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I lean into that touch by half an inch.

It does not look like much.

It feels enormous.

Ghar lowers his voice so only I can hear. “You do not have to carry this alone.”

My eyes sting.

“I’m terrible at not carrying things alone.”

“I noticed.”

“That was rude.”

“It was accurate.”

I look at him through the silver light, and for once I do not make a joke fast enough to save myself. “I’m scared.”

His face changes.

Something fierce and tender moves through his eyes before he answers. “I know.”

“I might have already pushed too far.”

“Yes.”

The honesty strikes clean.

My breath catches, but he does not soften it with false comfort.

Then he adds, “I am still here.”

The words settle into me slowly, not as a solution but as shelter. I have spent so much of my life treating vulnerability as a professional liability, proof that someone could outargue me, dismiss me, steal from me, or make me smaller. Down here, with blood under my nails and dead civilizations glowing above my head, that reflex feels painfully inadequate.

I let my shoulder rest against his side.

His arm shifts around me, not pulling, simply holding the space I have entered.

Brakk clears his throat from behind us. “I am going to stare respectfully at literally anything else.”

Sira’s mouth curves faintly. “I will join you in diplomatic observation.”

I almost tell them both to shut up, but my voice is not steady enough for the delivery.

Ghar keeps his gaze on the lattice. “If we go down, we do it carefully. No direct interface until we understand the chamber. No lone access. No opening anything because it looks interesting.”

I wipe at my face with one hand. “That last one felt targeted.”

“It was.”

“Fair.”

His hand remains at my back. “And if it becomes too much, we stop.”

I look at the black-rimmed coordinate. “What if stopping is not possible once it starts?”

“Then I pull you out.”