Page 109 of Dead Drop

His tail tightens on my waist as I reach him. His hand comes up, cups the back of my head, pulls me against his chest. My face at his sternum.

His heartbeat under my cheek. The steady, unmistakable rhythm of the male who caught me.

"Be loud if you need me," he says into my hair.

"I always am."

His chest moves. The almost-laugh. The vibration of it rumbles through my cheekbone and into my teeth.

His tail squeezes my hip once, then lets go.

I go south. He goes to the ridge.

The canopy is loud with morning. Birds in the upper branches, the dawn chorus that's been getting louder all month—more species returning, the sound of an ecosystem rebuilding itself one call at a time. The stream below runs clear over the stones, the water rushing with the winter melt that's still trickling down from the high country.

The air is cool, carrying the green smell of new growth.

I move through the territory I helped him map. My climbing hooks bite the bark. My blade is warm on my hip.

The child in my belly turns once, settles. The jacket collar carries his scent—I've stopped bothering to wash it out. The smell of him is a map. The coordinates home.

Behind me, the aerie. The room with the pale furs. The nest where his body keeps mine warm through the cold hours.

Above me, the canopy. The birds coming back. The vines wrapping the old towers. The world becoming something new. Below me, the drop that used to be the only choice I had.

The drop is still there.

I'm not.

I finished the numbers a while ago. They come out the same every time.

Two unknowns. Both impossible.

The sum of keeping her safe. The sum of holding the territory. The sum of standing between the Ordained and everything I choose.

I'm not afraid of the numbers.

I'm not afraid of the height.

I'm not afraid.

The morning brightens. The canopy shifts. The birds sing louder.

The world is alive and I'm alive in it, moving through it, mapping it, claiming it, holding it. I work through the boundary markers, checking the stones we've placed, the scratches we've carved into bark. The territory is solid. No Stained sign. No Ordained presence. Just the quiet of a forest healing itself, and the knowledge that I'm here to protect it.

I'm not alone in the canopy anymore.

The pregnancy shifts inside me—a rolling movement, the sensation of her finding a new position in the small space shehas. I press my hand to the curve and slow my climb. The canopy is patient.

It will wait for a pregnant fighter with a blade and a mission. The pregnancy hasn't made me weaker. It's made me more precise. Every movement counts now. Every choice is weighted.

I finish the boundary check by late afternoon. The sun is moving toward the west, the light catching the highest leaves, turning them gold. The canopy birds are quieting.

The evening shift of predators hasn't started yet. There's a moment of stillness, the way there's always a moment of stillness between the day creatures and the night creatures, the exchange of the world from one set of hands to another.

I head back toward the aerie.

The route is simple now. The markers are set. The dangerous sections have been mapped.