Page 6 of Nansar
The last had been recent. A smuggler who'd thought he could cut through the passes to avoid scavengers. The Welati had left him there for weeks, a rotting reminder that their borders were not a suggestions.
"I'm aware of the risks," Ako said. "But we've been running satellite surveillance. I'm sending you a marked route that should keep you clear."
My comm vibrated again. A topographical map materialized—a winding path through narrow valleys and ridge lines, carefully plotted to skirt the known Welati settlements.
"It's not perfect," Ako admitted. "But it should keep you out of their way. Move fast and stay quiet, and you might make it through without incident."
Might. The best odds we were going to get.
I studied the route, burning it into memory. Five days at minimum, maybe six if the terrain proved as treacherous as it looked. Five days exposed in the wilderness with a human who likely possessed no survival skills, while every criminal on Palaydium hunted for her.
"I'll go," I said.
Pride flickered across my father's face.
The expression was fleeting—barely a shift in his eyes, a slight softening at the corners—but I caught it. That look used to be commonplace when I was a youngling. Now it was rare enough to make my chest tighten.
I wanted to hate how much it mattered. How that single flicker of approval could still reach through all the layers of shame and failure I'd wrapped around myself like armor. But I couldn't deny the warmth that spread through me.
"May the goddess protect you, my son." Emotion made his voice tremble. Then his image dissolved into flickering blue light.
Ahrick turned to me, his jaw set with determination. "I'll follow behind. Someone needs to slow down Persico's mob, and I've been looking for an excuse to fuck with him."
"Ahrick—"
"Save it." He crossed his arms, that stubborn glint in his eyes I knew too well. "You're faster alone anyway. Besides, you trying to keep a human alive through the Welati territories? I can't wait to hear about it."
Despite the gravity of the situation, his words pulled a reluctant warmth through my chest. Ahrick had always stood at my back, even when it meant walking straight into danger.
I powered down the comm unit, watching the holographic map dissolve into nothing—but not before transferring the coordinates to my cobbled-together tracker. Ahrick wrapped the comm in oilcloth, then returned it to its hiding spot beneath the loose floorboard. The cache had kept the secret safe for years now, buried under rotting wood and stone where prying eyes would never think to look.
"Five days," he said, pressing the board back into place and scattering dirt over the seams with his boot. "Six if the weather turns against you."
I nodded, my mind already racing through what I'd need. The list was short. Everything we owned could fit in a single pack.
The shack seemed to shrink around me as I gathered my meager supplies. My sword came first—a gift from Ahrickafter my first real training session, the blade still wickedly sharp despite the constellation of nicks along its edge. I strapped it across my back, the familiar weight settling between my shoulders like a second skin.
I was already wearing my entire wardrobe. The black leather pants I'd been sentenced in, worn butter-soft now from years of hard use. My shirt had been sacrificed long ago, torn into strips for bandages and cleaning rags when necessity demanded it. The vest remained though—dark leather scarred by time and survival, hanging open over my bare chest. My boots were scuffed nearly colorless in places, the soles worn thin but stubbornly holding together. It wasn't much, but it was mine. The condemned man's uniform, transformed into a survivor's armor.
Two throwing blades slid into my belt. I tested their balance, the weight familiar in my palm, then secured them properly. The water skins came next—both patched more times than I could count but still functional. I filled them from our rain barrel, the water cold and faintly metallic on my tongue when I tested it.
The meal bars lived in a sealed container beneath another loose floorboard—salvaged from a supply ship that had crashed in the eastern wastes months back. Each bar was designed to sustain a full-grown male for a day, which meant they'd last me maybe half that with my metabolism. I grabbed ten, leaving the rest for Ahrick.
"Take them all," he said, his voice cutting through my calculations.
"You need to eat too."
"I can hunt. You'll be moving fast through hostile territory." He scooped up the remaining bars and shoved them into my pack. "Don't be an idiot about this. You'll have a fragile human female to keep alive."
I didn't argue. He was right, as usual.
Ahrick stood there in the dim light filtering through the gaps in our walls, something unreadable flickering across his face. Then he gripped my shoulder, the gesture brief but weighted with everything we didn't say.
"Get the human to safety," he said quietly. "And then get yourself back here in one piece."
"I will."
I let my gaze sweep the shack one final time. It wasn't much—walls cobbled together from salvaged hull plating, scrap wood, and whatever else we'd managed to scavenge over the years. The gaps between panels let in wind and rain when the weather turned vicious, and during winter we stuffed them with rags just to keep from freezing to death. The roof was a patchwork quilt of corrugated metal sheets that rattled ominously in strong winds and leaked in at least three places we'd never quite managed to seal.
