Alinda stayed perched on the rooftop for another minute, irritation simmering beneath her calm expression. It made no sense. Thal was enormous; even moving quietly, he should have left some trace in the streets below a shifting shadow, a silhouette at a corner, at least one startled scream from a civilian who suddenly found a giant walking behind them but there was nothing. No sound, no sign, no ripple of his presence at all.
"How does someone that size disappear?" she muttered under her breath, annoyed in a way only Thal ever managed to provoke out of her. "He should be knocking over chimney stacks, not slipping through alleys like smoke."
She was about to leap to the next roof when something else caught her attention voices, strained and hollow with suffering. The sound wasn't panic, not the noise of a fight but the deep, guttural moaning of multiple people fighting through pain they could barely comprehend.
Her expression sharpened. That wasn't normal.
She dropped from the rooftop in two controlled jumps, landing lightly on the cobblestones, and followed the sound to a torch-lit building with its doors propped open. She stepped inside and stopped.
The room was filled with people on cots far too many. Medical mages in cloaks marked with the sigil of the Church of the Three darted between them, palms glowing with weak healing light. The smell was worse: iron, bile, stale sweat, burned skin.
She took in the details quickly. A man hunched over a bucket, vomiting violently; the liquid splashing inside wasn't just bile but streaked through with dark, fresh blood. Another lay on a cot with both arms covered in blisters that bulged and cracked as if the burns had started inside his veins instead of on the skin. A woman nearby sobbed uncontrollably while clutching her stomach, convinced she was pregnant and begging them to remove "something inside her," even though her belly was flat and untouched and at the far wall, a man clutched his face, crimson tears streaming down from his eyes as if the pressure inside his skull were forcing them out.
This wasn't plague. It wasn't food poisoning. It wasn't anything natural.
Alinda studied the room with a detached, steady gaze before stepping toward one of the healers a young woman with blonde hair tied back loosely and a green-eyed look of exhaustion. Her robes bore the sigil of the Church of the Three, though the way she held herself suggested she hadn't been trained for situations like this.
"What's happening here?" Alinda asked, her tone mild, more inquisitive than demanding.
The girl stiffened anyway, clutching her spellbook a little tighter. "Please… step back. We're treating the sick."
"I can see that." Alinda kept her voice even, almost casual. "I'm asking what sickness this is."
"It" The healer hesitated, clearly unsure how much she was allowed to say. Her gaze flicked to Alinda's eyes, lingered uneasily, then darted away. "It's recent. People from different parts of the city falling ill with… varying symptoms. There isn't a name for it."
Alinda tilted her head just a fraction, studying the healer's expression more than the answer. "You're not telling me everything."
"I'm not supposed to," the girl said quietly, looking down at the sigil on her robe as if it reminded her to stay silent. "We've been instructed not to discuss details with strangers. The Cathedral doesn't want people panicking."
A man nearby let out a wet, choking sound as fresh blood streaked from his eyes but Alinda didn't react beyond a slow blink.
"That approach seems optimistic," she said gently.
The healer winced. "It isn't nothing," she admitted in a strained whisper. "We found magical residue on some of them. Very faint, barely detectable. None of the symptoms match anything we've treated before."
Alinda gave a small hum, more thoughtful than concerned. Her mind moved toward the Black Hollow Remedies she had been investigating earlier that day their unnerving efficiency, the way they forced healing instantly, unnaturally. She wasn't convinced this was the same thing… but the possibility sat in her thoughts like a puzzle piece not yet placed.
The healer continued quietly, as if compelled by the calm in Alinda's manner. "I'm Rikia and it's… been getting worse these past few days. Faster. Whatever it is." She lowered her voice further. "Please don't repeat that. I shouldn't have said it."
Alinda nodded once, acknowledging rather than promising. Her eyes drifted across the room again, taking in the labored breathing, the blistered skin, the strained magic attempting to keep the worst at bay.
Interesting. Troubling, perhaps but she felt no urgency tugging at her. This was another mystery in a city full of them, and she was merely observing for now.
Something was affecting Lions Gate slowly, violently, in ways no one understood.
And from Alinda's controlled, quiet expression, it was clear she wasn't frightened.
Just curious.
Alinda was about to ask another question when the atmosphere in the room shifted. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just… shifted. A subtle pressure in the air, like gravity adjusting by a fraction.
Rikia noticed first her eyes flicked toward the doorway, confusion tightening her brow.
