Chapter 26 Talia
TALIA
Sound seems muffled.
That’s the first thing that feels wrong.
If this place were empty, it should echo.
If it were dangerous in the obvious way, something would announce itself.
Noise. Movement. Even decay has a kind of sound.
But as we move deeper between the broken facades, the city seems to fold its attention inward instead of outward, as if it’s decided to observe rather than react.
Korr leads us along a wider corridor where two streets once intersected, now half-buried beneath drifted sand and fallen stone. He chooses routes with long sightlines, places where nothing can approach unseen. I understand the instinct. It’s the same one that kept him alive before he ever met us.
It doesn’t help here.
The buildings rise higher the farther in we go, their upper levels fractured but intact enough to create layers of shadow that don’t behave properly. Darkness doesn’t pool the way it should. It clings. Shifts. Slides when no wind touches it.
I feel it before I can name it. That familiar tightening at the base of my skull. The sensation of being watched. There is no doubt left in my mind that we are not alone.
Korr slows, just a fraction. It’s not enough to draw comment, but enough that I notice.
His awareness is flared wide, every sense stretched thin.
He’s listening for sound, scanning for movement, reading the ground for signs of recent passage.
If he sees anything, I don’t know what it is.
Frustration makes me feel itchy and impatient.
Illadon drifts closer to Rverre, their shoulders nearly brushing. She hasn’t hummed since we crossed into the denser district. Her wings stay tight to her back, posture drawn inward as if she’s bracing against pressure only she can feel.
“Do you hear anything?” Illadon murmurs.
Rverre shakes her head. “No.”
My ankle protests as the ground slopes unevenly, a sharp reminder that my body is not keeping pace with my will.
I adjust automatically, redistributing weight, shortening my stride.
Korr notices, even though he doesn’t look back or comment.
Instead he eases the pace by a hair, matching me without calling attention to it.
I feel relief, which I hate as much as the pain. I shouldn’t need such special consideration. He shouldn’t notice so much. He shouldn’t keep showing up when I know he won’t…
Stop it. No. This is now. He’s here and we’re in trouble.
We pass what might once have been a market strip. Low structures that are clustered together, their interiors stripped clean but not destroyed. Doorways widened deliberately. Support beams reinforced rather than scavenged. This wasn’t panic. This was preparation.
“Someone has been living here,” I murmur.
Korr nods once. “Recently enough to plan.”
His confirmation tightens the knot in my chest. We continue, but the deeper we go, the stranger the sounds become.
Our footsteps fade too quickly, swallowed by geometry rather than distance.
Wind funnels between structures and vanishes abruptly, leaving pockets of unnatural quiet that make my skin prickle.
I glance up.
For just a heartbeat, I think I see movement along an elevated walkway. A shape where there shouldn’t be one. When I focus, it’s gone.
“Korr,” I say softly.
He stops at once. All of us freeze in a loose cluster, backs instinctively angled toward one another.
“You see it too,” he says, not a question.
“Yes.”
Rverre inhales sharply. “They’re being careful.”
“Who?” Illadon asks, his jaw tight.
She doesn’t answer.
We start moving again, slower, threading between structures that lean toward each other like conspirators. My awareness stretches thin, pulled between pain, fear, and something else entirely. The way Korr’s presence steadies me even as everything else feels wrong.
Whatever’s watching us isn’t ready to decide what we are yet.
We’re being funneled.
It’s not obvious or immediate. It’s just enough that I notice the routes Korr keeps choosing are thinning faster than they should.
Streets pinch down into corridors. Open spans resolve into alleys with too many vertical sightlines and not enough exits.
The kind of places that look survivable until you try to leave them quickly.
I watch Korr’s shoulders tighten by degrees. He hasn’t said anything, but his stride has changed. Shorter. More deliberate. He’s no longer mapping for exploration. He’s mapping for containment. That thought sends a chill through me.
We pass beneath an overhead structure that once connected two buildings. Its underside is webbed with cracks but holds. I tilt my head instinctively, tracking the shadows above. Nothing moves. That’s worse than if something had.
