The food salvaged from the convoy wreck was hard bread and strips of dried meat. Both tasted strongly of salt and dust. The pack had held them at least a day longer than ideal.
Beorn ate anyway.
He worked through the bread in steady bites while the midday sun pressed down on the barrenland with flat, relentless heat. The hardpan gave off a dry mineral smell that clung to the back of the throat.
They had stopped beside a rock shelf that cast just enough shade for two people.
Aestrith sat with her back against the stone, legs stretched out in front of her. She focused on her portion without looking at him. The dried meat demanded effort to chew, and she gave it her full attention.
Beyond them, the only sound was the occasional tick of stone expanding in the heat.
Beorn kept chewing while he stared out across the hardpan.
With nothing else demanding his attention, his thoughts kept circling back on themselves.
Since waking inside the dead prince's body, two separate strands of memory had been grinding together in his head. Each carried instincts, habits, fragments of knowledge the other lacked. Most of the time the collision only produced confusion or gaps.
Two days on the road had changed that a little.
The long stretches of silence had given his mind room to settle. Thoughts no longer crashed together quite so violently. It felt more like mud sinking in still water after a storm. The shapes underneath were still distorted, but easier to make out.
One example was the word Sinbound.
The prince's memories attached dread to it immediately. Shame. Fear. Rooms full of tense silence and guarded voices.
The other life carried something more useful alongside the reaction.
Context.
A domain. An affinity.
Aestrith could increase or lessen the pull between masses within her reach. She had explained it plainly enough during their march.
Holding the force steady was easier than forcing it to change. When she maintained control, the edges of the effect stayed stable and predictable.
Beorn had spent two days turning that over in his head.
If the force could remain stable, then it could support weight. That meant structures. Reinforcement. Controlled pressure.
A mine shaft held in place while workers dug deeper. A weakened wall braced long enough for repairs. Unstable ground secured before laying stone atop it.
The idea existed.
The method did not.
That missing piece had surfaced earlier that morning while they walked. A word from his other life had risen with it, carrying enough meaning to anchor the thought.
Engineer.
Someone who looked at what the world allowed and built something from it.
For a brief instant another memory surfaced with the word. Harsh fluorescent lights. A desk buried beneath papers. A phone ringing somewhere nearby.
Then it vanished before the image fully formed.
The meaning remained.
Aestrith already possessed the core ability such work would require.
The problem was everything between that fact and an actual process she could repeat reliably.
That distance represented years of work.
He could already see the outline of the problems waiting ahead. Materials. Measurements. Failure points. Limits.
But the path through them was still missing.
He could ask.
"You've gone somewhere."
Beorn glanced over.
Aestrith had been watching him for some time now. A strip of dried meat rested loosely between her fingers.
"Still here."
"You've been staring at the same rock for ten minutes."
"It's a nice rock."
She turned her head and inspected the rock in question with complete seriousness.
It was a cracked stretch of hardpan split clean through the middle. Nothing grew in the fracture. There was nothing remarkable about it whatsoever.
After a moment, she looked back at him.
"What are you working on?"
Beorn broke off another piece of bread. Without thinking, his finger dragged through the dust between his boots.
A rectangle.
Then another line inside it.
"I want to hire you."
Her expression barely shifted.
She bit into the dried meat, chewed slowly, and kept watching him without speaking.
The silence made it clear she expected the rest.
"As a bodyguard," he added. "And an engineer."
A faint crease appeared between her brows.
"A what."
"An engineer. Someone who builds systems. Makes things function. In your case, things most people assume can't exist."
She rolled the unfamiliar word around in her mind for a moment, testing its shape.
"And why would I be that?"
"Because I need one."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the beginning of one."
He finished the bread and brushed crumbs from his hands while scraps of knowledge about Ashmark surfaced through the prince's memories.
"Ashmark has walls that are failing. Mines that flood. Its food supply barely functions. What you can do solves at least two of those problems directly and changes the third completely."
He met her gaze.
"Ignoring that would be stupid."
She looked at him the same way she had looked at the mound before deciding how to move it.
Carefully. Suspiciously.
"You're not afraid of what I am."
"No."
"Everyone is."
"Then they're wasting a great deal."
Beorn leaned back against the stone.
"I know what Sinbound means here. I know what that word costs inside Dunvarre and outside it. I'm telling you the taboo means nothing to me."
"Why."
"Because the people who built that taboo don't understand what they're looking at."
He paused, glancing down at the stale bread in his hand.
"I can explain it better somewhere that doesn't taste like dust."
Something small shifted in her expression.
Not trust. Not yet.
But enough to notice.
She picked up the dried meat again.
"Convenient belief."
"It's a pragmatic belief," Beorn replied. "Whether it's convenient depends on who profits from it."
Aestrith chewed in silence.
The shadow of the rock shelf had shifted several inches since they stopped. The sun continued its slow march westward.
"You mentioned bodyguard first."
"You'd be better at that immediately."
"And the engineer part."
"You'd improve."
"You sound very certain."
A faint smile pulled at the corner of Beorn's mouth.
"Naturally. I'll be teaching you."
He let the remark hang there.
Aestrith turned away and looked out across the hardpan.
The Scar stretched faintly across the afternoon sky now, pale and jagged against the blue above.
Her thumb moved slowly along the edge of the dried meat. Back and forth. A small restless motion.
"What does hire mean?" she asked after a while. "Practically."
"Payment. Shelter. My formal protection for whatever that's worth at the moment." He shrugged lightly. "Ideally it'll be worth more soon."
"And."
"And I tell you the truth when I have it. Including when I don't know something."
"Why."
"Because people make better decisions with accurate information. And I need you making good decisions."
She turned back toward him then.
Her eyes moved carefully across his face, studying him piece by piece. Looking for the hidden catch beneath the offer.
Beorn let her search.
There wasn't one.
"You want me beside your people," she said quietly. "Inside Ashmark. In a city where what I am gets people killed."
"Under my protection. Yes."
"Your protection is a ring and a dead prince's title." Her voice remained calm. "Inside the walls, that won't matter nearly as much."
"That situation will change."
Another long look.
"You sound certain again."
"I'm working on it."
Aestrith held his gaze for several seconds more.
Then she pushed herself to her feet.
Dust fell from her trousers as she slung the pack over one shoulder.
"I'll think about it. You'll have your answer when we reach the city."
Beorn rose more slowly. Pain pulled sharply through his side as he straightened, but he ignored it.
Together they looked toward the horizon.
The hardpan stretched onward in long empty bands broken only by distant rock formations. Beyond them, pale stone walls had finally appeared against the afternoon light.
Ashmark.
The western sun caught the crumbling battlements and turned them gold for an instant.
Aestrith had already started walking. She hadn't looked back at him since standing.
Beorn watched her go for a moment before following.
The answer still lay somewhere ahead of them, waiting between the barrenland and those worn white walls.