Our Own War

My left knee wants to give, the brace biting as I pivot on the mats. I breathe through the spike, force my weight to the outside of my foot, and let the taller cadet’s momentum carry him past. He’s a wall with fists. I’m a pencil someone forgot to break. He swings high; I duck just enough, roll my shoulder, and slip under his arm, snapping a tap of my dagger to his ribs. It’s a scoring hit, not a killing one, but I’d take points over pride any day.

Pain flickers down my elbows like lit fuse wire. The joint tape itches beneath my leathers, and my fingers threaten to loosen on the knife hilt. Faster, Vi. Before your body decides you’re eighty.

He recovers, grinning through his mouthguard like he’s already won. He goes for a grab—predictable—and I bait him with an opening. When he lunges, I twist and bring my heel into the back of his knee. He drops with a grunt, and I follow, kneeling on his shoulder blade, blade to his throat. We hold, breath steaming in the chilly hall. Instructor Emet calls for a reset. The cadet curses into the mat.

My pulse is a drum in my mouth. I stand, wobble, steady. The room tilts for a beat, vertical lines scraping horizontal. I hate when my joints feel like borrowed parts, ready to pop and scatter. I flex my hands. I can do another bout. I can do ten.

Don’t be stupid, Tairn’s voice rumbles through my skull, deep as a thunderhead rolling over the field. You are pushing beyond what is necessary.

Necessary is not your favorite word, I shoot back, schooling my face as neutral. My lungs burn cold. I take my place on the line opposite Wall-with-Fists. He pounds his chest like we’re on parade.

The semicircle of riders around the mats is a ripple of uniforms and whispers. I catch on a new thread in the weave. A stranger leans against a post near the far doors, lazy posture that doesn’t fool me. Taller than most. Broad shoulders wrapped in black leathers that have seen real wind and grit. Bronze dragon emblem stitched at his breast—Swordtail. His hair is dark, cut close on the sides, longer on top like he doesn’t care enough to tame it. And those eyes—cut-glass blue that track my stance with unimpressed boredom. An arrogant smirk curves his mouth, one corner ticking like he’s enjoying a joke I haven’t been told.

Heat climbs my neck, and not the good kind. People stare at me all the time here. They either want to watch me fail or watch me survive. He looks like he’s already made up his mind about which one I’ll do.

The male keeps staring, Tairn growls, the sound vibrating through my bones. I will remove his eyes if necessary.

We are not maiming strangers over their wandering gaze. I tilt my chin, knife point down, blade loose to keep my wrist from locking. The larger cadet charges. The mat squeaks under our boots. He wants to use brute strength to knock me flat, but brute strength favors ligaments that don’t try to desert mid-fight. I bait again, step back two paces, then cut left. He bites. I snag his wrist, torque his thumb, and wrench him into a stumble. Pain sparks mule-kick in my shoulder, a white sting that makes my vision narrow. I bite the inside of my cheek until copper floods my tongue and ride the pain down.

Score to ribs again. Tap. His grunt turns mean. He sweeps for my ankles. I hop, land wrong, ankle screaming, ankle bones grinding. I swallow a hiss. My brace holds. Thank the maker and the scribe who stitched it.

Far side, Blue Eyes straightens, the lazy line of his body sharpening with interest. That smirk again. Not impressed, but awake. In my head, lightning itches in my palms, restless. I keep it leashed. No signets on the mats.

You will end this, Tairn orders, temper spiking hot enough that a crackle teases my fingertips. You are not a spectacle for his amusement.

Then I’ll give him something worth watching. I shift my stance, bring the dagger into a reverse grip to ease the strain on my wrist. The tall cadet’s breath is ragged now, sweat slicking his temple. He thinks I’m flagging. He’s not entirely wrong. I feint left, then collapse my center of gravity in a controlled fall, sliding under his outstretched arm. I slice a line across the fabric of his belt, not skin—clean, precise. His pants sag an inch, surprise freezing him long enough for me to pop up behind him and plant my blade flat to the back of his neck.

Tap. Emet calls the point. The room snorts laughter; the cadet swears, hauling his waistband up, face going crimson.

I don’t smile. My hands are shaking out of my control, tiny tremors that start in my fingers and work their way up. I curl them into fists and stretch them out again, discreet. Every joint is a lit match head. The adrenaline is the only thing keeping me moving.

