The change throws his balance off by a fraction. Barely perceptible, but enough that his stride stutters for half a step. He compensates instantly, but I feel the correction ripple through his body like a tightened cable. He stops moving for the briefest moment.
Not long enough for anyone else to notice. Illadon keeps walking, guiding Rverre ahead, unaware that anything has shifted behind them. Korr doesn’t look at me as he adjusts his grip with precise efficiency. Tightening one arm under my knees, the other repositioning at my back to lock me more securely against his chest. It isn’t rough, just practical.
“Don’t,” he says quietly.
One word with no explanation. It rankles me with its finality and I freeze. Not because he hurt me or because pain flares—though my ankle does throb with protest. I freeze because I understand exactly what he means.
Don’t help. Don’t fight the balance. Don’t pretend this is something it isn’t.
My throat tightens and I clench my jaw, biting down on the urge to snap back. Words that would have no purpose but to hurt. I stare out at the endless stretch of sand ahead, the horizon wavering in the heat. The urge to argue clawing up my spine, sharp and reflexive.
I am not dead weight. I am not helpless. I am not—the thought fractures under its own weight.
I am being carried. And the truth I don’t want to face is that I feel how much effort he’s expending not just to move forward, but to make it look effortless. To make it stable. To keep me from noticing the imbalance any more than I already have.
I swallow hard and force myself to still. The difference is immediate.
Korr’s shoulders ease by a hair. His breathing evens. The tension humming through his frame settles into something sustainable. He doesn’t comment. Doesn’t acknowledge the change. Simply resuming walking as if nothing happened.
I also don’t miss that the desert responds.
It isn’t dramatic. There’s no visible shift, no sudden quieting of the ground. It’s more subtle than that, more of an easing of resistance. The sand firms underfoot. The faint, wrong vibration I’d felt earlier through his body fades into nothing.
Coherence.
The word presses into my thoughts, unwelcome yet undeniable.
I close my eyes, not to sleep, but because the alternative is admitting how much this costs me. How much it costs him. How much it costs us both that the world seems to make more sensewhen I stop insisting on doing everything myself. When I allow myself to rely on him.
My fingers curl into the leather at his shoulder before I can stop them. I’m not gripping or clinging, just… anchoring. He doesn’t react. No shifting away or tightening of his hold in response. It’s as if he understands the difference between grasping and grounding. Between need and balance.
The motion of his stride carries me forward, steady and relentless. Each step eats distance, brings us closer to our destination. I no longer measure progress by the ache in my legs or the burn in my lungs. I measure it by the rise and fall of his chest beneath my cheek. By the quiet certainty of his pace.
A weight I don’t have a name for presses onto me. There is nowhere to put it. It presses in from nowhere and everywhere. It’s not pride, or not pride alone, nor is it denial. It’s more a truth, burning away the lie that I can hold everything together alone.
I can’t. Part of me knows it. Has always known it. But armor, carefully built and long worn doesn’t let go that easy. He’s done everything right, but somehow it’s still not enough.
I know why. It echoes in every beating of my heart. He’ll go away when it matters most. When I need him most, he’ll be gone. That’s what happens to girls like me. I can’t open my heart because I can’t take that pain again. I swore it then and no matter all that’s happened, that promise to myself remains.
Korr glances down and our eyes meet. It’s a moment. The weight of his gaze studying my face, searching for something I can’t name. A ghost of a smile brushes his lips, he lifts me a little higher in his arms, cradling me a little tighter against his chest.
In that glance I see him. I know that he’s decided, feel it burning behind his eyes, but this is a two way passage and I can’t. Pressure builds behind my eyes. Shoulders tighten. That weight is heavier than ever. How do I forget the past?
Korr has and Tajss seems accepting of the change, but I’m not. I can’t. I won’t ever hurt that way again.
21
TALIA
Korr keeps moving, his stride is steady, but I feel a change through him before I see it myself. The resistance eases. The drag on each step lessens. The subtle, grinding fight between sand and stone that’s been chewing at us since morning simply… lets go. The ground becomes firm.
The tension I’ve been holding without admitting it loosens in my shoulders. Korr’s breathing evens another fraction, deep and controlled. He doesn’t look around or slow, but his grip adjusts in a way that tells me he feels it too.
Ahead of us, Illadon’s pace smooths and then Rverre stops humming. That’s what makes my chest tighten. She lifts her head slowly, wings flexing once before settling. Her gaze drifts outward, unfocused, tracking something that isn’t distance.
“It knows,” she says.
No fear or wonder, she’s stating a fact. Illadon halts, looking at her with narrowed eyes.
