As noon roused the mountain in its pale fire, Ira woke—but not in the manner of ordinary men.
It began with his body leaving the forge, though he knew he had not yet moved. He drifted through the doorway, through dust settling like ash in beams of light, his wounds still raw upon a body that lay behind. The forge was silent now, its breath gone, and when Ira crossed its threshold, he felt himself fall—yet not downward.
The pull was upward, into the sky's hollow vastness. Something in the blue was drawing him, stripping threads from within his chest, tugging at marrow and memory alike. Worst of all, he did not know what it was taking.
Fear stirred, sharp and instinctive—but the map pulsed faintly against him, whispering not with words but with weight: hold steady, do not resist. He clung to that warning, grit his teeth, and let the sky's hunger drag its measure.
When at last he stood before his body, pale and waiting, he gave himself forward into it.
The fall ended with pain. All the wounds earned within the forge returned at once, crashing through sinew and bone. His ribs screamed. His palms stung where stone had flayed them raw. He gasped awake with a sound half-swallowed, and beside him Zadie lurched upright, eyes wide.
The map pressed warm against his chest, alive. Ira's trembling fingers traced its folds, following the lines that curled and knotted like veins under skin. The glyphs shifted faintly, no longer mute but whispering, as though while his spirit had been gone they had climbed into his marrow and taught him their tongue. Paths through cliffs. Hidden ledges. Shale that looked solid but would betray the weight of a foot. He knew them now, though he had never walked them.
The forge was behind him, silent and lifeless, its air heavy with old ash. But the true weight lay in the look on Zadie's face.
She stood over him where he had collapsed, her cheeks wet, her hands trembling though she tried to fold them into fists. "You—piece of shit," she managed, her voice breaking through anger that was too thin to hide the fear beneath. "I had you dying in my arms, and then you wake only to—to sit there, stroking a map like it's worth more than your life?"
Her boot lashed out, a sharp kick to his side. It wasn't hard enough to hurt, but it was enough to jolt him from his half-daze. He looked up, ready to snap back, but the words burned away on his tongue.
The night had cleared overhead, the stars alive and endless, and Zadie's face swam into focus beneath them. He had seen her rage before, seen her spit venom at foes and grind her teeth through hunger, but he had never seen her like this. Her eyes shimmered, brimming until tears cut silver tracks down her cheeks. Her jaw quivered against words she couldn't form. Her whole face was raw with worry, with grief she had not allowed herself to voice until now.
It broke him in a way the trials had not.
Without hesitation, he reached for her. His arms wrapped tight, steady, as though the motion itself was a vow. He drew her in against his chest, pressing her head beneath his chin, his blood-streaked fingers burying themselves gently in her hair. His heart hammered, ribs aching, but he held her with the care of a man anchoring something fragile against a storm.
She stiffened at first, caught between fury and despair, but the fight in her bled away as his warmth enclosed her. Her forehead pressed to his chest, and with a shudder, she exhaled a breath that had been trapped in her lungs since the forge.
"I thought—" Her voice cracked, muffled against him. "I thought you were gone. I thought I watched you—" She bit the words, unable to finish.
"I'm here," he whispered, his voice hoarse, raw as gravel. "I'm here, Zadie. I'm not leaving you." His hand moved in slow circles against her back, steady, patient, coaxing her breath back into rhythm. "You kept me here. You stayed. That's why I could come back."
She didn't answer. Her fingers, white-knuckled with restraint, slowly unclenched against his cloak, curling instead into the fabric as if to make sure he was real. He kissed the top of her head without thinking, soft and wordless, the kind of gesture he had never given her before.
For a long while, the mountain was silent save for the sound of her breaths slowly steadying against him.
Only when her shivering had dulled, when her body finally sagged against his with something like exhaustion instead of terror, did he pull back enough to look at her. His thumbs brushed her cheeks, wiping away the tear-tracks, though new ones spilled to take their place.
"You don't get to do that again," she whispered, voice rough, eyes fierce even through the wet.
His mouth quirked faintly, not quite a smile, more a grim acknowledgment. "Then you'll have to keep me alive. I can't promise the mountain won't try to take me again."
"Don't joke about this." Her voice cracked sharp, her hand rising to shove against his chest—but instead of pushing him away, her palm lingered, splayed over the faint pulse of the map beneath his tunic.
He caught her wrist, gently, holding it there as though inviting her to feel it beat in time with his heart. "I'm not joking," he said softly. "I mean it. If I falter again—you're the reason I find my way back."
For the first time since the forge, she faltered under his gaze. She wanted to demand answers—about the map, about what he had seen—but the rawness of his words silenced her.
He bent then, pressing his forehead against hers, breath mingling. His voice dropped low, almost reverent. "I'll protect you, Zadie. That's a promise. Whatever these cliffs ask, whatever the trials demand, I'll carry it before I let it touch you."
She searched his face, as if trying to pierce through the cracks and find the lies, but she found none. Only a tired certainty that scared her more than any secret.
Finally, she nodded, though the motion was small, fragile. "Then don't shut me out. If you're carrying me with you, let me be with you."
His lips parted, words threatening—but he caught them, swallowing them back. The truth of the map, the whispering glyphs that only he could see, the way it bound itself to his marrow—he could not give her that. Not yet. Not because he doubted her, but because the weight of it felt like a blade meant only for him. To hand it to her would be to wound her as he had been wounded.
So he kissed her temple instead, lingering, and let silence answer where his voice could not.
When at last she steadied enough to rise, he rose with her, his hand never leaving hers. If she stumbled, his arm was there. If the path grew too narrow, his body angled to shield her from the drop. He did not retreat into silence as he once had; he pointed out the safer footholds, warned her of the loose stones before she found them.
But when her eyes drifted to the map's outline beneath his cloak, he shifted subtly, protectively. Not hiding it from distrust, but guarding her from what it carried.
The cliffs still waited. The trials still stirred. But something had shifted between them: Ira no longer moved as one man against the mountain. He moved as a shield, his every step chosen not just for survival, but for her.