Zeke had always believed the world could be reduced to patterns. Numbers. Formulas. Cause and effect etched into the bones of existence. People thought he was cold because he saw lives as calculations. They weren't wrong—but they didn't understand why.
The truth was simple: calculation was the only way he knew how to survive.
While Damien bristled with heat and Evelyn clung to loyalty like a lifeline, Zeke cataloged variables. Clara's trembling hands. The way Evelyn's voice had quivered ever so slightly when she swore to protect her. Damien's sword strokes—harder, sharper, laced with suppressed fear.
He noted them all. He always noted them.
Because Zeke knew what fear did to people. Fear was the true currency of survival, and he had lived through enough betrayals to recognize the symptoms.
Clara was no longer a "companion." She was a risk assessment. A tethered vessel. A possible entry point for Yurin Crimson, whose shadow already stretched across every battlefield they walked.
Zeke traced a sigil in the dirt, his fingers moving with absent precision. It was not a protective ward. It was a marker. A reminder. If Clara slipped again, if Yurin's influence seeped through, Zeke knew exactly how to sever the connection.
The others didn't know. Evelyn thought she was protecting Clara. Damien thought he was preparing for the inevitable. But Zeke? He had already solved the equation.
One clean strike through the tether-point. It would kill Clara instantly—but it would also snap Yurin's hold.
His jaw tightened as he stared at the faint glowing mark in the dirt. He hated that his hand shook, even slightly. Because buried deep beneath the cold logic was something he couldn't erase. A memory.
A girl with ink-stained fingers, once sitting across from him at a wooden desk, laughing as she scribbled glyphs onto his arm to test a theory. Her name had been lost to the fracture of their world, but her smile hadn't. She, too, had been tethered once. She, too, had been consumed when no one acted soon enough.
Zeke had sworn then: never again.
The sigil in the dirt flickered faintly, almost like a heartbeat. He closed his fist over it, smearing the lines away, but the decision remained carved in his mind.
If Clara faltered—if Yurin took even an inch too far—Zeke would do what Evelyn could not. What Damien might hesitate to do.
Because someone had to keep the ledger balanced. Someone had to measure survival against sentiment.
And Zeke was already tired of being late.