Then one of the older mages straightened abruptly, their hands freezing mid-spell.
Alinda turned, and there he was.
Thal stepped in through the infirmary entrance, his massive silhouette filling the entire frame before the torchlight defined his features. He didn't say a word. Didn't acknowledge the stares. He simply walked inside, his expression unreadable, golden eyes already sweeping the room.
Alinda raised a brow and offered a light, teasing gesture with her hand. "There you are. You move like a ghost for someone who blocks out the moon."
He didn't look at her. Not even a flicker.
That alone was enough to make several mages flinch.
Thal stepped past her without pause, attention fixed entirely on the patients as he followed something only he could sense. The hum beneath the stone. The residue in the air. The trail of the Harbinger that seeped like invisible rot through every corner of Lions Gate.
Alinda simply folded her arms, choosing to let the slight go. She watched him calmly, as if she'd expected it but the mages… they've stiffened.
"He…he was with the Hero's Triad earlier…" one whispered.
Rikia stepped in front of him instinctively, small compared to his towering form. Her healing light flickered. "Sir, you can't be in here. Please these people are very ill. We're trying to keep the area controlled."
Thal walked right past her as though she wasn't there.
He moved from patient to patient, leaning slightly to examine each one. Not touching. Not intervening. Just… reading the traces. His nostrils flared faintly as he inhaled the air around the blistered man's arms. He angled his head at the woman sobbing over her imagined pregnancy. He studied the man whose eyes bled with quiet intensity.
Rikia hurried after him, distressed. "Sir please stop. This area is restricted. You cannot interfere with treatment!"
Alinda almost smiled at the futile effort. She stepped aside to avoid being in Rikia's way, watching Thal with a faint, knowing tilt to her head. "He's not here to interfere," she murmured, almost to herself. "He's tracking something."
"Tracking?" Rikia looked between them nervously. "What does that mean? What is he looking for?"
Thal finally paused beside the cot of the man with blistered arms. His face lowered slightly, breath quiet as he scented the air between them. The golden glow in his eyes brightened a fraction not with emotion but recognition.
The Harbinger's stain.
Present here too.
Of course it was.
Rikia reached out, almost grabbing his arm before losing her nerve halfway. "Please just say something. If you're with the Triad or with the commander or "
Nothing.
He had already stepped away, moving down the line, tracing the invisible corruption through the room with the unerring certainty of a creature born to sense it.
Alinda finally sighed softly. "Rikia, it's pointless." She gave a small shrug. "He won't listen. He's following something you can't see."
Rikia's breath stuttered. "But this is an infirmary, not a battlefield!"
Alinda's eyes drifted after Thal's imposing form as he reached the end of the row. "Tonight," she said quietly, "it's both."
Thal's steps never slowed.
He had found the strongest concentration of the scent and without a word, he turned toward a side hallway deeper in the building.
Toward whatever the Harbinger had left next.
And he was going after it, alone.
Thal stopped beside the man whose eyes were still leaking thin trails of blood. He leaned in just slightly, breath steady as he drew in the air, tasting the wrongness woven through it. His jaw tightened. The lines of his face, usually carved from stone, twitched with something very close to disgust.
"…damn it," he muttered under his breath, low and rough. "The stain is everywhere."
Rikia froze.
She was only a few steps behind him but the way he said it like he recognized it, like it wasn't just sickness or plague or misfortune sent a ripple of unease through her chest.
She swallowed hard. "S-sir? What do you mean by… stain?"
Thal didn't answer.
Or rather, he didn't even acknowledge the question.
His eyes moved from patient to patient, each glance sharpening the severity of his expression. Whatever he sensed, whatever he recognized, it revolted him.
Alinda, who had been leaning casually against a wall moments ago, straightened her crimson eyes sharpening with interest. She watched him closely now, studying each subtle shift of his shoulders, the faint tension in his jaw. For Thal to show distaste this openly… that alone was alarming.
Rikia's voice trembled slightly as she tried again, "What what is it you're seeing? Please, if you know anything "
Thal turned from the bleeding man and made his way toward the back wall, ignoring her completely.
Rikia's breath hitched. Fear and frustration tangled in her expression. She was too intimidated to follow him directly too aware of how small she looked beside him, too aware that he hadn't spoken more than one sentence since walking in. So she turned desperately to the next person she hoped might answer.
"Please," she whispered, pulling lightly at Alinda's sleeve. "What does he mean? Is there something we should know? Do you know what's causing this?"
