The path beyond the Vale was narrower, winding through shallow dips and uneven earth where old roots clawed through stone like desperate fingers. The sky above dimmed, though it was not yet evening. Clouds drifted low and wide, thick as ash-smoke from a dying hearth, and with each step, the forest thickened—not in trees, but in silence.
Kael led the way, though his gaze drifted more often behind him than ahead. Liora walked a few paces back, her expression distant, her hands held close to her chest as if warming something fragile and unseen.
"Your hand's shaking," he said gently.
Liora blinked. "Is it?"
He slowed until they walked side by side. "Did something happen back there? Something... more?"
She hesitated. "There was a light. But it wasn't from outside. It felt like something inside me… woke up. Not all at once. Like it was waiting for the right moment."
Kael stopped walking.
The others had gone ahead. He reached out and took her hand. It was cold.
"Do you want to rest?" he asked.
"No." She paused. "But… I'd like to sit. Just for a moment."
They sat at the edge of a mossy stone outcrop, overlooking a steep drop where mist curled like breath over distant trees. A shallow stream wound through the valley below, its waters glittering in soft amber light. It wasn't far, but it felt like a world away.
Kael reached into his cloak and pulled out the cloth-wrapped bundle he always carried: dried fruit, a small strip of smoked meat, two slices of flatbread. It wasn't much, but it had always been enough. He handed her one half, then unwrapped his own.
She took the food with both hands, not eating at first. Her fingers lingered on the bread like it was something more precious than it was.
"You always carry this," she said softly. "Even when you're too tired to think straight. Even when we're being chased. You never forget."
Kael shrugged. "You have to eat. If I don't bring it, who will?"
Her eyes flicked up to meet his. "That's not why you do it."
He smiled, just a little. "No. It's not."
They ate in silence, but it wasn't an empty quiet. The kind of silence they shared now was the kind that wrapped itself around old stories—ones that didn't need telling anymore because the moments themselves had already become part of them.
"I remember the first time you gave me bread," she murmured, "and you didn't speak at all. You just watched me eat like you thought I might vanish if you blinked."
"You'd barely said a word," Kael replied. "I didn't know if you even understood me."
"I did." She looked down at the stream below. "I just didn't know if I could trust it. Any of it. The bread. The safety. You."
She looked at him again, voice a whisper now. "But I did. I think I did the moment I saw your eyes. Even if I didn't know how to say it."
Kael's throat tightened. "You were so small."
"And you were so scared," she said.
He blinked.
"Not of me," she clarified. "Of what it meant. Of what I meant."
Kael nodded slowly. "I still am. Not of you—but of what this world wants to take from us. Of what I might lose."
"You won't."
"How do you know?"
"Because I remember the look you had when you built that first fire. We were freezing. You didn't have anything left. No coat. No tent. You'd given me all of it. But you still made a fire." She smiled, her voice trembling. "And I thought, even if everything else dies… that fire won't. Because he lit it."
Kael felt his chest ache—not from fear, not from grief. From love. A love that had wrapped itself around his soul without ever asking permission. A love that made him afraid, not because it hurt, but because it meant everything.
He reached out, brushing a lock of her hair behind her ear. "You're not a burden. You never were."
"I know," she whispered. "But I think… part of me still needed to hear that."
She leaned into him, and he pulled her close, wrapping both arms around her. She was taller now. Stronger. But in that moment, she was still the child he'd found curled beneath a broken wagon, eyes wide with silence, wrapped in frost and shadow.
"I'm not leaving you," he said.
She nodded against his chest. "I know."
They caught up to the others by twilight. Wren gave Kael a brief, knowing glance, but didn't ask. Seran merely nodded and gestured ahead.
"There's shelter not far. A hollowed watchtower from the old wars."
The road bent again, this time into a slope of stone and wind-blasted trees. A single ruined spire rose ahead, partially collapsed, its sides overtaken by moss and time. Within its base, they found the remains of a small barracks—walls crumbled, but dry enough to keep the coming storm at bay.
They built a small fire from what dry wood remained. No one spoke much. Wren carved something into her armguard. Seran meditated beneath a broken arch. Kael stood watch near the entrance.
And Liora sat by the fire, cradling something in her hands.
A lantern.
Small. Cracked. Hollowed of light.
Where it came from, she couldn't say. It had appeared in her satchel when she left the Vale. A gift, perhaps, or a promise. Its glass glimmered faintly, not from flame, but from within itself—like the memory of fire, long after the fuel was gone.
She traced the etched sigils along its base, her thoughts drifting.
"Did you ever want a daughter?" she asked, not looking up.
Kael turned.
"I never thought I deserved one," he said. "But when I found you… everything changed. Not because I wanted to protect you. But because I needed to. Like the world had given me one last chance."
Liora looked up, her voice soft. "Do you regret it?"
He walked toward her and knelt.
"No. I only regret not finding you sooner."
She held the lantern up to him.
"It's broken," she said.
He smiled. "Then we'll fix it. Together."
And for the first time in days, the storm outside didn't feel so close.