They didn't speak right away.
Kori stood with her heels set in the carved groove, knives low, and the ruin breathed around them with a weird cold like it had opinions about midnight. Dust hung lazy. Pebbles like they were trying out a new trick. "Don't move" she said again - not a warning so much as a promise.
Raizen didn't. The twins at his back carried a thrum so small it lived under hearing, more suggestion than sound. He couldn't feel the ruin, not the way the air had changed around Kori, but the steel knew a thing he didn't.
The particles along Kori's knives calmed to hairline fireflies. The motes slowed. Pebbles lost interest and settled with soft, embarrassed clicks. She lifted her eyes to him and the tease was gone. Something else had come to the surface - the look a cliff gives the sea when it's time to discuss boundaries.
"Lesson" she said. "Not a lecture."
He huffed and didn't risk a smile.