Alinda looked down at the trembling healer, her expression unreadable. "If he wanted to tell your Church something," she said calmly, "he would've told them in the cathedral."
"But…"
"He's not lying," Alinda added. "He's not exaggerating. Whatever he senses… it's real and it's everywhere."
That didn't comfort Rikia in the slightest.
Thal finished his silent inspection of the room. He'd seen enough more than enough. The discoloration of the walls, the hairline fractures in the stone beneath the cots, the irregular pulses in the air… it all confirmed what he already suspected.
The Harbinger's influence wasn't isolated.
It had spread wide, soaked deep, touched too many.
He turned toward the exit without another look back.
Alinda immediately pushed off the wall, following in his wake without hesitation. She shot Rikia a faint half-smile as she passed something between sympathy and warning then vanished through the door after him.
Thal stepped out into the night air, the faint breeze stirring the red fabric of his new kilt. Alinda caught up beside him easily, matching his long strides with effortless grace.
Rikia lingered in the doorway for several seconds, heart pounding harder than before. Her gaze darted from the patients to the empty threshold.
"…he knew something," she whispered to herself. "He knew exactly what he was looking at."
One of the older medics approached her, concern creasing his brow. "Rikia? What happened?"
She swallowed, then forced her voice steady. "Go to the Cathedral," she said quietly. "Tell the High Canon we need oversight and quickly. Something is wrong with these patients and something else is moving through the city."
Outside, the noise of the infirmary faded behind them, swallowed by the quiet of the street. Lanternlight stretched along the cobblestones, and a soft wind moved between buildings carrying the faint smell of salt and iron. Thal walked several paces ahead before finally stopping beneath an empty archway where shadows gathered thick enough to feel private.
Alinda joined him there, arms loosely folded beneath her cloak. Her expression was calm but her gaze was sharp.
"Well?" she asked softly. "Did you find anything?"
Thal stared down the street a long moment, as if expecting the stone itself to answer for him. "No," he said at last. "Nothing I can follow. The Harbinger's influence is spread too far. It's soaked into the buildings, the water, even the air. There's no trail to chase."
Alinda blinked once, genuinely taken aback. "Nothing? With it that strong?"
"It's everywhere," Thal repeated. "Too wide. Too deep. It's like trying to track a lake by following a raindrop."
Alinda frowned. "How would it get like this? A Harbinger saturating an entire city this quickly Saul should have noticed long before any of us."
Thal nodded once, slowly. "He should have acted already."
The worry in his voice was subdued but unmistakable.
Alinda shifted her weight, lowering her voice. "Do you think something has happened to him?"
"I don't know." Thal looked upward, jaw tightening. "Nothing on this continent should be able to take down a Nephilim. Not quietly. Not without leaving ruin behind."
Alinda didn't argue. She knew that was true. Nephilim were not just strong they were singular forces. When they disappeared, the world tended to notice.
"Unless…" she murmured.
Thal's eyes narrowed. "Unless what?"
Alinda hesitated, her mind working through a very short list of things capable of threatening their kind. Most of those possibilities were theoretical or long forgotten. Only one had ever been real.
"…unless a Nakba is involved," she said.
The word landed between them like cold iron.
His eyes lowered briefly, as if some unseen memory had pressed itself against him like an old bruise.
Alinda spoke again, quieter and slower. "But it shouldn't be possible this soon. Another host wouldn't have emerged already. Not without… circumstances."
Thal glanced at her, waiting.
She stopped herself, her lips pressing into a thin line. For a heartbeat she looked away, the streetlamps catching red in her eyes. "…even with her gone."
Silence settled between them, heavy but not hostile.
The wind shifted again, brushing at the hem of Thal's crimson kilt.
"If a Nakba had taken Saul," Thal said quietly, "we would feel the aftermath. Cities do not survive something like that intact."
Alinda nodded. "I agree. So if Saul is silent… it may not be death. It may be restraint. Or conflict. Or something clouding his senses."
"Or something distracting him," Thal added.
Neither found comfort in that.
Alinda tapped one gloved finger against her arm. "Still… this degree of contamination shouldn't exist without intervention. If Saul were active, he'd have burned half the lower districts to ash by now."
Thal exhaled slowly. "Which is why I worry."
After another long pause, Alinda glanced toward the infirmary, her voice calm but weighted. "If this Harbinger is beneath the city and no Nephilim has countered it… the sickness might only be the smallest part of its influence."
