She’s not used to being seen and not challenged.
She doesn’t trust quiet.
It takes time.
They offer her food—slow-cooked root meat, steeped in spice leaf and ocean oil. At first she declines. Eventually, hunger makes her reconsider. She still grimaces through the taste, but she doesn’t spit it out.
She joins the sea watch patrol one morning. Doesn't ask me for permission—just volunteers. She’s paired with a matriarch named Kevari, an old war-seasoned woman with one arm and a gaze like stone.
Rynn returns hours later soaked in salt, scraped up, and smiling.
That’s when I know she’s starting to find her footing.
One night,after Nessa's long since drifted to sleep in the shared dome they gave us, I find her sitting at the edge of the outer path, legs dangling over the slope, staring at the water.
She doesn't turn when I approach.
“You ever going to tell me what this place is?” she asks.
“It’s called Nyr-Serai,” I say, dropping beside her. “Means ‘The Shore Between.’ A settlement for warriors who’ve chosen peace.”
She chuckles dryly. “Thought your people didn’t retire.”
“We don’t.” I glance out at the waves. “But sometimes, we find something worth living for more than dying.”
She falls silent.
The sea below pulses with slow-moving bioluminescence, casting light across the curve of her cheek.
“This place feels… old,” she murmurs. “Like it existed before anything else did.”
I nod. “It might have.”
She watches me sidelong. “So, what’s with the cliffs? You keep glancing at them.”
I smile. “Come with me.”
We walk in silence,up the narrow spiral path that winds along the cliff’s edge. The wind picks up, tugging at our clothes. The sea sounds louder here—waves crashing below, foam roaring against stone.
At the top, there’s nothing. No altar. No monument. Just open sky and the hum of the ocean beneath.
“This is where bonds are made,” I say. “Where they’re witnessed.”
“By who?”
“The sea. The sky. Each other.”
She studies the space. There’s reverence in her gaze, despite herself.
“Sounds poetic.”
“It is.”
I don’t speak again. Just start unfastening the straps of my armor. Slowly. Deliberately.
She doesn’t stop me.
The chest plate comes off first, revealing the lattice of scars across my ribs and shoulders. The ones I’ve never let heal smooth. Each one earned. Each one remembered.
