The question catches me off guard.
“I’m not?—”
“You are,” he cuts in, stepping closer now, closing the space I didn’t realize I’d created. “You don’t leave a battlefield in the middle of a push unless you’re asking for something.”
“I’m not asking,” I say, but it comes out thinner than I want it to.
He tilts his head slightly.
“Then say it properly.”
The air feels different now.
Closer.
The space between us narrows in a way that has nothing to do with the fight still happening just beyond it.
I swallow, forcing myself to hold his gaze.
“I’m not leaving,” I say.
“I know.”
“No,” I shake my head. “I’m not leaving, even if it gets worse. Even if—” My voice catches for half a second before I steady it. “Even if it turns.”
His jaw tightens slightly.
“That’s not your decision.”
“It is,” I say, sharper now. “This is my home. Those are my people.”
“And if staying gets you killed?”
“Then I stay anyway.”
The words hang there, heavier than anything else we’ve said.
He exhales slowly, his gaze shifting briefly past me toward the village, then back again.
“You’re not expendable,” he says.
“Neither are they.”
“That’s not the same.”
“It is to me.”
A beat passes.
Then another.
He steps closer.
Not fast.
Not forceful.
Just enough that I feel the shift of air between us.
