“You are very sure of yourself,” she says.
“No.”
“No?”
“I am sure of the ground.”
Her lips part slightly. The wind slips between us, already hot though first heat has barely begun to rise. It pulls red dust acrossher boot and into the shallow crack forming near the edge of her sole. I lean closer, listening with claws, skin, bone.
“Now,” I say. “Back heel. Slow.”
She obeys.
Not perfectly. Her breath catches halfway through, and fear tries to drag her weight forward. I tighten my hand once around her wrist. A reminder, and she corrects.
The sand gives a soft sigh beneath her front boot. Sera goes still. I hear her heartbeat spike.
“Good,” I say.
The word is low, only for her. Her throat moves.
“Do not praise me while the ground is deciding whether to eat me.”
“I praise what works.”
“You are impossible.”
“Later.”
Something almost like a laugh trembles in her chest. She kills it before it becomes sound. Smart, but I feel the ghost of it against my grip, the tiny shiver through tendon and pulse. That may be worse.
Focus.
“Now lift your front foot,” I say. “Only the front. Do not push. Let it leave.”
“How do I let a foot leave?”
“As if it does not belong to you.”
“That is terrible instruction.”
“It is accurate.”
Her jaw sets. Then she does it. Slowly. Too slowly for most humans to bear. Fast enough that the sand does not keep her. Her boot lifts free. Underneath, the red surface skin caves inward a thumb’s depth. No more.
I rise with her foot, keeping my hand on her wrist.
“Step where I step.”
“You are behind me.”
“I will not be.”
I move first, placing one foot on a darker seam of stone under the dust. Good. Solid enough. Then another. I guide her wrist, not her body, leaving her balance to herself because she will hate anything else.
She steps where I step. Her boot lands inside my print. The sight does something violent and quiet inside me.
We move three steps. Four. Five.
