But I lie.
Because a small, stupid part of me wanted her to come back.
The same part that left her the fang. That laid the fur so she wouldn’t bruise her skin on the stone.
I stare down at my hands, claws curled into fists. Once, these hands built weapons. Tore lives apart in the name of purpose. Honor. A word like ash now.
Then they destroyed everything.
And yet…
Yet they laid out comfort for her.
No orders. No reward.
Just… her.
I slam a fist against the stone beside me. Dust coughs upward. A fissure spiders through the rock.
“You’re losing it,” I mutter. My voice is gravel in the wind.
She’s not mine to protect.
She never was.
And yet I listen for her voice in the dark like it’s a call I can’t help but answer.
I breathe deep, trying to still the tremor running under my skin. I inhale stone and lichen and the faint memory of her—floral, earthy,alive.
I close my eyes and try again.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Silence.
But she fills it anyway.
I remember the way her hand lifted—slow, unsure, not reaching in fear butoffering. A gesture that demanded nothing.
And gods damn me… I wanted to reach back.
What would I even say if I could?
What words bridge this chasm between what I am and what she is?
I try to imagine it. Her standing here, her eyes wide and curious, arms folded against the cold. I’d say something like,You shouldn’t be here.But she’d just smirk and stay anyway. She’s stubborn like that.
Too stubborn.
Tooalive.
She doesn’t belong in a place like this, where the ground itself eats the careless and the wind whispers secrets meant to stay buried.
And yet she survives.
Thrives, even.
I admire it.
