That restraint presses harder than proximity ever could.
Rverre hums under her breath, a low sound that threads through the silence like a held note. Then she stops walking. Illadon halts with her and Korr turns. I do too. Rverre isn’t looking at the ground, she’s looking at me.
“You won’t leave it,” she says.
No warning. No drama. Just certainty.
I blink. “Leave what?”
She tilts her head, wings shifting as if listening to something just out of reach. For a moment, I think she won’t answer at all.
Then she says, “Some places keep what they’re given.”
That’s all. She turns forward as if the conversation is finished, moving on. Illadon follows without question. I stand probably a beat too long, the echo of her words settling uncomfortably deep. Places don’tkeepthings, I tell myself. People do.
I look ahead. The desert stretches on, wide and unreadable. My ankle pulses—a dull reminder that I’m carrying more than I planned to.
Korr shifts slightly, just within reach, but not looking back. I straighten my shoulders and step forward, reclaiming my pace, my space, my certainty. This will not become something else. I will not let it. The desert doesn’t answer. Which is fine, it doesn’t have to. This decision is mine and mine alone.
I hitch my pack and we march on.
15
TALIA
Iwake braced for pain.
That alone should tell me something, but I ignore it—same as I ignore the stiffness locking my joints, the way my ankle feels thick and wrong before I even move. I keep my eyes closed for a moment longer, breathing shallowly, letting my body remember where it is before I ask it to do anything impossible, like standing up.
Stone. Sand. Open sky.
I shift.
Fire lances up my leg, sharp enough to steal the breath from my lungs. I clamp my teeth together and ride it out, pulse hammering in my ears. The pain crests, then settles into a deep, pulsing ache that feels heavier than yesterday. Hotter. Meaner.
That’s… inconvenient.
I flex my fingers, then my foot—slow, careful. The ankle resists, swollen enough that the skin feels tight against itself. I don’t look at it yet. Looking makes things real.
I sit up instead, moving in pieces, controlling every inch. The desert is still wrapped in early light, the suns just beginning to climb. The air is cool enough to lie convincingly. I could almost pretend this is manageable.
Almost.
I reach for my epis and take it without ceremony, pressing the fibers against my tongue and swallowing fast. Heat tolerance. Endurance. A little dulling at the edges. It helps—just enough to take the sharpest point off the pain—but it doesn’t fix anything.
It never does.
When I finally look at my ankle, my jaw tightens. The swelling has spread overnight, puffed and faintly discolored beneath the wrap. Nothing dramatic. Nothing catastrophic. Just worse.
I tell myself that’s to be expected. We walked hard yesterday. Stress fractures ache before they break. This is still within tolerable margins. I don’t ask what happens if today pushes it past them because I know the answer.
Movement stirs nearby. I don’t look up, but I know it’s Korr. I know the way the air shifts when he moves, the quiet weight of his attention even when it isn’t directed at me.
“Your ankle,” he says.
Not a question.
“I know,” I reply, too quickly.
