A searing heat crawled under Khyrani’s skin, battling against the cold, damp linen pressed to her forehead. The air smelled of astringent herbs and stale oil, a familiar, unwelcome scent. Her chest felt strangely light, a phantom pressure absent. She tried to push herself up, a groan escaping her lips, a raw, dry sound. “Ah, awake at last, my little sand-rat. Don’t try to move too quickly. You were quite the furnace.” The voice, reedy and laced with exhaustion, belonged to Dr. Vazzil. Khyrani’s eyelids peeled open, gritty. The medical tent, typically a hive of groaning patients and clanking instruments, stood quiet. Vazzil leaned over her cot, a damp cloth in one hand, a pair of rusted shears in the other. His wild white hair was pulled back by a strap of scavenged leather, though his eyes kept their familiar, acidic glaze. Khyrani’s gaze flickered down. Her tunic, what was left of it, was cut open, exposing her torso. Her chest, previously compressed under layers of tightly wound binding fabric, now rose and fell freely. Pitted scars and the mottled flush of desert fever tracked across her ribs. Instead, a cooling, mint-scented salve coated her skin, soothing the raging heat. She looked at Vazzil, confusion warring with the haze of fever. “My… my bindings?” Vazzil sighed, a long, drawn-out sound that spoke of eons of dealing with idiocy. He gestured vaguely with the shears towards a pile of shredded fabric on the floor. “Yes, ‘your bindings.’ I had to cut through the whole miserable affair to get this cooling paste on you. The fever was scorching your internal organs, you daft recruit. Don’t you know how dangerous those things are when you’re running a temperature? Traps all the heat right against your flesh. Lucky for you, I’m a medic, not a puritanical ward-sister. Frankly, I’m more concerned with not losing another patient to the Crimson Fever than your… sartorial choices.” He paused, dabbing a fresh cloth on her neck. “Besides, it was becoming rather obvious to anyone with eyes. You really didn’t make a convincing Khyr, you know. Far too much grace for a lad, and your jawline is entirely too delicate. The only person surprised by this revelation would be our dear Squad Leader, who has been spiraling into an existential void over his attraction to a man. Bless his confused little heart.” Vazzil chuckled, a dry, raspy sound, before adding, with all the casualness of discussing the weather, “It’s a girl, by the way. Or, well, a woman. For those who were still guessing.” Khyrani stared, mouth agape, not at Vazzil, but at the cot beside hers. A figure stirred. Jalrek. He lay there, shirtless, a fresh bandage wrapped around his ribs, his face pale but his eyes now open, fixed on her. The dark depths of his gaze held a mixture of bewildered shock and something else, something that made Khyrani’s own battered heart give a strange, uneven thump. He pushed himself up, wincing, but his eyes never left her. He looked from her now unbound chest to Vazzil, then back to her. The words, “It’s a girl… a woman,” hung in the air, a silent bomb detonating between them. Jalrek’s jaw clamped shut, then slackened, blood surging red across his neck and cheekbones. “A… woman,” he rasped, the word tasting like a revelation on his tongue. He swung his legs over the side of his cot, ignoring the pain that must have flared through his wounded body. He stumbled, half-crawling, half-staggering towards her cot. His eyes tracked the line of her throat down to the sheared edges of linen, fierce and wild. “It wasn’t… it wasn’t my mind,” he whispered, a tremor in his voice. “It was *you*. All along. You.” His hand, calloused and rough, reached out, cupping her face, his thumb brushing against the fever-hot skin of her cheek. Khyrani flinched, skin burning against his calloused grip. The strain that had hollowed his cheeks for weeks collapsed into unvarnished, fevered focus. He leaned in, his breath warm against her lips, smelling of dust and dried blood and something uniquely him. Khyrani felt a dizzying pull, a desperate recognition that cut through the fever’s haze. She wanted to protest, to push him away, to explain, but the words died in her throat, strangled by the sheer force of his presence. Then his mouth crashed against hers. His knuckles twisted into her damp hair, pulling her upright as his weight pressed her back against the canvas cot, reckless of his torn ribs and the stink of medicinal grease. Vazzil, perched on a stool, merely lifted a brow, took a long sip from a dented flask, and let out a theatrical sigh. He even rolled his eyes, a gesture of profound, bone-deep exhaustion. “Oh, for the love of the Shifting Sands. Must you two be so… *intense*? My sedatives are wearing off, and I’m far too old for this level of hormonal chaos.” Jalrek broke the kiss, pulling back just enough to gasp for air, his forehead resting against hers. His forehead pressed hard against hers, skin slick with sweat. “I choose you,” he rasped, an iron pledge. “Always.” Before Khyrani could process the sound of her true name on his lips, before she could even begin to comprehend the chaotic, explosive relief that radiated from him, a deep, guttural rumble shook the entire medical tent. The ground beneath them shuddered violently. A sickening metallic groan tore through the air, followed by the shriek of twisting steel and a chorus of terrified screams. The tent poles buckled, canvas ripping. Dust, debris, and the smell of ozone filled the air. Vazzil’s flask clattered to the ground, forgotten. Jalrek, despite his injuries, pushed Khyrani down, shielding her with his body as the whole Cohort lurched, grinding to a halt with a deafening screech. The violent tremor intensified, lifting one side of the medical tent into the air. Through the rending canvas, Khyrani caught a glimpse of something colossal, a mountainous ripple of dark green scales and obsidian plates, erupting from the dunes. Its maw, a cavernous, tooth-rimmed abyss, was already closing around the Cohort’s front, engine-bearing chassis, swallowing the armored beast whole.

Unbinding the Truth