He laid a hand on my shoulder. “Go home, Rygnar. The colony needs its healer more than its fighter.”
The walk back to the basin was long and silent.
The snow fell thicker now, blurring the line between ground and sky. Each step left a brief mark before the wind erased it.
When I reached the ridge, I saw her waiting near the tunnel mouth, wrapped in a heavy coat, hair hidden under a hood. She shouldn’t have been there—the air was knife-cold—but she was.
Lina.
She came forward as soon as she saw me, eyes searching my face my hands, as if counting all the pieces.
“You’re bleeding.” Lina reached for the cut across my jaw.
“Not mine,” I said, then caught her wrist gently. “You should be inside.”
“I couldn’t stay below. I had to see you come back.”
“I told you I would.”
She smiled through the worry. “I know. But I needed proof.”
The snow swirled around us, soft and relentless. I brushed a clump from her shoulder. “It’s over,” I said. “They’re finished.”
“For good?”
“For now.” I looked past her to the mountain. “Peace never stays, but we buy what pieces of it we can.”
She nodded, eyes glistening. “Then we keep buying it.”
Her hand slipped into mine, ungloved, fingers warm against my cold skin. I didn’t realize how much I needed that touch until it happened. The world, still humming from battle, slowed enough for breath to feel like life again.
“You saved them,” she said softly. “All of them.”
“Not all,” I said. “But enough.”
Her other hand came up to my face, her thumb brushing the edge of the scar that had reopened in the cold. “You keep saying that like you’re not part of them.”
I caught her hand, holding it against my cheek. “Because I’m still learning how to be.”
She leaned closer until our foreheads touched. The warmth of her breath melted the frost between us. “Then I’ll remind you,” she whispered.
When we were finally alone in our quarters, I pulled her into my arms and just held her.
The promise hung between us—fragile as the moment itself.
Lina’s hands slid up my chest, fingers tracing the places where armor had been hours ago. Now there was only the thin fabric of my shirt—and beneath it, the warmth of skin that remembered her touch.
“Then keep it,” she whispered.
I understood what she was asking. Not for guarantees. Not for tomorrow.
Just for now.
My hands rose to frame her face, thumbs brushing the delicate line of her jaw. Human skin was softer than mine, more vulnerable. It made me careful in ways I had never needed to be.
“Lina,” I said, her name both question and answer.
She rose onto her toes, closing the last distance between us.
