Chapter Eight #2
“Even,” the woman said. “Light exposure is the only obvious variable.”
He folded his arms, considering. “Rotation would complicate tracking.”
“Not if you mark the tray sides,” I said. “Color code, date planted, tier history. You already tag harvest weights, right?”
The gardener nodded. “In a ledger, yes.”
“Then you’re halfway there,” I said. “If it works, you get more food. If it doesn’t, you can tell me I was wrong and feed me extra kale as punishment.”
Rygnar’s mouth twitched at the corner. “There are worse consequences.”
“Not many,” I muttered.
He turned to the gardener. “Try it. One section first. If yields improve, we’ll adopt it basin-wide.”
She looked between us, surprised. “Just like that?”
He shrugged one broad shoulder. “We are alive because we adapt. If a system fails, we change it. If it works, we keep it.”
His gaze flicked back to me. “Thank you.”
He meant it.
I hadn’t realized I’d been bracing for dismissal until the tension eased out of my shoulders.
“Old convoy habits,” I said. “You learn to see where things will bottleneck before they do.”
“It is a useful skill,” he said.
Useful.
Not dangerous.
Not in the way that mattered most to me.
Later, as the artificial day began to dim, I found myself on one of the upper terraces, leaning against the railing that looked down into the basin.
The sky overhead was only a sliver, a bruised ribbon of cloud and late light framed by stone.
From here, the colony looked less like an imposition on the mountain and more like something that had grown out of it—warmed windows, carved walkways, and the faint gleam of metal where vents caught the setting light.
Footsteps approached, steady and familiar. I didn’t turn until he stopped a pace away.
“Gardens survived your suggestions,” Rygnar said. “No reports of famine yet.”
“Give it a season,” I said. “Then you can blame me if everyone’s too well-fed.”
He stood beside me, resting his forearms on the railing. The scales there caught the last of the light, dark bronze and muted green, crosshatched with fine silvery scars. Life written in a language I still didn’t know how to read.
“You were busy today,” he said.
“I wasn’t sure what the protocol was for useless refugees,” I said. “So, I decided not to be one.”
“You are not useless.”
“I’m not staying forever either,” I said, more sharply than I meant to. “Once things settle, once I know the raiders aren’t circling back, I’ll need to return to the enclave. They’ll want a report. On the attack.” I glanced at him. “Not on you. Not on the colony.”
“The colony is not entirely a secret,” Rygnar said. “Certain authorities know we exist. We have an agreement.”
Then he looked at me.
“Do you want to go back?”
The question landed heavier than it should have.
Want.
That was new.
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “Before, it was simple. The enclave was home because there was nowhere else. The convoy gave me work because everyone needed the supplies. I didn’t… have time to want anything else.”
“And now?” he asked.
Now there was the way Mara smiled when the shelves finally made sense.
The way the gardener’s shoulders eased when someone took her problem seriously.
The way children’s laughter sounded different in stone corridors than in open dust—less scattered, more held, as if the mountain refused to let it blow away.
And there was Rygnar.
Always him now, whether I wanted to admit it or not.
“Now it’s not simple,” I said. “But simplicity is overrated anyway.”
He made a soft sound that might have been a laugh. “Your ankle?”
“Better,” I said. “Still reminds me when I’ve been on it too long, which is often.”
“I noticed.”
“Of course you did,” I muttered. Then, more quietly, “Thank you. For pretending you didn’t.”
He inclined his head, accepting that without fuss.
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It had texture.
Below us, someone lit the first of the night lamps. Warm pools of light bloomed along the paths, one by one. The mountain’s heart kept humming, steady and low.
“If you go back,” he said at last, “you will not go alone.”
My fingers tightened on the railing. “You’d take me?”
“If that is what you choose,” he said. “Or I would send someone you trust. Or both. You were taken by raiders once. It will not happen again.”
There was no boast in it. No overconfidence. Just simple intent, backed by a man who had clearly made a habit of turning intent into reality.
“I haven’t decided yet,” I said. “About going back.”
“I know.”
“You’re very sure of what you know.”
“I have to be,” he said. “When you carry lives in your decisions, you cannot afford to be unsure of everything.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” I asked. “Carrying all of us?”
“Not alone,” he said. “But I won’t pretend my choices don’t weigh more than some.”
“Must be exhausting,” I murmured.
“Sometimes.” His gaze rested on me. “Today, less so.”
“Because the south beds liked my idea?” I teased.
“Because you are here,” he said quietly.
That stole whatever answer I might have had.
We stood there a while longer, watching the lamps come on, listening to the colony settle into its night rhythm. The world outside the basin felt very far away. Not gone. Never gone. But diminished in a way I hadn’t thought possible.
Maybe this isn’t forever, I thought. Maybe it doesn’t have to be. But for now, in this carved-out pocket of warm stone and stubborn life, it could be enough.
I let my hand rest on the railing a breath closer to his.
I didn’t reach for him. He didn’t reach for me.
Between us, the space felt less like distance and more like possibility.