"I'm not asking you to protect me," Redd said, his voice rough around the edges as though wearied by repetition, by nights like these. He leaned back slowly, bones shifting with quiet aches beneath his bruised skin. The bowl of soup in his lap had cooled, steam thinning into the crisp night air, curling briefly before it was swallowed by the dark. "I'm asking you to let me walk in the same direction. You lot go to Tulmud. I need to disappear. That's it."
The campfire crackled, a knot in the wood splitting with a soft pop. The others sat in a loose circle around it, the flames flickering across tired faces and half-filled bowls. The scent of rabbit stew mingled with smoke and forest damp.
Timur shifted slightly where he sat, one leg tucked beneath him, the other resting against a flat stone still warm from sunlight long gone. He raised a brow, not in amusement but in a tired kind of challenge. "You make it sound easy."
