Chapter 4
KORR
Iwatch her leave, grateful she did before the words could harden into something permanent.
The canyon wall is close enough to brace against as I move, my hand brushing the rock without thought. Stone first. Always stone. The camp hums as preparations begin, tension leaking into motion the way it always does when decisions become real.
I welcome the noise. It gives my mind something to lock onto, but it can’t keep the echo of her words at bay.
You mistake control for protection.
I grind my teeth and force my focus outward, scanning sightlines, counting bodies, mapping exits. Anything but the way her voice changed when I crossed that line. Anything but the certainty that hit me when she stood her ground instead of backing away.
She is not fragile.
I knew that before today.
What unsettles me is how exposed she is and how little she understands what gathers around her because of it.
I stop at the narrowing of the canyon, where the stone presses in close enough to make breathing easier. The desert opens beyond, wide and unbounded, the slope falling away into space that offers no cover and no forgiveness.
We will have to cross it.
I volunteered because someone had to. Because the council would debate themselves into paralysis if allowed. Because the children will move whether they are escorted or not. And because she will be there.
The recognition comes sharp enough to cut. I shove it down.
Dragoste is not a thing to be entertained. It is not a thought experiment or a weakness. It is a binding that demands certainty and I refuse to give it room to breathe, not now. Not when survival still outweighs everything else.
I force my attention back to the camp.
The meager supplies are being shifted around. Water stores first. Good. Shade rigs next. Better. Humans argue near the supply crates while Cavern Z’maj lift without being asked, already assuming weight will fall to them. Surface Z’maj watch, calculating.
Urr’ki spacing tightens instinctively. They feel it too. The coming movement. The imbalance.
Staring out at the desert I assign routes in my head. Looking for paths that favor rock over sand, cover over speed. If we move, we move along the bones of Tajss, not across her open skin.
That is when I see him. The hybrid boy stands just inside the line of movement, waiting where he knows I will notice him. He has a half-sized lochaber in one hand. Tiny wings idly flap. A pack rides his shoulders, balanced correctly.
He sees that he has my attention and strides closer. The point of the lochaber is aimed at the ground, loosely gripped in his hand. He walks with a confidence and certainty that is far beyond his years. He comes to a stop an arm’s length in front of me.
“I’m going,” he says.
Not a question. I meet his gaze and understand immediately that this conversation was never optional.
I do not answer him right away.
I take him in giving him the full measure I would any other warrior who presented himself.
The stance. The grip. The way the lochaber is angled—not ready to strike, but not careless either.
Controlled. Deliberate. The pack is cinched tight across his shoulders, weight distributed the way a seasoned scout would manage it.
Someone helped him prepare. Or he prepared himself and learned fast. Too fast.
“No,” I say finally.
The word is carefully even. Illadon does not flinch.
“I wasn’t asking,” he replies.
I almost bare my teeth. Almost, but I manage to suppress the growl.
“That doesn’t change the answer.”
“It does,” he says calmly. “You just haven’t adjusted yet.”
I step closer, enough that he has to tilt his head to meet my eyes. He does not retreat. His wings twitch once, settling again, betraying the tension his face refuses to show.
“You are a child,” I say.
“I am a warrior and her protector,” he answers. “She will not go without me.”
“That is not your decision.”
“It is and it is made.”
I exhale slowly through my nose, keeping my voice steady.
“You do not understand the risk.”
“I do,” he says. “You just think it belongs to you.” I pause. The audacity of it. The precision. “You are trained to guard,” he continues, watching my face carefully. “I am trained to listen. Rverre will not follow someone she cannot see. You stand behind her. I stand beside her.”
I grind my teeth.
“You will slow us down.”
“I will keep her safe and keep her from running.”
That stops me. The boy does not press the advantage. He waits. His patience is infuriating. It is calculated and clearly learned the hard way.
“If she goes,” he says quietly, “and I stay, she will come back for me. She always does. She will not tell you first. She will not tell her first.” He does not name Talia, but the space he leaves is loud. “She will just go.”
I look past him toward the camp. Toward the children’s area. Toward the small, fragile point of gravity that is already bending the world around her. Illadon follows my gaze.
“You know I’m right,” he says.
I do. I do and I hate that he is.
“You will follow orders,” I say.
“Yes.”
“You will not take point.”
“Yes.”
“You will not leave her side without permission.”
“Yes.”
“And if I tell you to turn back?”
He hesitates. Just a breath.
Then: “I won’t.”
There it is. The line.
I step back, jaw tight, anger sparking hot and useless in my chest. Not at him. At the inevitability of this. At the fact that forcing him would fracture more than it would protect.
“You are not ready,” I say.
“Neither are you,” he replies.
Silence stretches between us, taut and dangerous.
I look at him again—not as a problem, but as a variable. As something that must be accounted for rather than eliminated.
“Get that lochaber checked,” I say at last. “The binding on the shaft is uneven. It will twist on impact.”
His eyes widen just a fraction but he lifts the weapon and inspects it, seeing what I saw.
“Yes,” he says, and for the first time, there is something like relief in his voice.
I turn away before it can settle. This is not permission. It is containment.
As I walk back toward the shifting lines of preparation, one thought settles heavy and unwelcome in my chest, I am not the only one willing to burn for her. And that will complicate everything.