The dead forest stretched out before them, silver grass swaying in that phantom breeze. The waystation sat behind them now, its white stone walls growing smaller with every step until it was just another pale speck on the hillside.

Sarael walked beside him.

Not floating, not dissolving into shadow, not whispering from the space between his ribs.

Actually walking.

Her bare feet left no prints in the silver grass, and the darkness that clothed her shifted with each step, adjusting itself like a living garment trying to stay decent.

She kept glancing at him when she thought he wasn’t looking, quick, furtive glances that darted away the moment he turned his head.

"You know I can see you staring, right?"

"I wasn’t staring." Her cheeks flushed faintly. "I was... observing."

"Observing what?"

"Your profile." She said it without shame, like it was the most natural thing in the world. "The way the moonlight hits your jaw. I’ve been watching you for days, but it’s different when you’re awake. When you can look back."

Ronan wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he didn’t.

The skitter’s absence was a physical thing. Without the golem’s inheritance still pressed into his sternum, that fist-sized disc of darkness, he would have summoned the creature already. Something to scout ahead, to take the first hit if an ambush came.

But the golem’s stats were too valuable to discard. A hundred and fifty-six strength. A hundred and seventy-two constitution. He’d need to find another way to fill the scouting gap.

"Sarael."

"Yes?"

"You said you’re stronger than a skitter."

Her posture straightened immediately. The shy, glancing goddess vanished, replaced by something eager.

"I am."

"Then what can you actually do? In a fight. Specifically."

She stopped walking. Ronan turned to face her, and the look in her violet eyes made him very aware that he’d just asked a goddess to justify her existence.

"I can do many things," she said, her voice dropping into something lower. "But it depends on what you need."

"Let’s start simple. Can you scout ahead? Tell me what’s waiting in the next stretch of forest?"

"Yes."

She closed her eyes.

The shadows around her feet rippled outward in a perfect circle, expanding across the silver grass like ink spilled on parchment. They passed through Ronan’s boots without resistance, cold and weightless, and kept going, spreading through the dead trees and the brittle undergrowth and the darkness beyond.

A full minute passed.

Sarael’s brow furrowed. Her lips parted slightly, and Ronan watched her expression shift from concentration to something else. Something that looked almost like hunger.

"There’s a pack of chameleon wyrms three hundred meters ahead. Six of them. They’re fighting over a corpse."

Her head tilted.

"There’s a marsh-dweller nest half a kilometer east, but they’re dormant right now. Digesting something they ate."

"What about north? Anything bigger?"

Her shadows pulsed.

"Further north... yes." A pause. "There’s a flesh golem. Larger than the last two you killed. It’s alone, feeding. And beyond that..."

She hesitated.

"Beyond that?"

Ronan watched her face as she scanned even further the slight furrow of her brow, the way her lips parted even more, the violet flicker behind her eyelids. She’d been confident before. Eager to prove herself.

Now her expression tightened.

"Nothing that seems to be that interesting," she murmured, opening her eyes. "Either that, or I’ve finally hit the limit of my range..."

She ducked her head after the admission, her hair falling forward to hide her face. Her fingers curled against her thighs, and the shadows around her feet retreated, shrinking back toward her body like scolded pets.

Like she was afraid of being useless.

Ronan recognized that posture. He’d worn it himself for three years, the porter’s slouch, the quiet shrinking of someone who knew they were the weakest person in the room. Seeing it on a goddess, on her, made something twist in his chest.

"That’s fine."

Sarael’s head lifted, just slightly. "But I wanted to—"

"You already helped me kill a flesh golem using your blessing. You’re not useless because your range has limits."

"But if something’s out there and I can’t see it—"

"Then we’ll deal with it when it gets closer."

"O-Okay, Ronan."

He looked away before he could stop himself. The way she said his name. Soft, submissive, eager to please, landed somewhere in his chest and stayed there, warm and entirely distracting.

’She was cute.’

He’d known that objectively since the shrine. The violet hair, the violet eyes, the way her shadows clung to her like they couldn’t bear to let go.

But this was different.

This wasn’t a goddess demanding his attention or grinding against him while he slept.

This was just Sarael, nervous and obedient, and looking at him like his approval was the only thing that mattered.

He cleared his throat.

"Ahem... then, let’s go take out that flesh golem." He forced his voice into something steadier than he felt. "I want to see you fight, too."

"Got it!" Sarael clenched her fists against her chest and nodded with enough enthusiasm to make her hair bounce. "I’ll do my best!"

’Yeah,’ Ronan thought, turning away before she could see his expression. ’Definitely cute.’

***

The dead forest blurred past as they moved north, silver grass giving way to brittle black trees and patches of ground that crunched underfoot like shattered glass.

Sarael kept pace beside him effortlessly, her bare feet never touching the ground, her shadows trailing behind her like a wedding dress train.

"Don’t you get tired of staring at me?" he asked.

"No, never." She said it without embarrassment. "You’re the only thing worth looking at in this entire world."

"The monsters might disagree."

"They’ll die anyway, and corpses don’t get opinions."

Ronan lightly chuckled. "Fair enough."

They found the golem in a clearing ringed by dead trees, their blackened trunks leaning inward. The creature was bigger than the last two, just as Sarael had promised, its segmented plating thick enough to shrug off anything short of siege weaponry.

Its single eye burned a deep, angry orange as it tore into the corpse of something that looked like a bear crossed with a porcupine, quills and fur and black blood strewn across the clearing in sticky ropes.

Ronan crouched at the tree line, Sarael pressed against his side. Her shadows curled around his ankles like cats seeking attention.

"Alright," he murmured. "You said you wanted to prove you’re useful. What can you do to something that size?"

She tilted her head, considering the golem with the detached expression of a chef examining a cut of meat.

"I can blind it. I can slow it. I can make the shadows beneath it rise up and hold it in place for a few seconds." She paused. "Or I can just kill it."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."