On the fourth night, Havelyn woke without screaming.
That alone was already a significant improvement.
The campfire had dwindled to a small ring of reddish embers in the center of the ravine, with no tall flames or smoke that might slip through the opening between the rocks and give away our position.
Near the entrance to the fissure, Tsukumo rested against the stone wall.
On the other side of the camp, Sahger slept sitting upright with his back against a rock, in a position so uncomfortable I could barely understand how he considered it rest.
His helmet lay within reach, right beside his disassembled spear.
I was the only one truly awake, Kazekiba resting across my legs as I watched the embers slowly lose their color.
The sound of fabric scraping against stone caught my attention.
I looked back and found Havelyn with her eyes open.
For several seconds, she didn't move.
She simply stared at the uneven ceiling of the ravine, as though she needed to confirm where she was before allowing her body to breathe again.
Then she tried to push herself upright, but her hand slipped.
I stood immediately.
"Take it slow," I warned.
"I can do it," she shot back stubbornly.
She couldn't.
Her arm shook violently beneath her own weight, and even then, she tried again.
I moved closer, stopping only inches before touching her.
Havelyn noticed my hesitation. Her blue eyes dropped to my hand before returning to my face.
This time, no claws appeared.
"Can I help?" I asked.
She hesitated for a moment before nodding.
I slipped an arm behind her shoulders and helped her sit against the stone.
Her wings were still immobilized beneath the bandages Sahger had wrapped around them, but one trembled as she shifted position, making her face tighten in pain.
"Don't move it," I said.
"I know."
"I wanted to know if it still hurt."
I stared at her for a moment.
"It still hurts a lot."
I picked up the waterskin.
She held it with both hands and drank slowly. When she finished, she remained watching me.
The faint glow of the embers emphasized the scars across her face. Some looked old.
Others were brutally recent.
"Don't you sleep?" she asked, breaking the silence.
"Sometimes."
She handed the waterskin back.
"How long have you been here?"
"Four days. You slept a lot."
Havelyn frowned, looking down at her hands.
"And you stayed here waiting all that time."
"I needed you to be able to walk before we started dragging your body around."
"You didn't have to wait for me."
"Leaving you here goes against my code."
She fell silent, her gaze shifting between Tsukumo and Sahger.
"Why did you invade that tower?"
"We needed to confirm something."
"Do you do that often? Doesn't sound like a very good hobby."
I remembered the elf in Syfles.
And so many other people who had crossed my path before her.
"When I can."
Havelyn lowered her head, her voice softening.
"Thank you."
The words felt far too small for the weight of everything that had happened.
"You don't owe me anything."
"I didn't say I did."
"Your face did," I shot back.
She raised an eyebrow.
For a moment, Havelyn looked offended, but then she turned away.
I'd hit the mark.
"When my wings are better, I can help you," she insisted.
"I already told you. You don't have to."
"You got me out of that tower. To me, that was a contract."
"Then you made a terrible deal."
A short sound finally escaped through her nose.
Not quite a laugh.
But it was something.
Her expression changed soon after.
Havelyn began studying me with a different intensity, examining every feature of my face, from my eyes to the line of my jaw, until her gaze stopped on the hair tied at the back of my neck.
"What is it?" I asked, noticing the scrutiny.
She hesitated.
"I'm still trying to figure out... where I know you from."
She had already asked me that before passing out, but at the time I'd assumed it was delirium from the pain.
Behind us, the sound of a small stone dropping into the sand broke the silence.
Tsukumo's eyes were still closed.
But he was listening.
I glanced at him and watched his golden eyes open.
Sahger didn't appear to be asleep anymore either.
"From where?" Tsukumo asked, taking over the conversation.
"I don't know," Havelyn replied, rubbing her temples.
Sahger spoke from the other side of the fire.
"Do you know how long you were in that tower?"
Her expression immediately closed off.
"I'm not sure, but I remember it was still summer where I lived."
"Then it's already been a few months," I said.
She looked at me again.
"I'll remember eventually."
"If she needs to remember, she will," Sahger said.
I silently agreed and let the subject die among the embers.
When morning came, things became tense.
Havelyn decided she was going to try opening her right wing, and Sahger nearly tore out what remained of his gray hair in frustration.
"No!" he said flatly.
"I can do it. I felt the muscles respond."
"You'd also feel the muscles tearing along with half the stitches I put in."
She stood near the spring, wearing a dark tunic improvised from Sahger's fabric.
Havelyn was stubborn in a way I had never seen before.
Ignoring the warning, she forced the wing open a few inches.
The limb immediately trembled, and the girl's face went pale, but she refused to back down.
"Great. Now close it," the hunter ordered.
"Just a little more..."
"Close it. That stubbornness of yours is going to kill you."
Her blue eyes narrowed in open defiance.
"They've tried worse."
Sahger sighed in defeat and looked toward Tsukumo, who was resting on a nearby rock.
"Tsukumo... reduce the weight of that wing before she tears it off her back."
Tsukumo raised his eyes, expressionless.
"Don't drag me into this."
"I don't need help," Havelyn protested.
I noticed the change immediately.
Her wing became lighter, relieving the pressure on the injuries.
