Chapter 17 Talia
TALIA
We’re moving again.
The desert has shifted into something meaner—sand thinning into irregular stone plates that catch the light and throw it back at us in sharp, blinding angles. Every step requires more thought than the last.
I tell myself that’s normal even as my ankle throbs with a steady, controlled ache, the kind that sits just below the edge of true pain. I catalog it the way I catalog everything else: pressure, heat, range of motion. It’s manageable because it has to be.
I shorten my stride, trying to not let it show. Adjusting my weight the best I can so that the stress stays diffuse. I’ve lived with pain before. Pain isn’t the enemy, panic is.
Korr takes point, as he has since dawn, his back a dark, unyielding line against the red desert ahead. He doesn’t look at me which should make this easier, but it doesn’t.
Illadon walks close to Rverre, his attention split between her footing and the land ahead. She hums softly under her breath, the sound almost lost beneath the wind. It threads through the air like something alive. I focus on that instead of the ache climbing higher up my leg.
We crest a low rise and start down the other side, sand loosening underfoot. I step carefully, testing each patch before committing my weight.
Then the ground gives more than it should.
It’s not dramatic. A moment. An instant. Just a fraction of instability—sand sliding, stone shifting beneath it—and my ankle twists before I can do a damn thing about it. Pain flares white-hot and immediate.
My breath punches out in a sharp, involuntary sound. I catch myself before I go down, hands splaying against my thighs as I lock the limb, trying to stop the pain. I straighten quickly and pretend it didn’t happen.
“I’m fine,” I say automatically, though no one has asked.
I take another step. That’s the mistake.
The stress fracture lights up like a warning flare, pain ripping clean through the careful walls I’ve built around it. My vision sparks at the edges. The desert tilts. I stagger.
Strong hands grab my pack strap and my elbow at the same time, arresting the fall before gravity can finish the job. The grip is sure, unhesitating. Korr.
“I can walk,” I say, breathless from the pain, the words tumbling out before my pride can catch up. “Just—give me a second.”
He doesn’t answer, shifting closer instead. His presence is suddenly everywhere—heat, shadow, solidity. He adjusts his stance, bracing his feet against sand and stone. I try to pull away and that’s when he lifts me.
There’s no warning or question. One moment my weight is on my own failing leg, and the next it’s gone—transferred cleanly and completely into his arms. The movement is practical and efficient.
One arm under my knees, the other braced solidly at my back, drawing me in close enough that my chest brushes his shoulder. My cloak bunches between us. My pack shifts, then settles as the ground drops away.
“What are you—” I start, then lose the rest of the sentence as he straightens fully, adjusts his grip, and turns back toward the path without breaking stride.
“Hold on,” he says, as if he’s issuing a safety instruction that cannot be ignored.
I twist instinctively, shock burning hotter than the pain.
“Put me down.”
He keeps walking.
Illadon stops short ahead of us, eyes wide for half a heartbeat before snapping into focus. He moves one step closer to Rverre, one hand lifting as if to shield her from something unseen. Rverre stares at me from where she stands, emerald eyes bright and intent.
“Oh,” she says softly. “That’s it.”
I grit my teeth.
“Korr.”
I brace my hands against his chest, intending to push away. It doesn’t work. He’s solid as stone beneath my palms. Unmoving and even less bothered by my feeble efforts.
“I said put me down,” I snap, lowering my voice as heat rushes into my face.
The humiliation of it crashes in all at once—being carried, being watched, being reduced to a problem someone else has decided to solve. He doesn’t even look at me.
“You’re done walking,” he says.
The words land like a verdict.
“I am not—”
“You are,” he cuts in, finally glancing down at me. His gaze is steady. Not angry. Not indulgent. Just… certain. “And we don’t argue with fractures.”
“I didn’t ask you to—”
“No,” he agrees. “You didn’t.”
He shifts me slightly higher in his arms, rebalancing his hold with an ease that makes my stomach drop and then he starts walking again.
The desert opens ahead of us, wide and unyielding, and for the first time since we left the canyon, I realize with terrifying clarity that the rules have changed and I am no longer the one enforcing them.
