The Weight
of Returning

Tairen was pulling his shirt into place when he noticed the Sentinel watching him.

All four bands were already fitted, their narrow amber lines bright against his wrists and ankles. The graphite fabric had caught above his belt. He tugged it down with both hands, smoothing the last fold across his stomach, and glanced sideways.

“You’re watching.”

“You’re taking your time.”

“The signal hasn’t sounded.”

“I know.”

That answer left Tairen with nothing useful to say.

Around them, the Equipment Hall glowed with long strips of amber light. Copper edges shone inside the storage niches, and rows of dark armor caught their reflections in the polished floor. Beyond the glass, the towers of Saurenn rose from suspended foundations above a deep sea of cloud. There was more open air than solid ground out there. Soon he would be moving through it.

He liked the thought. He was less certain what to do with the warmth gathering beneath the Sentinel’s steady gaze.

The other man was ready: armor secured, forearm guards fitted, dark hair drawn back from his face. Only the slight lift at one corner of his mouth suggested that he was enjoying himself.

Tairen gave his shirt one final, unnecessary tug.

“There,” he said. “A remarkable recovery. We may still leave on time.”

The Sentinel’s smile deepened just enough to make Tairen look away.

Out on the Departure Span, the wind stripped the warmth from his bare arms.

Tairen moved along the side of the wagon with one hand high and the other braced against a lower panel. His shoes pressed into the vertical metal at different heights. Through his palms and soles, the convoy’s vibration travelled into his limbs: a deep, continuous rumble broken by the sharper tremor of each joint in the track.

He released one point of contact, reached, and settled his weight again. The bands held. His shoulders worked beneath the close fabric as he drew himself forward, keeping his narrow body near the wagon.

Above him, the Sentinel advanced along the roof in a low stance. Tairen caught brief glimpses of short boots and the copper edges of his armor whenever he looked up.

Saurenn opened around them. Bridges crossed the cloud-bright gaps between immense mineral foundations; terraces and pointed towers carried amber lights far into the distance. Five moons hung above the city, one large enough for Tairen to see its mottled face. The clouds below concealed any measure of the drop.

He kept his attention on the next handhold.

There was pleasure in this part of the work—in judging a reach correctly, in feeling his body answer before the thought was fully formed. He could feel the wind pulling at his ponytail, hear the train filling the air, and still pick out the small details that mattered.

A seam. A fastening. The edge of a panel.

Overhead, the Sentinel shifted to keep pace with him.

The sound was small enough to disappear beneath the train.

A hard, uneven clatter. Then another.

Tairen turned his head.

A latch farther along the wagon was standing clear of its housing. As he watched, the sliding door shuddered open, exposing a dim compartment and the copper-bound corners of the cargo within.

One case was moving.

Its lower edge scraped across the threshold. The next vibration carried it farther, until a corner hung beyond the floor and the whole rectangular weight began to tip.

“Cargo!” Tairen shouted.

The Sentinel dropped into a crouch above the opening. One hand went to the roof for balance; his gaze followed the case, then snapped toward Tairen.

For a moment, Tairen could see the entire problem with uncomfortable clarity: the side handle turning outward, the narrow distance from his position, the panel he would need beneath his feet after the catch.

His stomach tightened.

He drew one knee higher and tested the pressure through his planted foot. His hands remained firm against the wagon. Above him, the Sentinel shifted nearer the edge, making room to receive the weight.

The case tipped another fraction.

Tairen had found his opening. It was already closing.

He released his hold and pushed off.

The wind struck beneath his arms. For one brief instant, the familiar vibration vanished from his hands and feet, and the wagon was something beside him instead of something holding him up.

His ponytail snapped out behind him, black strands streaming across the amber light.

Tairen caught the side handle first. His other hand closed over the upper edge a heartbeat later, just as the case rolled outward. Its weight pulled through his wrists and into his shoulders. He bent his elbows to keep it close, feeling the muscles along his arms tighten beneath the strain.

The case was heavier than he wanted it to be.

He held it anyway.

One leg stretched back toward the train while the other folded beneath him. The movement drew hard across his stomach and down his thigh. He could hear his own breath now, short and rough through clenched teeth, with the wind rushing past it.

The copper rim pressed into his palm. He adjusted his grip by a finger’s width and stopped the case from turning farther.

