"Go ask Dara why she's not."
He holds my glare—one of the few who will—then drops it. "I'll finish the route schedule."
"Do that."
The door stays open after him.
Two complaints. One about objects. One about people.
She's not rearranging shelves.
I spread the bark markings out again. The routes blur. I fold them and leave.
Axan finds me at the forge. I'm sharpening a blade I don't need sharpened. Hands need something to do. The forge is the farthest point from the cooking fire.
"Tarek's side is closing clean," he says. "Dara changed the packing this morning. Using something—"
"I know what she's using."
"—Melori showed her." He finishes it anyway, grinning. "Closing faster than anything I've seen."
The blade finds its rhythm again.
"She doesn't look at you the way the others do," he says. "You notice that."
My hand slips.
"Not once. She doesn't look away. Doesn't submit. Doesn't flinch. Just—"
"Stop."
"—looks at you and sees—" Axan pretends to think about it. "—a person, Keer. A whole one."
Blood wells across my thumb.
He's laughing. Quiet, mostly in his shoulders, the way he always laughs when he thinks he's gotten me—and he has gotten me, and he knows it.
"Axan."
"Keer—"
"Leave, Axan."
He's still laughing when he leaves. The cut heals in seconds.
The rest of it doesn't.
The last wolf who looked me in the eye was trying to kill me. Took his throat out.
Melori did it over a pot of porridge.
Nugget.
The bear.
The grief stench hits before he does. Sour rot underneath the anger. Five years since Vara.
"She's taking over."
