Chapter 24 Talia
TALIA
The fire dims to a patient ember-glow. Wind threads through broken corridors and stairwell, carrying the dry scent of stone and dust and something older beneath it. The kind of smell that only comes from places people once lived but was abandoned long ago.
Illadon and Rverre sleep close, curled into each other with the unselfconscious trust of youth.
Rverre’s wings twitch occasionally, reacting to something she’s dreaming or sensing.
Illadon’s arm tightens every time, instinctive, protective even in rest. I look away before the ache in my chest sharpens into something unmanageable.
My ankle throbs in slow pulses. Not enough to scream for attention. Just enough to remind me it’s there. That I am not what I was yesterday. I adjust my position carefully, easing the pressure, and draw my cloak tighter.
Korr doesn’t pace. He stands watch like a fixture, not restless or rigid, just present. Weight balanced. Attention stretched outward and inward at the same time. The city beyond is a field of shadows and angles, black against starlight. He watches it the way one watches deep water.
I try not to think about the way he stepped back earlier. How easily he did it. How much discipline that must have taken.
Time stretches. My thoughts loop whether I want them to or not.
When this is over, you won’t stay.
The words replay, quieter but no less sharp. I hadn’t planned to say them. They slipped out because exhaustion thins the walls you build around yourself. Because being carried strips you of illusions. Because Tajss doesn’t care about the lies you tell yourself to survive.
I hear the faint scrape of movement and look up.
Korr turns from the doorway, finally. He doesn’t come closer right away. He studies me the way he studies terrain, not invasive, but thorough. As if he’s mapping where not to step.
“You’re awake,” he says.
“Barely,” I reply. “You move too quietly.”
A corner of his mouth lifts. Just barely. “Habit.”
He shifts his weight, then lowers himself to one knee near the fire.
Not beside me. Across from me. The space between us is deliberate, but it’s smaller than before.
Close enough that I see the faint scars along his jaw, pale against green skin.
Close enough that the firelight outlines his strong jaw.
“The building will hold,” he says. “No further movement tonight.”
“I figured,” I say. “You wouldn’t have sat otherwise.”
His gaze flicks to mine. Something like acknowledgment passes between us.
Silence settles again, but this one is different. Not charged. Not brittle. Heavy in a way that suggests something is waiting.
“You were right earlier,” he says at last.
My breath catches. “About what?”
“About me compensating wrong.” He doesn’t look away as he says it. Doesn’t soften it. “I adjusted for speed and control. I didn’t leave room for you.”
The words aren’t an apology or an excuse, but an admission all the same.
“I didn’t say that,” I murmur.
“You didn’t need to.” He exhales, slow and controlled. “Tajss corrected me.”
That pulls a quiet, surprised sound from my throat. Not laughter. Something closer to disbelief.
“It does that,” I say. “Eventually.”
He nods once. “I’m learning.”
There’s something vulnerable in that admission, stripped of rank or certainty. It makes my chest tighten in a way I don’t like.
“You don’t have to carry everything alone,” I say before I can stop myself. The irony isn’t lost on me. “Even if you think you should.”
His gaze sharpens, not defensively. Thoughtfully.
“And you don’t get to disappear just because things are hard,” he replies. “Even if you think that’s safer.”
The fire pops softly. I look down at my hands, fingers curled into the fabric of my thin blanket.
“You don’t know what I’m protecting myself from.”
He leans back slightly, giving me space without retreating. “Then tell me.”
The invitation is simple. Too simple. My throat tightens.
“I can’t,” I say. Honest and small.
He accepts that without pressing. That, somehow, hurts more than if he’d argued.
“Then we stand where we are,” he says quietly. “Until you can.”
The building creaks around us, a long, low sound like stone settling into a decision. Outside, wind moves through hollow streets and broken towers, carrying with it the promise of whatever tomorrow will demand.
Korr rises smoothly, returning to his watch position, but something has shifted.
I lean back against the wall, eyes closing despite myself.
Sleep tugs at me, heavier now, threaded with images of stone and shadow and arms that hold without asking anything in return.
As consciousness drifts, one thought lingers, stubborn and unwelcome.
If he stays, everything changes.
And if he leaves… I don’t know if I’ll survive it a second time.
A sound wakes me.
It’s not a roar or crash. A low, scraping, like stone being dragged across stone somewhere outside. The sound threads into my bones, subtle enough that for a heartbeat I wonder if I imagined it.
Then Rverre stirs.
Her wings twitch sharply, a reflex she doesn’t fully suppress even in sleep. Illadon murmurs something unintelligible and tightens his arm around her without waking. I push myself upright, pain flaring hot in my ankle before I clamp down on it.
“Korr,” I whisper.
He’s already moving. Shifting position with the fluid economy of someone who doesn’t waste motion, placing himself where he can see the stairwell, the fractured ceiling, the doorway all at once. His hand rests near his weapon, not drawing it. Waiting.
The sound comes again. Closer.
Rverre’s eyes snap open.
She doesn’t sit up. She freezes, breath shallow, gaze unfocused in that way I’ve learned to recognize. Listening not with ears, but with something deeper.
“It’s not coming in,” she whispers. “It’s… adjusting.”
My stomach drops. “Adjusting how?”
She swallows. “Like it’s making room.”
Korr’s jaw tightens. “For what?”
Rverre shakes her head, a small, frightened motion. “I don’t know.”
Illadon wakes fully, senses snapping sharp. He doesn’t ask questions. He shifts, placing himself half in front of her, half angled toward the dark. Brave. Too brave for his age. My chest tightens.
The city settles again, a long exhale that rattles dust loose from the ceiling. Fine grains drift down through firelight like ash. Somewhere far below, something heavy completes a movement and becomes still.
Silence follows.
Korr doesn’t relax. He scans slowly, methodically, recalibrating his mental map with every breath.
“Something knows we’re here,” Illadon says quietly.
“Yes,” Korr replies. “But it isn’t hostile.”
“That’s not comforting,” I mutter.
“No,” he agrees. “It isn’t.”
Rverre presses her palm to the stone beside her, eyes fluttering shut. When she speaks again, her voice is steadier. Older.
“It’s like the ground earlier,” she says. “When you stopped fighting it.”
I flinch despite myself. Korr looks at me. The firelight catches the planes of his face, carving something solemn and resolved out of shadow.
“We don’t move tonight,” he says. “We don’t provoke. We don’t pretend this place is empty.”
“And tomorrow?” I ask.
He holds my gaze. Doesn’t soften the truth.
“Tomorrow we enter,” he says. “On its terms.”
The weight of that settles over us, heavy and inevitable.
The fire burns lower. Rverre eases back against Illadon, exhaustion reclaiming her now that the immediate pressure has passed. Illadon doesn’t sleep again. Neither does Korr.
I lie back slowly, carefully, staring up at the broken ceiling where stars blink through jagged gaps. The city looms around us, vast and watchful, a graveyard of lives and choices and unfinished endings.
Somewhere between one breath and the next, I realize the truth I’ve been circling all night. This place was waiting for him. And for me. For us. And whatever we’re about to become together, whether I’m ready for it or not.