Thal didn't contradict her.
He just stared into the dark ahead, golden eyes reflecting torchlight like distant embers.
"We will find the Archon," he said quietly. "But the Harbinger may reveal itself first."
"And if it does?" Alinda asked.
Thal's hand curled at his side, the tension barely visible.
"Then this city will not be ready."
They walked in silence at first, lanterns flickering as the night wind threaded through narrow streets. Somewhere distant, a bell tolled across Lions Gate but here it was quiet enough that their footsteps seemed too loud.
Thal's expression didn't change but the weight in his shoulders did. He wasn't simply thinking he was circling something in his mind, something he didn't want to give shape to by admitting it aloud.
Alinda watched him from the corner of her eye.
"You're not just worried about Saul," she said softly. "You're worried about us. Your kind."
He didn't deny it.
"There's too much of us in this," Thal answered at last, voice low. "Harbingers, Archons, Nephilim… and whatever is stirring beneath the Kruul. This war was supposed to belong to nations. To kings. To armies." His jaw tightened. "But pieces of our world keep bleeding into it."
"And you don't like that," Alinda said, not accusing simply acknowledging.
He shook his head once. "No. Because once Nephilim become part of a war… it stops being a war. It becomes a reckoning. Cities don't survive that. People don't survive that."
Alinda walked a little closer, cloak whispering around her legs. "Then we need more eyes open. More blades ready. You can't hold this alone. You already know that."
He remained silent.
"We should tell them," she pressed. "Nyra. Luken. Valen. They're not children, Thal. They're already fighting Archons; they deserve to know one is here and if a Harbinger is somewhere beneath our feet, they need to at least be prepared for the shadow of it."
He didn't slow, didn't look at her.
"Not yet."
The refusal was quiet but firm.
Alinda's brows knit slightly. "Because you don't trust them? Or because you don't trust what they'll do with that information?"
"Neither," he answered. "I trust them to fight. That's the problem."
They turned down another street. The air here smelled faintly of wet stone and burning oil. Voices drifted from taverns and homes but to Thal they sounded distant, like echoes of a world he wasn't standing in.
"If I tell them an Archon is here," he continued, "they will hunt it. Immediately. Even without a trail. Even without knowing how deep the danger runs. They will throw themselves at something they can't yet see." His eyes narrowed. "And if I tell them a Harbinger's stain is already woven into the bones of this city, they will panic. They will start looking for something they are not ready to confront."
Alinda exhaled slowly. "You think keeping them blind is safer?"
"For now," he said. "Until I know more. Until I can make sure the danger doesn't swallow them first."
His voice was steady but beneath it, something trembled.
Alinda's gaze softened not pity but understanding. "You're not just thinking about them."
His silence answered for him.
That small figure who followed him. The boy who smiled too little, who carried too much, who should never have been dragged into this world of blood and ancient horrors.
The boy who called him father.
"If this war drags Nephilim deeper," Thal murmured, mostly to himself, "then none of them should be anywhere near it. Especially not him."
He didn't stop walking however his steps felt heavier.
Alinda didn't argue this time. She didn't joke. Didn't tease. She simply walked beside him, matching his pace.
They were quiet again yet it was not an empty silence.
It was the silence of two people staring into the same storm from different angles and knowing it was still coming.
He would not let them bear it.
Not Nyra with the unfinished scars in her voice.
Not Valen with that reckless light in his grin.
Not Luken with the quiet fear he pretended was composure.
Not Neo especially not Neo.
This burden belonged to his kind. To those made for ruin and built to stand in storms that turned cities to bone. Children of dust were meant to live in sunlight and streets and laughter and ordinary tragedies. They were meant to grow old. To argue. To fail. To try again. To die human.
The Nephilim had never been given that choice.
"This is not a matter for them," Thal murmured, almost to the empty street rather than to Alinda. "It never should have been."
His voice wasn't angry.
It was grieving.
And yet…
He stopped walking.
Lanternlight carved harsh lines across his face, painting gold across the unyielding planes of his features. For a long breath he simply stood, staring at nothing, jaw clenched tight enough that muscle trembled beneath the skin. His chest rose, then fell, slow and deliberate, as if he had to remind himself to breathe.
Alinda waited.
She didn't push him.
