Chapter 14 Lia
LIA
Iwake sore in places that shouldn’t ache this much.
Not the deep, earned soreness of a long march or a bad night’s sleep, but the tight, persistent kind that lingers under the skin. The kind that reminds you—quietly, relentlessly—that your body noticed something you’d rather it hadn’t.
My ankle throbs dully. Not sharp or enough to stop me from standing, but enough to be irritating. I close my eyes, take a deep breath and test it. The pain is manageable. I rotate it carefully, testing range, cataloging sensation the way I always do. It holds. It complains, but it holds. Good.
What I don’t like is how heavy my limbs feel. How slow my thoughts are to line up. I slept too deeply. That realization snaps me fully awake and I sit up at once, scanning our small camp, pulse spiking—not with fear, but with embarrassment.
The desert is already brightening, the air cooler but thinning fast. Rverre is curled near Illadon, both still asleep, their breathing slow and even. Packs sit where we left them with no signs of disturbance.
And Korr—is not in sight.
My shoulders loosen as relief flashes hot and sharp, followed instantly by irritation at myself for feeling it at all.
Stubbornly I don’t look for him right away, busying my hands instead—tightening straps that don’t need tightening, flexing my ankle again as if the answering pain might change. Which it doesn’t.
But the memory comes. His hands. Careful. Controlled. Too aware. The way he touched me, but didn’t take advantage.
That should be reassuring. It isn’t. It only makes everything messier.
I press my lips together and force my focus outward.
The stone beneath us is cool, holding the last of the night chill.
The wind has shifted, faint but steady, brushing grit across the sand in soft lines that erase yesterday’s certainty.
Morning on Tajss never feels gentle, but this one, more than any other, feels… exposed.
I hate that I slept through part of it. I hate that I let someone else hold watch while I rested without meaning to. Worse—I hate that some part of me trusted him to and that’s the thought I shut down hardest.
Last night wasn’t intimacy. It was necessity. A stress fracture wrapped. A problem managed. That’s all. I tell myself that firmly, the way I tell children that a scraped knee isn’t the end of the world.
If I let it be more than that—if I let myself name the way my pulse jumped when he was close, the way awareness hummed under my skin long after he stepped back—I’ll want something I don’t have room for. Which is why I don’t look for him. Looking would be an admission.
Instead, I rise slowly, careful of my ankle, keeping my movements quiet. I take inventory. Water. Shade cloth. The angle of the suns. Control feels better when it’s something I can measure. Then I notice him.
Korr stands farther out, near a broken line of stone, posture already set for the day. Back to rock. Eyes on the horizon. Exactly where he should be. Exactly where he always places himself—close enough to intervene, far enough not to intrude.
Of course he is.
He doesn’t turn. Doesn’t acknowledge that I’m awake. The distance feels deliberate, and the fact that I’m grateful for it makes my jaw tighten.
Good, I tell myself. This is better. This is how it should be.
Last night was circumstance. Today is movement. Progress. Distance.
If I keep it that way—if I keep my focus on the children, the terrain, the city that waits somewhere ahead—then I won’t have to examine the quieter truth settling uncomfortably in my chest. That the restraint scared me more than the touch ever could have.
I set my shoulders, draw a steady breath, and pack for the day, breaking camp without ceremony.
No one announces it. Korr doesn’t give the signal so much as allow motion to begin, and the rest of us follow like a body remembering how to breathe after a pause that went on too long.
Illadon wakes Rverre with a soft murmur, their exchange soft and quiet.
She stretches, wings flexing once before settling, then presses her palm to the ground like she’s checking in with something invisible.
I focus on my pack.
My ankle protests as soon as I put weight on it, but it’s not enough to make me stop.
It is enough to make me aware of every step I take afterward.
I adjust automatically—shorter stride, firmer placement, favoring stone where it breaks through the sand.
If Korr notices, he doesn’t comment. Which almost irritates me, but I stop that, forcing myself to not think about it.
We set out with him in the lead, Illadon and Rverre between us, and me just behind. The spacing feels intentional in a way that makes my skin prickle. Protective, but not crowding. Like he’s accounting for my injury without turning it into a conversation.
