Bariyan raised his head at the new arrivals, staring blankly at the two of them, hazily wondering where they had come from and what they were asking of him. He only fully registered the situation when Ashraf came towards him.

He pushed himself back off the wall, trying to avoid the priest. But his legs were still shaky and he staggered into Koltira instead.

"No," he growled, pushing himself back off. "I don't--" --need you, he meant to finish, but ran out of energy.

He allowed a moment to steady himself before he set off again, heading around the corner that Martin had disappeared behind. A part of him realized that that was hardly enough to convince Koltira and Ashraf to stay away. But the rest of him was too fixated on Martin to even think about anything else.