Tonight, I wake before her—dawn not yet a thought, the cabin still dark but for the faint glow of embers in the hearth. She sleeps curled on her side, one arm under her head, hair spilling across the pillow. Her brow isn’t furrowed. Her breath comes easy. Her hand twitches, but not like fear—more like she’s reaching for something soft.
When she stirs awake, she blinks at me with sleepy eyes, then smiles, slow and secret.
“What is it?” I ask, brushing hair from her cheek.
“A dream,” she says, her voice husky with sleep. “But not the bad kind.”
I wait, holding her hand, rough tusks pressing into my lip as I bite back words.
She tells me she saw children—local kids, the same ones who wrestle in the mud when I teach them holds. But in her dream, they’re sitting in a circle at the library, rapt as she explains the Veil not as a curse, not as a horror, but as a piece of history.They listen, not afraid. She holds up books—our books. The translations. The Longstrider’s Tales.
“They weren’t scared,” she whispers, eyes shining even in the dim room. “They were curious. Like kids are supposed to be.”
Her hand slides to my chest, resting over my heart. I cover it with mine.
“And you?” I ask.
She swallows, then smiles again. “I saw you. Building.”
“Building what?”
“A home,” she says. “With your hands. Strong and steady. Not a cabin on borrowed time. A place for us.”
I chuckle low. “I can barely build a fence that doesn’t fall sideways.”
“You’ll learn,” she says, squeezing my hand. “I saw it. We were… together. And it wasn’t scary. It just was.”
Her words settle into me like warm stone. For a long time, all I knew were battles, loss, survival. The idea of a future—peaceful, ordinary—was stranger than any beast I’ve fought. But when she says it, I believe it.
Later, she writes in her journal by the window, candlelight flickering against her face. I watch her lips move as she mouths the words. She looks peaceful, almost radiant.
I go outside, the cold biting my bare feet, and stare at the horizon just beginning to pale. The air smells of frost and pine sap. I grip the staff I carved—the one with stories etched into it—and plant it in the earth. Solid. A marker of more than survival.
The door creaks open behind me. Olivia steps out, blanket around her shoulders, hair a mess. She rests her head against my arm.
“What is it?” she asks softly.
“Nothing,” I say. Then, after a pause, “Everything.”
She hums, satisfied, and leans closer.
The runes under her skin don’t burn anymore. Sometimes, when the firelight catches, they glow faint, like embers of something tamed. I trace them with my thumb, careful, reverent. She doesn’t flinch.
“You’re not afraid anymore?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Not when I see what’s coming.”
I kiss her hair, breathing her in—lavender, ink, smoke from the hearth. My chest loosens, the fear ebbing with each heartbeat.
Maybe the Veil left its mark. Maybe it always will.
But it didn’t take her.
CHAPTER 25
OLIVIA
Ayear passes, and Walnut Falls still doesn’t make sense. But it’s ours.
