ELIZA
Morning comes too quickly.
The cave breathes cold air around us, but it doesn’t bite the way it did before.
Not with Kael beside me, the steady warmth of him pressed to my back, his arm draped heavy over my waist like he never plans to let go.
I don’t want to move. Don’t want to break whatever this is.
But the world doesn’t stop just because we finally found each other.
Kael’s already awake. I feel it in the way his body is too still. Too alert.
“Something wrong?” I murmur, turning my head to look at him.
His eyes are open. Not soft like they were last night. Sharp. Watching.
“Too quiet,” he says.
The same words.
A chill slips through me despite his warmth. It follows me as I dress and pack our belongings. As we eat a silent breakfast of jerky and coffee boiled over the remains of last night’s fire.
We ride out just after sunrise.
The sky stretches wide and blue above us, the kind of clear, endless day that should feel safe, normal.
It doesn’t.
Tempest moves beneath us with restless energy, her ears flicking back again and again. We have to stop often, the weight of two passengers hard on the mare.
Something’s off. The land feels… held.
Like it’s waiting.
We crest a ridge, the valley opening up ahead. A modest cabin comes into view, just barely visible in the distance between stands of pine.
“That’s our home. At least for now,” he murmurs, reaching back with one arm to hold me.
Relief begins to bloom in my chest.
“We’re close,” I say, tightening my arms around his waist.
Kael doesn’t answer. His body goes rigid next to me.
The hum. It changes. Not louder. Sharper.
Focused.
The air cracks—sound and light.
A distortion tears across the sky above us, like heat bending the horizon, but wrong. Too precise. Too sudden.
Tempest rears.
I gasp, clutching Kael as the world tilts.
“Hold on,” he growls, one arm still steadying me.
