"I didn't agree to this."
Her voice came muffled against Kael's shoulder, half complaint and half stubbornness, the kind people used when they wanted to sound like they still had control even while being carried like luggage across an ocean of sand.
"You lost voting privileges when you nearly passed out."
Kael didn't turn his head when he answered. He couldn't afford to. Not with the sun sitting directly above them like a judgmental eye, not with the air shimmering so hard that the horizon looked like it was melting, and not with a line of exhausted climbers ahead of him who kept throwing glances over their shoulders like envy could turn into a knife if it sharpened long enough.
The woman shifted on his back, trying to find a position that didn't pull at whatever injury had turned her into dead weight.
