“Because it sounds like something is alarming.”
I sit across from her on the edge of the bed, leaving a careful space between us that she notices immediately. Her gaze flicks to it, then back to my face.
“I am being cautious,” I say.
“You’re always cautious when you’re trying not to admit you’re worried.”
“Worry without knowledge is noise.”
“That sounds like something Corin would say to avoid a conversation.”
“I am insulted.”
“No, you’re not.”
She sets the papers aside. The mattress shifts as she turns fully toward me. “Did you see gold?”
My silence lasts too long.
Her expression changes.
Damn me.
“I saw traces,” I say.
“Traces of what?”
“Resonance.”
“What kind?”
“Sable.”
“What kind?”
The bond tightens, not unstable, not angry yet, but alert. She deserves the full answer. I know that. Every lesson of the past weeks has been carved into me with fire, blood, and her hands dragging me out of self-destruction.
Yet I see the path too clearly: her face when she realizes Corin’s mortality may have been altered by proximity to us; the guilt she will swallow because she will believe she should have prevented it; the old fear returning to her eyes just when peace began to look possible.
So I choose a smaller truth.
“Infernal-adjacent,” I say.
She draws in a slow breath. “That sounds like a name.”
“It is a category.”
“Rhazek.”
“I will investigate further.”
She studies me for a long moment. The lamp flame trembles slightly, though no draft enters the room. Her power brushes mine through the bond, not probing exactly, but listening.
I let her feel concern.
I do not let her feel the full shape of my fear.
The omission sits between us, quiet and poisonous.
