He expected the rough wool of his blanket, the smell of the loft. He expected his mother calling him for porridge.
Then he tried to move, and the pain in his ribs screamed.
Memory flooded back like ice water. The bandits. The mud. The leaves.
He pushed himself up. The pile of leaves he had stuffed into his undershirt had settled, leaving gaps where the cold air bit at his skin. His legs were numb. Not just cold, but dead-weight numb.
He panicked. He scrambled out of the hollow log, his bare feet hitting the frosted ground. He slapped his thighs, his calves, trying to force blood back into them. Pins and needles pricked him, a fiery agony that made him gasp.
"Alive," he croaked. His voice was a wrecked whisper.
He looked at his hands. They were blue-tinged, the fingernails dark. He was alive, but only just. If the night had been a few degrees colder, or the wind a little stronger, he would have been a frozen statue in a hole.
He needed to move. Motion was heat.
He stepped onto the road. The mud had frozen into jagged ruts that cut into his soles. He hissed in pain but kept walking. He wrapped his arms around himself, hunched over, shivering violently.
The hunger was different now. Yesterday, it had been a gnawing emptiness. Today, it was a sharp cramp, a physical contraction of his stomach that made him nauseous.
He looked at the forest. It was a pantry for those who knew how to use it. Mushrooms, roots, berries.
Cian knew how to grow wheat. He knew how to slop pigs. He didn't know which mushroom would kill him and which would fill him.
He saw a patch of dandelions growing near a sheltered rock. He knew those. He fell to his knees, clawing at the half-frozen earth with his numb fingers. He ripped the plants up, roots and all. He didn't bother shaking off the dirt. He shoved the bitter greens and the gritty roots into his mouth, chewing frantically.
It tasted like soil and ice. It was the best thing he had ever eaten.
He ate until the patch was gone, then licked the dirt from his fingers. It wasn't enough, but the cramps eased slightly.
He stood up. The road stretched south. He didn't know what was south. The capital? The coast? It didn't matter. He just had to walk away from the cold.