“You need rest.” Firm but gentle. “We have distance now. We can afford to stop.”
She wants to argue. I see it in her eyes. But exhaustion wins.
“Okay.” The word comes out thin. “Just… just for a few minutes.”
I guide her to a flat section of trail, help her sit against a large stone. She closes her eyes, head tipped back, breathing carefully measured.
I scan our surroundings while she rests. We’ve climbed above the tree line now. Exposed rock and hardy scrub, wind constant from the west. Good visibility in all directions.
No sign of pursuit. Yet.
I return to Mara, crouch beside her. “How is the pain?”
“Manageable.” She doesn’t open her eyes. “Better than it should be.”
“The healing continues.”
“Yeah.” She touches her chest gently. “I don’t know how. But yeah.”
I watch her face, and something in me tightens. She shouldn’t have survived the crash. Shouldn’t be walking, talking, breathing.
Yet here she sits, healing from injuries that should have killed her.
Because of fire that moved like something alive. That wrapped around her instead of consuming her.
Fire I somehow knew wouldn’t harm her.
The fire chose, I told her. The words came unbidden, true despite lacking understanding.
What does that mean? How can fire choose anything?
And what does it say about me that I knew—absolutely knew—it would protect rather than destroy?
“K?”
I realize I’ve been staring. “Yes?”
“You okay? You look…” She trails off, searching my face. “Like you’re a thousand miles away.”
“I am… thinking.”
“About?”
About the impossibility of your survival. About the operatives hunting us. About the pull I felt, connecting me to someone or something I can’t name. About my body’s wrong capabilities and the settlement I shouldn’t know exists.
About the lies you’re telling and why you won’t trust me with the truth.
About the irrational need clawing through my chest to keep you safe, to keep you close, to ensure nothing—not those men below, not the mountain, not your own stubbornness—takes you from me.
“Many things,” I say instead.
She studies me. Something shifts in her expression—awareness, maybe. Recognition of the weight hanging between us.
“Yeah,” she says finally. “Me too.”
We sit in silence, each lost in thoughts we don’t share.
The sun angles lower, painting the peaks gold. Beautiful. Harsh. Unforgiving.
