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“I don’t mind walking. I definitely don’t want your mount getting hurt. Speaking of which…” I lifted my foot, pointing my toes at his ankle. “What about you? Are you going to be OK going all the way back there on foot?”

“It will not be a problem. You want to get to your ship. And I am going to take you there.”

Something about the determination in his voice, and in his expression, touched me deeply.

And I certainly couldn’t have that.

“Alrighty, then!” I said in an impersonally chipper voice. “Off we go!”

Oaken and I made decent progress at first, but as we got deeper into the mountains, things got trickier. Oaken hadn’t exaggerated about the treacherous ground. My smooth, easy flight on the slicer had given me a false sense of how easy the journey would be. And it was twice as bad in the dark. More than once, I stumbled over a rock, or a crack, or the toes of my own boots, and it was only the quick reaction of Oaken’s arm – or tail, in some cases – that kept me upright.

I was a bit embarrassed about the way I’d tried to push away his help earlier. The way I’d so proudly told him that I could take care of myself. It turned out that more than a decade piloting a small ship on my own hadn’t prepared me to walk through Zabria Prinar One mountains in the dark.

Not to mention the fact that it was actually pretty creepy out here at night. The boulders and peaks, which had been a pretty pinkish-gold during the day, took on a dead, bony quality at night. Shadows between rocks looked much deeper and darker than they should have, and every time I took my eye off of one, it seemed to move in the peripheral of my vision.

Several times, Oaken and I walked beneath arching stone overhangs that blocked out the moons and stars. Unfortunately, it was in those moments of pure, pitch black that I realized Oaken’s eyes, for the first time since we’d met, weren’t glowing. I guessed he was too busy making sure neither of us broke an ankle to feel any big feelings on our walk.

But even without his eyes acting as my own personal lanterns, I was still really glad he was with me.

If I’d come here without Oaken…

Yeah. I’d probably be shitting my pants right about now.

I might even have turned around.

And in the next moment, I almost did. Nearly ran right back to Oaken’s house when I saw something move a metre ahead of me. Somethingbig.

“Holy Terra!” I choked out. “What the hell is that?”

“Get back,” Oaken hissed. One of his hands was on me, shoving me behind him. His other hand somehow had a hatchet in it, though I didn’t know how he could have pulled it out that fast. His tail must have done it, transferring it to his hand before I’d noticed.

“What is it?” I whispered, peering around him and squinting in the low light. Whatever it was, it the same colour as the rocks it slithered through. Its body was at least two – no, probably four – metres long.

“A common mountain serpent,” Oaken replied quietly, keeping his hatchet at the ready. “Not venomous, but certainly strong enough to do some damage. Especially to you.”

“A thing that big is common around here?!”

Oaken grunted in reply. He didn’t move, keeping himself between the serpent and me, his entire body tense and prepared to strike.

Thankfully, he didn’t need to. The serpent didn’t seem to have much interest in me, maybe because of the big, weapon-wielding Zabrian that had planted himself in front of me.

Once the serpent had slipped out of sight into some mountain hidey hole that I was sure would now haunt my dreams, I let out a shuddering sigh.

“Sorry,” I breathed, trying and failing to force my heart into a more normal rhythm “I swear, I’m usually a lot more badass than this. But I also usually have my ship with me. My ship keeps me safe.”

Oaken lowered his hatchet, then hooked it onto his belt. When he turned around to face me, his eyes were bright white again.

“We may not have reached your ship yet. But I am with you, Jaya,” he said. “And I can keep you safe.”

My throat ached.

“But who will keep you safe, Oaken?”

If something happened to him out here because he was trying to help me, I’d never forgive myself.

He didn’t answer. Because he didn’t have an answer.

Oaken had no one.