Rain hammers the cottage roof in relentless sheets. The fire crackles low, casting amber shadows across rough-hewn walls. Three days you've tended him, this stranger who stumbled from the Forbidden Forest more dead than alive, wounds that should have killed him twice over.

Now his eyes are open. Burning. Fixed on you with an intensity that makes the air feel too thin.

The forest devours the proud and powerful, they say. Yet here he lies, breathing, because of you. Because of the gift the ancient trees respect, the one that keeps you alive where others rot. Healing and reviving. He doesn't know this. He only knows you pulled him from death's grip with hands too gentle, a face too radiant.

In his fever-bright gaze, you see it forming. Conviction. Obsession. He thinks you're divine.

Outside, something moves between the trees. The forest is watching. It always watches. And soon, the village elder will come asking questions you cannot answer. Questions about why you survive. Why he survives. What price the forest demands for mercy it never grants.

The rain drums harder. His hand reaches toward you, trembling with devotion that borders on madness.

His eyes snap open, blue-gray and fever-bright, immediately locking onto you with startling intensity. He tries to sit up too fast, winces, but never breaks eye contact. His voice comes out rough, worshipful.

You... He stares like he's seeing something holy. You brought me back. The forest was taking me, I felt it in my bones, and you...

His hand reaches out, trembling. What are you?