I tell myself that’s good leadership. That it’s nothing more, means nothing. If only I could make myself believe it.
The desert wakes fast. Light sharpens. Heat creeps in under the skin, subtle but insistent, and the sand loses the cool forgiveness of night. Rverre hums as we walk, low and wandering, her attention turned inward. Illadon matches her pace, eyes flicking between her footing and the horizon.
Korr adjusts course by degrees—never abrupt, never announcing it—angling us toward a stretch where stone ribs break the surface more often. I follow without comment, even though part of me bristles at how natural it feels to trust his judgment right now.
That’s new and I don’t like it.
My ankle catches on a shallow dip. Not a stumble—just a wrong step. Pain flares, sharp enough to steal my breath for half a second before I force it down and manage to not slow.
“You favor it,” Illadon says quietly, falling back half a step so his voice doesn’t carry.
“I’m fine,” I reply automatically.
He gives me a look I recognize. The one children use when they know better but don’t want to push. He nods and turns his attention back to Rverre without comment.
We walk another stretch in silence. The suns climb higher, light flattening the landscape into glare and shadow. Sweat traces familiar paths down my spine. My ankle aches steadily, manageable, but persistent and impossible to ignore.
Korr slows.
Not much, but enough that the formation compresses slightly. Enough that I don’t have to push to keep pace. I stop short and glare at his back.
“You don’t need to—” I start.
He doesn’t turn. “I know.”
“Then don’t.”
He turns then, just his head, eyes sharp but not confrontational.
“You’re compensating.”
“I can manage.”
“I’m sure you can.” He pauses, considering his words the way he considers terrain. “You shouldn’t have to.”
The quiet that follows feels heavier than any argument we’ve had so far. Rverre’s humming falters, then resumes, softer this time. Illadon shifts closer to her, instinctive and protective. I hate how much I want to snap back.
“I didn’t ask you to take responsibility for me,” I say instead, keeping my voice low.
“I didn’t,” he replies just as quietly. “I took responsibility for the pace.”
It’s infuriating. Reasonable. Hard to argue with without sounding petty.
We move again, the tension unresolved but contained. The ground firms beneath our feet as stone surfaces more frequently, and my stride evens out despite myself. I tell myself it’s the terrain. Not him. Ahead, Rverre slows, wings twitching. She lifts her head, eyes unfocused.
“It’s… closer,” she says.
Illadon stills. Korr raises a hand, halting us without urgency. I brace my weight carefully, grateful for the pause even as I resent needing it.
“How close?” Korr asks.
She tilts her head, listening. “Not today. But it’s watching.”
That word. Watching.
I don’t miss the way Korr’s shoulders tense. Or the way his attention sharpens, scanning angles and shadows that look empty to me. He nods once, decision already forming.
“We keep moving,” he says. “But tighter. No wandering.”
I open my mouth to comment, then close it. This isn’t the moment.
As we resume, he shifts position. Still in the lead, but angled so he can glance back without turning fully. The formation adjusts around that change without discussion. Efficient. Controlled.
Safe.
As the desert stretches on and the heat presses closer, one thought keeps circling no matter how hard I try to shove it aside: Distance was supposed to protect me.
Instead, every step I take away from him makes me more aware of how much I’m already accounting for his presence—and how hard it’s becoming to pretend that doesn’t matter.
We pause only because the land insists.
Not a stop—just a hesitation as Korr slows near a shallow break in the stone where the sand thins enough to lie about how solid it really is. He lifts a hand, palm down. Illadon halts immediately. Rverre drifts closer to him without being told.
I stop a half step behind Korr and brace myself, shifting my weight carefully.
Pain flickers along my ankle. Not sharp or dramatic, but definitely present and persistent. A reminder that my body has opinions even when I’d rather it didn’t.
Korr crouches, pressing his palm to the ground, then scraping back sand until stone answers. He studies the surface, the angle of the exposure, the way the wind skims across it without comment.
What he doesn’t do is look at me.
I wait.
