Chapter 10 Talia
TALIA
By midday, the desert stops pretending.
The light hardens, bleaching the color out of everything but shadow, and the sand turns treacherous—fine on the surface, swallowing beneath. Each step costs more than the last. My calves burn. My throat is dry in that way water never quite fixes.
We slow, whether any of us want to admit it or not.
Korr signals a brief halt with a raised fist. Illadon eases Rverre to a stop beside him, offering her the canteen before she asks. She takes a small sip and hands it back without comment.
Korr crouches and presses his palm to the sand, then digs down until stone answers. He nods once to himself, then stands.
“We cut across,” he says. “Faster ground. Less give.”
I follow his gaze. The path he’s chosen looks marginally better—packed hard instead of loose dune—but it’s also more exposed. No rise. No cover. Just open space and heat.
“It’ll cost us shade,” I say.
“It’ll save strength,” he counters.
He’s right. I know it immediately, and that rankles.
“Fine,” I say. “But we keep spacing tight.”
A corner of his mouth twitches. “Agreed.”
We move again, angling into the open. The heat presses down hard, relentless and intimate. My breath grows shallow despite my effort to control it. Epis dulls the edge, but it doesn’t erase the reality of being human on a world that never meant for us to be comfortable.
After a few minutes, Rverre stumbles.
It’s small—just a slip where the sand shifts unexpectedly—but it’s enough. Illadon catches her instantly, arm steady around her shoulders, murmuring something too soft for me to hear. She regains her footing, nods once, and keeps going. But I’m worried all the same.
“We should stop,” I say.
“No,” Korr replies without turning. “She’s steady now.”
“She almost fell.”
“She didn’t,” he says calmly. “And stopping here will drain her more than moving.”
I open my mouth, then close it again. The argument is already playing out in my head, sharp and familiar, and I hate how much it seems to echo the one I lost a lifetime ago.
I push forward instead, jaw clenched, counting my steps, my breaths, anything to keep from snapping. The ground begins to firm beneath our feet, just as he predicted, and the pace eases slightly.
He slows just enough to fall back beside me.
“You don’t trust me,” he says quietly, not accusatory.
“I trust you with their safety,” I reply, matching his tone. “That doesn’t mean I stop worrying.”
He studies me for a moment, eyes scanning my face the way he scans terrain—looking for fault lines, pressure points.
“Worry is not the same as doubt,” he says.
I almost laugh. “You don’t know humans very well.”
“Perhaps not,” he admits. “But I know fear.”
I glance at him, really looking this time. Sweat darkens the ridges of his skin. His shoulders are tense, his posture rigid in a way that has nothing to do with the heat.
“You’re afraid,” I say before I can stop myself.
He doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t confirm it either. He just exhales slowly, eyes forward.
“I am alert,” he says. “Fear implies distraction.”
“Not always,” I say quietly. “Sometimes it just means you care about the outcome.”
He doesn’t respond right away. The silence stretches, filled with the sound of our footsteps and the low hum Rverre has picked up again—quieter now, almost soothing. Finally, he speaks.
“You mistake distance for safety,” he says.
“And you mistake control for certainty,” I shoot back.
He stops, not abruptly, but decisively enough that the rest of us halt with him. He turns to face me fully, blocking the sun enough to cast my face in shadow.
“This is not about control,” he says, voice low. “It is about responsibility.”
“And I don’t have any?” I ask, heat flaring sharper than the sun overhead.
“You have too much,” he replies without hesitation. “You carry it whether it is yours or not.”
The words hit hard enough that I have to look away. Rverre’s humming falters. Illadon shifts, glancing between us, uncertainty flickering across his face. I force myself to breathe. To soften my shoulders. This isn’t the place. This isn’t the time. Not in front of the children.
“We keep moving,” I say at last.
Korr holds my gaze for a beat longer, then nods once and we resume moving. But the distance between us has changed. Like a fault line has shifted beneath our feet, subtle and irreversible.
And as the heat bears down and the horizon wavers ahead, I can’t shake the sense that we’ve crossed something invisible. Not into danger, but into understanding.
The land begins to rise again.
Not into shelter—nothing so generous—but into a long, shallow ridge where stone breaks through the sand often enough to remind my feet what solid feels like.
The change is subtle, but my body registers it immediately.
My stride evens out. My breathing steadies.
I hadn’t realized how close to my limit I was skating until the edge pulls back.
As if understanding it more than I did, Korr signals another halt.
Rverre drifts toward a patch of stone without being guided, her steps slowing as if the ground itself has reached up to meet her. She kneels, presses her palm flat, and closes her eyes. The desert wind slides over us, warmer now, carrying the faintest metallic tang.
Illadon crouches beside her, silent, attentive, letting her lead.
I hang back, rolling my shoulders, forcing circulation back into stiff muscles. My earlier sharpness has burned down into something quieter—still there, but no longer sparking at every contact point. The argument hasn’t resolved, but it has… settled. Like sand after a shift.
Korr stands a few paces away, watching the horizon.
I should be grateful for the distance. Instead, I feel the strange pull of it—like a word left unfinished. Rverre opens her eyes and looks directly at him.
“We’re close to something,” she says. Not excited or afraid, but certain. “Not the place. The edge of it.”
Korr inclines his head. “How far?”
