Aria’s POV
The knife went on the table at dusk.
Not a command. Not a threat. Ridah just set her pack down, unwrapped the cloth, and laid the commander’s blade flat between us.
Blade still sheathed. Handle toward the center. Like Tav’s carving knife at the river.
We were at Sen’s fire. Market noise had gone quiet. People went to tents, to sleep, to stories that didn’t need guards. The valley exhaled.
No one reached for it. Not yet.
Keth stared. He’d spent three days learning how to hold wood steady without cutting it. Now he stared at steel wrapped in cloth for ten years.
“Why’d you take it if you’re not using it?” he asked Ridah.
“Because we don’t forget what made us,” Ridah said. Same words as the quarry. “We just don’t have to hold it out anymore.”
Old Jorin picked up the
