He stops talking. He has said what he came to say. He is waiting for me to leave.
He bid a fortune and is now trying to talk me out of taking it. He is terrible at this.
I look at the unsigned document on the table between us.
I have my reasons for being here. He doesn’t need to know them yet.
“I’ll sign,” I say.
Something loosens in his face. Barely.
“You don’t want to think about it?”
“No.”
“You should.”
He holds the question he wants to ask and chooses not to ask it. Not yet.
I pick up the pen the house agent left on the table and sign the document.
I push it across to him. He takes the pen. His hand is scaled, the fingers longer than a human hand. I watch him write his name. There is a strange care in his grip, each finger finding its place around the shaft.
“My name is Vadh,” he says.
“Bryn.”
He nods once. He uncoils from the wall. The room shifts around his weight.
“The journey is long,” he says. “And there is no path for most of it.”
He goes to the door.
I stand and sling my pack over my shoulder. One piece of paper hides at the bottom, wrapped in cloth, mine for thirteen years. Waiting.
Just like me.
VADH
The silence is not what I expected.
We have been moving since we left the market grounds, and the road held for the first two hours before it narrowed into a trail. Root-broken, half-reclaimed by the jungle. For her that means stepping over what I push through.
She walks beside me where the trail allows it and behind me where it doesn’t.
Dessa filled the silence with small talk that ran out by the second hour. Maret measured her words the way you test ground in the dark. Bryn is quiet the way a cat is quiet. She moves through the jungle as she stood on the block. Present. Watching. A mystery.
We come to the river.
It is running hard. The rains have been heavy upstream, and I know this ford. It is not crossable on foot by a human today. The water would be over her head, and the current would take her.
I stop at the bank and she stops beside me. Looks at the water. Looks at me.
“Right,” she says. “So…”
“I’ll carry you across.”
She nods. Her eyes go to the far bank, already choosing where to land.