Blue Eyes claps, slow and mocking, like the world’s most irritating metronome. The sound cuts through the room. A few riders glance from him to me like there’s a second fight happening under the surface.

Who is he? I ask, eyes returning to the line.

A man who will find himself ash if he continues, Tairn answers, the threat all steel.

I roll my shoulders, ignoring the twinge. One more bout, I tell myself. Then I can curl up in the archives and pretend to be made of brain and not bone. Instructor Emet nods to me, then to my opponent. Go.

I meet Wall-with-Fists again, body screaming with every move. My breath saws. I calculate the math of pain versus payoff. I don’t have speed left in my thighs, but I have timing. He overcommits on a straight punch. I catch his forearm between my palms, step to the side, and guide his own momentum into a clumsy collapse. He hits his knee. I press my blade’s dull edge to his pulse. Tap. Tap. Tap.

The hall erupts. Emet raises his hand toward me, eyes narrowed in something like respect. I nod but don’t trust my voice. I sheathe my dagger, fingers fumbling on the clasp until it clicks.

I walk off the mat, each step measured so I don’t add an embarrassing face-plant to the end of a decent round. Sweat cools on my back. My braid clings to my neck. I reach for the water jug at the bench, and my grip slips. Water splashes down my front, cold and shocking. I gasp, then laugh once because it’s that or curse.

A shadow falls over me. I feel it before I look up. Blue Eyes. Closer now. That smirk still lives on his mouth like it pays rent. Up close, he smells like clean leather and the metallic tang of wind. His gaze skates over my damp tunic, then lifts with deliberate slowness to my face. Unimpressed. Curious. Assessing.

Tairn’s growl shutters every window in my mind. Enough. I will not tolerate—

I’m fine, I snap back silently, forcing my spine straight despite the ache. Let him stare. Let him underestimate. It’s always better that way.

“Nice ribbon work,” he says, voice smooth enough to slide under armor. “All those clever little tricks. Makes for a fun show.”

It lands like a slap. I turn, water still cooling on my chest, dagger’s weight a familiar drag at my hip. His eyes flick down, not shy about it, then back up to meet mine. Up close, those irises are sharp, almost too bright against the rough cut of his cheekbones. He’s built to take a hit and give two back, hands nicked and scarred, knuckles like he feeds them stone for breakfast.

The air shifts as a shadow sweeps over the training yard. A bronze swordtail drops from the clouds, wingbeats punching the dirt into a roil. He lands close enough that grit peppers my lips. The dragon’s tail bladed with gleaming plates—deadly, precise—flicks once in warning. He lowers that broad head, pupils contracting to slits as he studies me. The pressure of his presence is a physical thing, a weight pressing at the edges of my mind.

Tairn answers with a thundercrack that vibrates the ribs of the yard, landing beyond the building line with ground-shaking finality. Do not move closer, he warns, the words a blade inside my head. If his bronze so much as breathes wrong in your direction, I will end him.

Bronze snorts, a sound like a bellows. My teeth hum.

I keep my eyes on the rider. “If you’re auditioning for an audience, you’re late. The match is over.”

“That it is.” He tips his chin toward the mats, not bothering to hide the lazy sweep of his gaze. “You’re quick. Efficient. Creative with a blade. I respect that.”

Respect. Right. The word tastes like old paper.

“But,” he adds, and there it is, “you don’t have the engine to go the distance. Trick your way into a point, sure. But when it comes down to raw force? You won’t be a true threat to anyone who doesn’t let you be.”

I smile because if I don’t, I’ll bite him. “And you’re an expert on what I am?”

“I’m an expert on what wins,” he says, calm as a creed. “Kaelen Vance.”

Of course he is. Vance. Loyalist blood dyed through. The name hangs between us, and he pretends not to notice the way my spine straightens.

“I know my name carries… expectations,” he adds, noticing anyway. “And I know what power looks like. It’s not—” he nods at the mat, at the cadet still grumbling and fixing his belt “—cutting a belt and praying your wrist doesn’t give out.”

“Good thing I don’t pray.” I set the water jug down so deliberately it doesn’t even clink. “Clever tricks kept me alive long enough to be here. Raw force puts bodies in graves. Strategic force keeps them out of mine.”

His smile sharpens. “Sounds like something a scribe would stitch on a pillow.”

