The jungle had thickened again after the yeti clearing, canopy pressing lower, light going dimmer and greener, and the group moved through it with the particular quiet of people who'd stopped expecting anything easy from this place.
Kelvin walked close beside Diana, close enough that his shoulder brushed hers every few steps, and his voice had dropped into something low, meant only for her.
"You pushed yourself hard back there," he said. "With the yeti."
"I know."
"I mean it, Diana. You're not fully recovered. Not from Kruel, not from any of it, no matter how capable you feel right now in the moment." His jaw tightened slightly. "What you did to that thing, holding that level of control that long, that's not nothing. That's not free."
"I know," she said again, softer this time. "The situation was dire, Kelvin. Corran was already gone. I wasn't going to let it walk away clean after that."
