The next morning began like most bad ideas: quietly, and with someone trying to pretend things aren't getting worse.
The path sloped downward, which Lyra had decided was the mountain's way of lulling them into false hope. If there was one thing she trusted less than Thalin's perfectly timed shelter suggestions, it was gravity.
Kaal was silent again.
His footsteps were steady but deliberate, like his body was made of porcelain and stubbornness. He was pale beneath his cloak, skin stretched too tight, eyes bruised with shadows. Lyra watched the way his fingers twitched at his side, like they wanted to hold something. Or maybe hide something.
Thalin walked a few paces ahead, his pack slung over one shoulder, journal tucked under his arm, humming quietly to himself like he wasn't surrounded by an assassins' worth of tension.
Lyra didn't like it.
She didn't like how easy he looked on the trail. Or how his boots always managed to avoid the worst of the rocks. Or how he never tripped, never complained, never asked a single damn thing about why the crown prince of a dying kingdom was traipsing through cursed mountain country with a woman who'd definitely killed before breakfast.
No questions.
He didn't even seem surprised.
That was the part that itched the most.
Not even a "Why are you here?" or "Shouldn't you be on a throne or your deathbed?"
If he was surprised by Kaal's presence, he was hiding it better than a royal scandal.
Lyra squinted at the back of his head, half-hoping he'd sprout horns just to confirm the vibes she was getting.
But Thalin just kept walking. Just kept humming.
And that, somehow, was worse.
By midday, the path narrowed into a gully. The sides were steep, the floor slick with wet moss.
Kaal slipped once. Just a half-step, just enough for Lyra's heart to punch her from the inside.
She caught his arm before he could recover and didn't let go right away.
"You good?" she asked, voice low.
"I'm fine."
"That's your favorite lie," she said, but helped him regain his footing before stepping back.
Thalin glanced over his shoulder. "There's a plateau ahead. Small ruins. We could rest there."
Lyra narrowed her eyes. "How do you always know where the ruins are?"
"I read," he said cheerfully.
"Mm-hm."
He wasn't lying. That was the problem. He never was.
Which made it all worse.
The ruins weren't much.
Just a broken archway, a scatter of old stones, half-swallowed by grass and vines. Symbols were carved into one still-standing wall, spirals, of course. Always spirals.
Kaal slumped down with a relieved sigh, cloak falling around him like a second skin.
Lyra didn't sit.
She paced.
Her side itched again.
Not burned, just pulled. Like her skin remembered something she didn't.
She glanced at Thalin, who was already scribbling notes by the wall, fingers tracing symbols with a reverence that made her jaw tighten.
Still no questions.
Not even a "Hey, why did the prince glow last night like a celestial lantern?"
Lyra leaned against a stone and crossed her arms.
It's not natural, she thought. Normal people ask things. Stupid things. Even dangerous things.
But Thalin?
Thalin acted like he already knew the answers.
Or didn't need them.
That was the part that dug under her skin like a splinter.
Later, as the sun dipped behind a curtain of mist, they sat in the silence of the ruins. Thalin roasted something vaguely root-like over a small flame. Kaal sipped water and tried not to look like he was seconds away from keeling over.
"You're quiet," he said to her.
Lyra raised a brow. "I'm always quiet."
"No," he said. "You're always loud about pretending to be quiet."
She blinked at him. "That's almost poetic."
"I've been hanging around you too long."
She smirked, then frowned. "You okay?"
He nodded. Too fast.
She didn't push. She didn't know how to.
But she noticed how he didn't eat. How he kept flexing his right hand like it didn't fit anymore.
Kaal glanced toward Thalin.
"You trust him?" he asked quietly.
Lyra didn't answer for a long time.
Then: "I trust his timing. That's what scares me."
Kaal nodded. "Same."
They didn't say anything after that.
Thalin didn't look up from his notes.
But Lyra felt it again.
That sense.
That itch behind her ribs.
He knew something.
He knew.
And he wasn't asking, because he didn't need to.
And that?
That was the worst kind of quiet.