Beyond its corner, the wagon’s dark side remained close. Tairen fixed his eyes on the panel he had chosen.

He had the cargo. His next footfall had to hold them both.

His first shoe struck the wagon. The second planted lower, and his knees bent with the impact.

Ochre light flared around his ankles.

Fine threads curled from the bands toward the metal beneath his soles, spreading into brief ripples around the points of contact. The grip caught. Tairen felt the pull settle through his legs as the case tried to drag him away from the wall.

He tightened his arms and lifted.

Above him, the Sentinel crouched at the roof’s edge with both boots planted. His hands reached down to the case, one taking an upper grip while the other steadied its far side.

“I have it.”

Tairen heard the words, but his fingers stayed locked.

Then the Sentinel took more of the weight. The pressure eased through Tairen’s shoulders—only a little at first, enough for him to draw a full breath.

“Together,” the Sentinel said.

Tairen looked up. The other man was watching his face, waiting for him to settle his footing.

He nodded.

They lifted in the same breath. Tairen pushed upward from the lower corners while the Sentinel drew the case toward the roof. Its reinforced edge cleared the lip, and the grinding scrape of metal told Tairen it had somewhere solid to rest.

Farther along the convoy, the Escort Leader was calling for a halt. The train was still moving beneath them.

Tairen let go only when the case was secure.

“All right?” the Sentinel asked.

“Ask me when we’ve stopped.”

He meant it to sound light. The last word came out on a breath he could not quite steady.

The Sentinel heard. His gaze stayed with Tairen until Tairen had both hands back against the wagon.

By the time his shift ended, Tairen had said he was all right often enough that he was beginning to resent the question.

He sat on the edge of his bed and looked at his hand.

There was a small tremor in his fingers. It became easier to see when he tried to hold them still.

“Excellent,” he murmured.

The room gave him no answer.

His four bands rested in the illuminated niche beside the bed, with his shoes together on the shelf below. Without them, his wrists and ankles felt oddly light. His bare feet pressed into the cool floor, and his ponytail lay quiet against his back.

He was still wearing his sleeveless shirt and flexible trousers. Nothing pulled at the fabric now. Even so, his shoulders kept tightening whenever he remembered the first hard weight of the case in his hands.

He lowered them deliberately.

Beyond the window, distant lights marked the towers of Saurenn. The glass softened the city’s noise to a low murmur. Inside the alcove, amber lamps picked out the folds of the bedding and the shallow lines across his open palm.

He had made the reach. He had caught the case. Both feet had found the wagon.

Here, with nothing left to do, he could remember how much empty air had been beneath him.

Tairen rested his other hand on his thigh and waited for the feeling to pass. His breathing slowed. The tremor lingered.

What kept returning, just as clearly as the fall, was the moment the load had eased. The Sentinel’s hands on the case. His voice above the wind.

Together.

Tairen glanced at the empty place beside him, then back at his hand.

When the Sentinel appeared at the alcove, Tairen nearly closed his hand.

He left it open instead.

The other man had put away his armor. In a plain graphite sleeveless shirt and dark trousers, with bare feet and his hair still tied back, he looked easier to approach than he had on the roof. Tairen found that this did very little to make looking at him easier.

The Sentinel glanced at the empty space on the bed.

Tairen moved a little to one side.

The mattress dipped as the other man sat beside him. For a while, neither spoke. Their feet rested on the same cool floor; beyond the window, the city carried on without requiring anything from either of them.

“If you ask whether I’m all right,” Tairen said, “I may give you a different answer.”

The Sentinel turned toward him.

“You can.”

Tairen had been ready with another joke. He let it go.

“I keep feeling the weight,” he admitted. He looked down at his palm. “Even now.”

“That was a hard catch.”

“I know.”

The words came out quietly, with more weariness than he had meant to show. He waited for the embarrassment to follow, but the Sentinel simply remained beside him, close enough that Tairen could feel the warmth of his arm.

Tairen turned his hand toward the space between them.

“Stay a little longer.”

The Sentinel looked from the offered palm to his face. Then he laid his hand gently across Tairen’s, leaving his fingers relaxed.

“All right.”

Tairen met his eyes. A small smile had reached the other man’s mouth, and this time he let himself answer it.

Their hands rested between them. The room was quiet enough for him to hear a breath leave his own chest.

The next time Tairen looked down at his hand, he was no longer checking whether it shook.