“Sounds like something a rider with a functioning brain would live by,” I shoot back. Pain stabs behind my kneecap, but I don’t shift my weight. “Tell me, Vance, when you can’t brawl your way through a cliffside or a cadre, do you just… pout until they move?”

His dragon huffs. Kaelen’s gaze flicks to my left brace with a quickness that betrays how much he’s cataloging. “I adapt,” he says simply. “But adaptation isn’t the same as being carried by circumstance. Or sympathy.”

“Do you see sympathy here?” I gesture at the ring of cadets who would happily trip me on stairs. “I work twice as hard to make what you call tricks into weapons you don’t see coming. That’s the point.”

“The point is that when you run out of tricks, you’ll need something else.” His voice isn’t cruel. It’s factual. It needles anyway. “You fight like a storm you’re trying to outrun. Looks impressive from a distance. Up close, it’s just wind.”

Tairn’s temper spikes. The next time he opens his mouth, I will rip his tongue from his skull and feed it to his bronze.

Please don’t, I answer tightly, even as lightning prickles across my palms. I tamp it down. No signets. No spectacular self-owns in front of Vance.

“And you fight like a wall,” I say to Kaelen. “Very sturdy. Very proud. Very easy to go around.”

He laughs under his breath, eyes creasing. “You think you can go around me?”

“I just did. Three times.”

“You went around Hafin,” he counters, tipping his chin toward Wall-with-Fists, who glowers. “I’m not Hafin.”

“No,” I agree, dragging my gaze down him and back up, making it clear I’m doing the same assessment he did to me. “You’re taller. Heavier. More arrogant. Your stance is better. Your guard’s lazy. Your eyes telegraph your left hook. You overcommit on cuts because you like the sound of impact. You’re not Hafin. But you’re still predictable.”

A low whistle from someone behind him. Kaelen’s jaw ticks. For a heartbeat, the polish cracks, and that competitive fire I saw in class later flashes, hot and clean. It hits me low in my belly, the worst kind of interesting.

He steps closer. I don’t back up. The dragons’ heads lift in unison, a mirrored threat. The wind scrapes along my damp tunic.

“Prove it,” he says softly. “Pick a weapon. No signets. First to five taps. You show me how you go around a wall.”

“Now?” I arch a brow, even as my joints scream no. He sees it. I see him see it. He doesn’t press.

“Tomorrow,” he allows. “After drills. I like my opponents conscious.”

“How generous,” I murmur. “But I don’t spar for the entertainment of people who think I’m a show.”

“You don’t spar to convince me,” he says. “You spar to convince yourself you’re as dangerous as you keep insisting.”

I let the silence sit until it chafes. The yard hums with interest, the rumor already half-spun. I force my gaze off his mouth and back to his eyes.

“I don’t need your approval,” I say.

“I didn’t offer it,” he replies, unapologetic. “But I did offer you a chance. Take it, Sorrengail, or don’t. I’m not the one who needs to learn anything here.”

The use of my name is deliberate. His dragon flicks its tail; Tairn’s answering rumble rattles dust from the eaves.

“Tomorrow,” I hear myself say, because my pride is a stubborn, feral thing. “Daggers.”

His smile is slow. Infuriating. “Daggers it is.”

He steps back, gives me one more glance that feels like a weight and a dare, then turns, vaulting up onto bronze ridged shoulder with practiced ease. The swordtail pumps his wings once, twice, sending a slap of wind across my face, and surges skyward in a flash of burnished metal and muscle.

I stand very still until the grit settles, then bend, pretending to retie my boot so I can press shaking fingers to my knee without an audience.

Reckless, Tairn grinds. Irresponsible.

Necessary, I answer, though it tastes like a lie. I watch the shrinking shape of bronze against blue until it’s gone. My skin is buzzing where his eyes tracked. My jaw aches from clenching.

Fine, I tell the empty sky—and myself. Daggers. Let’s see how the wall holds.

Professor Kaori’s chalk traces another neat square on the slate, labeling it with precise script: Western Bastion, Year 413. The lecture hall smells like dust and wet wool, the rain having driven half the quadrant inside, dripping and restless. I’ve wedged myself into the end of the third bench, braced knee out, back straight to keep the ache from spreading. I take notes because focusing on something small makes the broader throb quiet. Kaori’s voice is steady, the cadence of a man who’s explained a thousand ways to die ugly.

