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, constant heat. The hardpan put out a dry mineral smell, the kind that sat at the back of the throat and stayed there.
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 of food without looking at him. The dried meat demanded effort to chew. She gave it the necessary attention. The only sound beyond them was the occasional tick of stone in the heat.
Beorn kept chewing while he studied the hardpan stretching out before them. With nothing else demanding his focus, his thoughts kept moving.
Since he woke inside the dead prince's body, two separate threads had been colliding inside his head. Each carried its own memories and instincts. Most of the time that collision produced friction or gaps where one carried something the other did not.
Two days of movement had changed that slightly. Constant travel left long stretches of silence. That silence had given his mind time to sort itself out.
The result was closer to sediment settling in still water after a disturbance. The shapes beneath were still there, but now they were easier to read.
One example was the word Sinbound. The body's memory attached a heavy emotional charge to it, the kind that came from hearing a word used in hostile rooms.
The other life's record carried something more useful alongside that reaction. It carried technical context.
A domain. An affinity.
Aestrith who could increase or decrease the pull of mass on mass within her reach. She had described the sensation in practical terms.
Holding that force steady was easier than pushing against it. When she maintained control, the boundaries of the effect stayed clean and predictable.
Beorn had spent two days examining that from different angles. Slowly the implications had started to take shape.
If the force could be held steady, then it could support a load. That suggested uses. Stabilizing a mine shaft while workers dug deeper. Reinforcing a roadbed during a heavy pour. Holding unstable ground long enough to set proper supports.
The concept existed without the method to use it.
That missing piece had surfaced in his thoughts earlier that morning while they walked. That life had provided a word with enough meaning to anchor the idea.
Engineer.
Someone who looked at what the world could do and built something with it.
A fluorescent light came with it for a moment. An office. A desk buried under papers, a phone ringing in an empty room.
Gone before the image finished.
He understood the definition. He also understood that Aestrith already possessed the core ability such work would rely on.
The problem was the gap between those facts and an actual method she could use to build anything reliable.
That gap represented work. A lot of it.
He didn't have enough yet to fill it. The contours of the problems was clear enough. He knew roughly where it led.
The path through it was missing.
He could ask.
"You've gone somewhere," Aestrith said.
Beorn looked over at her. She had been watching him. A strip of dried meat hung loosely in one hand.
"Still here," he said.
"You've been staring at the same rock for ten minutes."
"It's a good rock."
She turned her head and inspected the rock in question.
It was a cracked section of hardpan. The surface had split down the middle. Nothing grew in the fracture. Nothing interesting about it at all.
She looked back at him.
"What are you working on," she said.
Beorn broke off another piece of bread before answering. His finger moved without deciding to, tracing a line in the dust between his feet.
A rectangle. A second line inside it.
"I want to hire you."
Her expression did not change.
She took a bite of the dried meat, chewed slowly, and continued to hold his gaze. She said nothing.
The silence made it clear she was waiting for the rest.
"Bodyguard," he continued. "And an engineer. Someone who takes what a power can do and applies it to practical problems. Building structures. Solving things normal labor can't handle."
She studied him for a moment.
"A what."
"An engineer," Beorn said. "Someone who makes systems function. In your case, the systems would involve things most people assume can't be built."
She held the unfamiliar word for a moment. The motion showed on her face. She was turning it over, finding its edges.
"Why."
"Because I need one."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the first part of one." He finished the piece of bread and set it aside. Vague information of the city came to his mind.
"Ashmark has walls that are failing. It has mines that are flooding. And the city's food supply chain barely functions. What you can do solves at least two of those problems directly and changes the speed of the third. Ignoring that would be stupid."
The look was the same one she had given the mound before she started working it.
"You're not scared of what I am."
"No."
"Everyone is."
"Then they're wasting a lot." He met her gaze directly.
"I know what Sinbound means. I also know what that word costs inside Dunvarre and what it costs out here. I'm telling you the taboo doesn't matter to me."
"Why not."
"Because the people who built that taboo read it wrong." He paused, "I can explain it properly when we're not eating dust."
Something changed in her expression. A small change, but noticeable.
She picked up the dried meat again.
"That's a convenient belief."
"It's a pragmatic belief," Beorn said. "Whether it's convenient depends on who benefits."
She chewed in silence for a moment. The rock shelf's shadow had shifted a few inches since they sat down. The sun continued its steady movement westward.
"You mentioned bodyguard first," she said.
"You'd be stronger in that role initially."
"And the engineering."
"You'd improve."
"You sound confident."
"I watched you hold that mound steady against everything above it, in complete darkness, while exhausted," Beorn said.
He let that stand without adding to it.
She turned her head and looked out across the hardpan.
The Scar hung faintly in the afternoon sky. Its jagged line had gone pale and indistinct, nearly lost in the blue above it.
Her thumb moved slowly along the edge of the dried meat. Back and forth. A repetitive motion.
"What does hire mean," she said. "In practical terms."
"Payment. Shelter. My formal protection for as long as that means anything. Right now that protection isn't worth much. It should improve."
"And."
"And I tell you the truth about what I know and what I don't."
"Why."
"Because accurate information produces better decisions. And I need you making good decisions."
She turned back to him.
Her eyes moved over his face carefully. She was checking whether the offer was what it appeared to be.
Beorn let the examination happen.
There was nothing concealed behind the offer.
"You want me working beside your people," she said. "In Ashmark. In a city where what I am gets people killed. Gets me killed."
"Under my formal protection. Yes."
"Your formal protection is a ring that gets you through a gate," she said. "Inside the walls, the rules change."
"That situation will change."
"You sound certain again."
"I'm working on it."
Aestrith studied him for several seconds.
Then she pushed herself to her feet. She brushed dust from her trousers and lifted the pack.
"I'll think about it," she said. "You'll have my answer after we arrive."
Beorn stood more slowly. His side pulled painfully as he straightened. He ignored it and followed her gaze toward the horizon.
The hardpan stretched ahead in long empty bands. Rock formations marked the far edge of their sightline.
Beyond those formations, the pale stone walls of Ashmark had finally become visible. Afternoon light caught the crumbling walls from the west.
Aestrith had already started walking. She had not looked at him since she stood.
The answer was still out there, somewhere between here and those walls. He would know it before nightfall.