“The attack?”
“You.”
I smiled faintly. “I didn’t expect you either.”
His hand brushed a strand of hair from my face.
“However, it happened,” I added, “I’m glad it did.”
“However, it happened,” he agreed.
Outside, the mountain settled—machinery humming, wind moving through the vents, distant voices returning to life.
And here, in the quiet, we held onto something that felt like peace.
I closed my eyes.
This time, I didn’t expect it to disappear.
When Rygnar let them know, we had returned, the council met briefly and declared the mountain secure. The power cores hummed back to full strength; the vents glowed with steady light again. Life resumed its rhythm—broken, mended, still beating.
Rygnar
That night, I stood on the terrace watching snow drift through the upper vents. The stars were hidden, but their light pressed faintly through the cloud cover, soft and distant.
Lina joined me, quiet as the falling snow. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yes.”
“I keep thinking about the people out there. The ones still fighting for scraps. How different it could have been.”
“Different worlds,” I said. “Same mistakes.”
She leaned against my shoulder. “Then maybe what we’re building here is the right mistake.”
I smiled at that, a real smile this time. “Maybe it is.”
She turned to face me completely and slid her arms around my waist, resting her cheek against my chest. I put my arms around her and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. We stood together until the snow covered the old battle marks and the mountain breathed in the silence again.
Chapter Twenty-One
After the Battle
Lina
The mountain slept.
Not the uneasy kind that trembles with echoes of war, but the slow breathing of something alive and healing. The deep hum of the vents had softened, the scent of smoke replaced by damp stone and new air.
I hadn’t realized how heavy the silence of danger had been until it lifted.
Outside the infirmary, children’s laughter carried down the corridor—small and startling after so many hours of sirens and shouting. Someone had found a working lantern and hung it in the hall. It painted a golden circle on the wall where the younger ones were playing tag, their footsteps pattering like heartbeats.
Mara sat by the doorway, arm in its sling, dozing upright. Now and then, she smiled in her sleep, as if even her dreams had decided to rest.
I stood watching them for a long time.
It struck me that this was what peace really looked like—not speeches or treaties, just people daring to act as if tomorrow was promised.
