Tessa emerged from her command wagon, already dressed and armed, moving with the efficient purpose of someone who'd been awake for hours. She spotted Kael and Ilara and changed course, climbing up to join them.
"Morning," she said, settling on Kael's other side. "We need to talk. All three of us."
Something in her tone made Kael's shoulders tense. "What's wrong?"
"Besides everything?" Tessa pulled out a small journal and a map from her knapsack, flipping the journal open to a page covered in careful notes and rough sketches. "We've got maybe four days of water left, five if we ration hard. Food's better—two weeks, maybe three. But water's the critical resource."
"There's a waystation at Broken Arch," Kael said. "Six days south at our current pace."
"Six days we don't have." Tessa tapped the map. "But there's another option. Three days east, there's a settlement called Ashmark. Not imperial—independent traders, bone-prospectors, people who don't ask too many questions. They've got wells, supplies, everything we need."
"So we go there," Ilara said. Tessa grimaced, and Ilara took the hint.
"What's the problem?"
"The problem is that Ashmark sits right on the border of imperial patrol routes. Frontier scouts cycle through every few days. If we go there, we risk running into more soldiers. And after what happened with Lieutenant Sarrow, the empire knows we're in this region. They'll be watching the settlements."
Kael considered this. "What about going around? We move straight south, skip all the settlements?"
"Then we die of thirst in about a week." Tessa's expression was grim. "I've been running caravans through the Expanse for fifteen years. I know every water source, every cache, every possible route. And I'm telling you—we need to resupply. The question is whether we risk Ashmark or push for Broken Arch and pray we make it on short rations."
"What do you think?" Ilara asked.
"I think," Tessa said slowly, "that you two are worth more to the empire alive than dead. They want to study you, understand you, use you. Which means if we do encounter soldiers, they might be more interested in capturing than killing. Might give us leverage."
"Might," Kael repeated. "That's a dangerous word to build a plan around."
"Every word is dangerous out here." Tessa closed her journal. "But it's your call. You're the ones they're hunting. I won't make this decision for you."
Kael looked at Ilara. He found her already looking at him, her brown eyes serious and searching.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"I think we've been running since this started and running means reacting, not choosing." She straightened, something resolute settling into her expression. "We go to Ashmark. We resupply. If imperial soldiers are there, we deal with it. Together."
"Together," Kael echoed.
Tessa studied them both for a long moment then nodded. "Alright. We turn east at midday. I'll tell the others." She stood, but paused before climbing down. "You know, when I agreed to take you on as a guide, I thought the most exciting thing we'd deal with was maybe a shard-storm or a pack of bone-crawlers. I Should've known better. Nothing's simple with god-touched."
"Sorry," Kael offered.
"Don't be. I chose this." A ghost of a smile crossed her weathered face. "Besides, I'm getting a great story out of it. Assuming we live to tell it."
She dropped back to the ground and strode away, already calling out new orders to adjust their course.
Ilara let out a long breath. "She's right, you know, about us being more valuable alive. The empire doesn't waste resources."
"They murdered your parents."
"No." Her voice went flat, distant. "They used my parents. Used them as examples, as warnings. Probably learned things from whatever they studied before executing them." She pulled her knees up, wrapped her arms around them. "Everything the empire does is calculated. Efficient. Even cruelty serves a purpose."
Kael wanted to argue, to offer some comfort against the bleakness in her words. But he'd seen enough of imperial efficiency himself. In the mines, in the way dust-children were identified and removed. In the cold mathematics of quotas and production schedules that measured human life in terms of extractable value.
"We're going to change that," he said instead. "Somehow."
"Big ambition for two people who don't know what they're doing."
"We'll figure it out."
"Will we?" Ilara turned to look at him fully, and he saw the fear she usually kept hidden beneath defiance and dark humor. "Kael, I can feel Tharos in my head. Getting stronger, more present. What if by the time we reach the Spine, there's nothing left of me? What if I'm just… a puppet? A vessel like the voices said?"
He took her hand without thinking about it, felt her fingers, cold despite the warming morning, curl around his.
"Then I'll remind you who you are," he said. "Every day if I have to. You're Ilara Vale, daughter of archivists, survivor of an orphanage that tried to break you and failed. You're stubborn and brave and you laugh at terrible jokes. You hum when you're concentrating. You're afraid of being alone but you're learning you don't have to be. And you are not a vessel—you're a person. You're you. And I won't let you forget that."
Tears tracked down her cheeks, silent and unchecked. "Promise?"
"I promise."
She leaned against him, head on his shoulder, and they sat like that while the camp finished waking around them. Two god-touched youths at the edge of something vast and unknowable, holding onto each other because it was the only anchor either of them had.