“You weigh less than your fear thinks you do.”
That shouldn’t hit me in the chest like a fist, but it does. I look away, jaw tight, watching the sand slide past beneath us.
“You don’t get to decide what I’m afraid of.”
“No,” he agrees calmly. “But I get to decide when it stops controlling the pace.”
Illadon scouts ahead, stopping at a narrow break in the stone and signaling with a hand motion we never discussed but all understand. Rverre is beside us walking carefully. Her attention split between the path and something deeper that is pulling at her from under the surface of the world.
“It’s closer,” she says quietly. No excitement or fear in her voice, more someone stating a dry fact. “It knows we changed.”
I stiffen.
“Knows how?”
She shrugs one small shoulder.
“Like when the wind notices a fire.”
Korr stops. It’s not abrupt. The motion ends cleanly. He looks out across the terrain, then down at me.
“This is the point,” he says.
My pulse jumps. “The point of what?”
“Where pretending you can walk this off stops being useful.”
I bristle. “I wasn’t pretending.”
“Yes,” he says gently. “You were.”
The gentleness undoes me more than anger ever could. I push a hand against his chest, not hard enough to move him, enough to remind myself I can still choose something.
“Put me down.”
“No.”
“Korr—”
“No,” he repeats, and there’s iron in his voice. It’s not an exertion of dominance or some kind of cruelty, it’s a decision. “Not here. Not like this.”
“Then when?” I demand. “When do I get my feet back?”
“When it won’t cost you more than it already has.”
I laugh — sharp, humorless.
“You make it sound so reasonable.”
“It is,” he says with a shrug.
“That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
His mouth curves slightly. “I know.”
That does it. The fight drains out of me all at once, leaving something raw and shaking underneath. My fingers curl into the leather at his shoulder. I don’t hide it. I don’t apologize for it either.
This isn’t surrender. It’s triage.
