The southern road was worse than the main route.
Not dramatically — just neglected. Loose stone along the ridges, mud where the ground dipped. Nothing catastrophic. Just enough to slow you down if you weren't careful.
Ryn moved through it without complaint.
Aarif didn't.
Every uneven step sent a dull protest through his arm. Not sharp pain — something worse. A warning. He ignored it. Adjusting his gait would show. A wrong shadow was easier to read than a tired one.
So he walked straight and let it hurt.
"They're still behind us," Ryn said around midday.
Aarif nodded. He'd felt it too. Not instinct. Just pattern. They weren't chasing anymore — they were maintaining.
"How many?"
"Two. Third broke off. Likely cutting ahead."
That was worse.
"We leave the road," Aarif said.
Ryn didn't argue this time.
The east side of the ridge was rougher, but hidden.
Twenty minutes in, the arm stopped cooperating.
A short climb. Nothing serious. A week ago, it wouldn't have registered.
Now it did.
He made it up one-handed.
At the top, he stopped.
"Show me," Ryn said.
"We don't have—"
"Show me."
Aarif did.
Ryn unwrapped the arm. Looked. Rewrapped it tighter.
"You're making it worse."
"Yes."
"If we get caught—"
"I know."
Ryn tied it off harder than necessary.
"That's not good enough," he said.
Aarif didn't answer.
They dropped down the ridge's east face.
The road below was empty.
"Too clean," Ryn said. "She's ahead of us."
Aarif didn't argue.
"We don't go to the settlement," Ryn added.
"Then we go where she can't predict."
Ryn pointed east.
Broken ground.
No roads.
Good.
The hills punished mistakes.
Aarif made two.
The first — a slip. The arm caught instinctively. The impact compressed the fracture. He kept moving.
The second put him on the ground.
Ryn was there instantly.
"How bad?"
Aarif didn't answer immediately.
Then, "No extension. Not today."
Ryn exhaled slowly.
"Then we stop running."
"They're behind us."
"Then we choose where they find us."
A pause.
"Pick the ground," Ryn said.
Aarif picked it.
Two boulders. Narrow gap. High ground behind. Clear view down the slope.
They waited.
"How's your shadow?" Ryn asked.
Aarif looked.
Flat. Ordinary.
At the edge — something faint.
"There's something," he said. "I don't know what."
Ryn studied it.
"Not Kael," he said. "The method."
Aarif frowned. "I can't use it."
"Not yet."
Footsteps below.
Two.
Not hiding.
Aarif stood.
Stepped into view.
They stopped at the base of the slope.
A man and a woman. Veran's people.
They looked at him.
At his shadow.
The woman's expression shifted.
"The inhabitation is gone."
"Yes," Aarif said.
"Then you're not the target."
"Who was?"
"The host."
"Kael is gone."
The man spoke. "Completed?"
"Yes."
A glance between them.
"Veran needs that confirmed," the woman said.
"Then he'll keep sending people," Ryn said from above.
She looked up. At his shadow.
Recognition.
"Fourth-stage fragment," she said quietly.
Ryn didn't respond.
She looked back at Aarif.
"We're not here to fight," she said. "That changed."
A pause.
"He'll come himself."
Aarif said nothing.
They left.
Silence returned.
Ryn dropped down beside him.
"Veran moves," he said.
"Yes."
"And we have…" he glanced at Aarif's shadow, "that."
"Not enough," Aarif said.
"Not yet."
Aarif looked at his shadow.
The shape was still there.
Faint.
Waiting.
Not something he understood.
Not something he could use.
Yet.
"Move," he said.
They moved.