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“Not yet,” he says.

The words slip under my ribs and stay there.

I glance back once, at the dark where they vanished, at the ground that bent itself neatly around us, at the invisible lines I never saw until now—on the farm, on the mountain, everywhere the world had been quietly paying attention while I told myself it wasn’t.

Then I turn and start walking.

“We’re not stopping here,” I say.

He falls in step beside me without argument, matching my pace like he understands exactly what I need right now and isn’t going to pretend otherwise.

That matters more than anything else he could have said.

We move on, the mountain opening ahead of us, the path scarred by the passage of something far worse than us. The argument isn’t over.

It has just learned how to move quietly.

And the sentence that’s been building in my chest since the markers, since the farm, since the world started counting me in ways I didn’t know how to see yet⁠—

I let it stay unfinished.

I don’t need to say it.

The dark already heard it.

XXXIII

Give Me Shelter

Ichoose the site because it will hold.

Stone enough to keep a fire from wandering. Pines positioned to break the wind before it decides to matter. A downhill sightline long enough that nothing gets close without choosing to. Shelter isn’t comfort. It’s leverage.

Shadow settles as soon as I stop. Selah doesn’t.

She stands where the Hollowborn passed us, attention still angled toward the dark like she expects it to answer back. Her breathing is steady. Too steady. The edge in her hasn’t left yet.

Neither has the memory of my hand on her skin.

I don’t look at her while I build the fire. I don’t need to. I know exactly where she is. I always have.

The flame takes quickly—resin-heavy wood, dry enough to bite. I feed it sparingly. Light without announcement. Heat without invitation. The mountain doesn’t need to know we’re here—just that we aren’t lost.

I shrug the pack off and set it within reach. My hand hesitates for a fraction before moving again.

That doesn’t happen often.

When I slid my palm under her shirt, it wasn’t instinct. Instinct would’ve pulled her back. Instinct would’ve put me in front. What I did was different. Calculated. I needed her still. I needed her breathing even. I needed her not to react while the Hollowborn decided whether we counted as unfinished business.

Her skin was smooth.

Not soft. Not fragile. Just…unbroken. The contrast registered immediately against my hand—scarred, thickened, mapped by work and old decisions. I liked the way the difference grounded me.

I hated that more than anything.

She told me once that my old religion was rotting me from the inside out. Said it like a diagnosis, not an accusation. I didn’t argue because she was right. The Iron Gospel doesn’t rot what it touches loudly. It hollows. Leaves structure intact so you can pretend nothing’s wrong.

Selah watches my hands now. She always does—measuring, not searching.