That’s the first thing I realize the next morning, standing knee-deep in a row of root clusters that smell faintly metallic under the damp sweetness of the soil. The air is thicker than usual, heavy with condensation that clings to my skin and settles at the base of my throat, and even the light feels different—too bright in some places, too sharp along the edges of things that should blur naturally. Nothing is visibly wrong, nothing I could point to and saythere, but the rhythm is off.
People are watching me.
Not openly. Not enough to make a scene. But I feel it in the way conversations cut short when I move too close, in the way hands hesitate before resuming work, in the way the guards don’t just patrol anymore—theytrack. Their gazes skim past everyone else and land on me just a fraction longer than necessary, like they’re trying to measure something they don’t fully understand.
“Congratulations,” Skot murmurs as he steps into my peripheral space without looking directly at me. “You’veachieved the kind of attention most people here spend their lives avoiding.”
I don’t look up from the roots I’m untangling. The fibers are tight, knotted in a way that suggests overgrowth, and when I pull them apart carefully, the plant releases a faint, sharp scent that stings my nose.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Feels like I won a prize I didn’t sign up for.”
He crouches beside me, close enough that his shoulder nearly brushes mine, but not quite. Always not quite.
“You should consider adjusting your behavior,” he says quietly.
“I have,” I reply, easing a thicker root free and brushing soil away from it. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”
“That is not the same as safe.”
I snort softly. “Nothing here is safe. It’s just varying degrees of not dead.”
Skot exhales through his nose, and I catch the faintest hint of frustration in it.
“You provoked him,” he says.
“I asked a question.”
“You challenged him.”
“I asked why he didn’t kill someone,” I correct, finally glancing at him. “That’s not exactly revolutionary.”
“In this place,” he says, meeting my gaze briefly before looking away again, “it is.”
I sit back on my heels, wiping my hands on the cloth at my waist. The fabric is already stained from yesterday, darker where the moisture hasn’t fully dried.
“He answered,” I say.
Skot’s brow tightens slightly. “That is what concerns me.”
“Yeah,” I murmur. “Me too.”
A shadow passes over the light.
Not a literal one—nothing moves above us—but the sensation is immediate, like the air compresses just slightly, like something has entered the space that the environment hasn’t had time to adjust around yet.
Skot goes still.
I don’t.
Not immediately.
I finish what I’m doing, press the soil back into place, and only then push myself to stand.
“Back to work,” I say under my breath.
“Of course,” Skot replies just as quietly, already shifting away, his posture loosening into something more neutral, less… aligned with me.
I don’t turn right away.
