He hadn’t lied to Kalter, and August hadn’t felt at all scared during the moment, but he hadn’t had much space to feel anything except for disorientation. Without that filter of distortion over his mind, he found himself wondering exactly what her refusal to let go of him had been motivated by. At the start, it had been possible that she simply hadn’t recognised what she was doing, but after he’d directly asked her, she’d made no move to disengage.

The thrust of her message had been conciliatory rather than threatening—in that she’d outright stated that she wasn’t seeking conflict with him—perhaps her grip on his arm had been a crutch. If she’d doubted her ability to keep him present with her words. He could see a world in which she’d assumed her almost-but-not-quite-an-apology would end with him walking away like he had during their first discussion.

Either way, the entire thing had managed to get under his skin in a way that even the thornbush hadn’t—the refusal to let go, the fact that his voice had shaken when he’d asked her to let him go, the assumption that he was scared like some kind of trembling puppy, the resulting pain from his skin getting cut up, the immediate aftermath where she’d proceeded to outperform him at the task they were there for in the first place.

There had also been a visceral, one-sided intimacy to the entire thing that left him uncomfortable in an entirely different way, the proximity, the eye contact, the tension, the way her fingers had been pressed tight against the skin of his wrist, all the while he’d had her naked body wrapped around his mind, crushing him with her presence—the fact that she wouldn’t have even been aware of that facet of the interaction was both a relief and a disturbance he was having trouble reconciling.

By the time he finally stepped out of the trees and back into the camp, August found himself grimacing at the mixed-up mess of emotions he’d been left to unravel. He made it to the front of the huts before he realised he had no idea where he was even going.

“August, why don’t you rest for a while?” Rittan said, coming to stand beside him. “You were awake before all of us; a few minutes shouldn’t hurt.”

Considering how unfocused he was feeling, he couldn’t bring himself to argue.

“Yeah,” August mumbled, dropping down to sit in front of the hut. “I’ll make some twine or something; we always seem to be running out.”

“Very well,” Rittan said, scanning the camp for a moment. “I believe we can handle setting the uprights in their holes—were there any other preparations we should take before that?”

It wasn’t like August would have been capable of helping them do that part anyway; he had no ability to lift something so large. He would have needed to come up with a counterweight of some kind to help lift it for him.

“Not really, just make sure they’re all roughly the same depth; it doesn’t need to be perfect—I marked them all, didn’t I?” August said, rubbing at the mess on his forehead. “I think I did.”

“You did mark them,” Rittan assured, “August, if you need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Thanks, man, but I’ll be fine,” August said, “I just need a minute to get my head in order.”

“Of course,” Rittan said before making his leave.

August leaned back against the front wall of the hut, watching as Rittan strode towards where Boko was already standing in one of the holes and in the process of tossing out more of the dirt by hand. He caught sight of Haiko and Kalter on the other side of the camp, standing close together, neither of their faces visible for him to determine anything about the conversation other than that it was occurring—he didn’t need to be a participant to guess at what they were discussing.

He rubbed at his face for a moment longer before he dug out some of the long grass he’d had stashed away in his inventory and set about twisting it into twine with practised movements. The task was almost thoughtless, but it also had a sort of repetitiveness to it that helped him gather himself.

Boko climbed out of the hole with Rittan’s aid, the two of them moving to stand on opposite sides of the massive upright. He watched as they dug their many hands beneath one end of the log, levering it up into the air and onto its end. His own response to the feat of monstrous Strength felt more muted than he would have expected.

They lifted it together, keeping it vertical before moving close enough to carefully lower it down into the hole. It sunk almost halfway, perhaps an inch shorter than the marker but well within the range, they’d expected. He watched them slide the misplaced dirt back into the hole, filling it up to secure the upright in place before they moved on to trampling it flat, compacting it all with their feet. Once they were finished, they stepped back, and the upright remained, striking out of the earth on its own in a pale imitation of the immense, living tree that it had once been.

The length of twine in his hand continued to grow as he watched them start work on the second and third holes at the same time, each of them stepping down into each of them. A few minutes passed by before Kalter joined them, breaking off from her discussion to climb down into the fourth hole.

The moment he saw her, he had what must have been a divine vision telling him that, without a doubt, Haiko would take his isolation as an opportunity. Sure enough, within two minutes, she approached him, one of the two clay water jugs she’d made cradled between her hands, along with a rough-looking clay mug.

“August,” Haiko said, coming to sit beside him. “Are you thirsty?”

He took the mug from her with a murmur of thanks, wondering at the odd weight of it. The water seemed to hold well inside of it, and while there was something of a crack on the outside face, it wasn’t pervasive, just a shallow line. The sun’s reflection caught in the surface of the water, stretching oddly across it.

“What made you decide to send Kalter to speak with me?” August wondered.

“I thought that you were both stagnating, unwilling to seek one another out without an intermediary or a moment of temporarily shared focus,” Haiko admitted, “I assumed it was something that could be overcome by having you both discuss a difficult—or perhaps embarrassing topic.”

“I figured it was something like that,” August murmured.

“Kalter seems to think she caused your injuries,” Haiko said, a bit more hesitant. “She was unwilling to explain exactly how—did she push you?”

“No, she didn’t. We were discussing something, and it got a bit heated,” August said, shaking his head. “I took a step backwards away from her to get some space and stepped into the bush—I guess I knew it was there; I just forgot about the thorns.”

“Yet you both told us a story in which you fell,” Haiko said, “Why wouldn’t you simply repeat what you just told me?”

He recalled what Kalter had said about Haiko seeking a challenge and how she would keep pressing unless she got it. Right now, she was trying to get a grasp on the entire situation and to do that, she wanted as much information as she could get.

“Because I’m hiding something terribly important from you, specifically,” August offered, “Consider it punishment for being so nosy.”

Haiko eyed him for a long moment in the face of his declaration.

“Is that right?” Haiko said, tilting her head. “It can’t be very important if you’re waving it about in my face.”

“I’m waving it about in your face precisely because of how important it is,” August said, lifting the mug to sip at the water. “You’ve got a look on your face right now, Haiko—is it burning curiosity?”

He caught a twitch in her expression at the words, and he felt a spark of amusement fight its way through the fatigue.

“You know that I’ll find out eventually,” Haiko said, voice dry. “You may as well just tell me now.”

“Seeing as you’ve caused me some amount of trouble today, I think I’d rather enjoy holding it over your head for now,” August offered. “Thanks for the water, Haiko.”

Haiko blinked at the dismissive words, but there was a tilt to her lip that hadn’t been there before.