I twist against him again, harder this time, panic flaring sharp and fast.
“Korr—stop.” My voice drops, urgent and furious. “You can’t just?—”
“I can,” he says, and there’s steel in it now. “And I am.”
The kids are watching. I feel their eyes on us. Being carried shouldn’t feel this exposed, but it does. My cloak has slipped. One of my boots hangs loose against his thigh. I am suddenly, unmistakably not in control.
“Put. Me. Down.” Each word is bitten off, precise. “You don’t get to decide this for me.”
He doesn’t slow.
“You already decided,” he replies. “You decided when you kept walking on a compromised joint. You decided when you didn’t say a word. You decided when you tried to lie your way through pain.”
“That is not the same thing!”
“It is exactly the same thing.”
I laugh, but it comes out sharp and brittle.
“So this is it? This is how you protect people? By humiliating them?”
That gets his attention. His jaw clenches, his brow furrows, and he stops.
The sand settles around his boots and the wind slides past us instead of through us. He looks down, his face close enough that I see his pupils tighten.
“This is not humiliation,” he says quietly. “This is triage.”
“I am not wounded beyond function.”
“You are injured beyond consent,” he replies, voice low and controlled. “And you don’t get to martyr yourself because you’re afraid of being helped.”
That hits like a slap to the face. My breath catches as anger flares hot and immediate.
“You don’t know what I’m afraid of.”
“I know enough,” he says.
“That’s nowhere near the same thing.”
“No,” he agrees. “It isn’t.”
For a heartbeat, neither of us moves. His arms are locked around me, solid and unyielding. The heat of him seeps through the layers between us, grounding and infuriating all at once.
“You think carrying me fixes this,” I say, my voice quieter now, more dangerous. “You think taking control makes it better.”
“I think,” he says, just as softly, “that if I put you down, you will keep breaking yourself until there is nothing left to argue over.”
Silence stretches. Rverre takes a step closer, small feet crunching softly in the sand. She looks between us, head tilted, wings rustling faintly.
“She’s shaking,” she says, not accusing, stating a fact.
I am, with anger and yes, with pain. I hate that she’s right. I clench my hands tight in the fabric at Korr’s shoulder until my knuckles are white. I hadn’t meant to let that show. Illadon shifts, his tail twitching on the sand, sending puffs blasting into the air.
“Talia,” he says carefully. “You don’t have to prove anything.”
I snap my head toward him.
“Stay out of this.”
