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The embers pulsed, breathing light into the clearing in slow, steady waves that made the dark beyond feel alive and all-encompassing. Lune’s forearm gleamed under it, wet with a line of red and unspent chroma that slid down to the crook of her elbow. The newest line she’d carved on her wrist wavered, its edges imperfect, causing her to breathe out sharply through her teeth. It wasn’t good enough. Not by a long shot.
Her mother’s voice rose, unbidden and unwelcome in the back of her mind: If you carve it like that, it will misfire and fail the expedition. Again. Lune had been eleven during the lesson – too desperate not to disappoint.
The picto had sealed shut before she could redraw it, leaving the error trapped until her father had showed her how to pry it free later. Her mother had not spoken to her for three days, save for dictating notes that Lune had transcribed without complaint.
Now, a few feet away, Verso sat half in shadow, elbow resting loosely on his knee. At first glance, his posture seemed relaxed, but the longer she studied him from the corner of her eye, the more she noticed the taut threads beneath the surface – the subtle tension stitched into the line of his shoulders, the way his gaze lingered on her more than on the fire. He was observing her the exact same way she was watching him.
Lune hooked the nib of her knife under the strip of gold, lifted, and flicked it free as the silence stretched between them, pressing against the inside of her throat until it became a distraction. Lumina hissed as it left her skin, and a thin line of fresh blood followed in protest. The loss of a channel for her chroma to go through suddenly hollow.
“Why are you allying yourself with us?” Her voice cut the quiet, low enough not to wake the others but loud enough for him to be unable to brush it off as being unheard.
“Not a lot of options out here. In case you hadn’t noticed.” Verso tossed a small clod of dirt into the embers. It hissed, glowed briefly, then died.
“What about the previous expeditioners?” Lune healed the section of her flesh where the mistake had been made, wiped the last of the blood away, and began anew. “Did you help them too? They still failed.”
The remark stung more than she intended – she could tell by the way his jaw shifted, the faint narrowing of his eyes. A small, unwilling truth leaking through.
“That’s a terrible way to ask questions,” Verso kept his eye on were the dirt landed in the flames like it could reappear, “Do you always interrogate people like this?”
The stylus slowed in her hand as she noted his deflection. “Given the circumstances, I think we can skip the pleasantries, no?”
“Alliances are give and take,” he said softly turning his head in a way that let firelight sculpted the angles of his face, deepening the shadows around his scars, “As are conversations. Trust goes both ways, no?” He tilted his head, echoing her cadence.
“Fine.” Lune forced her voice steady as she set the rag back in the bowl of water beside her. She then held up her arm so he could see the new bracelet of gold she was forming around her wrist. “As a gesture of good faith, I’ll show you how to use lumina to make pictos.”
He exhaled a soft huff, watching the lines gleam in the firelight. “No need. I got it.”
“Well. Aren’t you a quick study?” She met his gaze briefly, skepticism sharpening her stare before she went back to carving.
“But I do appreciate the gesture,” he added, gentler now. “Thank you.”
That softness felt dangerous – a trap. Or maybe it was just genuine kindness, which somehow made the whole thing worse. Her concentration slipped. The blade faltered, the line skewed, the gold uneven. Heat flared under her skin, wrong and uncooperative. The error left behind looked like it was done by an eleven-year-old.
“Trust works both ways,” she muttered.
“So as a gesture of good faith… I’ll answer three questions.” He cocked his head as he leaned forward, a playful squint curling the corner of one eye, “Choose wisely.”
Lune paused, tapping the blade’s nib on the rim of the jar of lumina like she was flicking the ashes off a cigarette, “Only three?” Her tone sharpened, challenge threaded beneath it.
The fire popped, sending a thin spray of sparks drifting upward. One landed on the leather of his boot and dimmed almost instantly. Verso’s expression didn’t shift, but his shoulders angled toward her as if the distance between them had become something he needed to account for.
“Someone’s a bit greedy.” His voice was light, teasing.
She dug the ruined lumina strip from her arm, dropping it into the dirt beside her thigh, and watched the misspent gold flicker once before it dulled. Lune’s skin throbbed in a steady pulse, heat radiating outward as she began outlining the shape again.
He wasn’t squeamish at least. Most people grew uneasy when they watched the process of a picto being applied – especially with the bare minimum of tools in a dimly lit, unsterile environment. It wasn’t much different than a tattoo she thought, just instead of a needle it was more of a sharpened fountain pen carving situation.
“Three questions,” she said without looking up. “With three follow-ups.”
Verso let out a soft, amused breath she stopped herself from finding endearing, “You’re really pushing this.”
Her fingers brushed over where the ruined line on her wrist had been. She hated the way her pulse jumped beneath her touch, remembering the weight of her mother’s hands, the cold directive of her voice: Again. Do it again. You have to be able to carve them yourself – you do not know who will be left at any given point to aid you.
Lune steadied herself. “I think it’s reasonable.”
Another ember popped, sending a thin trail of sparks spiraling upward before dissolving into the black.
