Chapter : 725

“A proficiency?” Sumaiya’s laugh was a short, sharp, humorless sound. “Doctor, I have seen seasoned mercenaries—men who eat nails for breakfast and floss with garrote wire—turn pale at the mere mention of the Dahaka’s outer reaches. What you propose is not a journey; it is a self-inflicted execution. I will not allow it. I brought you to this child. His fate is my responsibility, and I will not have your death on my conscience as well.”

A fascinating turn of phrase, Lloyd thought. My responsibility. She felt a profound sense of ownership over this tragedy. It was more than simple empathy.

“And what is your alternative?” he asked, genuinely curious now. “We have established that time is the one resource you cannot buy. Your mercenaries will not go. Your coin is useless. What is your plan?”

“My plan,” she said, her chin lifting with a defiant pride, “is to go with you.”

The statement was so unexpected that it almost made the Major General’s stoic mask crack. He stared at her. If his own plan was suicidal, hers was a flight of pure, unadulterated fantasy.

“You cannot be serious,” he said, his voice losing a fraction of its calm. “You are… forgive my directness, but you are a civilian. You have no training, no weapons, no knowledge of the environment we would be entering. You would not be an asset; you would be a liability. A burden. Your presence would not double our chances of success; it would reduce them to absolute zero. I must refuse.”

His logic was cold, irrefutable, and brutal. He expected it to crush her resolve, to force her to see the foolishness of her proposal.

He was wrong.

Sumaiya’s expression did not soften. It hardened. The fire in her eyes burned brighter, a flame of pure, unbending will. “You think I am some fragile flower, Doctor? Some lady to be protected?” She took another step, closing the distance between them until he could feel the heat of her indignation. “I have walked the darkest alleys of this city. I have faced down cutthroats and slavers. I know the nature of survival. I may not be a warrior, but I am not helpless. I can track, I can forage, I can fight if I must. More importantly, I will not stand by and watch a good man throw his life away on my behalf. It is a matter of honor.”

The conviction in her voice was absolute. This was not a plea; it was a declaration of fact. She saw this as a debt of honor, and she intended to pay it, regardless of the cost.

Lloyd found himself in an impossible position. His mission to the Dahaka was already a high-risk operation, complicated by the need to maintain his cover as Zayn. Adding an unknown, unpredictable civilian to the equation was tactical insanity. He needed to be swift, silent, and unencumbered. She was the very definition of an encumbrance.

“The answer is no,” he said, his voice firm, final. He turned to leave, giving her no further room for argument. “Stay here. Care for the boy. I will return with the cure.”

He strode out of the suffocating room, down the creaking stairs, and back into the foul, familiar air of the Lower Coil. He did not look back. He returned to his clinic, the fortress of his assumed identity, and began his preparations with a singular focus. He packed a simple leather satchel with the essentials: dried rations, a water skin, a flint and steel, a small knife, and the anatomical texts that served as both a prop and a vital tool.

He worked through the night, his mind a quiet, efficient engine. The problem of Sumaiya was an annoyance, a variable he had dismissed. His logic had been sound, his refusal absolute. The matter was closed.

At the first hint of dawn, when the sky was a pale, bruised purple, he slipped out of his clinic. He moved through the sleeping city, a silent shadow making his way towards the eastern gate, the road that would lead him to the jungle and, he hoped, to the boy’s salvation.

He reached the gate just as the first rays of the sun were beginning to crest the horizon. The massive iron-banded doors were being swung open by the city watch, the groan of the hinges the sound of a new day being born.

And standing there, waiting for him, was Sumaiya.

Chapter : 726

She was dressed for the journey. Her simple dress had been replaced with practical, hard-wearing leather trousers and a dark tunic. A sturdy pack was slung over her shoulder, and a long, wicked-looking knife was strapped to her thigh. Her obsidian hair was tied back in a simple, severe braid. She looked less like a mysterious civilian and more like a seasoned ranger.

She said nothing. She simply stood there, her arms crossed, her expression a perfect mixture of defiance and inevitability.

Lloyd stopped in his tracks, a wave of profound, weary exasperation washing over him. He had been logical. He had been firm. He had been dismissive. And none of it had mattered. Her will was as strong as his own.

He could physically force her to stay. He could have Ken Park, his hidden shadow, quietly incapacitate her. He had a dozen ways to remove this obstacle. But as he looked at her, at the unshakeable resolve in her dark eyes, he realized that to do so would be to break the very spirit he had come to respect. It would be a violation of the honor she held so dear.

The Major General within him screamed that this was an unacceptable risk. It was a compromise that could get them both killed.

But the doctor, the quiet Saint of the Coil, saw something else. He saw a partner. He saw a woman whose sense of responsibility was so profound that she would willingly walk into hell for a stranger.

He let out a long, slow sigh, a sound of utter defeat. “You are, without a doubt,” he said, shaking his head, “the most infuriatingly stubborn woman I have ever had the displeasure of meeting.”

A small, triumphant smile touched Sumaiya’s lips. “I have been told.”

“You will follow my orders without question,” he stated, his voice now the clipped, hard tone of a commander. “You will not slow me down. You will not argue. If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to hide, you become a stone. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly,” she replied, her smile widening.

“Fine,” he grumbled, the word tasting like ash in his mouth. He turned and strode through the gate, not waiting to see if she would follow. He knew she would.

He had a new, unwanted, and profoundly mysterious companion. The most dangerous mission of his new life had just become infinitely more complicated.

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The road east from Rizvan was a well-trodden artery of commerce, dusty and rutted from the passage of countless merchant wagons and pilgrim caravans. For the first day of their journey, they moved in a tense, almost hostile silence. Lloyd set a grueling pace, his long, effortless strides a deliberate test of Sumaiya’s endurance. He expected her to complain, to fall behind, to give him a reason to finally send her back in disgrace.

She did none of those things. She matched his pace stride for stride, her breathing even, her movements economical and surprisingly graceful. She carried her pack without a single word of complaint, her gaze constantly scanning their surroundings with a wary, intelligent focus. She was not the burden he had anticipated. She was… competent. Annoyingly so.

As dusk began to bleed across the sky, they left the main road, veering south into a stretch of rolling, wooded hills. The pretense of civilization fell away, replaced by the hushed, watchful silence of the wilderness. Here, away from the prying eyes of travelers, Lloyd could finally begin to use the skills that truly mattered. He moved through the trees with a preternatural grace, his enhanced senses mapping the terrain, listening to the language of the forest.

He found a small, defensible clearing, sheltered by a low granite outcropping, and declared it their camp for the night. He expected to have to instruct Sumaiya on the basics of survival, to teach her how to build a fire or find water.

Once again, she surprised him. While he secured the perimeter, conducting a silent, sweeping patrol of the area, she got to work with a quiet efficiency that was both impressive and slightly unnerving. She cleared a small fire pit, lining it with stones. She produced a flint and steel from her own pack and, with a few practiced strikes, coaxed a small, smokeless flame to life. She then took a small pot and disappeared into the twilight, returning minutes later with it full of clean, clear water from a stream he hadn’t even realized was nearby.

When he returned to the clearing, a small, respectable camp was already established. A pot of water was heating over the fire, and Sumaiya was calmly sharpening the long, deadly knife from her thigh with a whetstone.