His gaze dips over me. Not the way Marut’s did. Not measuring weakness. Measuring truth.
“No,” he says. “You are not.”
The words are plain, but they still land somewhere they should not. I start walking before my face does something stupid.
The first stretch is hard-packed stone beneath a skin of red dust. Good ground, if it holds. Treacherous, if it doesn’t. I keep my steps light, heels barely touching, weight ready to shift. Kavor matches me without comment, though his stride could swallow two of mine without effort.
He shortens it. I pretend not to notice. Again.
A few body lengths beyond the arch, the wind changes. Not much. Enough that the City’s smell thins behind us and the flats take over. Hot stone. Dry mineral. Distant rot from something small that found shade too late.
Kavor’s wings tighten another fraction. His gaze moves up, then outward, then back to the ground.
I count breaths. Nine. Ten. Eleven.
“You keep looking at the sky,” I say.
His head turns slightly. “I keep looking everywhere.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is survival.”
“Still exhausting.”
He says nothing. I glance at him because silence is, apparently, an invitation to bad decisions.
His jaw is set. His tail is low. One hand stays near the strap across his chest, claws resting not on weapon or skin but near the place where stone would have been if we were still inside.
No. Not stone. A boundary. Something to orient against. The thought comes and goes too quickly to hold.
“Do Cavern Zmaj always hate mornings?” I ask.
His eyes flick to me. Careful. Too careful.
“Mornings do not concern me.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“No.”
A dry laugh threatens my throat. I swallow it because sound carries differently outside and because he might take it as encouragement. He is already too encouraged. We reach the broken retaining wall at breath twenty-six. I refuse to feel proud.
Kavor pauses in the shadow before I do. Not because he needs the shade. Because his claws brush the cracked stone as he steps into it. Lightly. Briefly. As if greeting something that can answer.
I file that away beside the tight wings and the sky watching and the way he looks more at ease the moment stone rises near his shoulder. Not fear. Not exactly. Something.
“Next?” he asks.
I pull the map from the side pocket, keeping my body angled so the wind can’t snatch it.
“Old cistern basin. We skirt to the west of it.”
“You said it adds time.”
“You said we should pay it.”
“I did.”