The night smelled of damp bark, singed lumina, and the smoke that trailed up into the distant stars. Behind them, Maelle let out a soft, dreaming sigh, her breath pressing against Sciel’s shoulder where they slept tangled together on the pillow that Esquie’s midsection had turned into.
Verso watched them briefly, expression softening, then returned his gaze to her. He looked tired – not just worn from travel or fighting, but hollowed in a way that settled into the bones. He exhaled, slow, resigned. A faint curve tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“All right,” he said, leaning back, palms open toward the flames. “Go for it. But I get three back.”
Lune traced the tip of her blade over the tendon on the soft part of her wrist, the faint burn beneath her skin sharpening her focus as she chose her first question.
“When you were on the cliff with Maelle…” She hesitated, shifting course, voice careful, threading around the embers and the sleeping forms, “How long had you been following us before then?”
Verso tilted his head slightly, letting the firelight catch in the pale depths of his eyes. He shifted into a more casual posture, the faint creak of leather against dirt filling the pause. “Long enough to see things that were… interesting,” he admitted, “Not long enough to get bored, I’ll give you that.”
Her hand faltered, the stylus catching, chroma flaring beneath her skin with the improperly applied surge of lumina. She pressed it into place and inhaled, continuing. “Interesting how?”
“Depends on what counts as interesting, doesn’t it?”
She hummed, setting the next segment carefully. The picto tingled, electric and familiar. She glanced up – just a fraction of a second – catching him watching her work with an attentive fascination.
“And your question?” Lune asked quietly.
Verso leaned to the side so that he could better see what she was doing, “Does that hurt?”
She blinked at him, heat crawling up her neck. “What?”
He tipped his head toward the channel she was working on. “The way you carve the picto. Is it painful?”
“It’s… uncomfortable,” Lune flexed her hand, inspecting the gold as it glowed faintly as chroma flowed into it, “Some bleed more than others. Shouldn’t you know that?”
He smiled more playfully than before; finger lifted in mock punctuation. “Technically, that’s three questions.”
“Oh, elusive and a smart ass, are we?” She matched his grin with an eye roll.
“Some would say witty.”
“Some would say irritating.”
A ghost of a laugh flickered across his face, gone before she could decide if it was genuine or meant to disarm.
He looked too comfortable in the quiet. Too at ease with her distrust, her barbed questions and the thin blade of her scrutiny which pressed against the soft parts of his intentions. If it weren’t for the fire’s brief flare of orange softening the sharpness of him, she wouldn’t have noted the dried blood clinging to his collar and coat.
Lune refocused on her wrist, watching the new picto’s outline glimmered faintly as she traced the next curve. She slowed her hand deliberately, letting each movement be grounding enough to drown out whatever expression Verso wore beside her.
The pain sharpened – clean, electric, and familiar.
“Fine,” she let the word drop into the firelight, “Next question.”
Verso hummed savoring his small victory, leaning back on his palms. Not relaxed – not entirely. She noted the slight curl of his fingers into the dirt, a nervous habit cloaked as stretch.
She rubbed her thumb along the edge of the picto, checking the shape, the geometry, feeling the sting brighten beneath her skin. Her pulse steadied with the rhythm of it, the measured drag of chroma gathering obediently as it balanced itself.
“Next question?” he prompted.
Lune braced her elbow on her thigh, tool angled so she could start the next section. But her focus snagged – on the exhaustion carved into him, on the faint tremor he’d tried to hide a moment earlier.
“If you were following us, why didn’t you show yourself sooner?”
It carried more weight than she intended. Not suspicion, though there was plenty of that, it was the unspoken accusation beneath: If you meant to help us, why wait until after Gustave died? Why wait until we were already bleeding, cornered, one person down?
Verso’s jaw shifted faintly as the firelight caught in the edges of his eyes again, making the look more ghostly than they actually were.
“People rarely welcome a stranger,” he said. “And even less when things are going badly around them.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
She didn’t respond, and the silence stretched. Her grip tightened. Red swelled beneath the gold, bright as garnet, before she wiped it away again. The fire crackled, a soft percussion beneath the low breaths of the sleeping pair behind them. Maelle murmured something in her sleep, fragile in a way that made Lune’s head snapped toward her in worry.
Verso observed the shift, noting relief quietly returning when the moment passed. “You care about her… them.”
“A great deal.” Lune sighed.
“I am sorry about your friend, truly I am.”
She ignored his condolences, “They’ve lost enough.”
A pause, not quite comfortable, not quite sharp. A hand hovering near a wound.
Verso nodded once in acknowledgment. “You’re not wrong.”
The gentleness in his voice made her chest tighten in a way she didn’t appreciate. She didn’t want softness from him. Not from a stranger who seemed to navigate every question like it was a trap he’d set himself.
She lowered her arm, letting the now finished picto settle. It pulsed once with a small shimmer as she flexed her fingers and exhaled. Tension slipped through her shoulders only halfway before catching again on the sight of Verso watching her - still.
