Page 22 of Thexan

“How close?”

“Close enough that time is no longer a factor we can rely on.”

She absorbed that without visible reaction, though I felt the slight increase in her pulse where her hand settled against my forearm. The contact strengthened the alignment between us again, easing the residual instability within my system further as her proximity increased.

“Then we stop pretending this is going to resolve itself,” she said.

“It was never going to resolve itself.”

“I know.”

She moved without hesitation, crossing to the storage area and retrieving a folded map from beneath a stack of sealed containers. It was worn, marked with use, the edges reinforced with material that had been replaced more than once. When she returned, she set it across the adjacent surface and smoothed it flat with one hand.

“This is what we’ve got,” she said.

I pushed myself upright before the motion could be fully evaluated.

The response was immediate.

The wound along my side protested the shift, the partially stabilized tissue pulling under strain as my body attempted to compensate for movement it was not yet prepared to sustain. At the same time, the disruption along my neural pathways surged, the fragile control I had maintained beginning to fracture under the combined stress.

I stopped the motion.

Not by abandoning it, but by containing it.

I did not allow the reaction to direct my movement. I contained it, even as it pushed harder than anything I had faced in recent cycles, forcing it back under control through discipline that had not failed me before this moment. The instability pressed against that control, testing it, seeking any lapse it could exploit.

Brynn was beside me before the balance shifted too far.

Her hand came to my chest, the contact direct, deliberate, and the effect was immediate. The instability collapsed inward, the alignment reestablishing itself with a speed that confirmed what we had already observed.

Without her, I degraded.

With her, I maintained control.

“You’re not doing that again,” she said, her voice steady even as she adjusted her position to support the movement I had forced.

“I require a full view of the terrain.”

“You require the ability to stay conscious,” she replied. “We’ll work around it.”

I held her gaze for a moment, assessing the certainty in her expression, the lack of hesitation in the way she maintained contact despite the strain it placed on her.

Then I shifted again, more slowly this time, allowing her to guide the movement rather than forcing it independently.

The difference was measurable.

With her support, the strain remained within manageable limits. The instability did not escalate beyond control. The motion was completed without triggering the same level of disruption.

We adjusted position together, she maintaining contact as I stabilized in a seated position, the map now within direct line of sight.

I studied it without comment for several seconds, absorbing the layout, the terrain markers, the pathways that had been reinforced through repeated use, and the areas that had been avoided for the same reason.

“This path,” I said at last, indicating a narrow ridgeline marked along the outer boundary. “It limits approach vectors.”

“Barely,” she said. “It’s unstable in places.”

“That is an advantage.”