I don't know if I did the right thing, telling Rhayne everything.
The doubt walks back with me on the way to the factory. Thirstfall's ocean sky is too clean for the kind of truth I just dropped into her hands, and maybe that's why the world feels wrong. Clean on the outside. Heavy on the inside.
Still, my chest is lighter.
Not enough to call it peace. Peace is too rare a thing for someone like me. But for the first time since I woke at the start, the weight isn't entirely locked inside my own head. Someone knows. Someone listened. Someone chose to stay.
Rhayne walks beside me differently. Sometimes her steps go almost light, small hops she doesn't seem to notice. Other times she goes blank for a second, touches the Battle Ribbon, and returns to the present without a word. I don't try to fill that silence. I told her a truth too large. Now she needs room to breathe around it.
The morning passes fast at the factory.
