The valley had decided on a bad kind of quiet—too heavy, as if the air were learning how to lie. Inigo sat with his back to the Black Dragon's warm flank, M4 across his knees, and listened to the math of the place: HIMARS pod ticking cool, GAU-8 hydraulics settling with long, oil-thick sighs, the river's hiss where it licked fresh stone. Beneath it all, the one sound that kept his spine straight—Lyra's breath, thin and stubborn.
He checked her again because checking was something hands could do while a mind counted unknowns. Pulse: there. Skin: hot from the day, not the fever kind yet. The bandage at her temple had gone brown at the edge; he replaced it, slid the sling higher under her ruined shoulder, propped her with one more folded cloth so gravity wouldn't get clever.
"Stay," he told her quietly, like talking to a dog that didn't understand words but liked his voice. "I've got the door."
The door answered with a heartbeat.
