For now, I stay.
The next instinct follows naturally. I think about the artifact.
Where Xalith would go with it. Not back into open ground. Not somewhere obvious. He doesn’t protect power. He uses it. Which means he won’t wait.
Velkiron complicates that. If they moved together, even temporarily, then the next step won’t be simple retrieval. It will be conflict.
I map the possibilities anyway. Routes. Distances. Time lost since the chamber collapsed. What remains reachable, and what is already gone.
The plan begins to form. It always does.
It stretches forward from what I know, building itself from fragments that still hold structure even now. Xalith will not hide for long. That is not in his nature. Power in his hands is not something he guards in silence. He tests it. Pushes it. Forces it into the open until something breaks.
That creates a window. It also creates risk.
Velkiron’s involvement shifts that balance further. If they believe the artifact can be controlled, they will not leave it in his possession without challenge. If they believe it cannot, then their objective changes entirely. Either way, conflict follows.
I could use that.
Under different circumstances, I would already be moving. Positioning ahead of it. Cutting off routes before they fully form. Forcing both sides into a space where outcome can be shaped instead of reacted to.
Instead, I am here.
The distance between those two realities is small in theory. Absolute in practice.
I let the thought settle without resistance. There is no value in forcing it into something it cannot become yet.
My gaze drifts briefly to the cave entrance again, tracking the slow shift of light as it continues to fade, measuring time without needing to count it directly. Every moment that passes widens the gap between what was possible and what remains.
That, more than the injury, is the real limitation.
Not the wound.
Timing.
I adjust my position slightly against the stone, easing the strain along my side without fully shifting it, testing whetherthe pain has dulled or simply settled into something more manageable. It hasn’t.
I lean my head back against the stone and let the reality take shape without trying to correct it yet, because there is nothing to correct from this position. The mission has failed. The artifact is gone. My brother has it, and Velkiron was part of ensuring that outcome.
And Aeryn?—
I pause there, not because the conclusion is unclear, but because it requires a different kind of assessment.
She did not stay. She did not pursue him. She brought me here. That decision altered everything. Had she remained, there was a chance, uncertain, but present, that the artifact could have been contested. That path carried its own cost. It also carried mine.
She removed that variable.
Me.
I consider that without attaching anything unnecessary to it. It was not hesitation. It was not confusion. It was a choice made under pressure with limited time and incomplete information.
It changed the outcome.
That is what matters.
Footsteps interrupt the thought before it goes further, light against stone, controlled and familiar enough that I recognize it immediately. I turn toward the entrance just as her silhouette appears against the fading light outside, her shape briefly outlined before she steps inside and the fire catches her fully.
Dust marks her clothing. Blood stains her sleeve. Her posture is steady, but the strain beneath it is there if you know where to look.