June didn’t move.
The photograph stayed between her fingers like it had weight beyond paper—like it was heavier than the land itself.
Corbin finally stepped closer, slow and controlled.
“I didn’t know Harlan,” he said. “Not the way that picture suggests.”
June looked up at him.
“Then why are you in it?”
That pause between them stretched too long.
Not silence.
Calculation.
From the barn, Orion let out a low restless sound, like he felt something shift in the air.
Corbin exhaled once through his nose.
“That cabin…” he said carefully. “It wasn’t empty when I first found it.”
June’s stomach tightened.
“You said you were wounded. You said Soren—”
“I was,” he cut in. “That part is true.”
Another pause.
Then the part he didn’t want to give her arrived anyway.
“I woke up here once before,” he said. “Years ago. Before I built anything. Before the name people know me by.”
June shook her head slightly. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does,” Corbin said. “If someone kept bringing me back here.”
A gust moved through the orchard.
Somewhere, a branch scraped wood.
Corbin’s eyes stayed on the photograph.
“This land isn’t just valuable because of water,” he added quietly. “It’s valuable because of what people forget when they’re here too long.”
June felt cold creep under her skin.
“And Harlan?”
For the first time, Corbin’s voice softened.
“I think Harlan was protecting something,” he said. “Or someone.”
He looked at her then.
Not through her.
At her.
“And I think he knew exactly who would come walking through that gate.”
The barn door creaked open behind them—slow, unpushed.
No wind had shifted.
No animal had moved.
And neither June nor Corbin had touched it.