He glances toward the path ahead, then back to me, as though measuring whether to press harder.
I give him nothing. The choice forms with frightening ease.
If I warn him, he learns I will shield him from dangers he cannot perceive. If I remain silent, I learn what he becomes when certainty fails.
Knowledge is worth risk.
So I keep walking.
The path ahead pinches between two leaning trees whose trunks twist around each other like bodies locked in a private argument. Vaedros studies the terrain, reading practical signs, animal tracks, water runoff, recent slides, but practical signs do not reveal what the forest has chosen to hide this morning. He steps where any careful traveler would step.
The earth tears open. It happens fast enough to satisfy violence and slow enough to be instructive. Soil slumps inward with a heavy sucking groan. Ferns vanish. One of the beasts screams and rears, reins snapping taut. Vaedros drops with the collapsing ledge to one knee, one hand driving into exposed roots while the other catches the animal’s bridle before panic drags both of them farther down.
I move back just outside the slide and watch.
Not idly.
Attentively.
His composure does not shatter. It narrows. Every trace of polished courtliness strips away, revealing something cleaner beneath it. He releases the bridle at the precise moment the beast’s weight becomes liability, twists, drives a dagger into compacted earth above him, and uses the leverage to vault sideways onto firmer ground as the rest of the shelf shears away into darkness below. Dirt spatters his cloak. One sleeve tears. He rises already scanning for secondary threats.
No swearing. No wasted fury. No appeal to pride wounded by circumstance.
The horse trembles at the edge, eyes white with terror. Vaedros approaches at an angle, voice low, hand steady, alldangerous grace repurposed into calm until the animal allows itself to be led clear.
Then he turns to me.
“You knew.”
I let concern touch my face by the smallest degree. “I knew the ground felt wrong.”
“You knew more than that.”
“Then perhaps you should have asked better questions.”
Since leaving the stronghold, anger enters his gaze plainly enough for anyone to read. It does not make him less appealing. That is inconvenient too.
“You gamble with expensive assets.”
“You survived,” I say.
“That was not guaranteed.”
“Nothing is.”
He takes one step closer, boots dark with wet soil, torn sleeve exposing silver runes along his forearm that seem brighter against the dirt. “Do not mistake survival for permission.”
I should retreat. Instead I hold where I am.
“And do not mistake your displeasure for authority over what I see.”
The air between us tightens, charged by conflict and something less useful. He studies my face as though deciding whether to admire or punish me. I suspect he dislikes that he cannot do both simultaneously.
Then the corner of his mouth lifts almost into a smile before discipline removes it.
“There you are,” he says quietly.
“Where?”