My ankle flares as the ground shifts again. I suck in a breath before the sound can escape me. Korr’s hand lifts reflexively, drifting towards me. He stops, before touching me. I don’t know whether to be grateful or furious.
“You should lean on the wall,” he murmurs, low enough that only I hear.
I do. Pride be damned. The stone is cool beneath my palm, grounding. It also makes me painfully aware of how visible my weakness has become. Every adjustment I make ripples outward, changing how we move, how we’re seen. How we’re judged.
Illadon glances back at me, concern flickering across his face before he schools it away. He’s learned not to hover. Learned that offering help too quickly can feel like doubt. I taught him that. Rverre slows, head tilting. Her gaze tracks upward again, then sideways, then behind us.
“They’re closer,” she says softly.
“How many?” Illadon asks.
She hesitates. “Enough.”
Korr changes direction abruptly, angling us down a narrower side passage that curves out of sight. I recognize the tactic. Break predictable patterns. Force whoever’s watching to reposition.
It doesn’t work the way it should. The sense of attention doesn’t fade. If anything, it sharpens. As if the city itself has leaned in, curious to see what we’ll do next.
“This isn’t right,” I whisper.
Korr doesn’t disagree. “No.”
He slows near a recessed entryway, scanning the structure with a practiced eye. Thick stone walls. Limited access points. Elevated sightlines that could be defended if necessary.
“Shelter,” he says. “Temporary.”
“And the exit?” I ask.
His jaw tightens. “We make one if we have to.”
I don’t like that answer, but I don’t argue. Not when my ankle throbs with every step. Not when the weight of unseen eyes presses in from all sides.
We move again, deeper into the maze. The buildings crowd closer, their upper levels nearly touching in places, creating long ribbons of shadow that feel too deliberate to be coincidence.
I catch movement again. This time I’m sure of it.
A silhouette along a rooftop. Gone before I can point it out.
My pulse spikes. I glance at Korr. He’s seen it too. Our eyes meet for a fraction of a second. There’s no panic in his gaze. Only resolve. Whatever this is, he’s already chosen a course.
I realize something else with unsettling clarity. We’re not being hunted. We’re being guided. Toward something they’ve already chosen.
We turn. He’s leading us down side roads now. Into alleys to cut from one wider thoroughfare to the next. My heart is beating faster. I keep turning, looking in every direction. trying to see who or what is following us.
“There,” I whisper, eyes darting up and to the right.
Korr grunts, not turning to look. It’s acknowledgement enough that he saw the shadow too. Illadon’s right hand drifts to the small lochaber on his back.
“No,” Korr says, “not yet.” Illadon huffs. “When they come, you protect her. Get her away. Understood?”
Illadon jerks his head up to Korr. His eyes are wide and his mouth is open, but it’s only an instant before he snaps his mouth shut so hard its audible. His shoulders square and he nods sharply, looking at Rverre.
My heart breaks. He’s barely begun his teen years, yet he takes on the responsibility of life and death easily. Naturally. It shouldn’t be.
The alley ends where it shouldn’t.
I know it the moment we turn the last corner. The geometry is wrong. Too clean. Too intentional. What should have opened back into a wider street instead narrows sharply, hemmed in by two leaning structures whose upper floors almost kiss overhead. Broken windows stare down at us like empty sockets.
A cul-de-sac made of stone and shadow.
Korr stops, cursing under his breath. Illadon reacts a heartbeat later, shifting Rverre behind him without being told. I catch myself doing the same, angling my body despite the flare of pain in my ankle. Muscle memory doesn’t care about injury.
“We’re boxed,” Illadon murmurs.
“Yes,” Korr says. His voice is calm. Too calm. “But not trapped yet.”
I scan upward, ignoring the way my ankle protests. The rooftops loom close, broken ledges, half-collapsed overhangs that would make movement above us easy for anyone who knew the paths.
“Rverre,” I whisper. “How many?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Her wings flex once, tight and controlled. Her chin lifts, eyes unfocusing as if she’s listening to something below sound.
“They were already here,” she says softly. “We didn’t bring them. We just… stepped into the middle.”
That’s when the first shadow detaches from the roofline.
