The board is gone. The need to recover it does not exist. She opens her mouth.
“Safe,” I say, speaking first.
The word is rough and absolute. She stares at me like I have lost my mind. Possible, but irrelevant.
Above us, the vibrations are distant and scattered. Searching the wrong ground. I listen, measure, discard. No immediate pursuit. No contact. No crowd. No hands reaching for her.
The pressure beneath thought eases for the first time since I saw her surrounded.
My breathing slows.
She is still staring at me. Fear is there. Anger too. Confusion sharp enough to cut. Alive. Not obstructed. Not contained by the others.
I shift half a step, placing myself between her and the sloping exit channel.
Not imprisonment. Position. Defense. Her eyes narrow immediately. She notices everything. Good. I notice everything too.
The way she balances despite the uneven ground. The way her gaze flicks not just to me, but to the chamber around us, mapping possible exits and looking for objects she can use. The way fear does not empty her. It sharpens her. She is not fragile. Never was. The thought settles with unnerving certainty.
Mine.
Outside, the wind moves over the dune in long low sweeps. Inside, no one reaches for her. No one crowds her. No one touches her. Removed. Safe. At last.
4
LEENA
Air does not come back all at once.
It hits in sharp, uneven pieces, tearing at my throat as I drag it in. I cough, twisting away from the sand still clinging to my mouth. My lungs fight for something clean that is not there.
He sits me down on ground that shifts under me. Loose. Hot. Unstable. Not the loading site. Not the camp. My balance wavers as the sand gives and settles, forcing me to adjust.
Dark, but not fully.
Light filters through the ceiling, thin and uneven, in pale streaks that make everything look distorted. The space is enclosed. Tight. Curved walls of packed sand closing in on all sides.
Wrong. Everything about this is wrong. My pulse spikes as memory slams back. The ground breaking. The impact. Arms around me. I turn—and stop.
He is there. Not moving. Not looming. Just standing in the space like he belongs to it. A Zmaj.
That is the first thing that registers. The structure is right. The height. The breadth of him, even in the confined space. The shape of his horns, the line of his shoulders—then the rest of it hits. Scars. So many scars.
Not the kind that come from battle and then heal. These overlap. Cross each other. Some old, faded into the skin. Others newer, jagged, uneven. Nothing about them is orderly. Nothing about them is controlled. They look… done to him.
His wings are folded tight against his back. Too tight.
The edges are not clean. One side sits lower than the other, the membrane along it torn in places that never fully healed. When he shifts, just slightly, there is a stiffness to it. A hesitation in the movement, like something there does not work the way it should.
Damage. Long-term. My stomach twists.
He looks like something that survived being broken. And yet he stands balanced. Centered. Every line of him controlled.
And he is watching me.
Not the way someone looks at a threat. Not the way someone looks at prey. Tracking every movement I make.
I force myself to breathe slower, pushing past the instinct to run before I understand what I am dealing with.