“What?” she snapped, low and sharp.
He blinked as though she’d interrupted a thought. “Trying to decide something.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“Depends on what you classify as ominous.”
Lune narrowed her eyes as she reached for the rag to wet it and been in the process of cleaning up. Section of blood had been left for so long that they came up as rusted flakes that could be brushed off without the aid of water.
“I was trying to decide whether you were going to stab me with that knife if I moved too quickly.” Verso added When her silence made it clear she wasn't going to play along. His tone was warm with a kind of half-humor that didn’t reach his posture. “You looked like you were weighing the angle before you set it down.”
She brushed the cloth over the picto instead of rolling her eyes. The gold thrummed more faintly beneath her skin, settling itself deeper with each steadying breath. Not painless, but stabilizing.
Verso’s gaze dipped to her arm again, openly curious, “So… what’s that one for?” he asked, nodding at the finished pattern.
Heat prickled along her skin – not shame, not exactly, but the instinct to shield something personal. Pictos were tools, yes, but they were also intimate. A map of what she needed and what she feared needing.
“It improves recovery,” Lune said after a beat, smoothing a smear of lumina that had dropped onto her leg to seep into the fabric there, “Strengthens how fast I can revert damage – mine or someone else’s.”
Verso’s eyes flicked up at that, “So it’s for protection?”
“Healing,” she corrected. “Proper healing. The last variant of it wasn’t nearly effective enough.”
If she had this when they were fighting the nevron with the lanterns maybe Gustave wouldn’t have been so drained by the end of the fight. Maybe he could have gotten away.
Verso’s fingers flexed slightly against the dirt, a near-restless motion. “Must take a lot of precision.”
“It does,” she said. “And failure if you lack it.”
“Doesn’t seem like you’re fond of failure.”
“No one is.”
Verso’s gaze flicked toward the dark beyond the camp, then back to her arm. “You could’ve waited until morning,” he said after a moment, voice edged with a strange kind of practicality. “There’d be more light – less strain.”
Lune scoffed under her breath, twisting the rag once before tossing it aside. “If I waited until morning,” she said, “there’d be no one awake to keep an eye on you.”
“Is that what you’ve been doing?” he asked, “Keeping an eye on me?”
She didn’t answer.
Lune readjusted her weight so she sat cross legged, feeling the fresh picto settle deeper, the last of its heat cooling into something steady. Her muscles ached from holding herself so taut to the point she wasn't able to blame it entirely on the act of placing the picto.
Her gaze cut to Verso. He was still watching her - still doing that thing where he seemed relaxed, but every line of him suggested intent. “You said you were ‘trying to decide something’ earlier. What was it actually?”
Verso blinked once. Too slow. Too deliberate. “What I told you.”
“Liar.”
A wisp of amusement crossed his expression, light as dust. “Well that’d a bold accusation.”
“You avoid every real question,” she leaned forward, jutting the think blade she was cleaning out towards him, “Every time I ask something, you pivot. Like you’re made of smoke.”
He didn’t deny it. He only shifted his weight, hands clasped loosely, “Smoke is hard to stab.” he offered.
“The thing is Verso, you’re not smoke,” she gestured to the dying fire then back to him, “You’re a man who’s bad at answering questions.”
The statement hung in the air long enough that she was able to focus on the settling tang around her wrist, on the ache of muscles stiffened by vigilance. The forest beyond the firelight was silent, save for the occasional rustle of leaves or the far-off cry of some night predator. Even with the others asleep, the night felt heavy, almost accusing, and she couldn’t shake the weight of it pressing against her chest.
Verso’s eyes remained watchful, measured. He leaned back further, elbows braced against the dirt, and let the silence settle between them. Not the awkward pause of uncertainty, but something deliberate, careful, as if he were waiting to see if she’d let the moment pass without further prodding.
Lune’s eyes didn’t leave the fire as her mind spun in a careful orbit around Verso. He was right earlier. Alliance. The word repeated itself in her, a mantra meant to override the sharper edges of her suspicion. An alliance meant trust, yes, but it also meant survival. And survival, was just as important as gathering and recording information.
Out here with the weight of failure echoing in every rustle of the trees, Verso was a resource. One that she couldn’t toss aside.
Her pulse slowed, dragging the heat from the fresh picto down into her veins, trying to steady the knot of tension coiling in her chest. He wasn’t just a body at the fire, a shadow leaning in the flicker of embers. He was movement, skill, knowledge. He could help them reach the Paintress. He could help them survive the next night, and the night after that.
And yet, every time she glanced at Verso, there was that flare of doubt, the quiet whisper that maybe his calm was a mask, a perfected act of deception. She clenched her fists loosely, letting the warmth of the fire brush against her knuckles, grounding her.
This was the reality they had to move forward together. Her mistrust could be cautious, her boundaries firm, but she could not turn him away outright. Not if Lune wanted to see the end of this expedition. Not if she wanted the only thing her life had ever been focused on to matter.