Page 150 of The Heart of Winter

I knew grass contained silica, but its roots might have some starch.

So, I started digging.

It was tedious. The ground was rock-hard, and the roots were stubborn.

It took me half an hour just to tear out a few tufts.

Back at the stream, I washed them carefully, stripped off the roots, and used a stone to crush them into a paste. Then, I mixed them with the ground bark, kneading them together.

The color wasn’t appealing, but at least now, it looked like something.

A flatbread roll. Maybe a thick pancake?

I placed the mixture on an even stone and rekindled the fire with the remaining branches and pieces of bark.

Without oil, I knew my ‘pancake’ would burn fast, so I watched it closely, flipping it quickly whenever it darkened too much.

It browned slightly.

And that would have to be enough.

The sun was already high in the sky when Winter finally returned, carrying two clams. I greeted the sight with pure joy.

"Oh, fantastic news! I see you’ve got two!" I beamed at him.

He responded with a weak smile. "Both are for you. I already ate."

"You already ate?"

He nodded quickly and placed the clams on the warm stone.

I watched him for a moment, sensing that something wasn’t right. Had Winter lied?

"Winter, are you sure you ate those clams?"

"Yeah, I had two. These are for you, enjoy," he muttered, then started stripping down to get into our warm little pool.

I saw how pale he was, how his hands trembled, and how his feet were wrinkled and swollen from the water.

"Winter, I made a little pancake… or bread roll, whatever you want to call it—out of tree bark and a bit of grass roots."

"Eat it. I already filled up on clams."

I clenched my jaw in frustration. "No way!" I huffed. "I didn’t spend two hours grinding bark into flour and yanking out roots for us not to share!"

I used my file to split the pancake in two, then crawled over to him. He was already submerged in the water, but I leaned over the edge and handed him a small stone with his portion on it.

"It’s at least some fiber."

His hungry eyes locked onto the pancake. It was about two inches long and an inch and a half wide, not much. He tilted the stone to his lips and devoured it in two ravenous bites. I ate my half as well. My stomach was practically glued to my spine, but I could only imagine how Winter felt, constantly burning calories, wading through freezing water. He needed food way more than I did.

The pancake didn’t taste great. It was bitter and smelled like grass and pine needles, nothing special, but the feeling of food sliding down my throat was divine.

"Winter, you shouldn’t stay in the water too long. Your feet are pruney."

"I’ll get out soon, I just need to warm up," he murmured.

I turned back to the clams, which had heated up a bit. I pried them open and devoured them, feeling like I was eating the food of the gods.

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