“You’re not wrong,” I say quietly, and I see the flicker of something in her expression when I admit it. “But acting on it carries consequences you aren’t accounting for. This isn’t just about one village, and it doesn’t stay contained once it starts.”
“Neither does this,” she says, gesturing vaguely toward the direction of the reports, the routes, the destruction neither of us has seen firsthand but both understand. “You said it yourself—they’re pushing inward.”
She’s forcing me to acknowledge it, piece by piece, until ignoring it becomes a decision instead of a default.
“You should go,” I say finally, not because the conversation is finished but because I need it to be for now.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one you’re getting.”
She searches my face, looking for something I’m not giving her yet, then exhales and steps back toward the garden entrance. Her movements are controlled but tight through the shoulders, like she’s holding herself in place rather than letting thefrustration take over, and I let her leave without stopping her because anything I say now would commit me to a direction I haven’t chosen.
Once she’s gone, I turn back to the table and pick up the report again, studying the routes with a level of attention I didn’t give them before. The pattern is too clean to dismiss, too deliberate to ignore, and the longer I look at it the more it stops resembling disruption and starts looking like positioning. Krago isn’t raiding blindly; he’s shaping the field, forcing responses, narrowing options, and if he continues at this pace, whatever comes next won’t be contained to the outer villages.
I fold the parchment slowly, more carefully than before, because dismissing it outright no longer feels accurate, and set it back down with a precision that matches the thought settling into place.
This is no longer someone else’s problem, and whether I act on it or not is going to matter more than I initially decided.
17
LYRIA
The garden doesn’t feel the same after my talk with Verr.
It looks the same. The rows are still too precise, the hedges trimmed into shapes no one actually enjoys, the reflecting pool cutting through everything like a blade laid flat against the earth. But the air sits differently against my skin now, heavier somehow, like something has already started moving and the rest of the world just hasn’t caught up yet.
I push my hands into the soil harder than I need to, feeling the grit press into my palms as I work water down around the roots. The scent rises thick and damp, clinging to the back of my throat, grounding me in something real while my thoughts refuse to settle.
He didn’t say no.
That’s the problem.
If he had, I could’ve left it there. Filed it away with everything else that doesn’t matter because itcan’tmatter. But he didn’t. He stood there, listened, and didn’t shut it down.
That’s worse.
“Careful,” Fenrix mutters as he passes behind me. “You’re about to drown that one.”
I glance down. The soil is already dark, nearly oversaturated, water pooling just slightly at the edge of the roots.
“Yeah,” I say, pulling the bucket back. “I see it.”
“You usually do,” he says, not slowing. “Today’s off.”
I don’t answer.
Because he’s right.
And I don’t have time to be off.
I smooth the soil back into place with the side of my hand, pressing it down until the surface looks even again, controlled, like nothing underneath it has shifted. My fingers come away coated in dark earth, the texture rough against my skin, grounding in a way everything else isn’t right now.
Think.
Not feel.
Think.