I twist against him again, harder this time, panic flaring sharp and fast.
“Korr—stop.” My voice drops, urgent and furious. “You can’t just—”
“I can,” he says, and there’s steel in it now. “And I am.”
The kids are watching. I feel their eyes on us. Being carried shouldn’t feel this exposed, but it does. My cloak has slipped. One of my boots hangs loose against his thigh. I am suddenly, unmistakably not in control.
“Put. Me. Down.” Each word is bitten off, precise. “You don’t get to decide this for me.”
He doesn’t slow.
“You already decided,” he replies. “You decided when you kept walking on a compromised joint. You decided when you didn’t say a word. You decided when you tried to lie your way through pain.”
“That is not the same thing!”
“It is exactly the same thing.”
I laugh, but it comes out sharp and brittle.
“So this is it? This is how you protect people? By humiliating them?”
That gets his attention. His jaw clenches, his brow furrows, and he stops.
The sand settles around his boots and the wind slides past us instead of through us. He looks down, his face close enough that I see his pupils tighten.
“This is not humiliation,” he says quietly. “This is triage.”
“I am not wounded beyond function.”
“You are injured beyond consent,” he replies, voice low and controlled. “And you don’t get to martyr yourself because you’re afraid of being helped.”
That hits like a slap to the face. My breath catches as anger flares hot and immediate.
“You don’t know what I’m afraid of.”
“I know enough,” he says.
“That’s nowhere near the same thing.”
“No,” he agrees. “It isn’t.”
For a heartbeat, neither of us moves. His arms are locked around me, solid and unyielding. The heat of him seeps through the layers between us, grounding and infuriating all at once.
“You think carrying me fixes this,” I say, my voice quieter now, more dangerous. “You think taking control makes it better.”
“I think,” he says, just as softly, “that if I put you down, you will keep breaking yourself until there is nothing left to argue over.”
Silence stretches. Rverre takes a step closer, small feet crunching softly in the sand. She looks between us, head tilted, wings rustling faintly.
“She’s shaking,” she says, not accusing, stating a fact.
I am, with anger and yes, with pain. I hate that she’s right. I clench my hands tight in the fabric at Korr’s shoulder until my knuckles are white. I hadn’t meant to let that show. Illadon shifts, his tail twitching on the sand, sending puffs blasting into the air.
“Talia,” he says carefully. “You don’t have to prove anything.”
I snap my head toward him.
“Stay out of this.”
He flinches — not from fear, but surprise — and I immediately regret it. The edge drains out of me all at once, leaving something raw behind. Korr exhales slowly.
“You can fight me,” he says. “Or you can conserve strength. Those are your options.”
I swallow hard. My ankle pulses in time with my heartbeat, the pain no longer abstract or manageable.
The desert looms ahead, indifferent and vast. The truth presses in from all sides.
If he puts me down, I will keep going. If I keep going, I will make this worse. If I make this worse, the children pay.
The realization settles heavy and unavoidable. I close my eyes, just for a second.
“Don’t make this about obedience,” I say hoarsely. “Because I won’t forgive that.”
His grip doesn’t tighten or loosen.
“I’m not asking you to obey,” he says. “I’m asking you to survive.”
I open my eyes again.
Slowly, deliberately, I relax my grip. The resistance drains out of my body in a way that feels like defeat mixing with something else I don’t have language for yet.
“Fine,” I say. The word scrapes on the way out. “But this doesn’t mean you were right.”
A corner of his mouth twitches. Not quite a smile, but something resembling respect.
“It means you chose,” he replies.
He adjusts his hold — subtly and carefully — redistributing my weight so the pressure eases from my ankle. The relief is immediate and humiliating in equal measure. I suck in a breath despite myself.
He starts walking and this time, I don’t fight it.
I stare out over the desert as it rolls toward us, heat shimmering, stone ribs cutting through sand like bones through skin. My pride aches worse than my ankle.
My heart pounds with something dangerously close to grief. Because somewhere between the argument and the surrender, something irreversible has happened. I can no longer pretend I don’t need him. And, worse somehow, Korr has stopped pretending he can let me break.