“Now,” he says, glancing over his spectacles as if they’re another weapon, “who can tell me why General Korovin’s forces failed their third assault, despite superior numbers and air support?”

Hands go up like prairie grass, waving to be seen. Kaelen’s goes up last, casually late, because of course it does. He’s two rows down and to my left, sprawled like the bench is built for his body. He doesn’t need the attention; it finds him anyway. His dragon’s bronze-green leathers creak when he shifts, a slow stretch of shoulder that draws eyes.

Kaori nods at him. “Vance.”

Kaelen smiles with his mouth, not his eyes. “They underestimated the Bastion’s counter-siege gear. They relied on repeated aerial bombardment, which the defenders neutralized with tethered boltcasters and shield lines. The failure was due to inflexible command—Korovin repeated a tactic that had already been countered.”

“Mm.” Kaori writes Inflexibility on the board. “And solutions, Cadet?”

“Diversion.” Kaelen’s gaze sweeps the room and lingers half a second too long on me. “Draw the boltcasters to one flank with a feint, cut the tethers with a fast-moving unit. Commit heavy infantry through the breach while dragons suppress.”

Several heads nod. It’s textbook. It would work—on a wall that didn’t belong to the Western Bastion.

I keep my hand down. My voice still somehow finds air. “You’d be charging straight into murder holes and a double-throated kill corridor.”

The bench under me goes silent. Kaori’s chalk pauses mid-word.

Kaelen turns his head, like my voice is a new scent he has to categorize. “Sorrengail,” he says, and I feel his attention like a palm between my shoulder blades. “Enlighten us.”

“Happy to,” I say, dry as bone. “The Bastion’s outer wall has a false-face at the north and west flanks, built to collapse inward when the secondary braces are released. That’s detailed in the siege journals codex, volume two, folio seventy-three. If you send heavy infantry through after cutting boltcasters, the defenders trip the braces and crush your front line. Your supplies go with them, because smart commanders tie wagons to mass to push momentum through a breach.”

I tap the edge of my notebook with my quill. My fingers don’t shake. “Aerial suppression won’t stop a triggered collapse. You’d need internal sabotage. Remove the brace pins from inside. Or you force a pivot.”

Kaori’s gaze sharpens. He uncaps his pen, as if even he might want to write this down. “Explain the pivot, Sorrengail.”

“Korovin had the numbers,” I say, flipping a page to keep my hands busy. “But he treated the Bastion like a single target instead of a system. You don’t feint a flank—you threaten the cisterns. They’re underground and feed the kitchens and infirmary first. They run close to the west lower ward. Old city. Fragile stones. You send a small unit through the waste tunnels with explosive charges. The defenders will reassign their boltcasters to protect their water. You don’t cut tethers—you redeploy them. Boltcasters can’t pivot as fast as dragons. You press air on the now-under-defended south gate while your saboteurs hold the cistern hostage. You force them to choose. They either keep their water and lose their gate, or they save the gate and poison their own. Either way, your heavy infantry never walks into a set of teeth.”

A hiss of impressed breath comes from somewhere behind me. Kaelen’s mouth tightens. It’s subtle, the smallest pull at the corner, but now that I’m looking, I see the tell. The charming mask doesn’t slip; it fractures along a fine seam I name hunger.

“It’s a pretty theory,” he says evenly, but his fingers flex on the bench, tendons cutting sharp. “Except the waste tunnels are barred after the first incursion. That’s on folio seventy-four.”

“Not if you use smoke first.” I meet his eyes. My knee throbs. I don’t let it move. “You let them bar it. You make them think you’ve failed. Then you wait for kitchen fires to belch the signal out the roof vents, showing which flue runs closest to the ward corridor. You’re not mapping tunnels. You’re mapping airflow. You pick the lock from the other side.”

Kaori’s pen starts moving. Quiet ripples through the room like the wind after a strike. “Clever,” he murmurs. “Very clever.”

Kaelen’s jaw bounces once. He knows that codex. He knows the line I ignored and the one I added, and I can see him running variables in his head, adjusting. That is the moment the fire flashes. Not anger. Not exactly. Competition licks hot and clean behind his eyes, and it hits that low, traitorous place inside me again.