"There was a time," Thal said at last, "when we could carry these things alone. When we could keep our storms far from the lives beneath us. When the worlds of men and Nephilim barely touched at all." His throat tightened. "But that time is gone."
He looked back toward the city the spires, the clustered roofs, the distant veins of torchlight threading the districts. The place breathed beneath him, wounded and stubborn all at once.
"They're already in it," he muttered. "Even without knowing. They're standing in the fallout. Stepping through the shadows our kind are casting. They bleed in the wake of things they cannot name." His hand curled at his side. "And I am lying to myself if I pretend they are untouched."
Silence followed him again but this silence was different.
It was no longer denial. It was reluctant acknowledgment.
Alinda exhaled lightly, something like relief hidden under patience. "So…?"
"I will not throw them into it," he said, voice quiet but iron-hard. "I won't hand them the blade and tell them to cut their way through the dark meant for us." A pause. "But I may not get to choose whether they stand in it."
His gaze shifted upward, toward a star-choked sky. His eyes were very old then older than cities, older than faith, older than any word men had invented for dread.
"If this war insists on dragging mortals into our shadows," Thal said softly, "then I will decide how much of that shadow touches them. I will carry what I can. I will break what I must and if the burden of my race demands blood…" He drew in a slow breath. "Then it will find mine first."
He began walking again.
Alinda followed.
She didn't smile this time, didn't tease him, didn't reach for false comfort. She only stayed beside him because if the sky was going to fall someone needed to be close enough to catch what pieces of him might break when it did.
Alinda watched him walk, his shadow moving ahead of them like a dark tide rolling through the lanternlight. Even with the city's noise muted by night, even with all the stone and distance between them and the infirmary, she could still feel the weight in him. Not fear. Not doubt.
Responsibility. It was strange, really.
To her, Thal might have been the only Nephilim who truly cared for mortals. He hid it behind that old language 'children of dust' as if the phrase was meant to keep them small, meant to remind himself not to get attached but she'd seen the truth too many times to be fooled by words. He didn't say it with hatred. He said it like one might speak of something fragile. Something brief. Something that shouldn't have to carry the burdens of ancient things.
Other Nephilim cared, in their own ways. Some protected villages out of duty, some defended human realms because it aligned with old pacts, some believed mortals were worth preserving like a garden is worth tending but Thal…
Thal looked like he would burn the world down if it meant saving one street of them.
He didn't talk like a savior. He didn't posture like a guardian. He didn't even seem to realize the shape of what he was doing most of the time but it was there in every decision: the way he took the front first, the way he stepped between danger and those who couldn't withstand it, the way he carried guilt for blood that wasn't even his fault.
Alinda didn't say any of it aloud. She kept it tucked behind her teeth, where all the sharp truths lived.
Was he always like this?
Probably.
Not with intention, though. Not with clarity. It was simply his nature an instinct dressed as stoicism. He had always moved like someone who was built to endure what others could not, and so he simply… did.
But something had changed.
Something had sharpened it.
Alinda's gaze lingered on the broad line of his back, the way he walked as if the city's weight sat across his shoulders and he didn't want anyone else to feel it.
And a thought brushed her mind soft, dangerous.
Quincy.
She caught it before it finished forming, before it could grow teeth and dig in. She didn't let her mind go too far down that road. Not tonight. Not when Thal already looked like he was carrying too many ghosts with too little sleep between them.
Still… she wondered if that was when it became something more than instinct. When he first saw someone else someone not even born of mortal dust care so fiercely that it seemed irrational. Someone who could be broken and still smile, still give, still protect.
Alinda swallowed the rest of the thought and left it unfinished, like closing a door gently so it didn't creak.
They walked on.
Lions Gate stretched around them in its uneasy quiet banners drooping in the night air, windows shuttered, distant voices dampened by fear. It wasn't the same city as it had been in daylight. At night it felt like something waiting to rot. Something already infected.
And now… mortals were killing mortals.
Not Archons. Not Harbingers. Not creatures of old ruin.
People.
Alinda's eyes narrowed slightly as she stared at the streets, imagining nobles tearing at nobles, houses devouring each other for land and pride while something ancient bled into the water beneath their feet. It was almost laughable. The children of dust fighting each other while storms gathered overhead.
Thal's posture didn't change but Alinda felt it anyway that restraint in him, that tightness like a chain pulled too far.
What would he do if it came to it?
If it became a war of mortals politics and bloodlines and petty vengeance would he still keep his hands clean of it? Would he still stand aside?