It lands with a heavy thud that echoes down the alley as a massive figure hits the ground behind us, wings snapping open just long enough to break the fall before folding tight. Zmaj. No mistaking it. Tall, horned, scales that catch the low light in dull flashes.
Another lands opposite him, cutting off the way forward. Neither raises a weapon. That’s worse.
I hear movement above us coming from multiple points. The scrape of claws on stone. The soft rustle of wings adjusting position. I force myself not to look straight up, tracking instead with peripheral vision.
Silhouettes line the rooftops. Watching.
Korr steps forward, placing himself half a pace ahead of us. His blade remains low, visible but not aggressive. A deliberate choice.
“We didn’t know this place was occupied,” he says, projecting calm without submission. “We’re scouts. Nothing more.”
One of the Zmaj tilts his head, studying him with open curiosity. His gaze flicks to Illadon. To Rverre. Then to me where it lingers. The second Zmaj speaks, his voice rough but controlled.
“You walked like you belonged.”
“That’s survival,” I say before I can stop myself.
Korr’s hand twitches, a silent warning, but it’s too late. The Zmaj’s eyes shift back to me, narrowing.
“Human,” he says, not an accusation, an assessment.
Above us, more shapes shift, wings flexing. Ready to respond. A test.
“We’re not here to take anything,” I add, forcing my voice steady. “We’re looking for shelter. For people who need it.”
A pause stretches. The Zmaj exchange a glance I can’t read. Then, from somewhere higher up, a different voice cuts through the tension.
“Enough.”
The word is spoken in Common. I stop, blinking and shaking my head. Korr growls, raising his blade, but I step forward, putting a hand on his arm.
The voice is human. Male. Older. Carried with authority that doesn’t need volume.
A hooded figure emerges from behind the hulking Zmaj blocking the alley, stepping around him and coming to a stop three paces in front of him. My heart is in my throat; my hand trembles, but I take a deep breath trying to calm my anxiety.
“Who are you?” I ask, voice trembling.
The figure takes hold of the hood hiding his face and lifts it, slowly pulling it back to reveal once coal black hair now streaked with gray. His face is gaunt, but his eyes are dark and piercing and locked onto me.
“I am Adran,” he says, his voice a rich baritone that seems to echo off the walls around us.
I blink, struggling with that sense of something I know I’m not remembering, but should. Something more than a human survivor who isn’t part of the survivors we know of. Other humans survived the crash of the generation ship, which is revelation enough.
“I’m… uhm… I… sorry, Talia. I’m Talia,” I say, struggling to form cohesive thoughts.
Korr places his hand on the small of my back. An intimate touch in most circumstances, but in this moment it’s supportive. Supportive and very much needed.
“I apologize for the display,” Adran says. “We cannot be too cautious.”
“You’re… human,” Illadon says, stepping forward.
“I am,” Adran says, crouching so he’s eye level with Illadon. His dark eyes move up and down, looking Illadon carefully over. There is curiosity in his look that I cannot miss. He seems to recognize Illadon’s half-breed nature. “And you are?”
“I am Illadon,” he says, pride ringing in his words.
“My pleasure, Illadon,” Adran says, offering a hand in the human style.
Illadon, being half-human, stretches out his own hand and takes it.
“We did not mean to trespass,” Korr says, calling all of our attention back to him. “But we have survivors who need shelter.”
“What are you?” one of the Zmaj asks.
“I am of the First People,” Korr says, his voice dropping half an octave, so low it feels as if it rumbles in my chest. “I am an Urr’ki. First Born of Tajss.”
The Zmaj arches an eyebrow then snorts as he bursts out laughing.
“Never heard of your kind,” he says, laughing so hard that he seems to struggle to remain upright.
“First born?” the Zmaj behind us says, laughing too.
Adran stands, not taking his eyes off of mine. He frowns, slight, but distinct.
“It seems we have much to discuss,” Adran says. “Perhaps you would join us in a more conducive location?”
I look from him to the Zmaj. No matter how nicely he’s couching his words, the intent is clear. This isn’t a request.
“Yes, we will,” I say, stepping in before Korr can protest.
He stiffens at my acceptance. He hesitates, then slides his sword away and nods his agreement.