“I wasn’t?—”
“You were thinking about it.”
Silence. She looks away first.
I position myself at the entrance. Back against stone. Eyes on the path outside. Every angle covered, every threat avenue monitored.
Standard defensive positioning. Nothing unusual.
The lie sits poorly.
I’ve never kept watch like this—not with this intensity, not with this desperation, not with this need to keep my eyes open even when exhaustion pulls at my awareness. My body demands rest. The poison damage requires sleep to finish healing.
I refuse.
Because she’s behind me, and she’s vulnerable, and the idea of sleeping while she’s unprotected makes my skin crawl in ways I won’t examine.
Night falls.
The temperature drops as darkness claims the pass. Cold enough to see breath. Cold enough that Soreia’s shivering becomes audible despite her attempts to hide it.
I should add my body heat. Dragon fire runs hot enough to warm a person without burning them.
I don’t move toward her.
I don’t trust myself to stop at heat.
The hours blur into each other. Moon rising. Stars wheeling overhead through gaps in the ruined roof. Wind howling through the peaks with sounds that might be weather or might be an approaching threat.
I watch it all.
Behind me, Soreia’s breathing steadies. Deepens. The rhythm of genuine sleep rather than the fitful dozing she’s managed since the shelter on the plains.
She needs rest. She burned herself hollow keeping me alive.
The cold deepens before dawn—alwayscoldest in the hour before sunrise—and Soreia’s shivering intensifies despite her sleep.
I should wake her. Tell her to move, generate body heat through motion.
I close the distance instead.
My body makes the decision without consulting my mind. One moment, I’m at the entrance, watching the path. The next, I’m beside her, close enough that my heat reaches her skin.
She shifts in her sleep. Turns toward me. Her face relaxes as the shivering eases.
I don’t bother with an explanation. Not even to myself.
I watch her sleep.
The first rays of sunlight touch the mountains. Gold light spilling over gray stone, turning the pass from hostile to merely desolate. Birds call from somewhere in the distance—actual living birds, the first I’ve heard since the plains.
Life continues. Despite the gods. Despite the monsters. Despite everything that wants us dead.
She continues.
The relief that brings is so profound, it borders on pain.
She wakes with the sun.
