My throat closes. The truth feels like a knife.
The wind moans across the dunes, carrying grit that stings my eyes. Or maybe it isn’t the wind—maybe it’s just me, blinking too hard against what’s right in front of me.
Joran keeps muttering curses through his teeth, though each one weakens, slipping into groans. His face has gone gray beneath the dust, lips cracked, jaw tight with pain he can’t spit out fast enough to ease.
Harlan hovers, wringing his beads so hard I half expect the cord to snap. His prayers falter and restart, tumbling over themselves. He looks at me once, his eyes wide, desperate, like I have an answer he’s too afraid to speak.
I wish I did, but I don’t.
The younger Zmaj stands, restless, tail lashing behind him. His wings twitch like they want to spread, to carry him up and away from this mess, but he stays crouched low, jaw clenched. His gaze flicks to me for the briefest second. Waiting. Measuring. As if he knows the choice is mine to make, even if no one says it aloud.
And the scarred warrior—he doesn’t move. He’s still crouched by Joran, his lochaber slung across his back, his scarred face unreadable. He doesn’t need to speak. The truth sits there between us, heavy as stone.
I wrap my arms around myself, fingers digging into the rough weave of my blanket. The bandaged arm aches, a dull throb, butit isn’t pain that knots my stomach—it’s the weight of knowing what comes next.
We can’t drag him with us. We can barely drag ourselves.
And food—water—something to keep the rest of the survivors alive waits out there. If we go back now, empty-handed, we’ve lost everything. If we stay here, he dies. If we move forward with him, we all die.
My eyes sting harder. I want someone else to say it, to take the words from me, but when I look around—Harlan muttering, the younger Zmaj scowling, Joran groaning—it isn’t their eyes I find an answer.
It’s his.
The scarred warrior’s gaze pins mine, steady, relentless, as if he can see straight through me. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t let me look away. He just waits.
For me.
For my choice.
My chest clenches so tight it feels like I might split. Because in that silence, I know—I can’t run from it anymore. Joran lets out another ragged cry as the splint shifts, sweat rolling down his temples. He grabs at me again, wild-eyed.
“We can’t go on. We go back. All of us. Now!”
Harlan nods too fast, clutching his beads so tight his knuckles go white.
“He’s right—we can’t leave him. We turn back, we find the others, we wait for rescue. Tajss won’t—” His voice cracks and falters, the words breaking like dry twigs.
“Rescue?” The younger Zmaj’s laugh is sharp, humorless. His wings flare wide before folding tight again. “There is no rescue. Only strength or death. Dragging him with us means death for all of you.”
His tail lashes the sand, punctuating every word.
“Shut your scaled mouth,” Joran snarls, spittle flying. “You’d leave us to rot? You think you’re better?”
The younger Zmaj steps forward, crouching so close his eyes flash like black fire.
“Better? No. But faster. Stronger. Alive.” His voice drops, almost a growl. “You want mercy? Mercy is I take you back before the desert eats you whole.”
“Stop!” My shout tears out of me before I can stop it, my throat raw. My pulse hammers as all three faces swing toward me—the younger Zmaj’s fierce, Joran’s desperate, Harlan’s pleading. And beyond them, the scarred warrior, still and silent, eyes fixed on me.
I force air into my lungs, my hands trembling against the blanket.
“We can’t carry him. We can’t all go back. If we do, everyone at camp starves. But if we leave him here, he dies.” The words taste like ash. “So… so we split.”
Joran barks a laugh, ugly and sharp. “Split? You think I’ll let you abandon me?”
“You don’t have a choice,” the younger Zmaj snaps. His wings twitch again, restless, but his voice steadies, turning deliberate. “I’ll take them. Him and the weakling who clings to beads. We’lllimp back. You two go on. Find food. If you fail, we’re in trouble anyway.”
Harlan gasps, his beads slipping between his fingers. “No, no, I can’t—I don’t?—”
