“You may object,” I say without looking at him, “but then present a better method for finding the artifact.”
He does not, because he cannot. Aeryn watches all of us with that unnerving, shifting gaze.
“Not enough,” she says.
Xalith takes one step forward. “Careful.”
“No,” I say, stopping him with nothing more than tone. “Let her speak.”
She turns back to me. “I choose what I answer. I choose what I do not. You do not get to tear visions out of me until I die on your road.”
There it is. The true negotiation. Control over access. She already understands the shape of our coming conflict. I consider refusing on principle alone, but principle is for men who can afford vanity.
“What I require,” I say slowly, “is guidance sufficient to reach the artifact.”
“Then require that,” she replies. “Not ownership of my mind.”
A dangerous distinction. She is an intelligent one. How…interesting.
Maelrik’s eyes shift to me, waiting to see whether I value dominance more than outcome. Xalith already knows his answer. Break her. Use her. Replace subtlety with force. He is wrong, as usual. I crouch once more until we are level.
“If you withhold information that endangers the mission, I will respond accordingly.”
“If you decide everything I see belongs to you,” she says, “I will give you nothing useful at all.”
For a moment the chamber narrows to only the two of us, each measuring the other through separate forms of weaponry.
Then I incline my head.
“Agreed.”
A tiny sound moves through the room, surprise poorly hidden.
Veylan speaks first. “You concede too much.”
“No,” I say, standing. “I purchase efficiency.”
Aeryn’s shoulders lower by a degree so slight most would miss it. Relief, perhaps, though not trust. Trust would be absurd.
I gesture to the guard behind her. “Cut the rope.”
He hesitates.
“Now.”
The bindings fall away. Red grooves ring her wrists. She rubs them once, then stops herself, as if unwilling to display even pain for free.
“We leave at first light,” I tell her.
Her gaze lifts to mine.
“No,” she says quietly. “We leave when I can stand without collapsing. If I break before we enter the forest, your bargain becomes decorative.”
Again that dangerous competence. Again that refusal to bend where bending is expected. I should reassert control. I should remind her what room she stands in and whose favor currently keeps her breathing.
Instead I hear myself say, “At dusk, then.”
She nods once.