He leans back, as if he’s surrendering space, but it’s a recalibration. “You’d have to hold saboteurs in hostile territory for hours,” he counters. “No guarantee the defenders care about cisterns if they think they can break your line fast enough. And if the dragons falter—”

“That’s why you choose your saboteurs as carefully as your wing leaders,” I cut in. “Small, quiet, good hands, better nerves. It’s not a hammer problem. It’s a scalpel problem.”

A low chuckle from a cadet to my right. “Sorrengail likes her scalpels.”

“Scalpels save lives,” I say. “Hammers break things indiscriminately.”

Kaori clears his throat, but he’s smiling—genuine, which is rare as rainbows here. “Thank you, Cadet Sorrengail. And thank you, Cadet Vance. Both valid analyses. For those of you who haven’t fallen asleep, the lesson is twofold: do not assume a fortress is a monolith, and do not assume a tactic’s failure is the tactic’s fault. Context is king.”

He writes Context on the board. I feel Kaelen still looking. I force my attention back to my page, pretending not to notice.

In my head, Tairn rumbles, smug. Crush him again.

Not the plan, I answer, though my mouth wants to. The corner of my lips tries to tilt and I make it stop.

When the bell rings and benches scrape, he doesn’t rush me. He takes his time gathering his books, the portrait of a man unbothered. But when I step into the aisle, he’s there, blocking it with his shoulder as if he didn’t plan it, as if this is where his body simply ended up.

“Waste tunnels and airflow,” he says under the low murmur, amused and sharp. Up close, the facade has edges. “You like playing inside, don’t you?”

“I like winning,” I say, sliding past him. He doesn’t make me squeeze. He shifts just enough, as if granting passage is something he does because he decided to. “And I like not crushing my own under a wall I could’ve read better.”

He tips his head, a half bow that mocks itself before it can mock me. “Noted.”

For a heartbeat, we hold it—whatever this is—between us. Then he smiles too easily again, as if the quake didn’t crack anything, and turns to go.

I’m left with my notes, the faint scent of clean leather, and a pulse in my knee and somewhere lower that refuses to settle.

Andarna hums as I oil the delicate joints beneath her gold-feathered scales, a shimmering purr that runs from my palms to my spine. The stables smell like damp hay and dragon musk, warm and mineral-rich, alive. Tairn lurks in the yard, a mountain of black and iron temper, his presence a heavy pressure in the back of my skull as if he’s planted a hind talon on my thoughts.

He is approaching, Tairn warns.

“Let him,” I murmur, throat dry, focusing on Andarna’s wing where the membrane meets the bony spar. “We’re not prey.”

The door to the aisle creaks. Boots on packed earth. That faint, clean-leather scent again, cut with metal polish. I don’t turn until his shadow reaches my hands.

“Careful,” Kaelen says, voice low, eyes on where I’m working. “Feathertails have fragile cross-veins there.”

“Do they?” I look up through my lashes, unimpressed. “Good thing I’ve been doing this since you were busy practicing your smirk.”

His mouth curves. “It’s a good smirk.”

Andarna lifts her head, golden eyes slow-blinking at him. She whistles a soft, curious note. “I know,” I tell her. “He thinks he’s shiny.”

“Hello, little queen.” Kaelen’s tone shifts, gentle with the dragon the way it never is with me. “You were magnificent today.”

She glows brighter, and I swear she preens. Traitor.

Tairn’s rumble rolls like distant thunder. Do not encourage him.

“Came to apologize?” I ask, wiping oil from my fingers, brows up.

He leans against the post across from me, casual, as if he belongs in my space. “That’s what decent people do. I’m trying it on.”

“How’s it fit?”

“Snug.” He tips his head, studying me. “I was…dismissive. In class. You were right. About the airflow, the pivot. You made me look slow.”

“That part was a bonus,” I say. “The rest was just accuracy.”

“And you like accuracy.”

“I like not getting crushed under scope sills and ego.” I cap the oil. “Which are often the same weight.”

He laughs then; it’s quick and bright, genuine. It softens something hard in his face. “You’re a blade when you speak.”

“I’m a scribe with sharp edges.” I step closer to check Andarna’s chest plate, aware of him watching the way I move, the way I guard my right knee. He notices. Of course he does. His gaze tracks the micro-stutter when I shift weight.

“Does it hurt now?” he asks, too quiet.

“Sometimes pain is just information.” I keep my hands steady. “Like your gaze. Noisy.”

“That sounds like a yes.”

“That sounds like none of your business.”