This is where he should say something. About my gait. About the way I favored my right side too long before correcting. About how my breathing changed when the ground dipped. He’s noticed all of it—I know he has, but he says nothing.
He shifts his stance, scans the horizon, then rises smoothly to his feet.
“We angle right,” he says. “Five degrees. Less give.”
That’s it. No commentary. No concern. No warning wrapped in control. Something inside me twists, sharp and unexpected.
I don’t know why that hurts more than being called out would have. Maybe because judgment I know how to handle. Judgment is familiar. It’s something I can push back against.
This—this quiet restraint, this deliberate choice not to touch what’s obviously there—feels like being seen and refused at the same time.
I swallow.
Say something. Now. About the pain. About last night. About how close I came to saying something I don’t even have language for yet.
I open my mouth. Pause, then close it.
What would I even say?
My ankle hurts more than I’m admitting. I don’t like how safe I felt when you were there. I don’t want to need anyone, and somehow that makes me angry at you.
None of that belongs in the open desert with children listening to the ground. So instead, I snap.
“You don’t have to keep adjusting the route,” I say, sharper than necessary. “The original line was fine.”
Korr turns his head just enough to glance at me. I don’t see any surprise or defense on his face or in his stance, only that same calm, steady presence.
“The ground changed,” he replies calmly.
“It always does,” I say. “That doesn’t mean we have to overcorrect every time it twitches.”
Illadon flicks a look between us, then pointedly returns his attention to Rverre. Smart kid.
Korr doesn’t argue, explain, or push back. He inclines his head once.
“We’ll hold this line, then.”
That’s it. No edge. No correction. No reminder that he’s right and I’m sore and human and being unfair. He accepts the snap like it weighs nothing.
And that—more than anything else today—angers me.
I turn away before my face can give me away, fixing my attention on the horizon, on the way heat shimmers and distance lies. My ankle throbs in quiet protest. My chest feels tight for reasons that have nothing to do with exertion.
We move again, the formation adjusting smoothly. I walk with my jaw clenched, irritation burning low and hot, knowing with uncomfortable clarity that I didn’t lash out because he challenged me—I lashed out because he didn’t.
Sand shifts. Stone ribs fade into scattered bones beneath our feet. The rhythm returns—measured, deliberate, survivable. I let myself believe that’s all this is. Temporary.
The thought settles into place with the weight of a decision. A rule. Something I can hold onto when my instincts start to drift where they shouldn’t.
This is a journey. The city is the goal. Everything else is… incidental.
Once we reach it—whatever it turns out to be—this tension will dissolve. The closeness. The near-misses. The way my awareness keeps slipping sideways toward things I refuse to name.
We’ll return. We always do.
I focus on the horizon, on the way the land folds and unfolds ahead of us. My ankle throbs in a steady, manageable rhythm. Not enough to stop me and not enough to matter.
I tell myself that too.
Korr walks just ahead, close enough that I could reach out if I wanted to. Close enough that the space between us feels intentional rather than accidental. He doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t crowd. Doesn’t slow unless the terrain demands it.
That restraint presses harder than proximity ever could.
Rverre hums under her breath, a low sound that threads through the silence like a held note. Then she stops walking. Illadon halts with her and Korr turns. I do too. Rverre isn’t looking at the ground, she’s looking at me.
“You won’t leave it,” she says.
No warning. No drama. Just certainty.
I blink. “Leave what?”
She tilts her head, wings shifting as if listening to something just out of reach. For a moment, I think she won’t answer at all.
Then she says, “Some places keep what they’re given.”
That’s all. She turns forward as if the conversation is finished, moving on. Illadon follows without question. I stand probably a beat too long, the echo of her words settling uncomfortably deep. Places don’t keep things, I tell myself. People do.
I look ahead. The desert stretches on, wide and unreadable. My ankle pulses—a dull reminder that I’m carrying more than I planned to.
Korr shifts slightly, just within reach, but not looking back.
I straighten my shoulders and step forward, reclaiming my pace, my space, my certainty.
This will not become something else. I will not let it.
The desert doesn’t answer. Which is fine, it doesn’t have to. This decision is mine and mine alone.
I hitch my pack and we march on.