“Good eye,” I say before I can stop myself.
She smiles, small and pleased, and Illadon mirrors it without thinking.
We shoulder our packs again, moving the short distance to the hollow. It isn’t much, but it’s enough. Enough to feel like intention instead of reaction.
As we settle in, Korr moves with practiced efficiency—checking ground, mapping angles, marking lines in the sand I don’t ask about. I help where I can, passing supplies, anchoring cloth, keeping my hands busy.
Then our fingers brush. Just a graze. Barely contact at all.
I pull back instantly. He stills—not reaching or retreating—just holding.
“I didn’t mean—” I start, then stop. The apology feels wrong. Too loaded.
Neither of us finishes the thought, resuming the work of setting up the rough shelter and dispersing rations to each person.
The light begins to soften as the suns lower, shadows stretching longer, kinder. The heat eases enough to make breathing feel like a choice again instead of a task.
Illadon settles beside Rverre, murmuring something that makes her laugh quietly. The sound is soft and brief, but it feels like a gift. I sit a little apart, knees drawn up, watching the sky bleed color. Korr takes his place at the edge of our fragile circle, back to stone, eyes outward. Guard as always.
The desert around us is vast and listening. Somewhere ahead, something waits. And though I don’t know what tomorrow will ask of us yet, I know this much with unsettling clarity: the distance I keep telling myself I need is starting to feel less like protection and more like delay.
Night comes quietly.
Not all at once, but in degrees. The heat loosens its grip; the shadows blur into one another until the horizon stops pretending it’s separate from the sky. The desert cools fast, deceptive in its generosity, and I pull my cloak tighter as the last of the light drains away.
Rverre curls in close to Illadon, exhaustion winning out. He settles beside her without ceremony, back to stone, lochaber within reach. The shape they make together is small and stubborn and painfully familiar. Children adapting faster than they should have to.
I busy myself with the last of the practicalities—checking knots, adjusting the edge of the shade cloth now repurposed as wind break, counting water again even though I know the numbers haven’t changed. My mind keeps circling the same thought without quite landing on it.
I don’t want to talk to him. I want to not want to.
Korr moves at the perimeter, measured and silent. He doesn’t pace. He doesn’t hover. He chooses a place where stone curvesjust enough to anchor him, then settles into stillness that isn’t rest but readiness. Watching him is like watching the desert itself—quiet until it isn’t.
I feel his awareness shift when I stop moving. Not so much looking as… knowing.
I lower myself onto the sand with my back to rock, careful to keep distance between us. Close enough to feel foolish pretending we’re not sharing space. Far enough to feel safe. For a long moment, neither of us speaks.
The stars sharpen overhead as the last of the light fades, unfamiliar patterns burned into the sky. Tajss doesn’t offer comfort in familiarity. It offers truth in scale.
“You don’t need to sit alone,” he says eventually.
It’s not an order. Not even a suggestion. Just a statement of fact, offered and then released.
“I’m not alone,” I reply, gesturing vaguely toward the children.
“I did not mean physically.”
I close my eyes. Of course he didn’t.
“I’m fine,” I say, the words reflexive and unconvincing even to me.
He doesn’t argue.
“That dream,” he says quietly. “It was not fear.”
I open my eyes despite myself, staring out at the dark. “You don’t know that.”
“I know the difference,” he replies. “Fear moves outward. What woke you was… loss.”
