Chapter 16 Korr #2
I carry her until the stone rises again and the sand loosens its grip, until the land stops shifting underfoot and Rverre’s breathing evens. Only then do I slow. Only then do I set Talia down—carefully, deliberately—against a slab of rock broad enough to shield us from the worst of the wind.
She doesn’t thank me. She doesn’t even meet my eyes. Her jaw is locked so tightly the muscle jumps beneath her skin.
Illadon moves Rverre a few paces away without being told. He knows better than to stay inside this space. The air between us is too charged, too brittle. Rverre looks back once, uncertainty flickering across her face, then allows Illadon to guide her out of earshot.
The moment they’re gone, Talia explodes.
“How dare you,” she snaps, voice low but shaking. “Do you have any idea what you just did?”
I remain standing, watching, and holding her eyes with mine.
“Yes.”
“You picked me up in front of them,” she says, gesturing sharply. “You stripped me of authority in one move. You made me look—”
“Human,” I finish calmly.
Her eyes flash. “Weak.”
“No,” I say. “Injured.”
“That’s not the same thing to anyone who matters,” she fires back. Her hands tremble as she presses them against the stone at her sides. “I was handling it.”
“You were failing, quietly,” I reply.
The words land like a blow. She inhales sharply.
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“I do,” I say, just as evenly as before. “Because you stopped deciding for yourself.”
Her laugh is short and humorless. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
“You hid pain,” I continue. “You adjusted pace without admitting why. You reframed damage as duty. That isn’t leadership. That’s erosion.”
Her eyes sting. I see it and I see that she hates that I do.
“You undermined me,” she says again, more quietly now. “In front of the children. In front of him.”
“I protected them,” I correct. “Including you.”
Her voice cracks. Just barely. “I didn’t ask for that.”
“No,” I agree. “You wouldn’t.”
Silence stretches between us, sharp-edged and humming with everything she isn’t saying. Fear. Shame. The terror of being seen when you’ve built your entire life around not being. I don’t soften my stance. I’m not going to fold any longer.
“You don’t get to choose to break,” I say.
Her head snaps up. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t get to decide that sacrificing yourself is acceptable,” I continue. “Not when it endangers the mission. Not when it puts the children at risk. And not when it forces others to carry the consequences.”
Her breath stutters. “So now I’m a liability.”
“You’re a responsibility,” I say.
The words hang heavy and irrevocable. She looks away first. Her shoulders draw inward, as if she’s bracing for something that never quite comes.
“This changes things,” she says finally.
“Yes,” I reply. “It does.”
She nods once, sharply. A decision clicking into place behind her eyes.
“Fine,” she says. “Then let’s be clear.”
I wait.
“You do not touch me again unless I ask,” she says. “You do not overrule me unless I am unconscious or the ground is actively swallowing us. And you do not mistake my endurance for permission.”
I meet her gaze.
“And you,” I say, “do not lie to me about your limits. You do not pretend pain is optional. And you do not confuse pride with survival.”
Another stretch of silence. Neither of us yields. The line is drawn.
She looks past me, toward where Illadon and Rverre wait, steadying herself. When she speaks again, her voice is level and very strictly controlled.
“Get them ready,” she says. “We move when the land allows it.”
I incline my head. Not in apology. In acknowledgment. We are no longer arguing about authority. We are negotiating terms of impact.
And whatever this is between us—whatever fault line just cracked open—it isn’t going to close again.
We stew with the consequences.
The land has gone still, but it is the wrong kind of stillness—the kind that waits for you to make the next mistake. Wind skims low over the sand, lifting grit in thin veils that never quite rise. The suns hang higher than I want them to, their light hardening.
Talia does not look at me.
She keeps her attention on the horizon, posture controlled, jaw set. Her ankle is braced, but I see the way her weight favors one side despite her discipline. She is calculating. Always calculating. How much pain she can absorb before it costs someone else.
Illadon crouches near Rverre, murmuring quietly to her, one hand resting close enough to steady without trapping. He watches Talia too, though he pretends not to. He understands more than he should.
I turn inward and inventory options instead of terrain.
We can slow our pace. That stretches our water thinner than I like and keeps us exposed longer.
I can carry her. That preserves speed but burns my strength and makes us visible from too far away.
We can stop. And stopping means the city remains unfound, but Rverre is not going to wait.
None of the choices are clean and none of them are safe.
Rverre lifts her head suddenly, attention snapping sharp as if someone has pulled a thread inside her. Her wings twitch as she stares toward the broken line of darker stone ahead, eyes unfocused but bright.
“It won’t wait,” she says quietly.
No fear, only a statement of fact.
Talia exhales through her nose, a tight sound, and finally looks at me. There is frustration in her eyes, and something else beneath it—an awareness that we are already past the moment where pretending is useful.
I look back at the land.
At the way the stone ribs ahead rise like bones surfacing through skin. At the subtle pressure that has been building since we crossed the basin, the sense that the ground has been watching us adjust, compensate, break.
I understand then, with unsettling clarity. Whatever the city is—whatever waits ahead—it expected this.
Not her injury or the argument. The narrowing of options. The moment when control stops being enough.
Dragoste settles in my chest. Solid. Like a weight I have always carried and only now recognize as necessary. It does not distract; it aligns. I do not name it. I do not need to.
I step closer to Talia—not touching, but close enough that she can feel the choice shifting around us.
“We don’t turn back,” I say.
She studies my face, searching for hesitation she will not find.
“And we don’t pretend this ends the way it started,” she replies.
“No,” I agree.
The path forward has reduced itself to a single truth. We move together or not at all and the city waits.