Where am I?
The room is small but lived-in. A wooden dresser stands against one wall, its surface bearing water rings and scratches. A woven rug covers most of the floor, its pattern faded but still showing flowers and vines. Books line a small shelf—children’s stories by the look of them, read until the covers separated from binding.
This is someone’s home. Was someone’s home, judging by the dust that coats everything except the bed I’m lying in.
Rhea.
I’m moving before the thought completes, ignoring protests from muscles that feel strange in their wholeness. The door opens onto a main living space—a large fireplace, a kitchen area with copper pots hanging from hooks, dried herbs bundled along ceiling beams. Comfortable chairs cluster around a low table scattered with books.
And curled in the chair closest to the cold fireplace, wrapped in a blanket, is Rhea.
Relief hits me so hard, I have to steady myself against the doorframe. She’s here. She’s real. She’s breathing.
I cross the room on feet that barely touch the floor. When I kneel beside her, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from her skin, the last of my fear dissolves.
Her eyes flutter open as if she feels my presence, green gaze unfocused for a moment before sharpening with recognition. For a heartbeat, we just stare at each other.
"Krath?" My name comes out rough with sleep. "Are we?—"
"Alive." I reach up to cup her face, needing the tactile confirmation. "We’re alive."
She leans into my touch, eyes closing briefly. When she opens them again, tears track down her cheeks—not sadness, but relief so profound it has to find release.
"I thought—when everything exploded—" Her voice breaks.
"I know." I brush away tears with my thumb. "I thought the same."
She reaches up to cover my hand with hers, fingers tracing the scars on my knuckles. "You’re healed."
"So are you." I gesture to her branded wrist with its silver-sealed cracks.
She studies her wrist, turning it to catch the light. The silver tracery creates intricate patterns that might be beautiful if they didn’t represent how close we came to losing everything.
"Where are we?" She looks around the cottage with growing recognition and confusion warring in her expression. "This place—I know this place."
"You do?"
"This is my home." Wonder fills her voice as she pushes herself upright, the blanket falling away. "My childhood home. The cottage where I grew up before my parents died and the coven took me in." She turns to take in details I couldn’t appreciate. "But it’s been empty for years. How?—"
"Your magic." The answer comes with certainty. "When reality fractured, when we were being torn apart, your magic must have sought the place you felt safest."
She rises on unsteady legs, and I’m there immediately to support her, my arm around her waist. But instead of pulling away once steady, she leans into me, her head resting against my chest.
"My mother’s garden." She’s looking out the window at something I can’t see. "It’s still blooming. The roses she planted when I was born, the herb beds she tended every morning—they’re all still here."
The wonder in her voice carries an edge of pain. This place holds memories of love and loss in equal measure.
"Do you want to leave? Find somewhere else?"
"No." She turns in my arms to face me. "No, I want to understand how we’re here. What happened after?—"
She stops, struggling with memories that are more sensation than concrete detail.
"I remember the explosion." I help her to the nearby couch, settling beside her close enough that our shoulders touch. "The chamber walls disintegrating. Your spell tearing the Marshal apart."
"And then?"
"Pain. Not physical—something deeper." The memory makes me shudder. "Being torn apart at the level of essence rather than flesh. I remember thinking I was losing you, that we were being scattered too far to ever find each other again."
