Which means everything is a decision.
Including—
“Lyria.”
I look up.
He is closer now than he was a moment ago, and I didn’t see him move.
“Walk,” he says.
I don’t argue. I fall into step beside him as he turns down the path, the stone cool beneath my feet where the irrigation mist hasn’t settled, the air heavier here, thick with moisture and the faint sweetness of something blooming overhead. We don’t go far—just far enough that the others remain visible but no longer within easy hearing, their movements continuing in that careful, deliberate way people adopt when they know they are being watched.
“What did you see,” he asks, his voice quieter now, not softer, but more focused.
I keep my eyes forward. “A correction.”
“That is obvious.”
“You didn’t ask for the obvious.”
A pause follows, and I can feel his attention shift toward me without needing to look.
“No,” he says. “I did not.”
I draw in a slow breath, grounding myself in something physical before answering. “You stopped.”
“At what.”
“Before it became more.”
“Define more.”
I glance at him. “You know what more looks like.”
The air tightens slightly between us.
“And you believe I was approaching it.”
“I believe you chose not to.”
Another pause, longer this time, and we come to a stop without my noticing the moment it happens, the sound of water from a nearby channel filling the space between us.
“Why,” he asks.
The word lands differently now, less like a demand and more like a test.
I could deflect.
I could soften.
I don’t.
“Why didn’t you kill him,” I say quietly.
10
VERR