A beat. The stable air thickens, straw dust floating in the high beams. Somewhere down the aisle, a dragon huffs, a massive exhale that shakes hay from its rack.

He pushes off the post, closes the distance without crowding. “I wasn’t unimpressed,” he says, eyes on mine. “Earlier. I was…provoked.”

“Is that what you call it when you get corrected in front of everyone?” I tilt my head. “Provoked is such a delicate word for bruised.”

“Ah, so you’re keeping score.”

“I’m a strategist. I count everything.” I set the cloth aside, lift my hand. He goes very still as I reach—past him—and tighten the strap on Andarna’s breast collar. The move brings us close enough that the heat of him brushes my arm. His breath moves the loose hair at my temple.

He doesn’t step back. “What are you counting right now?”

“Angles,” I lie. “Exit routes.”

“Not heartbeats?”

“I try to save sentiment for people who don’t start conversations by insulting my strength.”

He flinches, subtle, like the words land where I aimed. “You held your own against Garric when he outweighed you by half again. I know what your strength looks like. I was…testing your reaction time.”

“By being a condescending ass.”

“Effective, wasn’t it?”

“On provoking, yes. On impressing, jury’s still out.”

He grins, quick and wolfish, then reins it, eyes warming. “You want to win,” he says. “More than you want to be liked.”

“They’re not mutually exclusive. But when it comes down to it…” I shrug. “I’ll take victory.”

“I can work with that.” He glances at Andarna, then back. “We’re paired for the Gauntlet strategy sessions tomorrow. You know that, right?”

Tairn snarls in my skull. Over my incinerated hide.

“I do,” I say, ignoring the heat in my mind. “And I know your type. You’re going to say charge. I’m going to say wait. We’ll argue. You’ll use your shoulders like punctuation.”

His gaze dips to my shoulder, then lower, as if he can’t help the inventory. He drags it back up deliberately. “And you’ll cut me off with a better plan.”

“If you’re lucky.”

He licks his bottom lip, thoughtful. “You’re dangerous.”

“That a warning to yourself?”

“A compliment.” He angles his body, closer again, and my back meets the stall door. Not trapped—never that—but the space narrows and my awareness spikes, sharp and bright. “You get under skin I didn’t know I had.”

“Sounds like an allergy. You should see the healers.”

“I tried. They prescribed distance.” He’s teasing, but there’s an honesty under it that catches. “Didn’t take.”

Andarna warbles, amused. She taps his chest with the blunt edge of a feathered crest, pushing, testing his balance like a cat.

“See?” he tells her. “Even you like me.”

“She likes chaos.” I flick a look at his mouth and hate that I do it. “And shiny things.”

His eyes darken, reading too much. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What do you like?” He says it like a riddle he intends to solve with his hands.

“Competence. Quiet. Tea that stays hot. Dragons that don’t try to eat my friends. Men who know when not to make themselves the loudest thing in the room.”

He hums as if filing it away. “So you like me when I’m quiet.”

“I like you when you’re useful.” I step to the side; he shifts, giving me the space without making me earn it. “Are you going to apologize or keep circling until you think I’m dizzy?”

His smile slants. “I’m sorry.” It’s simple, unadorned. He doesn’t flinch when he says it.

“For?”

“Underestimating your approach because it doesn’t look like mine.” He lifts a shoulder. “You’re not a hammer. I’m partial to hammers. I forgot the world breaks cleaner with tools I don’t own.”

The admission slips under my armor before I can stop it. I nod once. “Accepted.”

“Good.” He exhales, as if he’d been holding a breath he didn’t admit to. “I’ll bring the muscle tomorrow. You bring the monsters in your head.”

“I don’t have monsters,” I say, almost convincing. “I have maps.”

He steps back then, finally, putting a safer slice of air between us. “Sorrengail.”

“Vance.”

We hold each other’s gaze a second too long. He taps the stall door as he leaves, a soft knock that isn’t a goodbye so much as a promise to return. When he’s gone, the aisle yawns wider, the air cooler. I can breathe.

You are playing with fire, Tairn growls.

“I know,” I whisper, palm flat on Andarna’s warm chest. The feathertail blinks slow, thoughtful, and then nudges my sternum, a question in the pressure.

“We’re not burning yet,” I tell her, though my pulse says otherwise. “We’re just…mapping airflow.”