“With bigger monsters.”
“Probably.”
His honesty shouldn’t be reassuring. It is anyway.
“I can’t anchor seven again.” The admission costs more than I want it to. “I barely anchored these. If they send more?—”
“Then we adapt.”
We. Not you. We.
I don’t comment on the word choice. Don’t let myself read into it.
His head turns slightly, bringing his profile into sharper relief against the gray light filtering through the split trunk. Blood has dried on his face. The wound above his eye hasstopped bleeding, dragon healing finally winning the race against damage.
He catches me looking.
I don’t look away.
I shiftagainst the hollow’s curve, trying to find a position that doesn’t aggravate the bruises forming across my shoulders and back. The stone was harder than I realized during the fight. Now my body is registering every impact.
“You could have left me.”
The words emerge before I can stop them. Not accusation. Question.
His attention sharpens. Those burning eyes finding me in the dimming light.
“In the ravine. You could have kept scouting. Let the hunters finish what they started. I would have taken at least one of them with me—probably more. Would have cost them, even if I died.”
“That’s not?—”
“You didn’t owe me intervention. Our arrangement was one day. I proved I could keep pace. You didn’t promise to double back if I got separated.”
Silence stretches between us. The dead forest creaks and settles around our shelter, sounds that might be wind or might be movement.
“You anchor kills.” His voice is level. Controlled. “Without you, they regenerate. I fight the same creatures over and over until I exhaust or they escalate beyond what I can handle.”
“So it’s practical.”
“Yes.”
“Strategic.”
“Yes.”
“Nothing more than that.”
A muscle ticks near his temple.
“Nothing more.”
The lie hangs in the air between us. I don’t call him on it. I don’t have the energy, and I suspect he doesn’t have the language.
Some truths aren’t meant to be spoken. They’re meant to be demonstrated.
He came back for me. Tracked my position. Threw himself into a kill zone against seven hunters because I wasn’t where I was supposed to be.
That’s not strategy.
