It happens the way most real mistakes do.
Quietly.
No stumble. No dramatic loss of balance. No moment anyone else would point to and saythere. Just a fraction too much weight on the wrong angle of stone, a subtle shift in the sandbeneath it, and my ankle gives—not completely, not enough to send me down.
Enough to tell on me.
A sharp flare shoots up my leg, white-hot and sudden. I catch myself on the next step, breath hitching before I can stop it. My pace stutters, a heartbeat is all, but long enough.
Korr stops. He doesn’t shout or bark a warning. He simply halts, and the rest of us follow because that’s how this works. He turns slowly, eyes on my feet. I straighten reflexively, forcing my posture back into alignment. My weight shifts off the ankle, careful, controlled. Too careful.
“I’m fine,” I say, too fast.
He doesn’t answer. Which is worse.
He watches—really watches—the way I redistribute my stance, the way my shoulders lock, the way I refuse to let myself react. His gaze tracks the micro-adjustments I’ve been pretending don’t exist.
He doesn’t move toward me or reach out. Doesn’t offer support or correction or even a warning. He watches, silent.
Heat crawls up my neck, not from pain, but from something somehow worse. Exposure. The kind that strips away excuses. I realize, with a sick little twist in my chest, that I wanted him to steady me—not because I needed it, but because then this would still be somethingshared.
Instead, he lets it stand. A quiet acknowledgment of fact.
Illadon shifts, glancing between us, uncertainty flickering across his face. Rverre has gone still, her attention drawn inward again, as if the land itself has noticed my misstep.
“You don’t need to stop,” I say, forcing my voice steady. “It was nothing.”
Korr’s eyes lift to mine showing anger or disappointment.
“That wasn’t nothing,” he says.
Not accusation and definitely not a reprimand, only a statement. My throat tightens. I swallow, nodding once because arguing now would only prove his point.
He turns back to the path without another word, setting a slower pace and that’s when it hits me. Not the pain, the fear.
I’ve lived with pain my entire adult life. I know how to work around it, through it, past it. Pain is familiar. Manageable. Pain is mine.
This—this sudden, unwelcome knot in my chest—this is new. I’m not afraid of falling. I’m afraid of disappointing him.
The realization settles cold and heavy, and I hate it more than the ache in my ankle. Because disappointment means I care. And caring means risk. And risk is exactly what I promised myself I wouldn’t take again.
I force my steps back into rhythm, even as the ground keeps testing me. The mistake is already made. And I know—bone-deep and unavoidable—that it isn’t the last one.
We make camp earlier than planned.
No one says it out loud. Korr calls the halt with the same calm authority he always uses, citing terrain and light and wind asif any of them changed enough to justify stopping now. I don’t challenge it because I know why.
The ground is marginally better—stone breaking through sand in a shallow crescent that offers little shelter and even less comfort—but it isn’t what we would have chosen if everything were fine. Illadon starts unloading packs without comment. Rverre sinks down beside a rock, wings loosening with a soft, relieved shudder that twists something sharp in my chest.
I lower myself more slowly than I mean to, careful of the angle, careful of the telltale catch in my breath. The ankle throbs in a steady, insistent pulse, like it’s found its own voice and intends to use it.
Tomorrow will be better, I tell myself. A familiar lie. A comforting one. I’ve used it before and survived.
Korr moves through the motions of setting camp with quiet efficiency, not looking at me, or checking my ankle again. The absence of his attention feels deliberate. Respectful, perhaps, but still it stings. And I hate that it does.
The suns dip lower, light softening, shadows stretching long across the sand. I brace my back against stone and close my eyes for a moment, breathing through the pain, pretending this is just fatigue and not consequence.
“You’re not listening to yourself.”
