Chapter 8 Talia
TALIA
We stop because Korr says we do.
Not because Rverre stumbles or the heat overwhelms us or the ground demands it, but because he decides the balance has tipped from progress into risk. That alone tells me more than any argument we’ve had so far.
“This is far enough,” he says, halting at the edge of a shallow rise where stone breaks through sand in uneven ribs. There’s no shelter worth the name, just a scatter of rocks tall enough to steal a sliver of shade if the suns angle right. It isn’t safe.
But neither is moving.
Illadon doesn’t question it. He eases Rverre toward the lee side of a boulder, helping her shrug off her pack. She sinks down with a soft exhale, wings loosening, tail curling in close as if the ground itself has invited her to rest.
I feel it too. A bone deep exhaustion that comes from not only exertion, but a constant alertness. The enduring threat that something will go wrong with, if we’re lucky, barely a moment’s notice.
Korr plants his feet and stares in all directions. Slow and methodical. I don’t think he’s so much searching for something specific as looking for anything that doesn’t belong. This is not vigilance sharpened to a blade. This is assessment.
“We’ll stay until the heat breaks,” he says. “Then we move again.”
I nod, because that’s easier than admitting relief.
We work without discussion. Packs down. Water rationed. Shade cloth strung low and tight between stone points that barely deserve the name. Illadon mirrors Korr’s efficiency with steady, quiet movements. Rverre watches for a moment, then curls in on herself, eyes fluttering shut.
I settle a short distance away, close enough to see them clearly, far enough not to crowd.
My legs ache with the kind of deep, insistent pain that reminds me how long it’s been since I truly rested.
I press my palm into the soft sand of the ground, feeling for something solid beneath the surface.
I don’t press far before stone answers back.
Korr finishes his circuit and returns to the center of our small, fragile island of stillness. He crouches, draws a line in the sand with the toe of his boot, then another.
“Watch rotation,” he says.
“I’ll take first,” I say automatically.
“No,” he replies just as quickly.
“That wasn’t a suggestion,” I say, squinting up at him.
“Neither was mine.”
Illadon straightens, alert. “I can take—”
“No,” Korr says again, less unkindly this time. “You rest now.”
Illadon hesitates, glancing at Rverre, then at me. I shake my head once, subtle but firm. Reluctantly, he settles back down beside her, one hand resting near her shoulder without touching.
Korr turns back to me. “You take second.”
“And you?” I ask.
“First and last.”
I open my mouth to argue, then close it. He’s already made the calculation. Pushing now would only turn this into something it doesn’t need to be.
“Fine,” I say. “But you wake me.”
His gaze flicks to mine, locking on, and a beat passes.
“I will,” he says.
He speaks with such certainty. As if he cannot fathom a maybe. It’s not if, it’s when. It’s will.
The suns climb higher, light sharpening, heat pressing in. Rverre slips fully into sleep, the tension draining from her small frame. Illadon’s eyes close soon after, though his posture never truly slackens. A guard even in rest. I envy them both.
Korr takes his place a short distance away, standing where he can see everything at once—children, terrain, horizon. I sit with my back to stone, watching him from the corner of my eye as my body loosens its grip. This is the first time since leaving the canyon that rest feels… chosen.
I draw my cloak tighter, close my eyes, and let myself drift—not fully asleep, not fully awake—trusting, for the first time, that someone else is holding the line. And that may be the most dangerous thing I’ve done yet.
Sleep takes me sideways.
Not the clean fall into darkness, but the drifting kind—edges blurred, thoughts loosening their grip just enough to slip.
Heat hums beneath my skin. The stone at my back is warm now, the day’s memory settling.
Somewhere nearby, fabric shifts. A measured step.
The soft scrape of movement that tells me the watch hasn’t changed.
I don’t open my eyes.
The sound becomes another sound.
A door sealing. The faint vibration of something too large to be gentle.
“You don’t understand,” he says, and the words carry the same weight they always did—final, already decided.
I’m sitting at a narrow table that smells like antiseptic and recycled air. My hands are folded too tightly in my lap. I can feel the pressure of it in my wrists even now.
“I do,” I tell him. My voice is calm. Too calm. I practiced that tone. “I do understand.”
He shakes his head. I don’t need to see it to know. He always shook his head when he didn’t want the truth anymore.
“No,” he says. “You understand the words. That’s not the same thing.”
I open my mouth to argue, then stop. There’s a familiar hollow feeling in my chest, like something has already been removed and my body hasn’t caught up yet.
“They said there are other options,” I say instead. “We could—”
He cuts me off, sharp and sudden. “I can’t live like that.”
Like that.
The word lands between us, heavy and undefined. It slices into me now, even in the half-light of sleep.
“I won’t ask you to,” I say quietly. “But this doesn’t have to be the end.”
He laughs then. Once, not cruel, just tired.
“It does,” he says. “Because I can’t live without it. And you—” He stops. Rubs a hand over his face. “You don’t even miss it yet.”
I want to tell him that I do. That I already feel the absence like a phantom ache. That I would have mourned it with him if he’d stayed long enough to let me. But he’s reaching for his bag. Already turning away.