With its weight reduced, Havelyn managed to open it a few more inches.
The wing trembled.
She drew a deep breath.
And finally gave in, folding it back against her body.
"There," Sahger said, satisfied.
She huffed in frustration.
"That was ridiculous."
"What's ridiculous is you complaining. Yesterday you couldn't even sit up on your own."
"It's still ridiculous."
I walked past them, watching the exchange.
"She's going to like you, Sahger."
"She already does," he replied.
"I do not," Havelyn shot back immediately.
We had no intention of staying there much longer.
Our presence on Vahr-Nei had already been discovered, the Tower no longer existed, and the bounty on our heads was probably already circulating through entire sectors.
Every hour we remained still gave the mercenaries more time to organize their routes.
So we spread everything we had across a large flat stone beside the spring: Kânia's three sheets, the credentials stolen in Syfles, the drawing of the symbol crossed by three lines, and the coordinates recovered from the terminal.
Sahger unfolded a physical map of the sector in the middle of everything.
"That's all?" the hunter asked skeptically.
"That's it."
"It's not much."
Tsukumo took over, tracing the routes across the map with one finger.
"We entered Vahr-Nei after crossing the Yorm Belt and Syfles."
"The issue is that most of the transports we tracked ended in this region here."
"That's because Vahr-Nei functions as a redistribution hub," Sahger explained.
"Weapons, ore, information, people... things that shouldn't exist."
That was when I noticed Havelyn move.
Barely.
But her gaze had locked onto the paper bearing the medallion's symbol.
"Havelyn?" I called.
Without answering, she braced herself against the wall and slowly stood.
"Don't even think about flying," Sahger warned.
"I'm not going to fly."
She approached the stone, touched the drawing of the symbol, and all the color drained from her face.
"I know this. It was on the crates in the tower. Some came in. Others went out."
I looked at Sahger and could tell from his expression that he hadn't known that part.
"Explain," I said.
Havelyn wet her lips.
"I wasn't kept on that floor all the time. Sometimes they took me downstairs. I saw corridors and prisoners arriving. There were a lot of them. Some were gods too."
"We saw plenty of those corridors with cells, but most of them were empty."
"Some went into the cells. Others only stayed one or two nights before they were taken away."
My thoughts raced several steps ahead.
"Taken where?"
"I don't know. But their transports were different from the cargo vehicles."
"They had no identification, and they weren't escorted by the same guards."
"Actually, the tower guards were afraid of them. They stopped talking whenever those vehicles arrived."
"And every one of them had this symbol."
Havelyn closed her eyes.
"They kept saying a word... the name of a place."
My heart beat harder.
Tsukumo offered her charcoal and paper.
"Don't force yourself to remember the name."
"Draw what you saw."
She sat down, and after several minutes of hesitation, the charcoal finally touched the paper.
A larger circle.
Two shapes orbiting it.
A star.
A planet.
And something resembling a curved structure between them.
Sahger studied the drawing cautiously.
A direction.
It wasn't perfect, but it was a real beginning.
I remembered a crucial detail and looked at Havelyn.
"You said there was a difference between the prisoners who stayed and the ones who left. What was it?"
"The ones who left were treated better," she explained.
"They were given food and clean water."
"The guards said they absolutely could not arrive dead."
I looked down at the map.
"Laura wasn't killed on Ruitan. Arthur kept her alive, and those hooded figures took her through space. This might have been the route they used."
"To avoid drawing too much attention, they hid her on a dying planet like this one, then moved her to another prison closer to the final destination."
I punched the rock beside me.
"It has to be."
"Laura," Havelyn murmured.
"Who is she?"
It took me a moment to find the words.
I didn't want them to know about our relationship yet.
"The person we came here to find."
Havelyn went still.
She didn't answer.
She simply looked away, and I saw something change in her expression.
She knew I hadn't told her everything.
We spent nearly two hours frantically comparing information, but something continued to bother me.
Sahger was far too quiet.
I couldn't shake the feeling that all of our exhausting attempts at deduction could be resolved with a single word from him.
Then why isn't he saying anything? I wondered, staring at the hunter's rigid figure across the map.
"Suki?"
Havelyn's voice pulled me sharply back to reality.
I blinked and focused on the group again.
"Yeah?"
"So we're agreed, then?" Tsukumo asked, wearing the expression of someone who had already noticed my distraction several minutes ago.
I rubbed the back of my neck and let out a short breath.
"Sorry. I got lost in thought."
"What's the plan you decided on?"
Sahger leaned toward me.
He read my discomfort immediately, but true to his pragmatic nature, he went straight to the point.
"The plan, for now, is to wait," the hunter said.
"Give Havelyn's memory some time to bring back another useful piece and let her recover."
"All right," I agreed without hesitation.
"I wasn't planning to leave before she was at least somewhat better anyway."
Havelyn looked down at her own hands, and I saw her bandaged wings tense slightly.
The embarrassment was obvious on her face.
She clearly felt like a burden.
An anchor slowing down our journey.
But I didn't see her that way.
If the place we were heading toward was dangerous and obscure enough to make even Sahger carefully measure his silence, then I needed to make sure every one of us was whole before we took the next step.