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“You are learning.”

His mouth curved.

“So are you.”

Tavi looked between them. “This is becoming nauseating.”

Sera took the collar away from him. “Go eat.”

“I already—”

She held out her hand. Tavi reluctantly produced the ration cake from his pocket. Kesta laughed.

Later, when the infirmary had quieted and the crystal was sealed inside an insulated instrument case, Dreven walked with Kesta toward her room.

He did not tell her to sleep. She noticed that first. At her doorway he stopped outside, leaving the threshold between them.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “we inspect the wreck.”

“With a patrol.”

“Yes.”

“And if the weather turns?”

“We return.”

Kesta gave him a suspicious look.

Dreven’s eyes warmed. “I thought repeating the agreement might prevent another argument.”

“That seems unlikely.”

“I remain optimistic.”

She rested one hand against the doorframe. For a moment neither moved.

The conversation about Avarra still lived between them, quieter now but not gone. Kesta understood something she had not understood before. Dreven’s protectiveness was not simply a cultural habit or a command reflex. Part of him believed that loving someone meant accepting responsibility for every danger that reached them.

That belief had probably kept people alive. It could also destroy both of them if he never learned where responsibility ended. Kesta had her own lesson to learn. She had spent years treating dependence as the first stage of captivity. Yet today she had trusted Sera with a blade beneath the band, Keth with the truth about the locator, Tavi with the crystal, and Dreven with something as small and ridiculous as holding her hand. None of those choices had made her less herself.

Dreven touched two fingers to the edge of the doorframe.

“Good night, Kesta.”

She looked at his hand. Then at him.

“Good night, Dreven.”

He turned away. Kesta watched him go before closing the door. The black crystal rested inside its insulated case beside her bed, carrying secrets someone had embedded against her skin before she ever reached Kharon-Veil. For the first time, that wasn't the thing keeping her awake.

It was the memory of Dreven turning his hand beneath hers and waiting for her to close the distance.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Market Day

Ash Camp opened its gates at dawn, although the road beyond them was still streaked with the red residue left by the salt storm.