Then—
“To feel it,” I say quietly.
His gaze sharpens slightly.
“Feel what?”
I meet his eyes.
“How bad this could go.”
Silence stretches between us, but it isn’t empty. It’s tight, pulled thin by everything we’re not saying.
“You already know that,” he says.
“Knowing it isn’t the same as—” I stop, shaking my head slightly. “It’s different when it’s here.”
His attention doesn’t shift away from me.
“No,” he says. “It isn’t.”
I look back toward the village, the flicker of firelight catching along the edges of the barricades, shadows moving in sharp bursts as people reposition, adjust, react.
“That’s my home,” I say, my voice lower now. “Not just…a place. Not just something on a map.”
“I’m aware.”
“And if this fails?—”
“It won’t.”
The certainty in his voice cuts through the rest of the sentence before I can finish it.
I turn back to him.
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t need to.”
“That’s not how this works,” I say, stepping closer without realizing it.
“It is for me,” he replies.
There’s something in the way he says it—flat, controlled, like certainty is the only thing he allows himself—that makes something in my chest tighten.
“That’s not enough,” I say.
“It has to be.”
“No,” I shake my head, my voice tightening. “It doesn’t.”
The words land between us, sharper than I expect, and for a second I think he’s going to push back the way he usually does—clean, controlled, untouchable.
He doesn’t.
He just watches me.
“What are you asking for?” he says finally.
