Wenrik was waiting for him at the canyon’s mouth.

The Cantor had not pursued. He had not needed to. He had simply walked back to the engagement ground and stood, staff at his side, his silver-burned ribs slowly knitting under his robe. The single drop of blood at the corner of his mouth had dried.

Owen walked toward him.

His CE was at maybe three thousand units. His left shoulder was a knot of bruise. The cut above his eye was still bleeding. The desolate channeling had left an ache in his core that felt like it might never fully go away.

He kept walking.

Wenrik watched him approach. His expression was not gloating. It was not even satisfied. It was something quieter — the calm of an artisan considering a finished piece.

"She fought well," Wenrik said.

Owen stopped six meters away.

"Why her?" he said. His voice was even. Steady. He did not recognize it as his own.

"Simple, Her path crossed mine when I left the canyon. She engaged. I responded." Wenrik’s head tilted. "I did not hunt her, false fist. I encountered her."

"You knew she was with me."

"I knew she was running from me. That is sufficient."

Owen breathed out. Slow.

"Do you want to finish this?" Wenrik asked. "Or do you want to withdraw and try again? I am willing to give you another day. Cantors are patient."

Owen considered.

The math was ugly. His CE was not at full strength. He’d burned out his ability to channel cleanly with the desolate disruption. The seven-beat pattern was still in his memory, but he hadn’t broken it — he’d only escaped it. Wenrik had seen the desolate trick now. He would adjust for it.

Fighting now was a coin flip at best. And Owen could not afford a coin flip on the same day Tessa had died.

"Tomorrow," Owen said.

Wenrik nodded slowly. "Tomorrow."

The Cantor turned. He walked back into the canyon. Within thirty seconds, he was gone.

---

Owen carried Tessa back.

Three kilometers to the secondary cave system. He didn’t channel CE — couldn’t, properly — so it was just his body, her weight, and the sand. He did not stop. He did not rest. He did not allow himself to think about anything other than the next step.

He reached the cave at midnight.

Yalira was there, waiting. Her amber eyes flicked over Owen, then to the body in his arms, and her face went very still.

"Owen."

"He found her on her route. I don’t know how."

Yalira didn’t answer immediately. Her tail flicked once, slow, the way it did when she was processing something she did not want to process.

Then she stepped forward. Took some of Tessa’s weight off his arms. Lowered her gently onto a stretch of cured hide on the cave floor.

Owen sat down. Suddenly his legs would not hold him.

Jorik came in twenty minutes later.

He looked at Tessa for a long time. He did not say anything. He sat down on the other side of her body, his broken arm cradled against his chest, his scarred face entirely without expression. Then he reached out one large, calloused hand and rested it on Tessa’s forehead.

He sat there for an hour.

Owen and Yalira didn’t disturb him.

---

When Jorik finally moved, it was to look up at Owen. His eyes were clear.

"How did he find her?" Jorik asked.

"I don’t know."

"Cantors aren’t supposed to track multiple targets."

"This one can. He saw us through iolite, Jorik. He knew Gorvax was alive. He’s not what the briefings said."

Jorik absorbed that. His jaw worked.

"What happens now?" he asked.

"We bury her. We rest. Tomorrow I go back."

"Alone?"

"Alone."

"Owen—"

"Jorik." Owen met his eyes. "She died running because she was with me. I’m not letting either of you die that way. You stay here. You and Yalira. You watch each other’s backs and you stay alive. I finish this with the Cantor on my own."

Jorik was silent for a long time.

Then he said: "She would not want you to die for her."

"I’m not dying for her. I’m just not letting the rest of you die for me."

"That is the same sentence with different words."

"Maybe."

Jorik shook his head slowly. But he didn’t argue further.

---

They buried her in the cave. The iolite walls would shield her from drone scans. The ground was hard, but Jorik’s stonecraft made it possible — he carved out a small recess in the rock with patient, methodical cuts of his blade, and they laid her in it. Yalira placed the dagger she’d been holding back across her chest. Owen placed a small piece of Crimson Hide fur — taken from the kill that had saved Gorvax’s life — on her shoulder.

Jorik sealed the recess with a flat slab of stone and carved her name into it with the tip of his blade.

[TESSA OF SEASON 47.]

Beneath it, after a moment of thought, he added:

[SHE GOT HIM AT LEAST ONCE.]

Owen nodded slowly when he saw it.

"Yeah," he said. "She did."

---

That night, alone on a ledge outside the cave, Owen sat under the double moons and let himself feel it for the first time.

He didn’t cry. The grief was too large to come out that easily. It was more a heaviness — a settling of something inside him into a permanent new shape. Tessa was gone. Tessa, who had bandaged Gorvax. Who had brewed bitter not-coffee. Who had told him she would help him get back to Earth, *whatever it takes*.

Now whatever it took was going to include this.

Owen looked up at the stars over Prison World.

He thought about Wenrik’s silver threads. About the seven-beat phrase. About the desolate channeling that had broken the cage at the cost of a piece of his own core. He thought about the staff that had gone through Tessa’s chest.

Tomorrow, he was going to go back to the canyon.

Tomorrow, he was going to break Wenrik in a way the Cantor had not prepared for.

And then he was going to go on hunting credits, and going on protecting Gorvax, and going on climbing the leaderboard.

Because Tessa had died for him to make it home.

And he was going to make it home...