I step closer to her, not touching, but near enough that the warmth from her body meets mine. Her pulse flutters, brushing my senses like a whisper. Tomas notices and his brows pull tight.
“We should go back. Tell the Council. They can send a contingent of warriors to deal with this,” Tomas says.
A low noise rises in my chest. Instinct, warning, or the beginning of a growl I do not permit to reach full sound. Lia lifts her chin, defiant.
“No,” she says. “We’re too close. Something out here is rotting the plants, poisoning the animals, and if we turn back now, it continues to spread unchecked. We have to find the source. It is the only way to figure out what we are dealing with. To form a plan.”
“You saw what just happened! That thing nearly killed us!” Tomas shouts, throwing up his hands.
“And we lived. Because of Lia,” I snap before I can control it. The words strike harder than claws. Tomas freezes. Travnyk tilts his head. Lia blinks, and I feel the shift ripple through her. I have revealed too much, but I will not retract the truth.
“Her eyes found its weakness,” I continue, voice sharper than I intend. “Her instincts saved us. You would be dead if not for her.”
“And you,” Travnyk adds, calm as desert stone.
Lia’s breath catches. She turns to me and something fragile and dangerous stirs in her expression. Pride. Relief. Something warmer. Too warm. I look away, jaw rigid. Tomas swallows hard.
“I just… I’m scared.”
“Good,” Travnyk says. “Fear guides the feet, but you must not let it rule them.”
Lia steps forward, sand whispering beneath her boots. She faces Tomas, calm but firm.
“We don’t have to be brave. We just have to go forward. One step at a time. Together.”
Together.
The word echoes in my head as if she shouted it into a cavern. My hearts trip over themselves.
Tomas hesitates long enough to look back at the dune where the guardian rose, where the sand sinks, settling over whatever tunnels it carved beneath. The ground is quiet. He nods.
“All right,” he whispers. “Forward.”
Relief—sharp and unexpected—uncoils inside me. I gesture them forward, but before Lia turns to go, her hand brushes my arm. Light. Barely there, yet it hits me like a strike to the ribs.
“We’re going to find the source,” she says softly. “We’re going to stop whatever did this.”
I do not know how to tell her the truth clawing through my thoughts. It is not the creature I fear. It is not the sickness. It is not even the metal pulsing with foreign memory. It is her. What she is waking inside me. I lower my head closer to her ear, voice gravel-soft.
“Stay near me.”
She exhales a soft, trembling sound that I feel in my bones.
“I am,” she says. “I will.”
The dunes tremble, a distant warning. Travnyk lifts his blade. Tomas curses softly under his breath. I position myself at Lia’s side, my shadow falling over her as we walk deeper into the poisoned desert.
Every instinct I possess—Zmaj, warrior, protector—fixes on one truth. I will face whatever lies ahead. I will kill whatever rises from the sand. I will carve a path through hell itself—as long as it means she walks behind me.
As we travel the moon rides lower, staining the dunes in silver and red. Her scent—musk, salt, something green from the crushed leaves she carries—threads through the hot wind. She walks with her shoulders tight, head lifted, every sense alert. Fear flickers in her pulse but never takes root. She keeps moving. Tajss tests her and she refuses to break.
I have seen Zmaj falter in the face of such challenges, but she is indomitable. Tomas trudges behind us, panting, muttering curses at the sand. Travnyk scans the horizon with quiet, thoughtful focus, tusks catching moonlight each time he turns his head.
But Lia… Lia slips through the dunes like she was carved from them. The way she moves draws my focus more than it should. A gust of wind sweeps over the ridge and she lifts her hand to shield her eyes. Something small—metal—glints between her fingers. It takes me only a moment to recognize the shard she found earlier.
“Put that away,” I growl, harsher than intended.
She startles, then frowns. She doesn’t show fear, but annoyance.
