She smiles, and I hate how much I enjoy making her smile.
I gesture toward the stone spine. “Proceed.”
Aeryn exhales slowly and steps ahead. Every instinct I possess objects. The instinct to control the pace. The instinct to place myself first where danger can be assessed by my senses rather than her fractured ones. The instinct to keep her close enough to seize if vision, fear, or strategy sends her somewhere inconvenient.
I ignore each impulse with deliberate effort because the data has become impossible to dismiss: the more I compress her choices, the less reliable her gift becomes; the more space she has to respond without defending herself from me, the more precise her instincts grow.
I have never enjoyed evidence that undermines preference. We move onto the stone.
The surface is warm despite the cold air rising from below. Moisture beads along the edges in bright lines. Aeryn walks slowly, one palm extended slightly as though feeling pressure in the air. I remain three steps behind, close enough to intervene, far enough to let her body decide before my voice does.
“Left side weak,” she says.
I glance to the left edge. No visible fracture. No shift in stone color. No moss separation. I do not challenge. We move right.
“Stop,” she says after five more paces.
I stop. A moment later, a thin crack races across the stone where my next step would have landed, then seals itself so quickly that only a faint dark line remains.
Aeryn looks back.
“Continue.”
Something changes in her expression then, small but significant. She expected correction. She expected doubt dressed as inquiry. When neither arrives, she turns forward with greater focus.
The flowers along the ravine edge begin to sway. There is still no wind. Their bells tilt toward us, petals opening wider, revealing dark throats lined with fine white filaments that quiver like sensing hairs. Aeryn raises one hand, signaling silence. The pack beasts shift uneasily behind me, hooves scraping stone.
“Don’t touch the pollen,” she murmurs.
“I had no romantic intentions toward the flowers.”
“Your charm is wasted on plants anyway.”
“Fortunately, I brought a more difficult audience.”
She makes a soft sound that might be annoyance. I allow myself to believe amusement has entered the category.
We continue, and I watch her navigate in real time. Her steps do not follow a single path so much as negotiate with several. She begins right, stops, turns left, pauses, then moves forward at an angle no map would justify. Once she crouches and places her fingers against the stone, wincing before she rises and redirects us around a patch that appears identical to the rest.
Twice she changes direction before explaining, and I say nothing because interruption would force her attention from sensing to defending. The restraint costs more than I expect. A controller dislikes empty hands. A strategist uses them. Halfway across, the mist below drops suddenly. The ravines reveal themselves.
Bodies lie tangled among the stones far beneath us, old bones wrapped in roots, armor rusted green, banners from houses I recognize and several I do not. Above them, tucked beneath the overhangs on both sides, hang clusters of pale cocoons larger than men.
Aeryn goes still. The flowers stop moving. From beneath the stone bridge comes a soft clicking. Many clicks. The sound travels through the soles of my boots before reaching my ears.
A concealed threat, then Aeryn’s eyes flare gold. She does not collapse. She does not hide. She inhales once, sharply, and lets the vision pass through her while standing.
“Back,” she says.
I move back.
“Down.”
I lower instantly as something lashes over my head, a translucent filament snapping through the air where my throat had been. It strikes the stone and hisses, smoking where it touches.
“Right three steps.”
I obey.