"Are you okay?"
Rhaen kept her eyes on the white glare ahead of them.
For a moment, she did not answer. The desert edge shimmered in pale light, the glass-like ground throwing heat back upward in waves that made the air twitch. Behind them, the mountain descent still sat inside her bones like a debt not yet paid. In front of them, the domain stretched on with the patient cruelty of something that did not care how tired flesh was, or how many near escapes a person had already earned.
Her throat felt dry. Her shoulders felt too heavy. The heat waiting ahead looked different from the mountain hardship behind them, but not kinder. Only simpler. Simpler in the way a knife was simpler than a maze.
"I'm still standing," she said at last.
It was the kind of answer a soldier gave when she did not want to be asked again.
Mikhailis looked at her once, then looked away before the gaze could turn into pity.