She tilts her head, listening inward. “Not today.”
Relief slides through me before I can stop it. I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d been holding the hope that we wouldn’t find answers too quickly. Answers change things. Commit you to paths you can’t back away from.
“Then we make camp before dark,” Korr says. “Here or beyond the ridge.”
Rverre considers, then points just past the crest. “There. The stone curves.”
I step forward, peering where she indicates. She’s right. The ridge dips and folds in on itself, creating a shallow bowl that might block the worst of the wind when night settles.
“Good eye,” I say before I can stop myself.
She smiles, small and pleased, and Illadon mirrors it without thinking.
We shoulder our packs again, moving the short distance to the hollow. It isn’t much, but it’s enough. Enough to feel like intention instead of reaction.
As we settle in, Korr moves with practiced efficiency—checking ground, mapping angles, marking lines in the sand I don’t ask about. I help where I can, passing supplies, anchoring cloth, keeping my hands busy.
Then our fingers brush. Just a graze. Barely contact at all.
I pull back instantly. He stills—not reaching or retreating—just holding.
“I didn’t mean—” I start, then stop. The apology feels wrong. Too loaded.
Neither of us finishes the thought, resuming the work of setting up the rough shelter and dispersing rations to each person.
The light begins to soften as the suns lower, shadows stretching longer, kinder. The heat eases enough to make breathing feel like a choice again instead of a task.
Illadon settles beside Rverre, murmuring something that makes her laugh quietly.
The sound is soft and brief, but it feels like a gift.
I sit a little apart, knees drawn up, watching the sky bleed color.
Korr takes his place at the edge of our fragile circle, back to stone, eyes outward. Guard as always.
The desert around us is vast and listening. Somewhere ahead, something waits. And though I don’t know what tomorrow will ask of us yet, I know this much with unsettling clarity: the distance I keep telling myself I need is starting to feel less like protection and more like delay.
Night comes quietly.
Not all at once, but in degrees. The heat loosens its grip; the shadows blur into one another until the horizon stops pretending it’s separate from the sky. The desert cools fast, deceptive in its generosity, and I pull my cloak tighter as the last of the light drains away.
Rverre curls in close to Illadon, exhaustion winning out. He settles beside her without ceremony, back to stone, lochaber within reach. The shape they make together is small and stubborn and painfully familiar. Children adapting faster than they should have to.
I busy myself with the last of the practicalities—checking knots, adjusting the edge of the shade cloth now repurposed as wind break, counting water again even though I know the numbers haven’t changed. My mind keeps circling the same thought without quite landing on it.
I don’t want to talk to him. I want to not want to.
Korr moves at the perimeter, measured and silent. He doesn’t pace. He doesn’t hover. He chooses a place where stone curves just enough to anchor him, then settles into stillness that isn’t rest but readiness. Watching him is like watching the desert itself—quiet until it isn’t.
I feel his awareness shift when I stop moving. Not so much looking as… knowing.
I lower myself onto the sand with my back to rock, careful to keep distance between us. Close enough to feel foolish pretending we’re not sharing space. Far enough to feel safe. For a long moment, neither of us speaks.
The stars sharpen overhead as the last of the light fades, unfamiliar patterns burned into the sky. Tajss doesn’t offer comfort in familiarity. It offers truth in scale.
“You don’t need to sit alone,” he says eventually.
It’s not an order. Not even a suggestion. Just a statement of fact, offered and then released.
“I’m not alone,” I reply, gesturing vaguely toward the children.
“I did not mean physically.”
I close my eyes. Of course he didn’t.
“I’m fine,” I say, the words reflexive and unconvincing even to me.
He doesn’t argue.
“That dream,” he says quietly. “It was not fear.”
I open my eyes despite myself, staring out at the dark. “You don’t know that.”
“I know the difference,” he replies. “Fear moves outward. What woke you was… loss.”
That hits too close to the bone and I mentally reject it. I laugh once, sharp and humorless.
“You’re wrong.”
He shifts enough that I’m aware of the movement. Enough to remind me that he’s choosing to stay where he is.
“I am not,” he says. “But I will not press.”
That should be a relief, but it isn’t.
My chest tightens, breath catching on something old and familiar. I press my palm flat against the stone at my back, grounding myself in the present. In the weight of the now.
“You don’t need to understand me,” I say finally. “Just… do your job.”
A pause.
“I am,” he says.
I turn my head then, meeting his gaze in the dark. His eyes catch the starlight, unreadable and steady.
“No,” I say quietly. “You’re doing more than that.”
He holds my look for a long moment. Then, slowly, deliberately, he looks away. The choice feels intentional and that makes my throat burn. Silence settles deeper this time. It’s not empty or hostile, more unresolved.
I draw my knees closer, resting my chin against them, and let my eyes drift back to the sky. Sleep feels distant and out of reach. Unwelcome even, but rest, at least, feels possible. Behind us, Rverre murmurs in her sleep. Illadon shifts, steadying her without waking.
Korr resumes his watch, posture easing into something that looks almost like peace if you don’t know what to look for.
The night stretches on. And though I don’t move closer, don’t say the things pressing at the back of my tongue, I don’t pull away either.
For now, that fragile middle ground is enough.
Tomorrow I am sure will demand more, but tonight, I let the distance remain.
Quietly strained and knowing it won’t hold forever.