“I think I’ll try harder.”
The mutters ripple like snakes in the grass. No one agrees. No one supports. The air is heavy with dismissal, pressing down until I can barely breathe. Amara cuts the noise with a sharp gesture. Her eyes land on me, sharp enough to pierce skin.
“No. You’ll stay.”
I open my mouth, but the look she gives me stops the words cold. Her gaze is hard, unyielding. She isn’t mocking—she simply doesn’t believe I’m capable. The assembly disperses, the camp moving on without me. Like it always does.
I curl my fists tight, nails biting into my palms, and force my face blank. The cold air stings my throat, but it’s not the wind that makes my chest ache. It’s the weight of all those eyes sliding away, as if I’d never spoken at all.
Amara has already turned, barking new orders about rationing the last of the clean water. The Zmaj who’d snapped his wings shuts them with a final crack, muttering low to his kin. The blanket of dismissal settles over me, heavy and suffocating. I want to scream. I want to shake them, shout that I’ve survived every horror this cursed planet has thrown at us. But my throat locks, my nails digging until they sting.
“You’ll have to let her try sometime,” a voice cuts across the noise.
The sound isn’t loud, but it carries—calm, steady, like someone who expects to be heard.
Rosalind.
She sits near a fire, back straight, silver-streaked hair glinting in the weak light. She hasn’t risen, hasn’t moved, but every eye flicks to her. Even Amara pauses, jaw working as she considers whether to respond. Rosalind folds her hands in her lap.
“A bird that doesn’t leave the nest never learns to fly. Better she stumble now than later, when the cost will be higher.”
The words aren’t fiery, not like mine, but they cut sharper all the same. My heart thuds. She doesn’t look at me directly, but she doesn’t have to. The weight of her attention feels like a hand between my shoulder blades.
For a moment, I let myself hope. Amara exhales through her nose, the sound sharp as flint striking.
“We’re not raising children to prove themselves out here, Rosalind. We’re trying to keep people alive. If she slows a party down, that’s more bodies dead in the sand.”
Her dismissal hollows my stomach. Then a low sound rolls across the camp. Gravel over stone. Two words.
“She comes.”
The air stills as every head, including mine, swivels to the source.
At the edge of the onlookers, the scarred Zmaj stands. His lochaber rests over his shoulder, the blade catching faint light. Scars mark his body like carved stone, jagged and cruel, but it’s his voice that chills me—rough, deep, the sound of rockslides and thunder.
Murmurs ripple. No one expected him to speak. Some of the humans draw back instinctively, as though his words themselves carry danger. Amara’s eyes narrow.
“You would take her?”
His gaze sweeps the crowd once, then settles on her.
“She comes,” he repeats, steady as stone.
It isn’t a request. It’s a verdict.
Silence hangs heavy. My pulse hammers in my ears. I don’t know if he’s doing this for me or if I’m just another burden he’s decided to shoulder, but it doesn’t matter.
Someone—finally—speaks up for me.
Amara studies him, jaw tight. For a heartbeat, I think she’ll snap even at him, forbid it just to prove she can. But then her eyes flick to the wounded, the tired, the fruit still smoking in the dirt.
“Fine,” she says at last, clipped. “But if she slows you down, you leave her behind.”
Her stare pins me like a knife. I force my chin high, even though my insides quake.
“I won’t slow anyone down.”
The murmurs start again—some scoffing, some uneasy—but I don’t care. For the first time, I’ve been given a chance.