“I didn’t choose this,” I say, and there’s something raw in my voice now, something I didn’t plan to let out.
He pauses at the door. Just long enough for hope to flicker.
“I know,” he says. “That’s… that’s why I can’t stay.”
The door seals with a sound too clean to be kind.
The memory slips, fragments dissolving back into heat and sand and breath. The ache remains, dull and familiar, like an old scar that never quite fades. I shift in my half-sleep, my fingers curling into the fabric beneath them.
I snap awake, sitting straight up with a gasp.
Korr whirls, half drawing his blade, nostrils flaring, eyes already searching the dark for a threat that isn’t there. The desert gives nothing. No movement or sound beyond the soft rasp of the children breathing.
He stills.
I see the moment he understands. His posture shifts from attack to assessment and the blade slides into its sheath without ceremony.
“A dream,” he says quietly.
I don’t answer. My hands are shaking. I curl them into fists and press them against my thighs, grounding myself in sensation. Fabric. Heat. The grit of sand beneath my fingers. Now. I am here. Not there.
He takes one step closer, slow and deliberate, like he’s approaching something wounded and dangerous.
“You are safe,” he says.
The words land wrong. Too close to something that once meant comfort and now only means absence.
“I know,” I say, sharper than I intend.
He pauses, adjusting course without comment. That, at least, is something he’s good at.
“You were breathing fast,” he says instead. “Your pulse spiked. Then broke.”
I laugh once, brittle and humorless. “Congratulations. You noticed.”
His brow furrows, but he doesn’t retreat. He lowers himself into a crouch a careful distance away. Present without claiming space.
“I thought there was a threat,” he says, glancing out at the desert beyond our meager shelter. “There wasn’t.”
“No,” I say. “It’s fine.”
The words slip out before I can stop them. They echo between us, heavier than I want.
He studies my face, not my hands, my eyes. Like he’s learned where the truth leaks out first.
“Dreams can wound,” he says.
Something tightens in my chest and the shields comes up automatically, practiced and fast.
“Save the philosophy,” I snap. “I don’t need comfort.”
“I wasn’t offering comfort,” he replies evenly. “I was offering presence.”
That’s worse.
I push myself to my feet too quickly, the world tilting for half a breath before I steady. I turn away, pacing a few steps across the small pocket of shade, arms folded tight across my chest.
“Don’t,” I say.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t do that,” I repeat. “Don’t stand there like you can fix something just by staying.”
He rises slowly, giving me space but not distance.
“I am not trying to fix you.”
“That’s what they always say,” I mutter.
He goes still. I didn’t mean to say that. Or maybe I did. Maybe part of me wanted to see if he’d flinch. He doesn’t.
“I am here because you woke afraid,” he says. “That is all.”
I shake my head, anger flaring hot and sudden, fueled by something old and raw.
“That’s never all. It never stays that simple.”
His gaze sharpens. “You think I will leave.”
The certainty in his voice knocks the breath from me.
“I think,” I say carefully, choosing each word like it might cut me if I’m careless, “that staying is easy until it isn’t.”
He watches me for a long moment, then nods once. “Yes.”
The agreement throws me off balance.
“People stay,” I continue, my voice tightening despite myself, “until they realize they can’t live without something you can’t give them. And then they go. And you’re left holding the quiet like it’s your fault.”
Silence presses down between us, thick and heavy. Somewhere behind us, Rverre shifts in her sleep. Illadon murmurs softly and settles again. Life, continuing, oblivious.
Korr’s voice is low when he speaks. “I am not that male.”
“You don’t know that,” I say immediately. Too fast. Too desperate.
“I do,” he replies.
I turn on him, frustration blazing. “You don’t get to promise things you can’t control.”
“I am not promising,” he says. “I am stating intent.”
“That’s the same thing,” I snap.
“No,” he says, stepping closer just enough that I can feel the heat of him again. “A promise depends on outcome. Intent depends on choice.”
I swallow hard. My throat burns.
“Well,” I say, forcing steel into my voice, “my choice is to keep my distance.”
His eyes soften. It’s not pity or judgment, but understanding. My resolve quavers, for a moment I almost let him in, but I know better. I cross my arms over my chest and turn away.
“Then I will respect that,” he says. “But I will still keep watch.”
I scoff, turning away again. “Of course you will.”
He doesn’t rise to the bait.
“Rest,” he says instead. “The worst of the heat will break soon.”
I close my eyes briefly, fighting the sting behind them. “I’m not sleeping again.”
“I did not ask you to.”
I glance back at him despite myself. He has already turned away, resuming his place at the edge of our fragile circle. Guard. Sentinel. Line-holder.
I sink back against the stone, drawing my cloak tighter, heart still aching but slower now. The pain doesn’t vanish. It never does. But it dulls, just enough to breathe around.
I don’t thank him. I can’t even look at him, but when my pulse finally steadies, when the desert stops feeling like it’s pressing in on all sides, I know the truth even if I won’t let myself say out loud.
He stayed. And that scares me more than the dream ever did.