Or would something in him finally snap?
Fall might be right…
The thought made her mouth go faintly dry.
Nephilim weren't meant to live in cities. They weren't meant to play in mortal games. They weren't meant to carry the emotional weight of fragile beings who aged and died in the blink of an ancient eye. There was an order to the world, cruel but stable, and Nephilim existed outside it. Above it. Beyond it.
Yet Thal kept stepping into it anyway.
Alinda looked at him again, more quietly this time, the intensity in her gaze hidden behind her calm.
If the world kept forcing him to choose between his kind's burden and mortal suffering… she wasn't sure Thal could keep choosing without breaking.
And if a Nephilim like him broke
it wouldn't just be Thal that shattered.
It would be everyone near him.
Alinda walked beside him for a while longer, letting the silence stretch until it felt too dense to breathe through. Thal's pace never changed. His gaze stayed forward. His expression stayed carved from that same calm stone he always wore when the world was trying to pry him open.
It was infuriating, in a way.
Not because he was cold he wasn't. Not really but because he treated worry like it was an obligation he had to swallow alone. Like if he carried it quietly enough, no one else would be harmed by it.
Alinda slowed half a step, then reached out and laid her hand against his forearm.
It wasn't a dramatic gesture. Not tender either. It was grounding. A simple pressure meant to tether him back to the moment.
"You can't keep holding so much in," she said quietly.
Thal's golden eyes shifted toward her hand briefly, then to her face. For a breath he looked almost surprised as if he'd forgotten he wasn't alone in the street.
Then the walls went back up.
"It's fine," he said.
Two words. Flat. Final.
Alinda's hand stayed there another heartbeat. Her eyes searched his face, waiting for something else a crack, a truth, even anger. Anything real but Thal simply kept walking, as though the conversation hadn't happened at all.
Alinda's expression didn't change.
But something in her did.
"Right," she murmured, pulling her hand back as if she hadn't touched him in the first place. "Fine."
She didn't press further. She could have. She knew where to cut if she wanted to draw blood from silence but tonight wasn't the night to dig deeper into Thal's ribs and demand the truth from whatever lived behind them.
So she turned away.
The tavern was only a short distance back. She moved through the streets swiftly, her steps quieter than they should've been, blending into shadows like she belonged there. Lanterns flickered as she passed. A drunk didn't notice her. A pair of guards looked up and blinked, then forgot they'd seen her at all.
When Jason's Inn came into view, it sat like a warm pocket of light against the darker streets, the hum of muted laughter and the occasional clink of mugs still bleeding through its walls. It was comfort. It was safety. It was where the others slept, unaware of half the rot crawling beneath their feet.
Alinda stopped at the edge of it.
She didn't go inside.
Not yet.
Instead, she glanced upward, bent her knees, and sprang.
In one smooth motion she caught the lip of the roof and pulled herself up, then climbed higher until she reached the top ridge where the tiles flattened slightly beneath the moonlight. There she sat down, quiet and unseen, the city stretching around her like a sleeping beast.
She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, pressing her face against them as if she could hide from thought itself.
For a while she just stayed there.
The wind moved through her hair. The tavern's warmth rose faintly from below. Somewhere distant, bells and murmurs continued their restless cycle through Lions Gate. Alinda didn't look at any of it.
She stared into the dark space behind her eyelids, breathing slow and measured, her fingers tightening slightly around her own arms. Not because she was afraid, nor because she was weak but because for the first time in a long time, she felt something close to helplessness… and she hated it.
Thal was walking alone in the dark again and no matter how sharp her tongue was, no matter how fearless she pretended to be, she couldn't force him to let her share what he carried.
So she sat on the roof with her knees to her face, the moonlight washing her armor silver, and listened to the city breathe quietly wondering how long it would be before "fine" finally cracked.
She let out a slow breath, and for once, the thought that rose wasn't a joke, or a sneer, or a dismissive shrug.
It was fear, quiet and real. Not fear of what hunted the city but fear for him.
Because if something finally broke inside Thal if the burden he carried cracked him from within Alinda wasn't sure she could stop the fall. She wasn't sure she could pull him back, no matter how fast she ran or how hard she fought.
She stared at the roof tiles beneath her, jaw tight, and held that fear close to her chest where it wouldn't show and the worst part was that she didn't know whether she was afraid of losing him… or afraid that when he finally snapped, she might be powerless to save anyone from what he became.